Podcasts about c you

www.valerielavignelife.com/130 for full show notes + links   [00:52] Valerie LaVigne: Welcome back to The Women's Empowerment Podcast. So typically every 10 episodes, I do a q&a, and I have decided to switch things up a little bit which I'm very nervous about but also very excited because I have an extra special guest on today's show, and he is my partner, Craig and as I'm saying he I'm just realizing that you're the first male guest I've had on the show which is also very exciting so welcome.   Craig: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.   VL: Craig was very excited to be on the show today but also a little nervous because we have a pretty much a list of listener questions for Craig. If you follow me on Instagram at about living life, you will have known or you will have seen that Craig and I have been doing some little renovations on the home, which have been fun to follow along with and just a little fun part of our relationship, and what's going on right now. So, now, I usually read a bio for the guest and Greg and I were chatting previously to recording and I said oh I don't really have a bio for you and you know you're not a entrepreneur so things are very different episode for us today. So what I thought would be great if I read your Tinder bio, which is how Craig and I met, and on his Tinder bio and correct me if I'm wrong but this is how I remember it. It said Craig, I don't think it's at your age, but at the time you were 36, and it said, looking for someone to steal my sweaters. Eat my fries, and drink my coffee, even though you said you didn't want any.   Okay can you remember my Tinder bio, off the top of my head.   C: Off the top of my head. I remember the pictures very clearly. Yeah there was beautiful pictures and I can remember. I can remember that you were a health coach, and that you were. You were in touch with, I was spiritually woke spiritually.   V: Yeah, we're gonna talk about being spiritually woke a little bit on the podcast.   Yeah, I remember something like that, something about pizza was thrown in there too, that yeah that was a good time my first ever Tinder experience and ever Tinder date and look where we are now almost, we'll definitely over a year and a half later.   As you know, my business really does revolve around health but more specifically healthy habits. So we're gonna talk a little bit today about healthy habits, and I figured we just dive in, because that's kind of how I like to do things. And the other thing I wanted to share with you about the podcast is that and I know you've listened to a couple episodes but I'm really try to leave the guests with some motivation to take action. So as we are talking if you have any like tidbits of advice, or actionable steps you can take, feel free to share that on the show.   Okay, so let's start with the healthy habits.   So Ania asked, Are there any healthy habits that Craig wants to achieve or get better at what are you currently working on in terms of your healthy habits?   [4:33] C: Well thank you for the question on habits that I really want to improve on that I lack out a lot on my diet. So we've got better at eating more consistently and vows introduced some, you know, a couple recipe books that are great, but they're still not the best.    So, really got to tidy that up one of the bad parts is too much sugar.   So, working out that that's active and not sleeping.   I guess regularly. So that's probably my biggest challenge at the moment is getting a good night's sleep every night. Just between work and life and everything, it's just seems to be, I guess that's not really an excuse.   It's toying with me a little bit so I have to figure out a way to get in control of it. So yeah those are probably the two main things I need to I need to figure out.   VL: So, and then her next question I guess is a bit of a follow up, but are there any bad habits that you want to change so I it's kind of a similar question.   C: Yeah, so the sleep and then I guess just lazy snacking. That's probably the biggest downfall with sugar is that you know the snacking. We've gotten this terrible habit of having dessert before I have having this dessert before bed, and I guess the one was sleep.   The biggest challenge there is not putting down my phone. I need to put down my phone. Turn off the screen, close my eyes,   VL: Eliminating sugar would also probably help you sleep better too.   C: Yeah.   VL: Okay, so let's talk about some of your good habits, what are some of your good habits, and that you do every day and I can list a few but I want it to come from you.   C: I train every day, I don't know if that's necessarily a good habit. I like I enjoy the habit but I, I enjoy trading. I do feel I should take a break every now and then and listen to my body which I, I certainly don't do.   And my other habits don't necessarily turn towards health, it's more structured in a routine and I like to get things done and I don't like to leave things open ended.   If I, if I have something in my mind. I want to get on top of it like I consider that a good habit to not leave things open or unfinished.   VL: Yeah, so you work out every day, which, you know, and then some days you say you don't have a great workout. It's more of like a rest day, but you are definitely someone who takes action, whereas we laugh about that. I like to start things and Craig likes to finish things necessarily start something, but I feel like once we get something started. You're the one who's saying we need to finish this, or I'm like yeah we'll do later.   Or we'll start something else. In the meantime, and then you're done, like you said you like to, you like to take action and I think this is something that I've learned a lot from you because I tend to hesitate sometimes like oh let me think about a little bit more like let me plan this out. Where that can be helpful but it can also be a little bit of a detriment if I'm just, you know, waiting to feel ready or you're like just jump in with both feet.   C: I think when I was younger, I hesitated a bit more and I was a little bit more concerned about the risks and the outcome. And I eventually realized, you know, as time ticks along, and you've passed your 30s and it feels like the clock is getting quicker and quicker, that you start to realize that the time is not waiting for you.   So, I guess that's the reason why I've driven. Now, more.   [9:00] VL: Candace wants to know, how have your habits changed since meeting me so like what are some things that you maybe added?   C: Thank you. Thanks, Candace for that question. Since Val and I've met. There is a lot of things that have changed. Habitually and for the better.    We, I guess, the one that pops up the most into my head is recycling and take, you know, I used to just throw, throw away everything into the trash and, and I never used to really recycle so foul, foul was very very persistent with that so I, I started to recycle and I'm still not perfect, but I'm definitely 91 miles, miles ahead of where I was. So that was a that was a huge one. One of them that happens.   I had, I had a TV in the bedroom, and fell. Passive aggressively comment though. Oh, you shouldn't do this but I was like okay, she's like no no it's your decision but, you know, so eventually I ended up getting rid of that and that definitely helped my sleep a lot because I, I used to sleep with the TV on and then wake up in the middle of the night with it still running and really have a broken sleep so that was a huge one.   I used to eat a lot of takeout. And that's, that's non existent so that's benefited me in two ways that not only am I saving a lot more money but I'm also I'm also looking after myself with my health, and mentally. I used to always believe I was old and it's almost like I was convincing myself that I was old and Val Val came in with this notion that like, Hey, you're only as old as you, you sort of believe you are.   So, if you believe you're young, you're going to convince yourself you're young and you will be young. So, this has been a huge modification for me to come back to being young and recognizing that it's a lot more journey to come down the road and we have a lot of time together.   [11:34] VL: And so that you're not even older than I am, but you're not full that I have to give, and you're very playful like this is something that I really love about you is that you are really wonderful. I used the wrong word, and once I called him immature but I met. It didn't go very well.   But this is something that like, I really like for me because I sometimes can get really caught up into more serious and structured mentality like playful side which I think is so important, and even today you're tied to these fun things, a game all the stuff so we're ready to pull your heart and you're young.   I think money wise to like you're better at saving money now.   C: Yeah.   VL: I think the pandemic also helps with Thanksgiving close.   C: Yeah, but it was like I used to I used to be very impulsive. I still am from time to time but you said Help me right now. And it's that's for the better.   [13:02] VL: So one of the other questions that Candice asked was if someone told you five years ago that you'd be getting an astrology reading, and your aura read and playing with oils, diffusing oils. What would you have said to them?   C: You're off to lunch. Yeah. Never in a million years, I would I would never have thought it, I would have probably had a good giggle and moved on.   So, this is, this has been one one journey, like the spiritual journey, I guess, although I'm not. I'm perhaps not 100% There are definitely, it's definitely been an eye opener, and I've definitely learned a lot about myself, about how to behave, my personality, how to interact with other people, and Val. You you you introduce me to a few different people like Glynis the Astrologer.    VL: A nutritionist…   C: And that's, that's been a huge change as well. Glynis, the astrologist was huge. VL: It's one of those things where if you don't believe it and if you can't just read your horoscope in the paper, you need to read your birth chart and someone needs to do that for you because it's like a whole other language.   C: you know, when I, when I went to see Glynis I went in with a very open mind, you know, just, I think at that time we were having a tough time. And it was a search for a good direction. And I was a bit lost.   VL: And then how many people did you tell to go see her?   C: So many because it put a lot of things to rest in my mind I think we have a lot of secrets that a lot of insecurities that are raised in dark places that you don't want to embarrass anybody and I think it takes even a lot to sometimes let your partner in because you're not certain if they're going to use it against you or you might be super super ashamed of these things and, and sitting, listening to what she had to say, might feel normal. My darkness fuel Okay, a lot more accepting of myself.   It put some perspective into some journeys that perhaps I hadn't closed the door or had time to fix properly.   VL: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that was very early on in our relationship too so for you to go and have that meeting with her was, it was a surprise to me that you actually did that.   At the time, but if someone asked you now like, Hey Craig, what do you think of the willie stuff like your horoscope and or as in meditation and crystals of essential oils, what would you say to somebody?   [16:25] C: You know, I came from a very sort of conservative upbringing. So, to get through something that you've grown up with is kind of a challenge, not necessarily a challenge but it takes some convincing if you will. So there's obviously like with in regards to oils, there's some oils that you can show me the benefit of them straightaway like the lemon oil. When we're painting and I spilt this lemon gospel to paint on the ground, and you gave me that oil and I couldn't believe it, including the microwave, like things that was so challenging, there's, there's, you know, I saw a huge benefit but it was kind of like, there was that instant gratification so you, you respond like I responded really well to it.   But the other oils that you know that the calming blend. Like sometimes I have a bit of a giggle because like I think it's whimsical almost, but it's just it's just because it's very difficult to believe, but I'm getting. I feel I'm getting better.    VL: Yeah, when we first started dating you kept calling me as soon as there.   C: Yeah, yes it's right   VL: And what else, the tummy oil?   C: I guess because I'm lactose intolerant since I've been in Canada, like I respond very well to lactose and so it's been a very challenging journey for me with that because, you know growing up I grew up on a farm and Zimbabwean, there was an abundance of milk because we had cows and it was unpasteurized and, you know, we'd milk the cows and had the milk straight from there and so to get it all processed and stuff I think is playing havoc on me but, certainly.   VL: Hey, well when I met you you had a deep blue rug. Essential Oil muscle rub,   C: yeah wow okay well that's that's another one that's, that's fantastic as well, Like, I used to use a 535, you know, and more chemical kind of products and then yeah picked up that that deep blue and that that works a real treat, and even little things like the diffuse smell.   It's, it's a very nice response but that was a really bad habit I had, I had those.   VL: Oh my god yeah fresh air fresheners everywhere.   C: Yeah, so we changed the diffusers and that was a huge change which was for the better. Oh man, I threw all my chemicals as well, all the cleaning products.   VL: I basically came in it was like so…. Yeah we're throwing out everything…   C: We pretty much. Wow, okay. There's a lot. Yeah, do laundry detergent, as well, soaps, soaps.   VL: Do you like how does it feel, do you notice a change?   C: I've noticed, I've noticed like, you know, just, I guess the changes have been so subtle, we've done some, like, it's already that like, also the painting of the house, and the brightening of the house and your style and your fashion you know the way that you've brought that in like, there's been a lot of things I think mentally I feel more grounded, obviously work is like a bit stressful so it keeps me on my toes, but I feel it's a good place to come on we have.   VL: Yeah, I was gonna say that I feel like we've created a nice little nest where it feels a little bit more like a home together. It's been a year that we've lived together.   [20:48] VL: this is actually one of the questions from Faith, who wants to know if we can talk about our, and then they quoted us like, I'm gonna change the words like pandemic relationship so basically, Craig and I met in 2019. And this summer, And then it got a little more serious in the fall. We joked about cuffing season, and where I kept Craig, in September, and then we both went on our own little trips in February or January and then when we, when we came back we were basically in this global pandemic. And, you know, the two weeks to flatten the curve was like, Oh well, I'll just stay at your house for two weeks. It actually wasn't two weeks and then all of a sudden, like I was living here and all my stuff was here and I was decorating and yeah.   So, basically, Craig, Faith's question is to talk a little bit about this dynamic and how we've stayed sane and kept our relationship healthy over the past year or so.   C: Thank you for your question. Look, do I feel that it's been easy all the time. No, we've we've certainly had challenges, you know, and I definitely, definitely, definitely would admit that it's not always roses, but I do appreciate and love you very much. I guess this made it a bit easier in the beginning because I was perhaps a bit less selfless. I wanted to do stuff for you more, you know, I kind of set my own aside for us. And I've been very fortunate where my workers as kept going.   VL: Okay, I'll jump in here just for some context. So at the beginning of the pandemic. My job changed immediately and drastically so I lost my main source of income and I was kind of just working off of some of the passive income I was building on the side which I wasn't actively pursuing so it was a very small fraction of what I was taking home every month, whereas Craig's job was deemed essential so there wasn't a lot that changed for you other than maybe some flexibility with where you had to be so there was a little bit more working from home on Craig's and I was now completely throwing myself into my online business and as any entrepreneur would explain to you that you know the reward or the, the, the finances, they don't necessarily come overnight, it is a bit more of like, okay, we need to build this growth but I was, I was building an entirely new foundation so essentially I was building a new business and Craig was incredibly supportive of me emotionally, mentally, I mean you let me stay here at your at your house, and we kind of came up with an arrangement that made the best sense for us at the time and it's evolved a little bit but yeah so I kind of took to this like domestic role of cooking, not so much cleaning but I was cooking meals.   And I was like making our little nest for us while you were bringing home the bacon so they say.   And it like it'll happen very quickly and it was like, Oh, we don't really know how long this is going to last long and I mean, yeah, I would agree that not everything has been super easy, but I feel like we've learned so much about each other, and about ourselves, and this is actually the first time I've ever lived with a partner too so I think that was one of my, my hesitant or that's where my where my hesitancy came from was like, oh this is new and this is scary and I'm not making any money and or I'm not making as much money as before and, yeah, it's a bit of a vulnerable time for me.   C: Yeah, cuz I think I made a promotion. Last year, during that. So things are doing really really well can remember. I can remember feeling quite terrible though because my, my work although consistent is is not, you know, some days can be stressful, but it's not terrible. And I can remember you work in your past. We can get by. And I, I, deep down inside, I hope that, why not I hope I know that your time is coming, because I've seen how hard you work and I've seen how far you throw yourself into things and I sometimes feel it's not fair. You know some of your journey this, this last few years of this pandemic, I don't feel it's fair. But I don't know quite how else to support you, other than to be there for you and to support you the best I can.   Sometimes I feel I dropped the ball at it, but, you know, other times, do my best.    VL: Craig is really, you are really supportive of me and in a lot of ways, and honestly, most of the time. So, again more context, because the studio the Pilates studio is closed right now I've been spending more time at home. So sometimes I just, it's just nice for when you come home for us to be around each other and have, like, for me, quality time is really important right now because I spend so much time alone. That being around you, and like, no phones and no emails and no TV and just having like a genuine conversation is really important to me.   And then, you know that I have like a walking habit but if I can add an additional walk with you and get some fresh air. Like, I feel like this is, it sounds like somebody's so small, but it's so important to me that time with you.   C: But I remember as you weren't getting out to us sitting and saying hey you need to get out. Come on, totally. Yeah, and that's what I think the walking habit stemmed from.   VL: Yeah a lot of it, I felt like the lazy, a lazy bum and you were like you need fresh air, you need to get outside. The best is when you came up did you leave the house today. No new, did you get up today. Does making another cup of coffee.   What about each other. Yeah and you know what this is probably like one of my most serious relationships, like I said I've never lived with a partner before and so I felt a lot of times, like, is this what it's like to live with somebody like my friends kept saying no.   What about each other. Yeah and you know what this is probably like one of my most serious relationships, like I said I've never lived with a partner before and so I felt a lot of times, like, is this what it's like to live with somebody like my friends kept saying no.   You know I've looked like my friends have lived with their partners for years. And since the pandemic, a lot has changed you're spending way more time with your significant other, you know, you're not getting the outlet of socializing with your friends or Craig likes to go skydiving like we weren't doing those things but because this is like the pretty much. Probably two thirds of our relationship I've been through the pandemic. Yeah, so it's very, it's, it's gonna be different regardless.   C: Honestly, I feel sometimes it's, it's definitely a case of make or break. And I think, I think, in this time we went away. Together we've done a few good things and we've got a few coming up so yeah we have the fabulous little like weekend road trip kind of things that have been fun, or adventurous to come. Yeah.   [29:08] VL: Okay so we have a few personal questions. Nothing crazy. So, Lisa wants to know the, your favorite thing about yourself.   C: Thank you for the question, Lisa, the favorite. My favorite thing about myself. I can't give the credit all to myself for this. But I guess the favorite thing I would think about myself is my ability to bounce back. There's, like, I, I grew up in Zimbabwe and we kind of lost our homes and byways and moved to Australia and started from zero. And then I moved to Canada and kind of started from zero and come a long way.   If you asked me 20 years ago. Do you ever, you know, would you feel that you would have moved this far or I still would have been on a farm in Zimbabwe. So, it's been, it's been a very long and tough journey and there's a lot of good people to thank, you know that have been with me.   And then in many different ways and some, some of them it's just, you know, a very small, you know, somebody just touched my life and the most smallest way but it's done me a huge benefit but I think that's probably the, I don't know if it's even.   VL: That's a great answer, I would agree with that. And then Lisa also asked, What do you want to work on with Val?   C: I would like to ultimately build our own little Empire, and have a little family and have a little house and go on vacation vacations and maybe start living a little bit, a little bit more than we have been I think we've you know you've been tied up during this this Corona thing and I would, I would appreciate to be able to stretch our legs as a couple, a little bit more out, I'd like for us to become a lot more successful. And, you know, I'd like to be there. I think I have been there like what year but has come to you, having a bit of hesitation with moving forward with your business and stuff and sometimes I'm just like, go home, don't jump on it, don't be shy like move, move, move, so I'd like to work on that as well. So be successful and be happy. And maybe content.   Like, I think we once, when you want to ask me like, What do you say don't just to be comfortable, You're like, what does that mean, like, what's comfort mean to you and that, that still, it still resonates in my mind because I'm not wondering well what is comfortable, you know, what does it mean and what do we want and I think we've started to understand each other a bit better about, you know, if we bought a house, what would it look like and, you know, one of the things that we both kind of enjoy and I guess one of the things, if I'm going to be truly honest.   One of the things I'd really like to work on as well as feeling super comfortable in our relationship to the point that you know you go on your trips and I'll be calm in my heart. I guess that's, I think we're getting to that point that relationship where we're a lot more confident with each other and yeah. [33:16] VL: So, when people tell me they want to be comfortable as a goal I cringe because comfort is not a goal. And, you know, like I'm very fortunate for where I grew up and how I like this incredible people that I've attracted into my life and the and the situations I've been in like I'm very fortunate. And if someone asked me, Are you comfortable, I would say yes I am comfortable, and even with Craig like where you've come from and where you are now to tell me that you're not comfortable in your house and you have an amazing job and, like, you don't have to worry about putting food on the table, in my opinion, this is comfort so that's why I always encourage people to one figure out what comfort means to you because you probably already are comfortable and to, to raise the bar like, what do you actually want to feel because you want to buy a bigger house or we want to buy a bigger house together. But comfort in a bigger home is not what we're looking for. We're looking for a spacious mess we're looking for, you know, expansion because we want to build a family like we want to have a backyard we want to be. We don't want to have to move our freaking cars around every day.   You know we want to be able to have like space for our bicycles and our paddleboards and all the other things that we, we want to include so, so really that's where I'm coming from with that is, is why I don't agree when people say the comfort is the goal because most of the people who I'm speaking to who are saying that are well more than comfortable.   C: Yeah, right. Um, I think one of the other things that, that I've really enjoyed about our little journey is that, you know, when we, when we look back and we we see some of the experiences we've had, and some of the photos, we've taken, you know, we find these old memories and have a good chuckle. I, I think the last year and a bit have most likely been some of the best years of my life. Like I feel super, like I feel a lot more settled in myself.   And I think this has allowed us to have a really great journey and one of the things I'd like to keep working on with you is making more memories, good memories. You know that we look back and like you forget a lot of them and we you know you say to me, what are you grateful for it. And we become conscious and think back to the things that we've done and have a good giggle like we've, we've done a lot of good stuff. I look forward to do a lot more.   [36:30] VL: Thank you for sharing and I look forward to doing more with you too. We're pulling on Craig's heartstrings. A little teary.   Good questions. So we have another question from Yvonne and I'm going to change the question just a teeny bit. So I would say I would rephrase this question as if you're giving advice to another couple, whether they're a couple of a couple years, or several years. But the question that she's asking is, how do you encourage your partner to practice more healthy habits, without coming off too forceful so I would say like, what advice would you give to another couple?   C: Thanks everyone for that question. this one for me is super super challenging because I've been in some relationships where somebody is expected check to change something and you don't feel equal or hurt in the relationship. And no matter what approach that person takes.   You're not gonna budge, or if you do, it'll just be to appease them on a shallow level sort of thing.   I really feel that you need to work at. At hearing your, your person hadn't appreciated your person, and communicating with your person, to the point that you actually care about each other and you love each other, to become a lot more selfless and a lot more open and less defensive and all of that.   Want to win once you get to actually see how that person is, you'll figure out how to navigate that minefield, because honestly, at the end of the day like it really does feel like a minefield sometimes.   So, I think, step one is not to, not on the approach of the question is, step one is to actually know the person, and to understand the person.   Once you know and understand that, then you can start to ask or approach it the right way.   Does that make sense?   VL: Yeah, so, and I say this to Craig all the time he he'll ask me to do something.   I don't necessarily want to do, and they'll say to Craig You know what, if you asked it to me this way. I would do it, but if you're saying, and it's, It's because I like, because I know what's gonna motivate me to do that action. Whereas if it sounds like someone's telling you something, the way I am, as a personality, I will put it off, longer if you keep asking me to do something with Craig I found that, and again I think you're right, I think it is about, it's different depending on the specific depending on the person, but with you I found that if I explain to you why this habit wasn't important. You were more willing to change it. And I also didn't come at you like you. You did list a lot of things that have changed since knowing me, but they didn't all happen at the first meeting, right, so like, I noticed that his green van container where we throw our compost had was a storage container for bags, and for grocery bags, like the ones that you dispose up the plastic bags and I was like, whoa, Whoa whoa whoa So like right away we were using disposable grocery bags, and also there was no place to put our food waste. So, yeah, that's another one.   So, again, like here I am like the alarms are going off all the red flags, he doesn't recycle. I'm just kidding, that's a huge red flag that's changeable.   So I was like okay so I bought the green bin bags and I said, actually this bin is for this, and this is why this is important. Garbage people take this every week, and then we swapped to the produce bags, and the reusable grocery bags, and the grocery store, we go to, they use paper bags anyway they don't even use plastic anymore so that's helpful.   Craig has come a LONG way!   C: What's the other thing sustainability.   VL: But yeah, a lot of those things.   C: I think it's definitely, because there's been there's been things like Val hates cleaning. She cannot, and now I love cleaning. VL: You know, wait wait wait, you love the house being clean, you don't love it. I like the result.   C: But we compromise. Like, there's a lot of compromise and there's a lot of give and take and that's why I think it's really important to understand the other person, and to know the limits and then it's gonna need to know the limits but then it's is to know within yourself, whether your ex, you're willing to accept that this is the way it's going to be, you know that some things you may not change so you have to compromise and you have to not grow to resent them you need to just let it go and breathe and move on to another thing that's much more worth the battle.   [41:55] VL: Well, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast I still have a couple more questions for you but I did want to say thank you so much because I know you were a little bit nervous but also, I kind of, you're very polite and professional on the show I thought you'd be… Maybe next time you'll be a little more your charismatic self.   C: I know what it means to you.   VL: Thank you. Before we get into the rapid fire round   RAPID FIRE ROUND What are you currently reading? Or what is your favourite book? C: I'm gonna have to get it out. It's about leadership as sad as a guy who was in the ASA, and his leadership techniques.   What does empowerment mean to you? C: There is nothing that you can put your mind to like if you put your mind to it, you can achieve it differently. If you want something just go get it. It's yours. Everything's attainable goals and only walls you put up your own walls. So empowering myself as pulling down my own walls, I guess.   What are you currently working toward? C: There are three things that I've tried to focus on now. And I've kind of class them in buckets. One of them is being a lot more successful at work. But, in being successful being settled as well, perhaps taking work seriously but trying to cut down the stress. That's one success at work, reducing stress.   The other thing is, building and working on on my family. By that I mean, being more in touch with my, my family, being more in touch with you, because I consider you my family, appreciating and being more in touch with your family. Also consider them my family now, and appreciating the small things like watching my brother's children grow up and being a little bit more part of it and trying to be more active and getting involved with them and, you know, making a family with you and growing our lives.   I love your family anyway so I think things go well there but it's a relationship that needs to be nurtured as well. And then my other pocket is being happy doing things that I love to do. For skydiving, as going camping and the things that we're looking forward to doing like a happiness bucket, work, family,   VL: Sounds like like core values which I've talked a lot about the podcast, share those episodes with you later.   Well thank you so much again I want to acknowledge you for one taking the time to, to do this with me because it meant a lot to me I was a little bit nervous but like I said, I was also super excited to have you on the show you were an incredible guest very polite and professional.   There's a different side to learning about today.   And I also want to acknowledge you for being a really incredible and supportive partner because I don't know what I would have done this year without you or how it would have gone, and you're always empowering me and you're always supporting me and encouraging me to take the big leaps that I am mortified to take, and I definitely would say that my, my success and my growth this year has been because of your support and encouragement, So thank you so much.   C: Thank you, you're an amazing woman, I love you too.   VL: Aww

Hey girl, hey! Today we are talking about MONETIZING a PODCAST! Whoop, whoop! Whether you have a show or not, are thinking of one, or not... OR just want to see what I have to say about this topic - STAY TUNED.   Podcasting is my entire sales funnel. For real. Exhibit A:You find me through my titles, guest spots, or SEO. Exhibit B: You listen to the podcast and get value. Exhibit C: You decide if working with me right and move on a course, coaching, or program. Sound about right? Welcome to MONETIZATION. It's legit - that simple sisters.   The reason people don't have the breakthrough is either: A) They don't have clarity on WHAT they do and who they serve B) They don't have a strategy for long-form content that creates TRUST (aka. podcasting), or... C) You never sell! Or maybe you get weird? What? Just asking! haha!! Don't worry though, no matter where you are I am here for you. I want to walk you through HOW I use this show to drive impact and then created solutions for YOU ALL that got you massive results. WHY creating passive income is critical for the long-term and how you can get started, too! Let's do it. Are you a podcaster who is ready to SCALE to the big leagues? Want to go all-in on your podcast while creating a passive revenue stream from courses? Apply for my next Podcast to Profit Mastermind program. Kicks off soon. Only a few spots left. Click Here. Xo, Stef   Wanna work together, friend!? Here to help you start and scale a God-centered business: Step 1: Get Clarity on Your God-Led Calling: http://clarifyyourcallingcourse.com Step 2: Grow an Organic, Evergreen Audience using Podcasting: http://podcastprouniversity.com Step 3: Monetize & Scale your Podcast using courses and coaching: http://podcasttoprofitmastermind.com Courses and masterminds not your thing? Snag a private session with Stef. support@stefaniegass.com  

In this episode, I discuss why some of the steps you've been skipping in your entrepreneurial journey are crucial to your success. Truth time: which of the following do you resonate with? A) You feel like you're doing the same thing everyone else is online. You have the same graphics, same copy, same tools - but it seems like they're making money and you aren't? B) You've bought courses, maybe even hired a coach before. And it didn't work for you. But deep down you know you didn't leverage all of the resources OR you didn't follow all of the steps and skipped straight to the module on content. C) You've been trying to scale fast despite the fact that your current offers don't generate consistent revenue. If you resonate with any of those points, then you're in the right place! Check out the free resources I offer www.thepowercollective.co/resources Ready to take your coaching business from overlooked to overbooked? Apply for The Founder's Circle and I'll send you exclusive access to an advanced 4 part training www.thepowercollective.co.apply Connect with me online! Learn more about my business services www.thepowercollective.co Listen to the Brand Your Power podcast bit.ly/brandyourpowerpodcast Join My Free Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/powercirclewithK Shop my published books on Amazon bit.ly/kyshira Free Grow with Google Digital Coaches Webinars www.g.co/digitalcoachPGH

We are joined by fellow blerd and dope media person, Marqueeda LaStar. We chat about Blerd Galaxy, life before covid, and oh the insanity that happened at the Capitol in D.C You may want to put on your headphones with this one. A little technical difficulty on the sound. This one went a little long lol. We hope you enjoy and we will bring this great guest on again. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Ready for some transitive property of math? No? Listen to Carl explain complimentary services that could double your business! Read full transcript: Hi Everyone, Carl Gould here your #70secondCEO, just over a minute of investment per day for a lifetime of results. You know, here's one joint venture with another company who has complimentary meaning non-competitive services to the same Ideal Client avatar. So the way that works is you're a gutter cleaner, I'm an interior cleaner. Gutter cleaner says, I'll write a letter to all of my clients recommending you as their internal cleaner and saying, this person is great, I vetted them I know many of you have asked me about it in the cases that I can't help I said I you know encourage you to call them. They're awesome and they'll make you a special deal. You know internal cleaning service says the same thing many of you have asked us if we you know, we don't climb ladders. Unfortunately. I'm afraid of heights. So I found you a gutter cleaner. They're tremendous. They'll come out and they'll take care of that for you and I trust them. I vetted them. I am all guys your mind guys. Right there might prefer to do that,  whatever you want to call them. Absolutely. I'm going to do some math for you. I'm going to take you back to high school Gibbons. Remember the transitive property of math? The transitive property of math means if A = B and B = C then A = C You get it. Here's here's what I mean. Hang on stay with me everybody. So if the client trusts you, and you trust the vendor the client trust the vendor got it! Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

C-Welcome to Episode 25 of This Is Yu Podcast.C -This Is Carole Yu and Scott StewartThis Is Yu Podcast Music intro….C-You just heard a clip from Justin Warner’s show for Marvel called “Eat the Universe.” More on that later.But, first, today, taking inspiration from Justin and his quirky science meets food mashup world, we’re going to talk Molecular Gastronomy. Stay tuned to after the interview with Justin where we’ll actually step you through one of his super galactic recipes.S-Carole, I remember about ten years ago you bought Dara a molecular gastronomy kit for her to play around with. I think you got it on Amazon right? How did that come about as even an option?S- Today we welcome Justin Warner who burst onto the food scene by winning Season 8 of Food Network Star.What’s amazing is he’s totally self taught and has created a life full of creative and idiosyncratic food.C- I remember watching that season, and I was so blown away by his inventiveness. I think because he doesn’t have that formal training, his vision isn’t clouded by traditional ways to cook foods, and pair flavorings.S- We talk to Justin about his early competitive spirit when he was still in middle school in Maryland. Justin worked his way up through the front of house in restaurants, until he worked in NYC for Danny Meyer. He was a captain at The Modern which is a restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art.C- Justin then appeared on 24 hour restaurant battle on the Food Network in August 2010 and won with his brunch restaurant concept. Then, he got called back in 2012 to be on Alton Brown’s team on the 8th season of Food Network Star. He won, and that’s how his food media career took off.S- Around this same time, Justin had a restaurant called Do Or Dine, in Brooklyn, which paired unusual tastes together, like and caviar nachos, shishito with yuzu, wasabi, hickory and green tea, or venison wontons with Jarlsberg cheese.C- I remember we ate there with Dara, and Justin was super engaging and even sat down with us for half an hour talking about food TV competitions, since Dara had just finished her show on MasterChef Jr. I was dying over the fish and chips. It had an entire deep-fried fish that looked like it was swimming on top of a huge pile of fries. Mmmm, so mouthwatering. S- Justin has several cookbooks, and more to come and now has a partnership where he has done over 47 videos for Marvel Comics with his Eat the Universe cooking show. He represents as Marvel’s food expert at all the great comic conventions.C- Here you go, Take a listen…..C-Thank you so much to Justin for joining us in today’s conversation. It’s been so awesome to follow your career from restauranteur to Food Network Star to Marvel comics food expert. S- We’re so happy that you’ve found a way to really make the most of your creative and innovative food spirit!S-As always, we really appreciate your thoughts and feedback about the show. C-You can reach us on Instagram or Facebook at [This Is Yu Official] or you can leave us a voice memo at [562-291-6037]. We listen to all the voicemails.S- Home base is www.ThisIsYu.comC- Thanks for listening to the show. Speaking of APPLE PODCASTS, Please SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT and RATE our THIS IS YU PODCAST. S-Have a great week! Thanks for listening and letting us make your life more delicious.Justin Warner's Information:Twitter @EatFellowHumansInstagram @EatFellowHumansMarvel & Justin - Eat The Universe - On You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKWPfouH9vcWebsite - http://www.eatfellowhumans.com/

Welcome to Episode 24 of This Is Yu Podcast.This Is Scott Stewart and Carole YuYou just heard a clip from when today’s guest, Maneet Chauhan, competed on Iron Chef America. She is an intrepid competitor, having made hundreds of appearances as a contestant and judge on the Food Network. This woman is a passionate and determined restauranteur, mother, wife and celebrity chef.But, first, today is all about Fruits, nuts, and flakes.Your relatives Carole? Nope we’re talking about cereal. Today, we welcome Maneet Chauhan, Maneet was born in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. S-She went to the Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel administration in India. After asking her professor what the best cooking school in the world was, she went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York and got her Associates degree in Baking and Pastry.C- True, and might I add, that’s where Dara is going for the exact same degree! Well, Maneet graduated the top of her class with high honors, sweeping all awards.S- Right after graduation in 2000 she was hired as management for a startup restaurant in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where she headed a team and expanded the restaurant's capacity from 70 seats to 140 seats. C- By 2003, at the age of 27, she became the opening executive chef of Vermilion in Chicago, Illinois, earning her 3-Stars from The Chicago Tribune. A few years later in 2007, she moved to NYC to open At Vermilion[13] where she was nominated as the 'Best Import to New York' by Time Out Magazine. Her style is described as "global fusion" with roots in Indian cuisine.[14]S- Maneet has been on Food Network for 12 years, starting as one of the original judges of “Chopped”. She is not only a full time judge, she also competes on the network. She is the only Indian female ever to compete on Iron Chef. She has made numerous guest appearances on TV shows, and at the top food and wine festivals.C- You’d think she would be busy enough as a judge and competitor, but she also has Morph Hospitality group, and four restaurants in Tennessee. If you want to check them out, she has her signature Chauhan Ale and Masala House, Mockingbird, a southern American restaurant, Tansuo, contemporary Chinese, and Chaatable, Indian Street Food.C-Thank you so much to Maneet for joining us in today’s conversation. What a fun conversation time we had, time literally sped by on that interview. You were such a joy to speak with Maneet!S- Maneet you have such positive energy, and I will come back and listen to you if I feel my energy needs a boost, either that or I’m going to sit right down with a big bowl of Lucky Charms!S-As always, we really appreciate your thoughts and feedback about the show. You can reach us on Instagram or Facebook at [This Is Yu Official] or you can leave us an anonymous voicemail at [562-291-6037]. We listen to all the voicemails.C- Home base is www.ThisIsYu.comS- Thanks for listening to the show. Speaking of APPLE PODCASTS, Please SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT and RATE our THIS IS YU PODCAST. Have a great week!C -Thanks for listening and letting us make your life more delicious.Maneet Chauhan's details:http://www.morphhospitality.com/https://www.instagram.com/maneetchauhan/https://www.maneetchauhan.com/March Of Dimes:https://www.marchofdimes.org/index.aspx

About Mary Fran Bontempo Mary Fran Bontempo is an award-winning 2-time TEDx speaker, author, humorist and podcast host who teaches audiences to uncover their brilliance and resilience 15 minutes at a time. A sought-after presenter for corporate and association events, Mary Fran is author of The 15 Minute Master and The Woman's Book of Dirty Words and co-founder of the podcast 4 Chicks Chatting. Mary Fran proves small changes can create life-altering transformations, allowing individuals to be positive and successful in a rapidly changing world. A Huffington Post, Thrive Global contributor and columnist for numerous websites, Mary Fran created a life-affirming brand of wisdom and wit after meeting the challenge of her son's heroin addiction. She is a frequent media guest and speaker, audiences of all ages delight in her empowering and entertaining message. First Phase Mary Fran's first phase was fairly typical--married, had three kids, church singer, youth minister, substitute teacher, and worked in the family recruiting business with her husband. She also wrote a humorous local newspaper column. The Day the Rug was Pulled Out from Under Her  On Mother's Day 2010 Mary Fran that her son was a heroin addict.   The suspicions were there, but as a mom, it was easy to deny them.     As a mom of an adult child, her hands were somewhat tied.   Both are common emotions in such circumstances. The two companions, not friends, of crisis are denial and distraction. An addict will get high, then there will be a period that is like a train wreck and you are ready to do something, and then they pull back.   Almost as though they know you are ready to intervene. Mary Fran suggests that if you feel in your gut that something is wrong, it is.   Address it.  Don't deny it.  And don't let yourself be distracted. First Steps for Crisis Management  The first steps for crisis management are: Research - find resources. Talk to other for outside help. Remember - There is no shame in this. Everyone knows someone who is affected by this.  The odds are that if you were not doing drugs with your child, you weren't lighting up a joint with them, you didn't cause the addiction.   The three C's of addiction: 1st C - You didn't cause it 2nd C - You can't control it 3rd C - You can't cure it Getting a child into recovery is the best feeling ever.  You can finally sleep.   Your child is finally with people who can help him/her and he/she is safe. It's a very dark time, but getting treatment is the beginning of the light. The Second Phase The 15 Minute Master People often say to take life one day at a time.   But with an addict, you often have to take life in 15-minute increments.   You can get through anything in a 15-minute time frame.  It's about taking one action at a time. The experience of living 15 minutes at a time led Mary Fran to write her book, The 15-Minute Master.   She now applies this principle to every aspect of her life. Mary Fran also speaks on it and leads workshops to teach others how to survive and thrive 15-minutes at a time. The 15 Minute Master is broken down to 15 minutes, three main questions, one action step. Three questions are: What can I do about this? The question is not: what do I want to do. The outcome is the main goal, but what are the resources? The next question is: What should I do? Should I act or not? And the third question is: What am I going to do about this? Do I need courage?  Do I do nothing and let it evolve?  Do I need to take a step back and let someone else handle it? Who Are You Going to Call? If you can't solve the problem, call in the experts.  Don't be afraid to ask for help, but first, identify that you do indeed need the help. Sometimes you need to surrender.   That doesn't mean to give up.   It means to give yourself time to process what's happening and allow yourself the grace to let someone else help.  Turn things over to God, or your higher power. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself time to heal.   There will be PTSD.  Trust has been broken and has to be rebuilt.  You may forgive, but you'll never forget.  The relationship has been destructed and must be rebuilt.   It is a process.  There must be grace all around it. Mary Fran's Two Other Books: Not Ready for Granny Panties The Women's Book of Dirty Words Mary Fran's favorite dirty word is, relax.  Just relax really means shut up and leave me alone.   If told to relax, Mary Fran has learned to do just that. Change is another dirty word.  But look at change as opportunity not a threat. Advice The best advice is to find a purpose in the horror.  Sometimes that is to serve others. Find your brilliance.  You have gifts.   Identify them and use them to serve others because you will be serving and fulfilling yourself at the same time! Your gifts don't have to be used in a traditional way.   You may have the gift to teach, but that doesn't mean that you have to be in the classroom.   Teaching can be accomplished in different ways such as through speaking and writing. Use your passion and it will gift others and yourself. Dream Life Recovery Mary Fran has always been active in the recovery world.   She is now on a mission to help bring families into the recovery process.    Dream Life Recovery is building a resource for families of addicts to turn to. Today Mary Fran is working for her son and writes blogs for Dream Life Recovery.  She writes pieces from the perspective of a parent.   There is also a video series she is working on with her son. You can learn more by visiting Dream Life Recovery. Learn more about Mary Fran: Website LinkedIn Facebook   Learn more about your host, Robyn Graham, click HERE.  To learn about The Brand Marketing Insider by Robyn Graham, click HERE.  Book a Brand Marketing Strategy Session HERE. Ask Me Anything HERE. Connect with me, Robyn Graham: Website | Instagram | LinkedIN | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Pinterest    

差一点就撞车、千钧一发、比赛差点输了、差点就把手机摔了，生活中的“擦边球”可以真多，让我们防不胜防，你想表达自己受惊吓的小心心，该怎么说呢？J: Hi guys. I'm Joy. C: And I'm Chris. Today we are gonna talk about another idiom: a close call. It's usually used to express that something bad almost happened. You can say: That was a close call. J: Well maybe you are telling your friend about how you ran to the train station last night after work to catch the last train and as you got on the train the doors closed right behind you. You can say that it was a close call. C: You know. One time, I was trying to catch my flight in Shanghai and there was a traffic jam on my way to the airport. Thanks to the taxi driver who drove like a maniac. I was able to make my flight with just a minute or 2 two to spare. J: Wow, that was a really close call. Let's look at an example of how you can use this idiom in a sentence: C: Hey Victoria. Are you alright? I heard you were in a car accident yesterday. J: Oh no, I'm fine. Some guy ran a red light at the intersection and almost hit me. It was a really close call though.C: Alright. Try to use this idiom in your daily conversation today and remember to share this with your friends and family! J: And if you are looking for private English classes, feel free to contact us! Talk to you next time! Bye!

有时候真是计划赶不上变化快，多少人的旅行计划都被“暂时放在了一边”，那native speakers(英语母语者)真的就用“put it aside”来表达他们把某事放在一边了吗？快听听Joy and Chris是怎么用的吧！J: Hi guys. I'm Joy. C: And I'm Chris. Today we are gonna talk about another idiom: put something on the back burner. It can be used when you want to put something off for later, because it's not the most important thing at the moment. J: Right. When you are cooking, the back burner is usually a place to put something that can wait until later, because it's not as important as what you are cooking right now. Well, I was actually planning on a vacation with my family this year. But I had to put it on the back burner until this special time is over. Here's an example of how you can use this idiom: C: Hey Mindy. Are you busy right now? J: Oh I'm just finishing up some paperwork right now. Why? What's up? C: You are gonna have to put it on the back burner and go to Mr. Harrison's office right away. J: OK, I'll be there asap. C: Remember to share this with your friends and family and don't put your English learning on the back burner! J: That's right! And if you are looking for private English classes, feel free to contact us! Talk to you next time! Bye!

Is being a podcast guest part of your marketing strategy yet? If not, what’s holding you back? I’m gonna take a wild guess that: A) You like listening to podcasts; B) You have a business; and C) You need to get your business in front of potential customers. If any of that is true, then you are not going to want to miss the next couple of episodes I have for you, because they are all about adding podcast-guesting to your marketing strategy. My guest today is Angie Trueblood. She’s a podcast visibility expert, and I met Angie because she’s pitched me on behalf of some of the guests you’ve heard on this show, like Brandi Mowles in Episode 241 about fast-tracking your side hustle growth, Dr. Cortney Baker in Episode 251 about going from side-hustler to CEO and Danielle Hayden in Episode 280 about taking home a bigger paycheck from your side hustle. And now today Angie is on the show to talk about how you can use podcast guesting as a strategy to grow your audience and get customers. Angie and I talk about: Her journey from side-hustle to self-employed. The opportunity podcasts can create for your business. How Angie found clients. Why Angie hired a business coach and how she grew her business. How to stand out from all the other people who are pitching podcast hosts. The six parts of a great pitch. Her best advice for you if you’re struggling to get traction in your side hustle. The one belief Angie had to change about herself to get where she is today. My favorite quotes from Angie: “You don't have to be at some giant stage of business to be featured as a podcast guest and to provide value.” “I think when you do good work and you take good care of your people, it eventually starts to snowball.” “Business is not just marketing, it's managing all of these other behind the scenes things.” Resources mentioned in this episode: Go Pitch Yourself Pitching Roadmap Go Pitch Yourself Podcast Angie’s Bio: As a podcast visibility expert and host of the Go Pitch Yourself podcast, Angie Trueblood knows that the only 'perfect pitch' is the one that leads with value and focuses on building a genuine connection.  Whether she is teaching entrepreneurs how to pitch themselves or working behind the scenes to secure opportunities for others, Angie leverages her super-connector powers to grow businesses and build long-lasting relationships.  When she's not working with her clients or being active in her local community, she loves exploring Richmond, Virginia's parks and playgrounds with her two kiddos, checking out new restaurants with her hubs, and laughing about motherhood with friends. Connect with Angie: Angie Trueblood Website Instagram Facebook Build a website in just 5 days (even if you're not techie) at www.free5daywebsitechallenge.com Learn how to market yourself online without ads, algorithms or spending all your time on social media at www.howtomarketyourselfonline.com Learn how to get your first web design client at www.startafreelancewebdesignbiz.com Leave a Review!

Yesterday was International Women's Day, and I got to thinking. Yes, it was a big deal that the character of Princess Leia debuted in 1997. And yes, they made Padme Amidala a strong character in the prequels. But I think: A) It's fair to say that the Original Trilogy is very much about Luke more than anyone else B) The Prequel Trilogy is very much about Anakin more than anyone else C) You could successfully make a case that the OT is more concerned with Han's character arc than Leia's D) You could successfully make the case that the PT is more concerned with Obi-Wan's character arc than Padme's Now, there may have been great strides made for leading female characters in the old Expanded Universe (I hope so!), but the fact of the matter is, most people experience Star Wars through movies and television. And it looks as though Lucasfilm didn't set out to tell a Star Wars story in film or TV with a significant female character until the Clone Wars in 2008 - more than three decades after the debut of A New Hope. I'm going to be talking about this on today's episode, speaking in support of more leading female characters, and a female-led Star Wars movie for the 2022 date. Punch it! ***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.*** 

Oh a good idea just came to your head! What are you gonna do? A) Write it down. B) (you don’t have a pen and paper) SO......you’ll just remember it for later. C) You don’t put it out because people won’t get it.. or even worse they will judge you. We must do it while inspired. Someone needs what you got! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Learn why age 40 is an important deadline to get serious about investing for retirement. Why is 40 so important? You may be familiar with my Wealth Heiress book's Wealth Building Formula (McT)™. The formula is comprised of 3 parts, which are the 3 parts to wealth building or, in this case, having a comfortable retirement.  M = Money, or how much money you have to invest. C = Compounding, or what rate of return you are compounding at. T = Time, or the amount of years you have to invest (until retirement). Let's say you got a late start saving for retirement. To make up for it you have only 3 choices (McT again): 1. M = You can save and contribute more money to your retirement plan, or 2. C = You can invest better and earn a higher rate of return, or 3. T = You can work longer and retire later. Let's analyze your choices. You are already saving as much as you can, so #1 is out. You would rather retire sooner than later, so #3 is not ideal. Nobody want to do this, yet that's exactly what your default choice will be if you don't invest well. That leaves investing better, #2. Only investing better, ie. being smarter about where and how you invest, can improve your circumstances without you having to find more money to save or delay retirement.  If your money is earning .25% interest in a savings account, it would take 99 years to equal the performance that our best investment increased in 11 months. By investing better, ie. being smarter about where and how you invest, you can improve your circumstances without having to save more money or delaying your retirement. INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT MORE ABOUT THE BE WEALTHY & SMART VIP EXPERIENCE? To take control of your money, get your money working harder for you and gain financial confidence, talk with Linda, click here. PLEASE REVIEW THE SHOW ON ITUNES If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. I love hearing from you! When you get to the next page, click the blue button “Listen in iTunes”, listen to an episode, and click on “Ratings and Reviews” across from my photo. I so appreciate it! SUBSCRIBE TO BE WEALTHY & SMART Click Here to Subscribe Via iTunes Click Here to Subscribe Via Stitcher on an Android Device Click Here to Subscribe Via RSS Feed WEALTH HEIRESS TV Please subscribe to Wealth Heiress TV YouTube channel (it’s not just for women, it’s for men too!), here. PLEASE LEAVE A BOOK REVIEW Leave a book review on Amazon here. Get my book, “You’re Already a Wealth Heiress, Now Think and Act Like One: 6 Practical Steps to Make It a Reality Now!” Men love it too! After all, you are Wealth Heirs. :) Available for purchase on Amazon. International buyers (if you live outside of the US) get my book here. WANT MORE FROM LINDA? Check out her programs. Join her on Instagram. WEALTH LIBRARY OF PODCASTS Listen to the full wealth library of podcasts from the beginning. Use the search bar in the upper right corner of the page to search topics. TODAY'S SPONSOR I want to take a few seconds to tell you about how I “read” more books and stay ahead of the curve. It’s by not reading books, but instead listening to them – like you are right now! With Audible, there are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player and…your first audiobook is FREE! I suggest you get the audio book of Think and Grow Rich, or you can check out my website Resources page where I list all of my favorite financial books and you see exactly what books I have read and recommend you read. Then get started with Audible by visiting https://lindapjones.com/FreeBook and order your first audio book free! Get Think and Grow Rich or another book from my recommend list, and be sure to get started checking off the books you want to read with your free book from Audible! Be Wealthy & Smart,™ is a personal finance show with self-made millionaire Linda P. Jones, America’s Wealth Mentor.™ Learn simple steps that make a big difference to your financial freedom.  (Some links are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you.)

Daniel McQuality was preacher for this service. Psalm 85: 1-3, 7-13: P: LORD, you were favorable to Your land; C: You restored the fortunes of Jacob. P: You forgave the iniquity of Your people; C: You covered all their sin. P: You withdrew all Your wrath; C: You turned from Your hot anger. P: … Show us Your steadfast love, O LORD, C: And grant us Your salvation. P: Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, C: For He will speak peace to His people, to His saints; but let them not turn back to folly. P: Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, C: That glory may dwell in our land. P: Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; C: Righteousness and peace kiss each other. P: Faithfulness springs up from the ground, C: And righteousness looks down from the sky. P: Yes, the LORD will give what is good, C: And our land will yield its increase. P: Righteousness will go before Him C: And make His footsteps a way. ALL: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

Order of Service: - Prelude - Welcome and Invocation - Collect: P: Father of mercy, by Your gracious Spirit guide and govern us that we may use Your spiritual and temporal gifts aright. Preserve the estates You have instituted both for the eternal salvation and the temporal welfare of mankind, and by Your mighty arm hinder and destroy that revolutionary spirit of anarchy that would subvert Your order, and keep us in Your Word. - Psalm 85: 1-3, 7-13: P: LORD, you were favorable to Your land; C: You restored the fortunes of Jacob. P: You forgave the iniquity of Your people; C: You covered all their sin. P: You withdrew all Your wrath; C: You turned from Your hot anger. P: … Show us Your steadfast love, O LORD, C: And grant us Your salvation. P: Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, C: For He will speak peace to His people, to His saints; but let them not turn back to folly. P: Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, C: That glory may dwell in our land. P: Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; C: Righteousness and peace kiss each other. P: Faithfulness springs up from the ground, C: And righteousness looks down from the sky. P: Yes, the LORD will give what is good, C: And our land will yield its increase. P: Righteousness will go before Him C: And make His footsteps a way. ALL: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen. - Hymn 418 - How Fair the Church of Christ Shall Stand: vv. 1-4 & 6 - Homily: Text 1 Timothy 2: 1-4 - Collect: P: O Lord, we remember on this day the horrors of war and the mercies of Your providence in the past. We give you thanks for those who have served in the armed forces and the families that have loved them, missed their presence, interceded in prayer for them, and rejoiced in their return. Especially, though, we pray for those families who did not see their loved ones return because they gave their lives in defense of freedom and this land that we love. May we never forget the sacrifices that have been made for us by these courageous men and women. Lord of the nations, we pray, according to Your good and gracious will, that You would grant peace among nations in this time as well. Put into the hearts of rulers and nations the desire to avert bloodshed, strife, and selfishness, and cause all to see the folly of war. You guarantee to all eternal peace in Christ. May Your Gospel be proclaimed that the foundation of love may be laid in Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace. In His name we ask it. (Lutheran Book of Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, p. 176) C: Amen. * The Lord’s Prayer - The Lord's Prayer (p. 125) - Hymn 584 - Grant Peace, We Pray, in Mercy, Lord Service Participants: Daniel McQuality (Preacher), Nathan Madson (Organist), Lawrence Wentzlaff (Liturgist), Paul Agenten (Instrumentalist)

Rob and Jason are joined by Nevin Liber from Argonne National Lab. They first discuss a blog post discussing issues implementing small buffer optimizations in a constexpr context. Then they talk with Nevin about how he got involved with the ISO C++ committee and some of the proposals he's worked on.   Nevin ":-)" Liber is a computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, a C++ Committee member and a veteran C++ developer. He first discovered the language over three decades ago while at Bell Labs when a friend called and asked, “What do you know about C++? You folks invented it!”   His professional career has taken him across various industries and platforms: big data, low-latency, operating systems, embedded systems, telephony and now exascale computing, just to name a few. He spends much of his time pushing his peers, colleagues and friends to use modern C++ constructs along the way.   Looking to learn more about the language, he got involved with the C++ Committee and hosted both the C++ and C Standards meetings in Chicago. These days he frequently finds himself in the middle of the debates involving the more contentious parts of the Standard Library. News Pack the Bits - Adventures in smallbitvector ISO 2019-10 Mailing Meetup: Payment changes comings soon C++ On Sea Registration Links Argonne National Lab Sponsors Backtrace Announcing Visual Studio Extension - Integrated Crash Reporting in 5 Minutes JetBrains  

My homily for the 17th Sunday Ordinary time year C – You can’t always get what you want. The photo is mine from our Vacation Bible School in Arborfield last week.

Over the course of my life thus far, I’ve been faced with a number of difficult decisions… From simpler ones like which sport to play in high school, or which college to attend—to more complex ones like who to marry, and which profession to pursue… How many kids do you have? When do you invest your money and when do you take risks with new adventures? When your daughter has Type 1 Diabetes, which healthcare do you choose? How do we want to structure our business? Employees or contractors? LLC or S-Corp…    I have a “GoDaddy graveyard” ofGREAT IDEAS!!! that didn’t turn out to be great ideas at all. I’ve started down paths to pursue starting clothing companies, learning environments, online courses, co-working spaces, art galleries… All ideas. All on the cutting-room floor.    We’re faced with thousands of decisions every day. In fact, if you do some research you’ll realize that we make somewhere around 35,000 semi-conscious decisions per day. Nearly 300 just on food alone, according to researchers at Cornell.    what to eat what to wear what to purchase what we believe what jobs and career choices we will pursue how we vote   Less tangible decisions like… Who should I trust on this one…? What should I believe about XYZ…? Some of the most profound “decision-making” has been around how I view myself, and understand my faith, and how I should exist and operate in the world around me. Who should I invest time in? Who am I discipling? Which leaders am I committed to developing? When to work and when to rest?    You’ve likely heard of the phrase: Decision Fatigue. And it’s real. Somedays I’ll hit a point where a seemingly simple decision has me stumped. All morning I had no problem with pricing out $25,000 websites, and then I’m standing in line at Starbucks and I can’t for-the-life-of-me decide whether to order a Cold Brew or a Can of Tuna Fish… It’s like the little Drill Sergeants in my mind all took a smoke break at the same time and I’m left with no one upstairs.    Something that I learned from Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg is about how they dress themselves… Both some of the most influential and central people on the face of the earth… Nearly impossible decisions to make. And they both dress with the same philosophy.    In 2012, Obama told Vanity Fair that the position of being President required him to cut away the mundane, frustrating decisions like deciding what to wear every morning. He said, “You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits," he said. "I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make."   Zuckerberg said a similar thing in 2014. He said, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community,” he said, meaning he doesn't want to spend mental energy on deciding what to wear or what to eat for breakfast.   Same thing with Steve Jobs and his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck.    A psychologist that studies decision fatigue, Roy Baumeister, says that "Making decisions uses the very same willpower that you use to say no to doughnuts, drugs, or illicit sex… It's the same willpower that you use to be polite or to wait your turn or to drag yourself out of bed or to hold off going to the bathroom," Baumeister told the New York Times. "Your ability to make the right investment or hiring decision may be reduced simply because you expended some of your willpower earlier when you held your tongue in response to someone's offensive remark or when you exerted yourself to get to the meeting on time."   I’m a big fan of avoiding unnecessary decisions… I wear a very similar wardrobe every day. In fact, I just wore a new t-shirt that felt like the most comfortable and best-fitting t-shirt I’ve ever worn… So I went to my friend’s t-shirt shop and ordered 30 of them in different colors and cuts like v-necks.   Some decisions, however, are unavoidable. And when we must make a decision, Yes or No, Left or Right… How do you decide?    I think back to a book Andy Stanley wrote in 2014 calledAsk It: The question that will revolutionize how you make decisions. And the heart of the book was this simple question: “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?”   In light of these 3 dimensions: past, present and future dreams: “What’s the wise thing for me to do?”    “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?”   This can help steer us when we get confused. It’s incredibly helpful to separate certain decisions away from “Is this RIGHT or is it WRONG?” Or even believing that only one of the directions is right. Sometimes there are multiple options with multiple strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the decision is so nuanced and layered that it’s crippling to even attempt to label the options as “RIGHT” or “WRONG.”    The truth is that any of the options carry with them potential beauty and potential pain… Pros and Cons. And it’s helpful to step outside of a one-dimensional decision making process and begin to ask “What is the wisest thing to do?”    Not which is most fun, not which is most tempting or sexy or exciting or immediately rewarding… But which is wisest.    And then… For me personally...   I’m only ever 80% sure.About anything. I’d have to say with every decision I’ve ever made in my life, I was only 80% sure.    You leave room for that silly 20% of your mind that will never be convinced… And that’s OK. I’m only 80% sure that I made the right decision in getting married young and starting a family and building a business… There’s always that 20% that looks at friends living a different life and wondering what that would be like… Or wishing you pursued a different college major.    On a good day, I’m only ever 80% sure God exists. There arealways quite voices of doubt and rebellion, trying to convince me otherwise. And I think that HONESTY helps keep me grounded in reality. It helps me keep a healthy dialogue in my mind about what I’m experiencing and what else might be going on. When people hit 100% certainty, they’ve typically gone into the world of obsessive, brainwashing… And they lose touch with reality. That’s when people launch crusades or become terrorists or shoot up their high schools… That’s when people pick up Tiki torches and march for a white nation.    That’s when we lose the necessary humility to stay within a healthy, wholistic human race and participate with empathy and curiosity.    And here’s the truth: I’ll forfeit 100% certainty over 100% inaction any day. If I had to choose between only being 80% sure or being crippled with anxiety and unable to make decisions until I was 100% certain… I’d choose the movement. I’d choose moving forward with a little bit of doubt than rocking back and forth in the corner hugging my knees.    Walter Frick recently wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review, titled 3 ways to Improve your Decision Making:    The #1 rule he gives for good decision making is this: Be less certain. Nobel-prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has said that overconfidence is the bias he’d eliminate first if he had a magic wand. It’s ubiquitous, particularly among men, the wealthy, and even experts. Overconfidence is not a universal phenomenon — it depends on factors including culture and personality — but the chances are good that you’re more confident about each step of the decision-making process than you ought to be.   So, the first rule of decision making is to just be less certain — about everything. Think choice A will lead to outcome B? It’s probably a bit less likely than you believe. Think outcome B is preferable to outcome C? You’re probably too confident about that as well.   Once you accept that you’re overconfident, you can revisit the logic of your decision. What else would you think about if you were less sure that A would cause B, or that B is preferable to C? Have you prepared for a dramatically different outcome than your expected one?   Something that has helped me is to find clarity outside of what’s presently in front of me. Clarity exists outside ofthe present decision in front of me.When you’re able to zoom out and begin to glimpsewho you are outside of your decisions, the decisions lose their power to produce anxiety in you. They don’t lose theirimportance, per se, but they lose their ability to cripple… There’s more freedom and grace in the decision making. You can decide to do something and try it for a while, but then give yourself the freedom to admit that it was a bad decision, and either go back to the drawing board or pivot and evolve the current thing to be something new…    Sometimes these decisions cost you money. Earlier this year alone, I spent over $60,000 pursuing a specific model with my business, only to realize that it wasn’t panning out how I’d hoped. I had a decision to make: Double-down and invest more, or, with humility, admit that it’s not working and that we need to make a change. We made the change. We had hard conversations, and we fixed the trajectory of the business. We’re heading in the right direction, and that difficult decision has relieved an unimaginable amount of pressure that I was carrying around.    I guess this kind of follows previous episodes, and includes everything we talked about with Being Kind To Yourself. You need to make decisions. You need to decide when to buy and when to sell. When to settle down and when to set out on adventure. When to propose, and when to break the relationship off… And after you make the decision—Be kind to yourself.    Pay attention to how the decision is panning out. Pay attention to your feelings. Pay attention to whatever Key Performance Indicators are put in place… And if it’s not going how you’d hoped, try to fix it. Maybe you went off on an adventure and now it’s time to come home. I can’t tell you the number of friends that made big moves in the last 5 years, that are now all moving back here to New England. And that’s fine. It’s wonderful. It doesn’t mean it was all a mistake… It just means they have greater clarity around where God wants them and where they feel most at home.    And the same is true for everything.    When it comes to decisions, try to minimize the amount of them you need to make each day. Then, for the unavoidable ones, do your best investigative work to try to get to 80% certainty, and pull the trigger. After that, if it’s not working out, fix it. Make it right. Sometimes it costs you money, sometimes it costs you a relationship, sometimes it means having hard conversations and entering into a necessary season of your pride being torn down and facing your failures… And maybe that’s the most transformative thing of it all.    SO what are you up against? What difficult decision do you have sitting in front of you? Maybe there’s no RIGHT or WRONG answer or direction to take… Maybe it’s just what you feel is the wisest choice right now. And that’s OK.    I love you guys… Make it a good day. 

Your life as an athlete might be confusing. There's so much to keep up with, so many advices, so many plans and it all gets overwhelming. Do you start with A? or do you skip A and go to B? What happens to C? You get the point In this episode, we break down 3 must have traits for every athlete in 2018. Forget all the clutter and focus on just these 3 things. The catch is this, focus on these three things and every other thing becomes easy. These 3 traits are the bedrock of all the things you have struggled to practice and keep up with. Start here. Start Now. Lets get into it. Click Play. I challenge you to be great.

In ERP 125: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part One, I talked about the article, titled “Masters Of Love,” by Emily Esfahani Smith The article discussed the key to lasting relationships comes down to kindness and generosity. Based on the research of Gottman and others, “kindness (along with emotional stability) is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage.” (Please listen to the podcast episode or read the transcript to hear explanations, stories and examples.) If you are interested in practicing more kindness in your relationship to strengthen your love, download this free pdf. The goal is to choose one kindness action or gesture a day for 25 days.   25 Tips for Building Kindness (11-15) 11. Learn how to address issues. Most of us do not feel uncomfortable with conflict or addressing a conflictual topic with our loved one. Often, we have experienced pain, difficulty, and upset during conflict in the past. The take away message has been “I don’t want to do that again.” Unconsciously, we make a decision to avoid sensitive topics. There is a balance to be struck when addressing a conflict. A) You will not want to invest the time and energy with just anyone. You will reserve this process for people who you are very close with, intend to have a lasting relationship with, and would like to deepen the intimacy with. B) You will want to get in touch with what is true, but you will also want to practice tact and consideration when expressing yourself. C) You will want to develop skill in addressing an issue. Like anything, there is a learning curve towards developing any level of skill. Acquired skill does not come without learning and practice. Conflict in relationship is a tricky area to develop skill in because it requires us to tolerate some pretty uncomfortable emotions, particularly, how to deal with fear and anger. Often, we don’t have a safe practice ground. When you were learning to drive, did your parent take you to the country or an abandoned parking lot to practice? The idea here is to have a safe place to get acquainted with all the mechanics and practice without hurting anyone or anything. We do not have this practice ground in relationship. It is real-time. Live and often feels like do or die. Your partner’s skill level matters greatly in the equation as well. Whether or not they can manage their emotional reactivity and insecurities. Do they take things personally? Do the assume the worst? Do they get protective, defensive, or blaming? Avoiding doesn’t work either. “Kindness doesn’t mean that we don’t express our anger, but the kindness informs how we choose to express the anger. You can throw spears at your partner. Or you can explain why you’re hurt and angry, and that’s the kinder path.” by Julie Gottman 12. Practice respect during conflict. When push comes to shove, do you step up or do you step away? In my younger years, I had to work towards calming down my reactions and tempering my impulses. To think before I speak and not lash out. To try to be more objective and considerate in my languaging. To not to be so defensive when I feel attacked. Whereas, other people have to work towards coming to the table, when their impulse is to step away. Maybe their pattern is to distance themselves or get passive aggressive. Or maybe they ignore, reject, or cut people off. Stepping up and stepping away can both be done in disrespectful ways. Knowing your tendency is helpful when trying to understand your patterns in conflict. Do you know where you go when are not at your best in conflict? One shift that helped me be more respectful during conflict was to have the goal of practicing respect as a form of integrity, in that treating someone with dignity and civility is a way that I can feel good about myself and my character. If character and integrity become the goal or measure, then what helps accomplish that goal? Taking care of yourself. Calming down. Removing yourself from the dynamic. Setting a boundary. Here are a couple of examples of how to practice respect during a conflict: Be objective and fair in recounting of the story. Stick to the facts. Have tact. “Tact is telling the truth kindly, considerate of how your words affect others’ feelings. Think before you speak, knowing what is better left unsaid. When you are tactful, others find it easier to hear what you have to say. Tact builds bridges.” By The Virtues Project Be considerate. Your partner has a perspective and a position as well. Can you make room for their experience? Start a difficult conversation gently instead of waiting for things to reach a boiling point. “The hardest time to practice kindness is, of course, during a fight—but this is also the most important time to be kind. Letting contempt and aggression spiral out of control during a conflict can inflict irrevocable damage on a relationship.” By Emily Esfahani Smith, The Atlantic 13. Strive for the 5 to 1 ratio. If you are familiar with John Gottman’s work, you may have come across the 5 to 1 ratio. This ratio recommends having five or more positive interactions for every negative interaction, so that you can have a stable and happy marriage. The basic principle here is that when kindness outweighs negativity, happiness is a more likely to occur. In most human interactions, we have some type of transactional analysis going on. Am I giving more than I am getting? Are they adding to my life or are they taking away from me? Is our relationship equitable? Granted, relationships cannot be 50/50 all the time. However, it is a very human experience to respond to the balance of giving and receiving in relationship. “When the masters of marriage are talking about something important, they may be arguing, but they are also laughing and teasing and there are signs of affection because they have made emotional connections.” By Dr. Gottman Unhappy couples tend to engage in fewer positive interactions and their positive-to-negative ratio during conflict is more like 1-to-1, which is unhealthy. There is a great deal of emotional power in negative interactions, such as criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, contempt, mocking, eye-rolling, and sarcasm. This is why it takes five positive interactions to counteract the one negative interaction. In happy marriages, people expect to feel safe, and when a negative interaction occurs it is quickly repaired with understanding, validation, and empathy. Is there a way to lighten the mood, crack a joke, look at your partner and smile, or touch them softly when discussing a difficult topic? 14. Offer reassurance. There will be times when your partner feels insecure, afraid, and uncertain. Unfortunately, your partner may not have the capacity to tell you explicitly when they are feeling scared, anxious, or worried. Whether or not their doubts relate to career, friends, family or relationship, you have a powerful opportunity to remind them of their goodness and value. Sometimes, the kindest thing we can offer our partner is genuine, sentiments of belief and reassurance. Offer affirmation to your partner. Let your partner know you believe in them Validate their strength. “It is going to be okay.” “You got this.” 15. Forgive Your Partner’s shortcomings. Typically, when our partner does something off-putting, it is easy to feel offended and hold a grudge. Holding a grudge usually does not help us feel better, nor does it bring a resolution with our partner. Even with attempts to resolve an issue through a conversation, we can continue to take issue with our partner’s actions is like if punishing them would somehow change the situation. If grudges persist, we can withhold our affection and become passive-aggressive. We can grow distant and critical. And we can start to see our partner as the problem, rather than as our trusted ally. What would it take to let go of the grudge, be vulnerable about your pain, and be open to reconciling? To choose to open your heart, make peace with the circumstances, and work with your partner? If you are interested in practicing more kindness in your relationship to strengthen your love, download this free pdf. The goal is to choose one kindness action or gesture a day for 25 days.   Stay tuned for the next several tips for building kindness in the upcoming podcast episode. Until then, check out the Connected Couple program to develop happy, lasting love: MENTIONED: ERP 125: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love (podcast) ERP 128: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Two (podcast) ERP 123: Forgive For Love With Dr. Fred Luskin (podcast) ERP 026: How To Repair & Resolve Hurt In Relationship (podcast) Masters Of Love by Emily Esfahani Smith (article) ERP 109: How Being Gentle With Your Partner Can Make A Big Difference (podcast) Jerry Maguire Pumping Up Rod Tidwell Before the Draft (Youtube video) The Virtues Project (website) Empowered Relationship FB Page TRANSCRIPT: Click on this link to access the transcript for this episode: ERP 129: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Three [Transcript] If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please reach out to me. Here is my contact information. I would really appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. Thank you!  If you are interested in developing new skills to overcome relationship challenges, please consider taking the Empowered Relationship Course or doing relationship coaching work with me.

  The Monster Christmas Mash – Peter Pan Monster Holiday –Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers  Grinch Thurl Ravenscroft Sixpence None the Richer Go Fish Rachel Platten Grave Robber Jim Carrey Grinch 2000 Jim Carry / Busta Rhymes Whoville Medley / trans-siberian Orchestra Krampus The Krampus song JDobbsRosa Krampus Soundtrack Carol of the bells Scary Christmas (Hedegaard) Ultamate Lounge Christmas by John Jonethis Sufjan Concerning the UFO Sightings Near Highland, Illinois Mr Frosty Man zombies Zombie the Snowman – flat earth policy Grandma Zombie – Wrenched GraveRobber – Christmas spirt  Christmas Night of the Zombies – MxPx – Punk Rawk Christmas            You can get Jeremy's Gift Guide  Check out the BoM pod archives    And there was a promo for  The Relatively Geeky Podcast To get the newsletter and Jeremy Robinson's Project Nemesis Kaiju Thriller Novel for free, sign up here. Presented by: Jeremy Robinson Hosted By Christopher Ouellette  With Music by Mercury Radio Theater, Blaster the Rocket Man, and Professor Elemental This weeks episode of Beware of Monsters is brought to you by the charming people over at Peaceful Wellness. Nemisis Is Coming To Town written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie and Christopher Ouellette Here is the MP3    G            G         C         C You better watch out, you better not cry,                                G           G         C           C     G    Em       Am        G   D you better not sin or you’re going to die, Nemesis is coming to town.   [   Verse 1]        G       G            C        C Alian genetic mixed with sugar and spice G           G          C           C     G     Em       Am        G gonna find out who's naughty or nice, s Nemesis is coming to town.   [Verse 2]     G7                  C            G7              C  she sees you when your scheming, you’ll know when she’s awake      A7       A7         D      D          A7         A7      D    D7 she knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. Oh   G            G         C         C You better watch out, you better not cry,                                G           G         C           C     G    Em       Am        G   D you better not sin or you’re going to die, Nemesis is coming to town.    

A special Boom Festival "Future Fossils on The Road" episode featuring some awesome people Michael met while playing and speaking at the amazing biennial psytrance festival in Portugal.Shaft Uddin is a Tantric Unicorn and Sacred Sexual Awakener (with noisy arm bangles): http://sacredsexualawakening.com* Support Future Fossils Podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/michaelgarfield *We discuss:Shadow work, “turning into the swerve,” and going into darkness to claim the light. Realizing that the monster in your dream is you. Dealing with people’s projections and how to make peace with the people who embody your opposite or rejected self – in other words, how to be a “polyamorous sex cult leader” with grace and dignity and humility.“There’s nothing wrong with desire. There’s nothing wrong with harnessing your sexual energy for greater abundance and manifestation.”The dam is to the river system as the taboo is to the body. How do our needs to control nature manifest in ways that obstruct or interfere with our well-being?The horrible true history of the corset – designed to keep women from speaking up for themselves.“The more I study the vagina, the yoni, the sacred space, the more I understand myself. Because I understand where I came from.”The historical tendencies of masculine magic being about projecting the will and controlling nature, and feminine magic being about aligning will with the power of natural cycles.The power of the vulnerability of group intimacy and Michael’s experience with The Body Electric School at Burning Man 2008.Shaft’s ambidextrous “twin goddess awakening” practice and the creation of circuits of loving energy and other “woo woo stuff” that cured his loneliness, depression, and substance abuse.The difference between “polyamory” as loving multiple people and recognizing the original unity and non-separation of all of us and loving universally (see also Alice Frank’s “uniamory”).Polyamory vs. Transparent Love (and other Principles of Unicornia)“Don’t leave me!”(and then immediately)”It’s okay, I’m fulfilled in myself, it’s fine.”— TIME TRAVEL (not externally, but internally) and FATE —Following the histories of the atoms that compose us into the stars and nebulae from which our parts originated = internal time travel!The myth of Atlantis as an example of “misplaced concreteness” of the racial memory of an ancient extinction our cells still remember, not necessarily the story that we tell ourselves about an ancient city.Graham Hancock’s argument that a 13,000 year old comet impact ended the Pleistocene and the possibility that epigenetic molecules have coded this event in our cell nuclei – as well as other even more ancient extinction events such as The Great Oxygenation Event (in which the evolution of photosynthesis nearly destroyed all life).People are building bunkers preparing for a catastrophe that happened two billion years ago!Recycling everything.Faith in humanity and a belief in the Star Trek vision.“I believe that we will start flourishing.”Christopher Ryan vs Stephen Pinker and clashing narratives about the progress of our species and whether or not we really are more peaceful than we were as foragers.“I get my knowledge off of YouTube and Facebook.”— WOO ALERT ––We might as well go there: crystals. Meditating on them. Going back to Lemuria through crystal meditation time travel. “OR are we projecting onto it?”Exalting the natural world by our awareness and appreciation of it. Ensouling technologies by naming them. To observe something turns it from a possibility into an actuality. So with New Age weirdness, how many hallucinations does it take to qualify as reality?Iboga teaches Shaft to “Ask a tree.”Michael: “If my cohost were here to reign me in, we might not even be having this conversation.”Biogeomagnetism and Michael’s 2008 vision-hypothesis that solar maxima and mimina might correlate to changes in the expression of different hormonal balances and behavioral patterns, possibly entirely different genetic expression patterns and states of consciousness.S: “Do you believe in past life regression? I just paid $400 for my one.”M: “Why’d you do that when you can talk to a tree for free?”Camillo introduces himself. Our first third-party guest! He weighs in on the possibility of the cycle of learning that a soul goes through…Is “how literally true it is” the right question? Or do we just have a modern human obsession with FACTS?M: “We don’t realize we’re in this Russian doll of nested dreams. And so we regard LOCAL reality as REALITY. And then you get out of that atmosphere and it gets more and more diffuse.”Writing Field Guides to the Denizens of DMT Space:- the very circus vibe- “like with ayahuasca, there’s always a snake”…and on to Jeremy Narby’s revelations in his book, The Cosmic Serpent, about how plants communicate to animals about their phytochemical properties through gross anatomy.Camillo talks about synesthetic communication with the body, mapping brain regions to reinterpret signals from the body from feeling to visual cortex processing, etc. How archetypes might be the firmware-esque stable mappings of visual and emotional content onto personified entities. (Why would something like that evolve?) Filtered through the specificities of culture, universal human archetypes become specific deities and spirits.S: “THIS is why I want to have a church.”M: “This is why my dad doesn’t want me starting a church.”The Ten Principles of UnicornUnicorn Power BalladsBiophotonics and the DNA Light InternetM: “Maybe the medieval view of things as endlessly regressing celestial spheres is closer to the truth.”Mapping possibility as multiverses on a spherical coordinate plane, and the impossible as antipodal to you, and what’s just unlikely as on the horizon, and what is as where you’re standing. And it all moves when you move.“I basically suppressed my superpowers. I chose to live a lower form of existence…because what really made me happy was ‘Getting paid and getting laid.’ And it made me super happy until two years ago, when I had my awakening.”Michael Crichton’s experience, as reported in his autobiography Travels, of learning to see auras. How Shaft and his former lover learned to see auras. Shaft and Camillo share some exercises and anecdotes about how to move energy.Burning Man as a physicalized internet and the advent of “noetic polities” in which people affiliate and orchestrate according to interests and values, not blood relations or geographic proximity. Will this “unscheduled fluid simultaneity” of liminal zones like festivals be the norm in a few decades, as we get more and more invested in the internet? Nod to Doug Rushkoff’s book Present Shock and his term “narrative collapse.” “Let’s see if it’s in flow! Kind of a spiritual bypass; no agreements.”Scheduling as a byproduct of modern city time; flow as a byproduct as tribal nonlinear time.C: “You’re not the mountain from which the river flows. You’re something in the river that’s going with it, and you’d better just swim with it.”M: “But maybe if you had the mass of a mountain in people that were all trying to get the river to flow upstream, you could do it.”M: “Do you know [of] Peter Diamandis?”S: “Like a true shaman, I don’t read. I learn through experience. Tell me.”M: “Okay, well, through my experience of reading people…”S: [Devious Cackle]Taking an active stance toward the future. Seeing yourself as an active contributor to the future (rather than feeling disempowered by someone else’s vision of the future).Abundance vs. Scarcity in history and economics and how the kind of abundance Diamandis predicts for the next century will radically change our sense of value/priority and allow us to be more deeply generous with one another.C: “A lot of us live in a state of mental scarcity when we’re actually some of the richest people in the world.”Michael’s perspective on Lisbon and the awesomeness of Europe vs. the ridiculous waste and price of the USA.Shaft and Kamillo on the difference in agricultural and food standards in the USA vs. Europe.Parag Khanna and his book Connectography, which argues that our connective infrastructure and economic relationships define boundaries more than actual national borders.The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the light and dark sides of globalism vs. planetary culture. NOT THE SAME.Shaft’s three step plan for extricating yourself from the system.(Camillo is doing the exact same thing.)C: “I think the universe is going to show you more love if you show more love to it.”Reliance on the system we are trying to escape.M: “What does capitalism actually produce? It seems like people who are trying to escape capitalism is the main product.” Alex joins the conversation and drops a knowledge ball on us about permaculture. Shaft brings up Tamera, a sustainable free love community in Portugal – and his mission to travel the world’s intentional communities and model his own on their best features.M: “Every generation’s trash becomes something valuable to the next generation.”Was the Baby Boomer acquisition/trash-creation phase the caterpillar phase of humanity, gathering and consolidating for an evolutionary transformation?Art made out of trash! Building bricks!Steve brings up the possibility of Universal Basic Income. Camillo mentions that Finland will actually be implementing UBI next year!Lynn Rothschild’s recent speech arguing for Universal Basic Income because capitalism needs consumers and a middle class to keep things in circulation.Capitalism is based on extraction - nod to Episode 9 with author Ashley Dawson on his book, Extinction: A Radical Critique.The origins of the word wealth.Everyone’s perspectives on the future:- Steve wants to get involved rather than just complaining.- Camillo wants people to learn about finding how to make their passions their jobs and creating abundance for everyone before we destroy ourselves.- Shaft believes in Star Trek, that we’ll live in a beautiful future that’s like Sweden, only everywhere.- Alex hopes that our good choices reach a critical mass that changes everything in the direction of sustainability.- Michael asks, “What is the change that each of us must go through in order to make the world we want to live in BELIEVABLE?”The only way to move forward into this world is as complete people. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, I discuss the process of writing and being successful with Mike Munger. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. Petersen: My guest today is Mike Munger of Duke University. Mike, welcome to Economics Detective Radio! Munger: It's a pleasure to be on your show! Petersen: So first I stole EconTalk's format and now I have stolen Mike Munger as well, so if Russ Roberts sends me a cease and desist letter, I'll completely understand why. Munger: Russ and I have an open relationship. We both date other people. Petersen: Oh good, good. I have many jokes I could make about that, but I won't! Munger: Thank you for not. Petersen: So, our topic today is going to be writing and thinking. Let's say that because, as we'll go through, the two are intimately related. So Mike wrote a piece titled "Ten Tips on How to Write Less Badly." Now you may be thinking to yourself, "Hey I thought this was an economics podcast! What does writing have to do with economics?" Well, writing is what economists do and if you write either for your career, or your hobbies, I'm sure you'll find something in this discussion that will be helpful to you. So Mike, you start your piece by saying that you've seen many talented people fail because they couldn't or didn't write. I think the impression a lot of people get while growing up is that writing is the easy subject and that math and science are hard, so how is it that these talented people get tripped up by writing of all things? Munger: Well, writing at all is not that difficult, I suppose like running at all is not that difficult. Most of us can at least run 10 meters. The point is that, if you want to be a professional economist, you are one of those people who actually found math pretty easy and you may not have practiced writing very much. So, I said, I've seen a lot of talented people fail because I was Department Chair here at Duke for 10 years and it's hard to get tenure at Duke, it's not a reward for past behavior, it's a hire. We are trying to guess if you're going to continue to produce interesting and important research after all material incentive to do that has been removed. Because once you have tenure you basically can't be fired. It's not quite true, but it's pretty close to true. So you get six years, I've watched 8 people doing this while I was Chair. You get six years to develop your research agenda and to show that you are going to continue to publish after you no longer have any incentive to do that. Now, what a lot of people do is, for four years they'll work on a few things but not very assiduously and the last two years they will work furiously and they'll have two or three things forthcoming and say, well, like it's a video game, I've done enough to get tenure. What they're saying is, if you ever give me tenure I will never publish anything ever again, which not surprisingly doesn't work out well. So six of the eight people who came up were fired. And when I, as Chair, had to tell them this, they cried, they were surprised, which probably means that I am a bad Chair, but I had tried to communicate over and over again that they needed to develop a research agenda and the way to do that is to write about it, and to write about it every day. That doesn't mean that everything that you'll write will eventually be used, but again, I would go back to the running analogy. Or let's say a soccer game. Suppose you knew those six months from now, you'll have a very important soccer game. You wouldn't wait until the night before the soccer game and practice all night. You would practice for an hour or two every day, recover, think about it, try to get better, but that's not how we do writing. All of us, who are at the level of thinking about graduate school and economics, are clever monkeys. We have always been good enough, that we can wait until the night before and write some bunch of crap and have it be good enough, because we're smarter than the other people. Well, now you're in with a group of people all of whom have always been able to do that and some of them are going to figure out that if you actually starts six months in advance, and work on the thing every day, and throw away most of it, time after time, and start over, your paper is going to be a lot better. And if you look at the books and articles that you think are important, the very things that got you excited about being in economics in the first place, none of those, not one, did the author stay up the night before it was due and write it. Adam Smith worked for years on 'The Wealth of Nations.' He showed it to people, he talked to people, he went for walks and muttered to himself. At one point he was so obsessed with what he was thinking about, he walked right into a noisome sump, that is the chemicals leftover after you have tanned leather. He didn't even notice where he was going! It smelled terrible, he didn't even notice by sight or smell because he was so busy thinking about this stuff, that he had been working on for years and would continue to work on for years. So part of this is my own cri de coeur, my own cry from the heart saying, it's so hard to watch talented people fail when they could have succeeded, because they didn't get this simple message---you have to teach other people. Sometimes you do it in the classroom, most of the time you do it through your writing. If you don't get good at that, you're going to fail. So don't start. If you don't think you want to write, don't become an academic in the first place. Petersen: Yeah, I guess another analogy is, you can be very naturally adept at swimming and that can make you an above average swimmer, but not one of those people swimming at the Olympics isn't both an above average swimmer naturally, and someone who has trained day after day, after day to be there. Munger: Not just at the Olympics. This is if you want to enter a swimming contest at the local YMCA, those other people are on the top one half of one percent. They're not near the Olympics, but they're going to kick your butt unless you've been practicing and practicing and practicing. Petersen: Yeah, and I guess undergraduate education is less like the YMCA; it's sort of the kiddie pool. You really can get by without practice, but you won't necessarily get much out of it. Munger: You won't learn much about writing, and what you write won't be very good, it will just be good enough, that because you're clever and good at this you can produce something that the professor is going to read and say "Ok, I sort of see what the argument is, that's better than the others: A." So that's not a 'good enough' it's just a 'better that the other losers' who aren't going to get to graduate school in the first place. And by losers I mean, people who are going to have successful lives. Petersen: Yeah, we have a funny definition of winning in academia. Munger: It's not clear you're really want to win. Although, to be fair getting tenure someplace and having the ability to write every day about the stuff you are interested in, there really is no better life. The problem is with the six or eight and in my case ten years, because I had a hard time finding a job, that went before that. Petersen: Yeah, so that's covered your first tip in that essay, which was, "writing is an exercise." The second tip was to set goals based on an output, not input. Can you explain that? Munger: One of the things that junior people do and that graduate students also do is to define how hard they're working by how long they spend outside of their apartment and in their office and they might even be at their desk, they might be in a coffee shop. What they're not doing, is facing the terrors of that blinking cursor. So the difficulty with any metric based on inputs is that you're not thinking, "am I actually doing something?" A metric that's based on output focuses more on writing. Now, that can be misleading because you can write badly but the same thing would be true of running or swimming. Sometimes when you have a workout it doesn't go that well but at least you're doing it so you wouldn't define how hard you work out by how much time you spent in the gym. You would say what exercises you actually did. It makes no more sense than that to define how hard you work by how much time you spent in the office, going to other offices, drinking coffee, talking to people, checking Facebook. None of that actually counts. So you have to set very high goal, five hundred, seven hundred fifty words per day, every day, five days a week and you will be a famous and successful academic. That again is the sort of dirty secret since no one does this. A lot of economics articles are only ten or twelve thousand words. So if you write five hundred words a day and you end up throwing away three hundred of those words you're still every ten days going to have two thousand usable words. So twice or three times a year you're going to have enough to have a journal article even if you're throwing away 60% of what you write. And here's the other thing: you learn by writing. What I find frustrating is a lot of people will count reading as work and it's not. Reading is an important input to work just like sleep and having a good breakfast. But in order to be an academic you have to write and the nice thing about writing is, you're writing along and you think, "oh right I understand this." You're trying to summarize the argument of some thinker and you realize "I don't understand it!" Now you go back and you read it, but you read it in a way that allows you to engage in a conversation with that writer. The nice thing about writing is that it allows you to communicate over time and space. I can look at something that was written 300 years ago and try to divine what was in the mind of that writer, what is he or she trying to communicate. And good writing creates in my mind an image or a logic similar to what was in that person's mind even though they're distant in time and space. So when I'm writing I read things differently. I've seen people count as reading, they go through a book, they go through an article they have three different colors of highlighting and they always think they're going to come back. None of that actually went through their brain. But if you're writing then you go to read something, you're looking for a specific question. You read better. So I actually ask my graduate students when they're working on their dissertation, on their third or fourth year, to put up a three by five card in their workspace that says: "Don't read, write! If you're writing you'll become a better reader." Petersen: Yeah, there's an irony in someone who has gone through years of economics education, who could explain to you exactly why the labor theory of value is not correct, applying it to their own work implicitly. Munger: Absolutely, it's "My day was valuable, I spent 11 hours at the office. Holy cow!" Petersen: Yeah, my own version of that was at the end of my first year of my PhD, I spent a lot of time in the office and I realized that I spent so little time at home that I actually only went through I think one full roll of toilet paper. So it's sort of the metric being what I didn't do which was spend time at home and therefore in my own bathroom. Munger: We get it. We get it Garrett. But it is interesting, that's necessary but not sufficient for success. Jim Buchanan always said, "The key to success is apply the behind." He didn't say "behind," he used a different word, but apply your behind to the chair. So you're actually in the chair at your desk and you are writing. Now for him that meant moving a pen across a piece of paper, for us it means typing on a keyboard. Either way, if you apply your behind to the chair---the actual chair at your desk, not the one in front of the desk of one of your friends so you can drink coffee and talk---you'll get a lot done. You'll learn a lot and you'll notice after just a couple of years that there's a divergence, not only in your ability to write but in your understanding of a lot of key issues because you've thought of these things pretty deeply. And the thing that's interesting about that is other people who haven't been writing may at one point have been ahead of you. Maybe they were better at classes but you have to learn to make the transition between being good at taking classes---which is why many of us want to go to graduate school---to being good at expressing our thoughts on paper in a way that other people find interesting. So the emphasis on classes is misleading, your first year in class, second year in class---you get A's but you haven't really developed your own research agenda. That's not as good as the person that actually practices, works on writing and after a year or two has developed a talent. Adam Smith has an interesting story about this with the Street Porter and the Philosopher. So the Street Porter and the Philosopher are not as different as the Philosopher wants to think. The difference was the Street Porter spent a lot of time carrying bags and the Philosopher spent a lot of time reading and writing. Well after just a few years they seem like different people but it's because, hour by hour, the philosopher spent time writing. You can be the Philosopher. If you don't write, you're going to stay the Street Porter. Petersen: Another tip you give is to find a voice. Don't just get published. But isn't getting published the point? What's wrong with making that your end goal? Munger: Let's think about entrepreneurs. Suppose you have two people who fancy themselves to be entrepreneurs. One of them says, "I want to make profits, I don't care how." The other one says "I have a vision of this great product that's going to transform this industry." Who's more likely to make profit? The second, paradoxically the second. Well if I say "I don't care about what I write I just want to get published," my work is going to suck. It's going to lack any kind of imagination or motivation or the reader is going to look at it and say "I don't even understand why this guy is writing." But the person that's found something that he or she is passionate about is actually more likely to get stuff published. So paradoxically the way to be published is to be passionate about what you're writing. If all you're trying to do is get published, that's going to come through. It will just seem instrumental and not very interesting. Petersen: Yes. So Scott Alexander writing at Slate Star Codex had an article recently where he made the distinction between what he called pushing and pulling goals, where a pull goal is when you want to achieve something so you come up with a plan and a structure. Whereas a push goal is where you have a plan and a structure so you'd scramble to try to find something to achieve. This strikes me as another version of the same thing where to just "get published," you know you want thirty pages double spaced with some graphs in there and you don't really care what your message is. That's just not a good way to write is what I'm hearing. Munger: Right. It's not a good way to write good things and again Jim Buchanan, who is one of my heroes, when he would interview perspective job candidates, particularly people who were young, he would pose them a question. I'm not quoting him exactly but it was something close to this: Supposed you have three choices. A) You could be for or five years the most famous economist writing for The New York Times and be on talk shows. B) You can win a Nobel Prize. C) You can write something that people are still going to read one hundred years from now. Which one would you pick? And Jim was---he actually achieved B obviously, he won the Nobel Prize---but he was interested in people who at least had some aspiration to write something that someone's going to want to read a hundred years from now. Now you may fail in that, but if there's not something that you're working on that at least has that aspiration, then it's going to come across that your work is just shallow, superficial, not very important and honestly not really worth doing. Petersen: That has got to be the hardest interview question I've ever heard. Munger: Well he was pretty scary, I actually interviewed at George Mason and talked to him and I was desperate for this job. I really wanted the position at George Mason and it turns out Jim Buchanan found me wanting, so I went through this and ended up on the wrong side of that line and it has stuck with me. So, now I do try to have some answers to that question at least to myself. So I try to work on things that are of some importance, but it was terrifying to be interviewed by him anyway. And when he asked that question, you're really just trying to get a job, you haven't published anything, you're trying to finish your thesis, that sort of seems far away. But he was absolutely right to want people who have that kind of mindset. Petersen: One of your tips is that everyone's unwritten work is brilliant. How is it brilliant? Munger: Well in my mind I have an argument and the premises make sense. The logic by which those premises are developed and integrated makes good sense and the conclusion is important. Now the problem is when I write it down. It turns out there's some holes in it, and when I examine those holes and sort of work at them---it's like you're thinking about moving into an apartment and you touch the wall, the wall gives way and a bunch of cockroaches come out. Ahhh it's pretty scary! Most of us, these are the arguments that we have in mind, particularly if you haven't really been writing, and by writing I would count a model. So I have an intuition about how something's going to work. I work out the steps in the model and it turns out step four is "a miracle occurs here." Well you can't actually use a miracle as a step in an argument and that means the argument is not very good but you don't know that until you write it out. But that's why many people don't write it out. And one of the things that I talk about in the article is "don't be that guy," and the guy that I have in mind, I actually knew a person like this. Most graduate students when I talk to them say, "oh yeah, I know that guy." The guy is a third or fourth or eighth year graduate student and you meet him in a bar or somebody's house and he's got a cigarette and in the other hand he has a drink. He takes a long hole in the cigarette and then for two or three minutes he tells you what his dissertation is about. And you say, "Holy smokes that's amazing! What you're going to do is so important!" And you tell somebody else that the next day at the office and they just laugh and say, "Yeah he's been working on that two-hundred-word speech for five years. He's never written anything." So you know, the young people are all terrified of this guy. The older people realize he's a loser because the older people all realize they have trouble summarizing their argument because they're in the middle of writing it and there are several places, where it says "a miracle occurs here." He hasn't thought about it enough to know where the impossible miracles will be required in his argument, he's just smoothed this over and he's practiced this pat little pathetic speech. So if you're working as hard as you need to be you're going to be confused and miserable and not sure that it's right because only unwritten work is brilliant. If you're actually working on it you know better than anyone else where all the holes are and where all the places where if you touch the wall the cockroaches come pouring out. So don't be that guy. It's easy to be the hero. And notice that this 8th year grade student only hangs out with the first and second year grad student because these are the only people that still believe his crap. Petersen: Yeah one of the most frustrating things about being human is how little connection there is between the way our brains seem to work, from when we're sort of observing ourselves from the inside, and the way they actually work. So when psychology really came into its own as a field, the psychologists quickly discovered that introspection really wouldn't get them very far because it's so misleading trying to study a brain from the inside and part of this is your brain can come up with some really half-baked ideas that seem so brilliant. Munger: There's a lot of plausible things. It just turns out that a lot of those possible things seem to be false. And if what you do is practice making them sound more plausible, you can fool people but that's why we have con artists. So you're exactly right. Human beings are basically set up to accept confidence for authority but they're not the same thing. Authority is someone who's really thought about it has developed an argument. Confidence is someone who has refused to develop the argument and just believes out of faith that they're correct and they practice their little thought. So another way to put it, and you're right to bring up psychology because we can be fooled by confidence into thinking that it's authority. Petersen: Yeah. If you've ever had a dream where you had a great idea in the dream and then you wake up and think, "Oh my God, that idea is so brilliant I've got to write it down!" And it's always just total nonsense because your sleepy monkey brain just made you think it was great. Munger: That actually happened to me. I went to college in the 70's and there were substances involved and so under the influence of some substance I would have an idea which I was convinced was brilliant and would write it down and of course the next morning I thought, "Wow, that's really stupid." Petersen: Oh no. At least you wrote it down. You didn't spend years pursuing it. Munger: Even then I wrote it, yes. Petersen: So one of the tips you have is to pick a puzzle. What do you mean by that? Munger: Well it's often hard to get started. So there are two reasons to pick a puzzle, one is that it's actually interesting, and the other is that it's rhetorically useful to be able to engage the attention of the reader. So I give examples of different puzzles in economics. One of the most common is "Theory says this, empirical results say this, they are contradictory. What's missing from the theory or how has the empirical test been conducted badly?" Another would be "Person A and Person B have the same set of assumptions but they come to a different conclusion. What is it about their models that causes this divergence?" So if you have a puzzle like that, and the most important one. The third one, the most important one is "Suppose that there's this phenomenon and we don't really understand it and then there's this other apparently unrelated phenomenon, we don't really understand that. What turns out when you think of it correctly, both of them are the result of this economic principle and no one has recognized the fact that we can tie all this together." So as theories become stronger, they generally become simpler and more general. So an increase in simplicity and generality means that you can bring more apparently different phenomenon under a single explanatory umbrella and that's interesting to say, you think this is different but it's the same. So it's both a good research technique if you can do it, and it's engaging to the reader. So if you're not sure how to start thinking in those terms then the easiest one here is "Theory says this thing, empirical results say this. Do we need a better theory or better testing?" Anybody can do that because the journals are just full of those kinds of contradictions. I'm not saying that's perfect but it's a good way to get started. Petersen: Yeah, and economics has a lot of theories and a lot of empirical work and a lot of them point in different directions. So you don't have to look far to find those kind of contradictions. So another tip you give is to write and then to squeeze other things in. This is a scheduling thing. What would be the wrong way to schedule your writing? Munger: Well there's the sort of macro or general approach and the micro part of it. The macro approach is to think, "I need big blocks of time to write. And since I have to teach a class and go to a class, I have to teach a section of a class, or I have a meeting that I have to go to, or there's a talk this afternoon, I can't write because I don't have time." Actually you can only write for about 20 minutes at a time. The problem is it takes you ten minutes of thinking to get to the point where you're thinking clearly enough to write so it takes you 30 minutes to write for 20 minutes and if you get interrupted you can't start again. It usually takes another 10 minutes to get started. So it is true that you do need some blocks of time. But if you can just find an hour somewhere, that's enough for two of those 30 minute blocks, you can get quite a bit done. After you've been writing for 20 minutes you have probably have to stop get up and get a cup of tea, walk around because you can't concentrate for that long. So all you need is an hour or so to be able to write. So the macro consideration is---don't think, "Well since I have two meetings this day I can't write anything." The micro consideration is when to find the particular hour or two that you're going to write. And what many people do is they schedule their meetings or classes they have to teach at times when they're the sharpest mentally and that's a mistake. What you need to do is find the time that you're sharpest mentally, for me it's first thing in the morning, for many people it might be late at night. I'm a little skeptical of the late night because they waste all the time between 9 PM and 1 AM and then they write for one hour and say, "Man I really worked 'till 2 o'clock. That was great!" Yeah but what about the four hours between 9 PM and 1 AM? So I'm not so sure about the late night people, but OK fair enough. Let's suppose they actually are using their time wisely. Pick the time that you're the most mentally sharp and schedule your time to the extent that you can control it to make sure that is reserved for writing and schedule everything else around it and what I found is that I can take the time when I am least mentally sharp which is between about 3 and 7 PM and I try to schedule my teaching then. Now that seems cynical, but I like teaching so much. And there's the energy that you get back from students that are interested and interesting, it's like super caffeine. So you can actually get up for teaching or leading discussion sections or maybe even go in for a talk---at times that you otherwise would have wasted or would be down time because those are social. Those are things where you're getting feedback. Writing there is no feedback. There's no one saying, "yes that's interesting." It's just you thinking, "Lord, I can't finish this paragraph. I'm an idiot." So you need to be at your mental best to be able to get through that. Petersen: I think for me it probably would be the morning. I've got to jot down all these tips. Of course, I'm a graduate student so this is especially relevant to me. When should I be writing, how should I be writing. Munger: You're still forming habits and learning about yourself, but thinking in these terms means that you'll get a head start. Petersen: You mentioned that taking 10 minutes to get into writing and then doing 20 minutes of good writing. I think that lines up with the research people have done on flow. The idea that people self-hypnotize into a very productive, very focused state. And then if you break your flow then it actually takes a while to get back into it. You're self-aware for a while you're not as focused, as productive. Munger: So a two-minute interruption doesn't cost you two minutes it costs you 12. Petersen: Yeah, you need to find a place and a time where those two minute interruptions don't happen. Munger: Yes and it doesn't take long. If you can get an hour and a half or two hours 4-5 days a week, you will be a famous and successful academic. Petersen: Yay! That's what we want to hear. Munger: The good news is anybody can do this. I find it so frustrating that they don't. By that I mean anyone smart enough to get into graduate school has plenty of good ideas, they just don't write them. Petersen: That is sad, because there's such a high payoff to getting the writing done. But I guess it's sort of a delayed reward where you need a lot of self-control to be able to seize that payoff. Munger: Garrett, you're going to graduate school! Clearly you are interested in delayed reward because you could have a job at a Donut Shop and have your own apartment and have money be able to go to bars not worry at weekends. Graduate school by its nature is one of the most, the strongest ways of putting off any sort of satisfaction into the distant future. So yes, it's a later payoff. But why would you go to graduate school and then not do the thing that actually will result in the payoff that you've apparently planned for. Here's the thing, a journal article---when you're in graduate, when you're starting your career---a refereed journal article will inflect upward your career trajectory and earnings by at least ten thousand dollars, one article. If it's in a pretty top journal, it's twenty-five thousand dollars. So, if you write an article and publish it, that's twenty-five thousand dollars. There's nothing else you're doing that has a higher payoff. Yes, it's delayed but it's not delayed that much and you're already in graduate school; you're already living a miserable existence. Petersen: I'm lucky because my wife actually works in the real world. So I'm covered but (chuckles). Munger: All right. Yes, you can remind her that you married better than she did. Petersen: Yeah, I mean I'm sure she doesn't need much reminding. Munger: As long as she doesn't remind you of that. Petersen: Oh yeah. Try to avoid that. Munger: Well I see graduate students who will teach during the summer and get paid $4000. You can write an article in the summer. That's at least $10,000. It makes no sense, your discount rate would be have to be awful high. If your discount rate is that high, why are you spending six years in graduate school in the first place? Petersen: Yeah, that is the question. But yeah, I suppose you could be credit constrained, but that's a whole other issue. Munger: You'd have to be really constrained for that to make sense because you can probably eat just beans and oatmeal for a couple of months. And the payoffs to writing an article really are huge because the way that it works out is, the first job that you get is a 2-2 teaching load at a research school and smart colleagues and the ability to go to conferences because they'll pay for it, or a 4-4 teaching load with colleagues that hate you and their own existence and give no support, no outside talk. So even if the same person, a clone of the same person, starts in those two jobs, the difference in their career trajectory is going to be enormous! Plus you already have a journal article published, so you'll start with a higher salary. So that first job makes a big difference to where you'll be in ten years. So you have to be pretty credit constrained not to take that into consideration Petersen: The way it works with the ten thousand, it's not that you get a ten thousand dollars payment it's that you get a bigger raise or a bigger starting salary. Munger: With better colleagues, more articles, you have the ten thousand as the present value. Well, but again, an economist should understand present value and they're in graduate school so they must have a low discount rate. So those are the ones I would expect to say I'm not going to teach. I'm going to borrow against my own future earnings. I'm going to loan myself this money and live really cheaply and write an article instead of teaching. Petersen: Oh man, I'm just jotting all this down. OK, "don't teach in the summer." Of course some teaching is important, you do need to become a good teacher. Munger: Yes, the kind of teaching that we tend to do, in the summer is pretty different, but you should. There's no question, you should be able to point to one class that you have yourself designed the syllabus for and have primary responsibility for teaching and grading when you go on the market. So I'll give you one---over five years, yes you should have taught one class yourself. Petersen: But TA'ing is not good. It pays but it doesn't pay as well as writing. Munger: Right, and when you go on the market and they say what teaching experience do you have and you say well I TA'd four times, they're going to stare at you like you're an idiot because you are. Petersen: OK so one tip you give in the article is to edit your work over and over. So what is the editing process like for you? Munger: Well it's terrible. I've written a number of books, I just was yesterday working on an analytical book review that's about 15 pages long and I looked at it this morning and said, "half of this is unusable." So I crossed it out and started over, I was thinking it was almost done and then I thought, oh no this is stupid. So even just one day later, I looked at it with much more critical eyes. So I would say it takes me at least ten complete rewrites to get to the point where I think my article is worth showing to someone else and then they usually have comments that require me to rewrite it at least two more times. So the difficulty is everybody's first drafts are bad. Now I do have a talent. I write extremely fast but badly. If you had to pick that would be a pretty good way to be an academic because I also edit fast so I can go through, I can do a rewrite pretty quickly and every time I rewrite it becomes dramatically better. So there are people who write very slowly but well, they are going to have more trouble because a lot of times you don't know enough about your subject. It's well written but the subject is not very good because you need to learn more about it. So I have to admit I learned this in some ways from a master. Douglas North was one of my dissertation advisors and Douglas North won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993. And Doug was famous for going and giving a talk, and it would be twelve pages long and have four citations, two to Douglas North, one to Adam Smith and one to more a recent economics paper. And the people in the audience would say, "Doug, this is terrible. If you were going to do this, here's what you have to do. You need to go read these five papers, all of them have written on your subject and they're better than yours." And he would write it down. He would write down their names he would make sure he got the citations. And next time he presented the paper, now it would have nine citations, before he started out with a five that had been suggested to him and he had added all of the suggestions and the paper actually wasn't terrible now but still people would see it and say, "Oh no, no, no, here's what you need to do." So he would go around---and it was almost as if he was outsourcing the references because he didn't read anything unless somebody said it was relevant---and he was outsourcing a lot of the ideas. And he would thank everyone, I'm not saying he was plagiarizing. He would gratefully acknowledge the suggestions of so and so in a footnote he might say this was suggested by so and so. But you write it, you go present it, you get comments, you think about it, you write it again, that is the way to be successful. And when it comes to editing, one of the things that you can avail yourself of---and this actually has become kind of a meme---people argue about whether they're "Munger compliant." Munger compliant means that you have three articles in journals, and if you don't have three articles in journals all the time, you're not Munger compliant. Well the reason that that's important is, think in comparison to computer programming. So if I'm going to write a program or a job and send it to a computer, I don't stare at the code and try to make sure that the logic and syntax are correct. I submit the job and then it will come back with error message: here at this step you've left out a semi colon. So it won't run. You can't compile the code that you've written and it won't run. Nobody stares at the code to figure it out. They submit it to the computer and get back the error message. That's how journals work; you get this off your desk. You don't stare at the paper over and over again to make sure the code works, you send it to a journal. Now yes it takes a few months, that's why you have to have three papers out at all times, you have to diversify your portfolio of risk because there's a random element to this. Some good papers get turned down but some not very good papers get accepted because you get a lucky draw on the referee. So you send it out, it comes back, the referee says, "no no here's what you should do, add these five references." It's sort of like what Doug North did. And you do it, it becomes a much better paper. I've had some of my better papers turned down at five journals before they were finally published. And when they were published, they were pretty good, but that was because I had outsourced a lot of the research to smart referees. So you should think of that as machine-intensive debugging. Machine-intensive debugging means I don't debug my own program. I submit it to the computer and it comes back with an error message. Well I submit my articles to journals, they come back with three really smart people working unpaid as my research assistants. Now yes, they do say that "you're an idiot and your mother should never have been born," they make comments you want to ignore but by and large their suggestions improve your paper dramatically. So you should always try to be Munger compliant. I told some of my graduate students, there will come a day when you will be upset when one of your papers is accepted because you will no longer be compliant. And a good friend of mine who is now a tenured full professor in England just wrote me and said, "Darn it, that finally happened. I got a paper accepted and I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, 'I only have two papers at journals! I have to go write something!'" That's a sign you're a success. Petersen: Yeah, when you think about, I like what you said about the research assistants. If you wanted to hire twenty tenured faculty as research assistants you'd have to pay them thousands upon thousands of dollars. But you walk into a seminar room and give a bad talk and suddenly they're all throwing out suggestions and comments and they're being your research assistants for free. Munger: And very helpful and they're grateful if you take their comment seriously. So that's actually---there's nothing wrong with doing that. The research enterprise is more collaborative than most people are willing to admit even to themselves, and the reason is because those useful comments come wrapped in, "you're an idiot." But if you can unwrap that and just take the kernel, the content of the message---because a lot of times when you give a seminar one of the problems with giving a seminar is you learn all the problems with the paper. And economists are pretty harsh and aggressive about making their criticism. Think of them as research assistants and it makes you much more receptive. I was surprised, Doug North---this was after he won the Nobel Prize---people would just viciously say, "This is completely worthless. I would be embarrassed to write this and I don't have a Nobel Prize. I don't see how you can do this." And Doug would just nod and then they would say, "Here's what you should do." He'd write it down and thank them it didn't make him mad at all, he didn't care. Petersen: OK, so developing a thick skin seems to be an asset here. Munger: No what you said is right. Think of them as research assistants. What do you care what your research assistant thinks of you as long as they help. Petersen: Yeah, they do a good job they give you your suggestions, you sift through them and make your work better. Munger: Often when I get back referee reports and they're harsh, it'll take me a day to get over them. Oh man, I thought this was a good paper and they didn't like it. But then I will literally take a printout and take a black magic marker and redact the parts that are just ad hominem attacks. I don't care about those. And then if you look at what's left, it's usually a pretty good structure for revising your paper. Petersen: OK, yeah I'll have to do that. Munger: It sounds simple and hokey, but you don't care about the things that are just saying this is terrible. I had one referee report that said I would rather hack my way through the jungle with a penknife than have to read this paper again and I thought "Ow!" And then I took a black magic marker and marked it out and the rest of the report was pretty useful. The question is why you would put someone else in charge of how you feel? So don't do that, you're going to be in charge of how you feel and you're going to use, to your own benefit, the fact that smart people made good comments on your paper. Petersen: We have this sort of mythology of the solitary genius. Are you saying that that is not a way to live your life? Munger: Oh no that's exactly how you should live your life, if you're a genius. Petersen: But most of us aren't. Munger: For the rest of us who are not, no, that's not the way to live your life. So absolutely, I know I have friends, in fact one of my colleagues, Melvin Hinich, with whom I had three books, was unbelievably smart. He was able to do things with very little effort and he would often just throw out ideas and let someone else write them up because he was bored with writing them. So if you're smart enough, yes you can totally do that. My message is, all you have to be is basically average intelligence for a graduate student and if you spend a lot of time learning how to write you will also be a success. Maybe more successful than that solitary genius. It's not fair but it's true. Petersen: A part of it is humility. To realize when you are not a solitary genius and when you need help. But couldn't the genius also do better if he used other people as his research assistants and did all the things that a non-genius would do? Munger: Sure. Yes, but they're not willing to spend the effort for the most part because they've never had to. There are people that are just so good at sprinting or so good at swimming, that as long as they practice pretty hard, they don't need to worry about learning other techniques. So, one of the reasons that I am a coach about writing is that I was such a terrible writer. Most people who are really, really good at something are terrible coaches because they have a knack for it. It's the people who had to scrap at the margin, and who weren't really all that good but managed to be at least somewhat of a success because they thought about technique and they focused on getting better. Those are the best coaches. In almost every sport that I know of, the best coaches were the marginal players and I was a marginal player. So the reason that I talk about writing is that I was terrible at it Petersen: But you are now a success and we can all learn from your example. Munger: I am now a Philosopher and not a Street Porter. Petersen: Yes. So do you have any closing thoughts about writing? What's the core message you want people to take away from this. Munger: Well, William Riker, who was one of the founders of the rational choice school of public choice in political science, said that most of the people who get into academics do it because they're interested in teaching. And a lot of times they're confused and they think that teaching involves work in a classroom with students. And that's important, but the real teaching is the one that takes place through writing because once you've learned something, if you actually understand it, you can explain it to someone else and the advantage of writing it is that you can communicate this teaching to someone distant in time or someone distant in space. So the most important teaching is writing and if you think of yourself as a teacher, it's really important that you work on your writing because that's how you're going to be able to communicate this understanding that you have. Understanding is ephemeral. A lot of times when you work on something for a long time, you think "Oh now I see it! That's actually simple." Well if you don't write that down it's going to be hard for someone else to replicate that moment of understanding. But if you do write it down and you explain it clearly, you've added something to the human capital of the world: what we're able to hand down, the things that we no longer have to think about because we understand them. The more you understand, the simpler things become. Petersen: My guest today has been Mike Munger. Mike, thanks for being on Economics Detective Radio. Munger: It was a pleasure Garrett, thank you.  

So you think you know how to use the DateTime struct in C#? You might be surprised.

The most powerful currency in the world is not what you think. Not anymore. We're turning to a new economy with two powerful currencies. And you have an opportunity, right now, to build a more fulfilling and rewarding life. I'm going to tell you what these two currencies are and how to leverage them successfully. I'll tell you what works for me. But before I do, I want to introduce you to Derek Sivers. He's an influential thinker, speaker, entrepreneur and the zen master of entrepreneurship writing. If you're starting a business, you have to read his book, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur. It's in my top three. Derek built his business, CD Baby, around doing people favors. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. Derek later sold CD Baby for $22M and gave the proceeds to charity. "If you focus entirely on others the world seems to reward you the most," he says. That's one of the two most powerful currencies today: favors. But there are limits. "You have to serve others within the limits of what you're able to sustainably do. You can't do something that makes you absolutely miserable," he says. That's choosing yourself. I got a lot of ideas from interviewing Derek, which is the other currency: ideas. But you already knew that. Derek moved to New Zealand. He takes 3-day hikes, spends 30 hours a week with his family, and answers thousands of personal emails asking for his advice. He wrote a list of his priorities and said "I don't want to do anything else right now. (No more interviews or speaking at conferences until further notice.)" This is his last interview for awhile. I'm grateful he chose me. Chose us. And chose himself. I encourage you to write him. And listen to this interview. Share what you learned.  I wrote a list -- 7 ways to a "make a killing" and master the new economy. Because Derek quoted Kevin Kelly, futurist and founder of Wired. He said, "We should focus on making a living, not on making something huge." Derek changed it to "It's about making a living, not making a killing." To me, that's success in the new economy. 7 ways to a "make a killing" and master the new economy: A) Leave in the cracks Derek was listening to Sheryl Crow. But he didn’t know it was her. Her voice cracked. And she got his attention. "That little fault is what made me like her," Derek said. B) Admit your faults I know I'm bad at a lot of things. Derek gave an example. When I interviewed Ramit Sethi, I admitted I forgot to read something. And I wasn't totally prepared. "To me it kind of seems like a brilliant way of asking the world to love you," Derek said. And maybe it is. Everyone wants love. How sad is it that we, as humans, contemplate hiding ourselves? We have two choices: be yourself or fear being yourself. C) You can always disappear from your problems But do you want to? Did Kurt Cobain kill himself because he was too famous? Or because he got everything he wanted? And didn’t know what to do with it. We always want things. Happiness, love, appreciation. But then do we ask for the right things? Raises, promotions, more responsibility, less freedom? You can choose f-ck you money and f-ck you problems. Or you can focus on happiness. That’s what Derek did. He had a company, CD Baby. It’s basically the original iTunes. People said he’d get a lot of money with an IPO. But he didn’t do it. "What's the point of making money?" Derek said, "It's to be happy." "And if it would make me unhappy to have so much responsibility then I'd rather not make more money. I'd rather just focus on the happiness." D) Do more favors Anyone can do this. Derek started by selling old CDs online. He made money right away. So people asked for favors. Can you sell my old CDs? He said yes. And it spread. Friends of friends asked. Then strangers and soon he had a profitable business. But do it for yourself first. Learn the skill. Then, do it as a favor for someone else. See if more people ask. And then you have a business that cost you no money to create. E) Answer asks Derek didn’t offer to sell his friend’s CDs. They asked him. "By doing favors for people it implies that people are asking you to do those favors and to me the key is the asking," he says. "Bluntly put, you shouldn't start a business unless people are asking you to." F) Passion is poison Only search for passion if searching for passion is your passion. We're brainwashed to believe we're not alive. That we need a purpose. But you're alive. Passion or no passion, you are alive. Derek says, "Instead, just follow the little things that interest you. Just notice on a day-to-day basis what you're drawn towards." G) Only have good goals That's how Derek became "a writer, speaker, thinker kind of guy." The idea came to him. And suddenly he was inspired. "I put so much work into this and then within nine months I was speaking at TED in front of Bill Gates, Larry Page and all these intimidating people." He says, "A good goal is one that actually changes your actions in the moment. Goals are not about the future," he says. "Goals are about changing the present moment, changing your present actions." Listen now to my podcast with Derek Sivers. And let us know what you think. derek@sivers.org @jaltucher Resources and Links: Email Derek - derek@sivers.org Read his list of priorities. And get inspiration to write your own. Read his book Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur Follow Derek on Facebook & Twitter Watch his TED talks: Weird or Just Different?, How to start a movement, Keep your goals to your self. Also mentioned: Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow Blue Microphones Yeti Sponsor Freshbooks - the #1 invoicing software for small businesses. I know and work with people who use Freshbook. It's a really easy service. If you're a freelancer or have your own business, I recommend Freshbooks for you. Go to www.freshbooks.com/james and let them know I sent you. Thanks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can give you your prescription. 処方箋が出ています。 ◆会計窓口で―領収書・診断書・処方箋を渡す ブラウンさん（B）が会計窓口（C）にやって来ました。 C：May I have your name, please? お名前をお願いします。 B：Thomas Brown. トーマス・ブラウンです。 C：You are paying for the visit yourself? Here is the bill. 自費診療ですね。料金はこちらになります。 B：Can I use this credit card? このカードは使えますか。 C：Sure. Here are your receipt and your medical certificate. And I can also give you your prescription. 大丈夫です。これが領収書と診断書です。それから処方箋も出ています。 B：Where can I find a pharmacy? 薬局はどこにありますか。 C：If you go out of the hospital, you can find one just on the left. Here’s the map.  病院を出てすぐ左にあります。これが地図です。 B：Oh, I see. Thanks. わかりました。ありがとうございます。 【ワードチェック！】 pay for the visit yourself：自費で診療費を払う　bill：請求書　prescription：処方箋　medical certificate：診断書　pharmacy：薬局　just on the left：すぐ左に  【ミニ解説】 窓口の人たちの印象も大切です。英語でも笑顔で応答できると素晴らしいですね。患者さんの名前をたずねるときから，May I have your name, please? のような丁寧な表現で聞きましょう。また，支払いに関する表現は，誤解を生じないよう，はっきりと言ってください。渡す書類は名称をはっきり言って渡します。薬局の案内まできちんとできるとよいですね。 薬局はpharmacyあるいはdrugstoreで，薬剤師はpharmacistです。英国では薬剤師はchemistで，薬局はchemistまたはchemist’s となります。