Podcasts about cognitively

Depression doesn't discriminate—even among the faithful. Exploring the often-taboo intersection of Christianity and depression, this episode tackles the persistent question many believers struggle with: Can a Christian experience depression?The answer is a resounding yes. Drawing from scripture, professional experience, and personal struggle, I unpack how approximately 7.6 million Christians in America silently battle depression while facing the added burden of stigma within their faith communities. This stigma creates a painful paradox where those who most need support feel unable to seek it without judgment or shame.Depression manifests across multiple dimensions of human experience. Cognitively, it creates brain fog and difficulty concentrating. Emotionally, it weighs down the spirit with persistent sadness. Behaviorally, it leads to withdrawal from activities and relationships that once brought joy. Physically, it disrupts sleep, appetite, and overall wellbeing. For Christians specifically, depression often adds a fifth dimension—spiritual struggle—where prayers feel unanswered and God's presence seems distant despite intellectual understanding of His love.As both a therapist with over 65,000 clinical hours and someone who has personally wrestled with depression, I share insights from my recently re-released book "Getting a Grip on Depression." This episode marks the beginning of a five-part series offering practical, proven tools for understanding and overcoming depression while maintaining faith. Through it all, we're reminded of the hope found in Psalm 42:11: "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God." Even in our darkest moments, God's presence remains constant, offering the light that guides us toward healing.If you've ever felt alone in your struggle with depression as a believer, this episode affirms your experience and offers a pathway forward that honors both your faith and your need for comprehensive support. Subscribe to join me on this journey toward resilience and renewed hope.Fan Mail Text Space

When we make certain choices, often without even realizing it, we can turn a teaching moment from one that should be clear into one that's confusing. Luckily, these choices are pretty easy to spot and fix once we know what to look for, and cognitive science can help us understand what's going on. In this episode I'm going to talk about three of these with Blake Harvard, who writes the Effortful Educator blog and has just published a new book, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning. Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode. To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to Blake's book, visit cultofpedagogy.com/cognitive-overload.

Lesley Logan chats with Mark Collins, author of Life Mastery, on why success alone never silences imposter syndrome. They explore how to shift from life “management” to true life “mastery” by discovering who you really are apart from your titles and achievements. Mark reveals how reframing your identity ignites confidence and frees you from fear. If you're ready for practical steps to live from your true worth, this episode is a must-hear.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Why success alone cannot end imposter syndrome.The power of forming "I am" statements for stronger identity.How life mastery outperforms simple habit management.How daily affirmations rewire thoughts.Practical tactics to affirm worth over old limiting labels.Episode References/Links:Mark Collins Website - https://www.freedom-for-life.netLife Mastery - Life by Design by Mark Collins - https://a.co/d/bf0KDuoMark Collins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreedForLifeMark Collins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_freedomforlifeMark Collins YouTube: https://beitpod.com/markyoutubeMark Collins LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mark-collins-freedom-for-lifeGuest Bio:Mark Collins is a personal success strategist and author of the book Life Mastery: Living Life by Design, Not by Default, known for helping business professionals and entrepreneurs unlock their “hero in hiding.” Drawing from over 500 client engagements and his own journey of overcoming imposter syndrome, Mark teaches that success alone cannot substitute for a strong sense of identity. Through his Life Mastery program—a comprehensive course rooted in practical tools and mindset shifts—he guides individuals to master their thoughts, words, and actions so they can break free from fear of failure and self-doubt. Mark's approach centers on clarifying one's “I am” statements, ensuring people live from who they are truly created to be, rather than from past labels or limiting beliefs. By emphasizing transformation over mere habit management, he enables clients to excel across all areas of life—professionally and personally—through genuine, identity-based change. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS!Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox Be in the know with all the workshops at OPCBe It Till You See It Podcast SurveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates MentorshipFREE Ditching Busy Webinar Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable Pilates Follow Us on Social Media:InstagramThe Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channelFacebookLinkedInThe OPC YouTube Channel Episode Transcript:Mark Collins 0:00  No, there is no healthy imposter syndrome, because at the end of the day, what imposter syndrome says is I'm not qualified for where I'm at.Lesley Logan 0:07  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:50  Okay, Be It babe. Here's the deal. This episode is gonna be one you listen to multiple times. I wanted to, in real time, rewind and relisten. It's so good. Our guest is Mark Collins. He's the author of Life Mastery and I really am obsessed with there's always a lot of people who want to talk about imposter syndrome, and this is the first time I've been like, yes, this guy, this guy actually really understands imposter syndrome and how to not let it master your life or take over like, he's so good, and he's got some great phrases that you will want to put on Post-Its and read every day to remind yourself how freaking amazing you are and what you're here on this planet to do. So I am just fired up. I'll also just be really honest, he's, this was the last Zoom call of a day where I started on Zoom at 6 am and I was like, okay, who am I interviewing? Oh, I'm interviewing Mark Collins. Oh, I really like this guy. The interview does not disappoint. I'm so excited. Now, I will also say this, I'm a fast talker. If you already aren't good at listening to me at 1.5 speed, good job. But you may want to slow this down to one because Mark Collins also can meet me at my speed. And so I recognize we're both fast talkers. We both recognize we're fast talkers. We could work on that. But also, I think our brains are just going a little too fast, so you might want to put us on one or point seven five. You can do that in your app. But also feel free to rewind. And then also on our website, we have the transcripts of the show, so you can also go back, read what any of the parts are that you loved. And I can't wait to hear how this helps you. Please let us know. Please tag Mark. Please tag the Be It Pod. And here is Mark Collins.Lesley Logan 2:25  All right, Be It babe. I am super excited because our guest today caught my attention when he talked about imposter syndrome. And you know how we can actually not deal with that, and we can redesign our life. And as many times as I talk about like we have imposter syndrome, and often it's because we're new at something, so you're gonna be an imposter. A lot of times we feel imposter syndrome when we're not new. And so I'm just excited for Mark Collins to join us today. Mark, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?Mark Collins 2:50  Thanks, Lesley, and thanks for the conversation. I'm excited to be here. So I was to give somebody a one-sentence scenario about what I tried to do. What I tell them is that I help people to unlock and unleash their hero in hiding in their business relationships in life. We have strategies and tools to do that, but at the end of the day, my desire is to see the best of you come out and be the person you're supposed to be in all areas.Lesley Logan 3:13  I love that and that one sentence is like, just really great words in there. How did you get into this? Though? I think before we get into how to unlock that and unleash that and all that stuff, what made you go down this path?Mark Collins 3:26  Yeah, that's a great question. You know, people ask that usually about my book Life Mastery, or the course that's titled the same as well. And I tell people this, Lesley, that I didn't do it because I thought I had great ideas for other people to live out to be able to do those things to maximize their life, or whatever the thing is that there is their goal, but it really was something I desired for myself. In walking through, you know, my own personal development and trying to succeed in business or athletics or academics, what I found was some of those things you talked about, that imposter syndrome that came along for the ride. And what I found was you can't success away fear of failure or imposter syndrome, they just come along. And so when you're at that mountain top and you've had that success, if it's a challenge that you've dealt with, and just to be honest, Lesley, I haven't met a person yet who hasn't had something apart from a transformational journey. I've and a lot of people, a lot of them have had the same issues that I had. So for me, it came from a place of finding transformational tools, being able to have more than just habits that I maintain, but a lifestyle that I could live, you know, when you do that, you want to share it with people, you know. And so it started informally and sharing with friends and having thoughts and ideas and telling them, hey, I've tried this at you and really started to formalize it in a system, instead of giving them little nuggets here and there and to say, okay, well, how do I help somebody get from A to Z, from bound to healed, or from stress to set free? And so that's where the course in the systems came from. It came from my own life first, and then the opportunity to work with so many others afterwards.Lesley Logan 4:53  That's so cool. You just said you can't out success your imposter syndrome. What'd you say? Mark Collins 4:59  You can't success away imposter syndrome or fear or anxiety or any of the other things that we do.Lesley Logan 5:04  You are correct. You cannot. You're totally correct. In fact, the more you try, the more it's almost like you have more imposter syndrome or more anxiety.Mark Collins 5:12  Yeah. Well and the interesting thing, Lesley, is a lot of times we think you can, you know, we look for those people that are on our pedestals, whatever those are in your life, and we think, oh, he or she, they've got it all together. They can't have the issues and the struggles and things that I have, and I just need to get where they're at, and all of a sudden, I'll be that person as well. Everything will work out, won't have any anxiety, won't wake up at three in the morning like I've had in my past. And you find out that that's not the case. And it's interesting when I'm always surprised at the clients that I work with that have those levels of success, right? Their name plate's on the door. They're the person who's doing great things, but it's the person that you don't know. It's the person like I said, waking up at three in the morning. So, yeah, success is amazing. It's a poor substitute for identity, and it's never a place where you can overcome issues that are standing in the way.Lesley Logan 6:02  Yeah, yeah, you're so correct. First of all, I find it interesting. You said something like, we all like, okay, if I'm just like this person, then I'm going to be like this. Once I get to their level, then I'm going to feel free. And that is actually kind of the impetus of be it till you see it. Because I hate, I can't stand hearing when I have this, then I will. When this happens, then I will. It's, I don't want to wait for that to happen. A lot of those things can are like, kind of outsourced to other people. A lot of those things are like other people discovering you at the same time you're promoting it and also deciding to buy the thing that you have at the same, there's a lot of things in there. And so I'm like, how can I live like that right now? What if I was that person today? That's what be it till you see it is. And that's kind of where it came from. And so I just had to bring that up, because I was, oh, that's exactly what everyone does. Everyone was like, when I have this. I want to kind of go into, for the person who feels imposter syndrome on a regular basis, most of my listeners, hi guys, I see you. Is there any imposter syndrome that is healthy, or are there signs of imposter syndrome they may not know? Two questions there.Mark Collins 7:06  Yeah, that's a great couple of questions. And I think, is there imposter syndrome that is healthy? And I would, to be totally honest, and of course, I will be honest, because that's who you're clientele and the people listening want me to be. No. No, there is no healthy imposter syndrome, because at the end of the day, what imposter syndrome says is I'm not qualified for where I'm at, whether it's in your business or relationship, you're in the boardroom, you're creating something on your own, you're a creative individual, or you're just in a relationship, or you're a new parent, right? One of the moments of imposter syndrome for me was having my daughter placed into my hands when she was born, and knowing I'm not qualified. Well, unfortunately, in many cases, imposter syndrome is me saying I'm not qualified for this. Whatever it is. You know? Whatever you've got as your item, that's what it is. And the truth of the matter is, as I talk to the people that I work with, it's in the thing that we talked about, your hero in hiding. I believe everybody has a hero in hiding. You have the person you're created to be, that be it person that you're talking about, and you have the person that shows up. And it's either coming from who you're, what I say, who you're created to be, or your life has told you. Well, imposter syndrome is me looking at my past and having informed my present and creating my future and saying that, well, because I wasn't able to last time, I can't do it this time, or because I didn't succeed in that business, I won't be able to do it this time. It's those thoughts that try and sabotage you, stop you and control the outcomes that you have in your life. So is it ever positive? Absolutely not. But congratulations if you have it. Because at the end of the day, I love people who do because those are the people who are really reaching for something in their life. When I'm comfortable and I've got all the answers and everything's working and I'm not too stressed, I'm not really trying very hard, well, imposter syndrome isn't coming up because it's just me being chill, but it's in those times and places, right, that man and woman who is reaching for higher ground, they're looking for that amazing goal, those wonderful things that they want to do in their life, that it comes up. But what we try to do is help them to understand. The one thing I tell you is, you're the answer to the circumstance you're walking into. You're not the question to be figured out.Lesley Logan 7:08  Thank you for that. I really enjoyed that. The whole answer. I mean, it's true. When, I just had the moment of imposter syndrome earlier, before this call, and it was absolutely because I was thinking, what if this doesn't work? And I was basing it off of the things that haven't worked in the past, I totally did it. I used the past to direct the present. Instead of going actually, like, this is going to work because of all these different reasons. And also, if it doesn't work, I will absolutely take the steps to figure out why it didn't work and do it again. I know that about myself, so it's really funny how it can sneak up upon us. And it's also because I really care. I really care about what this thing is going to be and what it can do for people. So you talked about becoming a dad, but can you share any other instances where imposter syndrome kind of affected you and how you handled that?Mark Collins 9:49  Yeah, absolutely. In business, right? So my wife and I, we've been successful entrepreneurs, and I'm sure, like in everybody else's business, there's those times when your output of finances don't equal your income coming in the door where, you know it was a client-based business. And so your bills are static. They happen every month, whether you have clients or not, whether they make their payments or not, whether they're late or not. And so, of course, there were those circumstances where, you know clientele would dip because of the recession issues challenges with whatever, right? Everybody has challenges in their life, but the bills are still coming in. And in those places, for me, it was that point of saying, I don't know if this was the right decision. Those things, when things aren't going well, then all of a sudden you question whether you're making the right choices. And if I can unpack something really quickly. So what I tell again, like I said before, if, what I tell people is that you learn from who you're created to be or what your life has told you. Well, we all have a past and a life that's told us something, many somethings in our life, and what we talked about as a foundation of Life Mastery is starting from identity. Who you're created to be. And in that place, you start to unpack and see some things in your life. Well, this guy who's got financial challenges, right? Like with every business, it's not all roses and sunshine. And in that place, you hearken back to understand who you are. And that, for me, was a young man who was struggling in school and having challenges with mathematics, and you know, some of the things that you're doing academically well, that young man at five, six, seven, eight, nine years old, who was struggling in one of his classes. Well, there's an identity statement that comes along with your experiences. It's never just your experience, but what's the experience tells you about you? Because we all have good and bad that we walk through. But the challenge is, what does it say about you? What's the identity statement that you're taking from it? So that young man who's struggling in school, believe it or not, I don't know about the schools you went to, but the ones that I went to, they didn't look too kindly on you if you couldn't cut it academically, and certainly your friends and the people around you let you know that. Well, that young man felt like he wasn't as smart as everybody else. So fast forward. Identity statement. When you're an adult, still succeeding, still doing great things, right, got my bachelor's degree, have a successful business, but then there's a financial downturn, and what happens is those thoughts come in your head. Imposter syndrome is another form of identity sabotage. It's saying this, you're not good enough. And in that place, what do you go back to? Oh, okay, well, it's because you're not as smart as, you're not as qualified as, you're not as good as, or whatever the thing is you're telling yourself. And so for us, it's understanding. How do you unpack it so you understand the truth? See, the truth of that young man was he was temporarily academically challenged. He wasn't somebody that was defective. He wasn't somebody that wasn't as good as. Come to find out, when I went to college, I took mathematics all the way up and passed all the way through calculus, which at that time was the highest level of math you could qualify for. Well, certainly I wasn't somebody who wasn't as smart as everybody else, even though you succeed afterwards, those identity statements come along. And you know this, Lesley, right? Because you know people in your own life, or people in the TMZs and all of the people that are famous where they try and overcome who they believe they are, but the success they have, but they sabotage themselves and ruin everything.Lesley Logan 12:54  Yes. Mark Collins 12:54  So it's always you showing up as who you are, and success, as I said before, is just a poor substitute for identity. But when you start to live from who you are instead of what your life has told you now, all of a sudden, you're unleashed into the world as a person you're created to be.Lesley Logan 13:09  Yeah, I want to live more like that all the time. Is that even, is that possible? Is it possible to live a life without imposter syndrome and fully as who I am and not what I, what my past is?Mark Collins 13:21  Yes, absolutely. Lesley Logan 13:23  Is it something that takes a long time to de- as a deprogramming? How does someone kind of identify those situations, of what stories are being living themselves by? And also, it sounds like there's coping mechanisms, like, it sounds like success is a coping mechanism for the thing that they're trying to deal with.Mark Collins 13:40  Yeah, absolutely. And so I'll take the last one first, and what it is is really what we've all been taught, or we all have assumed, right? So whether it's media or family or experiences that we've walked through, we've all assumed that when I've, whatever, gotten that trophy or got that level of income or have that amazing car in my driveway, well now all of a sudden, everything else is gravy. Everything works out. We look at the outside of somebody without understanding the inside. And so it's not any harm or foul by anybody. It's just this is kind of the system, which is why, you know, by the way, my book is called Life Mastery: Living Life By Design, Not By Default.Lesley Logan 14:13  Yes.Mark Collins 14:13  What I tell people is that everybody I know, apart from a transformational journey, is living from default. And it's that place of understanding that if I change my outward, it'll change my inward. When the opposite is true when I change my inward, everything outside of me changes. Another way of putting it, that I tell people is when I understand who I'm created to be, my world lines up. When I don't know who I'm created to be, my world has to make up the difference, and so I have to succeed to feel worthy. I have to have a relationship to feel loved. I have to have income to feel like I'm a person of value. (inaudible)Lesley Logan 14:46  I would have to rewind what you just said, because you just said something the way that we are wanting the world to see us like if we're waiting for the world to (inaudible) in us, that's, that is, I think, how a lot of people are feeling right now, like I've had so many people who are reacting to so many different things that are outside of their control, and they're like, this is gonna affect me this way, and this is gonna affect me this way. And I think that's human nature. But what you just said that if we actually come from ourselves, then we don't feel that way, don't fall out of that control. Am I right?Mark Collins 15:15  Exactly. So if I don't understand who I'm created, if I don't understand my identity, then my world has to make up the difference.Lesley Logan 15:21  Yes. Mark Collins 15:22  And it is that place of default, which is what we've always been shown. It's what is highlighted on social media. And you know, I mean, there's no harm or foul in any of it, and certainly not for us in trying to use it. But what we find, as you found as well, and I know in my life also is it doesn't work. Success is great, right? But at the end of the day, if success is all I have, then it's empty when I get there.Lesley Logan 15:43  Yeah. Mark Collins 15:43  And it lasts for about 10 minutes and then I have to do it again. Lesley Logan 15:46  Yeah. Mark Collins 15:46  I think of a client of mine who had and is having multimillion-dollar transactions in the real estate and business development field. And for him, it was that thing where success was a relief, it wasn't a celebration. Because again, those thought patterns, the imposter syndrome, the fear of failure, those things that come along with it, really, every success was just a momentary ability to prove that you weren't somebody who was going to fail at it. The problem is it never changes you. It just gives you a momentary satisfaction that you have to repeat over and over again, the hamster wheel of success. And so if I could talk to your first question, can you get over imposter syndrome? Can it be something that you don't struggle with? Absolutely. That's actually the goal that we have in our course. A lot of the systems that we use are to give you the transformation. And I make the designation of change versus transformation.Lesley Logan 15:46  Okay. Mark Collins 15:46  Because when I was trying to figure it out my own life, trying to become the person, right, that man on the inside that I believed I could be, that wasn't always showing up, and I didn't plan on being the guy that was stressed out, sweating through my pajamas at three in the morning. It was just part of the anxiety and issues that came along with it. But I always believed there was somebody more. Tried personal development in a lot of ways and the problem with many of the programs that I did, they all give you results, and they all have benefits. The challenge is that many of them give you habits to manage your life, manage your anxiety, anger management. Say these mantras, bludgeon your thoughts over until they come into alignment with what you want to be. The problem is they never work. And here's the reason why, Lesley, because the habit I use to get there is the habit I have to maintain to stay there. And that doesn't sound like transformation or freedom. What it sounds like is exhaustion, because I don't believe that we have to maintain habits to again, bludgeon my thoughts into aligning with what I'm trying to believe I am. But what I do believe is, when you live from who you're created tobe, when you know who you are, then that's the easiest life possible. What I tell people is this, it's the easiest life ever living from a place of life mastery, because it's literally me just living from who I'm created to be at the highest level I'm created for in every area of life. What's exhausting is life management, which is me trying to attack my thoughts when they happen. It's that life by default, right? It's trying to attack them when they happen, expect that they'll always be there, you know, even to the point where I had this conversation with somebody who was eight or nine figure, multimillionaire, amazing person, and he said this. He said, with every business transaction, fear of failure comes in, and I have to wrestle with it. He says I guess that's just part of the process. It just drove me crazy, because the truth of the matter is that we're not meant to deal with fear of failure, and again, if you understand who you're created to be and live from that place, it's the easiest thing. I don't have to measure up to be who I am. I don't have to prove myself. I don't have to accomplish things to be who I am. I actually have accomplishment because of who I am, not to prove it. And in those places, you can have tools and strategies. We can talk about some of them, but the truth of the matter is, there's a better life.Lesley Logan 18:41  Okay, so I wanted to go into, I mean, I got really intrigued with Life Mastery and you kind of covered that a little bit, but I wanted to go into a couple more stories, because I think, I know my listeners, they see themselves in other people. And some of the things you brought up, I've seen myself, and I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely have been life managing. I want to life master. This sounds so much more fun. You've coached over 500 people, so I feel like you have to have a couple other transformative stories for us to hear about.Mark Collins 19:05  Yeah, absolutely. I think of a young man who highly successful in business, working within the government, and he was doing great in his job. The problem is he wasn't showing up at home. And so here's the interesting thing that you and I know, Lesley, it's that we think we can compartmentalize our emotions. And when I have stress at work, man, I'll just compartmentalize it. When I get home, I can be that bubbly personality that I'm supposed to be. The only person who thinks that is the person who's trying to do it. All the rest of us realize that. And so for this guy, he was having success in business, but with him again, living from who you're created to be or what your past has told you. For him, it was having a past that told him that relationships aren't safe. I can't trust other people, which is fine when you're single, but when you're married, it really doesn't lead to a great relationship.Lesley Logan 19:46  I'm like surprised he got married.Mark Collins 19:47  Yeah, well, you know, you do these things that you believe you're supposed to do, and it's the things that you're trying to do, and you, even in business, the interesting thing is, with people who are highly successful, the people I work with want more, they just don't know how to get there. They're like, this can't be everything. But the challenge is, so even in relationships, specifically, he wanted more in his relationship, he just didn't know how to get there. And so part of it was unpacking some of those lies and the issues that you've had of not being able to trust and therefore not being able to give, and in that place, showing up as a provider in his household, but not engaging emotionally, relationally or substantially within his household, it's that person you talk to which you can't really read, you can't really understand. And so for him, it was unpacking those things. It's starting to understand when I can show up as who I am. Well, I tell people this Lesley, when I understand who I'm created to be, my wife doesn't have to make up the difference. When I don't understand my identity, she does, and it's in every relationship, in all times, which means we need to be good, for me to be good, and there can't be stressor issues or challenges. I can't feel, you know? We can't have a hard conversation, because that could affect me, right? It's in business as well, in boardrooms and relationships with superiors and people that you have overseeing or business and trying to deal with clients the offense of other people in relationships can undermine you when you don't know who you are, when I know who I am, then I don't need you to prove it to me.Lesley Logan 21:09  Yeah. Mark Collins 21:10  And so for him, it was that place of being able to say, No, there's whatever the relationship is, I'm a person of worth and value. And in that place, you can give more of who you are when you're not worried about the results.Lesley Logan 21:24  I, there's so many good things in there. I think that, especially the couple thing like though, we have to be good for me to be good. Embarrassingly, I'm going to admit you guys, I have been binging out on some dating shows because they're not stressful for me. I'm not dating. I love my husband. We're good and we have a really lovely, healthy relationship. I don't need him to be good for me to be good.Mark Collins 21:44  That's awesome. Lesley Logan 21:45  But what you just said there, I watched and I'm like, oh, that's how I can tell who's gonna make it and who's not. Because I'm like, that person needs this person to complete them, and these people are just awesome on their own. You can see it, right? So I agree with everything you're saying there. I want to talk to the person who's kind of just beginning to recognize their battles with imposter syndrome. I think that a lot of people can get pretty far in life just dealing with it. Because, you know, especially if you put yourself in the right place, like you get a job, you do the thing, you can kind of not skate through because it's not going to be fun, but they're just beginning to deal with it, and now they're feeling it. And once you feel it, it's kind of hard to not feel it anymore. Is there anything that's in your book, or any tools that you have that could help them start their journey to the Life Mastery that you've been talking about?Mark Collins 22:27  Yeah, I love that. So the book is a mirror of my course called Life Mastery. And so the tools are in bulk. What I tell people about my book is it, I call it the Quick Start Guide to Life Mastery. So where the course is all the bells and whistles, the one-on-one coaching, and some of the other things that we have, you're able to take some nuggets in each of the chapters of the book and apply them. And what I tell people is, you can read something today, apply it this week, and find transformation this month. And so in that area, it all starts with this, Lesley, it starts with identity, who you're created to be. And so very early on, we're going to start to unpack understanding who are you apart from your things. And those things that we're talking about is your position, it's your title, it's your income, it's your possessions, it's the things that we believe make us we don't really say that they do until they're taken away. And all of a sudden it's, oh, okay, I lost my job, or my business is failing, or whatever the thing is, right? In many times we think that because I am okay on the outside, I'm okay on the inside, like I said. So the very first thing we do is say, okay, well, let's take away all of that and find out what's left, your character, your value, your worth. And for us, we tell people to write an "I Am" statement. Statement starts with "I am" everything else you fill in the blank. I am a person of character and worth. I'm a person of strength and value. I'm a person who finds answers to challenges. I'm a person who overcomes every problem that I face, or whatever the things are that are yours. Those are some of mine. It's the person that you are showing up. As I told you earlier, the thing I said was, you're the answer to the circumstance you're walking into. You're not the question to be figured out. When I understand who I am, I realize I'm the answer, which means that I'm fully capable in every circumstance. Doesn't mean every circumstance is amazing. Doesn't mean I have answers to every question that's going to come up. It means that I'm confident that I'm able and fully able to do everything I need to become and create a positive outcome to that situation.Lesley Logan 24:13  Oh my God, Mark. Oh my God. I want a thousand Post-Its, put "I Am" statements all over my office because I just want to see them all, and I want to read the transcripts of my own podcast, because you have way too many good quotes in there. You have such good things for like, there's a nugget for every person who's listening. You guys, you can rewind this and listen again. There's just so many good little nuggets you can chew on and think about. So thank you for that.Mark Collins 24:39  Absolutely. So what's the outcome of that when I start to show up and start to believe I'm that person, what people don't realize is not just this cool mindset hack and this positive affirmation that I'm telling myself when I'm speaking from the truth of who I am. Then now, all of a sudden, we could get to the neuroscience of it, and I don't need to. I'm a little bit nerdy sometimes. But here's the truth of the matter. Or I tell people this, and it's one of the strategies we use as well, which is mastering your thoughts. I tell them, Lesley, who you think you are, you'll become. And so what happens is, when I come in as the person who's the answer to the circumstance, not the question to be figured out. Now all of a sudden you have those empowering emotions like confidence and assurance and all the things that will bring answers. And so cognitively, you start to get answers. You start to find ideas. You start to get these solutions that may happen and the things you can do, and strategies and ways to navigate and to do those things. When you come as a person who's like, I don't know what's going to happen here. I'm not sure what's going to happen. Oh, this is a huge problem. I don't know how we're going to. Now, all of a sudden, you get disempowering emotions like anxiety and fear and worry and stress. And again, speaking about neuroplasticity, you have those chemicals that come into your body. You know, it's the fight or flight or freeze scenario where you're like, okay, well, stress happens. Or when I was walking through my Life Mastery journey, early on, anger would come up because, you know, oh, I can't believe whatever the things that are happening, none of them is leading you towards solutions. All of them are focusing on a problem. But again, when you show up as you understand that you're the answer. Now, biochemically, neurologically, you actually have answers. So it's not just some fluff and some pat on your back mindset information. It's actually showing up and giving yourself the best capability to be the best you in all circumstances.Lesley Logan 26:19  Yes, yes. That is so good. I mean, like, just even the idea of coming into the room knowing who you are, versus being a question to be solved, you guys, that's being it till you see it. Coming into the room as, like, that's just what it is.Mark Collins 26:32  Exactly. Lesley Logan 26:33  This is amazing. This is so good. Because I think I get really good at catching the imposter syndrome when it's happening, you know, like, I'm like, oh, I'm feeling the fear. This is a worry. This is me upper limiting. I'm sabotaging this right now. I actually know the answer. I kind of like talk myself through it, and I have told myself that that is fine and normal and wonderful. Am I wrong? And is overcoming imposter syndrome mean I don't even have the moments like that or that I actually recognize them and understand them to be false and can move forward with what I know?Mark Collins 27:02  That is a huge victory. That's a huge victory. So, so if you were to look back on our lives right, yourself, myself, anybody who's listening or watching, there's a time when that wasn't happening, there's a time when you would spiral into negativity and worry and stress and whatever the things are. So I tell people this Life Mastery isn't a moment. It's a journey, but it's a journey that has moments, and so in those times like that, I would invite my people to invest in is recognize those moments and celebrate the fact that, wow, I'm changing, I'm transforming, I'm growing. And it's those times when you recognize it, where you're like, what I tell people is this, it's not that negative emotions aren't happening or those thoughts won't come in, but they have no place to land, and they don't get to manipulate your life anymore. That's a huge victory. And then they'll become far and far in between, and then you'll find there's greater and greater levels of stress and challenge you can walk into without even having them show up, and you find out about it afterwards, you're like, I just locked into what I needed to do and got this thing done. I didn't even think about it. So it comes in stages, but every one of them is a celebration, because every one of them is, you know, Lesley or Mark or whoever the person is listening, it's you, transforming and changing, becoming that person. Again, that hero in hiding, showing up.Lesley Logan 28:13  Oh, I love that. Thank you for that compliment. Now I'm doing a great job and.Mark Collins 28:17  You are, though. That's amazing.Lesley Logan 28:19  Yeah, yeah, no. And I also like, what's really cool is they are fewer and farther. They don't happen next to each other, which is really great. And when they do, it's usually the same one twice. I was like, okay, hold on. You didn't really stop and think about that. Yes, listen, I have lots of conversations with myself. I'm an Aquarius. We're in our head a lot. You are a wealth of knowledge. I feel like we could all take weekend courses, but we're gonna take a brief break and find out how we can take your course, read your amazing book and learn more from you.Lesley Logan 28:45  All right, Mark, so you said you got a book, and a course, they kind of go together, but I can read the book if I'm wanting to do the light version, or if I need to go all in. Tell me more about where I can find these things and which one I need.Mark Collins 28:56  Yeah, absolutely. So first off, where can you find them? I try and be a one-stop shop. So everything is on my website, which is freedom-for-life.net freedom-for-life.net. What's the difference between the two? Well, there's those folks who are like myself, and maybe you, Lesley, you seem to be that type that you know I don't want. I don't want the appetizer. I want the whole meal. I want that one-on-one coaching. I want everything so that I know I have those things, right? It's the all in one process. So that's the course. The course has all of those in there. But the book has value, and it has value in that those folks who are like, I want to find some nuggets. I want to do some things that are really changing my life. I want to engage in this. I really don't know where to start. The book is a great way to do that. I have it as a eBook version on my website, and the reason for that is, I have hard copy. You can get those at Amazon, but I love the fact that you can carry it around on your phone, because it's an eBook. So you can have it anywhere that you're at, so at any time you have so I know you're working with, you're having a lot of business professionals that don't have a lot of time. You always have it available.Lesley Logan 29:54  That's cool. I like what you even said about the book. You can learn something today, use it this week and transform in a month, or I'm misquoting you, but that's what it felt like, and I experienced in the month and I actually think that that's really cool. And so if even people are like, I'm not sure I can trust myself, I think you could start there, and then you can always go to the course. You can do whatever you want, guys like, whatever you've been called to. But I really like this. And also, thanks for having a one-stop shop. Makes it really easy on where everyone can click. It's in the show notes, guys. Lesley Logan 30:18  All right, you have literally given so much. I think there's so many different parts we can go back and re-listen, but, we cannot end without our bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps to be it till you see it. What do you have for us?Mark Collins 30:32  Yeah, so the first thing is the one that we talked about. It the "I Am" statement, do not move past that until you do that. Anything you do to try and create mantras and things that you tell yourself, affirmations, if they're not tied to who you are, then they're really you becoming an imitation of somebody else. So start with that "I Am" statement, who you are, apart from your things. The reason why that's important is one of our, we have a three-step transformational process mastering your thoughts, words and actions. I'll unpack thoughts really quickly, and that is this, who you think you are, you'll become. You know, Lesley, you're as successful as you are because you believed at some level you'd be that person someday. Well, for all of us here, you're not going to be that person you're created to be in every area until you believe it, until you think it. And so that starts with thoughts. Well, what do those thoughts do? They allow you to have actions towards the person you're created to be. What thoughts should you align with? Well, start with your "I Am" statement. I do affirmations, and I tell everybody to do affirmations multiple times a day, because life happens multiple times a day. Thoughts happen multiple times a day. And so I remind myself of who I'm created to be with my "I Am" statement, again, that's the affirmation you're going to use aligned with who you are. The second thing, and this will be the last for us right now, what are the words that you're saying? Interesting things about vocalization and words, they do two things. They confirm who you believe you are, and they give you instructions to live out. Cognitively, your brain listens to what you're saying, and it finds ways of aligning with that. So when you're minimizing who you are, when you're maximizing the issues and challenges in your life, you're focusing on the things you can't control and the ones that hold you back. When I continue to speak towards the things that I am and who I am, and those same vocalizations are in the things that I'm going to do. I am a person of solutions and answers. I find quality answers for every problem that I walk through. You're going to give yourself instructions to live them out. They align with your thoughts, align with who you're created to be. Your "I Am" statement, and now that man or woman starts to show up in every area of your life. What's your "I Am" statement? What are you telling yourself, your thoughts are either aligning with who you're created to be, or they're lying to you, and it's the same with your words. What actions are you giving yourself to live out? What confirmation have you given of who you believe you are? They're either aligned with your "I Am" statement and who you're created to be, or they're lying to you. The more you tell yourself the truth, the more you see yourself show up as a hero that you're created to be.Lesley Logan 32:51  Oh, my freaking goodness, so good. I love all these I'm really into it. We just had someone, I just interviewed who actually was talking about, we have to redefine words we're saying to ourselves, because oftentimes we'll say something, it's like rephrase it or redefine it, because the words you say matter and they make a big difference. So this is a double dose. It's a sign everyone that you have, that we all need to be doing this.Lesley Logan 33:13  So Mark Collins, thank you so much. You guys, the book is Life Mastery. So is the course. Please take a look at his amazing work, re-listen to this. And I think we all have a friend who needs to hear this. I think we all do. I already can't wait for Brad to hear it. So please share this with a friend, because and only will that change their life. And here's the thing, when your friends' lives change, and they start to be more positive and they don't have imposter syndrome, you do too. We are the average of people we hang out with, so it's really important that we help other people be it till they see it. So thank you all so very much, and until next time, Be It Till You See It. Bye.Lesley Logan 33:48  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 34:30  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 34:35  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 34:39  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 34:47  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 34:50  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

10:05 – 10:15 (10 mins) Weekly: Karen Kataline-@KarenKataline More info on Karen: www.karenkataline.com 10:25 – 10:37 (17mins) MIKE JOHNSON CLIPS / DISCUSSION 10:41 – 10:56 (15mins) We Go Live to The Swearing In Ceremony Of President Donald J TrumpSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wendy Breaks Down and Says She's Not Cognitively Impaired in Latest Interviews #freeWendyWilliams

Drew Perkins talks with Zaretta Hammond about her work and her focus on making culturally responsive teaching more cognitively responsive. Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode

TUNE IN TO LEARN:  Often clients ask me, if I were to choose 3 most effective things to take care of my brain, what would they be?    Here's your research-based answer.    Learn how to optimize your metabolic health without the need for gadgets or supplements, starting with the most crucial elements.  Stay happy and focused now and cognitively sharp as you age.Your mind defines the quality of your life. This is how you keep it in shape!  Revolutionize your daily routines with these 3 for a longer, healthier life, more vibrant life where you don't lose your mind the longer you live!    BONUS: research-backed strategies to harness your prefrontal cortex to power through short-term doubts and short-term thinking for lasting improvements.      Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the show Brought to you by Angela Shurina EXECUTIVE HEALTH AND OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE COACH Change in days - not in years!

Trump's attacks on Harris take a darker turn as Walz and Vance are set to debate tomorrow night. We look at new reporting from both camps about how both candidates are preparing. Plus, 600 people are missing from Hurricane Helene right now and more than 100 people are confirmed dead. Also, Fareed Zakaria joins to discuss Iran vowing revenge against the United States and Israel.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Send us a textIt's every teacher's biggest challenge: How can we get these students to engage with the material? In this week's episode, SREB Coach Erin Anderson-Williams stops by the studio to teach Ashley how to better engage her students by considering their cognitive, behavioral and emotional needs. Download our handout to get an overview of the lesson.  The Southern Regional Education Board is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works with states and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. Follow Us on Social: Facebook Instagram X

Tara Sklar, Faculty Director, Health Law & Policy Program, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, and Kathryn Huber, MD, Kaiser Permanente, discuss the prevalence of cognitive impairments as the U.S. population ages and the implications this has for the future of digital health care. They cover the legal and regulatory landscape and issues related to privacy, informed consent, coordination of care, and reimbursement. Tara and Kathryn recently wrote an article for AHLA's Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law on this topic.To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.

[ 6.26 | Part 3 ]After another loss to Port Adelaide in Adelaide, the Saints now face the bottom-of-the-ladder North Melbourne Kangaroos, and nobody is feeling particularly confident.

[ 6.26: PART 1 ]Another narrow defeat added to the loss column in a game where the Saints were simply not good enough for long enough to match it with Port Adelaide in Adelaide. It's been a frustrating start to the 2024 AFL Season for the St Kilda Football Club. Did we get pre-season expectations wrong?

We're joined by 90's cult figure KRISTIAN BARDSLEY (formerly Kristian Anning, North Melbourne), who talks us through his AFL career including the night the lights went out at Waverley, the Ansett Cup Grand Final, and of course, his infamous clash with Gary Ablett Sr.

It's been a frustrating start to the 2024 AFL Season for the St Kilda Football Club. Did we get pre-season expectations wrong? Another narrow defeat added to the loss column in a game where the Saints were simply not good enough for long enough to match it with the good teams. Now we face the bottom of the ladder Kangaroos, and nobody is feeling particularly confident.Plus we're joined this week by 90's cult figure KRISTIAN BARDSLEY, who talks us through his 53 St Kilda games (after starting at North Melbourne as Kristian Anning) including the night the lights went out at Waverley, the Ansett Cup Grand Final, and of course, his infamous clash with Gary Ablett Sr.Please remember to rate and review our show on whatever platform you're most comfortable with (iTunes, Facebook, Spotify etc), and always give us your feedback - good, bad or ugly - and keep sending in your questions or comments on social media! Keep an eye out on our YouTube for the video versions of the show and we hope to keep bringing you awesome guests throughout the course of the year.Thanks as always to the great Lloyd Spiegel for the use of his "OWTS" as our intro track!

As director of research for the Dolphin Research Center, Dr. Kelly Jaakkola spends much of her time studying the cognitive abilities of bottlenose dolphins, as well as, refuting the false or unsubstantiated narratives stemming from all places, recent peer-reviewed publications by authors opposed to marine mammals in human care. One of two of her recent publications examines whether these small cetaceans in human care live in "impoverished" environments. Spoiler alert, they don't. However, Kelly argues in a separate paper that this low bar of animal welfare can and should be raised to include beneficial cognitive challenges that enable animals in zoological facilities, not just dolphins, to thrive when we humans have met most of their physical needs. Animal Care Software

On this episode of Gifts and Graces, we get to hear from Bill Davis as he helps consider what it looks like to honor our parents as they decline congnitively. Bill Davis is a Professor of Philosophy at Covenant College. This episode was originally recorded as a seminar delivered at the 2023 General Assembly and is sponsored by Covenant College. Let's listen as Bill Davis provides practical ways that we can honor our parents while being sources of strength and even hope.

Donald Trump claimed to score 110% on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment-MoCA-Test—for early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)--but is our very own Lyle as cognitively high? We give Lyle the MoCA to find out--

In episode 93 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Professor Tal Linzen.Professor Linzen is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Data Science at New York University and a Research Scientist at Google. He directs the Computation and Psycholinguistics Lab, where he and his collaborators use behavioral experiments and computational methods to study how people learn and understand language. They also develop methods for evaluating, understanding, and improving computational systems for language processing.Have suggestions for future podcast guests (or other feedback)? Let us know here or reach us at editor@thegradient.pubSubscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (02:25) Prof. Linzen's background* (05:37) Back and forth between psycholinguistics and deep learning research, LM evaluation* (08:40) How can deep learning successes/failures help us understand human language use, methodological concerns, comparing human representations to LM representations* (14:22) Behavioral capacities and degrees of freedom in representations* (16:40) How LMs are becoming less and less like humans* (19:25) Assessing LSTMs' ability to learn syntax-sensitive dependencies* (22:48) Similarities between structure-sensitive dependencies, sophistication of syntactic representations* (25:30) RNNs implicitly implement tensor-product representations—vector representations of symbolic structures* (29:45) Representations required to solve certain tasks, difficulty of natural language* (33:25) Accelerating progress towards human-like linguistic generalization* (34:30) The pre-training agnostic identically distributed evaluation paradigm* (39:50) Ways to mitigate differences in evaluation* (44:20) Surprisal does not explain syntactic disambiguation difficulty* (45:00) How to measure processing difficulty, predictability and processing difficulty* (49:20) What other factors influence processing difficulty?* (53:10) How to plant trees in language models* (55:45) Architectural influences on generalizing knowledge of linguistic structure* (58:20) “Cognitively relevant regimes” and speed of generalization* (1:00:45) Acquisition of syntax and sampling simpler vs. more complex sentences* (1:04:03) Curriculum learning for progressively more complicated syntax* (1:05:35) Hypothesizing tree-structured representations* (1:08:00) Reflecting on a prediction from the past* (1:10:15) Goals and “the correct direction” in AI research* (1:14:04) OutroLinks:* Prof. Linzen's Twitter and homepage* Papers* Assessing the Ability of LSTMs to Learn Syntax-Sensitive Dependencies* RNNS Implicitly Implement Tensor-Product Representations* How Can We Accelerate Progress Towards Human-like Linguistic Generalization?* Surprisal does not explain syntactic disambiguation difficulty: evidence from a large-scale benchmark* How to Plant Trees in LMs: Data and Architectural Effects on the Emergence of Syntactic Inductive Biases Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe

Morning Joe star Joe Scarborough had a ball when he discussed Donald Trump's big mistake in his speech from the Washington, D.C., Pray Vote Stand Summit. Listen here and learn more at OKmagazine.com. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Jenny and naturopathic doctor + founder of The Wild Collective Dr. Michelle Peris for a deep dive into body literacy, optimizing health in your 40's, the power of community and all things perimenopause. These two remarkable health experts discuss the importance of listening to your body's whispers and supporting it through inevitable change, and really hone in on understanding what perimenopause is and how it affects women biochemically, hormonally, cognitively, emotionally, spiritually and fundamentally.  Important Links in this Episode:Cyclical Living Guide—Nutrition (Eating during your menstrual cycle)Essential Bloodwork tests guideWild Medicine PodcastFollow Dr Michelle on IGCheck out The Wild Collective website  Get Your Perfect Sports 20% Discount here by using coupon code: JVBSave $100 off Your MAXPRO Fitness hereApply for the STRONG Formula Certification Program WORK WITH A TEAM STRONG GIRLS COACHSTRONG Fitness Magazine Subscription Use discount code SAVE  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating  and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser and Castbox.  Resources:STRONG Fitness MagazineSTRONG Fitness Magazine on IGTeam Strong GirlsCoach JVB Follow Jenny on social media:InstagramFacebookYouTube https://

Meet Dr. Dawn Menge, Educator, Author, World Traveler and a fellow Earthy Girl! She teaches, writes and travels. And loves Mother Earth. Please take a listen to this interview. and Ya'll stay Earthy! The Earthy Girls want to encourage, inform & inspire you to take that small step, make that 2 degree pivot towards loving your planet not just living on it. It's a Mindset! Flip that Script. Reduce, Reuse and then Recycle.  Consider it this way, It's Not just an inconvenience, it's an investment in the future generations. Find us on Instagram @earthygirl.co or on Facebook as Earthy Girls. Our outro music provided by @absentmindedwolf. Find him on Spotify or on Instagram @governedlovern https://open.spotify.com/episode/7oQInSv20Pf7Uyi41tAzhK?si=z0wo7_tjRXGdqc0PrG5ZjA https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dawn-Menge/author/B00IW0UC9Y?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rebecca-behnke/message

Cognitive health is the ability to think clearly, learn new things, and remember information, events, and what you've learned in the past. As problem drinkers, we aren't that great at thinking things through, but it's not because we're losers, it's because alcohol damages the brain and messes with our cognitive health. In episode 159 I talked about what you can expect physically when you stop drinking and I mentioned that the cognitive improvements are a bit slower to show up. The cognitive improvements deserve their own episode, so in this episode you will learn how alcohol damages our cognitive abilities, how this puts us at risk to relapse, how long it takes for our cognitive health to recover after you quit drinking, and what you can do to take care of your cognitive health. What to listen to next: E69: alcohol shrinks the brain, but what does that mean E90: new study finds just one drink shrinks the brain Attentional bias episodes 127 & 128 E75: how sleep recovers in sobriety E17: alcohol and the heart E122: how exercise can support your recovery E119: chronic stress and the brain Resources I offer: Community & Meetings: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.soberpowered.com/membership The Sober Mindset Course https://www.soberpowered.com/the-sober-mindset-course (Free Private Podcast) 5 Blocks Holding You Back From Quitting Drinking https://www.soberpowered.com/5blocks Weekly emails on Thursdays where I explain the latest episode in more detail, share images to help you understand the concepts, share announcements, interviews, writing, discount codes and more. https://view.flodesk.com/pages/6107260617e156c4839768b5 Ask a question, it could appear on the show! https://forms.gle/oKubeJKMZimkHvUJA   Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more: https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered Sources are posted on my website Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This isn't the first time we've seen Sleepy Joe live up to his name. He was caught dozing off relatively recently at a climate conference that he of course attended with his 30-plus SUVs driving as part of his entourage, the optics of which were only matched by his falling asleep during what he called the most important conference of our lifetimes!      Highlights:  "What other world leader is like this?!? And the legacy media is recognizing this, and they're actually getting upset that they have to constantly run to cover for this obvious cognitive decline.” “Not to mention the media's ridiculous hypocrisy; they love to point out anytime Trump stumbles, which of course is rare, or has a hard time standing up from a chair, ‘Oh, look, Trump is so old! Look, everyone saw it! Ha! Ha!' I mean, they're like petulant children, it's beyond ridiculous!” “Many Democrat insiders are purportedly concerned about a possible "health scare" that could force the Democratic leadership to hastily find a replacement to Sleepy Joe, especially considering Kackles Kamala's obvious unpopularity. Again, this is something even the legacy media is getting involved in.” “And all the polls show that no one's being fooled by any of this: A recent NPR poll found that 62 percent of the public was concerned about the state of Biden's cognitive health, an NBC poll recently found that it was actually more like 78 percent, 7 in 10 were very concerned about his cognitive and physical health! So, it's going to be very interesting to see how things play out here, as Biden continues to degenerate, an all out civil war inside the Democrat Party just might be at hand!”       Timestamps:   [01:12] Sleepy Joe living up to his name [02:22] The legacy media cover up [08:35] A real civil war is indeed brewing inside the Democrat Party [10:03] PJ Media is raising concerns about Biden's health   Resources:  Learn how to protect your life savings from inflation and an irresponsible government, with Gold and Silver. Go to http://www.turleytalkslikesgold.com/ Abandon your woke provider TODAY and join Patriot Mobile! Get FREE ACTIVATION with Code: TurleyTalks HERE: www.patriotmobile.com/turleytalks The Courageous Patriot Community is inviting YOU! Join the movement now and build the parallel economy at https://join.turleytalks.com/insiders-club-evergreen/?utm_medium=podcast HE'LL BE BACK! Get your limited edition TRUMPINATOR 2024 Bobblehead HERE: https://offers.proudpatriots.com/ Watch how Michael Lush is helping you Replace Your Mortgage at https://replaceyouruniversity.com/what-we-do/pay-off-your-home  Want free inside stock tips straight from the SEC? Click here to get started now: https://event.webinarjam.com/register Nature's Morphine? Dr. Turley and scientist Clint Winters discuss the incredible pain relief effects of 100% Drug-Free Conolidine. This changes pain relief… https://www.bh3ktrk.com/2DDD1J/2CTPL/?source_id=PC&sub1=71823   Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review.   Sick and tired of Big Tech, censorship, and endless propaganda? Join my Insiders Club with a FREE TRIAL today at: https://insidersclub.turleytalks.com   Make sure to FOLLOW me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrTurleyTalks   BOLDLY stand up for TRUTH in Turley Merch! Browse our new designs right now at: https://store.turleytalks.com/   Do you want to be a part of the podcast and be our sponsor? Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture!   If you would like to get lots of articles on conservative trends make sure to sign-up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts. 

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ The Art Of Letting Go   Following on from last week's episode about how to know when it's worth persevering or changing course, I thought it might be helpful to go through the art of actually letting go.   It's one thing knowing it's the right thing for you to do but it's a whole other ball game actually doing it.   And it can be tricky…and it can also take its sweet time!   It can feel really frustrating but your body needs to catch up with your mind.   Whether you've decided it's time to move on from something or been forced to for other reasons it's absolutely a process!   Cognitively you might be ready to move on but your nervous system might still be scanning for whether it's safe to or not!  Which is where both the cognitive and somatic work comes in to help speed up the process.   Using your mind AND your body to heal.   It's not a process you can judge by anyone else's standards. It's unique to you.    But holding on to pain never helped anybody.   There's a phrase I love that's ‘nobody ever drowned by falling into the ocean.  They drowned by staying there.'   You have to let the inevitable grieving happen.  However long that takes.    Even when it comes to something that other people might not think is a huge deal, it might be to us.    Even if someone thinks we should just ‘get over it'. It's not up to them.   It takes as long as it takes to really let go.    From my own experience it's a really gradual process and then one day you realise there's no pain anymore.    The feelings are very neutral and calm.   Even if you might still be in the eye of the storm at times!   So what can we do to make sure we're remaining conscious and helping the process along as best we can?   Firstly, acknowledge that it's happened and the decision has been made.  You may feel like you're flip flopping at times just before you're clear. This is when you lean on the people who know you best and who will be a willing sounding board for your thoughts and feelings.    It's totally natural.   Next it's very very helpful to consciously seek out the positive lessons that you've learned in the process.    Even if they may have been tough lessons. What's changed in terms of what you will or won't accept in the future.  How will it mean things will be different next time you're in a similar situation?   Always make sure you check in with the stories you're telling yourself and if they're actually true.  What are you making it mean about yourself? Whether you're leaving a relationship and will be single again, what are you making that mean?     Or if you've decided you don't want to run a business anymore or stay in your career.    What are you making that mean?  What story is there around what other people will make it mean?   A hugely important part is to recognise what your non-negotiables are now, and how the previous situation wasn't meeting them or your needs. Always helpful to know that despite it potentially feeling painful, it's not what you wanted anymore and you get to dream and visualise what you do want now!   On that…it's really important to make sure you're not looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.  There may have been some amazing positives but what wasn't right for you?  How long were things hard, or you feeling unhappy   My favourite part is to start to get excited about your future and all the new opportunities ahead of you that simply wouldn't have been there without needing to let go of this situation first.  Things you can do now that you couldn't before.   A HUGE one is to allow yourself to be supported.  Don't try and do it all on your own.  Allow yourself the space you need but don't shy away and isolate yourself.   Prioritise YOU.  Your needs, your wants. This is YOU time and that won't last forever. Embrace it and take full advantage.   Recognise any guilt, shame or blame you're piling on top of the situation and challenge it as if you were a casual observer of the situation and not so personally invested in it.   Don't get attached to a timeline of being on ‘the other side' of it. These things take time and that's ok.   Look for what you can be grateful for from the situation or by getting out of it.   Seek the stories from people who have been through similar and come out the other side, bigger, better and stronger for it. The people who are challenging the status quo and showing the positives of a situation that aren't often talked about.   Remember these feelings are only temporary.  Don't judge yourself for having down days. Cry. Scream.    Take any responsibility that yours to take, and nothing more. Forgive yourself for whatever you need to forgive yourself for in the situation. You didn't know better or couldn't do better then, you do and you can now and moving forwards.   Practice emotional and nervous system regulation MORE now. This is the time to double down and help your nervous system catch up with your mind.  EFT, hypnotherapy, Heartmath, making sure you're moving your body are all my first port of call.    Recognise what was within your control and what wasn't in the situation.   Do the healing work.   Keep yourself busy but not out of avoidance. Do it in a positive way. Fill your time with things you're looking forward to. Go see new places, spend time with people, do new things, learn a new skill.    And finally, remember you never know what amazing things can come from a situation that might feel awful at the time. Hold on to that and allow yourself to be excited. Good things are coming if you let them.   And as i've recorded this i'm practicing exactly what I preach and i've put myself way out of my comfort zone on a long haul solo trip. I've done something I never would have before. I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone solidly towards post traumatic growth. And I couldn't be happier and more content.   Even though I'm still in the eye of the storm in many ways. The focus is on the light at the end of the tunnel and I couldn't be more excited.    Know that's available for you too.    Fx

Dr. Thaddeus Pace is one of the leaders of the Breast Cancer SUPORT (Survivors and Partners Online Research Together) Project, which is studying how cognitively-based compassion training, a specific type of guided meditation, can help women with a history of breast cancer, as well as their partners. Listen to the episode to hear Dr. Pace explain: the differences between cognitively-based compassion training and other types of meditation the benefits of cognitively-based compassion training the goals of the Breast Cancer SUPORT Project and how people can join the study, if they'd like to do so

You guys, I am literally giggling with excitement over what we are about to do together.  Last year, we did a series, the first series on Your Anxiety Toolkit where we talked about mental compulsions. It was a six-part series. We had some of the best therapists and best doctors in the world talking about mental compulsions. It was such a hit. So many people got so much benefit out of it. I loved it so much, and I thought that was fun, let's get back to regular programming. But for the entire of last year after that series, it kept bugging me that I needed to do a series on sexual health and anxiety. It seems like we're not talking about it enough. It seems like everyone has questions, even people on social media. The algorithm actually works against those who are trying to educate people around sex and sexual side effects and arousal and how anxiety impacts it. And so here I am. No one can stop us. Let's do it.  This is going to be a six-part sexual health and anxiety series, and today we have a return guest, the amazing Lauren Fogel Mersy. She is the best. She is a sex therapist. She talks all about amazing stuff around sexual desire, sexual arousal, sexual anxiety. She's going to share with you, she has a book coming out, but she is going to kick this series off talking about sexual anxiety, or we actually also compare and contrast sexual performance anxiety because that tends to better explain what some of the people's symptoms are.  Once we go through this episode, we're then going to meet me next week where I'm going to go back over. I've done an episode on it before, but we're going to go back over understanding arousal and anxiety. And then we're going to have some amazing doctors talking about medications and sexual side effects. We have an episode on sexual intrusive thoughts. We have an episode on premenstrual anxiety. We also have an episode on menopause and anxiety. My hope is that we can drop down into the topics that aren't being covered enough so that you feel like you've got one series, a place to go that will help you with the many ways in which anxiety can impact us when it comes to our sexual health, our sexual arousal, our sexual intimacy. I am so, so, so excited. Let's get straight to it.  This is Episode 1 of the Sexual Health and Anxiety Series with Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy. Lauren is a licensed psychologist. She's a certified sex therapist, she's an author, and she is going to share with us and we're going to talk in-depth about sexual anxiety. I hope you enjoy the show. I hope you enjoy all of the episodes in this series. I cannot wait to listen to these amazing speakers—Lauren, being the first one. Thank you, Lauren. What Is Sexual Anxiety Or Sexual Performance Anxiety? Are They The Same Thing? Kimberley: Welcome. I am so happy to have you back, Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy. Welcome. Dr. Lauren: Thank you so much for having me back. I'm glad to be here. Kimberley: I really wanted to deep dive with you. We've already done an episode together. I'm such a joy to have you on. For those of you who want to go back, it's Episode 140 and we really talked there about how anxiety impacts sex. I think that that is really the big conversation. Today, I wanted to deep dive a little deeper into talking specifically about sexual anxiety, or as I did a little bit of research, what some people call sexual performance anxiety. My first question for you is, what is sexual anxiety or what is sexual performance anxiety? Are they the same thing or are they a little different? Dr. Lauren: I think people will use those words interchangeably. It's funny, as you say that, I think that performance anxiety, that word ‘performance' in particular, I hear that more among men than I do among women. I think that that might be attributed to so many people's definition of sex is penetration. In order for penetration to be possible, if there's a partner who has a penis involved that that requires an erection. I often hear that word ‘performance' attributed to essentially erection anxiety or something to do with, will the erection stay? Will it last? Basically, will penetration be possible and work out? I think I often hear it attributed to that. And then sexual anxiety is a maybe broader term for a whole host of things, I would say, beyond just erection anxiety, which can involve anxiety about being penetrated. It could be anxiety about certain sexual acts like oral sex giving, receiving. It could be about whether your body will respond in the way that you want and hope it to. I think that word, sexual anxiety, that phrasing can encompass a lot of different things. WHAT ARE SOME SEXUAL ANXIETY SYMPTOMS? Kimberley: Yeah. I always think of it as, for me, when I talk with my patients about the anticipatory anxiety of sex as well. Like you said, what's going to happen? Will I orgasm? Will I not? Will they like my body? Will they not? I think that it can be so broad. I love how you define that, how they can be different. That performance piece I think is really important. You spoke to it just a little, but I'd like to go a little deeper. What are some symptoms of sexual anxiety that a man or a woman may experience?  Dr. Lauren: I think this can be many different things. For some people, it's the inability to get aroused, which sifting through the many things that can contribute to that, knowing maybe that I'm getting into my head and that's what's maybe tripping me up and making it difficult to get aroused. It could be a racing heartbeat as you're starting to get close to your partner, knowing that sex may be on the table. I've had some people describe it can get as severe as getting nauseated, feeling like you might be sick because you're so worked up over the experience. Some of that maybe comes from trauma or negative experiences from the past, or some of it could be around a first experience with a partner really hoping and wanting it to go well. Sometimes we can get really nervous and those nerves can come out in our bodies, and then they can also manifest in all of the thoughts that we have in the moment, really getting distracted and not being able to focus and just be present. It can look like a lot of different things. SEXUAL AVOIDANCE Kimberley: That's so interesting to hear in terms of how it impacts and shows up. What about people who avoid sex entirely because of that? I'm guessing for me, I'm often hearing about people who are avoiding. I'm guessing for you, people are coming for the same reason. You're a sex therapist. How does that show up in your practice? Dr. Lauren: One of the things that can cause avoidance-- there's actually an avoidance cycle that people can experience either on their own or within a partnership, and that avoidance is a way of managing anxiety or managing the distress that can come with challenging sexual experiences and trying to either protect ourselves or protect our relationships from having those outcomes as a possibility. There used to be a diagnosis called sexual aversion. It was called a sexual aversion disorder. We don't have that in our language anymore. We don't use that disorder because I think it's a really protective, sensible thing that we might do at times when we get overwhelmed or when we're outside of what we call a window of tolerance. It can show up as complete avoidance of sexual activity. It could show up as recoiling from physical touch as a way to not indicate a desire for that to progress any further. It could be avoidance of dating because you don't want the inevitable conversation about sexuality or the eventuality that maybe will come up. Depending on whether you're partnered or single and how that manifests in the relationship, it can come out in different ways through the avoidance of maybe different parts of the sexual experience, everything from dampening desire to avoiding touch altogether.  Kimberley: That's really interesting. They used to have it be a diagnosis and then now, did they give it a different name or did they just wipe it off of the DSM completely? What would you do diagnostically now?  Dr. Lauren: It's a great question. I think it was wiped out completely. I haven't looked at a DSM in a long time. I think it was swiped out completely. Just personally as a sex therapist and the clinician I am today, I don't use many of the sexual health diagnoses from the DSM because I think that they are pathologizing to the variation in the human sexual experience. I'm not so fond of them myself. What I usually do is I would frame that as an anxiety-related concern or just more of a sexual therapy or sex counseling concern. Because I think as we have a growing understanding of our nervous system and the ways in which our system steps in to protect us when something feels overwhelming or frightening or uncertain, I think it starts to make a lot of sense as to why we might avoid something or respond in the ways that we do. Once we have some understanding of maybe there's some good sense behind this move that you're making, whether that's to avoid or protect or to hesitate or to get in your head, then we can have some power over adjusting how we're experiencing the event once we understand that there's usually a good reason why something's there. Kimberley: That is so beautiful. I love that you frame it that way. It's actually a good lesson for me because I am always in the mindset of like, we've got to get rid of avoidance. That's the anxiety work that I do. I think that you bring up a beautiful point that I hadn't even considered, which is, we always look at avoidance as something we have to fix as soon as possible. I think what you're saying is you don't conceptualize it that way at all and we can talk more about what you could do to help if someone is having avoidance and they want to fix that. But what I think you're saying is we're not here to pathologize that as a problem here. Dr. Lauren: Yeah. I see it, I'm trained less in the specifics. I think that makes a lot of sense when you're working with specific anxiety disorders and OCD and the like. I've, as of late, been training in more and more emotionally focused therapy. I'm coming at it from an attachment perspective, and I'm coming at it from somewhat of a systemic perspective and saying, what is the avoidance doing? What is it trying to tell us? There's usually some good reason somewhere along the way that we got where we are. Can I validate that that makes sense? That when something is scary or uncertain or you were never given good information or you really want something to go well and you're not sure about it, and it means a lot to you, there's all kinds of good reasons why that might hit as overwhelming. When we're talking about performance anxiety or sexual anxiety, really the number one strategy I'm looking for is, how can we work with what we call your window of tolerance? If your current comfort zone encompasses a certain amount of things, whatever that might be, certain sexual acts with maybe a certain person, maybe by yourself, I want to help you break down where you want to get to and break that into the smallest, manageable, tolerable steps so that what we're doing is we've got one foot in your current window of what you can tolerate and maybe just a toe at a time out, and breaking that up into manageable pieces so that we don't keep overwhelming your system. That is essentially what my job is with a lot of folks, is helping them take those steps and often what our nervous system needs to register, that it's okay, that it's safe, that we can move towards our goals. Cognitively, we think it's too slow or it's too small. It's not. We have to really break that down.  If there's something about the sexual experience that you're avoiding, that is overwhelming, that you're afraid of, what I do is validate that, makes sense that that maybe is just too much and too big all at once. And then let's figure out a way to work ourselves up to that goal over time. Usually, slower is faster.  WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE SEXUAL ANXIETY?  Kimberley: I love that. I really do. Why do people have sexual anxiety? Is that even an important question? Do you explore that with your patients? I think a lot of people, when I see them in my office or online, we know there's a concern that they want to fix, but they're really quite distressed by the feeling that something is wrong with them and they want to figure out what's wrong with them. Do you have some feedback on why people have sexual anxiety?  Dr. Lauren: I do. I think it can stem from a number of experiences or lack thereof in our lives. There are some trends and themes that come up again and again that I've seen over the years in sex therapy. Even though we're taping here in the US, we're in a culture that has a lot of sexuality embedded within the media, there is still a lot of taboo and a lot of misinformation about sex or a lack of information that people are given. I mean, we still have to fight for comprehensive sex education. Some people have gotten explicitly negative messages about sex growing up. Some people have been given very little to know information about sex growing up. Both of those environments can create anxiety about sex. We also live in a world where we're talking openly about sex with friends, parents teaching their children more than just abstinence, and going into a little bit more depth about what healthy sexuality looks like between adults. A lot of that is still not happening. What you get is a very little frame of reference for what's ‘normal' and what's considered concerning versus what is par for the course with a lifetime of being a sexual person. So, a lot of people are just left in the dark, and that can create anxiety for a good portion of those folks, whether it's having misinformation or just no information about what to expect. And then the best thing that most of us have to draw on is the Hollywood version of a very brief sex scene. Kimberley: Yes. I was just thinking about that. Dr. Lauren: And it's just so wildly different than your actual reality. Kimberley: Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking about, is the expectation is getting higher and higher, especially as we're more accessible to pornography online, for the young folks as well, just what they expect themselves to do. Dr. Lauren: That's right. We have young people being exposed to that on the internet. We've got adults viewing that. With proper porn literacy and ethical porn consumption, that can be a really healthy way to enjoy erotic content and to engage in sexuality. The troubling thing is when we're not media literate, when we don't have some of the critical thinking to really remember and retain the idea that this entertainment, this is for arousal purposes, that it's really not giving an accurate or even close depiction of what really goes on between partners. I think it's easier for us to maintain that level of awareness when we're consuming general movies and television. But there's something about that sexuality when you see it depicted in the media that so many people are still grappling with trying to mimic what they see. I think that's because there's such an absence of a frame of reference other than those media depictions. SEXUAL ANXIETY IN MALES VS SEXUAL ANXIETY IN FEMALES  Kimberley: Right. So good. Is there a difference between sexual anxiety in males and sexual anxiety in females? Dr. Lauren: I think it can show up differently, certainly depending on what role you play in the sexual dynamic, what positions you're looking to or what sexual acts you're looking to explore. There's a different level or a different flavor of anxiety, managing erection anxiety, managing anxiety around premature ejaculation. They're all similar, but there's some unique pieces to each one. All of the types of anxiety that I've seen related to sex have some common threads, which is getting up into our heads and dampening the experience of pleasure not being as present in the moment, not being as embodied in the moment, because we get too focused on what will or won't happen just moments from now.  While that makes so much sense, you're trying to foretell whether it's going to be a positive experience, there is a-- I hate to say like a self-fulfilling prophecy, but there's a reaction in our bodies to some of those anxious thoughts. If I get into my head and I start thinking to myself, “This may not go well. This might hurt. I might lose my arousal. I might not be able to orgasm. My partner may not think I'm good in bed,” whatever those anxious thoughts are, the thoughts themselves can become a trigger for a physical reaction. That physical reaction is that it can turn on our sympathetic nervous system, and that is the part of our body that says, “Hey, something in the environment might be dangerous here, and it's time to mobilize and get ready to run.” What happens in those moments once our sympathetic system is online, a lot of that blood flow goes out of our genital region, out of our chest and into our extremities, to your arms, to your legs. Your body is acting as if there was a bear right there in front of you and your heart rate goes up and all of these things. Now, some of those can also be signs of arousal. That's where it can get really tricky because panting or increased heart rate or sweating can also be arousal. It's really confusing for some people because there can be a parallel process in your physiology. Is this arousal or is this anxiety?  CAN ANXIETY IMPACT AROUSAL? CAN ANXIETY IMPACT SEX DRIVE?  Kimberley: It's funny that you mentioned that because as I was researching and doing a little bit of Googling about these topics, one of the questions which I don't get asked very often is, can anxiety cause arousal? Because I know last time, we talked about how anxiety can reduce arousal. Is that something that people will often report to you that having anxiety causes them to have sexual arousal, not fight and flight arousal? Dr. Lauren: Yeah. I mean, what I see more than anything is that it links to desire, and here's how that tends to work for some people because then the desire links to the arousal and it becomes a chain. For many people out in the world, they engage in sexual activity to impart self-soothe and manage stress. It becomes a strategy or an activity that you might lean on when you're feeling increased stress or distress. That could be several different emotions that include anxiety. If over my lifetime or throughout the years as I've grown, maybe I turn to masturbation, maybe I turn to partnered sex when I'm feeling anxious, stressed, or distressed, over time, that's going to create a wiring of some of that emotion, and then my go-to strategy for decreasing that emotion or working through that emotion. That pairing over time can definitely work out so that as soon as I start feeling anxious, I might quickly come to feelings of arousal or a desire to be sexual. Kimberley: Very interesting. Thank you. That was not a question I had, but it was interesting that it came up when I was researching. Very, very cool. This is like a wild card question. Again, when I was researching here, one of the things that I got went down a little rabbit hole, a Google rabbit hole, how you go down those... Dr. Lauren: That's never happened to me. WHAT IS POST-SEX ANXIETY?  Kimberley: ...is, what about post-sex anxiety? A lot of what we are talking about today, what I would assume is anticipatory anxiety or during-sex anxiety. What about post-sex anxiety? What is post-sex anxiety? Dr. Lauren: I've come across more-- I don't know if it's research or articles that have been written about something called postcoital dysphoria, which is like after-sex blues. Some people get tearful, some get sad, some feel like they want to pull away from their partner and they need a little bit of space. That's certainly a thing that people report. I think either coexisting with that or sometimes in its place can be maybe feelings of anxiety that ramp up. I think that can be for a variety of things. Some of it could be, again, getting into your head and then doing a replay like, was that good? Are they satisfied? We get into this thinking that it's like a good or bad experience and which one was it. Also, there's many people who look to sex, especially when we have more anxiety, and particularly if we have a more predominantly anxious attachment where we look to sex as a way to validate the relationship, to feel comforted, to feel secure, to feel steady. There's a process that happens where it's like seeking out sex for comfort and steadiness, having sex in the moment, feeling more grounded. And then some of that anxiety may just return right on the other end once sex is over, and then you're back to maybe feeling some insecurity or unsteadiness again. When that happens, that's usually a sign that it's not just about sex. It's not just a sexual thing. It's actually more of an attachment and an insecurity element that needs and warrants may be a greater conversation.  The other thing is your hormones and chemicals change throughout the experience. You get this increase of bonding maybe with a partner, oxytocin, and feel-good chemicals, and then they can sometimes drop off after an orgasm, after the experience. For some people, they might just experience that as depressed mood anxiety, or just a feeling of being unsettled. Kimberley: That's so interesting. It makes total sense about the attachment piece and the relational piece, and that rumination, that more self-criticism that people may do once they've reviewed their performance per se. That's really helpful to hear. Actually, several people have mentioned to me when I do lives on Instagram the postcoital dysphoria. Maybe you could help me with the way to word it, but is that because of a hormone shift, or is that, again, because of a psychological shift that happens after orgasm? Dr. Lauren: My understanding is that we're still learning about it, that we've noticed that it's a phenomenon. We're aware of it, we have a name for it, but I don't know that we have enough research to fully understand it just yet. Right now, if I'm not misquoting the research, I believe our understanding is more anecdotal at this point. I would say, many different things could be possible, anything from chemical changes to attachment insecurities, and there's probably things that are beyond that I'm also missing in that equation. I think it's something we're still studying. HOW TO OVERCOME SEX ANXIETY, AND HOW CAN WE COPE WITH SEX ANXIETY?   Kimberley: Very interesting. Let's talk now about solutions. When should someone reach out to either a medical professional, a mental health professional? What would you advise them to do if they're experiencing sexual anxiety or performance anxiety when it comes to sex? Dr. Lauren: That makes a lot of sense. That's a great question. What I like to tell people is I want you to think of your sexual experiences like a bell curve. For those who were not very science or math-minded like myself, just a quick refresher, a bell curve basically says that the majority of your experiences in sex are going to be good, or that's what we're hoping for and aiming for. And then there's going to be a few on one tail, there's going to be some of those, not the majority, that are amazing, that are excellent, that really stand out. Yes, mind-blowing, fabulous. And then there's the other side of that curve, that pole. The other end is going to be, something didn't work out, disappointing, frustrating. There is no 100% sexual function across a lifetime with zero hiccups. That's not going to be a realistic goal or expectation for us.  I always like to start off by reminding people that you're going to have some variation and experience. What we'd like is for at least a good chunk of them to be what Barry McCarthy calls good enough sex. It doesn't have to be mind-blowing every time, but we want it to be satisfying, of good quality. If you find that once or twice you can't get aroused, you don't orgasm, you're not as into it, one of the liabilities for us anxious folks, and I consider myself one of them having generalized anxiety disorder my whole life—one of the things that we can do sometimes is get catastrophic with one or two events where it doesn't go well and start to jump to the conclusion that this is a really bad thing that's happening and it's going to happen again, and it's life-altering sort of thing. One thing is just keeping this in mind that sometimes that's going to happen, and that doesn't necessarily mean that the next time you go to be sexual that it'll happen again. But if you start to notice a pattern, a trend over several encounters, then you might consider reaching out to someone like a general therapist, a sex therapist to help you figure out what's going on.  Sometimes there's a medical component to some of these concerns, like a pattern of difficulty with arousal. That's not a bad idea to get that checked out by a medical provider because sometimes there could be blood flow concerns or hormone concerns. Again, I think we're looking for patterns. If there's a pattern, if it's something that's happening more than a handful of times, and certainly if it's distressing to you, that might be a reason to reach out and see a professional. Kimberley: I think you're right. I love the bell curve idea and actually, that sounds very true because often I'll have clients who have never mentioned sex to me. We're working on their anxiety disorder, and then they have one time where they were unable to become aroused or have an erection or have an orgasm. And then like you said, that catastrophic thought of like, “What happens if this happens again? What if it keeps happening?” And then as you said, they start to ruminate and then they start to avoid and they seek reassurance and all those things. And then we're in that kind of, as you said, self-fulfilling, now we're in that pattern. That rings very, very true. What about, is there any piece of this? I know I'm disclosing and maybe from my listeners, you're probably thinking it's TMI, but I remember after having children that everything was different and it did require me to go and speak to a doctor and check that out. So, my concerns were valid in that point. Would it be go to the therapist first, go to the doctor first? What would you recommend? Dr. Lauren: Yeah. I mean, you're not alone in that. The concerns are always valid, whether they're medical, whether they're psychological, wherever it's stemming from. If after once or twice you get freaked out and you want to just go get checked out, I don't want to discourage anybody from doing that either. We're more than happy to see you, even if it's happened once or twice, just to help walk you through that so you're not alone. But the patterns are what we're looking for overall.  I think it depends. Here's some of the signs that I look for. If sex is painful, particularly for people with vaginas, if it's painful and it's consistently painful, that's something that I would recommend seeing a sexual medicine specialist for. There are some websites you can go to to look up a sexual medicine specialist, someone in particular who has received specialized training to treat painful sex and pelvic pain. That would be an indicator. If your body is doing a lot of bracing and tensing with sex so your pelvic floor muscles are getting really tight, your thighs are clenching up, those might be some moments where maybe you want to see a medical provider because from there, they may or may not recommend, depending on whether it's a fit for you, something called pelvic floor therapy. That's something that people can do at various stages of life for various reasons but is doing some work specifically with the body.  Other things would be for folks with penises. If you're waking up consistently over time where you're having difficulty getting erections for sexual activity and you're not waking up with erections anymore, that morning wood—if that's consistent over time, that could be an indicator to go get something checked out, maybe get some blood work, talk to your primary care just to make sure that there's nothing in addition to maybe if we think anxiety is a part of it, make sure there's nothing else that could be going on as well. HOW TO COPE WITH SEX ANXIETY Kimberley: Right. I love this. This is so good. Thank you again. Let's quickly just round it out with, how may we overcome this sex anxiety, or how could we cope with sex anxiety? Dr. Lauren: It's the million-dollar question, and I've got a pretty, I'll say, simple but not easy answer. It's a very basic answer. Kimberley: The good answers are always simple but hard to apply. Dr. Lauren: Simple, it's a simple theory or idea. It's very hard in practice. One of, I'd say, the main things I do as a sex therapist is help people really diversify what sex is. The more rigid of a definition we have for sex and the more rigidly we adhere to a very particular set of things that have to happen in a particular order, in a very specific way, the more trouble we're going to have throughout our lifetime making that specific thing happen. The work is really in broadening and expanding our definition of sex and having maybe a handful of different pathways to be sexual or to be intimate with a partner so that, hey, if today I have a little bit more anxiety and I'm not so sure that I get aroused that we can do path A or B. If penetration is not possible today because of whatever reason that we can take path C. When we have more energy or less energy, more time, less time, that the more flexibility we have and expansiveness we have to being intimate and sexual, the more sexual you'll be. Kimberley: Just because I want to make sure I can get what you're saying, when you say this inflexible idea of what this narrow you're talking about, I'm assuming, I'm putting words in your mouth and maybe what you're thinking because I'm sure everybody's different, but would I be right in assuming that the general population think that sex is just intercourse and what you're saying is that it's broader in terms of oral sex and other? Is that the A, B, and C you're talking about?  Dr. Lauren: Yeah. There's this standard sexual script that most people follow. It's the one that we see in Hollywood, in erotic videos. It centers mostly heterosexual vaginal penetration, so penis and vagina sex. It centers sex as culminating in orgasm mainly for the man, and then nice if it happens for the woman as well in these heterosexual scenarios. It follows a very linear progression from start to finish. It looks something like—tell me if this doesn't sound familiar—a little bit of kissing and some light touching and then some heavier touching, groping, caressing, and then maybe oral sex and then penetration as the main event, orgasm as the finish line. That would be an example of when I say path A or B or C. I'm thinking like that in particular what I just described.  Let's call that path A for not that it's the gold standard, but it's the one we draw on. Let's say that's one option for having a sexual encounter. But I also want people to think about there's going to be times where that is not on the table for a variety of reasons, because if you think about it, that requires a certain energy, time. There might be certain conditions that you feel need to be present in order for that to be possible. For some people, it automatically goes to the wayside the moment something happens like, “Well, I don't feel like I have enough time,” or “I'm tired,” or “I'm menstruating,” or whatever it is. Something comes up as a barrier and then that goes out the door. That can include things like anxiety and feeling like we have to adhere to this progression in this particular way. Let's call that path A. Path B might be, we select a couple of things from that that we like. Let's say we do a little kissing and we do oral sex and we say goodnight. Let's say path C is we take a shower together and we kiss and we soap each other's backs and we hug. That's path C. Path D is massaging each other, full body. You've got all these different pathways to being erotic or sensual or intimate or sexual. The more that you have different pathways to being intimate, the more intimate you'll be. Kimberley: That is so relieving is the word I feel. I feel a sense of relief in terms of like, you're right. I think that that is a huge answer, as you said. Actually, I think it's a good answer. I don't think that's a hard answer. I like that. For me, it feels like this wonderful relief of pressure or change of story and narrative. I love that. I know in the last episode you did, you talked a lot about mindfulness and stuff like that, which I will have in this series. People can go and listen to it as well. I'm sure that's a piece of the pie. I want to be respectful of your time. Where can people hear more about you and the work that you're doing? I know that you have an exciting book coming out, so tell us a little bit about all that. Dr. Lauren: Thank you. I do. I co-authored a book called Desire. It's an inclusive guide to managing libido differences in relationships. I co-authored that with my colleague Dr. Jennifer Vencill. That comes out August 22nd, 2023 of this year. We'll be talking in that book mainly about desire. There are some chapters or some sections in the book that do intersect with things like anxiety. There's some particular instructions and exercises that help walk people through some things that they can do with a partner or on their own to work through anxiety. We've got an anxiety hierarchy in there where whatever your goal might be, how to break that up into smaller pieces. We're really excited about that. I think that might be helpful for some people in your audience. And then in general, I am most active on Instagram. My handle is my full name. It's @drlaurenfogelmersy. I'm also on Facebook and TikTok. My website is drlaurenfogel.com. Kimberley: Thank you. Once again, so much pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for your beautiful expertise. You bring a gentle, respectful warmth to these more difficult conversations, so thank you. Dr. Lauren: Oh, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me back.

Jacob is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, post-graduate year 1 surgery with focus on heavy trauma, working as a flight doctor in USAF for 6 months. He has been on the carnivore diet for almost 2 years and has lost more than 70 lb and gained muscle, his IBS, eczema, allergies, and migraines are gone, and his Hashimoto's signs and symptoms have improved. Timestamps: 00:00 Trailer 00:57 Introduction 02:39 Medical school 04:36 Obese as a kid 06:45 Genetics vs food environment  09:37 Hashimoto's on the carnivore diet 11:11 Pushback from the Air Force to lose weight 12:45 Reaction from physicians and nurses 15:02 Knowledge of nutrition and practice 17:09 Plant-based nutrition in the military 19:09 What to eat at work 22:07 Evidence for recommendations 24:23 Carnivore diet and family 26:43 Talking to patients about removing processed foods 30:01 Cognitively sharper on the carnivore diet 33:21 Career moving forward 34:54 Nutrition training in medical school 37:01 Fine-tuning the diet moving forward 38:34 Research as a pathologist 41:21 General surgeons 43:28 Eczema cleared up 45:13 Where to not find Jacob See open positions at Revero: https://jobs.lever.co/Revero/ Join Carnivore Diet for a free 30 day trial: https://carnivore.diet/join/ Book a Carnivore Coach: https://carnivore.diet/book-a-coach/ Carnivore Shirts: https://merch.carnivore.diet Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://carnivore.diet/subscribe/ . ‪#revero #shawnbaker #Carnivorediet #MeatHeals #HealthCreation   #humanfood #AnimalBased #ZeroCarb #DietCoach  #FatAdapted #Carnivore #sugarfree  ‪

In this episode we welcome critical care nurse practitioner, Kali Dayton, DNP, AGACNP. Kali is a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and host of the ‘Walking Home From The ICU' podcast. Kali works closely with international ICU teams to help transform patient outcomes. They focus on early mobility and management of delirium in the ICU. She joins us to chat about her early days and experience in the ICU, sedation in patients and the effects of mobility of patients in the ICU, medications, how she helps with patient healing and more. Kali tells us about what inspired her to start her podcast and shares a story about her experience with an ICU survivor.SPONSORBETTERHELPBetterHelp is the largest online counseling platform worldwide. They change the way people get help with facing life's challenges by providing convenient, discreet, and affordable access to a licensed therapist. BetterHelp makes professional counseling available anytime, anywhere, through a computer, tablet or smartphone.Sign up today: http://betterhelp.com/solvinghealthcare and use discount code “solvinghealthcare"TRANSCRIPTKK: We are on the brink of a mental health crisis. This is why I am so appreciative of the folks over at BetterHelp everybody the largest online counseling platform worldwide to change the way people get help with facing life's challenges by providing convenient, discreet, and affordable access to licensed therapists. BetterHelp makes professional counseling available anytime, anywhere through a computer, tablet, or smartphone. Sign up today go to better health.com And use a promo code solving healthcare and get 10% off signup fees.SP: COVID has affected us all and with all the negativity surrounding it, it's often hard to find the positive. One of the blessings that has given us is the opportunity to build an avenue for creating change. Starting right here in our community discussing topics that affect us most such as racism and health care, maintaining a positive mindset, creating change the importance of advocacy, and the many lessons we have all learned from COVID. If you or your organization are interested in speaking engagements, send a message to kwadcast99@gmail.com or reach out on Facebook @kwadcast or online at drkwadwo.caKK: Welcome to ‘Solving Healthcare', I'm Kwadwo Kyeremanteng. I'm an ICU and palliative care physician here in Ottawa and the founder of resource optimization that one, we are on a mission to transform healthcare in Canada. We're going to talk with physicians, nurses, administrators, patients and their families because inefficiencies, overwork and overcrowding affects us all. I believe it's time for a better health care system that's more cost effective, dignified, and just for everyone involved. KK: Kwadcast nation super exciting episode I got flowing with you. We got Kali Dayton. She is a nurse practitioner that has taken ICU delirium, ICU mobility so seriously, she's got her own consulting firm. She also has her own podcast ‘Walking from the ICU'. Such a great phenomenon. So, we got her you'll hear this episode. It's a live cast that we did a couple of weeks ago. I'm just proud of her. Someone that's taken getting people healthier and out of the ICU and functional seriously, and we need more of that going on right now. We're only gonna see higher demands. So, without further ado, I'm gonna bring Kali on but first, check out our latest newsletter, kwadcast.substack.com It has everything Kwadcast, our episodes, or newsletter, guest blog appearances, guest vlog appearances, you're gonna love it. Kwadcast.substack.com Check it out. Without further ado, I want to introduce you to Kali Dayton. Welcome to the podcast.KD: Thank you so much for having me on. I've been following your podcast; I appreciate your mission. I see a lot of our objectives are in line.KK: Oh 100% 100%. So, Kali, can you walk us through your story? You're a nurse practitioner. That is, like I said, changing the outlook for critically ill patients. How did you get here?KD: Absolutely. I'm sure a lot of my listeners know my story very well. I started out as a brand-new nurse, many years ago, over a decade ago, in awake and walking ICU. That's just what I call it now. That's the term that I've coined to describe what they do there. In the interview in my naivete, I was just excited to be there. I had no idea what they were talking about when they asked, ‘Would you be willing to walk patients that are on ventilators?' and I was willing to do anything, right. I was just brand new graduate. I said yeah, of course absolutely teach me everything. I didn't understand the magnitude of that question until probably three to eight years later. Because when I started working there, no one made a big deal out of it, for decades and that ICU it's a medical surgical ICU, its high acuity, they've had a COVID ICU throughout the pandemic. They've maintained it this practice of allowing almost every patient to wake up, usually right after intubation, unless there's an actual indication for sedation. What's been intubated on mechanical ventilation is not an indication for sedation. So, unless they have an inability oxygen with movement, seizures and cranial hypertension, something like that, otherwise they are awake. They're reoriented and they're allowed to communicate, tell us what they need. We manage their pain according to what they tell us. They're usually mobilizing shortly after within hours after intubation, and throughout the day, and throughout their time on the ventilator. So that was completely normal. No one told me ‘Hey, Kali, this is the gold standard of care. This is the model for all early mobility protocols in the world' Everyone knows about this ICU. No one told me that. So, I spent a few years there thinking that that was normal critical care, medicine, knowing none the wiser. Then I became a travel nurse, and I went to other ICUs in the in the United States. My very first contract when I walked into the ICU, it just felt different. But I knew I expected things to feel different, right? It's a new environment. But everyone was in bed. Everyone looked like they were asleep. There were very few signs of life, and I got my patient assignment, and the patient was sedated and on the ventilator. I didn't know why they were sedated. I wanted to continue my routine, do a neuro exam, hopefully get the patient in the chair ready for physical therapy, because that was my routine, in the wake & walk ICU. A lot of times physical therapy comes out of that patient is in the chair waiting for the physical therapist, take them on a walk even on the ventilator. So, I asked my orientee nurse, ‘Hey, can I get this patient up and take him for a walk?' and she looked at me in horror and said, ‘No, they're on the ventilator. They're intubated' What didn't make sense to me, because I've cared for at least hundreds, maybe even 1000s of patients that were on the ventilator and were awake and walking. I had no idea what she was talking about. I said, ‘I know that they're intubated. But why are they sedated?' ‘Because they're intubated?' and I say, ‘Okay, but why are they sedated?' and we went in circles. That was the first time it ever crossed my mind that a patient would be automatically sedated, just because they were intubated. I quickly realized that that was the common perspective throughout the ICU, that I was the odd man out there. Here's the thing. Despite my years of experience, treating patients like that, I knew how to do it. I didn't know why we did it. No one had taught me what sedation actually does. No one taught me what it's actually like for patients, and how much it changes outcomes. So, in that environment, I didn't have the tools to support my approach and my practices and to advocate for my patients. I was still kind of a new nurse, and I was, you know, you just had to fit in in the ICU. There's so much peer pressure, there's the culture is such a huge part of it. I ended up just taking the ‘When in Rome' approach and I just went with what I was surrounded with, and I ended up following along sedating my patients. I didn't really obviously know the difference. I mean, I saw a difference in outcomes. I saw patients stay on the ventilator for far longer. I missed the human connection, I noticed that there were a lot of tracheostomies and nursing home and LTech discharges that I did not see the way can walk in ICU 93% of survivors from that high acuity medical surgical ICU that I came from, went straight home after the after the ICU.KK: That is nuts. That is nuts.KD: That's what I thought was normal. So, I was noticing things, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. I couldn't advocate and I just went with it. Right. I even laughed at some of the nursing jokes about yeah, I hope my patient sedated, and totally snowed today. Thinking that that was funny, and it wasn't till years later that I was in grad school. Of course, even in my acute care doctorate program, nothing was mentioned about sedation or mobility practices. It was just assumed even in our case studies, it was assumed that if a patient came in with pneumonia, they were going to be sedated if they were on a ventilator. I was on a plane ride, and I sat next to a survivor. When he heard that I was a nurse and ICU nurse, the color dropped from his face. He started telling me about his experience over four years before that moment when he was a patient. He told me what it was like to be on a ventilator. He just barely mentioned the ventilator. All he could fixate on was what it was like to be in the middle of a forest with his limbs nailed to the ground and trees were falling down on him and he couldn't run away. Demons were coming to the sky and lots of things that he still couldn't talk about, because he was so deeply traumatized. I was stranger on this plane and he's sobbing to me, telling me about what he experienced. Of course, I wanted to diagnose him and I said ‘it sounds like you had ICU delirium' but that meant nothing to him. I came to realize as I listened with real empathetic ears, that that wasn't just a nightmare. Those weren't hallucinations. Those were vivid and real. He was psychologically scarred as if he physically lived through those scenarios. I was really shaken. I really hoped that he was one in a million, because he was telling me that for year after discharge, it was really difficult to relearn how to sit, stand, walk, swallow, that was really hard. The hardest part was that for year after discharge, every time he closed his eyes, he would be lost back in that forest back in that scenario, and he could not sleep. So, the depression, anxiety, physical disability, I didn't ask about the cognitive function because I didn't enough know enough to know that he wouldn't be at high risk of having post ICU dementia. He said that he still had not returned to his career. His life was over. He said ‘I know I feel bad even telling you this, I should be grateful to the ICU to him for saving my life, but my life is over. The life I knew before the ICU is gone. I lost my life in the ICU. If I were ever to become sick, I would never cross a toe back into the ICU. He was a DNR/DNI in his 40s, with no other real comorbidities because he never wanted to live through that again. I think what he meant by that was ICU delirium. I had worked in the ICU about six years. We have never I never heard anyone talk about anything like that. So, I thought this must be a fluke, he must be one in a million. So, I went survivor groups. I thought I would have to post and ask survivors questions. No, the second I got into survivor group, I just scroll through and almost all their posts were about the trauma suffered under sedation and these medically induced comas, what it was like to not be able to balance their check book, read a book, read a clock, like they were barely able to text. These are people thinking ‘How long is this going to last? my brain is not the same'. So that is what got me into looking into the research. I was shocked to find decades of research, exposing the harm of our normal practices. Yet we continue to do those things and I was back in that awake and walk ICU. Seeing a completely different way and I've seen this contrast from what I experienced for years as a travel nurse. Then where I was currently at as a doctorate student, nurse, and then I started working as a nurse practitioner, in that same ICU. That's when I started this podcast ‘Walking home from the ICU' to show what they were doing in the ICU and now it's turned into ‘how do we revolutionize our normal practices in the ICU?'KK: I got so much here, first. I never even would have comprehended or would have thought that your initial experience, I didn't realize that your initial experience was people were able to ambulate and get out of bed and reduce the amount of sedation. KD: People are gonna say ‘Oh, well, that must have been, you know, long term mentors or not that high acuity' They were the first ICU to publish the study back in 2007, showing that it was safe and feasible to walk patients on ventilators and in that study, they had PF ratios less than 100.KK: What that means in nonmedical folk is that your lungs were extremely damaged and require a lot of supplemental oxygen to make sure your saturations are high enough that your oxygen levels are high enough. So, this is the sickest of the sick. From a breathing perspective, getting up and hustling and movement answered. So that is amazing. From a personal side, it must have been an absolute mind F that you couldn't, that you went from one extreme to the other. I'm doing tell you from my I've worked in several ICUs in my country, and the latter is the norm, people aren't getting up on a ventilator, you know, they're not getting, they're barely getting up into a chair on a ventilator. KD: They aren't even getting sedation vacations, they're snowed. KK: One of my main jobs in the ICU when I walk in is minimize the sedation and even often I've seen in practice, they're getting Dilaudid or opioid infusions for no real reason to be honest with you. They're not post op. They have no pain syndrome and we're given pain medication in infusion, which accumulates and what you're describing to amongst patients, my other job is in palliative care when they get toxic or delirium. Delirium from medication. Yeah, that can be traumatic, these memories, these images. That must have been an absolute frustrating experience to go from one version to the other.KD: I was just really confused. I mean, I was still I feel like I'm still new in my career and impressionable. No one taught me the why that's the unfortunate thing about a lot of our medical education is we're taught how we're taught task lists, but we're not taught the why that allow us to critically think and see a bigger picture. I feel like looking back I was really victim to that. I but I would still ask every ICU ‘So, shouldn't this patient get up? Can I get them up?' because it I knew that was beneficial. I wanted that and a lot of it for me was, I wanted to see my patients get better. When you're walking a patient moments later, you know that they're progressing, you get to connect with them, you get to know who your patients are, I had no idea who my patients were, they were just bodies in the bed. That's not why I got into medicine. So even just selfishly, I wanted them to be off sedation, had I known that by taking off sedation, we could decrease their seven-day mortality by 68%. Oh, I would have been all over that, but I didn't know. I did work in one ICU, where they had some level of ABCDEF bundle, which is a protocol to help guide teams to minimize sedation and get patients up. There's such a spectrum of compliance and different approaches to it. So, I was taught to do an awakening trial, which means you turned on sedation. The purpose really should be to get them off sedation, it should be sedation cessation, but I was taught. So, you know, at five o'clock in the morning, we must turn down sedation, it's super annoying, I know but just turn it down. Wait to see them thrash - that's how you know, when you see all their limbs move that they haven't had a stroke. When you can tell they can't tolerate the ventilator, then you turn the sedation back on and call it a failed trial, just chart it. I was confused. I didn't know what the objective was, I didn't know what we were doing. I didn't know why they were agitated. For her to say it's because I can't tolerate the ventilator. That was confusing to me because I'd seen so many patients tolerate the ventilator. I didn't understand delirium, and I hated awake new trials. They were laborious, they were stressful, they felt unsafe. It's hard to see patients between delirium, it's hard to see them be so uncomfortable, and you can see the terror in their eyes. But again, when in Rome, I just did what I was told, unfortunately. So, this is my journey now is almost my penance for the harm that I caused my patients during those years. KK: Well, Let's be honest, Kali, you can't be looking at it that way, man. We all remember sedation is the norm. What we're doing now is trying to advocate for change. I can't emphasize enough the change can be dramatic for people like it really comes down to function. If you in the ICU and you're paralyzed into intubated on sedation and analgesia, you're not moving, like you're not using your muscle. Then when you're trying to go back to what you want it to where you want it to be. I think a lot about our COVID patients. They were in the 40s/50s/60s, that are trying to get back to working, trying to get back to doing the activities that they love to do. When you think about this not only are you impacting their ability, like they're not getting to their functional level, but what's it doing for their family. Now you got a loved one that's got to take care of them, that might have to take off time off work too. It just is an absolute amplifier when people can't be functional.KD: For those that maybe don't work in the medical field, or even especially those that do, here's what we're not talking about the bedside, here's what we're not telling patients and families. When we go into surgery, they give us informed consent, they tell us here are the remote risk that things that could happen, right. What we don't do before intubation for patients and our families is tell them the actual risks of sedation. We don't understand ourselves that sedation is not sleep, it disrupts the brain activity so severely that they don't get real REM cycle. So, my perspective is that it's a form of torture, really, I mean, that's what we do, and war in the military, we deprive people of sleep, and that's what we're doing to our patients when we give medications that make it so they cannot get restorative sleep. Many of our study, sedatives are myotoxic, meaning that they're toxic to the muscles, so it causes more muscle breakdown. Then on top of that, if there's absolute disuse when you're stopped sleeping deeply sedated, you're not even contracting a muscle usually. So that disuse makes it so that our muscles break down more. That disruption of sleep often caught is one of the mechanisms that causes delirium, which is acute brain failure. It's an organ dysfunction. That can turn into long term post ICU, dementia, cognitive impairments. So, they cannot return to their normal lives can't take care of their families can't go back to their jobs because they can't. Cognitively their brains can't function the same way anymore. They have this post ICU PTSD because of those vivid scenarios that they live. I'm not going to call them hallucinations, because that's, that's not accurate. Those were real to them. We just don't see that big picture of sedation, and we just don't even question and I do that a lot in my life too. They're things that I'm just taught that I don't question, but we don't question whether or not sedation is necessary. Sometimes it is. When we understand how risky it is, then we can do a true risk versus benefit analysis for each patient to say, ‘they're intubated for this reason, does that necessitate sedation?' If not, let's get it off and see what they need. Let them communicate. Let's prevent delirium. Your platform is all about preventative medicine. In the ICU you come in with one acute critical illness and we sign them up for chronic conditions?KK: Absolutely, as you said, like it really is about what can we do to prevent this from becoming a chronic condition. Honestly, it's a culture change, from what I could see. What's sad about medicine, is that we have data to support how bad things are or how good things are. The amount of time we invest in create that change is limited. If you look at the data for sedation vacation, so that same principle of, turn off someone's sedation, periodically, that we know that has positive outcomes, like we know that, but you could go through an ICU, throughout any country in North America and the odds are that they're not getting it routinely. Why doesn't that happen? That's why I'm proud of Kali. Number one, being a champion of this, ICU care sucks, but a lot of us that will end up in there. So, we want to be able to optimize care, but also like just doing some about it. It's one thing to want to bring attention to it but also, being an activist. I think it helps. So, you've got the podcast, Kali, you've done some other work, how else have you been able to increase awareness? You could even get into like, what the podcast also has done for you or in the people around you?KD: So with a podcast, I started that right before COVID hit. I don't know if your god person but I, God told me to start a podcast in December 2019. I barely even listened to podcast didn't know how to start one, but I couldn't. I couldn't rest. I knew exactly that I had to start, I had to put out 32 somewhat episodes by the beginning of March of 2020. I didn't know why it had to be so fast and so furious, and survivors came out of nowhere. I interviewed my colleagues, researchers, it was just this miraculous setup that just came together, put out all these episodes, and then COVID hit. I thought ‘well now it's all gonna be all about COVID, and no one's gonna care about this'. God back handed me and said, ‘This is for COVID They're gonna be millions of people on ventilators, how is this not relevant to COVID'. So, I continue to throw out COVID Even though I recognize that the ICU community was not really in a place to revolutionize. The hard thing is that this could have been so beneficial to COVID we created more work for ourselves with the sedation practices, you talked about awakening and breathing trials. Once I just looked at only wake & breathing trial started sedation, turn it off once a day and then turn it back on. Decrease ventilator days, by 2.4 days, days in the ICU decreased by three days in that hospital decreased by 6.3 days, when we're in a staffing crisis, we need to have a process of care that's efficient actually gets patients out of the ICU. Instead, we created this bottleneck where patients are now stuck on the ventilator because they're too weak to breathe on their own. Even if their lungs are better. Now they need tracheostomies. They're stuck in a ventilator. We can't at least in the States, we couldn't get them to LTACH because LTACH's were too full of all the other COVID long term patients. So, then the ICU wasn't rehabilitating these patients, and so then they develop more hospital complications, and then they ended up needing more care. It's just we created so much more work for ourselves. It just was a hard time to really take on a new endeavor and totally change your practices. But during COVID, everyone ran back to the 90s. Not everyone but a lot of people ran back to the 90s. As far as using benzodiazepines, higher doses of sedation, deeper sedation longer times, there was so much fear. We did a lot of fear-based medicine. So, I just kept chugging along with my podcast, knowing that the community was going to need healing after all of this. We were going to need a lot of rehabilitation within our own clinicians, but also within our practices. So now, teams are coming to me saying what we're doing now. We're still doing COVID care even these are not COVID patients, we're still we're back to deeply sedated patients. Where are we lost so many seasoned clinicians, new clinicians came in during COVID. They've been trained to deep deep, deeply sedate, they don't know how to move patients they're scared to. But one team said I look on my ICU It's not an ICU, these aren't ICU patients. These are LTACH patients. These are rehab patients that we're not rehabilitating. We're bottlenecked. We can't get these patient outpatients out, we can't get new patients, we're stuck. We're creating that kind of scenario. So now, I work as a consultant and I do training with the teams, I teach them the why the reality of delirium, giving them a picture of an awake & walking ICU using real case studies, pictures, videos, so that we have a vision of what could be I feel like the ABCDEF bundle when it was rolled out in the mid 2000's good change happened, a lot of things moved forward. I do feel like we didn't explain fully the why behind it. Until every ICU clinician hears the voice of survivors, they won't be afraid of sedation, they'll still be inclined. We started, we continued this start sedation automatically, then at some subjective point down the road, start to take it off, when they come out, agitated, turn it back on, we just didn't, we didn't give them this perspective of ‘Hey, most patients should be awakened walking. Here's how to treat delirium and here's how the team works together' we put a lot of it on nurses, which is not fair, feasible or sustainable. So, as I work with teams, I tried to really give them a foundation of why, and then how, how to treat patients without automatically sedating them. When the sedation necessary. How do we navigate appropriate and safe sedation practices? When do we use it? How do we mobilize patients, I go on site with teams and I do simulation training, we do real case studies and practice and the whole team practices together. Because it's a skill set, we think about pronation, when we started printing patients, everyone was terrified. And it took so many people and it took so long, you know watching every little line and now teams flip them like pancakes, right? It becomes a skill set. So, I tried to get them opportunity to practice that on a pretend patient. So, they can think through critically think through the scenario, think through delirium, thanks for ICU acquired weakness, then practice mobilizing patients with different levels of mobility.KK: My brain is going like, the whole time, it's like you need to come see our group.KD: Let's do it. I'll hope on a plane tomorrow – I can't actually. I'm going to Kentucky tomorrow, but let me know I'll be there!KK: We would absolutely love to have you. Just knowing where a lot of clinicians lack is hearing the voice of the people that have gone through it. Clearly, that's been a motivator for you in terms of why we need to pivot and provide less sedation to our patients and mobilize our patients and avoid them from having all these secondary complications as a result of being immobile. The means are there. KD: The data is strong; the data is really powerful. I mean, decreased mortality by 68%. Who doesn't want to do that, right? So, but almost even more powerful are the voices survivors, when you hear their voices in your head when you're sitting in a patient. It's haunting COVID, there were times when patients could not oxygenate the movement. I had to sedate them. I hated it. I just felt sick because I, I just didn't know what they were experiencing. I didn't know if they were in pain. I didn't know what was going on underneath that they were going to live with us the rest of our lives, it's because of the survivors that have interviewed on my podcast, they are the educators.KK: Yeah, I have so many ideas going through my head. I would love after when we jump off, links to the some of the episodes from the survivors that we can pass along to our group, to our show in general, but our group to give a sense of what it really is like to go through this. Yeah, our patients don't come I mean, every once in a while we get a patient come back and say how they're doing but they don't give us the they don't give us the negative side, they really focus on showing some gratitude. KD: Which is good, but if they came back, it's probably because they weren't too traumatized to come back. The ones that don't come back. I mean, why would you go back to the place that you are sexually assaulted?KK: Yeah, no, yeahKD: It's like to trigger and some people can't even go the same street as that hospital. On my website under the resources tab, the clinician podcast, at the bottom, the page is organized by topics. One of those topics is survivors of sedation and mobility, as well as survivors of an awake & walk ICU. So, you can hear their different perspectives and testimonies, it's organized by different topics. KK: You're an organized cat, I'm looking at it right now. I can tell you, you're very structured and organized just by the way your website is set up. It's on point.KD: It's curriculum. This is education, this is not just a hobby. I mean, this is we've got to make sure we get the right information to the right people.KK: You're so boss. You're gonna be running an organization one day, and ICU, I don't know. I see big things for you.KD: We'll see. I mean, I have a lot of optimism for the future of critical care, going to conferences, meeting with people at the bedside podcast listeners reaching out. It's not just me that cares about this. That's why I continue is that there are so many people that I call revolutionists, sometimes as the lone voice in their ICUs. But they're bringing big changes, they're making waves there so my motivation with podcasts is to provide the ammo, the quiver the arrows in their quiver, so that they can share that with their colleagues get more buy in, so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's a lot to change a perspective and change a culture. It's hard.KK: Yeah, and maybe just seeking some advice, we had Dr. Wes Ely on the show and how to create some culture change around this issue. I want to hear your perspective. Kali, how do you think you do create that culture change? Because you bring this up to many staff, and they'll be like, ‘Oh, they're gonna extubate themselves? Oh, we're short staffed. This is not gonna be able to work.' What are your thoughts?KD: Yeah, this has been a lot of my journey is figuring out what are the barriers? and how do we address them? I think we're over the checklists. I think it is important to systemize and protocolized our practices. When we implement these kinds of changes, we this can't just be “Hey, Nurse, take off the sedation' that is not going to work. They have some valid fears at all I had ever seen. With a patient coming off sedation. After days, two weeks of sedation, I would have a lot of inhibitions. When I'm busy. I don't have time to wrangle that patient. I don't have time to make sure they don't self extubate. I have a Thank you for reading Solving Healthcare Media with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng. This post is public so feel free to share it.whole episode on unplanned extubations, but delirium increases the chances of unplanned extubations by 11 times. So, it's just changing the perspective understanding what is delirium? why should we be panicked about it? What causes it? We are practices are some of the biggest risk factors and culprits of delirium in the ICU, and to learn doubles that are in hours required for care. So, when we're short staffed, why would we create a delirium factory? When it doubles our workload? It doesn't make sense, but when that's all we know, we don't understand that there's a better way to do it. So, my approach when I go to help a team have culture change is to, again explain the ‘why' give a perspective of what could be, here's what patients can be like, when we don't sedate them. If they when they wake up after intubation, it's like coming out of a colonoscopy. Endotracheal tubes not comfortable. Here are some tools to help make it more comfortable. Here's how we can talk to them. Give them a pen and paper, I would get agitated and panicked. I couldn't communicate. Here's how you involve the family, here's the toolbox to help you succeed and have that patient be calm & compliant. And they will protect their tubes. I've had patients write ‘please be careful my tube' That's what I need to experience. So, when you find a couple of case that isn't so easy hits, easy wins. Allow your team to see a patient awake, communicative, calm in even more while on the ventilator, the perspective starts to shift. Then they start to ask, okay, that was easy. That was fun. That changed outcomes. They walked up the ICU. Who else can we do this on and it starts to have a domino effect. So suddenly, we expect him to just shut up and do it. That's, that's not going to cut it. I don't think that I think that's partially why the ABCDEF bundle rollout, years ago was not has kind of gone away, because we didn't provide the why. We also, again, I think starting sedation, and then taking off later, is a lot of work. We should only do that if it's absolutely necessary. Otherwise, I mean, I have an episode with a hospital in Denmark, they do the same thing and that allow patients to wake up right after intubation. They are so much easier, more compliant, because they don't have delirium, we have to understand that that agitation is usually rooted in delirium, we have to come to really be terrified of delirium.KK: I'm really enjoying this, I'm really liking this because it's even at that added perspective of saying, ‘Hey, your workload is going to be worse if people are delirious, so let's avoid going delirious in the first place' Let's just get a grip on this bad boy, out of the gate.KD: You're all about preventative and it's like, Let's prevent one of the biggest culprits of mortality. Delirium doubles the risk of dying in the hospital. So, people say we don't have time to mess with all sedation practices, like let's just sedate them and like, save their lives and figure it out later. No. By doing that, by increasing the risk of delirium, we could double their chances of dying. So, if we care about mortality, then we will care about our sedation practices. We also know that ICU acquired weakness is really laborious. When people imagine mobilizing patients on ventilators. What they're imagining is taking off sedation days to weeks later when they're delirious. They can barely lift a finger and now we're trying to mobilize these, you know, 200 plus pound adults to the side of the bed. That's dangerous, laborious, it takes so many people. If a patient walks into the ICU or into the hospital, hypoxic hypotensive, whatever. We have moments later, we haven't stabilized. Why can't they walk? Did we cut their legs off? Right? So, once we have oxygenated, perfused, what's the harm in sitting outside of the bed and seeing how they do when they're not delirious, they can tell us how they're feeling. We can provide more support on the ventilator; they can probably walk better than they did come in and hypoxic. Once they're stabilized hours later, or even 24 hours later. So that is so much easier when they maintain their ability to walk. So, in the COVID ICU, many patients were standby assists to the chair with a nurse while they were on a ventilator, because they're alone in the room, right? Physical therapy could go in and work with a patient, just scoot the ventilator wall to wall as they're stuck in their rooms, help them stand or sit, step on steps, they were alone in that room with these patients, because they were strong enough to do it, because we didn't allow them to be under myotoxic sedation and I would say rot in the bed. So, all of that plays into an ease of workload. Then obviously the get off the ventilator sooner, get out of the ICU sooner. It makes the workload easier. So, it's a little bit of an exchange and efforts in some ways. Yes, you must talk to a patient. Yes, you must assess them a little bit more. But also, could during COVID, I was hearing about swapping out propofol bottles every hour, picking up to go in and out to titrate vasopressors that we were getting just because of the sedative and hypotensive effects. All of that is effort but wasn't necessary and wasn't beneficial.KK: I'm telling you, you are changing the boogie. Yeah, changing the conversation and perspective. This is something that can dramatically impact patient care. If we could get the buy in, in the culture. Wow.KD: You know, people will say ‘Well, we don't have we're trying to save $25 million this year. We can't afford to pay our payer clinician some extra time for education or whatnot' The ABCDEF bundle, even in their spectrum of compliance, decreased healthcare costs by 24 to 30%. KK: Oh, yeah. KD: ICU acquired weakness increases healthcare costs by I want to say 30-40%. Delirium increases healthcare costs by 40%. ICU acquired weakness increases healthcare costs by 30.5%. So, by having a process of care that prevent those complications with decreased healthcare costs. So why wouldn't we, right? KK: 100%. We even we had a paper out last year showing the financial impacts of ICU delirium. We always think to have the opportunity cost, that money could be diverted into more staffing, more resources for physio, optimizing nutrition, all these things can be enhanced. If we, if we make it a priority. KD: I think it's one of our one of our strongest cards to play for staff, safe staffing ratios. To say staff is better, we'll get better care in this using this protocol. We will save you so much money so it's investing thousands to save millions or billions.KK: I love it. You're speaking my language. We are definitely going to have you back in some capacity. I don't know that for some reason. It's not just gonna be the show. I really want to get you talking to our group. Maybe regional rounds, or something. I don't know what it's gonna be. It's something that we need to hear more of talked about the patient experience, your own experience and the drive like what's pushing this. Knowing my people a lot of intensivists and an ICU nurses and allied health professionals, we want to achieve this, get our patients to a point where they are better. Really better, not just alive, but thriving. This starts here. I really do believe it starts here. So I just want to give number one, Kali some mad love on what you're doing and continue to hustle, it's paying off. Second. How do people get to know you a little bit more? and about the show and the consulting and so forth?KD: So, have a website www.daytonicuconsulting.com. There's more information about consulting services available, the podcast is on there, the podcast has transcriptions and citations organized by topics. KK: So organized folks. KD: 116 episodes, and I really didn't even know how much of a what's called a rabbit hole that this would become. There's so much to learn about the science behind what we're doing as well as the patient and clinician perspective. So, check that out, find the topics. If nothing else start at the beginning. I think the beginning lays a foundation, I was very intentional about how I organized it at the beginning to lay a foundation of ‘why' and ‘how' comes later. I'm on Instagram @daytonicuconsulting, Twitter, Tik Tok. Go ahead and set up a consultation with me send me an email and we can chat about your team, your barriers, even your family members what's going on? I'm obviously obsessed. So, I'm here for you! let me know.KK: So good. So good. Thank you so much for joining us. Those on the chat group or that are watching live. You want a piece of this episode just tap NL into the chatbox will give you a copy the video and the end the podcast when it's released. Awesome work. Congratulations.KD: Thanks for caring about this.KK: 100% KK: Kwadcast nation that's exactly what I'm talking about changing the boogie right here in ICU care. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube Tiktok Facebook @Kwadcast Leave any comments at kwadcast99@gmail.com, subscribe to our newsletter. Essentially, it's like a membership you want to know more about Kwadcast nation. Go to Kwadcast.substack.com Check it out. Leave that five-star rating and continue to allow us to change boogie in unison. Take care, peace. We love you.Solving Healthcare Media with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Solving Healthcare Media with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng at kwadcast.substack.com/subscribe

Overwhelmed means that you are experiencing intense emotions you don't have the capacity to fully manage or process. Most people are overwhelmed by negative emotions, like anxiety, fear, anger or shame. These feelings leave little room to figure out what is the next best step.  When we are overwhelmed, performing every-day tasks is difficult - and it compromises our ability to act rationally, remember things, solve problems or think.    The “overwhelm” has physical, cognitive, and behavioral effects. Our bodies can feel shaky, or have those anxious sensations such as a racing heart or an upset stomach or that antsy skin-crawling sensation.  Cognitively, we can be slower to process information and even become confused and our judgment can be affected.  Our behaviors can also be impacted - we may eat more or less, we may treat others poorly, we may procrastinate or isolate ourselves.  In short - just feel and act in a way far from our best selves.   Overwhelm is a significant issue for women at work and about a third of us seek professional help to deal with overwhelming stress.     Some strategies for dealing with overwhelm are: Make time for the emotion, as we know, strong emotions usually only last a few minutes Consider how the emotion feels in your body Consider the emotion in the context it arose, was is it a reasonable response to the situation or was it really about something else  Emotions are messages, which may be as simple as being tired or hungry - or something much deeper Be careful not to “grind” on this think piece - sometimes we just need to let things go Be really kind to yourself - we are not alone on overwhelm - it is a common experiences   Sometimes calling a friend can help manage and strategize through overwhelm.  Kirsten has “borrowed a brain” from a friend when hers was not working.  Sometimes completely mixin' it up can also help - like heading out the door for a walk in the fresh air - or even just in different surroundings.  We can change overwhelm into something different - or at least alleviate its intensity - a critical piece to ease, meaning and joy at work.   Women Continuing To Face Alarmingly High Levels Of Burnout, Stress In The “New Normal” Of Work Stress in America 2022: Concerned for the future, beset by inflation

Rounding Up  Season 1 | Episode 7 – Cognitively Guided Instruction: Turning Big Ideas into Practice  Guest: Dr. Kendra Lomax  Mike Wallus: Have you ever had an experience during your teaching career that fundamentally changed how you thought about your students and the role that you play as an educator? For me, that shift occurred during a sweltering week in July of 2007, when I attended a course on cognitively guided instruction. Cognitively guided instruction, or CGI, is a body of research that has had a massive impact on elementary mathematics over the past 20 years. Today on the podcast, we're talking with Kendra Lomax, from the University of Washington, about CGI and the promise it holds for elementary educators and students. Well, Kendra, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to have you on.  Kendra Lomax: Well, thanks for having me.  Mike: Absolutely. I'm wondering if we can start today with a little bit of background; part history lesson, part primer to help listeners understand what CGI is. So, can you just offer a brief summary of what CGI is and the questions that it's attempted to shed some light on?  Kendra: Sure, I'll give it my best try. So, CGI is short for cognitively guided instruction, and it's a body of research that began some 30 years ago with Tom Carpenter and Elizabeth Fennema. And there's lots of other scholars that since then have kind of built upon that body of research. They really tried to think about and understand how children develop mathematical ideas over time. So, they interviewed and studied and watched really carefully what young children did as they solve whole-number problems. So, you may have heard about the book ‘Children's Mathematics,' and that's where you can read a lot about cognitively guided instruction and [it] summarizes some of that research. And they really started with whole-number computation and then have kind of expanded into areas like fractions and decimals, learning about how kids develop ideas about algebraic thinking, as well as early ideas around counting and quantity.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: So, there's a couple of books that are kind of in the CGI family. ‘Young Children's Mathematics' includes those original authors, as well as Nick Johnson and Megan Franke, Angela Turrou, and Anita Wager. That fractions and decimals work was really led by Susan Empson and Linda Levi. And then, like I mentioned, ‘Thinking Mathematically' is the text by the original authors that kind of talks about algebra. So, in all of those texts that summarize this research, basically, we're trying to understand how do children develop ideas over time? And Tom and Liz really set an example for all of us to follow in how they thought about sharing this research. They had a deep respect for the wisdom of teachers and the work that they do with young children. So, you won't find any sort of prescription in the CGI research about how to teach, exactly, or a curriculum. Because their approach was to share with teachers the research that they had done when they interviewed and listened to all of these many children solving problems, and then learn from the teachers themselves. What is it that makes sense to do in response to what we now know about how children develop mathematical ideas?  Mike: I mean, it's kind of a foundational shift in some ways, right? It reframes how to even think about instruction, at least compared to the traditional paradigm, right? Kendra: Yeah, it's less a study of how best to teach children and really a study and a curiosity about how children bring the ideas that they already have to their work in the math classroom, and how they build on those ideas over time.  Mike: Definitely. It's funny, because when I think about my first exposure I think that was the big aha, is that my job was to listen rather than to impose or tell or perfectly describe how to do something. And it's just such a sea change when you rethink the work of education.  Kendra: Definitely. And it feels really joyful, too, right? You get to be a student of your students and learn about their own thinking and be really responsive to them in the moment, which certainly provides lots of challenges for teachers. But also, I think, just a sense of genuine relationship with children and curiosity and a little bit of joy.  Mike: Definitely. So, I'm wondering if we could dig into a little bit of the whole-number work, because I think there's a bit that we were talking about with CGI, which is really the way in which you approach students, right? And the way that you listen to students for cues on what they're thinking is. But the research did reveal some ways to construct a framework for some of the things you see when children are thinking.  Kendra: So, if you read the book ‘Children's Mathematics,' you might notice or recognize some of those ideas, because CGI is one of the research bases for the Common Core state math standards. So, when you're looking through your grade-level standards and you see that they're suggesting particular problem types, number sizes, or strategies that children might use, much of that is based on the work of cognitively guided instruction, as well as other bodies of research. So, it might sound familiar when you read through the book yourself. And what CGI helps reveal is that there's a somewhat predictable sequence: That young children develop strategies for whole-number operation for working with whole-number computational problems.  Mike: Yeah. Can you talk about that, Kendra?  Kendra: Yeah. So, young children are going to start out with what we call direct modeling, where they are going to directly model the context of the problem. So, if we give them a story problem, they'll act out or model or show or gesture, to show the action of the problem. So, if it describes eating something ( makes eating sounds ), you can imagine, right, the action that goes along with eating? And we're all very familiar with it. So, they're going to show maybe, the cookies, and then cross out the ones that get eaten …  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: … right? So, they're really going to directly model the action or relationship described in the problem. And they're going to also represent all the quantities in the problem, which is different. What they learn over time is to count on or count back. So, some of the counting strategies where they learn, ‘Gosh, I don't want to make all the quantities in this problem.' It becomes too difficult, too cumbersome. And they learn that they could count on from one of the quantities or count back. So, in that cookie example, maybe there are seven cookies on a plate, and I have two of them for dessert, right? ( makes eating sounds) They go away. So, in direct modeling, they're going to show the seven cookies. They're going to remove those two cookies that get eaten, and then count how many are left. Where in counting on—so they have had lots of experiences of direct modeling—they can say, ‘Gosh, I don't really want to draw that seven. I'm going to imagine the seven … ‘  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: ‘ … And I can maybe count backwards from there.'  Mike: So, like, 7, 6, 5.  Kendra: Yeah. Right. So, I don't have to make the seven. I can just imagine it. And I keep track of those two that I'm counting back.  Mike: That totally makes sense. And as a former kindergarten and first-grade teacher, it's an amazing thing to actually see that shift happen.  Kendra: Right? And it's really specialized knowledge that teachers develop to pay attention to that shift. It's easy for everybody else to kind of miss it. But for teachers, it's a really important shift to pay attention to.  Mike: I used to say to parents, when I would try to describe this, it's something that we almost aren't conscious of being able to do. But it's a gigantic step to go from imagining a quantity as a set of ones to imagining a quantity that is a number that you can count back from or count forward from. It's a gigantic leap. Even though to us, we've forgotten what big of a leap that was because it's been so long since we took it.  Kendra: Yeah. That's one thing I love about studying children's mathematics, is, like, you get to experience that wonderment all over again …  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: … in the things that we kind of, as adults, take for granted in how we think about the world.  Mike: Yeah. I think you really clearly articulated the shift that kids make when they move from direct modeling, the action and the quantities, to that kind of shift in their thinking and also their efficiency of being able to count on or count back. Is there more to, kind of, the trajectory that kids are on from there?  Kendra: There is, yeah. So, after children have had lots of experiences to direct model, and then learn to become more efficient with that, and counting on or counting back, then they might start inventing. We call them invented algorithms, which is a fancy way to say that they think about the relationship between quantities and start putting them together and taking them apart in more efficient ways. So, they might use their understanding of groups of 10, right? So, in that example, with the cookies—seven cookies and eating two of them—I might know something about the relationship with fives …  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: … Five and two make a seven. So, they start to develop some sense of how numbers go together, and how the operations really behave. So, in addition, I can kind of add them in any order that I want to, right? So, we see these called in the Common Core standards, Strategies Based on Place Value, Properties of Operation, and the relationship between addition, subtraction, or multiplication, division.  Mike: That's super helpful to actually connect that language in Common Core to what you might see, and how that translates into, kind of, what one might read about in some of the CGI research.  Kendra: Right. It'd be lovely if we all had the exact same ( laughs ) names, wouldn't it?  Mike: Definitely. One of the questions that I suspect people who might be new to this conversation are asking is, what are the conditions that I can put in place? Or what are the things that I might, as a teacher, be able to influence that would help kids move and make some of these shifts. Knowing that the answer isn't direct instruction. I could get a kid to mimic counting on, but if they're still really thinking about numbers in the sense of a direct modeler, they haven't really shifted, right? So, my wondering is, how would you describe some of the ways that teachers can help nudge children, or kind of set up situations that are there to help kids make the shift without telling, or …  Kendra: ( chuckles)  Mike: … like, giving away the game?  Kendra: Totally. Yeah. That's one takeaway that I'm always on the lookout for when people hear about CGI and this trajectory that's somewhat predictable.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Let's just teach them the next strategy then, right?  Mike: Right.  Kendra: And what's important to remember is that these are called invented algorithms for a reason.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Because children are actually inventing mathematics. It's amazing. Kindergartners are inventing mathematics. And so, our role is really to create the right opportunities for them to do that important work. And like you're saying, when they're ready for the next ideas that they're building on their existing knowledge, rather than us kind of coming in and trying to create that artificially.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: So, again, like, Liz and Tom really kind of taught us to be students of our students as well as students of teachers.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: So, what we've learned over time … some of the things that teachers have found really productive for supporting students to kind of move through this trajectory, to create increasingly efficient strategies, is really about thinking about carefully choosing the problems that we've put in front of students.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: So, paying attention to the context. Is it familiar to them? Is it reasonable for the real world? Are we helping kids see that mathematics is all around them.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Paying attention to the quantities that we select. So, if we want them to start thinking about those relationships with five and 10, or as they get older with hundreds and thousands, that we're intentional about the quantities that we choose for those problems.  Mike: Right.  Kendra: And then, of course we know that students learn a lot from not just us, but their relationships and their discussions with their classmates. So, really orchestrating classroom discussions, thinking about choosing students to work together so that they can both learn from one another, and really just finding ways to help students connect their current thinking with the new ideas that we know are on the horizon for them.  Mike: I would love for you to say a little bit more about number choice. That is such a powerful strategy that I think is underutilized. So, I'm wondering if you could just talk about being strategic around the number choices that you offer to kids. Can you say more about that?  Kendra: Sure! It's going to depend on grade level, of course, right?  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Because they're going to be working with very different quantities early in elementary and then later on … One thing I would say, across all of the grade levels, is to not limit students whenever possible. So, sometimes we want to give problems that kids are really comfortable with, and we know they're going to be successful. But if I'm thinking of how they develop more efficient strategies, sometimes the growth comes in making it a little tricky. So, giving quantities that are just a little bit beyond where they're counting as young children, so they develop the need to learn that counting sequence. Or, as we're working with older students, if we know that particular multiplication facts are less familiar to students. Giving them that nudge by creating story context, where they can really make sense of the action of the relationship that's happening in it, but maybe choosing that times seven that we know has been tricky for kids, right?  Mike: Yep.  Kendra: So, I would just encourage people to not shy away from problems that we know pose some challenge to students. That's actually where a lot of the meat and the rigor happens. And, but then we also want to provide support inside of those, right? So, working with a partner.  Mike: Definitely. Kendra: Or making sure they have access to those counting charts. That's one thing I would say across grade levels.  Mike: Yeah. So, you made me think of something else. It's fascinating to have this conversation, Kendra, 'cause it reminds me of all the things that I had to learn over time. And I think one of the things that I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about is, the types of problems and how the problem that you choose for a given group of students might influence whether they're direct modeling or they're counting on or whether they're using invented algorithms. Because I think, for me, one of the things that it took a while to make sense, is that the progression isn't necessarily linear, right? Like, if I'm counting on in a certain context, that doesn't mean I'm counting on in all contexts or direct modeling or what have you. So, I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about problem types and now how those influence what things students sometimes show us.  Kendra: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. When we describe, kind of, that trajectory of strategies, it sounds really nice and tidy and organized and like it is predictable in some ways. But like you're saying, it also depends on the kind of problem and the number size that we're putting in front of children. So that trajectory kind of iterates again and again throughout elementary school. So, as we pose more complex problem types … so, for example, the cookies problem where I have seven cookies, I eat two of them and the result is what's at the end of the story, right? The cookies left over.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: If I now make that problem, I have some cookies on a plate. I ate two of them, and I have five left over. All the kindergarten teachers, actually all the elementary school teachers …  Mike: ( laughs ) Yes.  Kendra: … can automatically recognize that's going to be a more tricky problem, right?  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Where do I start!? Especially if I'm direct modeling, right? We know they start and follow the exact action of the story.  Mike: Absolutely ( chuckles ).  Kendra: So, as we pose more complex problem types, you're right. You're going to see that they might use less efficient strategies because they're really making sense. They're like, ‘Wait, what's the relationship that's happening in this story? Where do I begin? Where are the cookies at the beginning, middle, and end of this story?' So, we see that happen throughout elementary school. So, it's not that direct modeling is for kindergartners. And that invented algorithms are for fifth grade. It's that as new ideas get introduced, as we make problems more complex, maybe increasing the number size or now we're working with fractions and decimals …  Mike: Uh-hm. Kendra: We see this happen all over again. Kids begin with direct modeling to make sense of the situation. Then they build on that and get a little bit more efficient with some counting kinds of strategies. And then over time with lots of practice with that new problem type, those new numbers, um, they develop those invented algorithms again.  Mike: So, this makes me think of something else, Kendra. How would you describe the role of representation in this process? That could mean manipulatives that students choose to use. It could mean things that they choose to draw, visual models. How does representation play in the process?  Kendra: Yeah. So, oftentimes I hear people say, ‘This student used cubes. That was their strategy.' Or ‘This student used a drawing. That was their strategy.' And that's really not enough information to know the mathematical work that that child is doing. Did they use cubes as a way to count on?  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Are they keeping track of only one of the quantities but using cubes to do so? Are they doing a drawing that actually represents groups of 10? And they're using ideas about place value inside of it, which is different than if they're just drawing by ones, right? So, there's lots of detail inside of those representations that's important to pay attention to.  Mike: Yeah. I'm thinking about one of my former kindergartners. I remember that I had some work that she had done in the fall, and then I had another bit of work that she had done in the spring. And the fall was this ( chuckles ) very detailed drawing of, like, a hundred circles. And then in the spring, she was unitizing, right? She had a bunch of circles and then within [them] had labeled that each of those were 10. And it just struck me, like, ‘Wow, that is a really tangible vision of how she was drawing in both cases.' But her representation told a really different story about what she understood about math, about numbers, about the base 10 system.  Kendra: Right. And those might be very different starting points. As you, the teacher, you walk over and you see those two different kinds of drawings …  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: … your conversation or your prompt for them … your next step for them might be pretty different.  Mike: Absolutely.  Kendra: Even though they're both drawing.  Mike: Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, 'cause I think I struggled with this a little bit when I first started really thinking about CGI. I had gone to a training and left incredibly inspired and was excited. And one of the things that I was trying to reconcile at that time is, like, I do have a curriculum resource that I'm using, and I wonder how many teachers sometimes struggle with that? I've learned these ideas about how children think, how to listen … what are some of the teacher moves I can make? And I'm also trying to integrate that with a tool that I'm using as a part of my school or my district. So, what are your thoughts about that?  Kendra: That makes a lot of sense. And I think that happens a lot of time in professional learning, where we learn a new set of ideas and then we're wrestling with how do they connect with the things I'm already doing? How do I use them in my own classroom? So, I really appreciate that challenge. I guess one way I like to think about it is that the trajectory that CGI helps us know about how children develop ideas over time is a little bit like a roadmap that I can use regardless of the curricular materials that I have in front of me. And it helps me understand what is on the horizon for that child. What's next for them and their learning? Depending on the kind of strategies that they're using and the kinds of problems that we're hoping to be giving them access to in that grade level, I can look at my curricular materials in front of me and use that roadmap to help me navigate it. So, we were talking about number selection. So, I might take that lens as I look at the curriculum in front of me and think about, ‘Are these the right numbers to be using? What will my students do with the problem …  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: … that is suggested in my curricular materials?' To anticipate how my discussion is going to go and what kinds of strategies I might want to highlight in my discussion. So, I really like to think of it as the professional knowledge that teachers need in order to make sense of their curriculum materials and make informed decisions about how to use those really purposefully.  Mike: Yeah. The other thing that strikes me, that I'm connecting to what you said earlier, is that I could also look at the problem and think about, ‘Does the context actually connect with what I know about my children? Can I somehow shift the context in a way that makes it more accessible to them while still maintaining the structure, the problem, the mathematics, and such?'  Kendra: Right. Yeah. Are there small revisions I can make? Because, uh, I don't envy curriculum writers ( chuckles ) at all because there's no way you can write the exact right problem for every day, for every child across the country. So, as teachers, we have to make really smart decisions and make those really manageable. Because teachers are very busy people.  Mike: Sure.  Kendra: But those manageable, kind of, tweaks or revisions to make it really connected to our students lives.  Mike: Yeah. I think the other thing that's hitting me is that, when you've started to make sense of the progression that children go through, it's a little bit like putting on a pair of glasses that allow you to see things slightly differently and understand that skill of noticing. That's universal. It doesn't necessarily come and go with a curriculum. It's something that's important. Knowing your students is always going to be something that's important for teachers, regardless of the curriculum materials they've got.  Kendra: Yep. That's right.  Mike: So, here's my, I think my last question. And it's really, it's a resource one. So, if I'm a listener who's interested in learning more about CGI, if this is really my first go at understanding the ideas, what would you recommend for someone who's just getting started thinking about this and maybe is walking away thinking, ‘Gosh, I'd like to learn more.' Kendra: Sure. Well, I mentioned the whole laundry list of great texts that you can dig into more. So, ‘Children's Mathematics' being the one on whole-number operation across grade levels. I find that, like, preschool through first- or second-grade teachers have found ‘Young Children's Mathematics' incredibly impactful. It helps connect ideas about counting in quantity with these ideas about problem-solving and operation. And then kind of connects them and helps us think about how to support students to develop those really important early ideas.  Mike: Uh-hm.  Kendra: Anybody who I have talked to that has read ‘Extending Children's Mathematics: Fractions and Decimals' has found it incredibly impactful.  Mike: I will add myself to that list, Kendra. It blew my mind.  Kendra: Yeah, us, too! Everybody who read it was like, ‘Ohhh, I see now.' It points out a lot of really practical ways for us to pay attention. It offers a trajectory much like whole-number about how children develop ideas and also kind of suggests some problems that will help us support students as they're developing those ideas. So, [I] definitely recommend those. And then, ‘Thinking Mathematically' is another great text that helps us connect arithmetic and algebra, as we're thinking about how to make sure that students are set up for success as they start thinking more algebraically. And [it] digs into a little bit of—I talked about young children inventing mathematics—I think even further describes the ways that they invent important properties of operation that can be really interesting to read about.  Mike: That's fantastic. Kendra, thank you so much for joining us. It's really been a pleasure talking to you today.  Kendra: Thanks for having me.  Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability.  © 2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Previous research has shown that children of centenarians – those who live to see their 100th birthday and beyond - have markedly reduced rates of heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension compared to people born around the same time who do not have a centenarian parent. Now, a new study, co-authored by School of Public Health, researchers have found that children of centenarians also COGNITIVELY age better compared to older adults without familial longevity. The study was published online in the Journal of Gerontology and it suggests that there are familial factors that may be associated with slower cognitive aging. A sense of meaning and direction in life is also highly associated with living longer and experiencing less disease, disability, and cognitive impairment. In research done at Boston University School of Medicine, scientists found that the children of centenarians are also much more likely than the general population to have a strong sense of purpose.On this episode, Caitlyn Vanderhaeghe, Children's Nutrition expert and President & CEO of KidStar Nutrients, discusses all things kid-healthy with a special focus on iron deficiency.

Rogan: POTUS 'TOO FAR GONE' Cognitively, I'd Vote TRUMP Over Biden(00:00)Robby Soave: NIH Gives EcoHealth Alliance Another $600K, More LAB LEAK-CONNECTED Research On Bats? (9:30) Hanna Trudo: Progressives Looking For NEW Leaders To Pick Up Sanders-Warren Mantle  (19:59) Batya & Robby REACT: CNN Sued By Donald Trump For Defamation, $475M In Damages Sought (30:45)New: Latino Voters Siding With GOP On Crime & Economy, Democrat's Advantage SHRINKING (37:54)Voters DISAPPROVE Of Biden's Job Performance, Inflation Most Important Midterm Issue: POLL (47:54)Briahna & Robby DEBATE: Who Is RESPONSIBLE For Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion? (56:31)The Debrief: McConnell, Murkowski Feud REVEALED. Top Races To Watch In 2022 Midterms (01:06:37)

Putin Blasts 'SATANIC' Western Elites, Biden Calls Nord Stream Explosion 'Deliberate Sabotage' (0:00)Robby Soave: More LAB LEAK-CONNECTED Research On Bats? NIH Gives EcoHealth Alliance Another $600K (10:38) Batya Ungar-Sargon: Pelosi Says We Need Migrants To 'PICK THE CROPS' In Stunning ADMISSION (20:34) Caitlin Jenner FOR Separate Locker Rooms For Trans Students, Her Daughter Would Be 'Uncomfortable' (31:43)NEW Rikers' Photos Showing HORRIFIC Conditions Released, Cash-Bail WEAPONIZES Poor: Olayemi Olurin (39:00)Newsom Signs Bill Making California A TRANS Youth Sanctuary State: Robby & Batya React (51:25)Spike In Homicides 'NOT Due To Dem Policies,' GOP Crime Ads Are RACIST: MSNBC Host (01:01:41)DeSantis Blasts CNN Reporter Questioning Over Lee County Evacuations, Hurricane Ian Death Toll Rises (01:11:51)Rogan: I'd Vote For TRUMP Before Biden, POTUS Is 'TOO FAR GONE' Cognitively (01:17:55)

Intro  Amy Villeda is a mother of 4, group fitness instructor, and piano teacher. Coming from a musical family, she began to learn the piano when she was 7 years old.  She graduated in 2005 from Dixie State University with a degree in teaching.  After graduating, she spent time traveling the world and seeking adventure.  She  has many years of teaching experience, both abroad and domestic.  She loves teaching piano and helping students discover a passion for music.  Top three takeaways  There is so much freedom in homeschooling for extracurricular activities.   The most important thing to adding music with your child's classical education are the benefits cognitively and in math!!   You don't need music lessons if you are looking to learn songs that is what youtube is for!  Call to Action  Resources: Virtual Piano  Social Media Links  Website: Piano Lessons with Amy Villeda  What is Next!  Thank you for supporting this show by listening and sharing with friends! If you like this podcast please rate and write a review of how this show has impacted or helped you!   Great ratings will accelerate the show's visibility to the nation so others can learn more about homeschool and find quality curriculum and the potentially join the homeschool community thus change the face of education forever!!   Who would have thought that we could change the education world with a click and a share!  Also if you would like to hear more about any specific educational topic please email me at realedtalk@gmail.com I would love to support your families educational needs in all areas!!   Bex Buzzie  The Homeschool Advantage Podcast    

Placing investments that earn within the global stock market's rapid ebb and flow calls for a seasoned archer's precision. Rob' Larity's desire to be different in the crowded wealth management arena led to the creation of Cognitive Investments (https://www.cognitive.investments/), which is just now opening to individual investors. Dave loves meeting an earnest "rethinker"; so will you.     

NEW PAGS PARODY--"Far Right-Wing Latina", President Biden is cognitively GONE, and Climate Change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With all of the recent advances in machine learning, what's left for us humans to do? Well, according to Ken Cukier, there is plenty: humans have not and may not ever be matched when it comes to thinking thru frames and models, using imagination to think through what is not in the data as much as what is in the data. Ken Cukier is a Senior Editor at The Economist, and host of its weekly podcast on technology. He is also an associate fellow at Said Business School at Oxford, researching artificial intelligence. His most recent book is, “Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil,” c0-authored with xxxx which is a follow up to the earlier book “Big Data: A Revolution That Transforms How We Live, Work, and Think” he co authored with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger. He is also the author of “Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education.”Listen as Ken and Greg discuss framing, re-framing, learning by teaching, and the educated elite. Episode Quotes:Fundamental difference between AI & humansHuman beings are able to visualize things that don't exist. We don't have to run the experiment, we can run it in our minds in our imaginations. The computers cannot do that. Artificial intelligence has no ability to conceptualize information that it doesn't have. It can only rely on information that it does have. That is the fundamental difference: that we are able to see things that are not there.Liberal perspectivismIsn't it interesting that people are bristling in 2022 of trying to adopt the position of other people to walk in their shoes, to see things through their lens. You wouldn't have expected that. Encouraging reframingBy the time you're in your late thirties, and you've touched a little bit of authority and responsibility and a little bit more income and business class lounges, what's the likelihood that you're going to risk that by coming up with a new idea? I mean, unless you're already in a venture backed startup, probably not. So we do such a terrible job as a society at encouraging that reframing and that fresh thinking, we need to get better at it.Cognitively lazy peopleI think some people are more primed to being more dynamic. Stand up comedians are probably the least cognitively (or good ones at least), are probably the least cognitively lazy in the world. They thrive on newness of changing their act, developing things. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World by Matthew BishopTheodore Levitt - WikipediaWhat Business Are You In?: Classic Advice from Theodore LevittFosbury Flop - WikipediaTania LombrozoJoel M. Podolny - WikipediaCal NewportDavid Foster Wallace - WikipediaGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Saïd Business SchoolProfessional Profile at The EconomistSpeaker Profile at TEDTalkKen Cukier's WebsiteKen Cukier on LinkedInKen Cukier on TwitterKen Cukier on TEDSalon BerlinHis Work:Former Host of the Babbage PodcastKen Cukier on MediumFramers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and TurmoilLearning With Big Data: The Future of EducationBig Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think

Everything we do (or don't do) is tied to our level of self-belief. We are all familiar with the famous Henry Ford quote that says "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right." Cognitively it makes total sense and logically we know that believing in ourselves will get us much further in life than not, and yet, we all struggle with belief. In this episode, we deep dive into what believing in yourself really means and how you can believe bigger for yourself.Grab the show notes here

Thirsty Thursday: Just a Tip Edition Join Doc Sarah is this week's bonus episode on some tips and tricks with tactical napping! Learn what it is, a few ideas on how to make it work for your tactical needs and some of the benefits on why it is so great!Liked what you heard? Check out some Tactical Napping Research:"Tactical Naps, Caffeine Jolts: Military Sleep Study Recommends New Policy for Better Troop Rest" via military.com"Tactical Napping: The More Sleep You Get the Better You Will Perform Physically, Cognitively & Emotionally" via wrair.army.mil"The Army Rolls Out a New Weapon Strategic Napping" via the New York Times"Pushups, run, plank and ... tactical nap? Soldiers need more sleep, Army research says" via armytimes.com

Newt Gingrich- Joe Biden is a Liar, Nutty, Crazy, Cognitively Disabled and a Very Serious Risk. Douglas Murray on “The War on the West” Newt Gingrich: 'Joe Biden is a liar' https://youtu.be/cX0mIhUx4fA 480,541 views May 1, 2022 Fox News 9.43M subscribers Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich responds to President Biden's lowest approval rating yet, Elon Musk's tweet of accusing Democrats of moving too far left and Hunter Biden's business dealings with China.   Douglas Murray on “The War on the West” Newt's World  May 01 2022   There is a war going on. And it's against Western culture. Why are left-wing liberals tearing down statues and going after the Founders of our country as ‘bad men'? Why are we witnessing a ‘cancel culture' society today? Newt's guest is Douglas Murray. His new book is: “The War on the West”, a must-read for anyone who wants context to this challenging world we're living in.   For a great archive of Newt's World Podcast visit- https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1069-newts-world-30589442/   Newt's World Podcast in iTunes- https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/newts-world/id1452065072?mt=2   Newt's World Home Page- http://www.westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/newts-world/   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #FoxNews Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vaBUvAS Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com Watch Fox News Channel Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/ FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most-watched television news channel for 18 consecutive years. According to a 2020 Brand Keys Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index report, FOX News is the top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage. A 2019 Suffolk University poll named FOX News as the most trusted source for television news or commentary, while a 2019 Brand Keys Emotion Engagement Analysis survey found that FOX News was the most trusted cable news brand. A 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey also found that among Americans who could name an objective news source, FOX News was the top-cited outlet. Owned by FOX Corporation, FNC is available in nearly 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre. Watch full episodes of your favorite shows The Five: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... Special Report with Bret Baier: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... Fox News Primetime: https://video.foxnews.com/playlist/on... Tucker Carlson Tonight: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... Hannity: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... The Ingraham Angle: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... Fox News @ Night: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon... Follow Fox News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/ Follow Fox News on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoxNews/ Follow Fox News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foxnews/  

Dr. Taylor discusses cognitive fitness: what it is and the benefits it provides. Check out https://allmylinks.com/brainfunctionguru And please subscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/braingurutaylor https://www.arlenetaylor.org

Biden's decline continues to catch eyeballs around the world, with Australia and Saudi Arabia now taking note. Rita Panahi with Sky News Australia calls Joe Biden “cognitively declined” and references a new skit from Saudi Arabia that features actors playing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris addressing the American people. In this video, criminal defense lawyer Robert Gouveia reviews the latest clips making fun of our poor President.#Biden #SaudiArabia #DementiaJoeMore: https://linktr.ee/robertgouveia

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With regards to cognitive health many of us focus on nutrition and supplements, even though physical exercise is the foundation for preventing cognitive decline. On today's episode my guest Ryan Glatt will explain how we can use exercise for optimizing our brain health. Ryan is a psychometrist and brain-health coach with more than a decade of experience in the health and fitness industry. He presently works alongside clinicians and researchers at the Pacific Brain Health Center in the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California, to study the effects of cognitively-enhanced and comprehensive exercise plans on the brain. With a strong background in exercise science and human health, Ryan develops curricula specifically targeted towards those with dementia, Parkinson's disease, Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and traumatic brain injury, coaching individuals towards optimal brain health. On top of developing programs for the health and fitness industry on health neuroscience, Ryan also consults for brain-based technology companies like SMARTFit. He has completed brain health programs from the Amen Clinics, the NeuroCoaching Institute, the Neuroscience Academy, the NeuroLeadership Institute, Neuroscience for Coaches, and others on the topics of brain health, sleep, and mindfulness. Ryan's mission is to solve the problems associated with neurodegeneration and its effects on health and wellness. In this episode, you will learn... -Ryan's journey to neurology and corrective exercise…02:45 -Motivation to take a preventative, rather than fear or frustration based, approach to brain health…07:15 -Baseline for good brain health…11:00 -There are normal and abnormal cognitive changes as part of aging…14:00 -Empowered, proactive brain health; there is much you can do for your brain!…15:40 -Exercise is at the top of the list for brain health (over supplements and brain training) Here is why…18:00 -Ryan's specific exercises for brain health; aerobic exercise and resistance training work different parts of the brain…22:15 -It's important to enjoy your exercise for mood benefits and to encourage regular exercise…26:12 -Specific statistics: how much exercise can decrease your chances of cognitive decline…29:30 -Cognitively challenging physical exercises; thinking incorporated with movement…30:50 -The 3 macronutrients in a brain healthy diet…34:15.  -Cognitive reserve: your brain's mental gas tank and how to go the distance…36:30 -Ryan's favorite personal practice…37:55 GUEST WEBSITES: https://www.instagram.com/ryanglatt/?hl=en (Instagram) brainhealthtrainer.com http://ryanglatt.com (Ryan's website) https://www.pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org (Pacific Neuroscience Institute site) Resources mentioned in this episode: www.pingpongforgood.org

In this episode of the Head The Gong Podcast, I “rant out my ass” about how our inherent negativity bias is being amplified by internet algorithms to distort our sense of what is happening in this wild wild world. Head The Gong Podcast · Episode #56: Cognitively Distorting [From a recent exchange on Reddit]: My … Continue reading "HTG Podcast #56: Cognitively Distorting"

Bob Scudder shares his journey with Parkinson's disease in our POP Profiles series.Because of the inherent value of staying connected with others who are also battling the disease, Power Over Parkinson's has interviewed and shared the stories of a number of People with Parkinson's (PwPs) through its POP Profile series. We thank all of those fighters who have shared their story as part of this series.To learn how POP is supporting the Parkinson's community, visit us at poweroverpd.org

“We have to figure out how to thrive and not just survive.” Kelli Kelli and her husband Mark have four kids-- Ruby, 12, Charlie, 11, Tabatha, 9 and Mona, 6.  Through various circumstances, God placed adoption on their hearts and they chose to adopt their first child. They didn't know about Ruby's special needs at the time, so the first couple of years with Ruby was quite a journey!  Ruby has massive brain scarring on her brain, probably from a rough birth. Because of that brain damage, she has a cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder diagnoses. Cognitively, she functions like a 3-4 month old. She has trouble with head control, she isn't able to sit or roll over and is tube fed. She loves music and can often be found listening to Raffi on Pandora radio. She also enjoys swimming, being tickled, going on walks and listening to the chaotic noise of her siblings. This definitely wasn't the life Kelli had expected, but she has a lot of peace and joy. It takes a village and she is thankful for those who have supported them along the way. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jess-ronne/support

Nicole Soames is a best-selling author of four business books, she's also the CEO of Diadem Performance. In this show we learn how to reframe your role as a leadership athlete. Some great learning including: Why there is nothing “soft” about soft skills Explore the characteristics of a commercial athlete? The difference between Influencing and negotiation The three hats of the Leader - Manage, Lead and Coach Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Nicole below: Diadem's Website https://diademperformance.com Nicole's Books http://nicolesoamesbooks.com Nicole on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolesoamesatdiadem/ Nicole on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/soamesnicole/ Nicole on Twitter https://twitter.com/diademperform     Full Transcript Below ----more----  Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.   Our special guest on today's show is Nicole Soames. She's a best-selling author and CEO of Diadem Performance. Working with over 85 clients across the globe, helping thousands of people become commercial athletes in selling, influencing, account management, marketing strategy, coaching and leadership. But before we get a chance to speak with Nicole, it's The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: In the news today, we'll explore the relationship between leadership and professional athletes. Professional athletes can sometimes have a bad reputation, with stories of out-of-control behavior often seen in the media. This front-page drama in which the media in all facets of news,  can often overshadow great athletic performances. And as such, it's easy to forget the important contribution athletes make consistently to society. Sports nut and journalist James Bailey wrote an article in Bloomberg Businessweek called Athletes: Natural Born Leaders, and he focuses on five reasons why professional athletes will make great leaders. And here are those five reasons.   Reason One. Professional athletes are determined. True, many are endowed with physical gifts, but realizing them as hard work. Progressing in sports means negotiating and increasingly exclusive series of hurdles that can't be cleared without discipline, focus, patients, practice, and then more practice. It takes decades of sweat and investment to bring whatever a leader possesses to fruition. We simply won't follow somebody who hasn't demonstrated determination.   Reason two, Teamwork. These men and women won't just preach teamwork, they practice it. A sports team is just like a jazz band. Integration is necessary to gather a coherent whole, but everybody gets a chance to shine. There may be a most valuable player, but he or she is first among equals. Everybody has a job to do, and nobody gets a ring or trophy. More than ever modern organizations need cross-functional teams to support them.   Reason three, Appreciating fellowship. Professional athletes appreciate fellowship or follow the leader as it's often known. And it's not just a playground game. It's actually an experience in serving greater purpose. Athletes understand the tangible advantages of executing a plan and their goal achievement is often contingent upon them following that plan well, and truly, and leading is rooted in having learned lessons of following.   Reason four, Cognitively complex. They are cognitively complex. They grasp a dynamic flow of many interrelated variables simultaneously. And any fan will tell you that any successful sporting team or sports franchise can be really quite convoluted and complex. The plays themselves always have intricacies upon intricacies. And one work, a challenge with a hundred unpredictable factors requires seamless adaptation and improvisation on and off the field or the pitch, and it's this kind of agile thinking and adaptability in today's fast-moving world that's an essential part of leadership.   And reason number five, the ability to handle pressure. Professional athletes know what it's like to work under pressure. There are enormous stakes, a lot of people are watching. Their investment in time, talent, money, reputation, all of these ever present. They have to check-out anxieties and injuries, they have to stay calm, cool, and collected under pressure. One player loses his or her nerve or composure, the efforts and the rest of the team could be absolutely flawed. There is nothing more valid in today's stressful business environment than having a level head.   So there we have it  five reasons! Transferring that to the commercial world, that's another story. Well, that's been The Leadership Hacker News, and now we've explored professional athletes make great leaders. Let's get into the show.   Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Nicole Soames. She's the CEO and founder at Diadem Performance and she's the bestselling author of four books. The Negotiation Book, The Influence Book, The Coaching Book and The Presenting Book. Nicole, welcome to The Leadership Hacker.   Nicole Soames: Hello.   Steve Rush: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today, Nicole, it seems like an age since you and I last met, but in the meantime, we've been through one lock down, two look downs… I think we're in our third lock down as we record this. How's life for you?   Nicole Soames: Well, I'm just desperately hoping it's the third and final.   Steve Rush: Exactly, right. Exactly. So, for those folks that are tuning in today that haven't met you before, perhaps it'd be useful just to give a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you're doing?   Nicole Soames: Sure, so, I grew up at working for a company called Unilever, selling trunk loads of household brands to major customers that I'm sure you would have heard of like Tesco and Sainsbury's and Waitrose. So, think trunk loads of fish fingers, magnum ice creams. And then when my freezer was full, I decided to move on to selling chocolate digestives, Jaffa cakes, hula hoops. So massive household brands, huge multi-million-pound contracts. And as my career developed, so did the level of responsibility I had. Instead of just having the pressure of managing these multi-million-pound customer relationships. I also found myself responsible for managing large teams of people. Managing those large customers themselves. So, I suppose, full on blue chip corporate life and the more the years rolled forward, the more it dawned on me that my passion was not just for business. It was also for people. So, I decided to retrain as a coach and a facilitator. And I've been doing that now for, I'm sort of embarrassed to say, but 17 years and I've got the scars to prove it and the gray hair.   Steve Rush: Awesome. What was the moment then for you when you said, right - I'm going to pivot away from my corporate life and focus more on helping others? Nicole Soames: I don't know if there was an actual moment, but I was given the privilege when I was selling Jaffa cakes and hula-hoops working for a company called United Biscuits to be a sort of internal trainer, partnering up with external trainers. And I found myself at the front of the room leading and trying to help people get better at their jobs. And I was like, Ooh, quite like this being up at the front and having a platform. And that was, I think the first eureka moment, if you like that I had, that was perhaps helping people and being in the people business was my vocation was my destination. So, I think that was when it first really dawned on me. But I think in reality, it's only on reflection that you draw those conclusions. I'm not sure it's like, it happens live in the moment.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and the focus of the work that you do with Diadem Performance now is all about that kind of people development space, isn't it? And helping people move through different situations. And I guess much of the work that you've done over the last six months has probably been more remote focused and virtual world. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now?   Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely trying to help people be the best version of themselves in this current environment, but it was always last and I think anything to do with people and helping people split like food and medicine will always need those things. And I would sort of describe myself and my team at Diadem as performance trainers and coaches, not the sorts you'd find in the gym because they're all close right now. I suppose we're about training commercial, what I would call commercial athletes. So, I've got this notion, this hypothesis, that in business, we expect a sustained performance, much like you'd expect on the pitch or on the field. The sort, I would say is delivered by athletes. Yeah, in the commercial world, we expect those results, but we're not nearly commercially fit enough or agile enough or even resilient enough. And that's where myself and my team come in. We're about helping create commercial athleticism in teams, in organizations, in companies.   Steve Rush: You and I have spoken about this before actually, and the whole principle of organizations don't take as seriously, their commercial fitness, as well as maybe they do their financial fitness or their product development or their marketing strategies. What's the reason that you find from your experience that organizations don't apply that same level of thinking?   Nicole Soames: I think it's rooted Steve in the fact that it's down side easier to measure the financial performance. And it's easier actually to provide people with technical support than it is soft skills. And these, all of the stuff that myself, and my team train and coach people in are often referred to as soft skills. But I think it's the wrong phrasing, really the wrong title.   Steve Rush: I agree.   Nicole Soames: Because… thank you, there's nothing soft about these skills. They're fundamentally important to success. In fact, I mean, there's lots of stats out in the marketplace on this and just Google these sorts of things. But most of our successes is down to what you would call, human engineering, not technical engineering. And yet most people get support and training and help in the technical space as opposed to the soft skills space. And then you add the commercial aspect to soft skills and it's even harder to provide the right stuff. So, in my experience, having worked for big blue-chip organizations, you tend to, well, this is just my opinion. I felt like I was trained by either very, very clever people like professors and university folk who were only ever theorists. They've never sat in front of customers or had to manage people themselves, or you were trained by what I would call explainers who had been there, done that. And they were going to tell you what they did and trying to provide the idea of supporting people with folk, who've got authentic experience, but then not just a goer. And it's not just about them. It's actually, I think really hard to find. So, I think that's part of the reason why people don't, organizations don't provide what I would call commercial soft skills because it's not easy to find. And the other challenge, I think Steve is people don't ask for it.   So, if you take, for example, a team of maybe I.T. folk who are very, very technical, very bright and intelligent and the more senior they get, the chances are that they then have to get results through others. It is extremely rare that they would go, you know what? I think I really need some selling skills.   Steve Rush: Yeah, very true.   Nicole Soames: I mean, it's just not going to happen. And then you take people in formal selling or client management or account management roles, and you say, so what training do you need? They're never going to ask for sales training because it's expected they would know what they're doing. So, you end up with these massive gaps and people don't know to ask for this sort of training and it's then seen as a weakness. And so, people don't get supported in this space.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess you also often find that people want what they want, not necessarily what they need to become more effective. If you ask that, what training do you want?   Nicole Soames: Completely, and with the best will in the world, people have blind spots. They don't understand the impact they have on others. And so again, they wouldn't necessarily ask for these skills.   Steve Rush: Right, as a commercial athlete, are there any specific trait or characteristics that you observed that are essential?   Nicole Soames: Well, I think that what good looks like is starting with the right mindset and the right attitude. And if you're thinking about an athlete, they would have no chance of winning if they talk themselves down. So, I think the mantras I would use and the four things that are really important and in no particular order, they're all important. And it's the combination of them that is so powerful or are as follows. So, relationships count. I think that's a massively important belief to have. So, whether your relationships are internal relationships or external relationships, the better those relations are the easier it is to disagree. Actually, the easier it is to take accountability, the easier it is to commit to actions. So, relationships matter massively. So that's one mantra. Second mantra would be keep striving. Elite is not a destination. You've got to keep striving for excellence. It doesn't fall excellence like, like manna from heaven, ambition delivers results, but you've got to put in the blood, sweat and tears, and continuously put in the blood, sweat and tears, if you want to achieve and be the best version of yourself.   Then the next one is that together is better. Working collaboratively is always more successful. Lone wolves don't win, in my opinion. Just think of the amazing human endeavors we've achieved through the pandemic. We wouldn't have achieved them if people hadn't collaborated. And if you think about the news right now with vaccines and vaccine nationalism that everyone's talking about, we're trying to banish that so that we can get the vaccines out to the whole of the world. Cause we don't get out of this pandemic unless we are all vaccinated.   Steve Rush: Right.   Nicole Soames: So, you know, collaboration matters massively. And then the fourth mantra, I think that is really important to the commercial athlete is every day is a learning day. You have to hone your performance. Think like the margin of aggregated gains, you know, honing, self-reflection. And also, I think massively key is honest and timely feedback from others, which giving feedback is a skill in itself. So, I think those are the kind of four mindsets if you like that the athletes would have. And then you layer on the ability. So, the capability and then the ability to put all of that stuff into action. So that's, I think the standout for the commercial athlete, and I think what the commercial athlete does is they put emotional intelligence, front and center into everything they do. So, the how stuff is disproportionately important to what you do, the how you do it, makes the difference   Steve Rush: As part of that, how you do it. I suspect that just like other athletes, commercial athletes need to practice all of this kind of stuff?   Nicole Soames: Definitely. Practice, get feedback, you know, you've got to do these practices if you like every single day and dealing with people and getting results through people is messy. It's not easy, it's not straightforward. So continually honing and being agile and being flexible is really important. The people aspect is so fundamental to getting results, to conversations, to commercial conversations that you have. I know, it sounds like a cliche, Steve to say it, but cliches are cliches because they're true. People buy people, and I think what that really means is that people buy you, they buy your confidence. People want to do business with people that are like them, that they trust. We know this stuff, but it's like, not just what you do. It's about how you do it. You don't want to be sold at; you don't want to be told what to do. And so, the relationships and putting that at the heart of everything, I think is so fundamental and relationships are balanced. They should be mutually beneficial. Shouldn't feel like you're on the back foot and you shouldn't feel like you have power over the other person. It should be a mutually beneficial relationship because if it's not mutually beneficial, then it's a relationshalf. And those don't tend to work out very well for one party.   Steve Rush: Definitely, so. I'd love to get into this notion of commercial conversations and commercial performance. And you use that word quite a lot. How does that differ?   Nicole Soames: I think, look, in business, the difference is that one party should be an asker and one party should be a receiver. And if the asker doesn't ask, then they have no chance of getting what they want. So, I think the commercial conversations part is about projecting confidence is about being proactive, not reactive, whether you're the asker or the receiver. So, I think that's what the difference is. It's just having confidence and control in the conversation that you are having. Steve Rush: And the other flip of here of course, is that if you get all of these things right in your organization, in your teams, there is a commercial upside to this. There is a commercial benefit when you're doing this, you become more productive, more happy. New people stay around longer and bottom-line results go up.   Nicole Soames: Correct.   Steve Rush: Exactly.   Nicole Soames: Internally and externally.   Steve Rush: Of course, yeah. So, in terms of doing and what you do with Diadem now, maybe give us a little spin as to what the future holds for you guys?   Nicole Soames: Well, the future is about doing what we do brilliantly with more teams, which is about supporting people with how do you sell and influence with emotional intelligence? How do you sell and influence and negotiate with emotional intelligence? And lead people with emotion, intelligence, and manage people with emotion, intelligence, et cetera, all of the things that make up that commercial athlete. And if I just talk a little bit about negotiation and influencing, they're things that you have to do, you're doing every day. Maybe you're not aware of the fact that you're doing them every day, but how you do it is the bit that people will remember   Steve Rush: Before we get into that. Maybe for those that are listening, what is the difference between negotiation and influence or is there a difference?   Nicole Soames: Massive difference. Okay, so the difference is that in selling or influencing, that's about asking. And I think it's about making it easy for the other person to say yes, buy emotionally and if appropriate, commercially motivating them. So, sort of thing, pull, not push and having confidence to make that recommendation, to ask, to shift the gear from a discussion, have an opinion and back your opinion. I think to me, that's what influencing is and selling. And everybody's in sales roles. They just don't have it in their job title, then the same. So, the same principle for negotiation people don't have, I mean, who, hasn't the title? You might have sales and your job title, but you're definitely not going to have negotiator in your job title, even procurement, which is the negotiation function isn't called the negotiation function. It's called the procurement function, which is to buy to procure.   So, my definition of negotiation is it's also this communication skill. And I think what it is put simply, it's about a communication skill that helps you find overlapping positions so that the outcome works for both parties. Dead easy to say in theory, in reality, because if you think about influencing. The influencer or the seller knows that they're asking. When it comes to the negotiation, it's so much more emotional. How on earth do you know that there is a win for both parties? Tends to be in reality that one person wins the other person's expense either by design or just by one party, lacking confidence and ambition. So, there's so much more emotion and psychology, I think, involved in negotiating, which is why I think EQ, emotional intelligence plays a massive part in negotiating masterfully.   Steve Rush: If you think about the whole philosophy of emotional intelligence is there may be one theme that you see that's present in communicating in a commercial way, as well as influencing and negotiation?   Nicole Soames: I think if you understand emotional intelligence, it is an intelligence. So, it is not one thing. It's multiple things all applied in the right way. So, I would say that you can package, EQ really neatly into sort of three focus areas. So, they're stuff that you do, their self-things, there's things that you do, which involve others. And then there's also your horizon, your perspective, how you see the world. And it is this, the magic comes. And I think the differentiation and the competitive advantage comes from packaging, all those together in the commercial setting. So, you don't disregard your commercial acumen and you don't disregard your technical skills. The magic comes from combining those with emotional intelligence.   Steve Rush: Yeah, so if I'm a leader here listening to this today, and I'm thinking to myself, I need to improve the performance of my team. Where would you suggest would be the best place for me to start?   Nicole Soames: I think as a leader, fundamentally key is that you lead by example. I think what you've got to do, you have to demonstrate to your team that you do this stuff yourself. It's not just for the team, and I think then what you've got to do. So, what that means you've got to do is you've got to actively support your team, which means that you need to provide them with the right training, shameless plug. No, in all seriousness, we have found out. I mean, if you just think about the analogy of parents having to homeschool their kids right now. Parents are really not the best people to be teaching their own kids. Yes, of course parents should support what happens at school, but parents should not be relied on because they're not the best teacher for the kids. It's the same in business, the leader, isn't the best person to provide the training and the skill set, if you like. They're the best person to provide embedding in a safe place to practice and a place for people to make mistakes, but they, the leaders should invest in proper skills to help train people up initially. So, think about someone like Andy Murray, he was initially trained by Judy Murray, his mother, then, you know, the more serious his tennis got, the more he was trained by a whole heap of other professionals as well. So, I think that's a massive part of the leader's role is to provide the right full training. But then their role is to lead by example and to allow a safe space to practice, right? So, these sorts of skills, influencing negotiating, managing others, presenting to be really successful at them. You need to practice and then do it for real. And then I think importantly, get feedback from your leader who is in the session with you so that they can make sure that the feedback is live and it's actionable and its real time. So, I think that's what the leader should do.   Steve Rush: Practice is a really interesting one. It keeps popping up every now and again, in conversations I have with clients where I asked the question around, so how are you going to practice this stuff? And in response, what I typically get is. I'm going to do it with this client, or I'm going to do this customer, or I'm going to do it with this team member, but actually that's doing it. That's not practicing and practicing for me is around setting specific time aside in a safe environment so that you can screw up if you have to. And it's okay, it's safe. But for whatever reason, people still find the whole notion of practicing some of this stuff really challenging. And I wondered in your experience, what you've observed?   Nicole Soames: Oh yes, all of that and more. What people say is that they haven't got time to practice, but that's because they don't see the value in the practice. So, and it's not just about practicing, it's about practicing under pressure. So, what tends to happen is, people do prepare but they don't then role play it for real. So, these skills take practicing with another person because they're about having a conversation, so that's even harder. You're not just relying on yourself. So, you have to ask somebody else to be involved in the practice. And therefore, it takes investment in time. So unfortunately, people think the prep staff is the practice, but it's the practicing under pressure where you can get constructive feedback that makes the difference. Steve Rush: And it's that feedback on the result of the practice that's going to really make the difference. And of course, if you're doing it in real time, then you're not facilitating that learning loop, are you?   Nicole Soames: Correct.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Nicole Soames: And then really important. So, I believe in continuous improvement comes from really good prep then doing it. And then also reflecting afterwards on what worked, what didn't, and unfortunately, in commercial fast paced roles, and everyone's under pressure these days, the most likely part of that continuous improvement circle that will go is the reflection. So, the reflection tends to be which gap? What was the deal? What was the result? And not actually, how did you get there? What were the behaviors? What did you do? What did they do? What would you do differently? What worked? What didn't? So, giving quality time to reflect afterwards, every time that you have these interactions is what helps with ultimately unconscious competence.   Steve Rush: So, you've taken all of these experiences and you've written four books. So, congratulations, first and foremost, and also selling author, how did you end up writing four books?   Nicole Soames: Because I'm crazy. So, look, I wrote the books to, I suppose, spread the word. You know, the four topics that I've written about are things that I'm super passionate about. And if you ever get the chance to browse the bookshelves in an actual physical store, maybe the next time you're in an airport, it will happen. Don't worry. We'll get there soon. And you pick up the books in the business section or the self-help section. In my opinion, a massively over intellectualized over theoretical. So, I wrote the books because I wanted to put out there some concise advice, you know, practical hints and tips that I think really work in the real world. Things that I wished people had told me earlier on in my career. And so that's, you know, that's why I wrote the books and I can tell you what. The first one was a massive stretch. And the second one was stretching, but easier. And by the time I wrote the fourth, I was actually quite enjoying it. I knew how to do it, and each time I did it, I suppose I'd hone the skill and it took me less time to bring it to market. But I think the thing that's different about the books is I've fused the concept of emotional intelligence into what is pretty obvious, you know, presenting and influencing and negotiation. And so often they are over theoretical those topics and not actually will, how are you going to do them?   Steve Rush: And of course, it's the how that makes a big difference to everybody that when they have a learning experience. It's that, what do I do now?   Nicole Soames: Correct. It's like now what, and actually, there's lots of exercises throughout them. They're nice and concise, and they're designed so that you can put them down and come back to them and take notes. And it's like a workbook. It's like a handbook, if you Like.   Steve Rush: So, do you have a favorite child?   Nicole Soames: Oh, they're all my favorites. It sounds like I'm dancing now. You're all my favorites... Look, they are all very different topics and they are, yeah, I think they're lost in titles. I can tell you that the one that sells the most is negotiation.   Steve Rush: Right.   Nicole Soames: Which was the first actually. So, it is definitely the fastest selling. And I think that's because most people have had less negotiation training than the other topics.   Steve Rush: This is part of the show now where I flip the lens a little. So, I'm going to now hack into all of your experience and try and extract all of this experience into your top three hacks. So, if I can do that, what would they be?   Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean. I think the hacks would be as a leader for sure that you've got to properly consciously have three hats. I think your role as a leader is to manage, to lead and to coach. And they are all really, really different philosophies and skill sets, but they're all about getting results through others. So that will be one of my leadership hacks is like, make sure that you consciously think about those three roles. The second would be, be 80% on it and 20% in it. It's so much, it's so easy to be overly involved in the detail. In order for you to lead, you've got to be 80% on it, not in it. And I think that's really important. And then the third one is that you should be authentically you. Think it's so important as a leader that you show people and you share with them what you think and feel, and then aloof leader who's too perfect that doesn't show any vulnerability for me is like an ivory tower leader. And you're not in the trenches with them. So, I really think that you have to share how you're feeling and vulnerabilities. And if you take the lockdown right now, it, isn't not helpful for the team to think that the leader is not experiencing any challenges with working like this because it's challenging for everyone. So that's what I mean by showing vulnerabilities. So, I think those are the three, you know, if I could package it into three things for the leader, I think those would be the three main pieces of advice.   Steve Rush: Great advice as well, thank you. Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack? So, this is where something in your life at work in the past, hasn't worked out well, it could have been that you've screwed up at something, but as a result of the experience, you've now taken that as a learning in your life and work, what would be your Hack to Attack Nicole?   Nicole Soames: My Hack to Attack would be, you can't win them all. You literally can't. If you all winning them all, then you're not stretching yourself hard enough. And so that winning doesn't then present you with the best learning opportunity. So, I think that when you don't win, you get those best learning opportunities and it's uncomfortable and it's painful, but they're the best places to learn. So, you've got to dig deep and then dust yourself down and get back up again. And I think what happens is people give up too easily or they keep themselves in their comfort zone. You know, as humans, we are always trying to find the shortcuts. We're always trying to find the least line of resistance. So that's what keeps us out of our stretch zones. But I think you've got to keep yourself in your stretch zone. If you didn't fall over, then you didn't try hard enough. So that would be my Hack to Attack, if you like. You cannot win them all.   Steve Rush: Awesome.   Nicole Soames: And you've got to be “pitch fit.”   Steve Rush: And I liked the way you framed it, so you started off with. You can't win them all. And then it was almost a case of no, you mustn't win them all because actually you don't get learning. And I was coaching a startup a couple of weeks back, and the CEO who's running this startup very, very smart guy, many start up such before. His sole philosophy is I need to fail as often as I can in these first few months so that I can really learn what I need to do. And I just love that whole mindset of why failure is good.   Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean, clearly you can't keep failing. Otherwise, there's something else that's going wrong. I think that in all seriousness, you must've failed at the same thing again. And that's not then demonstrating you're taking the learnings. Like with everything in life, it's a balance, isn't it?   Steve Rush: Defiantly. The last thing we'd like to do with you is offer you the chance to do some time travel. You get to bump into Nicole at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What would you advise be?   Nicole Soames: My words of wisdom to my younger self would be. You literally don't need to know everything. As you get older Nicole, realize that nobody knows everything. So, the secret is to surround yourself with people that are wiser and smarter than yourself, and they will lift you up in your life, I would definitely say that. I wish I'd have known that when I was 21. The next I would say, Nicole, your career is going to be long. Don't be in a rush. I'm not saying you should wait for the tap on the shoulder, but patience is a virtue. If I hadn't of had that real gritty, authentic commercial experience, I don't think I'd be nearly as good a coach and a trainer as I am now, if I hadn't gone through that. And the last thing that I would say to me at that age is if you want to be happy, then you really need to make sure that you love what you do. And even more importantly, you love who you do it with. And again, you have to learn that you love it. You can't just go, oh, I love that. It's not a surface thing. It's a deep thing. You've got to really know if you want to stay with the distance, you will really, really know that you love what you do. And then you've got to make sure you surround yourself with people that you really love as well. And then you will be sustained in your happiness. And I am so, so fortunate to have found that in my career and with my team and with my clients, you know, it's I really am very, very lucky.   Steve Rush: But to make your own luck.   Nicole Soames: You do make your own luck and you grab those opportunities. I do wake up every day and got on really, really lucky that I get to do what I love. And I'm not just saying that in a cliche ways, its genuine. I really do love what I do.   Steve Rush: Very wise words too. So, thank you for sharing those.   Nicole Soames: Pleasure. Steve Rush: The final thing for us to kick around is that I'm pretty certain people are going to be listening to this thinking, how do I get hold of some of Nicole insights? Where do I get a copy of the book? How can I find out what Diadem Performance are doing? Where would you like us to send them?   Nicole Soames: So, the book, the classic places like Amazon, WHSmith, Forbes, Waterstones. All of the usual suspects, you can find all of the books. In terms of following me personally, and Diadem. Find us on LinkedIn, So I'm Nicole Soames on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter as well, so that's nicolediadem, that's my handle. And then you can also find me on Facebook, Nicole Soames Author, and I've got an author's website. So, it's nicolesoamesbooks.com. So, lots of places, lots of places to find me. And I do regularly blogger as well with my philosophies and my opinion on things. So yeah, that's how people can get hold of me and Diadem Performance website is diademperformance.com.   Steve Rush: Brilliant. We'll put all of those links in our show notes as well.   Nicole Soames: Thank you very much.   Steve Rush: Nicole, thank you for taking time out. I always love chatting to you. Always get a sense of energy and you can tell you love what you do because it comes through in the passion and the way you describe things. So, on behalf of our listeners, thank you for being part of The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Nicole Soames: Thank you for inviting me, I really enjoyed it.   Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Summary - HIV impacts the person Physically, Affectively, Cognitively, Environmentally and Relationally - Behavioral health professionals can aid in screening for comorbid/confounding conditions and making referrals as appropriate - Behavioral health professionals can - Enhance and maintain motivation for treatment compliance - Assist in processing powerful emotions related to the diagnosis and associated issues - Introduce cognitive behavioral tools and strategies to help the person cope - Educate the individual, SOs and community about HIV transmission and treatment (reduce stigma and improve health behaviors) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summary ~ Working with people with cognitive impairment can be frustrating ~ It is important not to confuse chronological age with communicative age ~ KISS ~ Eliminate distractions ~ Don't expect short-term memory ~ Use pictures, lists, storyboards ~ Spaced retrieval training has shown effectiveness in improving memory in people with cognitive impairments ~ Many people with a FASD will present in mental health practices without a FASD diagnosis. ~ Many clients who misuse alcohol and/or try to self detox can precipitate a cognitive impairment through ~ Thiamine deficiency ~ Stroke ~ Conduct ongoing assessments for cognitive impairments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices