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Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks!Lives Reimagined: Changing the Course of Psychotic Illness   (Ep. 125)Guests: authors of the new book (same name) - Katharine Dougherty PhD, and Lisa Mann, PhD , and Dr. Rocco Marotta-a psychiatrist known for his successful treatment of "hopeless" cases-and practiced with remarkable success by the team he led at The Lodge program at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut.Written for families struggling to navigate the world of neuropsychiatric illness and useful for providers looking for a different approach to the treatment of neuropsychiatric disordersThe book can be found at the following sites by putting in the title and authors:   amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, sdppublishingsolutions.comThe Center for the Treatment and Study of Neuropsychiatric Disorders:  silverhillhospital.org/TheCenter  Why relabel SMI NBD (neuropsychiatric brain disease )?THEMES:Hope and persistence are criticalNo two cases are exactly the sameMedication and adherence and sobriety are important to sustained stabilityIt takes a team and long-term relationships to sustain stabilityCommunication among team members is criticalTaking small risks and succeeding leads to other risksRigid ideology has no place when you are untangling complexity and nuanceThe diagnosis of NBD is often tied to a sense of shame and failure for patients and familiesThere are many important layers to the recovery journeyConstant reevaluation is important and this includes the importance of patient feedbackPoetry from Zachary Sutphin"White pink blue" White pink blueThe pills look like candy But taste like defeat.  They taste like mother's advice.  Correct, we grow too seeI take them Because otherwise, I might start believing.. believing in things that can't be believedin minds unlike mine They tell me it's illness.  But what if it's clarity?  What if losing grip Was divine sanityStill, I take them.....For the full poem, see our "Schizophrenia 3 Moms" Facebook pageThanks for liking and sharing the podcast! Mindy and her book: https://mindygreiling.com/Randye and her book: https://randyekaye.com/Miriam and her book: https://www.miriam-feldman.com/Want to know more?Join our facebook page Our websites:Randye KayeMindy Greiling Miriam (Mimi) Feldman

What is happening with France? Glenn lays out what went wrong in France and why its government is collapsing. The prime minister of France says the hard part out loud: We have to love those who are hard to love while also dealing with their negative impact on the economy. Despite the failures of France being apparent, New York City is months away from electing somebody who will implement the exact same policies that destroyed France. Glenn recounts the story of a terrifying warning he received regarding his reporting on George Soros. America is on a dangerous path, and Glenn warns that if we don't change course soon, we'll live to regret it. Our Republic co-founder and president, Justin Haskins, joins to discuss a troubling poll that shows a growing number of young Americans support socialist policies. Glenn explains how America hasn't been a capitalistic country in decades. The younger generation is correct to reject America's current economic system, and Glenn makes the case to allow the free market to make a comeback. Glenn outlines why civics is a critical subject that isn't being taught enough in schools. The guys debate the political beliefs of various Hollywood celebrities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are you spending on annual fees? What's the holy grail of first-class suites? We answered these and many other questions on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on YouTube on September 3rd, 2025.(00:37) - As banks tighten up on credit card approvals, I'm sure many have received a denial for “lack of recent installment loan information.” Has anybody taken out a loan to improve their odds? To me, it makes sense to take out a loan where interest is

Title: How to Quit Your W-2 and Never Look Back with Jamie Bateman Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Jamie, a military veteran turned real estate and mortgage note investor, who shares his story of transitioning from a W-2 career into entrepreneurship and financial freedom. Jamie discusses the phases of his life, including collegiate sports, military service, and a long stint at the Department of Defense before pivoting to real estate and eventually mortgage note investing. He emphasizes how discipline shaped his journey and how shifting mindset, focusing on strengths, and leveraging his network were key to taking ownership of his life and finances. Jamie also dives deep into the mortgage note investing space, explaining how performing and non-performing notes work, the active nature of the business, and how he now offers passive investment opportunities for accredited investors. He closes by highlighting the importance of planning with intention, overcoming perfectionism, and using passive income to create margin and freedom in life. Links to Watch and Subscribe:  https://youtu.be/nRyX8_YA9YI Bullet Point Highlights: Discipline builds freedom - Sports, military, and entrepreneurship all instilled the value of discipline, which Jamie says is critical for success and freedom. W-2 life wasn't the path - Jamie recognized through his commute and stagnant career trajectory that he didn't want to follow the traditional path, sparking his exit plan. Mindset shift was essential - He stopped consuming negative news and started focusing on education and his strengths to shift into entrepreneurship. Mortgage note investing explained - Performing notes offer cash flow while non-performing notes offer the chance to add value, akin to fix and flips. However, both are active businesses, not passive. Passive income fuels risk-taking - Creating passive income streams allowed Jamie to take entrepreneurial risks while maintaining financial security. Action beats perfection - As an entrepreneur, chasing perfection isn't practical. Done is better than perfect. Reverse planning drives clarity - Backwards planning from a vivid vision 3-5 years into the future increases urgency and helps set clear, intentional actions. Final advice - Start by investing passively to learn, and later you can decide whether to become active. Don't underestimate the transferable skills you already possess. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Jamie, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Thanks Seth, is awesome. I'm excited to be here and I'm hoping to add some value.   Absolutely, man. Third time's a charm. We've been trying to get this scheduled after I was on your show, which was fantastic. Had a really good time on that show and I think it turned out pretty good. I know we're going to deliver on this one as well.   Yeah, we're gonna try to try to I'll try to do as good a job as you did. So yeah, was that was a yeah, no, I that was a very, very good episode from adversity to abundance. highly recommend your your listeners check that one out to your episode on that show. So thanks for thanks for doing that.   (Seth Bradley) (01:20.086) Absolutely, man. You're an incredible interviewer. I've net, that's the only, I've been on dozens of podcasts and, you know, you pulled out a lot of things for me that I've, I've never talked about on the air. So it's pretty, pretty awesome. Pretty awesome show, man.   Appreciate that.   Cool man, well let's just jump right into your background man. What's your story? Take it back as far as you'd like to brother.   Yeah. Man, I'd like to think that life has phases. So I've had a few different phases in my life. I come from a large family. I'm the oldest of seven kids and we always had a competitive background as far as team sports and things like that. So I played lacrosse in college. That was always a foundational piece of my life and just kind of   think from there learned how to be a part of something bigger than myself and how to work toward a common goal with a with a team. So that's been something that's been a kind of a thread through my life and then got married and joined the military and actually joined the military technically before I got married, but seemed like I got married and then ran off and ran away from my wife. But it's not exactly what happened. But   (Jamie Bateman) (02:36.02) I joined the military, was an officer in the US Army. I did miss my first three wedding anniversaries through deployment and things like that. And again, it was a matter of trying to be plugged into something, you know, to serve and be a part of something bigger than myself and trying to add value like I think we all want to do. I've obviously glossed over a lot of details, but those were a couple of inflection points, I guess, if you will, like you like to talk about, I know.   And so my military career transitioned into a career with the Department of Defense as a civilian, and did 14 years as a civilian with DoD at Fort Meade. And the first half, so the first seven, for all you math wizards out there, was full time. And then the second half, the second seven years was part time. And that   seven years is when I was really building my businesses, which are largely real estate investing and mortgage note investing focus. So we can get into the details there. And then in 2022, I ended up quitting my job and now I have a few different small businesses that I run. And like you, Seth, I've got a lot of different things that I'm juggling and   You know, so, but yeah, I love talking about taking ownership of your financial situation and taking ownership of your life really. And I know that you and I have that in common. So yeah, that's a high level overview of my background.   Awesome, man. I appreciate that. There's a lot to unpack there. You know, going back to playing sports all the way up to the collegiate level, that's incredible. I always like to think even playing like popcorn or football back in the day, you need a way to instill discipline in yourself. And that's kind of the oldest memory I can think of where it was hard, right? Like it was like you've got a coach screaming at you.   (Seth Bradley) (04:38.134) Like back in the day, it's like, you know, they wouldn't give you water unless you like, you know, for like an hour, which I don't think they do that anymore now. But, you you had to earn that drink of water and all those sorts of things. But you you really learned what it's like to work hard and you really learned what discipline was all about. And I would say that and you can you can expand on this. But I would say that, you know, being in the military yourself, that takes it to a whole new level.   Right. It's like you got that from sports. You got that from the military.   Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously, they're very different in a lot of ways. But that is certainly a common theme is being disciplined. And people, people shy away from that word, because it just sounds like work or no fun and no flexibility. But I found that having discipline in your life ends up adding more freedom in a sense, because you kind of have your foundational pieces set in stone, you don't have to think about those. And so, yeah, regarding   team sports, it's really a matter of, you know, everyone doing their part, right. And so there's a level of individual discipline and, and then just, and then also just kind of putting the putting the group ahead of yourself. Obviously, you know, you want individual, there's nothing wrong with individual accolades. And I was certainly chasing, you know, those individual accolades. It's not something I shied away from, I was definitely was wrapped up in   trying to be an All-American and that kind of thing. And did get that a couple of times, you know, but at the end of the day, nobody really cares about that. And the way I viewed it was if I was doing my part, and I got those, you if I was scoring goals in lacrosse, as an example, that means I'm contributing to, you know, to the team, right. And so there's obviously a fine line there, but of going too far, either way. But yeah, that discipline is critical.   (Jamie Bateman) (06:36.73) you know, even it's certain I played at a high level in college and there was year round your training your your your into it. It was a division three school but it but the reality was we worked just as hard as any any D one program and yeah, it's it's a these are skills that have paid off and are absolutely transferable to the rest of life.   For sure. Yeah, I think you've got to get those intangible things. You've got to develop them somewhere along the way, whatever that is, if that's sports or the military or from your parents. mean, you can get it from different places, but you definitely need it. I mean, we're in different stages of our life at this point. talking about a lot. We talk about freedom and flexibility and fun to try to get away from kind of the W-2 mindset.   But in order to achieve freedom, flexibility and fun in a successful way, have to be disciplined to be able to get there. You had to have done something successfully to be able to get there or maybe what separates you from the guy living in a van down by the river. That guy has freedom and flexibility. I don't know about fun, maybe fun, but it's a different, obviously it's a different outcome.   Yeah, and I, I think I still need, you I still use a lot of discipline today. It's still, still required, but it's, I guess it's self imposed. And, you know, I just love, love having that flexibility and that freedom that comes along with being an entrepreneur. So yeah, it's been a central piece to my success for sure. But I still, I don't think it ever, you know, goes away. I just get to pick and choose what, you know, what discipline I want to   kind of enforce on myself, I guess. So yeah, absolutely. And as you said, the military was a huge part of that for me as well. I mean, that's a different kind of, different kind of discipline and different kind of teamwork and different, you know, if you lose the lacrosse game, okay, you lost the lacrosse game, but military the stakes are a little higher. So maybe certain things are more important attention to detail or critic is critical and   (Jamie Bateman) (08:53.73) But at the end of the day, it's, the same principles apply across both, I guess, sectors, if you will.   For sure. So let's dive into that transition. You started working kind of part-time there for seven years, so that seems like a transitional period. How were you able to progress from that W2? And what I've heard you say is call yourself a W2 quitter. I love that. How were you able to progress from a W2 person to a W2 quitter? What enabled you to do that and what that transition looked like?   I mean, you know, I do remember in 2015, probably a little bit maybe maybe say 2014. But I just you get, you know, I had a wife and two kids and I had the commute the long commute that I know a lot of people can identify with. So it just was Groundhog Day was the same thing over and over and over. And that's not me sitting here complaining about my family or having having the opportunity to work.   But after a while, it gets old. Let's just be real, right? So it's like you're sitting in traffic and I just, you start looking at, you know, I worked for the government and you look around and you say, who, okay, who's sort of ahead of me on this? Like you, like I think you probably mentioned on our, on your, your show and my, show, your episode, you look around to the people who are more kind of further along the path than you. You say, do you want to be that person? Is that the life you want? And man, I did not want that.   And it just just having that just super long term just you know, pot at the end of the rainbow, I guess, nothing driving me in the interim, man, it was it was just it was brutal. So I probably did a little woes me for a little bit there a little victim mentality for a bit. But then you start to realize, like, okay, if you don't take ownership of your own life, no one's going to right. So   (Jamie Bateman) (10:54.934) No one's going to come in and do this for you. So I'm not sure what truly, you know, created the change in my mindset, but my mindset absolutely started to change and it just made a shift. And I, and I stopped watching cable news. I stopped, just, you know, stop paying attention to all the things that I can't control. And I couldn't control back then and, and started saying, no, what do I have? What are my strengths? Who is in my, who's back to the team thing.   who's on my team, who's in my network that I can add value to and who can add value to me. So I started looking around and my father was a realtor for many years. My brother was a loan officer. We had one rental property at the time. I had worked at, I didn't mention, I worked at a title company and I worked for a mortgage broker before as well briefly. So I had this experience that a lot of people don't have and that's   you know, that doesn't mean I'm better than anyone. It just means these are my strengths. So let's point to that. And let's use that. So I started really being intentional about focusing on my strengths and my assets that I had in my life, right. And then another asset that I used to see as a liability was the time in the car. So I started listening to podcasts. you know, and then it turned into wait, I don't even want to go into work yet. Because this this podcast episode is amazing. And I'm learning so much.   know, bigger pockets and all the other real estate podcasts and different investing podcasts and started using that mental bandwidth instead of focusing on national media stories that I have zero influence over. Here's something that I can actually take action on. And so in mid 2015, I went part time and it just so happens that at   DoD is one of the few agencies in the in federal government where you can go part time and still keep your benefits. So I still had health insurance for my family. You know, most people don't have that option necessarily, but well, I did. So that's what I did. And, and, you know, that's, again, decided to decide to start building my my other streams of income outside of my W two.   (Jamie Bateman) (13:15.752) my circumstances been different if I was single, I probably would have just quit the whole thing, right? But I was able to have that kind of laddered approach, I guess, or tiered approach to kind of ripping off the bandaid.   Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. I love just the idea of taking ownership of your life, right? Like everybody has those moments where they're feeling sorry for themselves. But the successful people, they don't sit there and stay in that mindset. They move on. You're going to be there sometimes where you've got to get out of it. You got to say, OK, what can I control? What can I change? And you don't say you don't give other people the power to control.   you and your mindset and how you feel about your life. Right. Like that's that's that's the thing. Like if you you're constantly blaming someone else or saying this happened to me rather than what can I do to get myself out of it, then you're going to be stuck there forever. You're going to be absolutely going to be spinning your wheels forever. And a lot of that, I think, helps because you said you don't listen. You don't watch the news. I don't either. No, it's a waste of time. What control? What does that do for us? If I do watch it.   I literally do it for entertainment and you look at it as an entertain. I look at it like I'm watching. I look at it like this is funny. Like I can, you know what I mean? You kind of analyze it like, this is funny. This guy's saying this in a debate. Right. This guy's saying that it's not taking it as a news and this is how I should live my life because of what they're saying.   sports almost.   (Jamie Bateman) (14:43.341) Fact.   (Jamie Bateman) (14:48.078) Absolutely. And it's not to say that none of these topics are important, mean, global war, politics, poverty, global warming, whatever, it's all very important, but I have zero control over it, almost zero, right? And then the other thing is fear sells and that's what they're selling. And so it doesn't mean that every story is invented and it's all fake news, but it's   it just doesn't serve me. And so I'd rather focus on, you know, go ground up and kind of just, I see it in people, maybe older people in my own life now who maybe are retired and they watch the news all day. And it's like, they won't travel because they saw a news story that the airports are packed or something. And, you know, it's, I'm sure that story was, was accurate, right. But it, but the, but the news can filter out and you end up only focusing on   the negative really, and it just didn't serve me. yeah, during that lot, the second seven years, I was able to build out my wife and I were doing single family real estate investing and doing a lot of the BRRRR method that maybe some of your audience is familiar with. And so kind of putting that capital back into the rental property machine and expanding our portfolio. And then eventually last year, well, and   2018, made the pivot, I kept the rental properties, but made a pivot to also add on mortgage note investing. And that's been my primary focus as of late. And if you want, can tell the story quickly about how I actually quit my job in 2022. I think it's kind of a funny one.   Absolutely, let's do it.   (Jamie Bateman) (16:38.318) All right. So, I, so I, two years ago, I was playing badminton and, I'd been doing now, mind you, I used to be like tough, you know, athlete. And like I did, you know, did jujitsu for three years right up before this. And, know, I used to lift weights a lot and still do it here and there, but, you know, I think I'm tough. Right. And,   ruptured my Achilles playing badminton. So that's an ego blow to add on to the physical pain that you know, especially with the recovery. So rupture my Achilles a little over two years ago today and I was out of work, it was my right right foot. And the reason I bring this up is not for sympathy, but to say, you know, I couldn't drive for three months. So I actually, yeah, and I had tons of leave from from work and   By this time, I was tired, really tired of my, I was pretty much checked out. Like I think you, might've been at your, your big law job, but I was, I was checked out. mean, I wasn't the best employee at this point. And so I took as much leave as I, as I could, you know, reasonably right. And so, but couldn't drive. And so I was out for three months and I come back. So come back into work and I'd had discussions with my wife about, about leaving. was just a matter of, of when, not if.   That's right   (Jamie Bateman) (18:04.43) I can tell you truthfully, I had no idea that I was going to quit this day, but I came back in from having been out for three months. Mind you, no one gave me a call. No one from work, no one from my management gave me a call the entire three months I was out, other than to say, to ask me, are you vaccinated? Because you have to be vaccinated to be, to get inside the building. Now, I don't want this to turn into some controversial vaccine discussion.   or get your podcast banned from something but yes, I'd been vaccinated to answer the question. But no one asked me how's your how's your recovery going? Like how you what do you you know, how's your life? You know, what's it's just are you vaccinated, you need to get that shot before you come in? Okay, great. Thanks. I really feel welcome here. So I'm already just, you know, you know what, screw this place, right? Come back in and just   go to my desk, and this is this is an office space kind of thing where I go to my desk and there's some there's an Air Force kid at my desk and long story short, they kind of moved me somewhere else without telling me I can't find my desk, I finally find it, it's got a box with my name on it with, you know, monitors sideways and all and clearly not a functioning desk and, you know, office space. So I literally quit that day. And I just say that it's just like,   I knew 100 % I was done. My wife didn't know I quit, but I quit that day. Still worked for another month or two, but there was no question, zero question in my mind, I'm done with this place. So that was March of 2022. And ever since then, I've just focused on building out my businesses and having look back.   That's awesome. Sometimes you just know, right? Like sometimes it's done. You just knew. I love that story, man. For me, it was a little bit. You already know the story, but for me, it was a little bit more of someone else's decision. I got fired. mean, and you mentioned that, you you weren't the best employee at that point. Correct. I knew the same thing. And it's great to have awareness and perspective and kind of looking back now, you're like, I would have done the same thing. Like this guy doesn't want to be here.   (Seth Bradley) (20:21.292) His output isn't what it should be. Like, he's got to go. mean, he's not the best employee. And as a business owner now, I have really good perspective of that and seeing that. And they were doing me a favor by being like, hey, your heart's not in it, it? And I'm like, no, it's not.   It's not. Yeah. The reality is for me, it's really hard to work. know, once you go part time, I mean, I knew I was casting a vote against my career progression there. So as soon as I went part time in 2015, I wasn't saying I'm in this for the long haul guys. This is this is my focus. You know, it's the writing's somewhat on the wall. Looking back, it's almost surprising. I lasted as long as I did. But so, yeah, haven't looked back and just loved love the entrepreneurial   you know, day to day and freedom that you alluded to and just the multiple streams of income and certainly has its challenges. I probably work harder now than ever than I ever have. But it's by choice. So I love it.   Exactly. Same here, man. mean, it's, you my days are long. I mean, I get up way before I used to get up when I had a 95. I worked past when I would have worked a 95 and definitely more hours. But when you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it because you're working towards something that you believe in, it doesn't feel like you're putting that much time in.   Definitely. I wake up early. A lot of days not on purpose is because I'm just excited to get cracking.   (Seth Bradley) (21:55.886) So, yeah. absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's kind of get into your current business. I know you mentioned that you focused on your strengths and your assets. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important. just say it's important to take an inventory of what your strengths are when you're kind of considering going into something else, because a lot of our listeners are attorneys, they're doctors, folks like that. They kind of feel like maybe they're pigeonholed, right? Like, well, if I'm not an attorney, what the hell else can I do?   Right. And like, I don't know anything about real estate investing or node investing or starting a business or anything like that. But if you really take a step back, you probably have a lot of skills that you've learned and honed in your career that you can use for something else moving forward. And that was that's what you were able to   to do. Definitely. And one thing I'd say is that, you know, one thing that's always comforting for me is nobody knows everything, right? So you can always find somebody who knows more than you in a certain area. You know, there's one quote about every man is my superior in something, right? So basically, it gives me a lot of comfort to know, like, just because an attorney listening to your show knows a   way more than I do about a particular topic and probably many, many other topics. That doesn't mean I'm less of a person or you know, I don't know more than that attorney does in another area. So it's okay, I'm never going to know everything. There are other people who've already figured it out. So you know, that's, that's always comforting to me is to when I say look to your strengths, it's also looking to the people in your network who know, it can help you get to where you want to go. So yeah, I mean,   So many things we take for granted that we do know. you know, example, when I started working at a title company, fresh out of college, because it was my first real job, and it paid, you know, a salary. I realized quickly how little I knew about title insurance settlements, you know, just just basic stuff. Now looking back, pretty basic stuff. But you don't know that unless you work for a title company, or you're heavily involved in this, you don't you're not.   (Jamie Bateman) (24:10.03) trained in that in school typically, right? So, you know, you forget and so your your listener out there, the attorney, the doctor, guarantee they have a lot of life experience, not just from their professional world, but just life experience that they shouldn't take for granted. And the fact that you can go through law school and then be, you know, be an effective attorney, or go through medical school and be an effective doctor, that that means you you can learn things, right? And so   Again, I'll go back to life as seasons. I mean, you've shown that in your own story, Seth, like, you know, it's a, doesn't mean just because I started a certain business doesn't mean that's going to be what I'm going to be doing for the next 20 years, or just because I'm an attorney now, it doesn't mean that's what I have to do for the rest of my life. So we always have options. mean, you might look back and wish you'd done something differently or something, but you only have one chance at this. And so,   you know, just make the most of it and just keep, think, keep learning constantly is critical. I just hired a business coach, we've had one call. But one of his mottos is, you know, one of his sayings is that he's always he's in permanent beta. So he's always changing, always improving, he's always growing. So I'm trying to trying to implement that as well.   (Seth Bradley) (25:40.64) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   Yeah, I love that permanent beta. I haven't heard that before, but I like that. I like that phrase. like that phrase. So tell me about your current business. Tell me about MortgageNode Investing. Start with the basics. What is it?   Yeah, so and, and I'll try to keep it, there's so much to it. But again, none of it is difficult. It's just a lot of moving parts and you've got to, you know, takes time to learn. We buy debt, so we buy a mortgage note, and that could be performing or non performing. The real high level version is, is a performing note is kind of like a long term buy and hold rental property.   but you're buying the debt and becoming the lender, becoming the bank, if you will. And so you're buying that performing note for cashflow. So I buy a performing note, the borrower now pays me through a loan servicer and I get monthly payments. So that's a great way to go. The problem with that is you can't really add value to that asset very well. You're kind of, it is what it is. And in fact, with mortgage notes, the value actually goes down over time, generally speaking, because   principal balance goes down. So it's just, it's worth less than, you know, then, you know, then it would then it was when you bought it. Then on the other side, the non performing side of things, we buy those as well. And those are more like a fix and flip property. So although we're still buying the debt, we're not buying the property. But there's a chance to add value, there's an opportunity to buy distressed asset and add value to that asset and then sell that that non performing note, either well,   (Jamie Bateman) (27:49.826) I should say sell that asset, whether that's as a re performing note, or as through the the real estate itself, there are a few different ways you can exit a non performing note deal. And but, but back to your kind of one of the themes thus far, one of the reasons I got into specifically that space was that I understood the real estate space. So I understood the single family, residential real estate space. So it wasn't a huge leap for me to go from   owning the property to now owning the debt on that property. Whereas it would have been a lot bigger leap for me to say, I to start buying distressed, you know, multifamily debt, which I know you could probably help me understand better. But at that, you know, it's like, incremental progress and change isn't that scary. So I kind of expanded my, you know, toolbox, if you will.   and got into the mortgage note space. So we have a couple of note funds. One is open currently and they're all for accredited investors. the income fund that's open pays a monthly, aims to pay a monthly preferred return. I know you and a lot of your listeners are attorneys, so I gotta hold the line here. And...   So the fund is structured to pay, to aim to pay a monthly return of 8%. It's not a, there's no growth in that fund. It's literally a cashflow play and diversification play. You're putting your capital in. We buy assets across the country. We've bought notes in probably 25 states at this point. And so the investment is diversified across geographic areas, across borrower types.   And we buy for a certain yield, we take a small management fee, and then we ideally pay the preferred return that we're aiming for to our investors.   (Seth Bradley) (29:56.686) Yeah, nice. 506c, you're able to talk about it. It's a credit investors only. Just want to that out there. yeah, I mean, so just going back to the basics a little bit and we'll get back into the fun. Like, how do you, how do you even find these things? mean, yeah, that's, how do you get started? How do you find these things?   So I mean, that is an ongoing challenge. I'm not going to lie to you. That's one of the things that truthfully a passive investor who doesn't have time to develop the network to go find these assets, they're just not going to have success. They might here and there, but it takes time. It's a word of mouth industry, just like real estate itself is. so we've built out a network of sellers and that could be   quite honestly, I've never had luck buying directly from banks. It's really either a larger Mortgage Note fund that's closing. So it might be a three year fund and then they've got to, they've got to liquidate, they've got to figure out how to sell off what to do with these assets. And so that's a great opportunity to buy is just a fund that's closing or somebody a note investor who's getting out of note investing or they've had a life change or something, you know, where   they just, there's an opportunity to buy from them as well. And so there are other, you know, I guess we buy from hedge funds, note investors, other note funds. There are also note brokers as well out there. There are also some online exchanges like paper stack and a couple of others that you can go and I've bought and sold on paper stack and other exchanges as well.   And you can find assets there. But at the end of the day, have our list of people that we work with regularly. And I would say one thing is that doing due diligence on a note seller is just as important as due diligence on the assets that they're selling. And so it's taken some work and it's a work in progress always. But it is the million dollar question is where do find these assets?   (Seth Bradley) (32:12.598) Yeah. So that's the hard part, right? Finding these assets is the hard part. Have you ever had to foreclose on any of these notes and actually acquire the property? And I guess a follow-up question is, do you ever look at a non-performing note like, hey, I actually want to own that property?   So, great questions. Yeah, great questions. To be clear, we're not trying to kick people, you know, grandma out on onto the street or anything like that. You know, that's not our goal typically. Well, that's never our goal. But we're never trying to kick someone out of their home. But the reality is, some people honestly need a little bit of a kick in the pants. And oftentimes, that's not really the best them staying in the house is not often   the best scenario for them. know that might sound harsh, but at end of the day, if someone can't afford to live somewhere, sometimes these people are living in squalor and they really need a change of environment. To answer your question about do we target the property? Yes, sometimes we do. In fact, we just closed on to, they're called heckum loans or reverse mortgages, where the borrowers are deceased. The property is underwater, meaning, you know,   the loan amount is higher, than the property value. And it should be a quick exit through the property. So HUD will sell off these big pools of reverse mortgages. And we were able to purchase two of them very recently. It's a vacant property, you're not doing an eviction, borrower is deceased, you've got to work through the heirs or foreclosure and exit the property that way.   If your listener wants to go to my website, I've got a really good Jacksonville blog post, I've got a couple of blog posts about this deal. I still hold this rental today. And it was a non performing note that we purchased a few years ago. And I had no intention of exiting through the property or holding, holding the property as a rental property, but running the numbers, it just was too good to, to let go. so long story, but we, we   (Jamie Bateman) (34:22.51) ended up doing a deed in lieu of foreclosure actually in this case and got the property back and now it's a long-term buy and hold property for my own rental portfolio.   Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. There's always multiple ways to look at an investment, right? But it does sound, you know, it's not something that I've executed on myself, but it sounds like this is an active business, right? And that's why you've put together an income fund for people that want to get involved passively. as everybody knows, there's active investments, there's passive investments. If you're to do something active.   Maybe your returns are going to be a little bit better, but you're going to give up a lot of time and effort to get those returns. So if you want to go the passive side, if you're still full-time in your career, you're a full-time doctor or lawyer or whatever you are, these passive investments are the way to go without having to know every single detail about a new business.   Yeah, and I don't know if you can see this, but I wear this specifically for your for this   There it is. There it is.   (Jamie Bateman) (35:29.272) Passive income. You're absolutely right. You know, these gurus, some of the some of the note investing gurus out there will try to sell, you know, notes as passive. We have another blog post that talks about just the it's a spectrum, there's active and passive on either end. But at end of the day, if you're going to note investing in my world is very, very active. And we have a non performing note fund that's considerably more active than the performing note fund. So   You're dealing with foreclosures, bankruptcies, deed and loo, tracking delinquent property taxes. Do I have to physically go anywhere? No, but it is not passive. But that's why we offer the passive investment for people who, like you said, have maybe more capital than time or energy, and they want to put that capital to work.   That's right. There are certain gurus out there that, know, whatever it is that they are pitching, they tend to always pitch it as passive, even though it is an active business, that's money. Whether that's a mortgage note or I mean, people will pitch Airbnb short term rentals as passive. They're like, well, you can delegate this and you can, you know, you can automate that and there's software for all these things. But you still got to put all that stuff together.   Mm-mm.   (Seth Bradley) (36:48.396) You've still got to monitor all those things. still got to oversee all these different aspects of a business. And that's what it is. It's a business that you're running and it's not passive. Like, it's not, it's not. And it is on a spectrum. Some things are more passive than others, but when you're investing in, you know, as a passive investor into some sort of a fund or syndication, that's really leaning really far into the passive side.   Absolutely, 100%. And I'm, as you are, Seth, I'm, I assume you are, I know you're an active investor, but I do have passive investments myself in other, other funds, other note funds, and, and my own, my own note funds as well. And so nothing wrong with doing both, but I would say you need to be careful about, you know, you got to make a decision at some point, do you want to scale this thing and make this really a business? Or do you do you are you satisfied with?   potentially a little bit lower return and you are giving up some control but much, you know, much fewer headaches and just a lot less work.   Right. Yeah. And a lot of, you know, lot of the listeners are high income earning professionals. So they've already dedicated, put a lot of time and effort into being able to earn this much money from their W2. And that's probably your best bet, to be honest with you. I've been there. I was in those shoes. You're probably better off putting your head down and like, let's grind for a few years. Let's not spend every single dollar that we make on all the new stuff on a new car every two years or every year.   in a bigger house that you don't need. Like, let's set aside some of that and invest it passively. And then maybe one of those will stick. Maybe one of those passive investments will be a mortgage no fund where you're like, man, I kind of like this business. I like the sound of it. I've learned about it. And then you start maybe progressing on the active side and maybe that takes over. And you want to get into that as a business, as an entrepreneur. But a great way to kind of dip your toe in the water is to become a passive investor. That's the way that I did it in the,   (Seth Bradley) (38:53.186) multifamily syndications. invested passively in a number of deals first and kind of learned about it, learned the ropes and I'm like, I can do this. And then that's when I made the transition.   Yeah, definitely. It really comes down to what your goals are and what your situation is, for sure. I'll say I was too passive initially when I went into notes, because personally, just don't... You were probably a little better student, Seth. Not that I was a bad student, I invest... Unless I'm actively investing, I'm just not going to learn a lot. So the reality is, yeah, it's fine to learn about the asset class. You definitely should learn about the operator for sure.   you're putting capital with them, but you're not going to once you're getting your checks and your disbursements, you're not going to probably learn a whole lot about how to do that on the active side. And so that's what we're here for.   Yeah, yeah, it's more of like a spark of an interest, right? Like maybe you already have that spark and then you invest passively. Then you're like, OK, well, now I'm invested. Like, let me learn about this. And you have to have to actively go out there and educate yourself and network and talk to people that are in the business.   Definitely, 100%.   (Seth Bradley) (40:01.71) Alright man, before we jump into the Freedom Four, you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.   Oh, I would say within when it comes to investing, you know, take the long term view. Don't chase immediate returns. You know, I do think just, yeah, it's certainly we all want to make a million dollars tomorrow. But I think it's it's a play the long game when it comes to investing. I think that's critical.   Love that man. All right, let's jump into the freedom form. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?   Yeah, I mean, one thing that I instituted this year, actually, is breathwork. And it's, you know, it's so it takes 10 minutes. And per day for me, at least. And it's been phenomenal. And it's something that quite honestly, as a, as a, you know, athlete back in the day, or even in the military, I would have scoffed at something like this, to be honest with you, because it's just, you know, it's not manly or whatever. And it's like, it is phenomenal. So breathwork,   I mean, I do other things for sure. But that's certainly this year, it's been a game changer for me. I just feel like it resets my central nervous system. It just gets me focused. And I know there are other physiological benefits that you can ask Dr. Andrew Huberman or somebody else about.   (Seth Bradley) (41:26.153) Cool. I'll have to look into that. actually have it. mean, obviously everybody talks about it's a hot topic. Yeah. I haven't gotten into it. I haven't gotten into that plus like the cold plunges and that sort of thing. Yeah. But I really want to want to   So I don't know how much you can cut this out if we don't have time, but I had a, I'm just going to be, be open about this. I just had a, you know, in late December, I got a viral infection, like a neurovirus. And then I had, I had a, what I think was a pretty severe panic attack and it was super scary. And so that's why I started doing this. And somebody on my team actually sent me a, I guess we'll call it an implement or a tool that   I use for the breath work. It's blue. There's a Bluetooth connection to your phone and it's pretty cool. So it's structured and back to that discipline, right? But yeah, so it's, there was a reason I started doing it and it's, it's so accessible in five to 10 minutes a day. You can start doing it. So I recommend. Cool.   Thanks for sharing that man. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?   I think just, you know, being afraid to, you know, that you have to be perfect, right? So I used to be an editor back in the day. And so many things would just not get done or not get completed within our team, our organization, because it had to be perfect. And it's like, I think as I've progressed into more of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and   (Jamie Bateman) (43:02.35) is just it's not a it's not an option anymore. So yeah, I think just taking action has kind of overcome that limiting belief of chasing perfection.   Yeah, I can agree with you there. Done not perfect. Yes. My background as an attorney, mean, we're paid to be perfect. We can't make mistakes, especially in contracts and the way that we write things. But when you make that transition over to being an entrepreneur, there's too much to do to be perfect. You just got to get it done. Good enough.   Absolutely. Good enough. You have to be willing to accept that for sure.   What's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?   I'll use the military here, which is where I learned kind of reverse backwards planning, reverse planning. literally just, and I'm not going to tell you I'm perfect at this, but, you know, think about what, create a vivid vision for your life in the next three to five years, pick it, pick three years out from today. And what do you want your life to look like? And then backwards plan. And now I'm not saying you need to plan every minute of every day, but   (Jamie Bateman) (44:20.876) you can be that will that will increase the urgency, sense of urgency in your life and the intentionality of every every hour and every day because you realize this is doable, but I got to take ownership of my current situation if I want this to be the reality in three years. So I would say, create a vivid vision and and kind of reverse or backwards plan to get there.   Perfect, perfect. Last but not least, House Passive Income made your life better.   Yeah, I mean, I think in multiple ways, but a big one that stands out is giving me, I guess we'll call it margin to take some more risks on the entrepreneurial side. And because I do have alternative sources of income, passive income, it's allowed me that kind of mental and financial bandwidth or margin to maybe invest in a company that even if it   doesn't go perfectly, or doesn't go well, it's not profitable, that's okay. I still have that cushion for me and my family. that's, yeah, it's a huge, it's been a huge factor in that regard.   Yeah, absolutely. Game changer, man. It just changes your mindset, changes your life in so many ways. Jamie, this has been incredible, dude. You've got so much great content to share in your brain, man. You got to get out there. know you've got an awesome podcast that I was on, Adversity to Abundance. Everybody should check that out. Other than that, Jamie, where else can people find out more about you? Yeah.   (Jamie Bateman) (45:54.924) Just two things I'll mention very quickly. Literally got my book delivered today, like an hour before I hopped on here. It's from adversity to abundance. It is based on the podcast. So I encourage your listener to check that out from adversity to abundance is the book that's out. then labradorlending.com, L A B R A D O R.com is where you can check us out.   All right, man. Awesome. I'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on, brother.   Thanks for having me, Seth. This has been great.   (Seth Bradley) (46:26.978) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Jamie Bateman's Links: https://x.com/batemanjames https://www.facebook.com/batemanjames https://www.threads.com/@batemanjames11?xmt=AQF0nwaIL6JD_GK94lbTvHphHOmWwlUyt3TkeHLav-vXU_E https://www.instagram.com/batemanjames11/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-bateman-5359a811/ https://labradorlending.com/about/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-adversity-to-abundance/id1618672867 https://open.spotify.com/show/7JjGWsKVzzEI8UwXP9GONZ https://www.youtube.com/@FromAdversity2AbundancePodcast

The Mercator projection, a map that's been around for over 450 years and which most people use, distorts size. It stretches land masses farther from the equator. It can make Greenland looks the same size as Africa, when in reality Africa is actually around 14 times bigger. Campaigners want schools, organisations and governments to use a different one - the Equal Earth map. And now the African Union, which represents all 55 states on the continent, has endorsed the “Correct the Map” campaign.The BBC's Makuochi Okafor explains some of the arguments for switching to a different map and also the wider implications of showing Africa as smaller than it really is.Moky Makura, from Africa No Filter, tells us what her organisation is hoping to achieve with the Correct the Map campaign. Plus Edwin Rijkaart, known to his YouTube subscribers as Geodiode tells us why we use the Mercator projection in the first place. Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld Email: whatintheworld@bbc.co.uk WhatsApp: +44 330 12 33 22 6 Presenter: Hannah Gelbart Producers: Benita Barden, Chelsea Coates and Abiona Boja Editor: Verity Wilde

Title: How to Quit Your W-2 and Never Look Back with Jamie Bateman Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Jamie, a military veteran turned real estate and mortgage note investor, who shares his story of transitioning from a W-2 career into entrepreneurship and financial freedom. Jamie discusses the phases of his life, including collegiate sports, military service, and a long stint at the Department of Defense before pivoting to real estate and eventually mortgage note investing. He emphasizes how discipline shaped his journey and how shifting mindset, focusing on strengths, and leveraging his network were key to taking ownership of his life and finances. Jamie also dives deep into the mortgage note investing space, explaining how performing and non-performing notes work, the active nature of the business, and how he now offers passive investment opportunities for accredited investors. He closes by highlighting the importance of planning with intention, overcoming perfectionism, and using passive income to create margin and freedom in life. Links to Watch and Subscribe:  https://youtu.be/nRyX8_YA9YI Bullet Point Highlights: Discipline builds freedom - Sports, military, and entrepreneurship all instilled the value of discipline, which Jamie says is critical for success and freedom. W-2 life wasn't the path - Jamie recognized through his commute and stagnant career trajectory that he didn't want to follow the traditional path, sparking his exit plan. Mindset shift was essential - He stopped consuming negative news and started focusing on education and his strengths to shift into entrepreneurship. Mortgage note investing explained - Performing notes offer cash flow while non-performing notes offer the chance to add value, akin to fix and flips. However, both are active businesses, not passive. Passive income fuels risk-taking - Creating passive income streams allowed Jamie to take entrepreneurial risks while maintaining financial security. Action beats perfection - As an entrepreneur, chasing perfection isn't practical. Done is better than perfect. Reverse planning drives clarity - Backwards planning from a vivid vision 3-5 years into the future increases urgency and helps set clear, intentional actions. Final advice - Start by investing passively to learn, and later you can decide whether to become active. Don't underestimate the transferable skills you already possess. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Jamie, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Thanks Seth, is awesome. I'm excited to be here and I'm hoping to add some value.   Absolutely, man. Third time's a charm. We've been trying to get this scheduled after I was on your show, which was fantastic. Had a really good time on that show and I think it turned out pretty good. I know we're going to deliver on this one as well.   Yeah, we're gonna try to try to I'll try to do as good a job as you did. So yeah, was that was a yeah, no, I that was a very, very good episode from adversity to abundance. highly recommend your your listeners check that one out to your episode on that show. So thanks for thanks for doing that.   (Seth Bradley) (01:20.086) Absolutely, man. You're an incredible interviewer. I've net, that's the only, I've been on dozens of podcasts and, you know, you pulled out a lot of things for me that I've, I've never talked about on the air. So it's pretty, pretty awesome. Pretty awesome show, man.   Appreciate that.   Cool man, well let's just jump right into your background man. What's your story? Take it back as far as you'd like to brother.   Yeah. Man, I'd like to think that life has phases. So I've had a few different phases in my life. I come from a large family. I'm the oldest of seven kids and we always had a competitive background as far as team sports and things like that. So I played lacrosse in college. That was always a foundational piece of my life and just kind of   think from there learned how to be a part of something bigger than myself and how to work toward a common goal with a with a team. So that's been something that's been a kind of a thread through my life and then got married and joined the military and actually joined the military technically before I got married, but seemed like I got married and then ran off and ran away from my wife. But it's not exactly what happened. But   (Jamie Bateman) (02:36.02) I joined the military, was an officer in the US Army. I did miss my first three wedding anniversaries through deployment and things like that. And again, it was a matter of trying to be plugged into something, you know, to serve and be a part of something bigger than myself and trying to add value like I think we all want to do. I've obviously glossed over a lot of details, but those were a couple of inflection points, I guess, if you will, like you like to talk about, I know.   And so my military career transitioned into a career with the Department of Defense as a civilian, and did 14 years as a civilian with DoD at Fort Meade. And the first half, so the first seven, for all you math wizards out there, was full time. And then the second half, the second seven years was part time. And that   seven years is when I was really building my businesses, which are largely real estate investing and mortgage note investing focus. So we can get into the details there. And then in 2022, I ended up quitting my job and now I have a few different small businesses that I run. And like you, Seth, I've got a lot of different things that I'm juggling and   You know, so, but yeah, I love talking about taking ownership of your financial situation and taking ownership of your life really. And I know that you and I have that in common. So yeah, that's a high level overview of my background.   Awesome, man. I appreciate that. There's a lot to unpack there. You know, going back to playing sports all the way up to the collegiate level, that's incredible. I always like to think even playing like popcorn or football back in the day, you need a way to instill discipline in yourself. And that's kind of the oldest memory I can think of where it was hard, right? Like it was like you've got a coach screaming at you.   (Seth Bradley) (04:38.134) Like back in the day, it's like, you know, they wouldn't give you water unless you like, you know, for like an hour, which I don't think they do that anymore now. But, you you had to earn that drink of water and all those sorts of things. But you you really learned what it's like to work hard and you really learned what discipline was all about. And I would say that and you can you can expand on this. But I would say that, you know, being in the military yourself, that takes it to a whole new level.   Right. It's like you got that from sports. You got that from the military.   Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously, they're very different in a lot of ways. But that is certainly a common theme is being disciplined. And people, people shy away from that word, because it just sounds like work or no fun and no flexibility. But I found that having discipline in your life ends up adding more freedom in a sense, because you kind of have your foundational pieces set in stone, you don't have to think about those. And so, yeah, regarding   team sports, it's really a matter of, you know, everyone doing their part, right. And so there's a level of individual discipline and, and then just, and then also just kind of putting the putting the group ahead of yourself. Obviously, you know, you want individual, there's nothing wrong with individual accolades. And I was certainly chasing, you know, those individual accolades. It's not something I shied away from, I was definitely was wrapped up in   trying to be an All-American and that kind of thing. And did get that a couple of times, you know, but at the end of the day, nobody really cares about that. And the way I viewed it was if I was doing my part, and I got those, you if I was scoring goals in lacrosse, as an example, that means I'm contributing to, you know, to the team, right. And so there's obviously a fine line there, but of going too far, either way. But yeah, that discipline is critical.   (Jamie Bateman) (06:36.73) you know, even it's certain I played at a high level in college and there was year round your training your your your into it. It was a division three school but it but the reality was we worked just as hard as any any D one program and yeah, it's it's a these are skills that have paid off and are absolutely transferable to the rest of life.   For sure. Yeah, I think you've got to get those intangible things. You've got to develop them somewhere along the way, whatever that is, if that's sports or the military or from your parents. mean, you can get it from different places, but you definitely need it. I mean, we're in different stages of our life at this point. talking about a lot. We talk about freedom and flexibility and fun to try to get away from kind of the W-2 mindset.   But in order to achieve freedom, flexibility and fun in a successful way, have to be disciplined to be able to get there. You had to have done something successfully to be able to get there or maybe what separates you from the guy living in a van down by the river. That guy has freedom and flexibility. I don't know about fun, maybe fun, but it's a different, obviously it's a different outcome.   Yeah, and I, I think I still need, you I still use a lot of discipline today. It's still, still required, but it's, I guess it's self imposed. And, you know, I just love, love having that flexibility and that freedom that comes along with being an entrepreneur. So yeah, it's been a central piece to my success for sure. But I still, I don't think it ever, you know, goes away. I just get to pick and choose what, you know, what discipline I want to   kind of enforce on myself, I guess. So yeah, absolutely. And as you said, the military was a huge part of that for me as well. I mean, that's a different kind of, different kind of discipline and different kind of teamwork and different, you know, if you lose the lacrosse game, okay, you lost the lacrosse game, but military the stakes are a little higher. So maybe certain things are more important attention to detail or critic is critical and   (Jamie Bateman) (08:53.73) But at the end of the day, it's, the same principles apply across both, I guess, sectors, if you will.   For sure. So let's dive into that transition. You started working kind of part-time there for seven years, so that seems like a transitional period. How were you able to progress from that W2? And what I've heard you say is call yourself a W2 quitter. I love that. How were you able to progress from a W2 person to a W2 quitter? What enabled you to do that and what that transition looked like?   I mean, you know, I do remember in 2015, probably a little bit maybe maybe say 2014. But I just you get, you know, I had a wife and two kids and I had the commute the long commute that I know a lot of people can identify with. So it just was Groundhog Day was the same thing over and over and over. And that's not me sitting here complaining about my family or having having the opportunity to work.   But after a while, it gets old. Let's just be real, right? So it's like you're sitting in traffic and I just, you start looking at, you know, I worked for the government and you look around and you say, who, okay, who's sort of ahead of me on this? Like you, like I think you probably mentioned on our, on your, your show and my, show, your episode, you look around to the people who are more kind of further along the path than you. You say, do you want to be that person? Is that the life you want? And man, I did not want that.   And it just just having that just super long term just you know, pot at the end of the rainbow, I guess, nothing driving me in the interim, man, it was it was just it was brutal. So I probably did a little woes me for a little bit there a little victim mentality for a bit. But then you start to realize, like, okay, if you don't take ownership of your own life, no one's going to right. So   (Jamie Bateman) (10:54.934) No one's going to come in and do this for you. So I'm not sure what truly, you know, created the change in my mindset, but my mindset absolutely started to change and it just made a shift. And I, and I stopped watching cable news. I stopped, just, you know, stop paying attention to all the things that I can't control. And I couldn't control back then and, and started saying, no, what do I have? What are my strengths? Who is in my, who's back to the team thing.   who's on my team, who's in my network that I can add value to and who can add value to me. So I started looking around and my father was a realtor for many years. My brother was a loan officer. We had one rental property at the time. I had worked at, I didn't mention, I worked at a title company and I worked for a mortgage broker before as well briefly. So I had this experience that a lot of people don't have and that's   you know, that doesn't mean I'm better than anyone. It just means these are my strengths. So let's point to that. And let's use that. So I started really being intentional about focusing on my strengths and my assets that I had in my life, right. And then another asset that I used to see as a liability was the time in the car. So I started listening to podcasts. you know, and then it turned into wait, I don't even want to go into work yet. Because this this podcast episode is amazing. And I'm learning so much.   know, bigger pockets and all the other real estate podcasts and different investing podcasts and started using that mental bandwidth instead of focusing on national media stories that I have zero influence over. Here's something that I can actually take action on. And so in mid 2015, I went part time and it just so happens that at   DoD is one of the few agencies in the in federal government where you can go part time and still keep your benefits. So I still had health insurance for my family. You know, most people don't have that option necessarily, but well, I did. So that's what I did. And, and, you know, that's, again, decided to decide to start building my my other streams of income outside of my W two.   (Jamie Bateman) (13:15.752) my circumstances been different if I was single, I probably would have just quit the whole thing, right? But I was able to have that kind of laddered approach, I guess, or tiered approach to kind of ripping off the bandaid.   Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. I love just the idea of taking ownership of your life, right? Like everybody has those moments where they're feeling sorry for themselves. But the successful people, they don't sit there and stay in that mindset. They move on. You're going to be there sometimes where you've got to get out of it. You got to say, OK, what can I control? What can I change? And you don't say you don't give other people the power to control.   you and your mindset and how you feel about your life. Right. Like that's that's that's the thing. Like if you you're constantly blaming someone else or saying this happened to me rather than what can I do to get myself out of it, then you're going to be stuck there forever. You're going to be absolutely going to be spinning your wheels forever. And a lot of that, I think, helps because you said you don't listen. You don't watch the news. I don't either. No, it's a waste of time. What control? What does that do for us? If I do watch it.   I literally do it for entertainment and you look at it as an entertain. I look at it like I'm watching. I look at it like this is funny. Like I can, you know what I mean? You kind of analyze it like, this is funny. This guy's saying this in a debate. Right. This guy's saying that it's not taking it as a news and this is how I should live my life because of what they're saying.   sports almost.   (Jamie Bateman) (14:43.341) Fact.   (Jamie Bateman) (14:48.078) Absolutely. And it's not to say that none of these topics are important, mean, global war, politics, poverty, global warming, whatever, it's all very important, but I have zero control over it, almost zero, right? And then the other thing is fear sells and that's what they're selling. And so it doesn't mean that every story is invented and it's all fake news, but it's   it just doesn't serve me. And so I'd rather focus on, you know, go ground up and kind of just, I see it in people, maybe older people in my own life now who maybe are retired and they watch the news all day. And it's like, they won't travel because they saw a news story that the airports are packed or something. And, you know, it's, I'm sure that story was, was accurate, right. But it, but the, but the news can filter out and you end up only focusing on   the negative really, and it just didn't serve me. yeah, during that lot, the second seven years, I was able to build out my wife and I were doing single family real estate investing and doing a lot of the BRRRR method that maybe some of your audience is familiar with. And so kind of putting that capital back into the rental property machine and expanding our portfolio. And then eventually last year, well, and   2018, made the pivot, I kept the rental properties, but made a pivot to also add on mortgage note investing. And that's been my primary focus as of late. And if you want, can tell the story quickly about how I actually quit my job in 2022. I think it's kind of a funny one.   Absolutely, let's do it.   (Jamie Bateman) (16:38.318) All right. So, I, so I, two years ago, I was playing badminton and, I'd been doing now, mind you, I used to be like tough, you know, athlete. And like I did, you know, did jujitsu for three years right up before this. And, know, I used to lift weights a lot and still do it here and there, but, you know, I think I'm tough. Right. And,   ruptured my Achilles playing badminton. So that's an ego blow to add on to the physical pain that you know, especially with the recovery. So rupture my Achilles a little over two years ago today and I was out of work, it was my right right foot. And the reason I bring this up is not for sympathy, but to say, you know, I couldn't drive for three months. So I actually, yeah, and I had tons of leave from from work and   By this time, I was tired, really tired of my, I was pretty much checked out. Like I think you, might've been at your, your big law job, but I was, I was checked out. mean, I wasn't the best employee at this point. And so I took as much leave as I, as I could, you know, reasonably right. And so, but couldn't drive. And so I was out for three months and I come back. So come back into work and I'd had discussions with my wife about, about leaving. was just a matter of, of when, not if.   That's right   (Jamie Bateman) (18:04.43) I can tell you truthfully, I had no idea that I was going to quit this day, but I came back in from having been out for three months. Mind you, no one gave me a call. No one from work, no one from my management gave me a call the entire three months I was out, other than to say, to ask me, are you vaccinated? Because you have to be vaccinated to be, to get inside the building. Now, I don't want this to turn into some controversial vaccine discussion.   or get your podcast banned from something but yes, I'd been vaccinated to answer the question. But no one asked me how's your how's your recovery going? Like how you what do you you know, how's your life? You know, what's it's just are you vaccinated, you need to get that shot before you come in? Okay, great. Thanks. I really feel welcome here. So I'm already just, you know, you know what, screw this place, right? Come back in and just   go to my desk, and this is this is an office space kind of thing where I go to my desk and there's some there's an Air Force kid at my desk and long story short, they kind of moved me somewhere else without telling me I can't find my desk, I finally find it, it's got a box with my name on it with, you know, monitors sideways and all and clearly not a functioning desk and, you know, office space. So I literally quit that day. And I just say that it's just like,   I knew 100 % I was done. My wife didn't know I quit, but I quit that day. Still worked for another month or two, but there was no question, zero question in my mind, I'm done with this place. So that was March of 2022. And ever since then, I've just focused on building out my businesses and having look back.   That's awesome. Sometimes you just know, right? Like sometimes it's done. You just knew. I love that story, man. For me, it was a little bit. You already know the story, but for me, it was a little bit more of someone else's decision. I got fired. mean, and you mentioned that, you you weren't the best employee at that point. Correct. I knew the same thing. And it's great to have awareness and perspective and kind of looking back now, you're like, I would have done the same thing. Like this guy doesn't want to be here.   (Seth Bradley) (20:21.292) His output isn't what it should be. Like, he's got to go. mean, he's not the best employee. And as a business owner now, I have really good perspective of that and seeing that. And they were doing me a favor by being like, hey, your heart's not in it, it? And I'm like, no, it's not.   It's not. Yeah. The reality is for me, it's really hard to work. know, once you go part time, I mean, I knew I was casting a vote against my career progression there. So as soon as I went part time in 2015, I wasn't saying I'm in this for the long haul guys. This is this is my focus. You know, it's the writing's somewhat on the wall. Looking back, it's almost surprising. I lasted as long as I did. But so, yeah, haven't looked back and just loved love the entrepreneurial   you know, day to day and freedom that you alluded to and just the multiple streams of income and certainly has its challenges. I probably work harder now than ever than I ever have. But it's by choice. So I love it.   Exactly. Same here, man. mean, it's, you my days are long. I mean, I get up way before I used to get up when I had a 95. I worked past when I would have worked a 95 and definitely more hours. But when you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it because you're working towards something that you believe in, it doesn't feel like you're putting that much time in.   Definitely. I wake up early. A lot of days not on purpose is because I'm just excited to get cracking.   (Seth Bradley) (21:55.886) So, yeah. absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's kind of get into your current business. I know you mentioned that you focused on your strengths and your assets. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important. just say it's important to take an inventory of what your strengths are when you're kind of considering going into something else, because a lot of our listeners are attorneys, they're doctors, folks like that. They kind of feel like maybe they're pigeonholed, right? Like, well, if I'm not an attorney, what the hell else can I do?   Right. And like, I don't know anything about real estate investing or node investing or starting a business or anything like that. But if you really take a step back, you probably have a lot of skills that you've learned and honed in your career that you can use for something else moving forward. And that was that's what you were able to   to do. Definitely. And one thing I'd say is that, you know, one thing that's always comforting for me is nobody knows everything, right? So you can always find somebody who knows more than you in a certain area. You know, there's one quote about every man is my superior in something, right? So basically, it gives me a lot of comfort to know, like, just because an attorney listening to your show knows a   way more than I do about a particular topic and probably many, many other topics. That doesn't mean I'm less of a person or you know, I don't know more than that attorney does in another area. So it's okay, I'm never going to know everything. There are other people who've already figured it out. So you know, that's, that's always comforting to me is to when I say look to your strengths, it's also looking to the people in your network who know, it can help you get to where you want to go. So yeah, I mean,   So many things we take for granted that we do know. you know, example, when I started working at a title company, fresh out of college, because it was my first real job, and it paid, you know, a salary. I realized quickly how little I knew about title insurance settlements, you know, just just basic stuff. Now looking back, pretty basic stuff. But you don't know that unless you work for a title company, or you're heavily involved in this, you don't you're not.   (Jamie Bateman) (24:10.03) trained in that in school typically, right? So, you know, you forget and so your your listener out there, the attorney, the doctor, guarantee they have a lot of life experience, not just from their professional world, but just life experience that they shouldn't take for granted. And the fact that you can go through law school and then be, you know, be an effective attorney, or go through medical school and be an effective doctor, that that means you you can learn things, right? And so   Again, I'll go back to life as seasons. I mean, you've shown that in your own story, Seth, like, you know, it's a, doesn't mean just because I started a certain business doesn't mean that's going to be what I'm going to be doing for the next 20 years, or just because I'm an attorney now, it doesn't mean that's what I have to do for the rest of my life. So we always have options. mean, you might look back and wish you'd done something differently or something, but you only have one chance at this. And so,   you know, just make the most of it and just keep, think, keep learning constantly is critical. I just hired a business coach, we've had one call. But one of his mottos is, you know, one of his sayings is that he's always he's in permanent beta. So he's always changing, always improving, he's always growing. So I'm trying to trying to implement that as well.   (Seth Bradley) (25:40.64) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   Yeah, I love that permanent beta. I haven't heard that before, but I like that. I like that phrase. like that phrase. So tell me about your current business. Tell me about MortgageNode Investing. Start with the basics. What is it?   Yeah, so and, and I'll try to keep it, there's so much to it. But again, none of it is difficult. It's just a lot of moving parts and you've got to, you know, takes time to learn. We buy debt, so we buy a mortgage note, and that could be performing or non performing. The real high level version is, is a performing note is kind of like a long term buy and hold rental property.   but you're buying the debt and becoming the lender, becoming the bank, if you will. And so you're buying that performing note for cashflow. So I buy a performing note, the borrower now pays me through a loan servicer and I get monthly payments. So that's a great way to go. The problem with that is you can't really add value to that asset very well. You're kind of, it is what it is. And in fact, with mortgage notes, the value actually goes down over time, generally speaking, because   principal balance goes down. So it's just, it's worth less than, you know, then, you know, then it would then it was when you bought it. Then on the other side, the non performing side of things, we buy those as well. And those are more like a fix and flip property. So although we're still buying the debt, we're not buying the property. But there's a chance to add value, there's an opportunity to buy distressed asset and add value to that asset and then sell that that non performing note, either well,   (Jamie Bateman) (27:49.826) I should say sell that asset, whether that's as a re performing note, or as through the the real estate itself, there are a few different ways you can exit a non performing note deal. And but, but back to your kind of one of the themes thus far, one of the reasons I got into specifically that space was that I understood the real estate space. So I understood the single family, residential real estate space. So it wasn't a huge leap for me to go from   owning the property to now owning the debt on that property. Whereas it would have been a lot bigger leap for me to say, I to start buying distressed, you know, multifamily debt, which I know you could probably help me understand better. But at that, you know, it's like, incremental progress and change isn't that scary. So I kind of expanded my, you know, toolbox, if you will.   and got into the mortgage note space. So we have a couple of note funds. One is open currently and they're all for accredited investors. the income fund that's open pays a monthly, aims to pay a monthly preferred return. I know you and a lot of your listeners are attorneys, so I gotta hold the line here. And...   So the fund is structured to pay, to aim to pay a monthly return of 8%. It's not a, there's no growth in that fund. It's literally a cashflow play and diversification play. You're putting your capital in. We buy assets across the country. We've bought notes in probably 25 states at this point. And so the investment is diversified across geographic areas, across borrower types.   And we buy for a certain yield, we take a small management fee, and then we ideally pay the preferred return that we're aiming for to our investors.   (Seth Bradley) (29:56.686) Yeah, nice. 506c, you're able to talk about it. It's a credit investors only. Just want to that out there. yeah, I mean, so just going back to the basics a little bit and we'll get back into the fun. Like, how do you, how do you even find these things? mean, yeah, that's, how do you get started? How do you find these things?   So I mean, that is an ongoing challenge. I'm not going to lie to you. That's one of the things that truthfully a passive investor who doesn't have time to develop the network to go find these assets, they're just not going to have success. They might here and there, but it takes time. It's a word of mouth industry, just like real estate itself is. so we've built out a network of sellers and that could be   quite honestly, I've never had luck buying directly from banks. It's really either a larger Mortgage Note fund that's closing. So it might be a three year fund and then they've got to, they've got to liquidate, they've got to figure out how to sell off what to do with these assets. And so that's a great opportunity to buy is just a fund that's closing or somebody a note investor who's getting out of note investing or they've had a life change or something, you know, where   they just, there's an opportunity to buy from them as well. And so there are other, you know, I guess we buy from hedge funds, note investors, other note funds. There are also note brokers as well out there. There are also some online exchanges like paper stack and a couple of others that you can go and I've bought and sold on paper stack and other exchanges as well.   And you can find assets there. But at the end of the day, have our list of people that we work with regularly. And I would say one thing is that doing due diligence on a note seller is just as important as due diligence on the assets that they're selling. And so it's taken some work and it's a work in progress always. But it is the million dollar question is where do find these assets?   (Seth Bradley) (32:12.598) Yeah. So that's the hard part, right? Finding these assets is the hard part. Have you ever had to foreclose on any of these notes and actually acquire the property? And I guess a follow-up question is, do you ever look at a non-performing note like, hey, I actually want to own that property?   So, great questions. Yeah, great questions. To be clear, we're not trying to kick people, you know, grandma out on onto the street or anything like that. You know, that's not our goal typically. Well, that's never our goal. But we're never trying to kick someone out of their home. But the reality is, some people honestly need a little bit of a kick in the pants. And oftentimes, that's not really the best them staying in the house is not often   the best scenario for them. know that might sound harsh, but at end of the day, if someone can't afford to live somewhere, sometimes these people are living in squalor and they really need a change of environment. To answer your question about do we target the property? Yes, sometimes we do. In fact, we just closed on to, they're called heckum loans or reverse mortgages, where the borrowers are deceased. The property is underwater, meaning, you know,   the loan amount is higher, than the property value. And it should be a quick exit through the property. So HUD will sell off these big pools of reverse mortgages. And we were able to purchase two of them very recently. It's a vacant property, you're not doing an eviction, borrower is deceased, you've got to work through the heirs or foreclosure and exit the property that way.   If your listener wants to go to my website, I've got a really good Jacksonville blog post, I've got a couple of blog posts about this deal. I still hold this rental today. And it was a non performing note that we purchased a few years ago. And I had no intention of exiting through the property or holding, holding the property as a rental property, but running the numbers, it just was too good to, to let go. so long story, but we, we   (Jamie Bateman) (34:22.51) ended up doing a deed in lieu of foreclosure actually in this case and got the property back and now it's a long-term buy and hold property for my own rental portfolio.   Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. There's always multiple ways to look at an investment, right? But it does sound, you know, it's not something that I've executed on myself, but it sounds like this is an active business, right? And that's why you've put together an income fund for people that want to get involved passively. as everybody knows, there's active investments, there's passive investments. If you're to do something active.   Maybe your returns are going to be a little bit better, but you're going to give up a lot of time and effort to get those returns. So if you want to go the passive side, if you're still full-time in your career, you're a full-time doctor or lawyer or whatever you are, these passive investments are the way to go without having to know every single detail about a new business.   Yeah, and I don't know if you can see this, but I wear this specifically for your for this   There it is. There it is.   (Jamie Bateman) (35:29.272) Passive income. You're absolutely right. You know, these gurus, some of the some of the note investing gurus out there will try to sell, you know, notes as passive. We have another blog post that talks about just the it's a spectrum, there's active and passive on either end. But at end of the day, if you're going to note investing in my world is very, very active. And we have a non performing note fund that's considerably more active than the performing note fund. So   You're dealing with foreclosures, bankruptcies, deed and loo, tracking delinquent property taxes. Do I have to physically go anywhere? No, but it is not passive. But that's why we offer the passive investment for people who, like you said, have maybe more capital than time or energy, and they want to put that capital to work.   That's right. There are certain gurus out there that, know, whatever it is that they are pitching, they tend to always pitch it as passive, even though it is an active business, that's money. Whether that's a mortgage note or I mean, people will pitch Airbnb short term rentals as passive. They're like, well, you can delegate this and you can, you know, you can automate that and there's software for all these things. But you still got to put all that stuff together.   Mm-mm.   (Seth Bradley) (36:48.396) You've still got to monitor all those things. still got to oversee all these different aspects of a business. And that's what it is. It's a business that you're running and it's not passive. Like, it's not, it's not. And it is on a spectrum. Some things are more passive than others, but when you're investing in, you know, as a passive investor into some sort of a fund or syndication, that's really leaning really far into the passive side.   Absolutely, 100%. And I'm, as you are, Seth, I'm, I assume you are, I know you're an active investor, but I do have passive investments myself in other, other funds, other note funds, and, and my own, my own note funds as well. And so nothing wrong with doing both, but I would say you need to be careful about, you know, you got to make a decision at some point, do you want to scale this thing and make this really a business? Or do you do you are you satisfied with?   potentially a little bit lower return and you are giving up some control but much, you know, much fewer headaches and just a lot less work.   Right. Yeah. And a lot of, you know, lot of the listeners are high income earning professionals. So they've already dedicated, put a lot of time and effort into being able to earn this much money from their W2. And that's probably your best bet, to be honest with you. I've been there. I was in those shoes. You're probably better off putting your head down and like, let's grind for a few years. Let's not spend every single dollar that we make on all the new stuff on a new car every two years or every year.   in a bigger house that you don't need. Like, let's set aside some of that and invest it passively. And then maybe one of those will stick. Maybe one of those passive investments will be a mortgage no fund where you're like, man, I kind of like this business. I like the sound of it. I've learned about it. And then you start maybe progressing on the active side and maybe that takes over. And you want to get into that as a business, as an entrepreneur. But a great way to kind of dip your toe in the water is to become a passive investor. That's the way that I did it in the,   (Seth Bradley) (38:53.186) multifamily syndications. invested passively in a number of deals first and kind of learned about it, learned the ropes and I'm like, I can do this. And then that's when I made the transition.   Yeah, definitely. It really comes down to what your goals are and what your situation is, for sure. I'll say I was too passive initially when I went into notes, because personally, just don't... You were probably a little better student, Seth. Not that I was a bad student, I invest... Unless I'm actively investing, I'm just not going to learn a lot. So the reality is, yeah, it's fine to learn about the asset class. You definitely should learn about the operator for sure.   you're putting capital with them, but you're not going to once you're getting your checks and your disbursements, you're not going to probably learn a whole lot about how to do that on the active side. And so that's what we're here for.   Yeah, yeah, it's more of like a spark of an interest, right? Like maybe you already have that spark and then you invest passively. Then you're like, OK, well, now I'm invested. Like, let me learn about this. And you have to have to actively go out there and educate yourself and network and talk to people that are in the business.   Definitely, 100%.   (Seth Bradley) (40:01.71) Alright man, before we jump into the Freedom Four, you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.   Oh, I would say within when it comes to investing, you know, take the long term view. Don't chase immediate returns. You know, I do think just, yeah, it's certainly we all want to make a million dollars tomorrow. But I think it's it's a play the long game when it comes to investing. I think that's critical.   Love that man. All right, let's jump into the freedom form. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?   Yeah, I mean, one thing that I instituted this year, actually, is breathwork. And it's, you know, it's so it takes 10 minutes. And per day for me, at least. And it's been phenomenal. And it's something that quite honestly, as a, as a, you know, athlete back in the day, or even in the military, I would have scoffed at something like this, to be honest with you, because it's just, you know, it's not manly or whatever. And it's like, it is phenomenal. So breathwork,   I mean, I do other things for sure. But that's certainly this year, it's been a game changer for me. I just feel like it resets my central nervous system. It just gets me focused. And I know there are other physiological benefits that you can ask Dr. Andrew Huberman or somebody else about.   (Seth Bradley) (41:26.153) Cool. I'll have to look into that. actually have it. mean, obviously everybody talks about it's a hot topic. Yeah. I haven't gotten into it. I haven't gotten into that plus like the cold plunges and that sort of thing. Yeah. But I really want to want to   So I don't know how much you can cut this out if we don't have time, but I had a, I'm just going to be, be open about this. I just had a, you know, in late December, I got a viral infection, like a neurovirus. And then I had, I had a, what I think was a pretty severe panic attack and it was super scary. And so that's why I started doing this. And somebody on my team actually sent me a, I guess we'll call it an implement or a tool that   I use for the breath work. It's blue. There's a Bluetooth connection to your phone and it's pretty cool. So it's structured and back to that discipline, right? But yeah, so it's, there was a reason I started doing it and it's, it's so accessible in five to 10 minutes a day. You can start doing it. So I recommend. Cool.   Thanks for sharing that man. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?   I think just, you know, being afraid to, you know, that you have to be perfect, right? So I used to be an editor back in the day. And so many things would just not get done or not get completed within our team, our organization, because it had to be perfect. And it's like, I think as I've progressed into more of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and   (Jamie Bateman) (43:02.35) is just it's not a it's not an option anymore. So yeah, I think just taking action has kind of overcome that limiting belief of chasing perfection.   Yeah, I can agree with you there. Done not perfect. Yes. My background as an attorney, mean, we're paid to be perfect. We can't make mistakes, especially in contracts and the way that we write things. But when you make that transition over to being an entrepreneur, there's too much to do to be perfect. You just got to get it done. Good enough.   Absolutely. Good enough. You have to be willing to accept that for sure.   What's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?   I'll use the military here, which is where I learned kind of reverse backwards planning, reverse planning. literally just, and I'm not going to tell you I'm perfect at this, but, you know, think about what, create a vivid vision for your life in the next three to five years, pick it, pick three years out from today. And what do you want your life to look like? And then backwards plan. And now I'm not saying you need to plan every minute of every day, but   (Jamie Bateman) (44:20.876) you can be that will that will increase the urgency, sense of urgency in your life and the intentionality of every every hour and every day because you realize this is doable, but I got to take ownership of my current situation if I want this to be the reality in three years. So I would say, create a vivid vision and and kind of reverse or backwards plan to get there.   Perfect, perfect. Last but not least, House Passive Income made your life better.   Yeah, I mean, I think in multiple ways, but a big one that stands out is giving me, I guess we'll call it margin to take some more risks on the entrepreneurial side. And because I do have alternative sources of income, passive income, it's allowed me that kind of mental and financial bandwidth or margin to maybe invest in a company that even if it   doesn't go perfectly, or doesn't go well, it's not profitable, that's okay. I still have that cushion for me and my family. that's, yeah, it's a huge, it's been a huge factor in that regard.   Yeah, absolutely. Game changer, man. It just changes your mindset, changes your life in so many ways. Jamie, this has been incredible, dude. You've got so much great content to share in your brain, man. You got to get out there. know you've got an awesome podcast that I was on, Adversity to Abundance. Everybody should check that out. Other than that, Jamie, where else can people find out more about you? Yeah.   (Jamie Bateman) (45:54.924) Just two things I'll mention very quickly. Literally got my book delivered today, like an hour before I hopped on here. It's from adversity to abundance. It is based on the podcast. So I encourage your listener to check that out from adversity to abundance is the book that's out. then labradorlending.com, L A B R A D O R.com is where you can check us out.   All right, man. Awesome. I'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on, brother.   Thanks for having me, Seth. This has been great.   (Seth Bradley) (46:26.978) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Jamie Bateman's Links: https://x.com/batemanjames https://www.facebook.com/batemanjames https://www.threads.com/@batemanjames11?xmt=AQF0nwaIL6JD_GK94lbTvHphHOmWwlUyt3TkeHLav-vXU_E https://www.instagram.com/batemanjames11/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-bateman-5359a811/ https://labradorlending.com/about/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-adversity-to-abundance/id1618672867 https://open.spotify.com/show/7JjGWsKVzzEI8UwXP9GONZ https://www.youtube.com/@FromAdversity2AbundancePodcast

Want To Quit Your Job In The Next 6-18 Months Through Buying Commercial Real Estate & Small Businesses?

There is an art to renegotiation based on the science of what's worked in the past. In this Self-Storage University podcast we're going to explore the best methods to get what you want when renegotiating a contract.

Samantha's New Toy.Based on a post by smalltitslovr, in 4 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Steamy Stories.of my thighs slide against each. I knew if Tristan didn't stop soon, I would have an entire other problem.Finally, Tristan stopped. He put the remote back on the bench, and stood up. "Well, I gotta head to class now," he said. "See you around, Samantha. Nice to meet you."I couldn't say anything, because I knew my voice would give away what I was feeling, so I simply nodded to him. Then he turned around and left.As soon as he was turned around, I grabbed the controller, and turned the knob all the way down, and finally, the buzzing stopped. As I caught my breath, I looked down. When Tristan was far enough away, I opened my legs a little, and assessed the situation.The denim material between my legs was completely soaked with my cunt juices. I was also now regretting choosing a pair of shorts that were so short. I could see the inside of my thighs were shiny.I started to wipe away what I could, but then I noticed some people approaching nearby. So, I grabbedA lesson on oral sex.Monday morning came, and it was time to go to ASE, once again. I got up, took a shower, then got dressed. Like usual, I knew it didn't really matter what I wore, because I would be naked in class anyhow. So, I pulled on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt, not bothering with underwear. Then I grabbed my bag, and headed to class.I was running a little late, so I was nearly last to arrive. When I entered, I was greeted by the lovely sight of 11 naked students, sitting, waiting for class to start. I quickly pulled my shirt off, and saw the other three missing students (Alex, Eric, and Sofia) had just arrived as well. We all stripped, and soon Ms. Sharon came in, naked as usual."Hello everyone," she said. "I hope you had a good weekend. Everyone, please get with your partners."A couple minutes later, and I was seated next to Alex and Tony. Everyone else was seated with their partner(s) as well."Good. As we learned in our last class, the human body reacts to various stimuli. We demonstrated and observed this with sex toys. Today, we'll take this a step further, and move on to oral intercourse. Who can tell me what oral sex is?"Nobody else seemed eager to speak up, so I raised my hand."Yes, Samantha.""Well, oral sex is when one person uses their mouth to pleasure someone else.""Correct. There are three basic types of oral sex. Arguably the most common (although there's no real way to prove it) is fellatio, also known as giving head, or a blow job, among other names. This is when a person uses their mouth to suck on a male's cock. Let's go ahead and practice that now."Although this can be performed by males, we won't be covering homosexual intercourse for a few more classes. So, I will ask that all the females in the class please perform this act on your partners. Samantha, please do this for both Alex and Tony. Everyone, take special note of how much length you can take in your mouth, and try to take as much as you can. Also, guys, please don't cum just yet. I'll give you time for that in a little while."Ms. Sharon then turned to John and Eric, and got on her knees. With no hesitation, she grabbed John's cock, and put her lips around it, sliding it deep inside her mouth.Looking away, I turned to Alex and Tony. "Alright," I said. "Who's first?"They looked at each other, and both raised their hands. I smiled, and down on my knees. I moved closer, until I was between Tony's legs, which he had opened wide for me. His cock was only slightly hard, but as soon as I grabbed it, it grew quickly.I hesitated at first, because I hadn't ever tasted a guy's cock before, so I started by licking the tip. It tasted a little salty, but not too bad. Then I slowly put my lips around the tip, and slid it across my tongue. Inch by inch, I took his manhood into my mouth, until I felt the tip push against the back of my throat.Remembering Ms. Sharon's words, I pushed it further, until I felt myself start to gag. I knew it was possible to take more, but I couldn't make myself do it. I stopped at about four inches. Then, I slid it back out. Before removing it, though, I felt Tony's hand on the back of my head. He gently pushed me back down, and I didn't resist. Soon, with Tony's guidance, I was bobbing my head up and down on his cock. I sped up, and kept sucking on him. I felt him start to throb in my mouth, and I knew he was close to cumming. I wasn't ready for that, so I pulled his cock out, and leaned back."Thank you, Samantha," he said. His cock throbbed up and down, but I didn't see any cum.After taking a moment to catch my breath, I turned to Alex. "Your turn." I said, smiling up at him.I moved forward, until my head was between his thighs. His cock was in his hand, and it appeared he had been jacking off while watching my performance with Tony. He aimed his cock at my face. With no hesitation this time, I opened my mouth, and graciously accepted it. It was smaller than Tony's, but I still couldn't quite take the whole thing on the first thrust. On the second one however, I stopped when it hit my throat, and realized there was only about half an inch left, so I pushed myself, and took the tip down my throat, until I felt my lips touch his balls. Then I pulled back out. He thrust into me a few more times, then pulled all the way out.I reached up and cleaned a little bit of drool and pre-cum from my lips, then got up and sat back in my chair. Looking around, it looked like I was last to finish, and everyone had been watching me."Excellent job, everyone," said Ms. Sharon, with a smile. "I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did."Now, the other type of oral sex is called cunnilingus; the act of orally pleasuring a woman. This is usually done by licking and sucking on the girl's labia, but can also involve sticking the tongue inside her. Guys, please practice this on your partners now."I turned back to the boys, and waited for their lead. They looked at each other and decided Alex should go first. As he moved closer, I leaned back, and spread my legs. He put his head down, and gave my cunt a long lick. Of course, by this time, I was very wet, so he got a good taste of my juices.Then he put his mouth in between my legs and started going at it. I lifted my legs up to give him a good angle. I noticed many of the girls around the room were in much the same position. Alex continued licking my cunt, then he sucked on my lips. After a few seconds of that, he pushed his tongue inside me, which felt amazing. Then he pulled his head away.Alex moved away, and Tony immediately took his place. There was only about 3 seconds between when Alex pulled his head away, and Tony put his lips on mine. I could immediately tell Tony had done this before. He immediately found my clit, and teased it with his tongue. Then he slowly slid his tongue down, until it was at my hole, and he started fucking me with it. I let my head fall back, and enjoyed it. He continued for about a minute, then pulled his head away.Once again, our group was last to finish, since there were three of us. Tony took his seat, then Ms. Sharon stood up."Good job, everyone," she said. "Now, there are many positions involving oral sex, but the one that comes up more than any other is the 69." She turned around and drew the number on the board. "It is named this, because the two bodies take this shape. One person lies down, and the other lies on top of them, facing the other way. What's unique about this position is it's one of the only ways that two partners can give and receive oral sex simultaneously."Now, I'd like each group to demonstrate this position. Guys lay on the floor on your back, and the girls will get on top of you."Alex laid down first. Once he was ready, I got on my knees, then straddled his face. He immediately started licking my cunt again. I let him go at it for a moment, enjoying it, and looked around.A few of the girls were facing the wrong direction, and couldn't figure out what they were doing wrong. Amy looked particularly perplexed, as she mounted her partner in a cowgirl position, with his cock pressed against her ass cheeks. I didn't get to see if she eventually figured it out, since I decided it was time to start sucking on Alex.I leaned forward, and I found that my mouth was at exactly the right spot to suck on his dick. So I did. As I sucked on him, he licked me and tongue-fucked me. After a good five minutes, Tony tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up, and realized I hadn't given him a turn yet. So, I got up, he laid down, and I took the same position again, but over Tony this time.Doing this position with Tony was much better, probably because I was already worked up. Also, his cock was bigger and tasted better. While I sucked on Tony, he ate me out, and it was amazing.After too short a time, I heard Ms. Sharon's say, "Alright everyone. That's enough. Please return to your seats."I reluctantly took Tony's cock out of my mouth, and stood up. A few moments later, we were all back in our seats."Excellent work everyone," Ms. Sharon said. "Now, I only have one activity left, and then you may all leave. But before we begin, I have a few things to say, in regards to future activities and assignments."First off, today will be our last class that does not involve full-on intercourse. That means that if you have not already lost your virginity, and would like to do so in your own way, I would advise you to do so before the next class."Secondly, beginning today, you will have a homework assignment given at the end of each class, based on that day's topic. A few guidelines for all of these assignments:"1. You must complete each assignment outside of class. Any activities in class may not be used for homework assignments."2. Each assignment will be graded simply upon completion. If you do the given activity, you get full credit. If you don't do it, you get a zero."3. Since I will not be there when you complete the assignment, you are required to submit proof of each assignment, in the form of photographs or videos."4. I will drop one homework grade. That means you have the choice to not complete any one assignment. Beyond that, if you don't complete the assignment, you get a zero. However, there will be many opportunities for extra credit, so if you feel uncomfortable doing more than one assignment, you may make up some of the points by complete additional tasks in other assignments."5. Most of the assignments will require someone else's participation. You may partner with any of your classmates, but only for one assignment each. So, if you complete this first assignment with one person, you may not complete a later one with that same person. You also have the option of completing the assignments with people outside of class, but you must get their written consent. I have forms for that in my office."Any questions about the homework?" Nobody raised their hands. "Alright. One last thing: there will be a final project for this class, but you don't need to worry about the details of that right now. I will explain it in the last few weeks of class."Alright, now on to today's final activity. First, we need to move all the chairs to the sides, so we have ample floor space." We moved chairs around, and soon we were all standing in the middle of the room. "Excellent. Now, everyone form a circle, with your group, with the girl on the left. Because the numbers don't quite work out, I'll ask that Tony and Eric sit outside the circle. In a little bit, you can switch with Alex and John."We took a few minutes to do this, but soon we were in a large circle. On my right was Alex, and to my left was Roberto."Alright, now I've looked for a name for what this is called, and the best I could find is a daisy chain. Everyone lie on the ground. Guys lie on your back, and girls on your knees. Your face should be between the legs of the person to your left. When you are in position, go ahead and start pleasuring your partner."Soon, we were all in position. I started sucking on Roberto's cock, and was slightly surprised when I felt Alex's mouth make contact with my cunt. We all sucked and licked each other, which caused many noises, including slurps and moans of pleasure.After a few minutes, Ms. Sharon had Tony and Alex (and Eric and John) switch places, so Tony was now sucking on my labia, while Alex watched. He took it upon himself to jack off.A few minutes more, and Ms. Sharon had us turn around. So now, I was sucking on Tony, and Roberto was fucking me with his tongue. She also said we were welcome to cum whenever we were ready, but we were to continue the daisy chain until she said to stop.Latoya was on the other side of Tony, being pleasured by him. Apparently she had done a good job before we turned around, because it didn't take long for Tony released his load. I felt a large spurt of cum shoot into the back of my throat. Since I wasn't expecting it yet, I gagged a little, but I followed Ms. Sharon's rule, and did not remove my mouth.For the next few minutes the room filled with the sounds of grunts and moans, as many of the guys, and a few of the girls came. Ms. Sharon had Tony get up and switch with Alex again. While they were switching, I swallowed Tony's load. I only had a few seconds to catch my breath, then Alex's cock was in my mouth again.The entire time, Roberto was slowly but surely bringing me closer to my orgasm, and it finally happened shortly after I started sucking on Alex. I moaned a little, then more, and finally I came hard, pushing my pelvis into Roberto's face, and my mouth further onto Alex's cock. It felt amazing! I hadn't cum in a few days, so this was a long time coming.I continued to moan through the whole thing, which must have felt good for Alex, because shortly after I started, he followed my lead. I felt his large load of cum fill my mouth. It was more cum than Tony had released. As soon as I felt he was done, I swallowed it all.We had both finished cumming, but we didn't stop pleasuring each other, or our partners. It appeared Ms. Sharon was waiting for each person to cum. A few minutes later, the last person (Barbara) had cum, and Ms. Sharon told us all we could stand up, and return to our seats.When we were all seated, she asked, "Did everyone enjoy that?" I looked around, and saw many nods, and more smiles. "Good. Now, that's all I had planned for today, but I need to give you your homework assignment."By the next class period, you must give oral sex to one person, and receive oral sex from a different person. I don't have any preference over whether your partners are the same sex or different. Remember, you may do your assignment with your classmates, but that counts them out for future assignments. Also, don't forget to get proof of the encounters."Everyone have a good day, and I'll see you next class period."With that we were dismissed. We all stood, got dressed, and walked out. On the way out, I started talking with Nicole. After a bit of discussion about the class, she said she was going to a dining hall, and asked if I wanted to join her."Nah, I'm not really hungry," I said, with a smile. She laughed, and we parted ways.On my walk back to my dorm room, I thought about the day's experience. Three guys had sucked on my cunt lips, fucked me with their tongues, and licked my clit. In exchange, I had sucked on each of their cocks, and swallowed two loads of cum. Quite an eventful morning.I also thought about who I'd complete the assignment with. After a little thought, I pulled my phone out and texted Nicole and asked her if she wanted to get her food to go, and join me in my room. Then I texted Alex as well.Suffice to say, the remainder of my day was fun. ;)Vaginal Intercourse."Hello again, class," Ms. Sharon said as she entered the classroom. "Long time, no see."We were all seated, and ready to learn. And by that, I mean we were naked, and horny. Last class, the teacher had alluded to what we'd be doing this class period. She had made a point to tell everyone that if they cared to lose their virginity outside of class, to do it before today, because it would involve intercourse.This wasn't a problem for me. I had lost mine to a good friend of mine in high school. I looked around and wondered if anyone else in the room was thinking about their first time too.I pulled myself away from that line of thought, and noticed I was already starting to get a little wet, just thinking about it. But it wasn't just the thought of my first time that had me excited. All around the room there were cushions on the floor. I could only assume what they were for, but I had a pretty good idea.Ms. Sharon took her spot at the front of the classroom, and put her bag down, turning to the class. "Alright, class. Today, we're in for a great time. I've already received everyone's homework from last class, either via my email or my drop box, so we'll jump straight into today's material. I'm going to need a male and female volunteer."She looked around at everyone, waiting for someone to raise their hand, but nobody did. I could tell everyone was excited about what was going to happen. I could visibly see it in some of the guys' laps. But I guess nobody wanted to be the first to go. Ms. Sharon sighed, and said, "Alright, then I'll have to resort back to the bag of volunteers"I had completely forgotten about the bag of volunteers. Back in the anatomy class, Ms. Sharon had created two bags with males and females, and said she'd use it if nobody volunteered for something. Those names that were removed from the bag would not be returned until everyone had been picked."If you all remember, the only two names we've removed from the bag have been Nicole and Filipe. In our toys class, all the girls got a chance to demonstrate one of the toys, including Nicole, so I won't be removing any new names from the girls bag. From the guy's bag, however, I've already taken the liberty of removing Tony's name, since he demoed the fleshlight, and none of the other guys demoed."So, first a girl." She reached her hand into one of the bags, and I felt my heart start pumping with anticipation. Would it be my name she picked? If it was, what would she ask me to do? She pulled out a piece of paper, and unfolded it. "Sofia, please come up here."I felt a little relieved, and a little disappointed. I looked over and saw the cute Latina girl lean her head forward in mock-defeat. Then she stood up, smiled, and walk to the front of the class. Her mid-sized tits, and beautiful ass jiggled the whole way.Ms. Sharon reached into the other bag and said, "And your lucky mate is; Kent!".The white boy practically jumped up out of his seat with excitement, which caused everyone else to laugh. Then he calmed himself down and walked to the front. His cock wasn't quite erect, but it definitely wasn't limp. I watched it sway back and forth as he walked past me."Alright, you two. You will be demonstrating sexual intercourse. I know you two probably already know what to do, but I'm going to walk you and your classmates through it anyways, just in case."Before we begin, we should discuss a few important things. Firstly, before you have sex with anyone, you should ask them if they have any STDs. It can be an awkward conversation, but it's better to be safe than sorry. A few weeks back, I assigned all of you the task of getting yourselves checked for STDs. All of you have completed that task, and turned in the medical report to me, and I'm happy to say that you are all clean."The other important thing to be sure of before having sex, is that you don't get pregnant. This is always a risk when having sex, but it can be mitigated by using condoms or birth control. Before today's class, I have asked all of the girls to get a prescription for birth control and start on it. Has anyone not done that?"Nobody raised their hands."Good. Since all of you are clean, and all of the girls are on birth control, the use of condoms is optional in class. However, if either partner would like to use them anyways, that is your choice. Either way, I would like to take a minute to demonstrate how to put one on, for your future reference."She reached into her bag, and pulled out a wrapped condom, and handed it to Sofia."In high school level sex-ed classes, they typically demonstrate this using a banana. Personally, I think the analogy is crude, but for under-age students I guess it suffices. However, in this class, we have a little more liberty, so we can demonstrate by putting it on a real live cock. Sofia, I will ask that you put this on Kent for me." Sofia took the condom, and stared at it, a little dumbstruck. Ms. Sharon waited a moment, but when Sofia didn't do anything, she suggested, "Maybe you should start by getting him hard."Sofia reached over and grabbed Kent's shaft and started stroking it. She was a little timid, but she knew what to do from previous classes. It seemed more like she had stage-fright than anything else. He was already semi-hard, and Sofia seemed to be good at hand-jobs, so it only took a moment for him to get fully erect."Good," said Ms. Sharon, when she was satisfied with the hardness of his cock. "Now, tear the condom wrapper open. Take care not to damage the condom." Sofia did as she was told, pulling the condom from the wrapper. "Great. Now, place it over the tip of Kent's penis, and roll it down." She did, and the rubber covered Kent's cock."Great. Now, do either of you want to leave that on?" Neither of them spoke up. "Alright, I'll take that as a no, so you can take it back off, Sofia." She pulled the condom off, and threw it away in a nearby trash can."Alright," said Ms. Sharon. "Now on to the good stuff. There are many positions you can have sex in, and in a later class we'll be covering many more, but today we're only going to demo one: the reverse cowgirl. I picked it because it's great for showing the penetration to an audience, which will be a perfect way for me to explain what is going on. So, Kent, please lie down on the table, with your legs pointing towards your classmates."Kent lied down, and his cock pointed straight up in the air."Perfect. Alright, now Sofia, you're going to get on top of the table, and straddle Kent, also facing your classmates. I'll help you get up there."Ms. Sharon pulled over an empty chair, and took Sofia's hand. Sofia stepped onto the chair, then the table, using Ms. Sharon's hand for balance. Sofia put her left foot over Kent, then lowered herself down to her knees, straddling Kent, with her cunt over his belly button."Great, Sofia," Ms. Sharon said. "Now, I want you to move forward until your cunt is right next to his cock." She slid forward a few inches, until Kent's cock was resting against her pelvis. From this position, I got a clear view of how deep he would go inside her. It was a good 5 inches at least."Good," Ms. Sharon continued, "Now we need to make sure you are both ready. For Kent, that means his cock should be hard. For you, Sofia, that means your cunt should be wet, and ready to take in Kent's cock. Let me check and make sure you two are ready."Ms. Sharon first grabbed Kent's cock. She stroked it a couple times, before smiling and saying, "That's great, Kent. You're cock is very hard." Then she slid her hand between Sofia's legs, and rubbed her cunt a little. "Sofia, your cunt is still a little dry. Kent, can you help me fix that? Just reach between her legs, and rub her cunt."Ms. Sharon left her hand there, and Kent reached around Sofia's body and added his. They both rubbed Sofia's cunt. I couldn't tell from where I was sitting, but after a little bit, it looked like Ms. Sharon stuck a finger or two inside Sofia.Finally, after a few minutes, Ms. Sharon pulled her hand out, Kent followed her lead, and Ms. Sharon said, "Alright. I think you're ready, Sofia. Whenever you're ready, you can start."I watched as Sofia did as she was told. She lifted herself up a little bit, and grabbed Kent's cock, lining it up with her entrance. Then she let herself slide down onto him. She let out a small sigh as Kent's cock impaled her. Then, without being asked, she started hopping up and down, and I saw his cock slide in and out of her, as her tits bounced up and down."Great, Sofia," said Ms. Sharon. "That's exactly right. Now Kent, in this position, you have a perfect angle to reach around and grab Sofia's tits. I'm sure she'd love it if you did that."Sofia smiled at the suggestion, and leaned back a little. Kent did as he was told, and reached around her body. He grabbed a hold of Sofia's large breasts and they stopped bouncing. Sofia kept fucking Kent, as he squeezed her tits, with her nipples between his index and middle fingers.The reverse cowgirl position was a great way for us to all see what was going on, but it also had a downside. After Sofia leaned back, a few thrusts later, and Kent's cock popped out of her. Ms. Sharon saw it happen, and without saying anything, she stepped forward, grabbed Kent's cock, and aimed it back at Sofia's cunt, and they were immediately back at it again.Ms. Sharon watched Sofia and Kent fuck for a few more seconds before turning to the class. "Alright, everyone. Take a good look. This is called vaginal penetration. It occurs when a man's penis enters a woman's vagina. It goes by many other names, such as sex, making love, fucking, intercourse, and many more. Call it what you will, but in my opinion, it's one of the most beautiful things in the world. Notice the look on both of their faces. They are enjoying every moment of this. And you can see Sofia's fluids running down Kent's cock. It's amazing."We all watched them continue for another minute or so. Ms. Sharon helped put Kent's cock back in Sofia a few times. Eventually, Ms. Sharon continued on to the next part of the class."Great. You two keep going," she said, as she turned back to the class. "Now, I want the rest of you to get with your partners and practice this. You can do it in whatever position you prefer, just as long as it involves vaginal intercourse. Darrell and Nicole, since your partners are occupied, you can partner with each other. John and Eric, get with other pairs today. I'm going to be going around and making sure everyone is doing it correctly, and helping anyone who has trouble. If anyone would like to use a condom, there's a pile of them here on my desk. Whenever each of you has an orgasm, you are free to leave. Just make sure you pick up a sheet from my desk detailing your homework assignment, which is due by the next class."There was a bit of a commotion in the room as everyone got up and moved to be with their partners. Tony and Alex came over to me. Surprisingly, they were both looking me in the eye, even though all three of us were completely naked, and about to get it on. I guess that's just how comfortable we were with each other."You ready for this?" Tony asked."Of course!" I said with a smile."Do you want to use a condom?" he asked. I shook my head. I was on the pill, so I had nothing to worry about. Plus, I much prefer going bareback. Skin on skin contact just feels better.Tony got down on a nearby cushion, and layed on his back, putting his hands behind his head. He was going to let me do all the work here. I was fine with that. It gave me more control. So, I got down on my knees, and straddled his thighs, facing his chest. Like a magnet, his hands were instantly on my tits.Ms. Sharon came over to us first. "Alright Samantha, scoot forward a little, and reach between your legs and find Tony's cock, and guide it in." I did, and it took me a moment, but I soon had my hand wrapped around his cock, which was rock hard. I pointed it at my cunt, and sat down. I couldn't help but let out a moan as I felt it slide deep inside me. I looked down and saw a smile on Tony's face.Ms. Sharon was behind me, watching Tony's cock as it slid inside. "Excellent! Now, enjoy the ride!" She stood and walked over to the next group.As I fucked Tony, I watched Ms. Sharon go around to the other groups. She mostly watched, but she gave a few tips here and there. Things like "try raising yourself a little higher" and "grab her tits". A couple groups had a bit of trouble getting started, so she lent a helping hand, getting the girl wet, or guiding the guy's cock into the girl's cunt.After about 10 minutes, Tony told me he was about to cum. Before I could even react, I felt a warmth inside me. I looked down, and saw his cum dripping out of my cunt. I smiled at him, and continued riding until he was spent, then got off and stood up. I felt the cum dripping down my inner thigh, but didn't pay it much mind."Alright, Alex, you ready?" I asked him. He nodded. "Condom?" He shook his head. Excellent.This time, it was my turn to be on bottom. I laid down on my back, and I immediately spread my legs as wide as they could go, showing my bald cunt to everyone who cared to look, which actually wasn't too many people. Almost everyone was preoccupied with their partners. Of course Alex and Tony looked, and I watched their faces as I felt Tony's cum drip out of me.Alex pulled himself out his trance, and knelt down between my legs. He lined his cock up with my hole, and pressed. It immediately slid in, since I was thoroughly lubricated. As he entered me, my moans joined the many others in the room.As my second partner fucked me, I laid my head back and enjoyed it, looking around at my other classmates. There was sex happening all around me. A few feet to my left, Latoya was riding Ken. On the other side of me, I saw Nicole on her knees, with Darrell behind her, thrusting. I looked towards the front of the classroom, and saw that Sofia and Kent were gone. They must have finished and left.As Alex fucked me, the number of people in the classroom dwindled. Each pair would finish, lay there for a bit, watching everyone else, get dressed, grab a homework sheet, and leave.After about 10 very amazing minutes, Alex whispered to me that he was close. I smiled and whispered back, "fill me up." He must have liked that because I immediately felt him unload into me. His thrusts slowed, and then he pulled out. I felt a whole new batch of cum drip out of me. I laid there a moment. I thought about finishing myself then and there, but that wasn't the focus of that day's activity, and the class period was almost over, so I figured I'd wait until later.Instead, I stood up. I looked around and saw that a few couples were still going at it, but almost everyone was gone. I walked over to my bag, and grabbed the outfit I was wearing earlier, which was just a gray, striped dress, and pulled it over my head. Then I went to the front and grabbed a homework sheet, put it in my bag, and left for home.On the way, I read the homework assignment sheet. It said: "Have vaginal sex with at least 3 different people. Try as many positions as you can. We'll be demoing them in a future class. Be sure to bring photographic proof of the assignment."If you're interested in extra credit, you will receive extra points if you participate in a threesome (or more), which involves double penetration (aka: two guys inserted into one girl at the same time)"Reading the assignment immediately got me wet again, and I couldn't help but rush up to my dorm room. Before the door was even closed, I was stripping out of the dress, and getting on my bed. I fingered myself, trying to cum for what seemed like hours, but was probably more like minutes, before giving up. It was no use. I needed some cock.Now was as good a time as any to finish my homework, so I grabbed my phone, and started thinking about who I wanted to study with.Based on a post by smalltitslovr for Literotica.

Samantha's New Toy.Based on a post by smalltitslovr, in 4 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Steamy Stories.of my thighs slide against each. I knew if Tristan didn't stop soon, I would have an entire other problem.Finally, Tristan stopped. He put the remote back on the bench, and stood up. "Well, I gotta head to class now," he said. "See you around, Samantha. Nice to meet you."I couldn't say anything, because I knew my voice would give away what I was feeling, so I simply nodded to him. Then he turned around and left.As soon as he was turned around, I grabbed the controller, and turned the knob all the way down, and finally, the buzzing stopped. As I caught my breath, I looked down. When Tristan was far enough away, I opened my legs a little, and assessed the situation.The denim material between my legs was completely soaked with my cunt juices. I was also now regretting choosing a pair of shorts that were so short. I could see the inside of my thighs were shiny.I started to wipe away what I could, but then I noticed some people approaching nearby. So, I grabbedA lesson on oral sex.Monday morning came, and it was time to go to ASE, once again. I got up, took a shower, then got dressed. Like usual, I knew it didn't really matter what I wore, because I would be naked in class anyhow. So, I pulled on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt, not bothering with underwear. Then I grabbed my bag, and headed to class.I was running a little late, so I was nearly last to arrive. When I entered, I was greeted by the lovely sight of 11 naked students, sitting, waiting for class to start. I quickly pulled my shirt off, and saw the other three missing students (Alex, Eric, and Sofia) had just arrived as well. We all stripped, and soon Ms. Sharon came in, naked as usual."Hello everyone," she said. "I hope you had a good weekend. Everyone, please get with your partners."A couple minutes later, and I was seated next to Alex and Tony. Everyone else was seated with their partner(s) as well."Good. As we learned in our last class, the human body reacts to various stimuli. We demonstrated and observed this with sex toys. Today, we'll take this a step further, and move on to oral intercourse. Who can tell me what oral sex is?"Nobody else seemed eager to speak up, so I raised my hand."Yes, Samantha.""Well, oral sex is when one person uses their mouth to pleasure someone else.""Correct. There are three basic types of oral sex. Arguably the most common (although there's no real way to prove it) is fellatio, also known as giving head, or a blow job, among other names. This is when a person uses their mouth to suck on a male's cock. Let's go ahead and practice that now."Although this can be performed by males, we won't be covering homosexual intercourse for a few more classes. So, I will ask that all the females in the class please perform this act on your partners. Samantha, please do this for both Alex and Tony. Everyone, take special note of how much length you can take in your mouth, and try to take as much as you can. Also, guys, please don't cum just yet. I'll give you time for that in a little while."Ms. Sharon then turned to John and Eric, and got on her knees. With no hesitation, she grabbed John's cock, and put her lips around it, sliding it deep inside her mouth.Looking away, I turned to Alex and Tony. "Alright," I said. "Who's first?"They looked at each other, and both raised their hands. I smiled, and down on my knees. I moved closer, until I was between Tony's legs, which he had opened wide for me. His cock was only slightly hard, but as soon as I grabbed it, it grew quickly.I hesitated at first, because I hadn't ever tasted a guy's cock before, so I started by licking the tip. It tasted a little salty, but not too bad. Then I slowly put my lips around the tip, and slid it across my tongue. Inch by inch, I took his manhood into my mouth, until I felt the tip push against the back of my throat.Remembering Ms. Sharon's words, I pushed it further, until I felt myself start to gag. I knew it was possible to take more, but I couldn't make myself do it. I stopped at about four inches. Then, I slid it back out. Before removing it, though, I felt Tony's hand on the back of my head. He gently pushed me back down, and I didn't resist. Soon, with Tony's guidance, I was bobbing my head up and down on his cock. I sped up, and kept sucking on him. I felt him start to throb in my mouth, and I knew he was close to cumming. I wasn't ready for that, so I pulled his cock out, and leaned back."Thank you, Samantha," he said. His cock throbbed up and down, but I didn't see any cum.After taking a moment to catch my breath, I turned to Alex. "Your turn." I said, smiling up at him.I moved forward, until my head was between his thighs. His cock was in his hand, and it appeared he had been jacking off while watching my performance with Tony. He aimed his cock at my face. With no hesitation this time, I opened my mouth, and graciously accepted it. It was smaller than Tony's, but I still couldn't quite take the whole thing on the first thrust. On the second one however, I stopped when it hit my throat, and realized there was only about half an inch left, so I pushed myself, and took the tip down my throat, until I felt my lips touch his balls. Then I pulled back out. He thrust into me a few more times, then pulled all the way out.I reached up and cleaned a little bit of drool and pre-cum from my lips, then got up and sat back in my chair. Looking around, it looked like I was last to finish, and everyone had been watching me."Excellent job, everyone," said Ms. Sharon, with a smile. "I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did."Now, the other type of oral sex is called cunnilingus; the act of orally pleasuring a woman. This is usually done by licking and sucking on the girl's labia, but can also involve sticking the tongue inside her. Guys, please practice this on your partners now."I turned back to the boys, and waited for their lead. They looked at each other and decided Alex should go first. As he moved closer, I leaned back, and spread my legs. He put his head down, and gave my cunt a long lick. Of course, by this time, I was very wet, so he got a good taste of my juices.Then he put his mouth in between my legs and started going at it. I lifted my legs up to give him a good angle. I noticed many of the girls around the room were in much the same position. Alex continued licking my cunt, then he sucked on my lips. After a few seconds of that, he pushed his tongue inside me, which felt amazing. Then he pulled his head away.Alex moved away, and Tony immediately took his place. There was only about 3 seconds between when Alex pulled his head away, and Tony put his lips on mine. I could immediately tell Tony had done this before. He immediately found my clit, and teased it with his tongue. Then he slowly slid his tongue down, until it was at my hole, and he started fucking me with it. I let my head fall back, and enjoyed it. He continued for about a minute, then pulled his head away.Once again, our group was last to finish, since there were three of us. Tony took his seat, then Ms. Sharon stood up."Good job, everyone," she said. "Now, there are many positions involving oral sex, but the one that comes up more than any other is the 69." She turned around and drew the number on the board. "It is named this, because the two bodies take this shape. One person lies down, and the other lies on top of them, facing the other way. What's unique about this position is it's one of the only ways that two partners can give and receive oral sex simultaneously."Now, I'd like each group to demonstrate this position. Guys lay on the floor on your back, and the girls will get on top of you."Alex laid down first. Once he was ready, I got on my knees, then straddled his face. He immediately started licking my cunt again. I let him go at it for a moment, enjoying it, and looked around.A few of the girls were facing the wrong direction, and couldn't figure out what they were doing wrong. Amy looked particularly perplexed, as she mounted her partner in a cowgirl position, with his cock pressed against her ass cheeks. I didn't get to see if she eventually figured it out, since I decided it was time to start sucking on Alex.I leaned forward, and I found that my mouth was at exactly the right spot to suck on his dick. So I did. As I sucked on him, he licked me and tongue-fucked me. After a good five minutes, Tony tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up, and realized I hadn't given him a turn yet. So, I got up, he laid down, and I took the same position again, but over Tony this time.Doing this position with Tony was much better, probably because I was already worked up. Also, his cock was bigger and tasted better. While I sucked on Tony, he ate me out, and it was amazing.After too short a time, I heard Ms. Sharon's say, "Alright everyone. That's enough. Please return to your seats."I reluctantly took Tony's cock out of my mouth, and stood up. A few moments later, we were all back in our seats."Excellent work everyone," Ms. Sharon said. "Now, I only have one activity left, and then you may all leave. But before we begin, I have a few things to say, in regards to future activities and assignments."First off, today will be our last class that does not involve full-on intercourse. That means that if you have not already lost your virginity, and would like to do so in your own way, I would advise you to do so before the next class."Secondly, beginning today, you will have a homework assignment given at the end of each class, based on that day's topic. A few guidelines for all of these assignments:"1. You must complete each assignment outside of class. Any activities in class may not be used for homework assignments."2. Each assignment will be graded simply upon completion. If you do the given activity, you get full credit. If you don't do it, you get a zero."3. Since I will not be there when you complete the assignment, you are required to submit proof of each assignment, in the form of photographs or videos."4. I will drop one homework grade. That means you have the choice to not complete any one assignment. Beyond that, if you don't complete the assignment, you get a zero. However, there will be many opportunities for extra credit, so if you feel uncomfortable doing more than one assignment, you may make up some of the points by complete additional tasks in other assignments."5. Most of the assignments will require someone else's participation. You may partner with any of your classmates, but only for one assignment each. So, if you complete this first assignment with one person, you may not complete a later one with that same person. You also have the option of completing the assignments with people outside of class, but you must get their written consent. I have forms for that in my office."Any questions about the homework?" Nobody raised their hands. "Alright. One last thing: there will be a final project for this class, but you don't need to worry about the details of that right now. I will explain it in the last few weeks of class."Alright, now on to today's final activity. First, we need to move all the chairs to the sides, so we have ample floor space." We moved chairs around, and soon we were all standing in the middle of the room. "Excellent. Now, everyone form a circle, with your group, with the girl on the left. Because the numbers don't quite work out, I'll ask that Tony and Eric sit outside the circle. In a little bit, you can switch with Alex and John."We took a few minutes to do this, but soon we were in a large circle. On my right was Alex, and to my left was Roberto."Alright, now I've looked for a name for what this is called, and the best I could find is a daisy chain. Everyone lie on the ground. Guys lie on your back, and girls on your knees. Your face should be between the legs of the person to your left. When you are in position, go ahead and start pleasuring your partner."Soon, we were all in position. I started sucking on Roberto's cock, and was slightly surprised when I felt Alex's mouth make contact with my cunt. We all sucked and licked each other, which caused many noises, including slurps and moans of pleasure.After a few minutes, Ms. Sharon had Tony and Alex (and Eric and John) switch places, so Tony was now sucking on my labia, while Alex watched. He took it upon himself to jack off.A few minutes more, and Ms. Sharon had us turn around. So now, I was sucking on Tony, and Roberto was fucking me with his tongue. She also said we were welcome to cum whenever we were ready, but we were to continue the daisy chain until she said to stop.Latoya was on the other side of Tony, being pleasured by him. Apparently she had done a good job before we turned around, because it didn't take long for Tony released his load. I felt a large spurt of cum shoot into the back of my throat. Since I wasn't expecting it yet, I gagged a little, but I followed Ms. Sharon's rule, and did not remove my mouth.For the next few minutes the room filled with the sounds of grunts and moans, as many of the guys, and a few of the girls came. Ms. Sharon had Tony get up and switch with Alex again. While they were switching, I swallowed Tony's load. I only had a few seconds to catch my breath, then Alex's cock was in my mouth again.The entire time, Roberto was slowly but surely bringing me closer to my orgasm, and it finally happened shortly after I started sucking on Alex. I moaned a little, then more, and finally I came hard, pushing my pelvis into Roberto's face, and my mouth further onto Alex's cock. It felt amazing! I hadn't cum in a few days, so this was a long time coming.I continued to moan through the whole thing, which must have felt good for Alex, because shortly after I started, he followed my lead. I felt his large load of cum fill my mouth. It was more cum than Tony had released. As soon as I felt he was done, I swallowed it all.We had both finished cumming, but we didn't stop pleasuring each other, or our partners. It appeared Ms. Sharon was waiting for each person to cum. A few minutes later, the last person (Barbara) had cum, and Ms. Sharon told us all we could stand up, and return to our seats.When we were all seated, she asked, "Did everyone enjoy that?" I looked around, and saw many nods, and more smiles. "Good. Now, that's all I had planned for today, but I need to give you your homework assignment."By the next class period, you must give oral sex to one person, and receive oral sex from a different person. I don't have any preference over whether your partners are the same sex or different. Remember, you may do your assignment with your classmates, but that counts them out for future assignments. Also, don't forget to get proof of the encounters."Everyone have a good day, and I'll see you next class period."With that we were dismissed. We all stood, got dressed, and walked out. On the way out, I started talking with Nicole. After a bit of discussion about the class, she said she was going to a dining hall, and asked if I wanted to join her."Nah, I'm not really hungry," I said, with a smile. She laughed, and we parted ways.On my walk back to my dorm room, I thought about the day's experience. Three guys had sucked on my cunt lips, fucked me with their tongues, and licked my clit. In exchange, I had sucked on each of their cocks, and swallowed two loads of cum. Quite an eventful morning.I also thought about who I'd complete the assignment with. After a little thought, I pulled my phone out and texted Nicole and asked her if she wanted to get her food to go, and join me in my room. Then I texted Alex as well.Suffice to say, the remainder of my day was fun. ;)Vaginal Intercourse."Hello again, class," Ms. Sharon said as she entered the classroom. "Long time, no see."We were all seated, and ready to learn. And by that, I mean we were naked, and horny. Last class, the teacher had alluded to what we'd be doing this class period. She had made a point to tell everyone that if they cared to lose their virginity outside of class, to do it before today, because it would involve intercourse.This wasn't a problem for me. I had lost mine to a good friend of mine in high school. I looked around and wondered if anyone else in the room was thinking about their first time too.I pulled myself away from that line of thought, and noticed I was already starting to get a little wet, just thinking about it. But it wasn't just the thought of my first time that had me excited. All around the room there were cushions on the floor. I could only assume what they were for, but I had a pretty good idea.Ms. Sharon took her spot at the front of the classroom, and put her bag down, turning to the class. "Alright, class. Today, we're in for a great time. I've already received everyone's homework from last class, either via my email or my drop box, so we'll jump straight into today's material. I'm going to need a male and female volunteer."She looked around at everyone, waiting for someone to raise their hand, but nobody did. I could tell everyone was excited about what was going to happen. I could visibly see it in some of the guys' laps. But I guess nobody wanted to be the first to go. Ms. Sharon sighed, and said, "Alright, then I'll have to resort back to the bag of volunteers"I had completely forgotten about the bag of volunteers. Back in the anatomy class, Ms. Sharon had created two bags with males and females, and said she'd use it if nobody volunteered for something. Those names that were removed from the bag would not be returned until everyone had been picked."If you all remember, the only two names we've removed from the bag have been Nicole and Filipe. In our toys class, all the girls got a chance to demonstrate one of the toys, including Nicole, so I won't be removing any new names from the girls bag. From the guy's bag, however, I've already taken the liberty of removing Tony's name, since he demoed the fleshlight, and none of the other guys demoed."So, first a girl." She reached her hand into one of the bags, and I felt my heart start pumping with anticipation. Would it be my name she picked? If it was, what would she ask me to do? She pulled out a piece of paper, and unfolded it. "Sofia, please come up here."I felt a little relieved, and a little disappointed. I looked over and saw the cute Latina girl lean her head forward in mock-defeat. Then she stood up, smiled, and walk to the front of the class. Her mid-sized tits, and beautiful ass jiggled the whole way.Ms. Sharon reached into the other bag and said, "And your lucky mate is; Kent!".The white boy practically jumped up out of his seat with excitement, which caused everyone else to laugh. Then he calmed himself down and walked to the front. His cock wasn't quite erect, but it definitely wasn't limp. I watched it sway back and forth as he walked past me."Alright, you two. You will be demonstrating sexual intercourse. I know you two probably already know what to do, but I'm going to walk you and your classmates through it anyways, just in case."Before we begin, we should discuss a few important things. Firstly, before you have sex with anyone, you should ask them if they have any STDs. It can be an awkward conversation, but it's better to be safe than sorry. A few weeks back, I assigned all of you the task of getting yourselves checked for STDs. All of you have completed that task, and turned in the medical report to me, and I'm happy to say that you are all clean."The other important thing to be sure of before having sex, is that you don't get pregnant. This is always a risk when having sex, but it can be mitigated by using condoms or birth control. Before today's class, I have asked all of the girls to get a prescription for birth control and start on it. Has anyone not done that?"Nobody raised their hands."Good. Since all of you are clean, and all of the girls are on birth control, the use of condoms is optional in class. However, if either partner would like to use them anyways, that is your choice. Either way, I would like to take a minute to demonstrate how to put one on, for your future reference."She reached into her bag, and pulled out a wrapped condom, and handed it to Sofia."In high school level sex-ed classes, they typically demonstrate this using a banana. Personally, I think the analogy is crude, but for under-age students I guess it suffices. However, in this class, we have a little more liberty, so we can demonstrate by putting it on a real live cock. Sofia, I will ask that you put this on Kent for me." Sofia took the condom, and stared at it, a little dumbstruck. Ms. Sharon waited a moment, but when Sofia didn't do anything, she suggested, "Maybe you should start by getting him hard."Sofia reached over and grabbed Kent's shaft and started stroking it. She was a little timid, but she knew what to do from previous classes. It seemed more like she had stage-fright than anything else. He was already semi-hard, and Sofia seemed to be good at hand-jobs, so it only took a moment for him to get fully erect."Good," said Ms. Sharon, when she was satisfied with the hardness of his cock. "Now, tear the condom wrapper open. Take care not to damage the condom." Sofia did as she was told, pulling the condom from the wrapper. "Great. Now, place it over the tip of Kent's penis, and roll it down." She did, and the rubber covered Kent's cock."Great. Now, do either of you want to leave that on?" Neither of them spoke up. "Alright, I'll take that as a no, so you can take it back off, Sofia." She pulled the condom off, and threw it away in a nearby trash can."Alright," said Ms. Sharon. "Now on to the good stuff. There are many positions you can have sex in, and in a later class we'll be covering many more, but today we're only going to demo one: the reverse cowgirl. I picked it because it's great for showing the penetration to an audience, which will be a perfect way for me to explain what is going on. So, Kent, please lie down on the table, with your legs pointing towards your classmates."Kent lied down, and his cock pointed straight up in the air."Perfect. Alright, now Sofia, you're going to get on top of the table, and straddle Kent, also facing your classmates. I'll help you get up there."Ms. Sharon pulled over an empty chair, and took Sofia's hand. Sofia stepped onto the chair, then the table, using Ms. Sharon's hand for balance. Sofia put her left foot over Kent, then lowered herself down to her knees, straddling Kent, with her cunt over his belly button."Great, Sofia," Ms. Sharon said. "Now, I want you to move forward until your cunt is right next to his cock." She slid forward a few inches, until Kent's cock was resting against her pelvis. From this position, I got a clear view of how deep he would go inside her. It was a good 5 inches at least."Good," Ms. Sharon continued, "Now we need to make sure you are both ready. For Kent, that means his cock should be hard. For you, Sofia, that means your cunt should be wet, and ready to take in Kent's cock. Let me check and make sure you two are ready."Ms. Sharon first grabbed Kent's cock. She stroked it a couple times, before smiling and saying, "That's great, Kent. You're cock is very hard." Then she slid her hand between Sofia's legs, and rubbed her cunt a little. "Sofia, your cunt is still a little dry. Kent, can you help me fix that? Just reach between her legs, and rub her cunt."Ms. Sharon left her hand there, and Kent reached around Sofia's body and added his. They both rubbed Sofia's cunt. I couldn't tell from where I was sitting, but after a little bit, it looked like Ms. Sharon stuck a finger or two inside Sofia.Finally, after a few minutes, Ms. Sharon pulled her hand out, Kent followed her lead, and Ms. Sharon said, "Alright. I think you're ready, Sofia. Whenever you're ready, you can start."I watched as Sofia did as she was told. She lifted herself up a little bit, and grabbed Kent's cock, lining it up with her entrance. Then she let herself slide down onto him. She let out a small sigh as Kent's cock impaled her. Then, without being asked, she started hopping up and down, and I saw his cock slide in and out of her, as her tits bounced up and down."Great, Sofia," said Ms. Sharon. "That's exactly right. Now Kent, in this position, you have a perfect angle to reach around and grab Sofia's tits. I'm sure she'd love it if you did that."Sofia smiled at the suggestion, and leaned back a little. Kent did as he was told, and reached around her body. He grabbed a hold of Sofia's large breasts and they stopped bouncing. Sofia kept fucking Kent, as he squeezed her tits, with her nipples between his index and middle fingers.The reverse cowgirl position was a great way for us to all see what was going on, but it also had a downside. After Sofia leaned back, a few thrusts later, and Kent's cock popped out of her. Ms. Sharon saw it happen, and without saying anything, she stepped forward, grabbed Kent's cock, and aimed it back at Sofia's cunt, and they were immediately back at it again.Ms. Sharon watched Sofia and Kent fuck for a few more seconds before turning to the class. "Alright, everyone. Take a good look. This is called vaginal penetration. It occurs when a man's penis enters a woman's vagina. It goes by many other names, such as sex, making love, fucking, intercourse, and many more. Call it what you will, but in my opinion, it's one of the most beautiful things in the world. Notice the look on both of their faces. They are enjoying every moment of this. And you can see Sofia's fluids running down Kent's cock. It's amazing."We all watched them continue for another minute or so. Ms. Sharon helped put Kent's cock back in Sofia a few times. Eventually, Ms. Sharon continued on to the next part of the class."Great. You two keep going," she said, as she turned back to the class. "Now, I want the rest of you to get with your partners and practice this. You can do it in whatever position you prefer, just as long as it involves vaginal intercourse. Darrell and Nicole, since your partners are occupied, you can partner with each other. John and Eric, get with other pairs today. I'm going to be going around and making sure everyone is doing it correctly, and helping anyone who has trouble. If anyone would like to use a condom, there's a pile of them here on my desk. Whenever each of you has an orgasm, you are free to leave. Just make sure you pick up a sheet from my desk detailing your homework assignment, which is due by the next class."There was a bit of a commotion in the room as everyone got up and moved to be with their partners. Tony and Alex came over to me. Surprisingly, they were both looking me in the eye, even though all three of us were completely naked, and about to get it on. I guess that's just how comfortable we were with each other."You ready for this?" Tony asked."Of course!" I said with a smile."Do you want to use a condom?" he asked. I shook my head. I was on the pill, so I had nothing to worry about. Plus, I much prefer going bareback. Skin on skin contact just feels better.Tony got down on a nearby cushion, and layed on his back, putting his hands behind his head. He was going to let me do all the work here. I was fine with that. It gave me more control. So, I got down on my knees, and straddled his thighs, facing his chest. Like a magnet, his hands were instantly on my tits.Ms. Sharon came over to us first. "Alright Samantha, scoot forward a little, and reach between your legs and find Tony's cock, and guide it in." I did, and it took me a moment, but I soon had my hand wrapped around his cock, which was rock hard. I pointed it at my cunt, and sat down. I couldn't help but let out a moan as I felt it slide deep inside me. I looked down and saw a smile on Tony's face.Ms. Sharon was behind me, watching Tony's cock as it slid inside. "Excellent! Now, enjoy the ride!" She stood and walked over to the next group.As I fucked Tony, I watched Ms. Sharon go around to the other groups. She mostly watched, but she gave a few tips here and there. Things like "try raising yourself a little higher" and "grab her tits". A couple groups had a bit of trouble getting started, so she lent a helping hand, getting the girl wet, or guiding the guy's cock into the girl's cunt.After about 10 minutes, Tony told me he was about to cum. Before I could even react, I felt a warmth inside me. I looked down, and saw his cum dripping out of my cunt. I smiled at him, and continued riding until he was spent, then got off and stood up. I felt the cum dripping down my inner thigh, but didn't pay it much mind."Alright, Alex, you ready?" I asked him. He nodded. "Condom?" He shook his head. Excellent.This time, it was my turn to be on bottom. I laid down on my back, and I immediately spread my legs as wide as they could go, showing my bald cunt to everyone who cared to look, which actually wasn't too many people. Almost everyone was preoccupied with their partners. Of course Alex and Tony looked, and I watched their faces as I felt Tony's cum drip out of me.Alex pulled himself out his trance, and knelt down between my legs. He lined his cock up with my hole, and pressed. It immediately slid in, since I was thoroughly lubricated. As he entered me, my moans joined the many others in the room.As my second partner fucked me, I laid my head back and enjoyed it, looking around at my other classmates. There was sex happening all around me. A few feet to my left, Latoya was riding Ken. On the other side of me, I saw Nicole on her knees, with Darrell behind her, thrusting. I looked towards the front of the classroom, and saw that Sofia and Kent were gone. They must have finished and left.As Alex fucked me, the number of people in the classroom dwindled. Each pair would finish, lay there for a bit, watching everyone else, get dressed, grab a homework sheet, and leave.After about 10 very amazing minutes, Alex whispered to me that he was close. I smiled and whispered back, "fill me up." He must have liked that because I immediately felt him unload into me. His thrusts slowed, and then he pulled out. I felt a whole new batch of cum drip out of me. I laid there a moment. I thought about finishing myself then and there, but that wasn't the focus of that day's activity, and the class period was almost over, so I figured I'd wait until later.Instead, I stood up. I looked around and saw that a few couples were still going at it, but almost everyone was gone. I walked over to my bag, and grabbed the outfit I was wearing earlier, which was just a gray, striped dress, and pulled it over my head. Then I went to the front and grabbed a homework sheet, put it in my bag, and left for home.On the way, I read the homework assignment sheet. It said: "Have vaginal sex with at least 3 different people. Try as many positions as you can. We'll be demoing them in a future class. Be sure to bring photographic proof of the assignment."If you're interested in extra credit, you will receive extra points if you participate in a threesome (or more), which involves double penetration (aka: two guys inserted into one girl at the same time)"Reading the assignment immediately got me wet again, and I couldn't help but rush up to my dorm room. Before the door was even closed, I was stripping out of the dress, and getting on my bed. I fingered myself, trying to cum for what seemed like hours, but was probably more like minutes, before giving up. It was no use. I needed some cock.Now was as good a time as any to finish my homework, so I grabbed my phone, and started thinking about who I wanted to study with.Based on a post by smalltitslovr for Literotica.

Pastor Colton preaches from 2 Timothy 2:20-26:"Seek to be set apart. Flee sin and pursue holiness with God's people, and correct with kindness, trusting God to grant repentance."Sermon Outline:(vv. 20-21) Set apart and useful to the Master(v. 22) Flee sinful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace alongside God's people(vv. 23-26) Correct with patient kindness, trusting God to grant repentance and free captives.

This week I break down concepts like enshitification, dead internet theory, mass brigading, and other topics to discuss whether you can trust anything on the internet anymore, with a focus on videogames, of course.

Duji confuses two different stories. Snitzer is a pronunciation Nazi. People are upset by the name of a sports bar that opened in New York. 

Duji confuses two different stories. Snitzer is a pronunciation Nazi. People are upset by the name of a sports bar that opened in New York. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Radio host Gary Dee was arrested for hitting his wife in 1980. Winning the lottery is like guessing the correct second in the past 9 years. New allegations claim that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap for NBA player, Kawhi Leonard.

Radio host Gary Dee was arrested for hitting his wife in 1980. Winning the lottery is like guessing the correct second in the past 9 years. New allegations claim that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap for NBA player, Kawhi Leonard.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Utah now has an offense to compliment it's defense Thoughts on Utah DE John Henry Dayley Use Cal Poly game to correct mistakes and get dialed in for season

Ivy Zelman is one of the most respected voices in American housing, co-founder of Zelman & Associates, and now Executive Vice President at Walker & Dunlop, which acquired her firm in 2021 as the leading institutional research, advisory, and investment banking firm dedicated exclusively to the U.S. housing industry.Over the last three decades, Ivy has built a reputation for bold, contrarian analysis—famously calling the top of the housing market in 2005 and the bottom in 2012—moments that cemented her as a rare analyst unafraid to speak truth to consensus. That conviction has earned her numerous accolades, including recognition in Barron's 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance for four consecutive years and induction into the California Homebuilding Foundation's Hall of Fame.In our conversation, we trace Ivy's journey from falling into equity research to taking the entrepreneurial leap in 2007, founding Zelman & Associates amid the looming financial crisis. We explore her approach to research and analysis—blending proprietary surveys with a nationwide network of builders, brokers, and lenders—to consistently separate signal from noise.We reflect on her evolution as a leader and entrepreneur, the culture she has cultivated with a team that has stayed by her side for decades, her love of Cleveland, and what it means to pay it forward today through teaching and mentorship as an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Case Western Reserve University, her memoir Gimme Shelter, and much more.00:00:00 - Catalytic Moments in Finance00:08:25 - Recognizing Blind Spots in Research00:11:27 - The Entrepreneurial Inclination00:11:55 - Building Conviction and Confidence00:15:54 - Vision for Success00:17:21 - Detective Work in Research00:18:45 - Cultivating a Strong Network00:22:20 - The Importance of Asking the Right Questions00:25:13 - Reconciliation with Reality00:26:35 - Navigating Market Sentiment00:28:13 - The Evolution of Zellman Associates00:30:38 - Personal Growth as an Entrepreneur00:34:06 - Leadership and Team Development00:36:01 - Maintaining Intellectual Honesty Post-Acquisition00:37:39 - Understanding the Value of Research00:39:15 - Cleveland's Unique Perspective00:42:10 - Paying It Forward and Mentorship00:45:38 - Lessons for the Next Generation00:47:23 - Contrarian Views on Market Trends00:49:17 - Balancing Work and Family Life00:51:20 - Hidden Gem-----LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivy-zelman-64304616b/https://www.zelmanassociates.com/https://www.amazon.com/Gimme-Shelter-Skills-Street-Trailblazer/dp/1737709929-----SPONSOR:Roundstone InsuranceRoundstone Insurance is proud to sponsor Lay of The Land. Founder and CEO, Michael Schroeder, has committed full-year support for the podcast, recognizing its alignment with the company's passion for entrepreneurship, innovation, and community leadership.Headquartered in Rocky River, Ohio, Roundstone was founded in 2005 with a vision to deliver better healthcare outcomes at a more affordable cost. To bring that vision to life, the company pioneered the group medical captive model — a self-funded health insurance solution that provides small and mid-sized businesses with greater control and significant savings.Over the past two decades, Roundstone has grown rapidly, creating nearly 200 jobs in Northeast Ohio. The company works closely with employers and benefits advisors to navigate the complexities of commercial health insurance and build custom plans that prioritize employee well-being over shareholder returns. By focusing on aligned incentives and better health outcomes, Roundstone is helping businesses save thousands in Per Employee Per Year healthcare costs.Roundstone Insurance — Built for entrepreneurs. Backed by innovation. Committed to Cleveland.-----Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and over 200 other Cleveland Entrepreneurs.Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/Follow Lay of The Land on X @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

In this week's episode, Adam, Ben, and Carol dive into the nuanced world of software development as they explore the subjectivity inherent in coding.How do personal preferences, team cultures, and individual experiences shape the way code is written, reviewed, and maintained. From debates over naming conventions to the art of code reviews, we unpack the many ways that subjectivity influences technical decisions and the collaborative process.Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @workingcode.dev on Bluesky. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.Full show notes and transcript here.

Blake Ruffino & Carter Bryant share their thoughts and recap the LSU vs Clemson game. Blake & Carter discuss the dominate display that was shown by the LSU Tigers on defense. The question now is, just how dominate this unit can be moving forward this season. What stood out to Blake & Carter from the defensive perspective and what made them so dominate? Is this the best defensive unit since the 2019 National Title LSU Team? Lastly, Blake & Carter discuss the offensive performance and what they saw and things they think they did well. Also, what are some things that need to be corrected. Also, what did Blake & Carter see from around the SEC? #lsu #lsutigers #lsufootball #lsusports #lsutigersfootball #foryou #fyp #powerhourlsu #briankelly #clemson #clemsonfootball #clemsonsports #foryoutube

Blake Ruffino & Carter Bryant share their thoughts and recap the LSU vs Clemson game. Blake & Carter discuss the dominate display that was shown by the LSU Tigers on defense. The question now is, just how dominate this unit can be moving forward this season. What stood out to Blake & Carter from the defensive perspective and what made them so dominate? Is this the best defensive unit since the 2019 National Title LSU Team? Lastly, Blake & Carter discuss the offensive performance and what they saw and things they think they did well. Also, what are some things that need to be corrected. Also, what did Blake & Carter see from around the SEC? #lsu #lsutigers #lsufootball #lsusports #lsutigersfootball #foryou #fyp #powerhourlsu #briankelly #clemson #clemsonfootball #clemsonsports #foryoutube

Servants Meeting @ St. Philopateer Mercurius Coptic Orthodox Church - Palm Harbor, FL ~ August 31, 2025

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley and several other attorneys general are pushing for the correct use of a “Product of the USA” label for U.S. beef. NAFB News ServiceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ready to test your brainpower? These riddles are guaranteed to make you think twice and keep you guessing! With tricky twists and hidden clues, only the top 2% can solve them all without missing a beat. Are you one of the few who can crack them? Hit PLAY and find out if you're part of the elite few who can master these head-scratching riddles!

Thanks to Function Health for sponsoring this video! Visit https://www.functionhealth.com/FLORIS or use the code FLORIS100 to take control of your health. In this episode, we sit down with biomechanics expert and author Jay Dicharry to explore smarter ways for runners to train, recover, and stay injury-free. From building stronger bones and tendons to using mobility tools and managing training load, Jay shares practical strategies every runner can apply to become stronger, healthier, and more resilient. Jay wrote books on running gait: he is author of “Running Rewired” and "Anatomy for Runners" and he is the founder of Mobo Board. In the past few days I've tried the Mobo Board I'm very impressed, it's a mobility / strength tool I'll be using daily.    Watch this full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wk-Uzjy4nTw      CHAPTERS: 0:00 – Meet Jay Dicharry: Rethinking running and injury prevention 1:30 – Function Health sponsorship 3:02 – Advice Jay would give to his younger self 6:32 – Why runners need more than just running 10:22 – How to build stronger bones, tendons, and muscles 16:44 – Correct way to do calf raises for tendon health 23:45 – Strength training: key movements for runners 26:21 – Simple tools runners can use at home 30:17 – The Mobile Board: purpose and benefits 34:51 – Where to find the Mobile Board 35:16 – Common running injuries and how to prevent them 38:16 – Understanding and preventing calf injuries 40:53 – The role of self-massage and tissue recovery 46:43 – Best hamstring exercises for runners 49:47 – How daily lifestyle impacts your running 52:24 – Best cross-training activities for runners 57:17 – Balancing training load with your body's abilities 1:04:08 – Where to find Jay 1:04:31 – How to become a stronger, healthier, happier athlete   FIND JAY DICHARRY: ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaydicharry    LINKS & TOOLS MENTIONED ► Function Health: https://my.functionhealth.com/signup?code=FLORIS  ► Mobo Board IG: https://www.instagram.com/mobo.board  ► Mobo Board Website: https://www.moboboard.com/ (Get 10% off with code FLO10) ► Anatomy For Runners: https://amzn.to/4mH5iPa  ► Running Rewired: https://amzn.to/3JFzxHK  ► Toe spreaders: https://correcttoes.com/  ► Resistance bands: https://amzn.to/3JECJ6n  ► Massage gun: https://amzn.to/4mbthFf  ► Foam roller: https://amzn.to/3JFkSvZ      YOU CAN FIND ME, COACH FLORIS GIERMAN HERE:  ► Free Weekly Running Newsletter: https://extramilest.com/subscribe ► Our Personal Best Coaching Program: https://www.pbprogram.com/  ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/florisgierman ► Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1329785  ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florisgierman  ► Extramilest: https://extramilest.com/  ► Path Projects: https://pathprojects.com/flo ► Podcast: https://extramilest.com/podcast/    Affiliate Disclosure: I may earn commissions if you purchase items via my affiliate links. "As an affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.” Affiliate links do not increase cost to you. Also, you do not need to use these links. You can also search for these same items in Amazon or on any search engine/shopping site of your choice and buy/research them that way.     ABOUT THE EXTRAMILEST SHOW: A podcast and YouTube channel where host Floris Gierman interviews world class athletes, coaches and health experts on the topic of how to become a stronger, healthier and happier athlete.     More info about our Personal Best Running Coaching Program can be found at https://www.pbprogram.com.      SUBSCRIBE and hit the bell to see new videos: https://bit.ly/Flo-YT

Armed with incontrovertible evidence that DEI Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook has committed repeated mortgage fraud, the great and powerful President Donald J. Trump has fired Cook for cause.Naturally, being a DEI appointed woman of a certain sort, Cook has refused to be fired and has filed a lawsuit against Trump in Federal court.  Notably, nowhere in Cook's filed complaint does she deny the mortgage fraud claimed by Trump—that within a single two-week period Cook secured two federally-backed mortgages on separate properties in separate states and claimed both as her primary residence—a status that secures Cook more favorable federally-backed mortgage interest rates, lower insurance rates, and so on.  Apparently false filings on yet a third property also have now come to light.All of these acts of mortgage fraud would qualify as federal felonies for anybody.  These credible and uncontested accusations of mortgage fraud against a Governor of the Federal Reserve, tasked with setting mortgage and other interest rates for the entire nation, obviously makes Cook's continued service on the Board untenable, and provide more than adequate grounds for Trump to fire her for cause. Importantly, removing known Trump-hater Cook from the Federal Reserve Board—she's publicly referred to Trump as a “fascist”—would open the door for a replacement of Cook that would be more amenable to rationally lowering the nation's interest rates, saving billions in interest cost for the nation generally, and turbo-charging home and other purchases for individuals. The #1 guide for understanding when using force to protect yourself is legal. Now yours for FREE! Just pay the S&H for us to get it to you.➡️ Carry with confidence, knowing you are protected from predators AND predatory prosecutors➡️ Correct the common myths you may think are true but get people in trouble​➡️ Know you're getting the best with this abridged version of our best-selling 5-star Amazon-rated book that has been praised by many (including self-defense legends!) for its easy, entertaining, and informative style.​➡️ Many interesting, if sometimes heart-wrenching, true-life examplesGet Your Free Book: https://lawofselfdefense.com/getthebook

The news out of Scotland of the young girl compelled to wield a knife and hatchet in defense of herself and her little sister against the predations of ravenous third-world migrants imported by her own government should serve as a red flag, a political tipping point, into Western awareness of the existential threat presented to everything we value by Easterners intent on stealing our wealth, culture, and future for their own ethno-corrupt purposes.  After all … unless the American trajectory changes, soon such headlines will be coming out of our own communities.Time has become of the essence. The tipping point is upon us. The gyre is widening. The moment of choosing is now. What shall we choose? What shall YOU choose? To watch your world, your culture, your posterity, the greatest nation on Earth eradicated by third-world Orcs imported by your own government to compel you to bend the knee to their tyrannical impulses?  Or are you prepared to use your voice, your vote, your sheer will to forcibly shove that corrupted Overton window hard over to American nationalism? To save ourselves, our wives, our children from being drowned in third-world mediocrity, incompetence, greed, graft, and predatory violence?  Whether that involves fighting against enemies foreign … OR also enemies domestic?Is there an American exceptionalism worth saving from third-world invaders? The #1 guide for understanding when using force to protect yourself is legal. Now yours for FREE! Just pay the S&H for us to get it to you.➡️ Carry with confidence, knowing you are protected from predators AND predatory prosecutors➡️ Correct the common myths you may think are true but get people in trouble​➡️ Know you're getting the best with this abridged version of our best-selling 5-star Amazon-rated book that has been praised by many (including self-defense legends!) for its easy, entertaining, and informative style.​➡️ Many interesting, if sometimes heart-wrenching, true-life examplesGet Your Free Book: https://lawofselfdefense.com/getthebook

JP and Nick discuss the Micah Parsons trade and if Browns fans would have the same reaction that the Cowboys fans did if they traded Myles.

Did the Cowboys make the correct decision moving on from Micah Parsons? full 766 Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:11:45 +0000 eLxC4RxSH9u4wj1ZEnRej3y14PWainBp nfl,cleveland browns,sports,football Afternoon Drive on The Fan nfl,cleveland browns,sports,football Did the Cowboys make the correct decision moving on from Micah Parsons? Take part in the Afternoon Drive on The Fan...Nick Wilson and former Buckeye Dustin Fox will give you their opinions, listen to yours and keep you updated with the latest from around the sports world.  2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Sports Football False https://player.amperw

Not only did we have Jodi Kodesh in this morning but we also had our good friend Holly Shaffner from Honor Flight San Diego as a guest co-host. John had a little bone to pick with Holly after he found out YEARS after they met he had her name wrong the whole time... 

1 He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy. 2 When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan. 3 Whoever loves wisdom brings joy to his father; but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth. 4 The king by justice makes the land stable, but he who takes bribes tears it down. 5 A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet. 6 An evil man is snared by his sin, but the righteous can sing and be glad. 7 The righteous care about justice for the poor. The wicked aren't concerned about knowledge. 8 Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger. 9 If a wise man goes to court with a foolish man, the fool rages or scoffs, and there is no peace. 10 The bloodthirsty hate a man of integrity; and they seek the life of the upright. 11 A fool vents all of his anger, but a wise man brings himself under control. 12 If a ruler listens to lies, all of his officials are wicked. 13 The poor man and the oppressor have this in common: Yahweh gives sight to the eyes of both. 14 The king who fairly judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. 15 The rod of correction gives wisdom, but a child left to himself causes shame to his mother. 16 When the wicked increase, sin increases; but the righteous will see their downfall. 17 Correct your son, and he will give you peace; yes, he will bring delight to your soul. 18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but one who keeps the law is blessed. 19 A servant can't be corrected by words. Though he understands, yet he will not respond. 20 Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him. 21 He who pampers his servant from youth will have him become a son in the end. 22 An angry man stirs up strife, and a wrathful man abounds in sin. 23 A man's pride brings him low, but one of lowly spirit gains honor. 24 Whoever is an accomplice of a thief is an enemy of his own soul. He takes an oath, but dares not testify. 25 The fear of man proves to be a snare, but whoever puts his trust in Yahweh is kept safe. 26 Many seek the ruler's favor, but a man's justice comes from Yahweh. 27 A dishonest man detests the righteous, and the upright in their ways detest the wicked. Listen Subscribe: Proverbs Daily Podcast Psalms Daily Podcast

Don't miss the extra story! Become a supporter at: https://catholicfamilynews.locals.comhttps://angelicopress.com/catholicfamilynewsSubscribe to the paper: https://simplecirc.com/subscribe/17820213Roman Forum: https://youtu.be/gwNSwFUsd7ATIMESTAMPS:0:00 Minneapolis Tragedy1:30 Saints and Liturgy11:20 Did Pope Leo Correct Francis?26:50 Judicial System37:30 Angelico and Cultural Recommendations47:04 Flag BurningCulture: Brian- Wearing of the GreenMurray- Babette's FeastFollow us on Rumble! https://rumble.com/c/c-390435Twitter: https://x.com/CFNonX#catholic #catholicchurch #christianity #americafirst #sspx

On this week's episode of the Joy of Football Podcast, Martin and Neil get stuck into the newly promoted teams, and their great starts to the Premier League Season.Then it's VOICE OF PASSION, and who'd have thought that Neil would take issue with referees... again?Next, it's Martin's Letter from the Gantry, which is a goodbye and tribute to the legendary Gerry Harrison.After that, the return of Three of the Best, where youngsters Max Dowman, Rio Ngumoha and Estêvão all have their moments to shine! And we finish with Feedback, where Martin and Neil go through some of your comments - including from our recent episode with the one and only John Terry.If you want to see an extra segment of this weeks episode make sure you check out our PATREON where we discuss how commentators eat on game day + more exclusive stories! - https://patreon.com/TheJoysofFootballPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink[CHAPTERS]00:00 INTRO02:06 How do you SURVIVE as a promoted club? 02:53 - Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest 06:28 Martin Tyler's relationship with Brian Clough 07:50 Brighton got promoted the CORRECT way… 12:25 John Robertson- “A world class footballer” + More Brian Clough stories15:55 Riyad Mahrez: How good was he? 17:30 Manchester city have REALLY missed Mahrez18:24 Neil has a fall! 18:46 Is there a good chance of the promoted teams staying up this season? 20:36 Are WEST HAM and WOLVES in DANGER? 22:44 VOICE OF PASSION - The VAR in the Manchester United - Fulham game was POOR! 26:12 Gravenberch SHOULD have been sent off!  31:40 Direct football is back! Is it more entertaining? 33:43 Are high lines in defence becoming a problem? 35:16 Martin Tyler's Goodbye from the gantry (Gerry Harrison tribute) 41:36 Pape Sarr has blossomed into a star for Spurs (Name change story) 44:45 Max Dowman, Rio Ngumoha and Estevao all shine! 48:39 How does a 15 year old fit into a senior squad? 51:58 Arsenal wanted Dowman to play last season! 53:42 Keith Andrews gets his first win as Brentford manager!54:45 Meeting celebrities pre kick off!57:15 Luka Modric - Neil's problem with tribalistic Chelsea in pre season!1:00:55 Josh Cullen for Burnley impresses Martin Tyler! 1:02:53 Bernd Leno is arguably the GREATEST Fulham GK!1:06:10  FEEDBACK! (Robert Huth writes in! + John Terry comments) 1:07:28 Joe Allon: “My old boss Jack Chartlon said to me football's a simple game, it's the players that complicate it…” 1:09:34 Aston Villa's youth will SAVE them! 1:12:10 Playing out from the back feed back 1:13:54 Has Pep Guardiola RUINED football? 1:16:53 OUTRO - where to find us! Join Neil Barnett (former Chelsea touch-liner announce and football journalist) alongside the voice of the Premier League Martin Tyler in celebrating the greatest addiction in the World!Hosted by The Revive Lounge Ltd UCsdye1hUxP4xhgBx9zvuSjgSubscribe to https://youtube.com/@TheReviveLounge?si=L5ddzrJrtSmErtJ5Support the Pod https://patreon.com/TheJoysofFootballPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLinkRead us on Substack https://martintylerandneilbarnett.substack.com/Follow our Twitter https://x.com/TheJOFFollow our Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@joy_of_football_pod?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pcFollow our Instagram https://https://www.instagram.com/joy_of_football_pod/Contact us via: therevivelounge@gmail.comMusic by Arron Clague - https://www.instagSend us a textSupport the show

Anthony Benenati, founder of City Yoga and That's Not Yoga®, shares his personal evolution from his earliest experiences with yoga to developing a practice that meets each individual where they are. In this conversation, he explores breaking limiting ideas about yoga, uncovering its deeper meaning, and building genuine human connection through mindful movement. He also reflects on how curiosity, learning, and purposeful steps can lead to lasting change. This is a conversation about healing, empowerment, and finding a practice that truly serves you. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Anthony's journey into yoga and the pivotal moments that shaped his path.Breaking common stereotypes and misconceptions about yoga.Understanding the true purpose of yoga beyond the poses.How yoga fosters authentic community and connection.The power of desire, knowledge, and action in creating transformation.Episode References/Links:Anthony Benenati's Website - https://thatsnotyoga.comAnthony Benenati's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thatsnotyoga Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg - https://a.co/d/3edLCLcGuest Bio:Anthony Benenati is the founder of City Yoga, The first Anusara yoga studio in California and That's Not Yoga® , a culmination of three decades of study and practice in the Hatha Yoga tradition. Anthony's philosophy is simple; fit the yoga to the student, not the student to the yoga. He believes that it isn't about the style of yoga you practice, rather, the effectiveness of that style for your body. Yoga practice should help you transform, not cause more suffering. Anthony draws from a deep knowledge of the different classical styles of modern yoga and other modalities to construct a path of healing and transformation for their student. Anthony has trained in Kundalini, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Anusara and Viniyoga. He specializes in Yoga Therapeutics and tailors the practice so your body uses its natural movements to heal itself from pain and suffering. He has taught globally and has trained thousands of students. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/ Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Anthony Benenati 0:00  One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes, right, and that is so far from the truth. If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries.Lesley Logan 0:12  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:51  All right, Be It babe. I am so stoked for you to hear today's interview. Our guest today is actually a dear friend of Brad and mine, and he is a person we have quoted on the podcast before, and he's someone we said, we have to get him on the pod. And guess what? We did it. And also, I can't believe this is the first time he's on the pod. I feel like he'll be a regular conversation, because it's just really fun to hear him share his perspective, and he is an amazing yoga teacher. And this is as much of a yoga podcast as it's not a yoga podcast episode, because we talk a lot about what really is yoga, and what does it mean to have a yoga practice, and what is it trying to teach us? And if you think you know what yoga is I'm gonna challenge you to listen, because I think it's really easy for us to have been fed something that it's not and then not realize, like, the amazing benefits that it has. And so I'm not gonna say anymore, because this episode is just one of my favorite it's gonna go hands down and one I'll quote in the future. And I knew that when I brought him on, I just knew that we would have an amazing conversation, and this is hopefully going to entertain, educate and inspire you. So here is Anthony Benenati. Lesley Logan 2:09  All right, Be It babe, I'm really excited. This person is actually a dear friend, like I know I've said that about some guests, but usually they're a dear friend of like, a couple moments. This person I've known for like, 10 years, and Brad has known him much longer, he's been a regular in our lives. Anthony Benenati, you are one of the best yoga teachers I know, but also so much more than that. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at? Anthony Benenati 2:33  Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. What an honor. Who am I? Anthony Benenati, you said my name. I am, believe it or not, a yoga teacher, a professional yoga teacher. I've been doing this for 32 years now, which, when I tell people that I teach yoga, they they have immediate this vision of what that might be. Lesley Logan 2:56  Yes, you should be in white. Anthony Benenati 2:59  I should be in white or. Lesley Logan 3:02  With a glow. Anthony Benenati 3:04  It's not very serious or, right? Everybody has their assumptions of what yoga is, which, my job is to help educate and instruct on what the practice truly is versus what it has become. The practice that sort of everybody knows now, versus really, what it truly is and what its goal is.Lesley Logan 3:29  Yeah, I feel like we could also, like, talk about that for hours, because I had someone send me a reel of a guy on a Reformer with a, like, stationary bike in his hands and feet. And it was a joke. It was like an April Fool's joke. And he was like, okay, guys like, this class, we get cardio and core and like, he's holding the bike, he's it's obviously a joke. But like someone sent it to me, and I'm like, the fact that this is so hilarious that people who've never done Pilates before are sending this to me, tells me that what people think Pilates is has strayed far from what Pilates is. So I feel like I can understand that. And I find myself constantly educating people a little bit like, well, that yes, those are Pilates exercises and so, but it's not the inherent reality of it is. And so I feel like I understand that plight, that that journey you're on, in a little bit. Anthony Benenati 4:18  You and I have had this conversation many times before, because you're so close to the source of it, and and that's what I love about what you do, what you teach, and where I am, and what I teach, is that there's a lineage, and you're very close to the source, and the closer you are to the source, the more authentic the teaching, the further down the line you get disconnected from that core source. Then everything starts to get watered down and miscommunicated. Lots of stuff gets forgotten. Lesley Logan 4:55  Yeah, well, it's like the game of telephone, like, I mean, like when you play that game in school, like, you, the further it goes down the line. Anthony Benenati 5:03  The more warped it gets. Lesley Logan 5:04  Yes, yes. And it's funny, but also, like, that is the reality. Can we take a step back? Because, like, a yoga instructor of 32 years, that is a long time. And I think, like, there's not many of you. I mean, there's many of you, probably in India places, but like, there's not many of people who've had that many decades and and have studied the way that you have like, did you grow up like doing yoga? Did you want to be a yoga teacher?Anthony Benenati 5:32  No, this story is, is pretty remarkable. No, I did not grow up with yoga. In fact, I didn't really understand what yoga was until I was literally introduced to it after I moved here to L.A. So I've been in L.A. since 1991 before that, I was in the military. I was in the Air Force. And when I was in the Air Force, I was a competitive power lifter, and I played sports all my life. So my body was pretty wrecked in my 20s. I had a shoulder surgery and a knee surgery already, and I remember I was waiting tables, and I had met this girl, and I was taken by the way she sort of carried herself. She was she walked very upright, almost Royal. And I thought, you know, it's L.A., everyone's moving to LA to become an actress. And I thought, okay, this girl, right, she's like telling her family, I don't want your money, I'm moving to L.A. and I'm going to be an actress. So I asked her, and she laughed in my face, and she lifted up the back of her shirt, and she showed me a 13-inch scar on her spine. And she told me that when she was young, she had this incredible S curve in her back, and she was in a full body cast from her neck all the way down through her torso. And I said, oh, my God, that that sounds painful. And I said how do you move? You can't, I haven't seen you bend. She goes, I can't. The only thing I can bend is my hips. I can turn my hips, but I cannot bend my back. I said, well, what do you do for relief? And she said, I do yoga. And I was like, Well, explain what's that and how does that help you? And she said, I'd love to explain it, but I don't think I can. Why don't you just come to a class? So I did, and you know, me then, I was really big. I had all this muscle mass, right? And I went to my first class, and I could not finish, could not finish the class. It kicked my butt. And I was so, my ego got, got triggered. And one of the things that's important for me as a teacher now when I teach my students is that there is, yoga doesn't see things in good and bad. Yoga see thing, sees things in does it work or not? And at the time, ego served me, because it made me go back, and it made me go back and it made me go back. At the time, the reasons because I think I was going to get it, and that's fine for whatever, for whatever reason someone enters into the practice is fine, you're there. That's the important part. We can work on the why and the why always evolves as you get along through the practice. But for me, I tell people, ego brought me to yoga and it it kept me there.Lesley Logan 8:34  Yeah, I think, isn't it interesting, like, because I'll have I work with teachers, and they're like, oh, I don't want to work with people who want to lose weight. And I'm like, I, you don't have to promise them anything you can't do. But if, if that brought them into the space, I would much rather you a non like someone who's not going to manipulate or use them or lie to them to be the safe landing for them to find a movement practice that can help them love the body that they have, you know? So I'm not here to be I won't take you if you want to lose weight. I'll just say, here's the science of weight loss, here's how I can fit in and and here's how I don't, you know, but this is what we can do together and like building that trust. And if that's what brought them in, and that's what got them to keep coming at the beginning, but then they stay coming because of how it makes them feel, and then they become a person who doesn't worry about that, because they actually care more about how they feel than how that what the scale says. Like, to me, that's kind of like that same thing. Like, I think too often people are wanting to turn away that negative energy, that negative energy in air quotes, because that's not what something is. But really it's like, you can't just, you don't, we don't get to decide how people come to us. Anthony Benenati 9:48  Right. Lesley Logan 9:49  All we can do is like, kind of be a space for them to evolve and learn the what, what, what they wanted, what they're here, what we can teach them. Anthony Benenati 9:57  Yeah, I'm glad that you said that. I'm glad that you said that to create the space, because that's exactly what it is, isn't it? It's like we want to create a safe space for them to explore them, and not come in with this bunch of judgment that I'm putting on to them so that they feel uncomfortable. I want them to feel as comfortable as they can. Starting anything new is difficult. We all know that. Let's not make it harder. Lesley Logan 10:22  Yeah, yeah. I also like that you said there's like, there's not bad or good.Anthony Benenati 10:28  That's a radical, that's a radical idea for people. In the West, we are programmed this is good and this is bad. I can even hear, you probably hear this in your students' languages too. Oh, that's my bad side, or I have a bad leg, or I have a bad shoulder. And I'm careful with that, careful with the languaging. It's not bad. It may be injured, it may be weaker, it may be tighter, but that doesn't mean it's bad.Lesley Logan 10:55  Yeah. And I, well, I, there was a years ago, like years ago. I can remember where I was driving, but I can't remember the name of the podcast, I was in traffic on San Vicente trying to get to Wilson Boulevard, and I was listening this podcast, and they talked about how, like, we have to be mindful of how we talk about our body, because our body is listening. And they have done studies that, if you like, say, I gained weight, I'm someone who can't lose weight, like, I I'm fat. All this your bod, those people who say that they actually have seen that they produce fat cells, like, that's what they do, right? Versus like, they also, like, told people, like, oh, you had this knee surgery. And the person goes, oh, I had knee surgery, so my knee is better. They didn't have knee surgery. They literally didn't give it to them. They just pretended they put them under they had controls, don't worry there's other things, but. Anthony Benenati 11:42  The placebo effect. Lesley Logan 11:44  What you tell your body like really does matter and and I studied with BJ Fogg, who's the found who wrote Tiny Habits, and he's really the leading scientist on habits that everybody has been stealing from and, not stealing, it's the wrong word, they probably study with them, but at any rate, he said there's no such thing as a bad or good habit. Everything serves you. Every like the habits you don't like about yourself, if you don't like that you scroll on the internet. If you don't like that you binge-watch NetFlix that they'll all the habits we have serve us, they provide something because your brain actually doesn't want to be around anything that causes judgment or shame. So it, it's seeking, like, oh, like, maybe it's comfortable for you to it's soothing to just binge out and watch something you get you get to avoid the other thoughts you have, or with certainty, which we all are looking for and and so he said, If you so, you can't ever say I have a bad habit or I don't want to have good habits. They're just all habits. And then there might be habits you prefer and habits you'd like to get rid of. Anthony Benenati 12:42  Right. I think in the context of the yoga conversation, yoga would simply ask, do your habits serve you? And that's another way to say it, right, whether it's good or bad, is it serving you? Lesley Logan 12:54  Yes. Anthony Benenati 12:55  So maybe at the end of the night, you've had a really shitty night and you need a drink, and most people would go, oh, my God, you teach yoga. You don't drink, right? There's another stereotype. Lesley Logan 13:06  Yeah. Anthony Benenati 13:07  But does that drink serve you in that moment? Is it going to control you? Is it going to take over? No. May it take the edge off and allow you to process the things that you're going through? Sure. Are there other ways to process it? Yes. But not everybody can just be like, you know what, I'm super stressed, and I'm just going to sit and meditate. That's not that's not realistic. Lesley Logan 13:30  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 13:31  It's not realistic for somebody, you have to meet people where they are, yeah, yeah, and make the changes gradually. Lesley Logan 13:38  Well, I mean, do you have to meet yourself where you are? Anthony Benenati 13:41  Well, yes. True.Lesley Logan 13:44  That's a bigger, that's so huge. I just, you just mentioned something I thought it would be really good timing, like, since there is the stereotype of what yoga is, especially in the West, especially in big cities, oh, actually, even now, because the way things work in rural areas. It's just franchises so like so, what is yoga really?Anthony Benenati 14:08  Okay. How long is this podcast?Lesley Logan 14:11  We can have you back for another. We can split it up. Anthony Benenati 14:13  Part two. On its most basic level, yoga is a practice. It's been, well, the iteration that we know as yoga today has only been around a couple of 100 years prior to that, prior to the last 5000 years with yoga, yoga has been a ritual, a path, a practice to transcend the known or the physical, to transcend it to, instead of saying I am my body, yogis back then would say, I am not my body. And then they would use the practice to try and extricate themselves from their body. So, a free soul, you can think of it that way, the soul that inhabits me is limited by this physical boundary, and I'm going to use the yoga practice to liberate myself from this physical, literally, prison, is how they thought of it. But things evolved, and as things do over hundreds and thousands of years, consciousness changes, and societies evolve, and mindsets change, and even language changes. So yoga now has become a physical practice to help the body and the mind connect. So there's a saying that if you keep the body to cool the mind, most people, they start thinking a lot when they stop doing. And that's why a lot of people are just doing all the time, do, do, do, do, do, and there's no room for thinking. And then when they stop doing, all of these thoughts start coming up, and they don't know how to deal with them, so they just start doing again. Which is, I guess, a way of pushing things down so that you don't have to deal with it. Lesley Logan 16:05  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 16:06  Yoga gives us a invitation to try something else. Iit's a, it's an invitation to be like, how does my body work? And how does it work better? And not for the sake of the practice itself, but how is it going to help my life? Even if you do yoga every day, let's just say you do 30 minutes of yoga every day. There's 23 and a half other hours. What else are you going to do? Hopefully your yoga practice is serving that.Lesley Logan 16:37  Yeah, yeah. 30 minutes everyone is 2% of your day. If you want to do the math, it's 2% so if you can't give 2% of yourself to something that helps you become better, the other 98% like, I love that. I love the way that you described it. I think that it's really true. And I think it kind of like takes it away. Because I think people get caught up in the process of yoga, the poses, or the styles, and that's just all process which no one really, like, in the world of marketing guys, sells nothing. No one cares about the process. They care about the transformation, the the idea of like, you know, you said, like, breaking free of this limiting thing that would be like the thing, the promise. Let's go back. You, we kind of got, you got the ego kept you going to yoga. Why did you, like, did you know you wanted to be a teacher? Like, did you, I, because I had the same thing. I went to Pilates kicking and screaming, to be completely honest, and I thought it was a bullshit infomercial workout. And then I loved it, and then I kept going back, because I felt really good. And it wasn't till someone said I should be a teacher that I even thought about being a teacher. So how did you become a teacher? I mean, like, 32 years, take us back.Anthony Benenati 17:46  That's exactly, that's exactly, right, it was my teacher at the time that had told me. He told me after class. Now this was, you know, maybe a year, year and a half into starting with him. But he said, you know, because we've had multiple conversations, not just in the classroom but outside, we'd go and have tea or whatever. And he goes, have you ever thought about teaching yoga? And I said, absolutely not. I mean, why would I? Why would I do that? I barely know the practice. He says, I understand that, and I can get you more information, but I see something in you that I think will help other people. And I think what he saw, and after teaching a whole bunch of teacher trainees myself, the most effectual teacher is someone who understands how people get to the practice. And what I mean by that is if, for instance, if I grew up in the yoga tradition and my parents were teachers, and I had been doing yoga all my life, and I never really understood the struggle of a tight body, of not being able to do the poses, of not understanding the language, of having no connection to yoga, whatsoever. Then I couldn't offer that to anybody else coming into the practice, because I would, I, some of the teachers that I train who are super flexible, for instance, they never understand what it's like not to be so it's hard to have empathy for the student that is having a very difficult time doing the most basic movement. And I think empathy is such an important factor to be a great teacher, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes. Lesley Logan 17:47  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 17:47  Or barefoot as it, in the yoga studio.Lesley Logan 17:47  Yeah, yeah. I agree. Like, I think, I think, you know, I used to be embarrassed by, like, how I thought so negatively about Pilates, and when I realized it was actually probably the way that made people trust to even try it out, like, I also thought it was bullshit. So, you know, I got it. And then the other thing, like, I do have one of those hypermobile bodies, but I fractured my tibial plateau right before I met and I remember, like, all this fear about, like, what that meant for my Pilates practice, what that meant for my weight training, my running, everything right? Was like, fear going on. And then I also realized in my own healing, how easy I was giving it to people with knee surgeries. Because I was just like, okay, like, don't move this in time thing and so I have an injury, I was like, oh, there's actually a lot of things they can do. There's like, so much like, and there's also so much they can't do, but like, you know, like, we don't have to, like, push them, but at the same token, like, we can challenge this body because it got injured for a reason. There was an imbalance, and that's why that happened.Anthony Benenati 18:11  Correct, correct. And we're here to address that imbalance, right? A lot of times, yoga is translated as union, which is a very simple, and it's not a direct translation. The root word of yoga is actually thousands of years old, and it's yuj, Y-U-J and it means to yoke. Now this is an old fashioned term. You know the yoke when they used to yoke the horse to the cart or the ox to the cart. Lesley Logan 21:02  I'm nodding, because I did do the Oregon Trail, and that is where I learned yoga. Anthony Benenati 21:06  Okay, there you go. So that's the image that I want people to have here, and it's very important, because what you have, so yoga, at that point, becomes an action. It's a verb. It's not just a noun. What is it? But what is it doing? It's joining. But what is it joining? It's joining two different things, right? The cart and the horse. Now, alone, these two things serve purposes, don't they? But if you connect them, then you can do incredible things that neither one of these things could do by themselves. So in the yoga practice, we say one and one never equals two. It always equals three, because there's you, there's the thing, and then there's the thing you guys are creating. So it's you and Brad as individuals, and it's your marriage, which is a living entity. And it has a life of its own. And if you don't feed and nourish that third thing, not only will it die, but then you're broken apart again.Lesley Logan 22:15  Yeah. Yeah. You should become a counselor as well.Anthony Benenati 22:18  What do you think after class is about? When people feel comfortable with you, they come after class and then they start telling you about deeper issues, right, things that not the body, but the why, the why that they're here. Why are they struggling? Why are they having a hard time? I was actually listening to one of your previous podcast this morning, as we were taking me and my wife were taking a walk, Ashley, around the lake here, and we were listening, and it was the client, or the person you had on that had stage four cancer. Lesley Logan 22:54  Oh, yeah. Anthony Benenati 22:55  And I remember you said something, and it was very astute. You said that. Well, you didn't know how many, and I looked it up, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day, and you said about 95% of them are negative, right? And it's true. It's like we have these same repetitive thoughts all throughout the day, and the majority of them, the vast majority of them, are negative or repeat from the day before and the day before and the day before. And at what point do you start addressing this and start changing the narrative? Yoga is the invitation to start learning that you can that there is an issue first and then the tools to change them. Lesley Logan 23:43  Yeah.Anthony Benenati 23:45  So I love yoga as a verb, as an action, not just a thing like we can name it, and you can't just name it and make it yo. You can't just put goats in the room and call it yoga. It's not. Lesley Logan 24:01  Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, like, because it's cute everyone and so don't at me. It is adorable, and if it gets people in, sure, but also, like, you're now paying attention to the goat, not you, which is like, another distraction that, you know, I think, like, I think, I think it's really easy, people want to distract themselves from all that's going on. Like, first of all, you've been a teacher since the 90s, so in L.A., which means use your studio was around during lots of things. Like, you know, I don't, I don't remember when, like, the riots were, if your studio is open, but then there was, like, 911 and. Anthony Benenati 24:46  The riots werre '92 so it was just after I got here, so I opened the studio in '99 so 911 happened for us, and that was a remarkable time. Obviously, the next, Gulf War happened, and lots of other things. And, you know, the studio became a community. It became a place for people to go, even if they just wanted to sit and be in the room, let alone practice. I remember the practice after 911 people just wanted to sit and gather and cry and talk and rage and not move. They didn't want to move their bodies. They just needed community. They felt so detached.Lesley Logan 25:24  Yeah. I mean, I wasn't any, I wasn't in a practice at the time, but I remember, because we were in California, so you're so removed, but you're not, you know? And so I can see how, like, your space can be that. And I think, like, it's so cool and also so big to have us to do a practice that can be so many things for people. It can be the community that they need, it could be the safe space that they share, and it can be a constant, like, it's there, no matter when things are good or when things are bad. And we don't have a lot of those things, right? Like, there's not there's not a lot of places or things you can do even when times are good and when times are bad, and I know you're gonna tell me good and bad, but like, you know, in the in the happier, joyful times versus, like, the sadder times.Anthony Benenati 26:09  Right, now we're in a really difficult time, and we've been here before. 2008 we were here the last time this particular President was in office. We were here. And we go through these cycles, and they're not unlike other cycles throughout the history of life, and we will have more. And it's not always positive, it's not always happy, it's not always on the incline. Sometimes it takes a dip. And you and I both know that that's really where you're tested. You're tested in the dips. You're never tested when things are great, and you're never going to change when things are comfortable either. Change only happens when you're uncomfortable.Lesley Logan 26:47  Yeah, it's really true. One of the my favorite things that you would bring up when we were in class is talking about, like, you know, you can't have love without hate, the equal opposite. And I was hoping you can, like, dive into that a little bit for us. Because I think, one, I actually think since these several moments of 2008 and 2016, and and now it's really easy for people to not see good and so it makes me go, like you guys, like you're seeing all the hate. Like, are you recognizing it's equal opposite. But I also, like, I think it's hard. I think people are always waiting for another shoe to drop, as opposed to, like, noticing when things are are also going well. But anyways, I wanted to know if you could, like, just share a little bit about that, because my listeners haven't heard that, and it was my favorite things. Like, Brad brought up your, like, Saturday morning classes today in a call with people, and he said, like, there'd be like, 50 people in this room, and you know, like you would often bring that up, and it was always around the same time that, like, something not great was going on. We all just felt it, whether it was in the city or the world. And like, you have to remind yourself of those things. Anthony Benenati 27:53  It ties into the whole good and bad thing, because it's a reframing of thought. Like, you have to really reframe this idea that even, even if it's something that you don't like, it's serving something. So it's a basic function of physics, like, things wouldn't exist if it didn't have an opposite, right? You wouldn't know joy if you didn't know pain, you wouldn't know laughter if you didn't know sadness, you wouldn't have anything to reference it to. So your capacity to love is directly related to your capacity to hate, to feeling these negative, quote, negative feelings versus these positive. They're there to balance each other out, and it's the idea is that it's your choice which one you want to feed. You remember Star Wars, right? Think about the force. The force is this, is this neutral thing, and it's how you choose to use it. They were all using the same force. But the lesson was, am I going to use this to help empower and further and engage, or am I going to use this for selfish and personal and destructive reasons? Same energy, how do you use it? So rather than wasting your time on whether something is good or bad or right and wrong, it really serves you to think, is this serving me? Because, like you said earlier, at some point in your life, it served you, whether it was to keep you safe when you were a child, for instance, maybe you were in a really bad home life, and you learned coping mechanisms. You learn, for instance, maybe how to shut it out, right, and how to go into your own cave, which is, which is very easy for me to do. If things get too much, I tend to remove myself and go back into this little cave. Well, you can't do that when you're in relationship. Yeah. Well, you certainly can't do that for very long, right? You need tools like, yes, I need to go take 10 or 30 minutes to myself, but I'll be back. It's that communication, to let that other person know I'm not leaving you. I'm not not communicating with you, but I do need to take care of myself. So it's changing, the languaging around this. So it helps me to think, for instance, this bad time that we're having right now, it's temporary. Now, temporary may mean years.Anthony Benenati 27:55  Yeah, I know I had a like, a thing, like, like, a little mantra card that's, everything, everything, everything is temporary. And I'm like, and temporary does not mean two seconds, two minutes, two weeks.Anthony Benenati 30:02  Exactly. There is no time limit on temporary, but it will end. Things always do. Things always change, but it was helpful to me to look at kind of life in that different way. I wasn't raised like that. I was raised as a Catholic, so it was always guilt and shame and right and wrong and very linear thinking, very black and white thinking, very dualistic, instead of this idea that maybe it's not so black and white, maybe there is the gray. And I think we're all learning that extremism on either end is not the path. So, far right or far left, we're not going to get anywhere because we're isolating. We have to find a way to start communicating again and finding common ground and stop making other the problem. Lesley Logan 31:41  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 31:43  That's my that's my I think that goes on and off the mat. Don't look at your body as a bad thing. Don't look at it as something that you need to conquer or change, or that somehow there's something wrong with you. How can I enhance myself? How can I make me who I am, and everything that I am that may not be somebody else, but very unique to me. How can I make myself even better, a better version of me, not, not somebody else. I don't have to be somebody else. I just have to be the best me I can be.Lesley Logan 32:18  Yeah. That makes me think of like, I interviewed a happiness strategist, and I was like, you know, I was like, this is interesting, because, like, like, can you be happy all the time? And she's like, well, of course not. She's like, like, she's like, she's like, but she said your ability to be happy is as directly related to how uncomfortable you can get, like, how comfortable withuncomfortable. You can get like, that's, can you like, what's your resilience? And she, you know, and I think, like, I think a lot of people have been outsourcing so long how they feel based on, like, what's going on out in the world, and not going back to like, how can I make myself the best version? Because we can affect the people around us more easily when you were talking about other it made me think you guys Google the Heineken commercial. It's quite long, but they literally took, like, people of opposite extremes and like, they took a guy who, like, voted against gay marriage, and then they took a lesbian and they put them in a room together, and they have to, like, build a desk, right? And like, and they, a table, or they build something. And the guy, like, this one guy is like, completely, I got this. I like, I can do these things, right? And she's like, and like, so they have to work together to build this thing. And like, each personal strengths have to do it, and then they have to sit down and have a beer. And at the end, the people who like when they interviewed them before they met the person they're building with, it would be like, I don't understand transgenders. I think they have to know rights, blah, blah, blah. And then they meet someone who's transgender, but they just built this desk together, and you watch this person go, well, let's have another drink and like, so it's really fascinating that, like, if we can actually stop, you know, being on the opposite sides, we can actually be together, and you get to know people, you're more likely to hear them and listen to them and realize we're kind of like what you think has been influenced by so much, by other people who are louder and you you actually love people who are around you more than you know, you know? And so I think that's what's so beautiful about a yoga class, or even Pilates classes, they can attract people from all sides of a spectrum and have a shared experience. And you know, because, and the more they get to know themselves, the more ideally, and this may be the idealist in me, like they think about caring for others, because they can, because once you've, once you've taken care of you, you actually have the capacity to actually care about other people.Anthony Benenati 34:45  Oxygen mask, baby. It's all about putting on your oxygen mask, right? You got to put yours on first. You can't help anybody else if you're passed out. But I like what you said there, too, because Yoga does want to meet people where they're at. I remember, I had this woman in class. She always sat up front and in the beginning of class, at that time, we would chant the sound of om in the beginning of class, just to settle the class and get things going. And she would never chant, and that's fine. You don't have to, right? It's again, everything's an invitation. But she did come up to me after class one day, and we had a conversation, and I asked her why, and she says, well, you know, I'm a devout Jew, and I feel like I'm sort of disrespecting my tradition if I'm doing something I don't understand. And I said, well, I'm so glad that you brought that up. First of all, yoga doesn't care what you believe. You can believe you know, Orange is God, and you can still practice. Yoga doesn't require a belief, it just requires a willingness. And I said, well, you're a devout Jew, so what are you comfortable saying? And she said, well, shalom. And I said, Well, what's in the middle of shalom? And she said om. And I said, exactly. So from that point on, we would chant om, and she would chant shalom, and she would just hold the om. It, for some reason, it gave her permission. It was totally fine with everybody else, and then she felt included. That was a wonderful story. Lesley Logan 36:19  I love that. I think also giving people permission, right? Like, I think that's what, you know, people can have permission to move their body, but also be in practice. Like, that's why it's called a yoga practice, and I think that's what it does so well, something that, like, I call it a Pilates practice, and there are a lot of people like me who call it practice, but there's also a lot of people who don't understand that, and they don't call it that, and they're like, I gotta get this. And it's like, no, what are you talking about, like, you're never gonna like, you don't get that. Like, it's your body. Your body's different every single day. Like, there are days like, at 6am I do Pilates, and at 8am I work out with you, and my body between those two hours is very different. And I'm like, whoa. I, what happened on my dog walk that this is no longer an option. I do, I do like that. Okay, I want to go into, because I think, like, you have had so many chapters in your yoga career, and what how you are, how you are teaching yoga now, is very different than what you did for the majority on your studio and things like that. Like we talk about some, be it till you see it moments and like, kind of like, what your what are you being till you see it, right now?Anthony Benenati 37:20  You're right. I did go through a lot when you when you have a studio for that long, you know, you go through a lot of changes, including me and my original partner, we split, and then there was that moment where you had to decide who's going to fight for this, who's going to get the studio, because we both wanted it, and that was that was all about desire. Do you really want this? And how bad do you want it? And then after that, there were other things that came up every time you're being tested. And you will be tested no matter how committed you think you are to whatever it is that you think you want, you're going to continue to be tested. And it just is a way to reaffirm, do I really want to be it? Do I really want to do this? For me now, you're right. It is different. My body is different. My practice is different, and not in a bad or a good way, just different. This is the different body than it was when it was in my late 20s. Being it now is, for me, is really being about being authentic, being authentic to the moment, being authentic to my students, but really being authentic to my own inner voice. And every time I get on the mat, the first thing I tell my students is, listen, listen to your body. It's going to tell you something different today than it did yesterday. If you come onto the mat with an agenda, most of the time, you're going to be disappointed, because you don't know that your body's ready to do those things that day, that particular day, maybe you need something completely different than you thought. We have to be open to that. And then the day I decided that my time of studio ownership was over, that was a tough one. That was a really hard day. But the moment I decided to make that shift, I felt so much more freedom. Yoga had changed, you know, it really had become corporate. At this point, it was being completely watered down. People were barely doing teacher trainings and leading yoga classes, and it just became too much of a struggle to do the business of yoga versus being the teacher. You know, when you own your own business, you never are not working. That's the thing. It's 24/7 right? You don't get to clock out and go home and forget about it. Lesley Logan 39:50  Yeah, there's a reason why I like, watch White Lotus. I'm like, because I'm not where I can't work and watch White Lotus like, this is me being awesome. That's how it serves me. Even if it, like, gives me a little stress and anxiety, I'm like, but I'm not working, so I get it, no, like, I mean, like, yeah, and then I I, I'm where I'm married to someone I work with. So it's never, it's never off. Yeah, but I, thank you for sharing that, because, I mean, like, I think a lot of people, there's an aspiration to start something or do something or own something. But as you said, you've evolved. Not only has yoga evolved, but you've evolved. Your body has changed. And I think sometimes we forget that as we evolve, we outgrow some roles, you know, and like, just like you outgrow clothes, like you outgrow, like you outgrow a role, and it's like owning a studio serves such a good purpose, like a good purpose at the time, like you had a partner and a family and, like all these things. And then it also got to a place where it's like all this is changing, and I have, too, you know, but that's so hard to like, because it's like a light switch. Anthony Benenati 40:58  Yeah. Well, you know, I had felt it, but not really paid attention to it. And you know how your body does, your body will jump in there and it'll call your attention. And I literally had my one and only panic attack at that moment. It was like, oh yeah, this is a sign you are not in a good place. This, this, this, it's time to get out. It's time this, this had run its course. And that was a hard decision to really give up the thing that you worked so hard to create. But it was also learning that that was separate from who I was, that we were not inextricably connected, that we were these individual things, and we did create a third thing, but that third thing was dying, and it was time to change into something else.Lesley Logan 41:46  Yeah, yeah. What are you most excited about right now?Anthony Benenati 41:51  Oh my gosh, we are empty nesters. That's the most, 25 years of being a parent.Lesley Logan 41:59  I had someone I just interviewed. She's like, I'm a bird launcher. She's like, I've launched all my birds. They're all birds. They're all launched. Like, the positive of that.Anthony Benenati 42:10  It is so true. We are so excited about this next chapter for us, which is freedom in a lot of different ways, right? I mean, you're never not the parent, but they don't need you every day anymore. They need you when they need you and and happy to be there when they do. Like this morning, my youngest called from college, and she stayed on the phone for over an hour. And she just needed feedback. She needed to connect. She didn't necessarily need a ton of advice. She just, you could feel that she needed connection. For now, for me, it really is about this next chapter. Your lives are a bunch of chapters, and at being, you know, 50, I'll be 58 this year. It's a very I know, right? Yeah, I can't believe it myself, but this idea now that I can make choices solely for me or solely for us as a couple and not oh my god, what are we going to do with the kids, and is this child going to come? Or are they not going to come, or are we going to do this all together, that we can make these choices for ourselves, I'm really excited about that. That's the personal aspect of it. Professionally, professionally, things have changed, you know, ever since covid, everybody went online, and which is great. It's a great way to connect to everybody, but I still feel the need to be in the classroom, yeah, and we do those in persons, and we do those yoga retreats, and we do those monthly workshops, just so that people can have that feeling of connection and community again. Lesley Logan 43:52  Yeah, I think that's why we do our tours, too. Like, I love being online, because I can impact people without having to travel as much. And also, like, I need to see bodies in three dimensions.Anthony Benenati 44:03  Right. How do you make an adjustment with you can't see and touch? Lesley Logan 44:06  No, I'm literally going so if I was there, I would hold your arms still. Imagine I'm like, is your child around? Can they grab your arms and hold them? Hold their hold their arms. Okay. Now go.Anthony Benenati 44:18  That's so good. Lesley Logan 44:19  You know, but like, I think, I think that's why, like, I like the idea of, like, really reframing what's good or bad. Because, like, I think it could be so easy, like, back before the pandemic, like, oh, online is terrible. You can't have those things. But we, Brad and I used to, like, call you just be on the phone. Because I was like, I can't handle the traffic. I can't but I want you. So just, just be on just be on speakerphone, and we'll mute ourselves, and we'll be, you know, but like, when the pandemic happened, I was like, oh, I love this, because now I can have access to the people, I don't live in the same town as you, and I, Brad and I still get to have that practice with you, and I think, but also, yeah, we miss, like, actual hugs and actually seeing people, and you have to be more intentional. But I think that that, I think then we are more intentional, you know, so that is also cool.Anthony Benenati 45:08  Yeah, we really mourned the day you guys left.Lesley Logan 45:12  When we moved from L.A. to Las Vegas was during the pandemic, and we didn't actually have a mourning, because nothing was actually happening in person, the more like it was a year and a half later when things opened back up and we were not part of the opening back up that was like, so it was a delayed mourning, a delayed grief for us. Okay, obviously, we're gonna all catch up, guys. We're gonna take a brief break, find out how people can find you, follow you, do yoga with you. Anthony Benenati 45:39  Great. Lesley Logan 45:40  All right, Anthony, where do you hang out? Like, are you on the Instagram? Or is there just a simpler way? How can people do yoga with you or learn more about what you're doing? Where do you where can they go? Anthony Benenati 45:52  Well, they can go to my website, which is, thatsnotyoga.com and of course, there's a story behind that, because that's a pretty bold statement, which was intentional. One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes, right, and that is so far from the truth. If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries. So if you take a bunch of energy and you narrow it, you're going to increase the flow of that energy. Just think of water. Take a lake. Narrow the boundaries. It becomes a river. Narrow the boundaries even more, becomes a raging river. So most people think that if you limit their choices, then you're limiting their freedom. But I call it the Cheesecake Factory theory. Walk into a Cheesecake Factory and you sit down, and they literally throw you down a book. And they're like, okay, what do you want? And you can have anything. The book is like, an inch thick. And I just get overloaded because there's too many choices. I much prefer to go to a restaurant where they just print the menu that day and there's six things on it, and you can have this, this or this, and I'm like, great, I'll have that. The narrowing of your choices actually gives you more freedom, because you're constantly saying no to a bunch of things while you're saying yes to a limited amount of things, right? Like being in marriage, you're saying yes to Brad and no to everybody else. It's this process that continues throughout your entire day, right? What am I letting in? What am I consciously keeping away? I love that understanding.Lesley Logan 47:42  I love that. So you guys just so you know, because he didn't say it, but I'm gonna say it for him. Brad and I can do yoga online with this man. You do it three times a week. I try to show up twice a week when I'm there. And Brad, we're getting him on the 8 am wake up call. We're working on. Do you remember? Do you remember when he used to do it 6 am? I think we have to remind him that he used to do 6 am yoga. Anthony Benenati 48:03  Absolutely. Lesley Logan 48:03  When the bed was further away from the studio was the the thing. So you guys can do that. You can find that on, on, thatsnot yoga.com. You kind of just gave us a Be It Action Item. But I just want to see like, if there's any other bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. Anthony Benenati 48:18  Okay. The the, the the triad, the triumvirate that we like to follow in the practice, is desire, knowledge, action. Those are my Be It moments. To break it down, you got to want to do something, then you have to learn how to do it, and then you do it, this whole idea of just do it, that's not going to work. Just doing something without knowing how to do it can cause you harm doing something and you don't have the real desire to do it, you're not going to put your best effort in. If you do those three things in that order, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do. You've got to want to do it. You got to learn how to do it, and then you simply have to do it, and you have to commit to doing it over and over and over again to create that meaningful change. Those are my action items. And the thing is, is, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. That's the thing. You're, exactly, more freedom. And that's whole, that's yoga's goal. Yoga just wants you to be more free. But that doesn't mean no boundaries. It means establishing meaningful boundaries, boundaries that are going to channel you in the direction you want to go. And guess what, people, you can always change your mind. You can always change your mind.Lesley Logan 49:48  I mean, that is like that needs to be on people's walls. Because I find like, you know, like, imagine if you never gave yourself permission to change your mind. You might, you might, the world might have lost a yoga teacher that day, because you would have had a panic attack and then a burnout, you know, like, you can change your mind on your schedule, you can change your mind on your goals. You can change your mind on lot of things, like, you know, and that is for the perfectionist, listening. That might be the hardest thing you learn.Anthony Benenati 50:14  I'm speaking to you, perfectionist.Lesley Logan 50:17  Yeah, oh my gosh, Anthony, obviously I could talk to you for hours. And clearly Brad is like itching to walk in this room, you guys, so we gotta let him in so you can say hi to his friend, but thank you for being here, and thank you for just sharing so much of your wisdom. I continue to learn from you. Always. I can't wait to learn more. Someday we're gonna do a joint Pilates, yoga. That is my dream. That is my vision. Maybe on the Summer Tour. Maybe you'll be our L.A. event. So see, you guys, let us know what your favorite takeaways were. Let Anthony know in thatsnotyoga. Let the Be It Pod know and share this with a friend who needs to hear it, because that's how everyone wins. You know, we all can take away something from this, and I'd love to hear what yours are, and you know what to do, until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 51:02  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 51:41  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 51:46  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 51:50  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 51:58  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 52:01  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Lesley Logan 52:14  I'm interviewing Anthony. Anthony Benenati 52:15  Hi, Brad. Lesley Logan 52:16  Yeah, it's an interview right now. No, we're not done. You're just interrupting. We'll put this in the bloopers. He's come in twice, and I'm like, um. Anthony Benenati 52:24  What's up, buddy? Brad Crowell 52:26  I wanted to say hi. Lesley Logan 52:27  Yeah. Okay, alright, one second, let me get to those Be It Action Items. Okay. We'll talk.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on The Monday Edit we're talking: the Hurricane Katrina documentary, Amanda Seales & Jubilee, Texas & California redistricting, HIV segregation in prisons, and the Correct the Map campaign,. Check out the JVN Patreon for exclusive BTS content, extra interviews, and much much more - check it out here: ⁠www.patreon.com/jvn⁠  Follow us on Instagram @gettingbetterwithjvn Jonathan on Instagram @jvn and senior producer Chris @amomentlikechris  New video episodes Getting Better on YouTube every Wednesday.  Senior Producer, Chris McClure Producer, Editor & Engineer is Nathanael McClure Production support from Anne Currie, and Chad Hall Our theme music is also composed by Nathanael McClure. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Automotive in Flux This week on the Simply Trade Roundup, host Annik Sobing is joined by licensed customs broker and Master Customs Specialist Filipp Zaborenko to tackle the fast-changing world of automotive trade compliance. From shifting tariffs and forced labor enforcement to steel and aluminum duties and the evolving EV market, the conversation dives into how automakers and compliance professionals can keep pace with uncertainty while planning for the future. What You'll Learn in This Episode: Tariff Shifts – The new EU–US trade deal and what a 15% duty means for automakers Forced Labor Rules – Why due diligence never went away — and why enforcement is heating up Cost Planning Uncertainty – How long-term auto production faces tariff unpredictability Classification Challenges – Why misclassifying parts could cost millions under new rules EVs Under the Microscope – The love-hate relationship with electric vehicles and new classification hurdles Compliance Strategy – Staying proactive when trade feels more like reaction mode Key Takeaways: Tariff changes reshape auto supply chains but leave long-term planning murky. Forced labor enforcement remains a top priority for global automakers. Steel and aluminum tariffs add complexity to tariff classification and cost modeling. Correct classification directly impacts USMCA eligibility and tariff exposure. Compliance pros must embrace both vigilance and technology — including AI tools — to stay ahead. Resources & Mentions: Filipp Zaborenko's upcoming Automotive Classification Advanced Mini-Course (Sept 16–18) via Global Training Center Recent EU–US automotive tariff updates UFLPA and forced labor due diligence requirements CBP guidance on steel and aluminum tariffs Credits Host: Annik Sobing https://www.linkedin.com/in/annik-sobing-mba-b226251a2/ Producer: Lalo Solorzano https://www.linkedin.com/in/lalosolorzano/ Guest: Filipp Zaborenko Subscribe & Follow: New Roundup episodes every Monday. Presented by: Global Training Center — providing education, consulting, workshops, and compliance resources for trade professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn, LinkedIn (GTC), YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts,join the Trade Geeks community, or email us at simplytrade@globaltrainingcenter.com. Don't forget to rate, review, and share with your fellow trade geeks! Want to Be on the Show or Have Topic Suggestions? Reach us at SimplyTrade@GlobalTrainingCenter.com or DM us on Twitter/X @SimplyTradePod

Time to think about planting your fruit trees! The Urban Farm's Greg Peterson knows a thing or two from growing fruit trees on a third of an acre. He explains the keys to success understanding chill hours and root stocks that are climate appropriate. Digging that square hole, what goes in that hole, protection at its young stage and more tips for a future harvest of fruit. Original broadcast archive page with expanded content https://rosieonthehouse.com/podcast/outdoor-living-hour-urban-farming-selectingfruittrees-with-greg-peterson-of-the-urban-farm/

The Packers are nearly done with training camp. Let's try to predict their initial 53-man roster.GET IN TOUCHLeave us a voicemail and hear yourself in a future episodehttps://www.speakpipe.com/thepowersweepPrefer more old-school contact? Reach out here:https://thepowersweep.com/contactSUPPORT BLUE 58Donate to our Patreon - For as little as $1 per month, you can access Patreon-only content and get access to our private Discord server.https://www.patreon.com/thepowersweepSubscribe to The Power Sweep's Substack to stay in touch and get content beamed straight to your email inboxhttps://thepowersweep.substack.com/Buy a T-Shirt or Sweatshirt - Look good while supporting The Power Sweep.https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-power-sweep?ref_id=25927Leave us a 5-Star Review on iTunes - It helps more people find the show!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/blue-58. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Trump has scored yet another YUGE win in the US Supreme Court, with the majority upholding the authority of the Article II Executive elected by the whole of the American people to carry out our political will, to DENY FUNDING that was granted on the basis of deranged DEI and racist ideologies.The SCOTUS opinion includes a SCATCHING rebuke of the unelected, tyrannical, inferior, federal district courts who are in OPEN REBELLION against the US Supreme Court, authored by the clearly and justifiably angry Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, both of whom have clearly had enough of the petulant inferior federal judges who simply refuse to accept any limitation whatever on their self-claimed infinite authority in their efforts to achieve their desired political outcomes.And, of course, in an opinion in which eight justices delivering a bundle of four distinct written opinions and dissent in a concise 14 pages, Justice Ketanji “Waffle House” Jackson is unable to restrain herself from consuming an additional full 18 pages to stomp her foot.Jackson extensively denigrates her colleagues on the SCOTUS bench as ruling in an “unprincipled and unfortunate” manner, delivering a decision that only uses “logic (such as it is)”, is “an even bigger mistake than I realized,” is lacking in “deviates dramatically” from “ordinary, commonsense,” and engaging in “Calvinball jurisprudence” in which “there are no fixed rules.” Instead, Justice Waffle House writes in describing this Supreme Court, “we seem to have only two [rules]: that one [that there are no fixed rules], and this Administration always wins.”Contemptible. The #1 guide for understanding when using force to protect yourself is legal. Now yours for FREE! Just pay the S&H for us to get it to you.➡️ Carry with confidence, knowing you are protected from predators AND predatory prosecutors➡️ Correct the common myths you may think are true but get people in trouble​➡️ Know you're getting the best with this abridged version of our best-selling 5-star Amazon-rated book that has been praised by many (including self-defense legends!) for its easy, entertaining, and informative style.​➡️ Many interesting, if sometimes heart-wrenching, true-life examplesGet Your Free Book: https://lawofselfdefense.com/getthebook

Another glorious day in Trump's America, and another day full of attestations of the ongoing implosion, collapse, disintegration of the Democrat Party.In fact, of course, the demise of the Democrat party as a viable political institution is not something new—it has been ongoing for decades.  Arguably the last gasp for the Democrats, lunging their mouths out of the drowning waters for the last time, was at the 2008 election of Barack Obama in 2008.  Their political plight has been catastrophic ever since.Once the long-term destruction of the Democrat Party is recognized, much else observed in American politics makes a great deal of sense. How could America have had a brain-dead President Joe “autopen dementia” Biden for four years? Why would the Democrats advocate the importation of tens of millions of illegal migrant third-world invaders into our nation? Why do Democrats routinely prioritize criminal violence and chaos over law and order? The #1 guide for understanding when using force to protect yourself is legal. Now yours for FREE! Just pay the S&H for us to get it to you.➡️ Carry with confidence, knowing you are protected from predators AND predatory prosecutors➡️ Correct the common myths you may think are true but get people in trouble​➡️ Know you're getting the best with this abridged version of our best-selling 5-star Amazon-rated book that has been praised by many (including self-defense legends!) for its easy, entertaining, and informative style.​➡️ Many interesting, if sometimes heart-wrenching, true-life examplesGet Your Free Book: https://lawofselfdefense.com/getthebook

Fr. Mike shows us from our reading of Jeremiah that when we give our hearts and minds over to idols we become foolish. The way of man is not in himself, we need the Lord to guide and correct us. In Ezekiel, we read about the vision of the measuring of the temple and Fr. Mike shows us how the early Church Fathers would read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Today's readings are Jeremiah 10-11, Ezekiel 40, and Proverbs 15:5-8. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

The slaughter of three Americans innocently driving down a US turnpike in their mini-van by a soul-less illegal migrant third-world invader from India using a 80,000 trailer as a lethal weapon to kill our fellow citizens raises a plethora of interesting questions.First, why do Americans allow our home-grown sanctuary cities to harbor illegal migrant third-world invaders--including those who commit violent crimes upon American men, women, and children--from the lawful consequences of their predation on ourselves and our fellow citizens?Second, why does American allow for the importation into our nation of tens of millions of third-world migrant Indian nationals who are competing for American resources for scarce American resources--particularly high-paying tech jobs, but also of course qualify housing, education, healthcare, social services, and much more--when those same Indians are infamous for corrupting the H1B and other immigration pipelines, for engaging in outrageous nepotism in hiring only other Indian nationals over more qualified American citizens, who laughingly fake their academic and professional credentials, and who bring with them their third-world Indian culture that is entirely alien and inimical to our own American culture, and utterly unsuited to assimilation in any but the most minuscule of numbers?Are these CDL killings the modern immigrant BOSTON MASSACRE that will wake America from its slumber, and lead us to finally checking this third-world invasion of our nation, economy, culture, and people?The #1 guide for understanding when using force to protect yourself is legal. Now yours for FREE! Just pay the S&H for us to get it to you.➡️ Carry with confidence, knowing you are protected from predators AND predatory prosecutors➡️ Correct the common myths you may think are true but get people in trouble​➡️ Know you're getting the best with this abridged version of our best-selling 5-star Amazon-rated book that has been praised by many (including self-defense legends!) for its easy, entertaining, and informative style.​➡️ Many interesting, if sometimes heart-wrenching, true-life examplesGet Your Free Book: https://lawofselfdefense.com/getthebook

Buck v. Bell is the 1927 SCOTUS decision that upheld the constitutionality of laws allowing involuntary sterilization of people deemed to be “unfit.” Most of these laws have been repealed, but Buck v. Bell has never been directly overturned. Research: "Buck v. Bell." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, edited by Michael J. Tyrkus and Carol A. Schwartz, 4th ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2022, pp. 174-177. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX8276200650/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=84626437. Accessed 5 Aug. 2025. “BUCK v. BELL, Superintendent of State Colony Epileptics and Feeble Minded.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200 Brosnahan, Cori. “Finding Carrie Buck.” American Experience. 11/2/2018. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eugenics-finding-carrie-buck/ Circuit Court of Amherst County. "Judgment Against Carrie Buck (April 13, 1925)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Aug. 2025 https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/judgment-against-carrie-buck-april-13-1925/ Derrig, Collin. “Buck v. Bell in the Aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson: The Supreme Court’s Opportunity to Correct a Hundred-Year-Old Injustice.” University of Cincinnati Law Review Blog. 6/17/2025. https://uclawreview.org/2025/06/17/buck-v-bell-in-the-aftermath-of-dobbs-v-jackson-the-supreme-courts-opportunity-to-correct-a-hundred-year-old-injustice/ Disability Justice. “The Right to Self-Determination: Freedom from Involuntary Sterilization.” https://disabilityjustice.org/right-to-self-determination-freedom-from-involuntary-sterilization/ Dobbs, J.T.. "Petition to Commit Carrie Buck (January 23, 1924)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Aug. 2025 https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/petition-to-commit-carrie-buck-january-23-1924/ Fair, Alexandra. “The Sterilization of Carrie Buck.” OSU.edu. https://origins.osu.edu/read/sterilization-carrie-buck General Assembly. "An ACT to define feeble-mindedness (1916)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Aug. 2025. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/an-act-to-define-feeble-mindedness-1916/ General Assembly. "Chapter 46B of the Code of Virginia § 1095h–m (1924)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Aug. 2025. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/chapter-46b-of-the-code-of-virginia-%c2%a7-1095h-m-1924/ Harris, Jasmine E. “Why Buck v. Bell Still Matters.” The Petrie-Flom Center. 10/14/2020. https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/10/14/why-buck-v-bell-still-matters/ Larson, Edward J. “Putting Buck v. Bell in Scientific and Historical Context: A Response to Victoria Nourse.” Pepperdine University. 12/15/2011. https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1353&context=plr Lombardo, Paul A. "Facing Carrie Buck. (essay)." The Hastings Center Report, vol. 33, no. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2003, pp. 14+. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A101259980/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=46aca03c. Accessed 5 Aug. 2025. Lombardo, Paul A. "Involuntary sterilization in Virginia: from Buck v. Bell to Poe v. Lynchburg." Developments in Mental Health Law, vol. 3, no. 3, July-Sept. 1983, pp. 13+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A235104880/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=aad8cdbf. Accessed 5 Aug. 2025. Lombardo, Paul. “In the Letters of an ‘Imbecile,’ the Sham, and Shame, of Eugenics.’ Undark. 10/4/2017. https://undark.org/2017/10/04/carrie-buck-letters-eugenics/ Oberman, Michelle. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Buck v. Bell: Thoughts Occasioned by Paul Lombardo’s Three Generations, No Imbeciles.” Journal of Legal Education, Volume 59, Number 3 (February 2010). https://jle.aals.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1268&context=home Smith, J., and Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Carrie Buck (1906–1983)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Aug. 2025. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/buck-carrie-1906-1983/ Thompson, Philip. “Silent Protest: A Catholic Justice Dissents in Buck v. Bell.” The Catholic Lawyer. Vol. 43, No. 1, spring 2004. https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl/vol43/iss1/ Wolfe, Brendan. "Buck v. Bell (1927)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (12 Feb. 2021). Web. 06 Aug. 2025 https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/buck-v-bell-1927/ Lombardo, Paul A. “Carrie Buck’s Pedigree.” J Lab Clin Med 2001;138:278-82. doi:10.1067/mlc.2001.118091 Lombardo, Paul A. “Three Generations, No Imbeciles.” Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. Gould, Stephen J. “Carrie Buck's Daughter.” Constitutional Commentary. 1015. 1985. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/concomm/1015 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As both a science journalist and a sci-fi writer, Annalee Newitz thinks a lot about what our technology-saturated future might hold for us. Newitz's new novella, “Automatic Noodle,” is set in 2060's postwar San Francisco after California has seceded from the U.S. In the midst of an exploitative dystopia, a crew of robots opens a noodle shop with a sweet and resilient commitment to community, excellent food and rebuilding. We talk about what Newitz sees in our AI future, and how the values and community bonds that have long made San Francisco great may fare then, and now. Guests: Annalee Newitz, science journalist, science fiction writer and co-host of the podcast 'Our Opinions are Correct' - their previous book is 'Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pope Leo XIV sent an instruction to CEAMA (Conference of Bishops of the Amazon Region) warning them against the worship of creation or Mother Earth, stating that Catholics must not “subject themselves as a slave or worshiper of nature.” Is this correction in response to the scandal of Pachamama worship observed at the 2019 Amazon Synod? Dr. Taylor Marshall comments. https://ChristianPatriotBook.com Pre-Order Dr. Marshall's new book Christian Patriot. Today's Sponsors: https://purehealthresearch.com — Get 35% off when you try Liver Health Formula today and use code Taylor at checkout! https://www.birchgold.com/taylor — Get your FREE infokit from Birch Gold and secure your future today. https://nsti.com/checkout/?rid=pJNK69 This is the NSTI discount link to receive your $1 jump start at New Saint Thomas Institute for your Catholic Bible in a Year, Catholic Bible Cheat Sheet, and Catholic Lifetime Reading List and 10 Catholic Courses from Dr. Taylor Marshall.

How can we rebuke without compromising love and show gentleness without diminishing truth? Pastor John gives counsel for speaking with emotional wholeness.