Podcasts about competent

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Richard Bliss, the founder and CEO of BlissPoint Consulting, as today's guest. Richard has focused his entire career on helping people with their social selling behavior. He is well-known both inside and outside of our industry as a LinkedIn Top Voices Influencer and an experienced executive communications leader. Stay tuned as Richard shares his story and offers practical insights on social selling, executive communication, and what truly builds influence on LinkedIn. Richard's Journey Richard began his career with 14 years in the National Guard, earning the rank of Captain, before moving into early enterprise technology in the late 1900s. He became a global evangelist during the rise of email as a business platform, emerging as a leading voice in email security when internet-based threats first appeared. He has spoken in 22 countries, hosted international technology conferences, and built a reputation for helping individuals and organizations understand how fast-moving technologies affect both work and life. Reinvention After Richard served as Chief Marketing Officer and helped the startup grow from under $1 million in revenue to more than $10 million, the company abruptly let him go. That forced him to rebuild from scratch, relying on his personal brand rather than a company title. He launched a long-running podcast, self-published a book, taught himself about social media, and reframed LinkedIn as a business media platform rather than a social one. A pivotal $800-a-month consulting role with a senior NetApp executive reopened doors that ultimately led to Richard founding his own company. Creating Opportunity Richard believes opportunity comes from deliberately placing yourself where it can find you. What others might view as setbacks, he sees as sequences that lead to better outcomes. Modern Credibility In today's digital-first world, people build credibility online long before they meet in person. Audiences constantly evaluate LinkedIn profiles, even when owners remain inactive. They judge professionalism, expertise, and trustworthiness based on what they see, which makes visibility unavoidable rather than optional. Small Businesses Have an Advantage Small business owners often outperform large organizations online because they speak in their own authentic voice. Without layers of corporate filtering, they can tell clear, personal stories and connect directly with their audience. With LinkedIn and generative AI, they can reach customers without gatekeepers, large budgets, or traditional media exposure. LinkedIn LinkedIn works best when treated as an ongoing conversation rather than a static profile or sales funnel. Profiles and posts should focus on the audience's problems and opportunities, rather than one's personal history. Forming Relationships Cold outreach and instant pitching undermine trust. Relationships form when value is given initially through attention, insight, and engagement. Comments, referrals, and thoughtful interaction create a natural sense of reciprocity, opening the door to future business conversations. Building Real Engagement Artificial engagement pods violate LinkedIn's rules, so they are increasingly penalized. Genuine collaboration comes from consistent, meaningful interaction with customers, partners, and peers. Thoughtful comments on others' posts help establish topic authority and increase visibility organically. Using AI Generative AI is most effective as a support tool, not a replacement for a human voice. While AI can help shape ideas and drafts, comments and conversations must remain personal. LinkedIn prioritizes authentic, real-time engagement and increasingly suppresses purely AI-generated content. Practical LinkedIn Rhythm That Actually Works Sustainable success on LinkedIn requires modest, consistent effort. A small number of meaningful comments each day and one to three posts per week outperform high-volume posting. Conversations should be allowed to develop fully before starting new ones, aligning with how LinkedIn distributes content. Events, AI, and the Power of In-Person Connection Despite advances in AI, live events remain irreplaceable. Shared physical experiences, eye contact, and informal conversations build trust in ways digital tools cannot. Competent professionals prepare for events by engaging attendees online beforehand, without pitching, so that in-person meetings feel like natural continuations of existing relationships. Connect with Eric Rozenberg LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Website Listen to The Business of Meetings podcast Subscribe to The Business of Meetings newsletter Connect with Richard Bliss BlissPoint On LinkedIn Email Richard: rbliss@blisscorp.com   

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

NEWS: Duterte not competent to stand trial, his lawyers say | Dec. 21, 2025Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribeVisit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net Follow us: Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital Check out our Podcasts: Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein#TheManilaTimes#KeepUpWithTheTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

Rob and Michele Reiner spent nearly two decades trying to save their son. Seventeen rehab stays. Constant supervision. A guest house on their property so they could keep him close and try to manage the chaos. Every possible resource love, money, access, and opportunity could provide. And still, on December 15, 2025, they were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, now faces charges in their killings. This is not a story about parents who missed the warning signs. It's about parents who lived with those signs for eighteen years and had no legal way to act on them. In this in-depth conversation, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what was likely unfolding inside the Reiner family long before that final night. She breaks down why Nick Reiner's own words — that drugs were never about getting high but about “killing the noise” — point to deeper psychological distress that traditional rehab often fails to address. We explore what happens to parents psychologically when they've exhausted every option yet remain trapped in proximity to a volatile adult child, and why wealth and access offered no real protection. The discussion then widens to a second chilling case: the Mickey Stines tragedy in Kentucky, where a sheriff fatally shot a judge inside his own courthouse after weeks of visible psychological unraveling. Witnesses described paranoia, severe sleep deprivation, rapid weight loss, delusional beliefs, and an alarming phone call to a deceased relative on the day of the incident. Coworkers saw it. Friends saw it. Authorities saw it. And still, no intervention stopped what followed. Together, these cases expose a painful reality: in the United States, families and communities often recognize danger long before the law allows action. Competent adults cannot be forced into treatment. Intervention requires “imminent danger,” a threshold that frequently isn't crossed until lives are already lost. This conversation isn't about excusing violence or assigning blame. It's about confronting the limits of love, the failures baked into mental-health and commitment laws, and the impossible position families are placed in when respecting autonomy means risking their own safety. If you've ever wondered how people can do everything right and still end up here, this episode offers uncomfortable — but necessary — answers. #ReinerMurders #NickReiner #MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #TrueCrime #MentalHealthCrisis #SystemicFailure #CrimePsychology #FamilyViolence #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

In this letter to the editor, engineer Rick Vermeers outlines why he believes the Interstate Bridge Replacement project is failing under expanding scope, escalating costs, and timeline risks, and urges leaders to remove light rail to salvage a more affordable bridge plan. https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/letter-a-call-for-competent-interstate-bridge-project-management/ #Opinion #InterstateBridge #I5Bridge #LightRail #TriMet #ClarkCounty #Transportation

We explore critical life skills beyond firearms, including physical fitness, social skills, and emotional intelligence, emphasizing the importance of a well-rounded approach to personal development.

The conventional path for young men is breaking down. College is more expensive than ever, jobs are disappearing faster than degrees can keep up, and an entire generation is being pushed into debt, confusion, and dependence before they've even had a chance to build real-world skills. More parents and young men are starting to ask a hard question: “If this system is failing, what actually works?” In today's episode, I am joined by entrepreneur, rancher, and author Matt Smith to discuss The Preparation, his new book co-written with my friend and mentor Doug Casey. We break down how real competence creates confidence, why character matters more than credentials, and how skill acquisition, mentorship, and responsibility can shape capable, independent individuals inside a system designed to produce the opposite.  Enjoy! IN TODAY'S EPISODE Listen in to hear why the traditional college path is failing young menLearn why exposure to risk and responsibility builds judgment that schools never teachHear why character and responsibility matter far more than credentialsFinish this episode with a clear alternative to raising dependent boys in an increasingly unstable world STAY IN TOUCH! Stay informed about the latest news affecting the expat world and receive a steady stream of my thoughts and opinions on geopolitics by subscribing to our newsletter. You will receive the EMS Pulse® newsletter and the weekly Expat Sunday Times; sign up now and receive my FREE special report, “Plan B Residencies and Instant Citizenships.” WEALTH, FREEDOM & PASSPORTS CONFERENCE, MARCH 6-7, 2026 Join us in Panama City from March 6-7, 2026, for our second annual in-person event, the Wealth, Freedom and Passports Conference! Prices go up after January 2nd, and space is very limited, so reserve your tickets right away. RELATED EPISODES 382: Doug Casey's Crystal Ball for 2026: The One Conversation You Can't Afford to Miss 378: Why Dropping Out of School Was the Best Investment I Ever Made 289: Lessons From Homeschooling Five Children Overseas - Joshua Sheats  

https://swiftsilentdeadly.com/Justin's book:https://www.amazon.com/Competent-Dangerous-Master-Skills-Among/dp/B0FYQTQGRV?&linkCode=sl1&tag=ssd05-20&linkId=23670766f5a551fc3212bbecc01dcc91&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

TLDR: It was Claude :-)When I set out to compare ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and ChatPRD for writing Product Requirement Documents, I figured they'd all be roughly equivalent. Maybe some subtle variations in tone or structure, but nothing earth-shattering. They're all built on similar transformer architectures, trained on massive datasets, and marketed as capable of handling complex business writing.What I discovered over 45 minutes of hands-on testing revealed not just which tools are better for PRD creation, but why they're better, and more importantly, how you should actually be using AI to accelerate your product work without sacrificing quality or strategic thinking.If you're an early or mid-career PM in Silicon Valley, this matters to you. Because here's the uncomfortable truth: your peers are already using AI to write PRDs, analyze features, and generate documentation. The question isn't whether to use these tools. The question is whether you're using the right ones most effectively.So let me walk you through exactly what I did, what I learned, and what you should do differently.The Setup: A Real-World Test CaseHere's how I structured the experiment. As I said at the beginning of my recording, “We are back in the Fireside PM podcast and I did that review of the ChatGPT browser and people seemed to like it and then I asked, uh, in a poll, I think it was a LinkedIn poll maybe, what should my next PM product review be? And, people asked for ChatPRD.”So I had my marching orders from the audience. But I wanted to make this more comprehensive than just testing ChatPRD in isolation. I opened up five tabs: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and ChatPRD.For the test case, I chose something realistic and relevant: an AI-powered tutor for high school students. Think KhanAmigo or similar edtech platforms. This gave me a concrete product scenario that's complex enough to stress-test these tools but straightforward enough that I could iterate quickly.But here's the critical part that too many PMs get wrong when they start using AI for product work: I didn't just throw a single sentence at these tools and expect magic.The “Back of the Napkin” Approach: Why You Still Need to Think“I presume everybody agrees that you should have some formulated thinking before you dump it into the chatbot for your PRD,” I noted early in my experiment. “I suppose in the future maybe you could just do, like, a one-sentence prompt and come out with the perfect PRD because it would just know everything about you and your company in the context, but for now we're gonna do this more, a little old-school AI approach where we're gonna do some original human thinking.”This is crucial. I see so many PMs, especially those newer to the field, treat AI like a magic oracle. They type in “Write me a PRD for a social feature” and then wonder why the output is generic, unfocused, and useless.Your job as a PM isn't to become obsolete. It's to become more effective. And that means doing the strategic thinking work that AI cannot do for you.So I started in Google Docs with what I call a “back of the napkin” PRD structure. Here's what I included:Why: The strategic rationale. In this case: “Want to complement our existing edtech business with a personalized AI tutor, uh, want to maintain position industry, and grow through innovation. on mission for learners.”Target User: Who are we building for? “High school students interested in improving their grades and fundamentals. Fundamental knowledge topics. Specifically science and math. Students who are not in the top ten percent, nor in the bottom ten percent.”This is key—I got specific. Not just “students,” but students in the middle 80%. Not just “any subject,” but science and math. This specificity is what separates useful AI output from garbage.Problem to Solve: What's broken? “Students want better grades. Students are impatient. Students currently use AI just for finding the answers and less to, uh, understand concepts and practice using them.”Key Elements: The feature set and approach.Success Metrics: How we'd measure success.Now, was this a perfectly polished PRD outline? Hell no. As you can see from my transcript, I was literally thinking out loud, making typos, restructuring on the fly. But that's exactly the point. I put in maybe 10-15 minutes of human strategic thinking. That's all it took to create a foundation that would dramatically improve what came out of the AI tools.Round One: Generating the Full PRDWith my back-of-the-napkin outline ready, I copied it into each tool with a simple prompt asking them to expand it into a more complete PRD.ChatGPT: The Reliable GeneralistChatGPT gave me something that was... fine. Competent. Professional. But also deeply uninspiring.The document it produced checked all the boxes. It had the sections you'd expect. The writing was clear. But when I read it, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading something that could have been written for literally any product in any company. It felt like “an average of everything out there,” as I noted in my evaluation.Here's what ChatGPT did well: It understood the basic structure of a PRD. It generated appropriate sections. The grammar and formatting were clean. If you needed to hand something in by EOD and had literally no time for refinement, ChatGPT would save you from complete embarrassment.But here's what it lacked: Depth. Nuance. Strategic thinking that felt connected to real product decisions. When it described the target user, it used phrases that could apply to any edtech product. When it outlined success metrics, they were the obvious ones (engagement, retention, test scores) without any interesting thinking about leading indicators or proxy metrics.The problem with generic output isn't that it's wrong, it's that it's invisible. When you're trying to get buy-in from leadership or alignment from engineering, you need your PRD to feel specific, considered, and connected to your company's actual strategy. ChatGPT's output felt like it was written by someone who'd read a lot of PRDs but never actually shipped a product.One specific example: When I asked for success metrics, ChatGPT gave me “Student engagement rate, Time spent on platform, Test score improvement.” These aren't wrong, but they're lazy. They don't show any thinking about what specifically matters for an AI tutor versus any other educational product. Compare that to Claude's output, which got more specific about things like “concept mastery rate” and “question-to-understanding ratio.”Actionable Insight: Use ChatGPT when you need fast, serviceable documentation that doesn't need to be exceptional. Think: internal updates, status reports, routine communications. Don't rely on it for strategic documents where differentiation matters. If you do use ChatGPT for important documents, treat its output as a starting point that needs significant human refinement to add strategic depth and company-specific context.Gemini: Better Than ExpectedGoogle's Gemini actually impressed me more than I anticipated. The structure was solid, and it had a nice balance of detail without being overwhelming.What Gemini got right: The writing had a nice flow to it. The document felt organized and logical. It did a better job than ChatGPT at providing specific examples and thinking through edge cases. For instance, when describing the target user, it went beyond demographics to consider behavioral characteristics and motivations.Gemini also showed some interesting strategic thinking. It considered competitive positioning more thoughtfully than ChatGPT and proposed some differentiation angles that weren't in my original outline. Good AI tools should add insight, not just regurgitate your input with better formatting.But here's where it fell short: the visual elements. When I asked for mockups, Gemini produced images that looked more like stock photos than actual product designs. They weren't terrible, but they weren't compelling either. They had that AI-generated sheen that makes it obvious they came from an image model rather than a designer's brain.For a PRD that you're going to use internally with a team that already understands the context, Gemini's output would work well. The text quality is strong enough, and if you're in the Google ecosystem (Docs, Sheets, Meet, etc.), the integration is seamless. You can paste Gemini's output directly into Google Docs and continue iterating there.But if you need to create something compelling enough to win over skeptics or secure budget, Gemini falls just short. It's good, but not great. It's the solid B+ student: reliably competent but rarely exceptional.Actionable Insight: Gemini is a strong choice if you're working in the Google ecosystem and need good integration with Docs, Sheets, and other Google Workspace tools. The quality is sufficient for most internal documentation needs. It's particularly good if you're working with cross-functional partners who are already in Google Workspace. You can share and collaborate on AI-generated drafts without friction. But don't expect visual mockups that will wow anyone, and plan to add your own strategic polish for high-stakes documents.Grok: Not Ready for Prime TimeLet's just say my expectations were low, and Grok still managed to underdeliver. The PRD felt thin, generic, and lacked the depth you need for real product work.“I don't have high expectations for grok, unfortunately,” I said before testing it. Spoiler alert: my low expectations were validated.Actionable Insight: Skip Grok for product documentation work right now. Maybe it'll improve, but as of my testing, it's simply not competitive with the other options. It felt like 1-2 years behind the others.ChatPRD: The Specialized ToolNow this was interesting. ChatPRD is purpose-built for PRDs, using foundational models underneath but with specific tuning and structure for product documentation.The result? The structure was logical, the depth was appropriate, and it included elements that showed understanding of what actually matters in a PRD. As I reflected: “Cause this one feels like, A human wrote this PRD.”The interface guides you through the process more deliberately than just dumping text into a general chat interface. It asks clarifying questions. It structures the output more thoughtfully.Actionable Insight: If you're a technical lead without a dedicated PM, or you're a PM who wants a more structured approach to using AI for PRDs, ChatPRD is worth the specialized focus. It's particularly good when you need something that feels authentic enough to share with stakeholders without heavy editing.Claude: The Clear WinnerBut the standout performer, and I'm ranking these, was Claude.“I think we know that for now, I'm gonna say Claude did the best job,” I concluded after all the testing. Claude produced the most comprehensive, thoughtful, and strategically sound PRD. But what really set it apart were the concept mocks.When I asked each tool to generate visual mockups of the product, Claude produced HTML prototypes that, while not fully functional, looked genuinely compelling. They had thoughtful UI design, clear information architecture, and felt like something that could actually guide development.“They were, like, closer to, like, what a Lovable would produce or something like that,” I noted, referring to the quality of low-fidelity prototypes that good designers create.The text quality was also superior: more nuanced, better structured, and with more strategic depth. It felt like Claude understood not just what a PRD should contain, but why it should contain those elements.Actionable Insight: For any PRD that matters, meaning anything you'll share with leadership, use to get buy-in, or guide actual product development, you might as well start with Claude. The quality difference is significant enough that it's worth using Claude even if you primarily use another tool for other tasks.Final Rankings: The Definitive HierarchyAfter testing all five tools on multiple dimensions: initial PRD generation, visual mockups, and even crafting a pitch paragraph for a skeptical VP of Engineering, here's my final ranking:* Claude - Best overall quality, most compelling mockups, strongest strategic thinking* ChatPRD - Best for structured PRD creation, feels most “human”* Gemini - Solid all-around performance, good Google integration* ChatGPT - Reliable but generic, lacks differentiation* Grok - Not competitive for this use case“I'd probably say Claude, then chat PRD, then Gemini, then chat GPT, and then Grock,” I concluded.The Deeper Lesson: Garbage In, Garbage Out (Still Applies)But here's what matters more than which tool wins: the realization that hit me partway through this experiment.“I think it really does come down to, like, you know, the quality of the prompt,” I observed. “So if our prompt were a little more detailed, all that were more thought-through, then I'm sure the output would have been better. But as you can see we didn't really put in brain trust prompting here. Just a little bit of, kind of hand-wavy prompting, but a little better than just one or two sentences.”And we still got pretty good results.This is the meta-insight that should change how you approach AI tools in your product work: The quality of your input determines the quality of your output, but the baseline quality of the tool determines the ceiling of what's possible.No amount of great prompting will make Grok produce Claude-level output. But even mediocre prompting with Claude will beat great prompting with lesser tools.So the dual strategy is:* Use the best tool available (currently Claude for PRDs)* Invest in improving your prompting skills ideally with as much original and insightful human, company aware, and context aware thinking as possible.Real-World Workflows: How to Actually Use This in Your Day-to-Day PM WorkTheory is great. Here's how to incorporate these insights into your actual product management workflows.The Weekly Sprint Planning WorkflowEvery PM I know spends hours each week preparing for sprint planning. You need to refine user stories, clarify acceptance criteria, anticipate engineering questions, and align with design and data science. AI can compress this work significantly.Here's an example workflow:Monday morning (30 minutes):* Review upcoming priorities and open your rough notes/outline in Google Docs* Open Claude and paste your outline with this prompt:“I'm preparing for sprint planning. Based on these priorities [paste notes], generate detailed user stories with acceptance criteria. Format each as: User story, Business context, Technical considerations, Acceptance criteria, Dependencies, Open questions.”Monday afternoon (20 minutes):* Review Claude's output critically* Identify gaps, unclear requirements, or missing context* Follow up with targeted prompts:“The user story about authentication is too vague. Break it down into separate stories for: social login, email/password, session management, and password reset. For each, specify security requirements and edge cases.”Tuesday morning (15 minutes):* Generate mockups for any UI-heavy stories:“Create an HTML mockup for the login flow showing: landing page, social login options, email/password form, error states, and success redirect.”* Even if the HTML doesn't work perfectly, it gives your designers a starting pointBefore sprint planning (10 minutes):* Ask Claude to anticipate engineering questions:“Review these user stories as if you're a senior engineer. What questions would you ask? What concerns would you raise about technical feasibility, dependencies, or edge cases?”* This preparation makes you look thoughtful and helps the meeting run smoothlyTotal time investment: ~75 minutes. Typical time saved: 3-4 hours compared to doing this manually.The Stakeholder Alignment WorkflowGetting alignment from multiple stakeholders (product leadership, engineering, design, data science, legal, marketing) is one of the hardest parts of PM work. AI can help you think through different stakeholder perspectives and craft compelling communications for each.Here's how:Step 1: Map your stakeholders (10 minutes)Create a quick table in a doc:Stakeholder | Primary Concern | Decision Criteria | Likely Objections VP Product | Strategic fit, ROI | Company OKRs, market opportunity | Resource allocation vs other priorities VP Eng | Technical risk, capacity | Engineering capacity, tech debt | Complexity, unclear requirements Design Lead | User experience | User research, design principles | Timeline doesn't allow proper design process Legal | Compliance, risk | Regulatory requirements | Data privacy, user consent flowsStep 2: Generate stakeholder-specific communications (20 minutes)For each key stakeholder, ask Claude:“I need to pitch this product idea to [Stakeholder]. Based on this PRD, create a 1-page brief addressing their primary concern of [concern from your table]. Open with the specific value for them, address their likely objection of [objection], and close with a clear ask. Tone should be [professional/technical/strategic] based on their role.”Then you'll have customized one-pagers for your pre-meetings with each stakeholder, dramatically increasing your alignment rate.Step 3: Synthesize feedback (15 minutes)After gathering stakeholder input, ask Claude to help you synthesize:“I got the following feedback from stakeholders: [paste feedback]. Identify: (1) Common themes, (2) Conflicting requirements, (3) Legitimate concerns vs organizational politics, (4) Recommended compromises that might satisfy multiple parties.”This pattern-matching across stakeholder feedback is something AI does really well and saves you hours of mental processing.The Quarterly Planning WorkflowQuarterly or annual planning is where product strategy gets real. You need to synthesize market trends, customer feedback, technical capabilities, and business objectives into a coherent roadmap. AI can accelerate this dramatically.Six weeks before planning:* Start collecting input (customer interviews, market research, competitive analysis, engineering feedback)* Don't wait until the last minuteFour weeks before planning:Dump everything into Claude with this structure:“I'm creating our Q2 roadmap. Context:* Business objectives: [paste from leadership]* Customer feedback themes: [paste synthesis]* Technical capabilities/constraints: [paste from engineering]* Competitive landscape: [paste analysis]* Current product gaps: [paste from your analysis]Generate 5 strategic themes that could anchor our Q2 roadmap. For each theme:* Strategic rationale (how it connects to business objectives)* Key initiatives (2-3 major features/projects)* Success metrics* Resource requirements (rough estimate)* Risks and mitigations* Customer segments addressed”This gives you a strategic framework to react to rather than starting from a blank page.Three weeks before planning:Iterate on the most promising themes:“Deep dive on Theme 3. Generate:* Detailed initiative breakdown* Dependencies on platform/infrastructure* Phasing options (MVP vs full build)* Go-to-market considerations* Data requirements* Open questions requiring research”Two weeks before planning:Pressure-test your thinking:“Play devil's advocate on this roadmap. What are the strongest arguments against each initiative? What am I likely missing? What failure modes should I plan for?”This adversarial prompting forces you to strengthen weak points before your leadership reviews it.One week before planning:Generate your presentation:“Create an executive presentation for this roadmap. Structure: (1) Market context and strategic imperative, (2) Q2 themes and initiatives, (3) Expected outcomes and metrics, (4) Resource requirements, (5) Key risks and mitigations, (6) Success criteria for decision. Make it compelling but data-driven. Tone: confident but not overselling.”Then add your company-specific context, visual brand, and personal voice.The Customer Research WorkflowAI can't replace talking to customers, but it can help you prepare better questions, analyze feedback more systematically, and identify patterns faster.Before customer interviews:“I'm interviewing customers about [topic]. Generate:* 10 open-ended questions that avoid leading the witness* 5 follow-up questions for each main question* Common cognitive biases I should watch for* A framework for categorizing responses”This prep work helps you conduct better interviews.After interviews:“I conducted 15 customer interviews. Here are the key quotes: [paste anonymized quotes]. Identify:* Recurring themes and patterns* Surprising insights that contradict our assumptions* Segments with different needs* Implied needs customers didn't articulate directly* Recommended next steps for validation”AI is excellent at pattern-matching across qualitative data at scale.The Crisis Management WorkflowSomething broke. The site is down. Data was lost. A feature shipped with a critical bug. You need to move fast.Immediate response (5 minutes):“Critical incident. Details: [brief description]. Generate:* Incident classification (Sev 1-4)* Immediate stakeholders to notify* Draft customer communication (honest, apologetic, specific about what happened and what we're doing)* Draft internal communication for leadership* Key questions to ask engineering during investigation”Having these drafted in 5 minutes lets you focus on coordination and decision-making rather than wordsmithing.Post-incident (30 minutes):“Write a post-mortem based on this incident timeline: [paste timeline]. Include:* What happened (technical details)* Root cause analysis* Impact quantification (users affected, revenue impact, time to resolution)* What went well in our response* What could have been better* Specific action items with owners and deadlines* Process changes to prevent recurrence Tone: Blameless, focused on learning and improvement.”This gives you a strong first draft to refine with your team.Common Pitfalls: What Not to Do with AI in Product ManagementNow let's talk about the mistakes I see PMs making with AI tools. Pitfall #1: Treating AI Output as FinalThe biggest mistake is copy-pasting AI output directly into your PRD, roadmap presentation, or stakeholder email without critical review.The result? Documents that are grammatically perfect but strategically shallow. Presentations that sound impressive but don't hold up under questioning. Emails that are professionally worded but miss the subtext of organizational politics.The fix: Always ask yourself:* Does this reflect my actual strategic thinking, or generic best practices?* Would my CEO/engineering lead/biggest customer find this compelling and specific?* Are there company-specific details, customer insights, or technical constraints that only I know?* Does this sound like me, or like a robot?Add those elements. That's where your value as a PM comes through.Pitfall #2: Using AI as a Crutch Instead of a ToolSome PMs use AI because they don't want to think deeply about the product. They're looking for AI to do the hard work of strategy, prioritization, and trade-off analysis.This never works. AI can help you think more systematically, but it can't replace thinking.If you find yourself using AI to avoid wrestling with hard questions (”Should we build X or Y?” “What's our actual competitive advantage?” “Why would customers switch from the incumbent?”), you're using it wrong.The fix: Use AI to explore options, not to make decisions. Generate three alternatives, pressure-test each one, then use your judgment to decide. The AI can help you think through implications, but you're still the one choosing.Pitfall #3: Not IteratingGetting mediocre AI output and just accepting it is a waste of the technology's potential.The PMs who get exceptional results from AI are the ones who iterate. They generate an initial response, identify what's weak or missing, and ask follow-up questions. They might go through 5-10 iterations on a key section of a PRD.Each iteration is quick (30 seconds to type a follow-up prompt, 30 seconds to read the response), but the cumulative effect is dramatically better output.The fix: Budget time for iteration. Don't try to generate a complete, polished PRD in one prompt. Instead, generate a rough draft, then spend 30 minutes iterating on specific sections that matter most.Pitfall #4: Ignoring the Political and Human ContextAI tools have no understanding of organizational politics, interpersonal relationships, or the specific humans you're working with.They don't know that your VP of Engineering is burned out and skeptical of any new initiatives. They don't know that your CEO has a personal obsession with a specific competitor. They don't know that your lead designer is sensitive about not being included early enough in the process.If you use AI-generated communications without layering in this human context, you'll create perfectly worded documents that land badly because they miss the subtext.The fix: After generating AI content, explicitly ask yourself: “What human context am I missing? What relationships do I need to consider? What political dynamics are in play?” Then modify the AI output accordingly.Pitfall #5: Over-Relying on a Single ToolDifferent AI tools have different strengths. Claude is great for strategic depth, ChatPRD is great for structure, Gemini integrates well with Google Workspace.If you only ever use one tool, you're missing opportunities to leverage different strengths for different tasks.The fix: Keep 2-3 tools in your toolkit. Use Claude for important PRDs and strategic documents. Use Gemini for quick internal documentation that needs to integrate with Google Docs. Use ChatPRD when you want more guided structure. Match the tool to the task.Pitfall #6: Not Fact-Checking AI OutputAI tools hallucinate. They make up statistics, misrepresent competitors, and confidently state things that aren't true. If you include those hallucinations in a PRD that goes to leadership, you look incompetent.The fix: Fact-check everything, especially:* Statistics and market data* Competitive feature claims* Technical capabilities and limitations* Regulatory and compliance requirementsIf the AI cites a number or makes a factual claim, verify it independently before including it in your document.The Meta-Skill: Prompt Engineering for PMsLet's zoom out and talk about the underlying skill that makes all of this work: prompt engineering.This is a real skill. The difference between a mediocre prompt and a great prompt can be 10x difference in output quality. And unlike coding or design, where there's a steep learning curve, prompt engineering is something you can get good at quickly.Principle 1: Provide Context Before InstructionsBad prompt:“Write a PRD for an AI tutor”Good prompt:“I'm a PM at an edtech company with 2M users, primarily high school students. We're exploring an AI tutor feature to complement our existing video content library and practice problems. Our main competitors are Khan Academy and Course Hero. Our differentiation is personalized learning paths based on student performance data.Write a PRD for an AI tutor feature targeting students in the middle 80% academically who struggle with science and math.”The second prompt gives Claude the context it needs to generate something specific and strategic rather than generic.Principle 2: Specify Format and ConstraintsBad prompt:“Generate success metrics”Good prompt:“Generate 5-7 success metrics for this feature. Include a mix of:* Leading indicators (early signals of success)* Lagging indicators (definitive success measures)* User behavior metrics* Business impact metricsFor each metric, specify: name, definition, target value, measurement method, and why it matters.”The structure you provide shapes the structure you get back.Principle 3: Ask for Multiple OptionsBad prompt:“What should our Q2 priorities be?”Good prompt:“Generate 3 different strategic approaches for Q2:* Option A: Focus on user acquisition* Option B: Focus on engagement and retention* Option C: Focus on monetizationFor each option, detail: key initiatives, expected outcomes, resource requirements, risks, and recommendation for or against.”Asking for multiple options forces the AI (and forces you) to think through trade-offs systematically.Principle 4: Specify Audience and ToneBad prompt:“Summarize this PRD”Good prompt:“Create a 1-paragraph summary of this PRD for our skeptical VP of Engineering. Tone: Technical, concise, addresses engineering concerns upfront. Focus on: technical architecture, resource requirements, risks, and expected engineering effort. Avoid marketing language.”The audience and tone specification ensures the output will actually work for your intended use.Principle 5: Use Iterative RefinementDon't try to get perfect output in one prompt. Instead:First prompt: Generate rough draft Second prompt: “This is too generic. Add specific examples from [our company context].” Third prompt: “The technical section is weak. Expand with architecture details and dependencies.” Fourth prompt: “Good. Now make it 30% more concise while keeping the key details.”Each iteration improves the output incrementally.Let me break down the prompting approach that worked in this experiment, because this is immediately actionable for your work tomorrow.Strategy 1: The Structured Outline ApproachDon't go from zero to full PRD in one prompt. Instead:* Start with strategic thinking - Spend 10-15 minutes outlining why you're building this, who it's for, and what problem it solves* Get specific - Don't say “users,” say “high school students in the middle 80% of academic performance”* Include constraints - Budget, timeline, technical limitations, competitive landscape* Dump your outline into the AI - Now ask it to expand into a full PRD* Iterate section by section - Don't try to perfect everything at onceThis is exactly what I did in my experiment, and even with my somewhat sloppy outline, the results were dramatically better than they would have been with a single-sentence prompt.Strategy 2: The Comparative Analysis PatternOne technique I used that worked particularly well: asking each tool to do the same specific task and comparing results.For example, I asked all five tools: “Please compose a one paragraph exact summary I can share over DM with a highly influential VP of engineering who is generally a skeptic but super smart.”This forced each tool to synthesize the entire PRD into a compelling pitch while accounting for a specific, challenging audience. The variation in quality was revealing—and it gave me multiple options to choose from or blend together.Actionable tip: When you need something critical (a pitch, an executive summary, a key decision framework), generate it with 2-3 different AI tools and take the best elements from each. This “ensemble approach” often produces better results than any single tool.Strategy 3: The Iterative Refinement LoopDon't treat the AI output as final. Use it as a first draft that you then refine through conversation with the AI.After getting the initial PRD, I could have asked follow-up questions like:* “What's missing from this PRD?”* “How would you strengthen the success metrics section?”* “Generate 3 alternative approaches to the core feature set”Each iteration improves the output and, more importantly, forces me to think more deeply about the product.What This Means for Your CareerIf you're an early or mid-career PM reading this, you might be thinking: “Great, so AI can write PRDs now. Am I becoming obsolete?”Absolutely not. But your role is evolving, and understanding that evolution is critical.The PMs who will thrive in the AI era are those who:* Excel at strategic thinking - AI can generate options, but you need to know which options align with company strategy, customer needs, and technical feasibility* Master the art of prompting - This is a genuine skill that separates mediocre AI users from exceptional ones* Know when to use AI and when not to - Some aspects of product work benefit enormously from AI. Others (user interviews, stakeholder negotiation, cross-functional relationship building) require human judgment and empathy* Can evaluate AI output critically - You need to spot the hallucinations, the generic fluff, and the strategic misalignments that AI inevitably producesThink of AI tools as incredibly capable interns. They can produce impressive work quickly, but they need direction, oversight, and strategic guidance. Your job is to provide that guidance while leveraging their speed and breadth.The Real-World Application: What to Do Monday MorningLet's get tactical. Here's exactly how to apply these insights to your actual product work:For Your Next PRD:* Block 30 minutes for strategic thinking - Write your back-of-the-napkin outline in Google Docs or your tool of choice* Open Claude (or ChatPRD if you want more structure)* Copy your outline with this prompt:“I'm a product manager at [company] working on [product area]. I need to create a comprehensive PRD based on this outline. Please expand this into a complete PRD with the following sections: [list your preferred sections]. Make it detailed enough for engineering to start breaking down into user stories, but concise enough for leadership to read in 15 minutes. [Paste your outline]”* Review the output critically - Look for generic statements, missing details, or strategic misalignments* Iterate on specific sections:“The success metrics section is too vague. Please provide 3-5 specific, measurable KPIs with target values and explanation of why these metrics matter.”* Generate supporting materials:“Create a visual mockup of the core user flow showing the key interaction points.”* Synthesize the best elements - Don't just copy-paste the AI output. Use it as raw material that you shape into your final documentFor Stakeholder Communication:When you need to pitch something to leadership or engineering:* Generate 3 versions of your pitch using different tools (Claude, ChatPRD, and one other)* Compare them for:* Clarity and conciseness* Strategic framing* Compelling value proposition* Addressing likely objections* Blend the best elements into your final version* Add your personal voice - This is crucial. AI output often lacks personality and specific company context. Add that yourself.For Feature Prioritization:AI tools can help you think through trade-offs more systematically:“I'm deciding between three features for our next release: [Feature A], [Feature B], and [Feature C]. For each feature, analyze: (1) Estimated engineering effort, (2) Expected user impact, (3) Strategic alignment with making our platform the go-to solution for [your market], (4) Risk factors. Then recommend a prioritization with rationale.”This doesn't replace your judgment, but it forces you to think through each dimension systematically and often surfaces considerations you hadn't thought of.The Uncomfortable Truth About AI and Product ManagementLet me be direct about something that makes many PMs uncomfortable: AI will make some PM skills less valuable while making others more valuable.Less valuable:* Writing boilerplate documentation* Creating standard frameworks and templates* Generating routine status updates* Synthesizing information from existing sourcesMore valuable:* Strategic product vision and roadmapping* Deep customer empathy and insight generation* Cross-functional leadership and influence* Critical evaluation of options and trade-offs* Creative problem-solving for novel situationsIf your PM role primarily involves the first category of tasks, you should be concerned. But if you're focused on the second category while leveraging AI for the first, you're going to be exponentially more effective than your peers who resist these tools.The PMs I see succeeding aren't those who can write the best PRD manually. They're those who can write the best PRD with AI assistance in one-tenth the time, then use the saved time to talk to more customers, think more deeply about strategy, and build stronger cross-functional relationships.Advanced Techniques: Beyond Basic PRD GenerationOnce you've mastered the basics, here are some advanced applications I've found valuable:Competitive Analysis at Scale“Research our top 5 competitors in [market]. For each one, analyze: their core value proposition, key features, pricing strategy, target customer, and likely product roadmap based on recent releases and job postings. Create a comparison matrix showing where we have advantages and gaps.”Then use web search tools in Claude or Perplexity to fact-check and expand the analysis.Scenario Planning“We're considering three strategic directions for our product: [Direction A], [Direction B], [Direction C]. For each direction, map out: likely customer adoption curve, required technical investments, competitive positioning in 12 months, and potential pivots if the hypothesis proves wrong. Then identify the highest-risk assumptions we should test first for each direction.”This kind of structured scenario thinking is exactly what AI excels at—generating multiple well-reasoned perspectives quickly.User Story GenerationAfter your PRD is solid:“Based on this PRD, generate a complete set of user stories following the format ‘As a [user type], I want to [action] so that [benefit].' Include acceptance criteria for each story. Organize them into epics by functional area.”This can save your engineering team hours of grooming meetings.The Tools Will Keep Evolving. Your Process Shouldn'tHere's something important to remember: by the time you read this, the specific rankings might have shifted. Maybe ChatGPT-5 has leapfrogged Claude. Maybe a new specialized tool has emerged.But the core principles won't change:* Do strategic thinking before touching AI* Use the best tool available for your specific task* Iterate and refine rather than accepting first outputs* Blend AI capabilities with human judgment* Focus your time on the uniquely human aspects of product managementThe specific tools matter less than your process for using them effectively.A Final Experiment: The Skeptical VP TestI want to share one more insight from my testing that I think is particularly relevant for early and mid-career PMs.Toward the end of my experiment, I gave each tool this prompt: “Please compose a one paragraph exact summary I can share over DM with a highly influential VP of engineering who is generally a skeptic but super smart.”This is such a realistic scenario. How many times have you needed to pitch an idea to a skeptical technical leader via Slack or email? Someone who's brilliant, who's seen a thousand product ideas fail, and who can spot b******t from a mile away?The quality variation in the responses was fascinating. ChatGPT gave me something that felt generic and safe. Gemini was better but still a bit too enthusiastic. Grok was... well, Grok.But Claude and ChatPRD both produced messages that felt authentic, technically credible, and appropriately confident without being overselling. They acknowledged the engineering challenges while framing the opportunity compellingly.The lesson: When the stakes are high and the audience is sophisticated, the quality of your AI tool matters even more. That skeptical VP can tell the difference between a carefully crafted message and AI-generated fluff. So can your CEO. So can your biggest customers.Use the best tools available, but more importantly, always add your own strategic thinking and authentic voice on top.Questions to Consider: A Framework for Your Own ExperimentsAs I wrapped up my Loom, I posed some questions to the audience that I'll pose to you:“Let me know in the comments, if you do your PRDs using AI differently, do you start with back of the envelope? Do you say, oh no, I just start with one sentence, and then I let the chatbot refine it with me? Or do you go way more detailed and then use the chatbot to kind of pressure test it?”These aren't rhetorical questions. Your answer reveals your approach to AI-augmented product work, and different approaches work for different people and contexts.For early-career PMs: I'd recommend starting with more detailed outlines. The discipline of thinking through your product strategy before touching AI will make you a stronger PM. You can always compress that process later as you get more experienced.For mid-career PMs: Experiment with different approaches for different types of documents. Maybe you do detailed outlines for major feature PRDs but use more iterative AI-assisted refinement for smaller features or updates. Find what optimizes your personal productivity while maintaining quality.For senior PMs and product leaders: Consider how AI changes what you should expect from your PM team. Should you be reviewing more AI-generated first drafts and spending more time on strategic guidance? Should you be training your team on effective AI usage? These are leadership questions worth grappling with.The Path Forward: Continuous ExperimentationMy experiment with these five AI tools took 45 minutes. But I'm not done experimenting.The field of AI-assisted product management is evolving rapidly. New tools launch monthly. Existing tools get smarter weekly. Prompting techniques that work today might be obsolete in three months.Your job, if you want to stay at the forefront of product management, is to continuously experiment. Try new tools. Share what works with your peers. Build a personal knowledge base of effective prompts and workflows. And be generous with what you learn. The PM community gets stronger when we share insights rather than hoarding them.That's why I created this Loom and why I'm writing this post. Not because I have all the answers, but because I'm figuring it out in real-time and want to share the journey.A Personal Note on Coaching and ConsultingIf this kind of practical advice resonates with you, I'm happy to work with you directly.Through my pm coaching practice, I offer 1:1 executive, career, and product coaching for PMs and product leaders. We can dig into your specific challenges: whether that's leveling up your AI workflows, navigating a career transition, or developing your strategic product thinking.I also work with companies (usually startups or incubation teams) on product strategy, helping teams figure out PMF for new explorations and improving their product management function.The format is flexible. Some clients want ongoing coaching, others prefer project-based consulting, and some just want a strategic sounding board for a specific decision. Whatever works for you.Reach out through tomleungcoaching.com if you're interested in working together.OK. Enough pontificating. Let's ship greatness. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit firesidepm.substack.com

What the Elf was that? Shedeur looks competent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former NASA flight director Eugene "Gene" Kranz, author of "Tough and Competent," shares stories from his 34 years at NASA's Mission Control, beginning in 1960 with his work on Project Mercury, the first American human spaceflight program. He was later flight director for NASA's Gemini and Apollo programs, including the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that landed Americans on the moon and the 1970 Apollo 13 mission that almost ended in tragedy ("Houston, we've had a problem…" reported Commander Jim Lovell in route to the moon). Mr. Kranz, who turned 92 this year, also talks about his work on Skylab and the Space Shuttle Program, and weighs in on NASA's current plans to send humans back to the moon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Tactical Living Podcast, hosts Coach Ashlie Walton and Sergeant Clint Walton explore a powerful emotional truth most first responders (Amazon Affiliate) never say out loud: being called a hero doesn't always feel good — or accurate. Police, fire, EMS, and dispatch professionals often get labeled as heroes by the public, the media, and sometimes even their own families. But many responders feel uncomfortable, unworthy, or even resentful of that title. Not because they lack pride in their work — but because the things they've seen, the mistakes they replay, and the trauma they carry don't line up with the shiny narrative. This episode digs into the quiet conflict between the identity the world gives you and the identity you actually live with, and why so many responders struggle to feel heroic despite their sacrifice.

Former NASA flight director Eugene "Gene" Kranz, author of "Tough and Competent," shares stories from his 34 years at NASA's Mission Control, beginning in 1960 with his work on Project Mercury, the first American human spaceflight program. He was later flight director for NASA's Gemini and Apollo programs, including the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that landed Americans on the moon and the 1970 Apollo 13 mission that almost ended in tragedy ("Houston, we've had a problem…" reported Commander Jim Lovell in route to the moon). Mr. Kranz, who turned 92 this year, also talks about his work on Skylab and the Space Shuttle Program, and weighs in on NASA's current plans to send humans back to the moon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jakob Oftebro (Black Crab, Lillyhammer) joins Son of a Binge host Reshma Gopaldas to talk all about his role as media mogul, Jan Stenbeck in Vanguard, which is being hailed as the Swedish Succession. Imagine if Kendall Roy, Shiv Roy, Roman Roy, and Connor Roy were actually competent. What'd you get is Jan Stenbeck. Based on the true story of the Stenbeck family empire, Oftebro leads the cast.Vanguard is streaming now on Viaplay.Also starring: Zoe Boyle (Merrill McCloud), Irene Lindh (Märtha Stenbeck), Malin Crépin (Margaretha af Ugglas), Julia Marko Nord (Elisabeth Silfverstolpe), Iggy Malmborg (Oskar), Nils Wetterholm (Marcus).Son of a Binge production credits:Hosted by: Reshma Gopaldas (TW: @reshingbull, IG @reshmago)Artwork by: Laura Valencia (IG @iamlauravalencia)Music by: Kevin Calaba (IG @airlandsmusic)Show Description (from Viaplay):Vanguard tells the story of an unlikely media mogul and trailblazer of technological reform, torn between passion and duty. It's a tale of fearless entrepreneurship, a desire to change the world — and a sibling rivalry in a powerful family fractured by old wounds. At 35, Jan Stenbeck appears to have it all: a prestigious career at Morgan Stanley, a glamorous life in New York, and a budding romance with American socialite Merrill McCloud. But when tragedy strikes his family in Sweden, he's suddenly thrust into a leadership role at Kinnevik, the family's industrial empire. Armed with bold ideas from the U.S., Jan has no interest in continuing the legacy of steel and forestry. Instead, he launches a radical transformation, turning the conservative conglomerate into a telecom and media powerhouse. What follows is a high stakes battle between tradition and innovation, as Jan's vision clashes with his siblings' resistance to change. His relentless drive reshapes the Nordic media and telecom landscape: he breaks Sweden's telephone monopoly, launches TV3 - Scandinavia's first commercial channel - and pioneers' strategies that inspire Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV model and lay the groundwork for Vodafone's rise. At his peak, Jan is worth 800 million dollars, founds 20–30 companies annually, and helps shift Sweden from a traditional industrial society into a leader in global communications. But his meteoric rise comes at a cost. Haunted by loneliness and broken family ties, Jan's life proves as turbulent as it is transformative. Send us a text, let us know what shows and guests you want us to cover.

Lilly Cortes Wyatt is the visionary founder of SociosPR, an innovative integrated communications firm renowned for its cultural competence expertise. With a diverse team, SociosPR collaborates with private enterprises and public agencies, forging meaningful connections with varied communities. On this episode, Lilly shares why cultural competence is so important in 2025 and the dead giveaways that PR agencies are missing the mark. Also, a look at the competitive world of voice-over acting and Lilly's thought-leadership philosophy. Key Takeaways:- Keys to cultural competence- A look inside the world of voice-over acting- The inspiration for SociosPREpisode Timeline:1:45 Why voice acting is harder than most people think4:20 AI is taking voice acting jobs7:00 What's happening at SociosPR these days8:20 The inspiration for SociosPR10:50 The importance of cultural competence in 202513:10 What is cultural competence?14:20 Should PR people use the term Latinx?17:05 Dead giveaways that some PR isn't culturally competent19:45 Is ChatGPT good at translations?22:50 Understanding the diversity within the Hispanic community24:20 Lilly's thought leadership philosophyThis episode's guest:• Lilly Cortes Wyatt on LinkedIn• SociosPRAgency.Com• SociosPR on LinkedInSubscribe and leave a 5-star review: https://pod.link/1496390646Contact Us!•Join the conversation by leaving a comment!•Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Mining Stock Education, host Bill Powers and co-host Brian Leni discuss essential insights for junior mining investors in their monthly Junior Mining Insights chat. They delve into the importance of management competence and alignment for investors. The duo discusses the necessity of management teams to be receptive to investor criticism, the role of networks and mentorship in this sector, and the critical importance of introspection when learning from investment mistakes. They also explore investor psychology, particularly during market cycles, and share advice on avoiding emotional decisions when investing in junior mining stocks. Overall, this episode provides valuable guidelines and nuanced perspectives to help investors make informed decisions in the volatile junior mining sector. 00:00 Introduction to Junior Mining Insights 00:33 Competence vs. Incentive Alignment in Management 02:33 Evaluating Management and Company Structure 05:28 The Role of Financing and Share Structure 10:15 Technical Aspects and Engineering Firms 19:16 Investor Psychology and Market Cycles 30:30 The Illusion of Popularity 31:07 Building the Biggest Building 31:28 Researching Competitors 34:53 Handling Criticism in Meetings 37:19 The Importance of Management 43:01 Networking and Mentorship 44:45 Young CEOs and Success 51:57 Emotional Decision-Making 56:09 Final Thoughts and Reflections Brian's website: https://www.juniorstockreview.com/ Bill's Twitter: https://x.com/MiningStockEdu Sign up for our free newsletter and receive interview transcripts, stock profiles and investment ideas: http://eepurl.com/cHxJ39 Mining Stock Education offers informational content based on available data but it does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. It may not be appropriate for all situations or objectives. Readers and listeners should seek professional advice, make independent investigations and assessments before investing. MSE does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of its content and should not be solely relied upon for investment decisions. MSE and its owner may hold financial interests in the companies discussed and can trade such securities without notice. MSE is biased towards its advertising sponsors which make this platform possible. MSE is not liable for representations, warranties, or omissions in its content. By accessing MSE content, users agree that MSE and its affiliates bear no liability related to the information provided or the investment decisions you make. Full disclaimer: https://www.miningstockeducation.com/disclaimer/

Dr. Millie Hepburn is an Associate Professor in the Davis & Henley College of Nursing at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. Upon meeting Millie, you quickly feel her energy and enthusiasm for her work in the healthcare field. With her many publications, grants, service work and projects in motion, it is her passion and leadership for cultivating understanding and curiosity for the next generation of nurses that is most impressive and prevalent. Her statement, “Diversity in nursing makes patient care safer” is the seed she plants with students each day, impacting nursing students to understand that who they will take care of may be a person from a culture with a native language, skin tone, and heritage much different than their own. Her office is filled with signs to build self efficacy with students, but also to build community among them. Dr. Hepburn's advanced degrees and vast experience speak for themselves, but it is her personal commitment to caring for others that is at her core. The youngest of 6 children, as a child she hoped to be a veterinarian, but scholarships weren't enough to fund becoming a vet. However, nursing school felt like the perfect fit for her and she never looked back. Working in various hospitals in both urban and rural environments, she continued to flourish in professional and academic arenas. Her curiosity and research extended beyond the walls of the traditional classroom and clinical settings to working with Native Americans and learning about their healing practices. In her interview she speaks candidly about her experience as a nurse and supervisor, but her real passion came when she began to impact students preparing for their professional practice. Her deep understanding of first-generation college students and the many challenges they juggle makes her the perfect candidate to work as the Associate Director with the accelerated students who are on the fast track to complete their nursing degree. Her firm but empathetic approach to their preparation is magical as she builds a community of inquisitive learners and focused practitioners. With a recent grant to purchase a virtual reality training system, she creates opportunities for students to immerse in diverse settings broadening their experience and preparation for their future in healthcare. She routinely seeks grants to support her students through their educational pursuits, as she knows first hand about the financial burdens of getting a college degree. In addition to her work preparing the next generation of nurses, she engages in research and serves on a variety of boards. Her focus is on stroke patients and promoting neurological care, but she is also deeply involved in supporting addiction programs and advocating for domestic violence victims.

The Government has announced the details on its plan for rates caps - councils will be capped at 4%.They will not be able to raise their rates by more than 4%, and the plan will start being implemented in a couple of years' time, sort of mid 27, and then will be fully in place by mid 2029.There will be exemptions to the rate cap. The high growth councils will be exempt from the cap. Councils that experience a natural disaster, something like bad weather, a quake, whatever, they will be exempt. Councils that need to catch up on infrastructure underinvestment, which I thought would have been most councils, they will be exempt.They will have to apply. The exempt will not be automatic. They will have to apply for an exemption, but those are the grounds they can apply on, which I think sounds like potentially a lot of councils who will be able to get around the 4% cap.Now, on the politics of it, it is incredibly smart to announce this - it is incredibly popular. One poll found that about 75% of people want to see this happen, and I really want this to work.I really want this to force councils to sharpen their pencils and start cutting out the nice to haves like the disco toilets and the bus stops with the gardens spouting from the top. And I want them to be able to be going through their staff list and maybe discover like Wellington has in the last week, about 330 people who probably don't need to be paid for by the ratepayer.And this will definitely, I think, do that. It will force a bit of discipline.But what does worry me is that this isn't dealing with the actual problem that we've got in local government, which is that we have a bunch of numpties sitting around the council tables making bad financial decisions.After this, we will still have numpties sitting around the council table, and those numpties will still make bad financial decisions.And if there's one thing that we've learned from recent experience with Wellington City Council, it's that when numpties cut spending, They cut spending on important things like pipes and for some weird reason they keep on spending on the dumb stuff like disco toilets, and I worry that that will happen around the country and we will simply end up with another crisis like we're having at the moment of deferred maintenance.Having said that, It is obviously a much better situation if the numpties have less money to waste rather than more money to waste.So on balance, the rates cap is probably an improvement on the status quo, isn't it?Even if only for the certainty it gives the rest of us that our rates bill next year will not force us out of our homes.In that respect, this has got to be good news.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Smith discusses the smashing book he co-authored with Doug Casey and his son Maxim Smith on how to skip university and become a renaissance man (“The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous“). He touches on the hero’s journey, Greco-Roman virtues, his son’s current path through “the preparation,” how it’s financed and designed (e.g. anchor and academic courses), why the current system has failed, and much more. The book also has utility for homeschooling children as well as for middle-aged and elderly men seeking to better themselves. Watch on BitChute / Brighteon / Rumble / Substack / YouTube *Support Geopolitics & Empire! Become a Member https://geopoliticsandempire.substack.com Donate https://geopoliticsandempire.com/donations Consult https://geopoliticsandempire.com/consultation **Visit Our Affiliates & Sponsors! Above Phone https://abovephone.com/?above=geopolitics easyDNS (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://easydns.com Escape The Technocracy (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://escapethetechnocracy.com/geopolitics Outbound Mexico https://outboundmx.com PassVult https://passvult.com Sociatates Civis https://societates-civis.com StartMail https://www.startmail.com/partner/?ref=ngu4nzr Wise Wolf Gold https://www.wolfpack.gold/?ref=geopolitics Websites The Preparation https://www.thepreparation.com The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous https://www.amazon.com/Preparation-Become-Competent-Confident-Dangerous/dp/B0FLRKZCKL Maxim Smith https://www.maximsmith.com Smith Sense https://www.smithsense.com Crisis Investing https://www.crisisinvesting.com About Matt Smith Matt Smith is an American entrepreneur and economic commentator who relocated to Uruguay in 2021, where he operates a regenerative cattle ranch. He co-hosts the podcast Doug Casey's Take with author and economist Doug Casey, offering analysis on global markets, monetary policy, and geopolitical trends. Matt also publishes the financial newsletter Crisis Investing on Substack. And just recently, he co-authored the book, The Preparation: How to become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous with Doug Casey and his 20 year old son, Maxim. *Podcast intro music used with permission is from the song “The Queens Jig” by the fantastic “Musicke & Mirth” from their album “Music for Two Lyra Viols”: http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)

After a small existential crisis, Pete asks Jen how he might tell the difference between being competent or complacent.Specifically, in this episode Jen and Pete talk about:What is the relationship between boredom, competency, and complacency?How might the repetition of a workshop, keynote, or show create an illusion of complacency?Why is having a coach, mentor, or trusted friend important in the viewing of your own work?To hear all episodes and read full transcripts, visit The Long and The Short Of It website: https://thelongandtheshortpodcast.com/.You can subscribe to our Box O' Goodies here (https://thelongandtheshortpodcast.com/) and receive a weekly email full of book and podcast recommendations, quotes, videos, and other interesting things that Jen and Pete are noodling on. To get in touch, send an email to: hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.Learn more about Pete's work here (https://humanperiscope.com/) and Jen's work here (https://jenwaldman.com/).

If someone less competent grows more because of shows off, how do we deal with that situation? by Exploring mindfulness, yoga and spirituality

A big development today in the case against Utah Death Row inmate Ralph Menzies.  A doctor asked by the state Supreme Court to re-evaluate his competency... says Menzies does not understand why the state wants to put him to death.  We've asked KSL Legal Analyst Greg Skordas to help us understand... 

Torilena Fields was deemed competent to stand trial following a competency hearing on Nov. 14, according to court records.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Head to https://DRINKAG1.com/LYK to get a FREE Welcome Kit with an AG1 Flavor Sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D3 plus K2, when you first subscribe! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LYK at https://www.oneskin.co/LYK #oneskinpod Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/LYK! #trueclassicpod

Featured Product Sponsor: Werkz Light Bearing Holsters -  "WE MAKE HOLSTERS FOR PISTOLS WITH LIGHTS" Episode 421: Justin Carroll & Rich Brown — Competent and Dangerous In this powerful conversation, Rich Brown sits down with author, Marine veteran, former intel professional, and long-time friend of AWS Justin Carroll to dive deep into his new book, Competent and Dangerous. This episode breaks down what it truly means to be a capable, prepared, and resilient protector in a world that is shifting faster than most realize. In this episode you'll hear: Why Justin wrote Competent and Dangerous and who the book is designed to serve. The gap between "owning a gun" and "being dangerous enough to win." Justin's model for developing well-rounded capability across shooting, fitness, medical, communication, and decision-making. The realities of modern threat environments and why most citizens dramatically underestimate them. Why competence must precede confidence — and how to build both through structured training. The role of mindset, deliberate practice, and environment design in building daily habits that stick. Justin's take on preparedness culture — what we're doing right, and where most people are failing. Rich and Justin's shared experiences training, carrying, and working with real-world protectors. How to turn information into action and begin closing capability gaps immediately. Who is Justin Carroll? U.S. Marine Corps veteran Former intelligence professional Security, preparedness, and communications expert Author of multiple well-regarded works on readiness Instructor and long-time AWS contributor Host of the "Across the Peak" podcast One of the clearest voices in the modern preparedness and training community Why this episode matters: Because being armed is not the same as being dangerous. Justin's book and this conversation outline the roadmap for the modern citizen-protector: capable, adaptable, trained, and mentally resilient. Get the Book here!

It's Friday, November 14th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Iranian Christian prisoner denied treatment after spinal fracture On October 31st, Iranian Muslim authorities denied proper medical treatment to a prisoner named Aida Najaflou, an Iranian Christian convert, after she fell and fractured her spine, reports International Christian Concern. Najaflou, who suffered from spinal disc issues before her arrest, sustained the injury when she fell from her top prison bunk. She was taken to a local hospital, where medical professionals diagnosed a fractured T12 vertebra. Shockingly, Muslim authorities refused to allow Najaflou to obtain treatment and, instead, used a stretcher to bring her back to the prison that same day.  Due to the inhumane treatment and pain that Najaflou endured, fellow prisoners reportedly protested the situation. Iranian officials responded by taking the woman to a second hospital, where doctors recommended emergency surgery to repair her vertebra.   According to the Cleveland Clinic, “spinal fracture surgery” is recommended if the spinal fracture is in danger of damaging your spinal cord or if your pain doesn't improve a few months after non-surgical treatments.” The prolonging of proper care for Najaflou's injury is likely to have caused additional, unnecessary pain. Romans 5:3-5 says, “We know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us.” Sadly, previous requests from Najaflou for a lower bunk, based on her pre-existing spinal problems and a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, were dismissed by prison authorities.  Najaflou, along with two other Christians, was arrested in February 2025 for their Christian activities, including “praying, performing baptisms, taking communion, and celebrating Christmas.” She also spoke out against the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to Open Doors, Iran is the ninth most difficult country worldwide for Christians. Trump chastises Democrats for 43-day gov't shutdown Late Wednesday night, President Donald Trump signed legislation to end the Schumer Shutdown of government that spanned 43 days, punting the next funding deadline into late January, reports Politico.com. He called out the extortion of the Democrats who tried to force the funding of health care for illegal aliens as well as the extension of Obamacare benefits which they themselves had sunset. TRUMP: “Today, we're sending a clear message that we will never give into extortion, because that's what it was. The Democrats tried to extort our country. “In just a moment, I'll sign a bill exactly like we asked Democrats to send us all along, many days ago.  Republicans never wanted a shutdown and voted 15 times for a clean continuation of funding. Yet the extremists in the other party insisted on creating the longest government shutdown in American history, and they did it purely for political reasons.” President Trump explained the harm the Democrats caused. TRUMP: “Over the past seven weeks, the Democrats shut down as inflicted massive harm. They caused 20,000 flights to be canceled or delayed. They look very bad, the Democrats do. “They deprived more than one million government workers from their paychecks and cut off food stamp benefits for millions and millions more Americans in need. They caused tens of thousands of federal contractors and small businesses to go unpaid. And the total effect of the damage their antics caused will take weeks, and probably months, to really calculate accurately. “So, I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this. When we come up to midterms, don't forget what they've done to our country.” The House passed the funding measure earlier in the evening, after eight Senate Democrats broke with their party to advance the package Monday night. Paychecks to federal workers reportedly will begin going out Saturday, reports NewsMax. Trump faces biggest Republican rebellion yet over Epstein Republicans are preparing a mass rebellion against President Donald Trump in a vote to release all classified files related to the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, reports The Telegraph. At least 100 or more Republicans are expected to support the release of the files after a selection of emails sent by the deceased pedophile financier, that frequently mention the U.S. president, were made public on Wednesday. President Trump was friends with Epstein before the pair fell out in the early 2000s, but has always denied any knowledge of or involvement with Epstein's sex-trafficking or abuse of underage girls. Senator John Fetterman hospitalized after fall John Fetterman, the senior U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, was hospitalized on November 13th after falling down and hitting his face due to a heart-related issue, reports The Epoch Times. Because he had “a ventricular fibrillation flare,” a condition where the heart stops pumping blood to parts of the body, Fetterman became “light-headed” and then fell to the ground in Braddock, Pennsylvania, “hitting his face with minor injuries.” Kamala to Jon Stewart: Biden was competent to be President As part of her 107 Days book tour, former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was oddly hesitant to question President Joe Biden's mental acuity on Jon Stewart's podcast Listen. HARRIS: “I believe he was fully competent to serve.” STEWART: “Do you really?” HARRIS: “Yeah, I do.” STEWART:  “That, that surprises me, actually.” HARRIS: “No, I do. There's a distinction to be made between running for president and being president.” STEWART: “What's the distinction?” HARRIS: “Well, being a candidate for president United States is about being in a marathon, at a sprinter's pace, having tomatoes thrown at you every step you take.” STEWART: (laughs) “That sounds lovely.” HARRIS: “Yeah, it's more than a notion. And to be the seated president, the sitting president, while doing that, it's a lot.” STEWART: “I think it's a hard case to make for people that he didn't have the stamina to run, but he had the stamina to govern, because I think most people view the presidency as a marathon, run at a sprint, with tomatoes being thrown at you, in terms of governance.” Not surprisingly, people on social media were incredulous. On X, AdaminHTownTX asked, “If Biden was competent to serve, why did his party force him out of the race and install Kamala as the nominee?” Harris has hinted at a second presidential bid in 2028. Obama accused of destroying national landmark to build monument to himself What kind of U.S. president demolishes a cherished piece of American history in order to build a shrine to himself? Locals are still trying to make sense of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center, dubbed “The Obamalisk,” which broke ground in Chicago's historic Jackson Park in 2021 and will be finished next spring, reports the New York Post. Renowned Chicago architect Grahm Balkany, a self-described liberal, is upset. He said, “Obama, of all people, should not be building a palace for himself, a fortress in the middle of a public park. It's just contrary to what I thought he believed in.” Greg Laurie to hold crusade where Charlie Kirk was killed And finally, Evangelist Greg Laurie will headline a Harvest Crusade event at Utah Valley University, where conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10th during a Turning Point USA event, reports The Christian Post. Approximately, 10,000 attendees are expected. Known as “Hope for America,” the event will be held this Sunday, November 16. LAURIE:  “This is the place where Charlie left this world for the next world. We're going to go into that campus where darkness took place, and we're going to turn on the radiant light of Jesus Christ and preach that same Gospel that Charlie preached and call people to Christ.” Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, November 14th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

After spending a month at a state mental health facility, Brian Walshe appeared in court and was deemed competent to stand trial for murder, with jury selection set to commence next week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a quick and straightforward hearing, Brian Walshe was declared competent to stand trial in the eyes of the court. Here's how soon the murder trial will get underway. For updates to the case as they happen, visit nbcboston.com/tag/ana-walshe. And you can keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and BlueSky for updates on this case and all the biggest, most interesting news happening in Boston and beyond. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Justin"Danger"Carroll has an incredible pedigree! Marsoc Marine with Combat Deployments, Contractor, Instructor, Digital Security guy, Paramedic, SAR team member, LEO, Author, and gentlemen about town.  In this episode we talk about his latest book, Competent and Dangerous, Master The Skills To Be A Man Among Men. It's the book every young man should read! Available now on Amazon. You can find Justin both here https://www.justindangercarroll.com and here https://swiftsilentdeadly.com You can find this shows sponsor RallyPointISRSolutions here https://www.rallypointisrsolutions.com You can find this shows sponsor Absolute Security and Lock here http://absolutesecurityandlock.com You can find this shows website here https://www.thedistinguishedsavage.com The views, information, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and guest speakers and do not necessarily represent those of any associated organizations, employers, or sponsors. The opinions and views shared do not reflect the positions of our sponsors or their affiliated companies. This podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice in any field including but not limited to legal, medical, financial, or technical matters. All content is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy but cannot guarantee that all information presented is correct, complete, or up-to-date. Listeners should verify any critical information independently. Guest opinions belong to them alone. Our interviews with various individuals do not constitute endorsement of their views, products, or services. By listening to this podcast, you agree that we are not responsible for any decisions you make based on the information provided. Please consult with qualified professionals before making important decisions related to your health, finances, or legal matters. This podcast may contain explicit language or mature themes. Listener discretion is advised. © 2025 The Distinguished Savage, Savage Concepts LLC

Dan Orlovsky joined Nick and Jonathan on Afternoon Drive to defend his comments regarding Kevin Stefanski and why he thinks he'd be a good fit as head coach with the Giants. He also discussed the biggest issue with the Browns' quarterback play, as well as who he thinks will win the AFC North this season.

HR2 - Jeff Ulbrich & Nate Ollie have given Falcons competent pass rush again In hour two Mike Johnson, Beau Morgan, and Ali Mac give you their good, bad, and ugly from the Atlanta Falcons 31-25 overtime loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in Berlin, Germany, react to the latest news, rumors, and reports in the NFL as they go In The Huddle, react to the Atlanta Braves rookie catcher Drake Baldwin winning National League Rookie of the Year, talk about what changes they expect and want to see in tonight's second College Football Playoff rankings, explain why they think Texas A&M deserves to be the number one team in the country in tonight's second CFP rankings, and then dive into the life of Mike Johnson and get Mike'd Up!

We must mature as disciple-makers.

World-renowned speculator and libertarian philosopher Doug Casey joins today's Liberty Report to discuss his new book, The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous.

SO much going on in #RipCity! 4:00 The Portland Trail Blazers are so competent!8:00 Player's seem happy 12:00 Did you hear? Coach got arrested!22:00 Beating the Gooooooooolden Warriors24:00 We love having Jrue Holiday on the team33:30 The Blake Wesley experience (may it continue soon!)42:00 Kris "The Competent" Murray51:30 Jerami Grant we hardly knew you!1:08:00 Donovan Clingan's hands1:28:00 Takes!

Mike Johnson, Beau Morgan, and Ali Mac recap and react to the Atlanta Falcons embarrassing 34-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins at home yesterday, and talk about how the Falcons didn't look competent in any facet of game in their loss to Dolphins.

Episode Summary: China, Russia, and other adversaries can strike the U.S. through a range of air and missile technologies. In this episode, we discuss solutions with former NORTHCOM-NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck, USAF (Ret.) and former USAFE commander Gen. Jeff “Cobra” Harrigian, USAF (Ret.); along with Mitchell Institute senior fellows Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, USAF (Ret.); Charles Galbreath; and host Heather Penney. This is especially important as the nation considers programs like Golden Dome. Air and missile defense is a deadly serious business. Competent defenses are not something that can be assembled on the fly as part of a “pick-up game.” It takes a smart strategy, thoughtful concept of operations, command and control, plus the right technologies to mount an effective defense. Above all, the real goal should be peace through strength—deterring hostile actions by our adversaries against our homeland. Credits: Host: Heather "Lucky" Penney, Director of Research, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Producer: Shane Thin  Executive Producer: Douglas Birkey Guest: Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, USAF (Ret.), Senior Resident Fellow for Airpower Studies, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Guest: Charles Galbreath, Senior Resident Fellow for Space Studies, The Mitchell Institute Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence (MI-SPACE) Guest: Gen. Glen VanHerck, USAF (Ret.), Former Commander, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command Guest: Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, USAF (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and U.S. Air Forces Africa Links: Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://bit.ly/3GbA5Of Website: https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MitchellStudies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mitchell.Institute.Aerospace LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nzBisb Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitchellstudies/ #MitchellStudies #AerospaceAdvantage #missiledefense

Maybe you're a truly discerning auto enthusiast, but you also need your cool car from the 1990s to reliably get you to work every single day as well. The boys have your back as they are about to unload some (questionable) examples of daily drivable cars from the era.

(0:00-10:22) Eagles defense showed the good & not so good yesterday(10:35-21:02) Could Brandon Graham make a comeback?(21:10-30:22) Competent return game is nice; Kincade's three observations(30:35-38:45) Could the Eagles win against Vikings help the rushing offense?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time to make men “dangerous” again. Father and son Matt and Maxim Smith join Glenn to break down their epic alternative to a college education. While most young people descend into debt to prepare for jobs already threatened by the rise of AI, 19-year-old Maxim has spent what would have been his college years becoming an EMT, wrangling horses in Wyoming, sailing the Falkland Islands, earning a pilot's license, learning Muay Thai in Thailand, and more as the first beta tester for “The Preparation,” an adventure designed to make young men “confident, competent, and dangerous.” In a culture that drives young men away from masculinity and toward unlimited pornography and video games, our sons can still become “Renaissance men” by bucking the system of radical leftist-dominated academia and instead becoming financially savvy men of virtue and real-world skill.   Order a copy of “The Preparation: How to Become Confident, Competent, and Dangerous” here: https://www.amazon.com/Preparation-Become-Competent-Confident-Dangerous/dp/B0FLRKYCCP   GLENN'S SPONSORS:   Relief Factor: If you're living with aches and pains, see how Relief Factor, a daily drug-free supplement, could help you feel better and live better. Try the 3-week QuickStart for just $19.95 by visiting https://ReliefFactor.com.  PreBorn: Together, we can end the tragedy of abortion, one mother and baby at a time. To donate securely, dial #250 and say the keyword “baby,” or visit https://preborn.com/glenn.        Audien Hearing: The Atom X hearing aid from Audien is a beautifully designed, ready-to-go device made by audiologists who actually listened to what people want — less clutter, less confusion, less fiddling around. Visit https://AudienHearing.com and take control of your hearing today.  Chirp: Give your spine a break with the Chirp Contour. It only takes five minutes to unlock all-day relief. Visit https://gochirp.com/beck, and use code “BECK” at checkout for a 10% discount.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In episode 465 of The Reformed Brotherhood, hosts Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb explore Jesus's parable of the wheat and tares (weeds) from Matthew 13. This thought-provoking discussion examines Christ's startling teaching that good and evil will always coexist within the visible church until the end of time. The brothers carefully unpack the theological implications of Jesus's command not to separate wheat from weeds prematurely, challenging our natural tendency to judge others while offering wisdom about God's sovereign plan for final judgment. This episode wrestles with difficult questions about church purity, assurance of salvation, and how believers should approach the reality of false professors within Christ's church—providing biblical guidance for faithfully enduring in a mixed communion. Key Takeaways The Coexistence of True and False Believers: Jesus teaches that the visible church will always contain a mixture of genuine believers and false professors until the final judgment. The Danger of Premature Judgment: Christ explicitly warns against attempting to completely purify the church before the harvest (end of age) because doing so would damage the wheat (true believers). Proper Biblical Interpretation: Unlike some parables, Jesus provides a detailed allegorical explanation of this parable—the sower is Christ, the field is the world, the good seed represents believers, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one. The Challenge of Discernment: One of the most difficult theological pills to swallow is that it's often impossible to perfectly distinguish between true and false believers. Final Judgment as God's Prerogative: The separation of wheat from weeds is reserved for the angels at the end of the age, not for current church leaders or members. The Reality of False Assurance: Some professing Christians may have false assurance of salvation while genuinely believing they are saved. The Importance of Theological Integrity: Public theologians and pastors have a moral responsibility to be transparent about their theological convictions and changes in their beliefs. Deeper Explanations The Difficult Reality of a Mixed Church Jesus's teaching in the parable of the wheat and weeds directly challenges our natural desire for a perfectly pure church. By instructing the servants not to pull up the weeds lest they damage the wheat, Christ is establishing an important ecclesiological principle that will hold true until His return. This means that no matter how rigorously we apply church discipline or how carefully we examine profession of faith, we will never achieve a perfectly pure communion this side of eternity. The visible church—which can be understood as those who profess faith and are baptized—will always include both true and false believers. This reality should cultivate humility in how we approach church membership and discipline. Jesus isn't suggesting that all attempts at church purity are wrong (as other Scripture passages clearly call for church discipline), but rather that perfect purification is impossible and attempts at achieving it will inevitably damage true believers. This teaching directly refutes movements throughout church history (like Donatism) that have sought absolute purity in the visible church. The Problem of Discernment and Assurance One of the most challenging aspects of this parable is Christ's implicit teaching that true and false professors can appear nearly identical, especially in their early development. Like tares growing alongside wheat, false believers can profess orthodox doctrine, participate in church life, and exhibit what appears to be spiritual fruit. This creates profound implications for how we understand assurance of salvation. As Tony notes, while "assurance is the proper and rightful possession and inheritance of every Christian," there's also the sobering reality of false assurance. Some may sincerely believe they are saved when they are not, raising difficult questions about self-examination and spiritual discernment. This doesn't mean believers should live in perpetual doubt, but rather that we should approach assurance with both confidence in God's promises and healthy self-examination. True assurance must be grounded in the finished work of Christ rather than merely in our experiences or behaviors, while false assurance often lacks this proper foundation. The brothers wisely note that final judgment belongs to God alone, who perfectly knows who belongs to Him. Memorable Quotes "The visible church is set before us as a mixed body. Maybe everybody else's churches, but certainly not my church, like the one that I actually go to on the Lord's day. So it seems like there might be this shocking statement possibly that he has for us, whether you're Episcopalian or Presbyterian or independent or Baptist or Christian life assembly, whatever it is, that no matter what we do to purify the church, our churches, we're never gonna succeed in obtaining a perfectly pure communion." - Jesse Schwamb "I think that's what I find shocking. It is like a massive statement of reality that is at equal points totally sensible. And other times we would think, 'well, surely not in the church Lord, like of all the places, like aren't we talking about a kind of purity of your people?' ...and what I think he's striking at, which I do find a little bit wild, is that Jesus is essentially saying, at least to my ear, anything we try to do, even the purest preaching of the gospel, is not gonna prevent this in every age of the church." - Jesse Schwamb "I'm affirming that assurance is the proper and rightful possession and inheritance of every Christian." - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 465 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I am Jesse. Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother. Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. Guess what? It looks like you and I are taking another trip back to the farm on this episode. Tony Arsenal: Yes. For a couple episodes. Jesse Schwamb: For a couple episodes. Yeah. [00:01:01] Exploring Jesus' Parables in Matthew 13 Jesse Schwamb: Because what, Jesus will not stop leading us there. We're looking at his teachings, specifically the parables, and we're gonna be looking in Matthew chapter 13, where it seems like, is it possible that Jesus, once again has something very shocking for us to hear? That is for all the ages. 'cause it seems like he might actually be saying, Tony, that good and evil will always be found together in the professing church until the end of the world. Like in other words, that the visible church is set before a mixed body. I mean. Maybe everybody else chose churches, but certainly not my church, like the one that I actually go to on the Lord's day. So it seems like there might be this shocking statement possibly that he has for us, whether you're Episcopalian or Presbyterian or independent or Baptist or Christian life assembly, whatever it is, that no matter what we do to purify the church, our churches, we're never gonna succeed in obtaining a perfectly pure communion. Could that possibly be what Jesus is saying to us? I don't know what we're gonna find out. Tony Arsenal: We are. We are gonna find out. Jesse Schwamb: It's gonna be definitive. And if now that makes sense. If you don't even know why we're looking at Jesus' teachings, you could do us a favor even before you go any further. And that is just head on over in your favor, interwebs browser to or reform brotherhood.com, and you can find out all of the other episodes, all 464 that are living out there. There's all kinds of good stuff, at least we think so, or at least entertaining stuff for you to listen to. And when you're done with all of that in a year or two, then we'll pick it up right back here where we're about to go with some affirmations or some denials. [00:02:39] Affirmations and Denials Jesse Schwamb: So Tony, before we figure out what Jesus has for us in Matthew 13, in the parable of the weeds, or the tears, or the tears in the weed, what gets all of that? Are you affirming with, are you denying against, Tony Arsenal: I am denying. First of all, I'm denying whatever this thing is that's going on with my throat. Sorry for the rest of the episode, everyone. Um, I'm denying something that I, I think it is. How do I want to phrase this? Um, maybe I'll call it theological integrity, and maybe that's too strong of a word, but maybe not. So the listener who's been with us for a little while will remember that a while back. Um, you know, we've, we've talked about Matthew Barrett and he was a Baptist, uh, who's heavily involved in sort of the theology, proper controversies. He wrote Simply Trinity, which is just a fantastic book. He was a teacher or a professor at Midwestern, um, Baptist Theological Seminary. And he recently, um, uh, converted is not the right word. I hate calling it a conversion when you go from one faithful Bible tradition to another. But he recently, um, changed his perspective and joined the Anglican Church. And at the time I kind of, you know, I kind of talked about it as like, it's a little bit disappointing, like the reasons he cited. [00:03:57] Theological Integrity and Public Disclosure Tony Arsenal: Where I'm bringing this into a matter of sort of theological integrity. And it's not, it's not just Matthew Barrett. Um, there's other elements of things going on that I'll, I'll point to too is it's often the case when someone who is in some form of professional theological work or professional vocational ministry, that as they start to change perspectives, um, there comes to be like an inflection point where they should notify whoever it is that they are accountable to in that job or vocation, uh, uh, and then do the right thing and step down. Right? And so with Matthew Barrett, um. He continued to teach systematic theology at a Baptist Theological Seminary, which has a faith statement which he was obligated to affirm and hold in good faith. He continued to teach there for quite some time, if, you know, when he, when he published the timeline and he's the one that put all the timelines out there. So it's not like people had to go digging for this. Um, he continued to teach under contract and under that, that faith statement, um, for quite some time after his positions changed. I remember in college, um, sim very similar situation, one of my professors, um, and I went to a Baptist college. It was a General Baptist college. Um, one of my professors became Roman Catholic and for quite some time he continued to teach without telling anyone that he had converted to Roman Catholicism. Um. And I think that there's a, there's a, a level of integrity that public theologians need to have. Um, and it, it really makes it difficult when something like this happens to be able to say that this is not a moral failing or some sort of failure. Um, you know, James White has jumped on the bandwagon very quickly to say, of course we told you that this was the way it was gonna lead. That if you affirm the great tradition, you know, he was very quick to say like, this is the road to Rome. And I think in his mind, um, Canterbury is just sort of one, one stop on that trip. Um, it becomes very hard after the fact to not have this color and tarnish all of your work before. 'cause it starts to be questions like, well, when, when did you start to hold these views? Were you writing, were you, were you publicizing Baptist theology when you no longer believed it to be the truth? Were you teaching theology students that this is what the Bible teaches when you no longer thought that to be true? Um. Were you secretly attending Anglican services and even teaching and, and helping deliver the service when you were, you know, still outwardly affirming a Baptist faith statement. And the reason I, I'll point out one other thing, 'cause I don't want this to be entirely about Matthew Barrett, but there's a big, uh, hub glue going on in the PCA right now. Um, a guy named Michael Foster, who some of our audience will probably be familiar with, um, he and I have had our desktops in the past, but I think he and I have come to a little bit of a, of a uneasy truce on certain things. He, uh, went to work compiling a, a list and there's some problems with the data, like it's, it's not clean data, so take it for what it's worth. But he compiled a list of. Every publicly available church website in the PCA. So something like 1800 websites or something like that. Huge numbers. And he went and looked at all of the staff and leadership directories, and he cataloged all the churches that had some sort of office or some sort of position that appeared to have a, a woman leading in a way that the Bible restricts. And that more importantly, and starting to say it this way, but more importantly, that the PCA itself restricts. So we're not talking about him going to random church websites and making assessments of their polity. We're talking about a, a denomination that has stated standards for who can bear office and it's not women. Um. So he compiled this and people in the PCA are coming out of the woodwork to basically defend the practice of having shepherdess and deacons. There was one that he cataloged where, um, the website actually said, uh, that was the pastor's wife and the title was Pastor of Women. Um, and then as soon as it became public that this was the case, they very quickly went in and changed the title to Shepherd of Women or Shepherdess of Women or something like that. So it's, it's really the same phenomena, not commenting, you know, I think we've been clear where we stand on the ordination of female officers and things like that, but not that all that withstanding, um, when you are going to be a part of a body that has a stated perspective on something and then just decide not to follow it, the right thing to do the, the upstanding morally. Uh, in full of integrity move would be to simply go to another denomination where your views align more closely. PCA churches, it's not super easy, but it's not impossible to leave the PCA as an entire congregation and then go somewhere like the EPC, which is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which still on the spectrum of things is still relatively conservative, but is in general is in favor of, uh, female officers, elders, and diegans. So I, I think, you know, and you see this with podcasters, there was the big, there was a big fu and Les became a Presbyterian, and then when Tanner became a Presbyterian on the pub, I think it is, um, incumbent on people who do any form of public theology and that that would include me and Jesse when our views change. There comes a point where we need to disclose that, be honest about it, um, and not try to pretend that we continue to hold a view that we don't be just because it's convenient or because it might be super inconvenient to make a change. I don't even want to pretend to imagine the pressures, uh, that someone like Matthew Barrett would face. I mean, you're talking about losing your entire livelihood. I, I understand that from an intellectual perspective, how difficult that must be, but in some ways, like that kind of comes with the territory. Same thing with a pastor. You have a Baptist pastor or a Presbyterian pastor. It can go both ways, I think. I'm more familiar with Baptist becoming Presbyterians. I don't, I don't see as many going the other direction. But you have a, a Baptist pastor who comes to pay to Baptist convictions and then continues to minister in their church for, I've, I've seen cases where they continue to minister for years, um, because they don't, they don't have the ability to now just go get a job in a Presbyterian context because there's all sorts of, um, training and certification and ordination process that needs to happen. Um, so they just continue ministering where they are, even though they no longer believe the church's state of, you know, state of faith statement. So that's a lot to say. Like, let your yes be yes and your no be no, and when we really all boil it down. So I think that's enough of that. It, it just sort of got in my craw this week and I couldn't really stop thinking about it. 'cause it's been very frustrating. And now there are stories coming out of. Doctoral students that, um, that Barrett was teaching who have now also become Anglican. Um, so, you know, there starts to be questions of like, was he actively pros? I mean, this is like Jacob Arminius did this stuff and, and like the reform tradition would look down on it, where he was in secret in like sort of small group private settings. He was teaching convictions very different than the uni. I'm talking about Arminius now. Not necessarily Barrett. He was teaching convictions very different than the, the stated theology of the university he taught for, and then in public he was sort of towing the line. You have to ask the question and it is just a question. There's been no confirmation that I'm aware of, but you have to ask the question if that was what was going on with Barrett, was he teaching Baptist theology publicly and then meeting with, with PhD students privately and, and sort of convincing them of Anglican theology. I don't know. I'm not speculating on that, but I think it, the situation definitely right, brings that question to mind. It forces us to ask it. Um, and had he. Been transparent about his theological shifts sooner than that may not be a, a question we have to ask. Um, the situation may not be all that different, but we wouldn't have to ask the question. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's totally fair. I mean, disclosure is important in lots of places in life and we shouldn't think that theological dis disclosure, especially like you're saying among our teachers, among our pastors, it is a critical thing. It's helpful for people to know when perspectives have changed, especially when they're looking to their leaders who are exhibiting trust and care over their discipleship or their education to express that difference. If there's been a mark, change it. It's worth it. Disclose, I'm guessing you don't have to over disclose, but that we're talking about a critical, we're talking about like subversive anglicanism, allegedly. Yeah. Then. It would be more than helpful to know that that is now shaping not just perspective, but of course like major doctrine, major understanding. Yeah. And then of course by necessary conviction and extension, everything that's being promulgated or proclamation in the public sphere from that person is likely now been permeated by that. And we'd expect so. Right. If convictions change, and especially like you're talking about, we're just talking about moving from, especially among like Bible believing traditions, just raise the hand and say loved ones, uh, this is my firm conviction now. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I think if someone walks up to you and says, do you think that we should baptize babies? And you're like, yeah, I think so. Then you probably shouldn't be teaching at a Baptist seminary anymore. Like, seems like a reasonable standard. And that seems to be what happened, at least for some period of time. Um, you know, and, and it, that's not to say like, I think, I think there are instances where the church, a given church or um, or a university or seminary or, or whatever the situation might be, can be gracious and recognize like, yeah, people's perspectives change and maybe we can find a way for you to continue to finish out the semester or, you know, we can bridge you for a little while until you can find a new, a new job. Um, you know, we'll, we'll only have you teach certain courses or we'll have a guest lecturer come in when you have to cover this subject that is at variance and like, we'll make sure we're all clear about it, but it doesn't seem like any of that happened. And that's, um, that's no bueno. So anyway, Jesse. What are you affirming and or denying Tonight? [00:13:43] Music Recommendations Jesse Schwamb: I'm just gonna go with something brief. I suppose this is an affirmation of me. I'm saying that like somewhat tongue in cheek, but maybe it's, wait, I'll rephrase. It's because this will be more humble. I'm affirming getting it right, even more than I thought. So I'm just gonna come back to the well and dip it into something that I mentioned on the last episode. So the keen listener, the up-to-date listener might remember. And if you're not up to date, uh, just let this be fresh for you. It'll, and I, it's gonna be correct because now I have posts, you know, I'm on the other side of it. I've clear hindsight. I am affirming with the album Keep It Quiet by Gray Haven, which I affirmed last week, but it came out on the same day that the episode released. And since you and I don't really like record in real time and release it like exactly as it's happening, I only did that with some, a little bit of reservation because I only heard they only released three songs in the album. And I thought I was overwhelmed that they were, they were so good that I was ready to jump in and loved ones. Oh, it, it turns out. I was so correct and it was, it's even better than I thought. So go check it out. It's Grey, GRE, YH, and they are, this is the warning, just because I have to give it out there and then I'll balance it with something else for something for everybody here today. So, gr Haven is music that's post hardcore and metal core. You're getting two cores for the price of one, if that is your jam. It has strong maleic sensibilities. It's very emotional, it's very experimental. But this new album, which is called, um, again, keep It Quiet, is like just a work of arts. It real like the guitar work is intricate haunting, lovely, and it's bold, like very intentional in its structure and very el loose in its construction. It's got hook driven melodies and it's got both heart and soft. It really is truly a work of art. So if you're trying to, to put it in your minds, like what other bands are like this? I would compare them to bands like, every Time I Die, Norma Jean, let Live Hail the Sun. If you just heard those as combinations of words that don't mean anything to you, that's also okay. No worries. But if you're looking for something different, if you're looking for something that's maybe gonna challenge your ear a little bit, but is like orchestral and has all of these metal core post hardcore, melodic, textured movements, there's no wasted notes in this album. It's really tremendous. If that's not your thing. I get, that's not everybody's thing. Here's something else I think would be equally challenging to the ear in a different way. And that is, I'm going back to one other album to balance things out here, and that's an album that was released in 2019 by Mark Barlow, who I think is like just. So underrated. For some reason, like people have slept on Mike Barlow. I have no idea why he put together an album with Isla Vista Worship called Soul Hymns, and it's like a distinct soul and r and b album of praise with like these really lovely like falsetto, harmonies. It's got these minimalistic instrumentation, warm keys, groove oriented percussion, like again, like these false soul driven melodies. It's contemplative. It's got a groove to it. This is also equally a beautiful album for a totally different reason. So I think I've given two very book-ended, very different affirmations, but I think there's something for everybody. So my challenge to your loved ones is you gotta pick one or the other. Actually, you could do both, but either go to Gray Havens, keep it quiet, or go to Mike Bellow's Soul hymns. I do not think you will be disappointed. There's something for everybody on this one. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I, it was funny because as you were saying the names of those bands, I literally was thinking like Jesse could be speaking Swahili and I wouldn't know the difference. And then you, you, you know me well, yeah. Uh, I haven't listened to Gray Haven. Uh, I probably will give it a couple minutes 'cause that's how it usually goes with songs that meet that description. Uh, I can always tell that the music that Jesse recommends is good from a technical perspective, but I never really, I never really vibe with it. So that's okay. But I mean, lots of people who listen to our show do so check that out. If, if you ever. Want a good recommendation for music. Jesse is the pers so much so that he can recommend amazing music before it's even available and be a hundred percent correct, apparently. That's right. So Jesse Schwamb: affirm with me everybody, because turns out I was right. Uh, it was easy to be correct when of course I had all of that fair sightedness by being able to listen to those. Yeah, those couple of songs, it, this is a kind of album. Both of these, both of these albums. When I heard them, I reacted audibly out loud. There are parts of both of 'em where I actually said, oh wow. Or yeah, like there's just good stuff in there. And the older you get, if you're a music fan, even if you're not, if you don't listen to a lot of music, you know when that hook gets you. You know when that turn of melody or phrase really like hits you just, right. Everybody has that. Where the beat drops in a way. You're just like, yes, gimme, you make a face like you get into it. I definitely had that experience with both of these albums and because. I've listened to a lot of music because I love listening to music. It's increasingly rare where I get surprised where, you know, like sometimes stuff is just like popular music is popular for a reason and it's good because it's popular and it follows generally some kind of like well established roots. But with these albums, it's always so nice when somebody does something that is totally unexpected. And in these, I heard things that I did not expect at all. And it's so good to be surprised in a way that's like, why have I never heard that before? That is amazing. And both of these bands did it for me, so I know I'm like really hyping them up, but they're worth it. They're, they're totally worth it. Good music is always worth it. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I think that is a good recommendation. I will check those out because, you know, you're a good brother. I usually do, and I trust your judgment even though it, you'll like the second one. Yes. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: You'll like the second one. Second one is like, just filled with praise and worship. And like, if, if you're trying to think, like say, here's how I'd couch the proper atmosphere for Mark Barlow's soul hymns you're having, you know, it's, it's a cold and chilly. A tal evening, the wind is blowing outside. You can hear the crisp leaves moving around on the pavement and the sun has gone down. The kids are in bed, the dinner dishes are piled up in the sink. But you think to yourselves, not tonight. I don't think so, and you just want that toneage to put on. You want that music as you dim the lights and you sit there to just hang out with each other and take a breath. You don't just want some kind of nice r and b moving music. You don't want just relaxing vibes. You want worshipful spirit filled vibes that propel your conversation and your intimacy, not just into the marital realm, but into worship and harmony with the triune God. If you're looking for that album, because that situation is before you, then sol hymns is the music you're looking for. Tony Arsenal: See, I'm gonna get the, I'm gonna get the recommendations backwards and I'm gonna sit down with my wife with a nice like evening cup of decaf tea and I'm gonna turn the music on. Yes, it's gonna be like, yes. That was me screaming into the microphone. That was not good for my voice. Well, the good news is it's gonna, it's gonna wake the kids up. That's, I'm gonna sleep on the couch. That's, it's gonna be bad. That's, Jesse Schwamb: honestly, that's also a good evening. It's just a different kind of evening. It's true. So it's just keep it separated again, uh, by way of your denial slash affirmation. Tony disclosure, I'm just giving you proper disclosure. Everybody know your music KYM, so that way when you have the setting that you want, you can match it with the music that you need. So it's true. Speaking of things that are always worth it. [00:21:30] Parable of the Weeds Jesse Schwamb: I think the Bible's gotta be one of those things. Tony Arsenal: It's true. Jesse Schwamb: And this is like the loosest of all segues because it's like the Sunday school segue into any topic that involves the scriptures. We're gonna be in Matthew 13, and how about we do this? So this is one of these parables and in my lovely ESV translation of the scriptures, the, we're just gonna go with the heading, which says the parable of the weeds. You may have something different and I wanna speak to that just briefly, but how do we do this, Tony? I'll hit us up with the parable and then it just so happens that this is one of the parables in the scripture that comes with an interpretation from our savior. It's true. How about you hit us up with the interpretation, which is in the same chapter if you're tracking with us, it's just a couple verses way. Does that sound good? Tony Arsenal: Let's do it. Jesse Schwamb: Okay. Here is the parable of the weeds. Jesus puts another parable before them saying The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sewed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sewed weeds among the weeds and went away. So when the plants came up and bork rain, then the weeds also appeared, and the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said to him, then, do you want us to go and gather them? Then he said, no. Lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them, but let them grow together until the harvest and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first, and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. Tony Arsenal: Alright, so then jumping down. To verse 36. We're still in Matthew 13, he says, then he left the crowds and went into the house and his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. He answered, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angel. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age, the son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom, all that, all causes of sin in all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. It is that in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears let him hear. Jesse Schwamb: So let me start with just like a little bit of language here, which I've always loved in this passage because where else in like the contemporary context, do you get the word tear? Yeah. Aside if you're like using a scale, and that's a totally different definition. I like this. I like the word tear. It force, it forces to understand that what's common to our ear, why that's being used, it often is translated weed. Here's just like my, my little like linguistic addition to the front end of our discussion and is the reason I like it is because here does have a specific definition. If like you were to look this up in almost any dictionary, what you're gonna find is it's like a particular type of weed. It's actually like an injurious weed that is indistinguishable in its infant form from the outgrowing of green. So I like that because of course that is exactly why. Then there's all this explanation of why then to not touch anything in the beginning because one, it causes damage to it looks like everybody else. I just thought I'd put that out there as we begin our discussion. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah. You know, I, um, I am a homeowner and I don't own the land that I'm on, but I'm responsible for the land that I'm on. And we have this really gnarly weed problem. There's this, uh, sort of floor growing, uh, carpeting weed called, uh, I think it's called like a carpeting knob, head weed or something like that. Some really descriptive thing. And I went out there the other day and there's really nothing you can do about this other than to rip it up. But I went out there the other day to start to pull some of it up and it totally wrecks the yard. Like it totally pulls up the grass, it destroys the sod. And when you're done, this is why it's kind of nice that I don't have, I'm not responsible for the land as I'm not gonna have to pay to resod the land. But when you're done pulling up this weed, you have to resod the whole place. You have to regrow all the grass because it, first, it takes over for the grass, and then when you rip it up, it rips the roots of the grass up as well. And so this parable, um, on one level is immediately obvious, like what the problem is, right? The situation is such. That the good, uh, the good sower, right? He's a good sower. He knows what he's doing. He understands that simply ripping up the weeds. Even if you could distinguish them right, there's this element that like at an early stage, they would be very difficult, if not impossible to distinguish from, uh, from wheat. Even if you could distinguish them, you still wouldn't be able to pull up the weeds and not do damage to the grain. And so we, we have this sort of like, um, conflict if you wanna follow like literary standards, right? We have this conflict and as we come to sort of the climax of this, of this plot is when all of a sudden we see that, that the problem needs a resolution and there is a resolution, but it's not necessarily what we would think it would be. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's what I find shocking. It is like a massive statement of reality that is that like equal points or equal times totally sensible. And other times we would think, well why surely not in the church Lord, like of all the places, like aren't we talking about a kind of purity of your people, the very people that you're assembling together, the chief of which is Christ and the apostles being the building stones and Christ of course being the cornerstone. And I, I think that's what I find and I wonder the people hearing this, if they thought like, well, surely Lord, that not be the case like you are bringing in and ushering in this new kingdom. Isn't this new kingdom gonna be one of absolute purity? And, and what I think he's striking at, which I do find a little bit wild, is that Jesus essentially saying, at least to my ear, anything we try to do, even like the purest preaching of the gospel, is not gonna prevent this in every age of the church. The same state of the things that's existed in that is in the time of the early fathers. In the first century, and the church as it stands right now in the land and the time of the reformers, and of course with the best ministers at this hour right now and on your next Lord's day, and everyone after that, there is always and ever will be a visible church or a religious assembly in which the members are not all wheat. Yeah. And then I like what you're saying. It's this idea that. There's a great harm that's gonna come about if you try to lift them up because you cannot tell. So, and this is what's hard, I think this does influence like how we interact with people online. Certainly how we interact with people in our own congregations, but we are going to have no clear convicted proofs. We might only have like probable symptoms if we're really trying to judge and weigh out to discern the weeds from the weeds, which at most can only give us some kind of conjectural knowledge of another state. And that is gonna sometimes preemptively judge cause us to judge others in a way that basically there's a warning against here. It, it's, it's not the right time. And ba I think mainly from the outside where I find like this parable coming together, if there's like maybe a weird Venn diagram of the way Christians read this and the way unbelievers hear this, the overlap between them is for me, often this idea of like hypocrisy and you know. When people tell me that the church is full of hypocrites, either like Christian or non-Christian, but typically that's a, a, you know, statement that comes from the non-Christian tongue. When people say that the church is full of hypocrites, I do with a little bit of snark, say it's definitely not full of hypocrites. There are always room for more in the church and, and there's like a distinction of course between the fact that there is hypocrisy in the Christian or whether the Christian is in fact or that person is a hypocrite. So like when I look through the scriptures, we see like Pharaoh confessing, we see Herod practicing, we see Judas preaching Christ Alexander venturing his life for Paul. Yeah, we see David condemning in another, what he himself practiced and like hezeki glorifying and riches Peter. Doing all kinds of peter stuff that he does, and even all the disciples forsaken Christ, an hour of trouble and danger. So all that to say, it goes back to this like lack of clear, convicted proofs that I think Jesus is bringing forward here, but only probable symptoms. And I'm still processing, of course, like the practicality of what you're saying, Tony, that in some ways it seems like abundantly clear and sensible that you should, you're, you're gonna have a problem distinguishing. But our human nature wants to go toward distinguishing and then toward uprooting sometimes. And the warning here is do not uproot at the improper time. And in fact, it's not even yours to uproot because God will send in the laborers to do that at the time of, of harvest. And so there will be weeds found among the wheat. It's just like full stop statement. And at the same time it's warning, do not go after them now. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I, I'm sure this, um, I, I'm sure this will spill over into a second conversation, but we, I think we have to talk a little bit about the interpretation here before we, before we even like talk more about the parable itself, because if you're not careful, um, and, and. I need to do a little bit more study on this, but it, it's interesting because Matthew almost seems to want you to sort of blend these parables together a little bit. Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Tony Arsenal: Right. These, these, there's three, um, there's three, maybe four if you count the parable of the treasure in the field. But there's three agricultural parables that have to do with sowing seed of one, of, one way or another. And in each one the seed is something different. And I, it almost seems to me. And then on top of that, the parables are like interwoven within each other. So like right smack in the middle of this, we have the parable. Uh, is given. Then the next parable of the mustard seed, which we're gonna talk about in a future episode, is given, and then the explanation of this parable of the tears is given. Um, and so we have to talk a little bit about it and sort of establish what the seed is, because we just spent three weeks talking about the seed in the par of the sower. Um, or the parable of the, of the soils. And in that parable, the seed was the word of God in this parable. And this is where I think sometimes, um, and again, this is like the doctrine of election in parable form, right? Yes. I think sometimes we read this and we, we misstep because the seed is not, uh, is not the word of God in this. The seed is the believers. Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Tony Arsenal: Right. So the good seed is sewn into, uh, into the field, which, you know, I think maybe there'll be some, we, we can save this for, for next week. But a little sneak peek is, it's not always clear exactly what the field is. Right. And I think we often, we often talk about the field as though it's the church that doesn't necessarily align a hundred percent with how Christ explains the parable. So we'll have to, we'll have to talk through that a little bit. I affirm that it is the church in, in a, a broad sense. Um, but, but the, the way that Christ explains it slightly different, but the, the seed is sewn into the world. The sons of the kingdom of heaven are sowed into the, into the world. And then the seed of the enemy, the bad seed, is the sons of the devil that's also sewn into the world. And so these two seeds grow up next to each other. If we think about the seed here as though it's the word of God, rather than the, the actual believers and unbelievers that elect in the ate, we're gonna make some missteps on how we understand this because we're not talking about, um, the, the seed being, you know, doctrine being sewn into the world. And some of it grows up good and some of it grows up bad or good doctrine and bad doctrine. We're talking about the believers themselves. Sorry, Jesse is mocking my rapid attempt to mute before I cough, which I, I did. That was pretty good. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that was, that was pretty good. Listen, this is real. Podcasting is how it goes. Yeah, I'm with you. Thank you for pulling out that distinction. 'cause it is critical. We, we have some overlap of course, with Jesus being really ascribed as the farmer, the son of man, right. He's sowing this good seed, but not the word. It's believers or the sons of the kingdom. And it is into his field, which is the world. Part of that world of course, is necessarily the church, right? But while everybody's sleeping, this enemy, the devil, he comes, he sows weeds or unbelievers, the sons of the evil one among this weed, they grow, go up together. And of course, like if I were servants in this household, I'd ask the same thing, which was like, should we get the gloves out? Yeah. Just pull those bad boys out. Like and, and so again, that's why I find it very so somewhat shocking that. It's not just, you could see like Jesus saying something like, don't worry about it now because listen, at the end of all time when the harvest comes, uh, I'm gonna take care of it. Like it's just not worth it to go out now. Right. That's not entirely The reason he gives, the reason is lest they uproot the wheat by mistake. So this is showing that the servants who are coming before Jesus in the parable, in this teaching here to really volitionally and with great fidelity and good obedience to him to want to please him to do his will. He there, he's basically saying, you are not qualified to undertake this kind of horticulture because you're just not either skilled enough or discerning enough to be able to do it right. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think, um. Maybe just a word of meth methodology too. Um, this parable also flies in the face of all of the, like, parables are not allegories, kind of kind of people. Um, and this is, we talked about this in our introductory episode. You have to take each parable for what it's worth, this parable very much is explained like a traditional allegory, right? Right. [00:35:39] Understanding the Parable's Symbols Tony Arsenal: It's got, it's got several different elements and Christ goes through and the first thing he does is tell you what each element represents, right? The sower is the son of man, the field is the word. The good seed is the sons of the kingdom of the weed. It's like, he's like clicking down all of the symbols and then he explains how all of it works together and like a good, all like a good allegory. Once you understand what each element and each symbol is, the rest of it actually is very self-explanatory, right? When you understand who's what in the parable. The outcome and the sort of the punchline writes itself as it were. And I think this is one of those parables that we would do. [00:36:18] Challenging Our Sensibilities Tony Arsenal: I think we would do well to sort of let marinate a little bit because it does challenge a lot of our sensibilities of what, um, what is real in the world, what is real in terms of our interaction with the world, right? What's real in terms of the role of unbelievers in the life of a Christian, um, whether we can identify who is or isn't an unbeliever. Um, I think we, you know, I, I'm not one of those people that's like, we should assume everyone's a Christian. And I'm certainly not one of those people who's like, we should assume nobody is a Christian. But I think there are a lot of times where we have figures either in public or people in our lives. Like personal acquaintances that have some sort of outward appearance. And, and that's like the key here that that distinction between weeds is a, is not a great translation as you said. Right. Because right. That distinction between wheat and weeds, to go to my analogy, like it's very clear what is grass and what is this like carpeting, knob weed. Like there's no, there's no doubt in my mind, which is the weed and which is the grass. Um, that's not what we're talking about here. And so it does, it does say here, I mean, it implies here that it's not going to be easy to distinguish the difference between exactly. The, a son of the kingdom and a son of the evil one. And I think that's a, that's a. A theological pill that is very difficult to swallow. Yes. [00:37:43] Personal Reflections on Identifying Christians Tony Arsenal: Because a lot of us, um, and this goes back to like what I, what we were saying in the last, the last parable, A lot of us were reared in our Christian faith on sort of this idea that like, you can check your fruit or you can check other people's fruits and you can determine, you can easily identify who's a Christian and who's not. I remember when I was in high school, you know, I got, I was converted when, when I was 15 and, um, I got to high school and it felt very easy to me to be able to identify the people who were play acting Christianity and the people who were real Christians. That felt like the most natural thing in the world to me. Um, it, it's an interesting story, but one of the people that I was absolutely sure was not a Christian. That he was just doing kinda civic Christianity. He was in confirmation 'cause his parents wanted him to. Um, and I had good reason to believe that at the time he was very worldly. He, he, um, did not seem to be serious about his faith at all. There was good reason to make the assessment that I did. And then I ran into him on Facebook like 15 years later and he's a pastor at the Lutheran Church and he's, you know, he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And he would not explain it as though he had a later conversion story. It's not as though he would say like, well yeah, in high school I pretended to be a Christian. And then, you know, I got through college and uh, I really became like I got converted. He would, would grow this, or he would explain this as slow, steady growth from an immature state that knew the facts of the gospel and in a certain sense trusted that Jesus was his savior and didn't fully understand the ramifications of that. I mean, who did at 15 years old? Mm-hmm. Um. And, and that it was a slow, steady growth to the place that he's in now. [00:39:21] The Difficulty of Distinguishing Believers Tony Arsenal: So I, I think we should take seriously, and maybe this is the takeaway for this week at least, and we can, we can talk about it more, is we should take seriously the fact that the Sons of the Kingdom and the Sons of the evil one in this parable are not only inseparable without doing damage, but in many ways they are not easily distinguishable. Jesse Schwamb: Right. On. Tony Arsenal: Um, and that, that's a baked into the parable. And I think we do spend a fair amount of time and I, I'll. I'll throw myself on on this. You know, this, we, I'm not just saying we, um, we as a genuine statement, like I have participated in this. I'm sure that I still do participate in this sometimes intentionally. Other times, uh, subconsciously we spend a fair amount of time probably in our Christian lives trying to figure out who is a Christian who's not. And it's not as though that is entirely illegitimate, right? The, the, as much as we kind of poke at the, the, um, workers in this who sort of are kind of chumps, right? They're sort of like the idiots in this. They, they don't seem to know how this happened. They propose a course of action that then the master's like, no, no, that's not, that's not gonna work. They can tell the difference, right? They can see that some are weeds and some are are weeds, and they're asking, well, what do we do about it? But at the same time he is saying like, you're not really competent to tell the difference, Jesse Schwamb: right? On Tony Arsenal: a good, uh, a good. Competent farmer could probably go out and take all the weeds out. Just like a really good, I dunno, landscape technician, I'm not sure what you would call it. I'm sure someone could come into my yard and if I paid them enough money they could probably fix this knobby grass, weed, whatever it is. Um, infestation. They could probably fix it without damaging the lawn. Like there are probably people that could do it. I am not that competent person and the workers in this are not that competent person. And I would say by and large in our Christian life, we are not that competent person to be able to identify who is and who isn't, um, a Christian who is or isn't a son of the kingdom versus a son of the devil. Jesse Schwamb: And there's sometimes like we just get history reprised, or it's like, again, the same thing microwaved over and served to you three or four times as leftovers. So it's also gonna remember like any as extension that like any attempt to like purify the church perfectly, and this has happened like donatism in the fourth century I think, or even like now, certain sectarian movements are completely misguided. Yeah. And Jesus already puts that out ahead of us here. It's almost like, do not worry what God is doing because God again is, is doing all the verbs. So here's a question I think we should discuss as we, we move toward like the top of the hour. And I think this is interesting. I don't know if you'll think it's interesting. I, I kind of have an answer, but I, I'll post it here first. [00:42:01] Visible vs. Invisible Church Jesse Schwamb: So the setup like you've just given us is two things. One, we got the visible church, we talk about the visible church. I think a lot across our conversations. Yeah. And we might summarize it, saying it's like the community of all who profess faith, maybe even the community of all who are baptized. Right. Possibly. Yeah. And it's going to include then necessarily as Jesus describes it here, true and false believers. So that's one group. Then we've got this invisible church, which as you said is the elect. Those who are known perfectly to God. So the good seed is those elect true believers. The weeds, then the weeds to me, or the tears, even better, they sound a lot like that. Second and third soils that we talked about previously to some, to some degree. I'm not, I'm not gonna lump them all in because we talked about receiving the word and it taking root, all that stuff, but to some degree, and also probably like a soil one. But here's, here's the way I would define them up and against or in contradistinction to the elector believers. They're the reprobate. They're false professors or they're children of the evil one. Now here's the question, Doni, Alex, I, I think this is very interesting. I'm trying to build this up for like more dramatic effect. 'cause now I'm worried it's not that good. The question is, I'm going to presume that this good seed, the elect, true to believers, the confidence of perseverance of the saints, the justification in sanctification of God's children is in fact though we at some points have our own doubts, it is made fully aware and known to the good seed. That is, we should have, as you and I have talked about before, the confidence that God has in fact saved his elect. So the question that on the other side is for the ta, do the tears always know that they are the tears? Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think, um, I've said this before and I, I mean it, and I think it takes probably more. More discussion than we have time for tonight. And and that's fine because we can do as many episodes on this as we want to. 'cause this is our show and you can't stop us actually. Jesse Schwamb: Correct. [00:43:56] Assurance of Faith and False Assurance Tony Arsenal: Um, I've said before that assurance is the proper and rightful possession and inheritance of every Christian. Jesse Schwamb: Amen. Tony Arsenal: Right. So I, I am not one to say that the technical terminology is that assurance is not of the essence of faith. Um, I think we have to be really careful when we say that it's not, but we have to be equally careful when we say that it is. Because if we say that assurance is of the essence of faith, then what that means is someone who doesn't have assurance, doesn't have faith. Um, the reason I say that we can say that is because there's a sense that that's true, right? If you don't believe you're saved, then you don't believe you're saved and you don't trust that you're saved. But that doesn't mean that you always have full awareness of that confidence. And, you know, I think, um, I think. I think you're, you're right that, um, it may not always be, let me put it this way. I, I think that we have to consider the entire life of a Christian when we're, when we're making that analysis. And in a certain sense, like, I'm not even sure we should be making that analysis. That's kind of the point of the, the, um, the parable here, or at least one of the points. But, um, when that analysis is made, we'll, we'll channel a little bit of RC sprawl. It's not as funny when he's actually, uh, gone. I don't really mean channel RC sprawl. We will, uh, speak in the tradition of RC sprawl, um, in the final analysis, whatever that means. Whenever that is. You have to consider the whole life of a Christian, the whole life of a believer. And so there may be times in the life of a believer where they don't possess that full assurance of faith or that that full assurance is weak or that it seems to be absent. But when we look at the entire life of a believer, um, is it a life that overall is marked by a confident trust, that they are in fact children of God? Um, that a confident, uh, a confident embracing of what the spirit testifies to their spirit, to, to borrow language from Romans, I think in, in the life of a true elect Christian, um, that with the perseverance of the saints, uh, with the persistence of the saints and the preservation of the saints, um, I think that yes, those who are finally saved, those who are saved unto salvation, if you wanna phrase it that way. They finish the race, they claim the prize. Um, that assurance will be their possession in their life as a Christian. Jesse Schwamb: Right on. Tony Arsenal: All of that to say, I think there are, are, there's a good case to be made for the fact that there is also people who have false assurance, right? And this is where it takes a lot more, you know, finagling and jockeying and theological explanation of how can we know we have true assurance versus false assurance. You know, it's kinda like that question, like, does an insane person know they're insane? Well, does a false, does someone with false assurance know that their assurance is false? I don't think, I don't think so. Otherwise, it wouldn't be false assurance. Um, if they knew it wasn't real assurance, then they wouldn't have any kind of assurance. So I, I think I agree with you at least where, where I think you're going is that we do have to, we do have to make some judgements. We have to look at our own life, right? Um, there is an element of fruitfulness in this parable, right? We'll talk about that. I, I think we'll get into that next week. But it's not as though this is entirely disconnected from the parable of the soils. Both of them have a very similar kind of. End point. [00:47:20] Final Judgment and Eschatology Tony Arsenal: At the end of all things, at the end of the harvest, when the end of the age comes, and the reapers, the angels are sent, what they're gathering up are fruitful Christians, right in the parable, he sends out the, it's funny be, I love my dispensational brothers and sisters, but in this parable, like the rapture is the rapture of the unbelievers, right? The angels go out and reap the unbelievers first. The, the weeds are bundled up and thrown into the fire, and then the, the fruitful wheat is gathered into the barns. Um, there is this delineation between the fruitless weeds and the fruitful wheat or the, the grain that has borne, you know, borne fruit. That is part of what the, the outward. Elements of this parable are, so we should talk about that more, of what is this trying to get at in terms of not just the difference between weeds and wheat and how that maps up to those who are in Christ versus those who are not in Christ, but also like what is this telling us about the, the end of the age eschatology. All of that's baked in here and we haven't even scratched the surface of that Jesse Schwamb: yet. Yeah, we, we, I, and we just can't, even on this episode, probably, you're right, we're gonna have to go to two so that, I guess it's like a teaser for the next one. I'm told they're with you. It's interesting. I've been thinking about that, that question a lot. And I do like what you're saying. You know, at the end here, it's almost as if Christ is saying at the time of harvest, things become more plain, more evident In the beginning. The chutes are gonna look really, really similar, and you're gonna go in and you're gonna think you're guessing properly or using your best judgment, and you're gonna get it wrong in the end when he sends out those who are harvesting. I liken this passage here in the explanation as you read to us starting in verse 36, how there's this comparison of heat and light. And so there is the heat and light of the fiery furnace into which, as you said, all of those who are the children of the enemy will be gathered up and burned. And then there's that contrast with in verse 43, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. So there is like a reward that comes from the bearing of the fruit and that made evidence by a different type of heat and light. So I do struggle with this question because. It's easy to answer in some ways if we're defining the weeds in pirate or the tears in pirates as false professors typically. Let's say false professors of a nefarious kind, then it seems pretty plain that somebody, right, that the enemy has implanted certain people to stir up trouble with the intention to stir up trouble that is in fact their jam. Or they know that even if they're putting on heirs, that they're in fact play acting that the hypocrisy is purposeful and that it is part of like the missional efforts that they're doing to disrupt what God is doing in the world. So I might think of somebody like when we go, when we're looking in, um, Exodus, and we find that at least to some degree, all of Pharaoh's magicians can replicate everything that Moses is doing. Moses doing that by the power of God. But the magicians are so good and whatever means they're using, but they know, I presume they know they're not, they're not using Yahweh, they're not drawing their power or their influence from Yahweh. Tony Arsenal: Right? Jesse Schwamb: But it's so convincing to the people that Pharaoh is like, eh. Obviously I've seen that before because we just, we just did that here. Come back with your next trick until God flexes his mighty muscles in a really profound way, which cannot be replicated. And at some point there's a harvest that happens there. There's a separation between the two, those who are truly professing, the power that comes from God, the one true God, and those that are just replicating the cheap copy, the one that's just pure trickery and smoke and mirrors. So. That's an easy category. I'm with you. And I'm not saying that this is an invitation to bring the kind of judgment here that we've just spoken against. I'm not condoning this. What I do find interesting though is if the enemy is crafty, is it possible that they're always going to be forms of terror in the world that do feel that they have very strong conviction and belief about biblical things? Maybe there's, there's strong hobby horses or there are misguided directions here that pull us apart, that become distractions. Or maybe it's just even attitudes, uh, things that can be divisive, disruptive, derogatory that again, pull us away. For making the plain things, the main things and the main things, the plain things, which in some ways draws us back to like the whole purpose of you and I talking every week, which is we wanna get back to what the scripture teaches. We wanna follow the our Lord Jesus Christ very, very closely. I'm gonna clinging to the hymn of his rob as we walk through life so that we do not fall to those kind of false convictions. So I'm not, please hear me, loved ones. I'm not trying to call into question your faith as Tony just said. I am saying that there, this is kind of scary, just like we talked about. There are elements of the parables of the, of the soil that were equally scary. And so it's just in some ways to say, we gotta keep our heads not theological, swivel. We, we gotta be about the Lord's business, and we gotta be about understanding through prayer and study and communion with him, what it is that he wants to teach us in the purest way, knowing that the church itself and the world, of course, is never going to be entirely pure. At the same time, it is our responsibility to, as you already said, test for ourselves to understand what is that true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because some tears are going to be maybe easy to identify and with without, you know, throwing too much shade or. I was gonna say spilling the TI don't think that works here, but I'm not young anymore, so I'm trying to use or or put on blast. Yeah. I'm looking at you Mormons or Jehovah's witnesses. Like it's, it's easier there to be like, yeah, right, this is wrong. It is a false profession, but we've just gotta be careful even in our own hobby, horses not deviates into ground. I think that doesn't preclude us from being children of the light and children of the kingdom, but can still be disruptive or uh, you know, just distracting. But either way, yeah. I think what's scary to me about this is exactly what you said, Tony, is, is could it be that there are people that are very sincere about the Christian faith, but are sincerely wrong? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: And what does that mean for God's elected purpose? What does that mean for our understanding of how to interact in our churches in the world? Does that make sense? Tony Arsenal: It does. And I'm not sure whether you were trying to set up the, what might be the first genuine reformed brotherhood cliffhanger, but you did. Because we're on minute 54 of a 60 minute podcast, and, uh, there's no way we're gonna get into that and not go for another 60 minutes. So, Jesse, I, I'm, I'm glad that we are taking our time. Um, I know that sometimes it's easy when you put out a schedule or you put out a sort of projected content calendar to feel like you have to stick to it. But I wanna give these parables, the time they deserve and the effort and the, uh, the, uh, study and the discussion that they deserve. And I think the questions you're posing here at the end of this episode are really, really important. And they are questions that this parable forces us to ask. Right, right. It's not as though we're just using this as a launching pad. Um. If the workers can't tell the difference between the, the seed and the, or the, the weeds and the weeds, it's reasonable to think that the weeds themselves may not be able to tell the difference. Right? The sons of the evil one, um, are probably not in this parable, are probably not the people like in the back, like doing fake devil horns, right? And like, you know, like there's, there's probably more going on that we need to unpack and, and we'll do that next week. Jesse Schwamb: I love it. So we've got some good stuff coming then, because we've gotta, this is like, do you ever remember when you were in, uh, you know, doing your undergraduate postgraduate work, you'd get like a topic or an assignment or a paper and you'd be super stoked about it and you start reaching it, be like, okay, researching it. And you'd be like, all right, I've got some good topics here. And then you get into it, you're like, oh, but I'm gonna have to talk about this. And Oh, like before I could talk, I'm gonna have to explain this. Sometimes when we get into these, as you and I have been talking, that's what it feels li

In this episode of Home and Away, Drew and Cody discuss the current state of Sporting Kansas City, focusing on player evaluations, potential roster changes, and the upcoming free agency period. They delve into the performance of key players, particularly the goalkeeping situation, and the need for significant upgrades across the roster. The conversation also touches on the U-22 initiative and its implications for player development. Additionally, they review the recent performances of the US Men's National Team, highlighting the team's tactical execution and overall improvement under new management. In this conversation, Cody and Drew discuss the performance and potential of the US Men's National Team as they prepare for the World Cup. They analyze the impact of players like Balagan and Pulisic, evaluate forward options, and address concerns in the center back position. The discussion also highlights the Kansas City Current's dominance in the league and the development of young players like Claire Hutton.Music by The Spin Wires

The "Competency Rule" comes up a lot, but what is it? What does it mean to be geographically or assignment competent? Tim Andersen, The Appraiser's Advocate, joins Dustin to discuss. SUBSCRIBE: https://dustin-harris.mykajabi.com/newsletters/2147763779/subscribe

It's Wednesday, October 1st, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark Chinese Communists arrested 70 Christians Chinese Communists arrested over 70 Christians recently in a major crackdown on churches. The operation began two months ago and involved over 400 police officers. They targeted Christians involved in Bible study groups in east China.  One local Christian told Open Doors, “We have not seen such a massive force used to address church-related matters. This is something that warrants serious attention.” China is ranked 15th on the Open Doors' World Watch List of the most difficult countries to be a Christian.  Psalm 14:4 asks, “Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up My people as they eat bread, and do not call on the LORD?” Trump's 20-point plan to end Israeli-Gaza War On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. The plan involves the ending of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the Muslim terrorist group, returning of hostages held by Hamas, and providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The plan calls for a temporary transitional government over Gaza and an economic development plan to rebuild Gaza.   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the plan. Hamas leaders are reportedly leaning toward accepting the plan. War Secretary Pete Hegseth: Out with the woke, in with the warrior U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed the military's most senior leaders yesterday at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. Hegseth announced 10 new directives, shifting the department from a “woke” to a “warrior” culture. He described what makes a good military leader.  HEGSETH: “If I've learned one core lesson in my eight months in this job, it's that personnel is policy. The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to the war-fighting culture of the department. Not perfect leaders, good leaders.  Competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and to the Constitution.” Secretary Hegseth addressed the importance of rigorous physical standards for soldiers. HEGSETH: “When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent! If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result. So be it. “It will also mean that weak men won't qualify because we're not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death. As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hell-bent on killing you. To be an effective, lethal fighting force, you must trust that the warrior alongside you in battle is capable, truly, physically capable, of doing what is necessary under fire.” He asked whether any of the military leaders would want one of their sons to become a soldier and serve alongside unqualified soldiers. HEGSETH: “Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops? Or alongside people who can't meet basic standards in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and war fighting?  This means at the War Department, first and foremost, we must restore a ruthless, dispassionate and common sense application of standards.” And Secretary Hegseth explained that the War Department will no longer tolerate the distracting woke nonsense. HEGSETH: “This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. To rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. “As I've said before and will say again, we are done with that … I've made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal.” YouTube reinstates conservative accounts banned over anti-COVID shot posts Last Tuesday, Google announced that it will reinstate YouTube accounts it banned for political speech. Google said it previously removed YouTube content related to the COVID-19 pandemic after being pressured by the Biden administration.  Google's parent company, Alphabet, wrote in a letter, “YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse." 52% say sex outside heterosexual marriage is sin; 49% say abortion is sin Here's more data from the State of Theology study study by Lifeway Research and Ligonier Ministries.  Just under half of U.S. adults believe the Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches. Sixty percent say the Bible is the highest authority for what they believe. And 50% believe the Bible has the authority to tell us what we must do.  On moral issues, 52% of Americans say that sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin. Forty-nine percent agree that abortion is a sin. Fifty-four percent oppose transgenderism. And 46% oppose homosexual behavior. Psalm 19:7-8 reminds us, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Average American's FICO score is 715 FICO released its inaugural Score Credit Insights Report this month. The report found the national average FICO credit score is 715. However, young consumers are struggling by comparison with an average FICO score of 676. Gen Z borrowers experienced the largest average score decrease of any age group, falling three points year-over-year.  A key driver for this is student loan debt. Over a third of young consumers have student loans, compared to 17% of the total population. Planned Parenthood closed it's 78,000 square foot abortion mill in Houston And finally, Planned Parenthood officially closed what was the largest abortion mill in North America yesterday.  Back in July, the abortion giant announced it would close two locations in Houston, Texas. One of them was its 78,000-square-foot Prevention Park facility.  The Houston Coalition for Life hosted a vigil outside the building to honor the estimated 110,000+ unborn children killed by abortion there. Shawn Carney, the CEO of 40 Days for Life, said the ministry has prayed outside the mega abortion mill since 2006. He commented to Fox News about the closure, saying, “This is massive news for the pro-life movement and shows the direction that Planned Parenthood is going, which is down.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Wednesday, October 1st, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.