Podcast appearances and mentions of david brooke

After years of growth and positive sentiment, 2024 saw private credit's smallest fundraising haul since 2019. But the year-on-year drop in capital raised was far less significant than the drop in the number of funds that were closed.In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, US private credit editor David Brooke and reporter Anna Russi discuss the latest results in private credit fundraising and how LPs are consolidating around their favorite firms. The conversation walks through how investors are feeling about the asset class and whether the incoming Trump administration can help or hinder funds on the road next year. Read Anna and David's article diving into these trends here.Have any questions or feedback for us? Want to join us on the podcast? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com to get in touch. Thanks for listening!

More and more, the lines are blurring between our private credit and distressed coverage.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke mines the reportage of Bianca Boorer, senior distressed debt reporter, and Shubham Saharan, senior private credit reporter. They talk about the challenge Lycra's stakeholders face in navigating the company's balance sheet, and why the company is considering a private credit option, even if it wouldn't provide it with all the liquidity — or should we say elasticity — it needs to tackle its entire capital stack. Do listen in to find out why private credit has the leg(ging) up on the competition!Follow all of 9fin's coverage of the Lycra situation here. If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening.

Private credit in both the US and Europe has faced a great deal of pressure from bank lenders in 2024. But despite a slow start, the asset class is holding its ground on a year-to-date basis.In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke digs into the data with analysts Devin McGinley and Elijah Jackson. They chat through the trends, diving into their respective Q3 2024 private credit reports. You can read both reports here and here.To learn more about 9fin's private credit reports, send a note to the team at private-credit@9fin.com. For feedback on the podcast, or to learn how to get involved, send a note to podcast@9fin.com.Thanks for listening!

In this episode, we welcome back to the show David Brooke, from Skin Essence Organics! We chat about the dangers of chemicals in conventional skincare, the magic of oils, and tips for keeping your skin healthy & hydrated through the winter. David also shares insights on reading labels, understanding hormonal effects on skin & the benefits of plant-based products. Tune in for a special promotion just for listeners!David Brooke is an international model who has worked for many high profile designers such as; Giorgio Armani, Guess by Marciano, Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. Due to the various climate changes and endless amounts of products applied to his skin on any given day, David struggled for many years to find the best product line that could help him maintain the healthy, even skin complexion demanded by the fast paced fashion industry. After unsuccessfully trying numerous skin care products, David was referred to Skin Essence Organics, by a well-respected industry professional, and instantly noticed amazing improvements in his skin's texture and overall appearance. After successfully using Skin Essence for nearly nine years, David obtained a degree in business and has become a partner in the company. His passion for organics, dedication to chemical free living, and valuable industry insight has been a driving force, propelling Skin Essence Organics to become an industry leader of superior organic productsFollow Skin Essence Organics on Instagram, here! Shop Skin Essence Organics here! My code CORINNE saves you 10% always but from now until 11/26 you can use code CORINNE20 for 20% off!  Other episodes with David: 174. [INTERVIEW] Toxins in Skincare & how to support your Endocrine System with Organic Plant Oils for Glowing, Anti-Aging & Acne Prone Skin with David Brooke8. [INTERVIEW] DAVID BROOKE: Why PLANT oils HEAL your skin, beauty routines for ANTI-AGING & ACNE PRONE skin & the IMPORTANCE of ORGANIC Skin Care for your hormones & overall healthCheck out GutPersonal products here! Code CORINNE saves you 10% on any item in their store (including their gut & hormone testing packages)!! Don't forget to take the GutPersonal Quiz to find out exactly which supplements are best for your unique situation! Join the Mind Your Hormones Method, HERE! (Use code PODCAST for 10% off!!)Join the Mind Your Hormones Community to connect more with me & other members of this community!Come hang out with me on Instagram: @corinneangealicaOr on TikTok: @corinneangelicaFree Facebook group: Mind Your Hormones Podcast CommunityEmail Fam: Click here to get weekly emails from meMind Your Hormon

All eyes are on the results of the US election results today, and soon, they'll turn back to the Federal Reserve. Hinging on whether the Fed decides to continue rate cutting at its next meeting — and how deeply — a flood of M&A could hit the market. In the meantime, though, funds have been forced to take extraordinary measures to make their way through the muddle in the middle.In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke sits down with private credit reporter Peter Benson for a whistle stop tour through NAV — or Net Asset Value — loan structures. Check out Peter's recent article on NAV structures here, and find all of the latest private credit coverage on 9fin.com.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com.

By nature, private credit is opaque. At least for now. But 9fin's private credit team is hard at work building a data set that will help shed light on the trends and movements in the direct lending space.In this bonus episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke invites private credit analyst Elijah Jackson to share his experience in building the inaugural 9fin private credit report.To learn more about our private credit data platform and how to access Elijah's report, email elijah@9fin.com. And as always, if you have any feedback on this episode or any other, send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening.

One of the strengths of private credit is its flexibility. And who doesn't love to PIK and choose?In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, US private credit editor David Brooke asks senior reporter Shubham Saharan to add another contribution to the ever-evolving private credit glossary as they dive into the definition of synthetic PIKs. Listen in to learn about what these instruments are, how they're being used by the industry, and whether they're likely to become a passing trend or an emerging staple.If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at podcast@9fin.com.

David George Brooke, known as "That Gratitude Guy," is an accomplished speaker, coach, and best-selling author with a career spanning over 25 years. With over 30 years of experience managing in the corporate world, including as a former Nordstrom store manager, Brooke has established himself as an expert in the field of gratitude. Brooke is the author of several published works, including "That Gratitude Guy's Daily Gratitude Journal," "Monday Morning Minutes," and "Six-Word Lessons to Embrace Gratitude," among others.  He is passionate about sharing the wonders of a gratitude mindset and has presented over 850 speeches and workshops in the past nine years, including over 150 virtual presentations in the last 18 months. Brooke's expertise in gratitude has earned him recognition in FORBES, COSTCO CONNECTION and the MERCER ISLAND REPORTER publications. He frequently travels nationally and internationally to deliver his important message. Brooke is also a proud father of two sons, whom he affectionately refers to as his "Rockstar Sons." As a YouTube Influencer, Brooke has over 2100 gratitude videos on his channel, and his message has been viewed by thousands of people. He is now considered a leading authority on how living a life of gratitude can enhance and improve both personal and professional lives.  He currently resides in Renton, Washington. Watch The Mind Body Business Show LIVE! - Did you know that this "podcast" is actually a LIVE video show?  Register (completely SPAM-Free) to receive automated announcements whenever we go live.  Then simply click and engage.  We welcome your questions and real-time participation.  Go to http://ryps.tk/cbm-register and register (free) now! 

In this episode, I'm chatting with David Brooke, the founder of Skin Essence, discussing how the company came to be and its aim to provide consumers with natural, healthy skincare products. We dive into the importance of skincare regimens in transitioning seasons, with a focus on winter to spring. Using cleansers, serums, facial mists and exfoliators that cater to various skin types and hydration levels are discussed. David emphasizes customizing the use of products according to one's individual skin needs & shares insights into entrepreneurship, stressing the importance of passion and delivering quality products in a product-based business.   Today on The Simplicity Sessions: The Journey of Skincare Entrepreneurship The Passion Behind Skin Essence Understanding Skin Transitions Skincare in Different Seasons Role of Exfoliation in Skincare The Business Side of Skincare Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs Importance of Community in Business Thank you for joining us today. If you could rate, review & subscribe, it would mean the world to me! While you're at it, take a screenshot and tag me @jennpike to share on Instagram – I'll re-share that baby out to the community & once a month I'll be doing a draw from those re-shares and send the winner something special!   Click here to listen: Apple Podcasts – CLICK HERESpotify – CLICK HERE Connect with David Brooke - David is the co-founder of Canada's leading and longest established certified organic skin care brand, Skin Essence Organics. Skin Essence Organics was created over 25 years ago when the concept of using organic oils & extracts on the skin was relatively unknown. Formulating our products started by thoroughly studying each ingredient on thousands of people's skin, observing their individual effects before spending years delicately balancing them to obtain the best possible results. We continue to produce the products locally in small batches to ensure both quality, freshness and optimum results. David's passion for organics, dedication to chemical free living, and valuable industry insight has been a driving force, propelling Skin Essence Organics to become an industry leader of superior organic products selling world-wide. Website | http://www.skinessence.ca Instagram | www.instagram.com/skinessenceorganics Facebook | www.facebook.com/skinessenceorganics   This episode is sponsored by: St. Francis Herb Farm | Go to stfrancisherbfarm.com and save 15% off every order with code JENNPIKE15 Skin Essence Organics | Go to skinessence.ca and save 15% off your first order with code JENNPIKE15 /// Save 10% off every order with code JENNPIKE10 Eversio Wellness | Go to eversiowellness.com/discount/jennpike15 and save 15% off every order with code JENNPIKE15 /// not available for “subscribe & save” option   Resources: The Audacious Woman Mentorship | jennpike.com/theaudaciouswoman The Hormone Project Academy | jennpike.com/thehormoneproject Synced Program & Membership | jennpike.com/synced The Simplicity Women's Wellness Clinic | jennpike.com/wellnessclinic The Simplicity Sessions Podcast | jennpike.com/podcast Facebook Community | The Simplicity Sessions Community   Connect with Jenn: Instagram | @jennpike Facebook | @thesimplicityproject YouTube | Simplicity TV Website | The Simplicity Project Inc. Have a question? Send it over to hello@jennpike.com and I'll do my best to share helpful insights, thoughts and advice.

Private credit is attracting plenty of new faces these days, but as we wrote in this week's Unicrunch newsletter, a handful of household names dominate fundraising and dealmaking.Craig Packer is one of those names. Owl Rock, the direct lending firm he co-founded back in 2016, was already a power player in direct lending before it merged with Dyal Capital in 2021 to create Blue Owl; he's now at the helm of one of private credit's biggest brands, as investor interest in the sector is going mainstream.For this week's episode of the podcast, our private credit editor David Brooke sat down with Craig to talk about deals, documentation, retail investors and the threat of a recession — and Blue Owl's efforts to dictate terms and keep lending standards tight.

#361: Expert Mentors Live - Becoming An Outbound Agent with David Brooke Join us for a special live episode of Expert Mentors, where we dive into the world of becoming an outbound agent with David Brooke. We'll share practical strategies to expand your real estate business beyond selling to friends. Discover effective methods to grow your network, foster genuine relationships, and achieve success in this industry. Learn why creating the right environment is more crucial than relying solely on willpower, especially in an ever-changing market. We'll guide you in building your client list by adding at least one listing each day. Explore techniques like skip tracing, utilizing app notes, prioritizing door knocking, and incorporating them into your daily schedule. Regardless of the challenges faced in real estate, one fundamental truth remains: trust is key in every transaction. Are you consistently present in your neighborhood, leaving a lasting impression? Does your direct mail strategy align with your authentic self? By embracing actions that set you apart from other agents, you'll show your commitment, creating an impact that resonates with potential clients. Join us for an empowering session and discover how to make a real difference in the real estate industry. Learn why trust matters and how your consistent efforts can set you on the path to success. Don't miss this opportunity to take your career to new heights!   WHAT CAN HELP YOU? Book A Discovery Call We want to provide further value by booking a call with one of our Advisors to discover which factor could be holding you back from achieving the results that you desire and the life that you deserve. Give us 15 minutes, and we'll help you transform your business to 6 to 7-figures plus, while living an xXelerated life. We are offering this as a value add at NO cost. In this jam-packed session, we will: Review your value proposition to identify what's possible for you in the next 90 days and beyond Discuss your current marketing strategies and evaluate what's working and what is not Uncover bottlenecks that prevents you to xXelerate your business Develop an actionable plan to achieve your desired results So book a call at your most convenient time and let's talk about it! SEE OUR BEST STUFF ON SOCIAL! Home Page Facebook Instagram YouTube LinkedIn Tiktok

Host Chaz Wolfe welcomes David Brooke to the King's Table. David, a seven-figure king in the real estate industry, has seen the real estate landscape evolve over his impressive 13-year journey. Originating from a humble beginning as a real estate appraiser, he now spearheads his own thriving investment group, collaborating with agents nationwide.Together, Chaz and David explore the gaps in real estate education, the critical role of solid infrastructure from the get-go, and David's innovative mentorship program designed to foster the next generation of leaders. Engage with us in this insightful discussion and acquire valuable knowledge to enhance your business growth.In this episode, you'll discover:[01:55] Introduction to David Brooke and his prosperous real estate empire.[03:27] David's source of motivation and drive, even amidst success.[11:24] The story of David's first home purchase.[12:51] The significant decisions that propelled David's journey.[14:11] The value of attention to detail in David's success story.[17:16] A critical misstep in David's journey and the lessons learned.[20:57] David's experience and insights from hiring his first assistant.[23:27] A peek into David's decision-making process.[25:47] The inspiration behind David's mentorship program.[31:11] David's perspective on the single most important metric to track.[32:10] How David would manage his business with just one hour per week.[33:30] David's approach to networking and masterminding with fellow entrepreneurs.[35:24] David's advice for those hesitant to invest in themselves.[38:22] David's game plan if he had to start over from scratch.[40:49] How to establish a connection with David.[41:52] How to reach out to Chaz and information Gathering The Kings Mastermind.Join us and unravel the roadmap to success in the real estate industry, as told by the industry maestro himself, David Brooke.Notable Quotes “I'm the guy that ruffles a lot of feathers because I'm not afraid to tell you, ‘I don't think that's really helpful for the consumer' or ‘I don't think that's helpful for the real estate agent.'” - David Brooke“What they didn't see was that a mission was gonna drive me further than the moment.” - David Brooke“Personality leadership will only get you so far. That natural talent will only get you so far.” - David Brooke“I'm in the pursuit of growing leaders, which helps you grow exponentially.” - David Brooke“I spend a ton of money every year just getting into rooms of people way smarter than I am.” - David Brooke“Excellence is not a destination, excellence is a journey.” - David Brooke “ Excellence happens in community, most often because we need others in order to work on ourselves.” - David Brooke“You're probably not doing enough.” - Chaz Wolfe (Host)“There's roles inside your company right now, and you need a job description. You need specific tasks and then you need good expectations around when that person steps in.” - Chaz Wolfe (Host) Books and Resources Recommended:The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerberhttps://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280Let's Connect!David Brooke:Website: https://www.brookegrouprealestate.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidnbrooke/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.brooke.771LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-brooke-74931632/Chaz Wolfe...

These days, private credit is becoming so popular that you could be forgiven for thinking it was a recent invention.But some people were doing private credit before it was cool. Tim Lyne is one of those people — when he and a group of colleagues founded Antares Capital back in the nineties, the idea of a jumbo unitranche must have seemed like a pipe dream.For this week's episode of the Cloud 9fin podcast, our private credit editor David Brooke sat down with Tim to discuss the growth of the market, how managers are preparing for the credit cycle to turn, and where the biggest risks are right now.

David Brooke, Founder and Team Leader of Brooke Group Real Estate, has an interesting story to tell - one that is rooted in discovering oneself during times of hardship. A mentor dedicated to inspiring and empowering his team to be leaders in the real estate industry... he's either giving the best real estate advice or offering a dose of enthusiasm in the spirit of helping others.  From the beaches of South Africa, David was questioning what he was meant to be doing and felt he received the message. He tried his hand at construction then joined his father's appraisal business - attributing his success as an agent/broker to both of those experiences.  Since making that leap, David has gone on to position himself as the leader of his own vibrant, ever-growing team of energetic, knowledgeable and dedicated agents and staff as part of eXp Realty. His team continues to excel, having sold 585 properties, generating $188M in volume across CT, MA, RI, Florida, and most recently, Maine.   Which is why his team leads and succeeds by the example of "Each One, Teach One", because they believe that if you want to live levels of mastery in every stage of life, you're always learning for yourself and then teaching others.  Go to brookegrouprealestate.com to connect further with David Brook and his incredible team. To learn more, visit:https://billbymel.com/Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:https://missionmatters.com/author/bill-bymel/

The largest buyout financing ever arranged by private credit firms may be in the works -- Apollo Global Management and HPS Investment Partners are among lenders that have offered to help provide a record $5.5 billion loan supporting the buyout of health-care technology company Cotiviti. In this episode of the Credit Edge Podcast, Bloomberg News reporter Jill Shah is joined by private credit reporter David Brooke to talk about the $1.4 trillion private credit market and the increasing role in M&A financing. Bloomberg Intelligence's Stephen Flynn also provides an update on some of the names in the telecommunications and media sector, including the pending merger of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, the deteriorating outlook for Lumen Technologies and potential catalysts for Disney's credit profile.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Moment David Discovered He Could Build A Team Similar to Those He Had Looked Up To For years The Biggest Discovery On His Broken Road Of Growth  What Team Leaders and Agents Need To do In The Market of 2023 How The Navy Seal Model is Just Avoiding Personal Issues  Profit is driven In the heart, not the spreadsheet or P and L Accountability doesn't call people out, it calls them up It's Not How You Say Hello, It's How You Say Good Bye 6 Ways To Grow Your Business How many agents should a team recruit in 2023 And so much more…. David Brooke is the founder and the Team Leader of Brooke Team at eXp Realty; a vibrant, ever-growing team of energetic, knowledgeable, and dedicated agents committed to providing their clients with an experience that reflects the company's vision statement “demand excellence.” David holds himself and his team to the highest standard of integrity. His valued clients can be confident of exceptional customer service throughout the entire transaction process; whether buying, selling, or investing. David and his team are dedicated to consistent growth, both professionally and personally. Their strategic training and education in all areas of real estate practices and procedures are an integral part of the company's culture. In addition to being a licensed real estate agent in both CT and MA, David's background as a licensed real estate appraiser brings added value to his client services and an increased depth of knowledge. Utilizing state-of-the-art technology and offering step-by-step support and guidance, clients are supported by David and his committed team so they can succeed.

The destination of all we do for our business is freedom. Freedom is whatever you make of it. Getting clarity on where you're at and where you want to go can give you the freedom you desire. What are you willing to give up to commit to your path to freedom? In this episode, John and David break down barriers that hinder people to start their own teams and building a successful business. They get real on discussing the dangers of imposter syndrome, defining the value propositions, and what matters. David is the founder and Team Leader of Brooke Group Real Estate at eXp Realty. A great team that's dedicated to providing clients with an experience based on the vision statement "Demand Excellence". Be inspired by David's journey as he shares how his mistakes and failures get him to where he is right now. Learn more as they share the value of visibility and accountability in an organization. You'll gain strategies for paving the way to success for your people. What does it take to be a true leader and create other leaders to help you execute your vision? The power of decision-making that puts your people and culture first is one factor to grow your business that leads to freedom.   What Can Help You: Sunday Planning - Get our Sunday Planning 168 framework to establish the right mindset for the week to let you do what is the best in the world you're at! Real Estate Accelerator - Starting out a career in real estate can be overwhelming. The first step is to understand what type of real estate agent you want to be. My Growth Score - Take our 5-minute Growth Score Assessment and discover which of the 8 xXelerated Growth Factors could be holding your business back.   See our best stuff on social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnkitchenscoach/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnkitchenscoach YouTube: https://youtube.com/johnkitchenscoach LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/johnkitchenscoach  

EXP Realty Icon Podcast with David Brooke Why EXP Realty - EXP Realty Explained You're probably asking yourself, "Why should I choose EXP Realty over any other company?" We'll give you great reasons here in our video! Want to Hire a Virtual Assistant? Visit → https://www.sphererocketva.com

Today's episode is jam packed with juicy info about skin care! How conventional skin care products negatively effect our hormones (& skin!) & why organic plant oils are superior for glowing skin, anti aging, acne prone, dry & oily skin! We get into specific ingredients that are beneficial to the skin, ones to look out for & different skin care routines you can try out with the co founder of Skin Essence Organics, David Brooke.Join the Mind Your Hormones Community and Connect with me & other members of this community!Free facebook group: Mind Your Hormones Podcast CommunityMind Your Hormones Instagram: @mindyourhormones.podcastCome connect with me on my personal Instagram: @corinneangealicaConnect with Skin Essence Organics:Instagram: @skinessenceorganicsOnline: www.skinessence.ca (code "Corinne" saves you 15%)2 opportunities for FREE Skin Essence Organics productsShare your take aways from this episode on Instagram stories and tag @corinneangealica and @skinessenceorganics for an opportunity to win 3 free Skin Essence Organics products of your choice. Winner will be chosen by the end of May 2022. Free e-cream product with you spend $50 or more at www.skinessence.ca and use code "MYH" at checkout. LIMITED TIME OFFER.PRODUCT LINKSMy favorite Magnesium Powder & Vitamin D Drops from Gut Personal. Code CORINNEWant professional grade supplements for 10% off? Head to my dashboard! (Click HERE for the CANADIAN dashboard).If you're obsessed with organic, non-toxic skin care and you want one that's AFFORDABLE & EFFECTIVE check out my fave Skin Essence Organics and use code CORINNE for 15% off! If you love or want to try CBD, my absolutely favorite brand is MySoul CBD- Code CORINNE15 saves you 15%[DISCLAIMER: Always check with your medical practitioner before taking any supplements]So grateful you're here! XO Corinne

In this Credit Chat edition, BI Senior Credit Analyst Robert Schiffman is joined by Bloomberg News' Olivia Raimonde, David Brooke and Rachel Butt to discuss what's driving this year's sharp drop in high yield debt issuance, the transition of investor demand toward leverage loans and private credit, and the rise in distressed credits.

Welcome back to The Simplicity Sessions, I'm delighted that you've joined us today. My name is Jenn Pike, your host, registered holistic nutritionist, medical exercise specialist, the best-selling author of the Simplicity Project and the creator of the women's revolutionary health program, The Hormone Project. In todays' episode I have with me a friend and guest, David Brooke, the owner and founder of Skin Essence, joining me in my weekly simplicity bites. I brought him in today's episode to talk about different strategies that you can be using to support your skin coming into different times of the year. For the last 10 years, my skin has been moisturized and healthy with the help of their products. I have been using a new product from Skin Essence and it is finally on the market and we will talk about it in today's podcast.  Visit here http://www.skinessence.ca and check out their products. Save 20% off your first order when you use the code JENNPIKE20 and 10% off any purchase after that with the code JENNPIKE10. If you have a question for me and my team, send it over to hello@jennpike.com or via Instagram at @jennpike and I'll do my best to share helpful insights, thoughts and advice.  Here are the main topics of today's episode: How do you take care of your skin this time of year? Is there so much versatility in how you can use them? How often should you be exfoliating the skin? What are your recommendations for people who have Psoriasis? How long do the oils last in terms of their expiration? Is it okay to put the oils in your hair? Having good customer service Is there anything that people need to know about using the mist? What is best for your skin? Connect with us - Thank you for joining us today. If you could do me the honor of hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, sharing this podcast with a friend, or tagging me on social media when you visit The Simplicity Sessions Community on Facebook or @jennpike on Instagram, I would be forever grateful. You can connect to this episode on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher by searching The Simplicity Sessions, or visiting www.jennpike.com/podcast. Join our growing community via Facebook The Simplicity Sessions Community. Connect with David Brooke - Linked in: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/david-brooke-2791bb29 Online work with Jenn - Register for my signature program The Hormone Project and work with my team and me 1:1 to support your health, hormones, and more via the following link www.jennpike.com/thehormoneproject. Sign up for The Synced Program to learn how to tune your body to the lunar cycle and acquire a multidisciplinary approach to balance your body in less than 30 minutes a day!  Interested in registering for the upcoming Audacious Women mentorship? Send us a message via our website at https://jennpike.com/contact/  To learn more about the products mentioned in this episode, visit the link I've shared on my Instagram @jennpike. There you can discover where you can purchase these products and how you can start to make them part of your everyday simplicity approach. Learn more about the products and supports I recommend from some of our amazing partners -   Eaton Hemp is my favourite CBD and hemp company. They are a hundred percent organic, they're unfiltered, and they are third-party tested. To experience Eaton Hemp, use the discount code JENNPIKE20 at eatonhemp.com/jennpike to save 20% off your order. GoodJuju makes all-natural, plastic-free home & body products that are good for you and good for the planet. Use JENNPIKE10 for 10% off your order. Skin Essence is Canadian-founded, organic, non-GMO, and does not test on animals; this company is one that we love and have around the house. You can even talk to the company to get advice on which products may be right to try first. Save 15% off your first order with the code JENNPIKE15 and use code JENNPIKE10 to save 10% off every order after that. St Francis Herb Farm education includes webinars, blogs and articles on important topics including the plant medicines that they create to promote women's health by targeting digestion, allergies, immune support, heart health, brain health, and sleep. I use and recommend their products and you can use the code JENNPIKE15 at checkout to save 15% off your order. Quotes - “ And the more hydrated you can keep your skin, the better it is from an aging gracefully perspective as well.” “As we get older, skin cells don't rejuvenate as fast.” “The skin is a reflection of what's going on the inside.” “Once you get into a really good skincare routine and you have great ingredients, you intuitively can start to figure out what you need.” “It's not an overnight success.”  

Scott Burns talks about how gratitude and a gratitude mindset have directed and encouraged his life's direction. He has a very unique perspective as someone that spent a career in radio and voice acting. He saw his level of gratitude change as he went through various career changes.

Welcome back to this weeks episode of Unlimited. This week host Brian Schiller sits down to chat with Team Nu member David Brooke aka Average Dave Outdoors. Dave lives in Illinois but is no stranger to traveling as a successful competitive angler. Dave has been in NuCanoes for years, and has many different models that he utilizes for different situations. Tune in to hear how Dave keeps things Nu on the water! NuCanoe- www.nucanoe.com

On today’s episode, I chat with David Brooke. David is an international model who has worked for many high-profile designers such as Giorgio Armani, Guess by Marciano, and Calvin Klein. Through his experience working as a model, David saw the impacts that general skincare routines had on his skin and decided there needed to be a change. To further his career and education, he obtained his degree in business and partnered with the oldest established organic skincare line in North America, Skin Essence. He is excited to share on this episode exactly why he made his skincare a priority so that you can too! On this episode we dive into: How David went from modeling to becoming a part of a skincare line. The differences between conventional and organic skincare. How chemicals and preservatives can lead to premature aging. Why oils are better than cream for your skin. The effects of nutrition on your skin. The take-home: From things like the ascorbic acids in skincare products - to the plastic containers they’re packaged in - there is so much we need to be aware of when it comes to our skincare products. Finding out what exactly it is that you are putting on your skin every day is important not only for your health but your wallets too! David explains why oils are better for our skin than creams and how using organic ingredients is the only way to go, especially if you’re working on living a chemical-free lifestyle! Healthy skin starts with taking a look at not only the ingredients in the food you eat but also the products you use! I am so happy to have found Skin Essence, and having the opportunity to talk with David about his story is something I am very grateful to be able to share with you, too! Get in touch with David Brooke: Personal Instagram: missing IG handle Business Instagram: @skinessenceorganics Website: https://www.skinessence.ca Use discount code MUVE to get 15% off your purchase! — Get in touch with Michelle: The Muve Collective: www.themichellewolfe.com ** For a limited time only $50 discount code "Muve50" for the yearly subscription. Instagram: @themichellewolfe Collective Instagram: @muvecollective Email: michelle@muvelife.com I am now working with one of my favourite brands, Puratae! I have been searching for some time now to find a product from a company where I truly feel aligned with the brand and all of the contents within the product. These greens are 100% clean and are packed with high nutrient-dense vitamins and minerals in every serving and they are truly serving my body and mind well! I start every day with my Puratae greens and the product (honestly) tastes like candy. Puratae also donates 10 meals to children in need for every bag of product sold - so if you are looking for a high-quality product that is going to be a huge step in helping you reach your goals, go check it out at: muvelife.puratae.com. Use discount code: MUVE10 at checkout for 10% off!

This week we are chatting with David Brooke, Co-founder of the company Skin Essence Organics, all about the importance of a quality skin care routine! David has so much knowledge about plant oils and how they work WITH your skin to HEAL it naturally and age it gracefully!  In this episode we chat about the difference between organic products vs. conventional skin care, how to look for quality products vs. TOXIC, checmical filled products, why most companies use fillers and harmful products (and more importantly why you should stay away from them), and so much more! We have been using Skin Essence Organics products and LOVING them! They are: Certified Organic, ECO CERT, NON GMO, Gluten Free, Vegan, and cruelty free!! Even with all of those amazing benefits, these products are actually SUPER affordable! BUUTT... on top of already being super affordable, David graciously gave us a 15% off discount on all orders (plus FREE Express shipping for orders over $49!) when you use the code "REALS"!! You can browse the products on the website below: Website for the UNITED STATES (and International) https://www.skinessenceorganics.com Website for CANADA https://www.skinessence.ca/shop/ Be sure to DM us on Instagram and let us know what you think @all_the_reals!!

It's so easy to be led astray about spiritual gifts and to end up overplaying or underplaying them. But they are vital, and they are always positive - if we stay focused on Jesus- says David Brooke.

David Brooke shares some thoughts on paying attention as a key to cross-cultural mission, and the importance of noticing our own blind spots and idols before we dare to speak the gospel!

In this final reflection in the series, David Brooke unpacks the phrase treasure and ponder - two differeing things that together help us see and receive more and more of Jesus.

The book of Lamentations may seem an odd place to find a key lesson about hope, but Lamentations 3 is a remarkable chapter, according to David Brooke.

David Brooke reflects that the story of James Hannington could be seen as a kind of religious cautionary tale, akin to Hilaire Belloc's. But no, it's a tale for our inspiration!

David Brooke relates the inspiring life of a little known, but pioneering priest - St John Leonardi, the Patron Saint of Pharmacists.

I’m SO excited for you to hear this episode! Today, David & I chat about the difference between organic & conventional products, what ingredients to look out for, how conventional products negatively affect our hormones, fertility, reproduction & overall health, how healthy skin starts with what you’re eating, pregnancy safe, acne specific & anti aging products, how Skin Essence is an eco friendly company & MORE! I have tried DOZENS of organic skin care products and most of them were OVERPRICED & INEFFECTIVE. I found Skin Essence on a podcast last year and have never looked back! If you’re someone who struggles with acne, hormonal imbalances, low fertility and/or someone who wants to be more conscious of what you put on your body, you’re not going to want to miss this episode! Here is an overview of David Brooke: -David Brooke is an international model who has worked for many high profile designers such as; Giorgio Armani, Guess by Marciano, Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. Due to the various climate changes and endless amounts of products applied to his skin on any given day, David struggled for many years to find the best product line that could help him maintain the healthy, even skin complexion demanded by the fast paced fashion industry. After unsuccessfully trying numerous skin care products, David was referred to Skin Essence Organics, by a well-respected industry professional, and instantly noticed amazing improvements in his skin's texture and overall appearance. After successfully using Skin Essence for nearly nine years, David obtained a degree in business and has become a partner in the company. His passion for organics, dedication to chemical free living, and valuable industry insight has been a driving force, propelling Skin Essence Organics to become an industry leader of superior organic products.- I am SUPER picky about any products that go in my body or on my body. I ONLY recommend products I personally use & recommend to all my family, friends & clients. After seeing the huge difference in my skin I knew I had to be involved in this company and help spread awareness so more people have access to them. Which is why David so graciously gave out a 15% discount AND FREE EXPRESS SHIPPING when you spend over $50 to anyone who uses the code CORINNE. Girl. This is ALREADY an AFFORDABLE product so this 15% off is a STEAL! I hope you try them out! Your health & hormones will thank you. Skin Essence Organics website for CANADA Skin Essence Organics website for UNITED STATES   As always I am so grateful to be on this journey with you! Here's more information on ways to connect & opportunities I have for you! Click  here for more info on my 10 WEEK GROUP COURSE how to EAT, MOVE & LIVE for your hormones. This course teaches you SIMPLE STRATEGIES you can implement into your BUSY LIFE to help you NATURALLY heal your hormonal symptoms of an irregular period, PMS, PCOS, acne, migraines, fatigue, low fertility, constipation & bloating. It's AMAZING! You can also DM me on Instagram @corinneangelica so we can see if you would be a good fit! REGISTRATION FULLY CLOSES THIS FRIDAY ON 10/9. Join my FREE TEXT COMMUNITY to get weekly HORMONE HEALTH & MINDSET TIPS texted right to your phone! Text the word "CORINNE" to (855) 691-0508 Come hang out with me on Instagram: @corinneangelica  Do you know what imbalances you have? Take this free HORMONE IMBALANCE QUIZ to find out! Interested in setting up a complimentary call with me to chat about your health goals & the services I offer? Head to my calendar to book in a call!

David Brooke finds three steps to generosity - two in commands in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the final step in the story of Ruth and Boaz.

David Brooke challenges us to a lifestyle that is simpler, more contented, and rooted in trust and generosity - one in which enough really is enough.

Psalm 104 takes us into a place of play, delight and wonder, as well as dependence, confidence, and humility. And as it does so, it gives us a different foundation for expressing our confidence in God from our more traditional creeds - or at least, that's what David Brooke wants us to think about.

David Brooke wonders what we can learn for today from the commandment to keep a sabbath year one in seven, and a jubilee year one in fifty. Don't be anxious is his message!

David Brooke wonders whether we need cutting down to size to reset our perspective on creation as the storehouse of God's wisdom, rather than as a puzzle to work out and a problem to solve.

David Brooke shares a holiday read, 'Tennyson's Gift', and makes the case that gratitude is a whole-life issue for the Christian, not simply something some of us naturally have more of than others!

David Brooke shares a book entitled Miss Benson's Beetle - a book that is about so many topics, but chiefly friendship, and brings to mind a passage from the Apocrypha: Ecclesiastics 6.5-17.

David Brooke goes low-brow with a reflection on comedy underdog stories and the choosing of the disciples.

David Brooke takes inspiration from J.S. Bach and the cellist David Watkin, as he reflects on how we handle suffering. Can we come through it both dancing and praying? That's the challenge.

David Brooke takes lessons from dancing - Lindy Hop to be precise - and applies them to the Christian life. In both cases, he says, it's all about connection, and connection leads to joy.

David Brooke reflects on references to youth and old age in Psalm 71, and sees a Psalmist for whom faith is a whole-life matter in every sense - as it was for Congressman John Lewis who died today after 60 years fighting for civil rights.

We need to zoom out (too much zooming!) and see the whole of this psalm to appreciate that it's upside down compared to many - or is it the right way up? David Brooke challenges to plant a flag and claim the territory when things are tough. The problem isn't with God!

Psalm 51 is deeply penitential, and we could fall into the trap of wallowing in our sin, but David Brooke points out that this is the Psalm that gives that great cry "O Lord, open our lips, and our mouths shall proclaim your praise". Don't wallow, he says - dwell on the goodness of God, and let the song of praise well up.

Psalm 119 verse 1 is troublesome for the translators, but it is all about integrity, according to David Brooke - which is a very different thing from what in the modern world we call authenticity.

The word of God - the law of God - is a wonderful thing, says David Brooke. In fact, far from being the opposite of freedom, it is perfect freedom.

David George Brooke – That Gratitude Guy, has been a speaker, coach, and bestselling author for over 25 years. His published works include “The Brooker’s Daily Gratitude Journal”, “Six Word Lessons to Embrace Gratitude”, and a number of other books on gratitude. Show Notes: Website, Books, Coaching

Acts 22 presents David Brooke with a puzzle - where is the heart of the passage? He concludes that it's the warning "they will not accept your testimony", which is the very reason we must not give up testifying!

David Brooke identifies four cameos from Acts 18 and relates them to the parable of the Sower from Matthew 13.

David Brooke reflects on the image of Paul - the one-time persecutor - meeting with his victims, and powerfully reconciled.

David Brooke reflects on Saul's conversion experience as one of the three great turning points of the book of Acts.

This real estate agent started out young and figured out what he didn't know. Then found mentors to teach him how to be successful. Now he is one of Keller Williams' top performers in the State of Connecticut!On this episode of The bigJOEL Show, Joel and his guest David Brooke, a Keller Williams agent in the Hartford Metro Area, discuss the steps new and seasoned agents need to take to be successful in this industry. 

What are the different skincare routines that we can implement for anti-aging or for acne-prone skin? David Brooke shares about Skin Essence and guides us through the importance of organic skincare.  You can find all the info and links about this episode at https://holisticwellness.ca/episode83. Topics Discussed in this Episode: All about Skin Essence Organics What inspired David to create his own skincare brand The toxic ingredients in conventional skincare products that you want to avoid Why plant oils are better than traditional creams The different Skin Essence products and when to use them Skincare routine for healing and supporting acne-prone skin   Key Takeaways: The best thing about an oil is the more you use it, the richer it is. When you put a proper oil formulation on your skin, it helps you achieve the pH balance.  If you have oily prone skin, the best thing you can use is oil because your skin will not try to create more of what doesn’t need it.  If you have dry skin, you need rich hydration that goes deep into the skin. When it comes to anti-aging, you need vitamins, minerals and enzymes to enter into the skin and not just sit on the surface. So many skincare lines are made with synthetic ingredients that are not only harmful but ineffective. Synthetic ingredients are fake. You can’t get real results from fake things. Your skin is a living organ, therefore, it needs nourishment.   Action Steps: Read the ingredients of the personal care products that you’re purchasing before you make your purchase. If it’s ingredients you can’t put in your mouth, don’t put it in your skin. Cleanse your skin twice a day, morning and night. Make sure to remove your makeup.   David said: “If you want to be healthy, you’ve got to eat healthy. If you want your skin to be healthy, you’ve got to use healthy ingredients.” “If you want to be healthy, you have to make healthy choices. And the only way to make healthy choices is to make informed choices.”   Thanks for listening!   Important Announcements: My NEW BOOK, The 30-Day Hormone Solution, will be shipping is less than a month! Pre-order now at hormonesolutionbook.com and grab over $350 in free online bonuses!   Join the FREE 5 Day Sugar Detox Challenge! We are so excited to help you eat better, feel better, and ditch those cravings.   Connect with me over on Instagram, @holisticwellnessfoodie. It would also mean so much if you would leave us a rating or a review at any podcast platform that you’re listening to us on.    Links to things we talk about in the show: Save 20% on Skin Essence Products with the coupon code healthy hormones + free shipping on orders of $50 or more in the US and Canada. Skin Essence Canada Site Skin Essence US Site   Where you can find David Brooke and Skin Essence: Skin Essence Organics’ Instagram (@skinessenceorganics)   Where you can find me: Samantha’s Facebook Samantha’s Instagram Samantha’s Website Samantha’s Twitter Healthy Hormones for Women Podcast Private Community on Facebook   How you can work with me: 6-Week Healthy Hormones for Women Intensive - Get 60% when you enroll today! Healing & Dealing with Hashi’s

David Brooke from Skin Essence is joining me again in this episode since we ran out of time in the previous one (Organic, Holistic and Natural Skincare). I got so much great feedback and tons of questions from listeners about the importance of our skin care and about understanding what is in the skin care products we are using, as well as the overall impact that some chemicals can have, not only in how our skin looks and feels, but also internally.    In this episode, we are diving deeper, talking about the hormonal impacts of skincare, since some products work as endocrine and estrogen disruptors. We also talk about the sustainability aspect of our product choices, and how to choose the right products for different types of skin.   Here are the main topics of this eye opening conversation:   ● The importance of what you are absorbing through your skin. ● Your skin naturally create oils, not creams. ● Oils vs creams. ● Oils for different type skins. ● The healing power of calendula. ● The hormonal impact of skincare products. ● The skincare industry is a self regulated one. ● Affordable and healthy skin products. ● When to start using oils on children. ● Regimes for three different skin types: aging skins, sensitive-rash prone skins and acne prone skin.  ● The importance of exfoliation. Hoping you start putting all these great tips and advice into action to improve your health and looks. Wishing more simplicity and ease in all that you do! You can connect to this episode on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher by searching The Simplicity Sessions, or visiting www.jennpike.com/episode55 . Learn more about David Brooke:  Skin Essence EWG Skin Deep to check your skin product quality. Use the promo code: JENNPIKE20 and get 20% off your  purchases over $50 or use the code JENNPIKE and get a free  moisturizer (choose the right one for you!) of $32 value on your purchase of $65 or more and also get free shipping. Online working with Jenn: To register for my signature program The Hormone Project and work with me 1:1 to support your health, hormones and more, please join the waitlist at www.jennpike.com/thehormoneproject    Learn more about our amazing sponsors  The soothing drink I want to share with you today is one that I made for myself since I was a little bit chilly and I want something warm. I add a base of dandy blend, non dairy milk, hot water and a scoop of Chocolate Vegan Protein Powder from Genuine Health, I blend it all up and it's just perfect! Order any product at Genuine Health use the promo code JENNPIKE and save 10% off all of your purchases. I have to admit that I have been tired! I am going at a faster pace since I am teaching the hormone project currently, and I haven't done a very good job with my health. That is why I am doing some additional things to support my health, making shifts in my calendar and upping my adrenal game with Schisandra from Saint Francis Herb Farm  which also supports my immune system, helping with mental and physical fatigue.  Create a more simple life with Saint Francis Herb Farm products, You can order through Pure Feast, use the promo code JENNPIKE and save 10% off all of your purchases.  Learn more about Jenn’s work: Jenn Pike Ignite your Life with Jenn Pike The Hormone Project  The Simplicity Project Shop for books, DVDs, programs and much more! http://www.jennpike.com/ Simplicity TV on Youtube Take advantage of the early registration to the Synced Series  Quotes:  “Your skin naturally create oils, not creams.” “Oily skins will age more gracefully.” “The skin is one of the fastest ways of absorption.”   Additional Information About Jenn: Jenn studied and graduated with honors in Human Anatomy and Physiology with such a passion that it propelled her to continue her education over many years. Jenn is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Medical Exercise Specialist, Registered Yoga Instructor and Faculty of the Toronto Yoga Conference, Pre & Post Natal Yoga Expert, STOTT Pilates trained instructor, Twist Sport Conditioning Coach, Spin Instructor Crossfit Level 1 Coaching, among other certifications she got along the way. She is also a guest Holistic Expert for Breakfast Television, Global, CHCH, Rogers Tv and writes columns for STRONG Fitness Magazine, iRun magazine, Savvy Mom and contributes to Inside Fitness Magazine, The Toronto Star and Sun. She is also a proud educator and ambassador to Genuine Health, Nature’s Emporium and Juice Plus. Jenn is a proud mama to two beautiful souls and her best teachers of life. She resides on Lake Simcoe in Keswick with her husband and two children.   

The true OG Brian sits down with David Brooke AKA Average Dave Outdoors. The guys talk about Dave and his background, being on the Ketch Team, running the Ketch Photo Release tournaments, and the upcoming charity event he's running. Sit back and enjoy! Podcast & Website- www.paddlenfin.com Email- paddlenfin@gmail.com Social Media- @paddlenfin Rocktown paddlesports - rocktownadventures.com Loveland Canoe & Kayak- https://www.lovelandcanoe.com Hammered Lures- https://hammered-lures.myshopify.com Fish Mob Lures-https://www.facebook.com/officialfishmoblures/ TRC Covers- https://trccovers.com JigMasters Jigs- https://jigmasters.com Recycled Plastics Recycling Program - Mail to: 316 Pinewood Dr. Camp Hill,PA 17011 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

“I’ve never read a bad review that wasn’t true.”

As hinted at the end of the last show we bring David Brooke back for a no-holds barred, knock down show of our trivia “expertise”, where each of the contestants brings their own trivia questions trying to stump the other three. But before we get to that, we cover some news including the ending of Resistance after season 2, Kylo Ren getting his own comic book exploring the transition “From Ben to Ren,” the recently released Sith Trooper, and Marvel Comics 1,000 with its very own Star Wars page. Come for the news, stay for the fun. The crew of this podcast is AiPT!'s Star Wars dream team: Event Coordinator JJ Travers, Producer Jim Lehane, and Contributor Connor Christiansen. Join us as we discuss the latest news in Star Wars, as well as our thoughts on the books, comics, TV series, and movies of that galaxy far, far away. Find us on Twitter for more Star Wars conversation: Show JJ Jim Connor Dave We would love to hear from you! Email us at SWiPT@AiPTComics.com and we'll read your message on the show. You can find Star Wars in Poor Taste on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Simplecast, or right on AiPT!. As always, if you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a review, subscribe to the show and tell your friends!

After taking the month of July off, we're back with news, news and more news! Joining us for our triumphant return is AiPT!'s Media & Content Manager/Comics podcast cohost, David Brooke. Come aboard as exit hyperspace into the exciting planetary system orbiting the D23 Expo. There's new Rise of Skywalker footage, Ewan McGregor returns to Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian gets a trailer, The Clone Wars premiere month revealed and a whole lot more! The crew of this podcast is the AiPT Star Wars dream team: Event Coordinator JJ Travers, Contributor Jim Lehane, and Contributor Connor Christiansen. Join us as we discuss the latest news in Star Wars, as well as our thoughts on the books, comics, TV series, and movies of that galaxy far, far away. Find us on Twitter for more Star Wars conversation: Show JJ Jim Connor We would love to hear from you! Email us at SWiPT@AiPTComics.com and we'll read your message on the show. You can find Star Wars in Poor Taste on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Simplecast, or right at http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/category/podcasts/pod-star-wars-in-poor-taste/ . As always, if you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a review, subscribe to the show and tell your friends!

This episode is all about skin care, why you would choose to use an alternative skin care, something that is more holistic, organic and natural based as opposed to commercial based. This matters not only for the skin you are inhabiting but for your entire body and how this impacts your hormones, thyroid and  gut among other organs.    My guest today is David Brooke who is the founder of Skin Essence, and we will dive deep into why using oils over lotions and creams can be so much more beneficial for your skin than commercial products, As well as the different things that you can use to treat the most common skin conditions and for preventive and beauty purposes, while we share our own personal stories dealing with skin issues.   What you will learn from this podcast: ● A better understanding of the anatomy of the skin. ● The differences between conventional vs. organic skin care. ● How to understand conventional cosmetic labels and the ingredients found on them. ● How chemicals and synthetic preservatives can lead to premature aging and various types of cancers/diseases. ● How to effectively treat acne, eczema, rosacea, skin damage and various other skin conditions using organic ingredients. Hoping you learn as much as I did with this very educational episode, realizing what switching to organic and holistic products can do to your health in general as well as to your skin in particular. Good quality options can be affordable for everyone, so don't hesitate to make the change if you are still using conventional products for your skincare. Wishing more simplicity and ease in all that you do! You can connect to this episode on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher by searching The Simplicity Sessions, or visiting jennpike.com/episode42. Learn more about David Brooke:  David Brooke is an international model who has worked for many high profile designers such as Giorgio Armani, Guess by Marciano, Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. Due to the various climate changes and endless amounts of products applied to his skin on any given day, David struggled for many years to find the best product line that could help him maintain the healthy, even skin complexion demanded by the fast paced fashion industry. After unsuccessfully trying numerous skin care products, David was referred to Skin Essence Organics, by a well-respected industry professional, and instantly noticed amazing improvements in his skin's texture and overall appearance. After successfully using Skin Essence for nearly nine years, David obtained a degree in business and has become a partner in the company. His passion for organics, dedication to chemical free living, and valuable industry insight has been a driving force, propelling Skin Essence to become an industry leader of superior organic products. Visit Skin Essence, enter the code JENNPIKE20 to save 20% in all your orders and also get free shipping! Skin Essence Organic on Instagram Skin Essence Organic on Facebook Skin Essence Booklet Online working with Jenn: To register for my signature program The Hormone Project and work with me 1:1 to support your health, hormones and more, please join the waitlist at jennpike.com/thehormoneproject   Learn more about our amazing sponsors  A lot of people have reached out to me asking about common concerns regarding the warmer months, being in the pool, the lake, and in the water in general, swimmer’s ear is certainly a recurrent problem; in my family we use the Ear Oil  from Saint Francis Herb Farm when there is any earache or discomfort after being in the water for a long period of time. An amazing tincture that can be used to relieve inflammation, pain and itchiness that can be associated with ear infections and also very recommended for people who suffer from excessive ear wax. Create a more simple life with Saint Francis Herb Farm products. You can order through Pure Feast, use the promo code JENNPIKE and save 10% off all of your purchases.  When you are feeling hungry and it is still not time for a meal, you feel a little drop in your blood sugar levels and really need something to eat, it is crucial to stock proper ammunition for yourself and one of the most efficient ways is having high quality protein bars, Fermented Vegan Bars by Genuine Health are the best, they come in 6 different flavors, just keep them at hand for these hunger outbursts! Order any product at Genuine Health use the promo code JENNPIKE and save 10% off all of your purchases.  Learn more about Jenn’s work: Jenn Pike Ignite your Life with Jenn Pike The Hormone Project  The Simplicity Project Shop for books, DVDs, programs and much more! http://www.jennpike.com/ Simplicity TV on Youtube Quotes:  “There is no regulation body that control the skin care industry.” “Lots of the ingredients in conventional skin products are not meant to make your skin look better but to allow the companies to create great profit margins” “Read the ingredients on your skin care products.” “The only way to have real results is to use real ingredients.” “Your skin is your largest organ and you consume anything that comes in contact with it.” “One of the fastest ways for something  to get into your body is through your skin.” “If you can't put it in your mouth you should not put it on your skin.” “Oils actually get into your skin creating deeper hydration.” “Your body doesn’t create what it does not need.”    Additional Information About Jenn: Jenn studied and graduated with honors in Human Anatomy and Physiology with such a passion that it propelled her to continue her education over many years. Jenn is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Medical Exercise Specialist, Registered Yoga Instructor and Faculty of the Toronto Yoga Conference, Pre & Post Natal Yoga Expert, STOTT Pilates trained instructor, Twist Sport Conditioning Coach, Spin Instructor Crossfit Level 1 Coaching, among other certifications she got along the way. She is also a guest Holistic Expert for Breakfast Television, Global, CHCH, Rogers Tv and writes columns for STRONG Fitness Magazine, iRun magazine, Savvy Mom and contributes to Inside Fitness Magazine, The Toronto Star and Sun. She is also a proud educator and ambassador to Genuine Health, Nature’s Emporium and Juice Plus. Jenn is a proud mama to two beautiful souls and her best teachers of life. She resides on Lake Simcoe in Keswick with her husband and two children.   

“Gratitude helps you focus on what you have versus what you don’t have. Gratitude turns what you have into enough.” - David Brooke (3:00-3:10)Kyle WillisMarketing from the Roosevelt Room Entrepreneurs are no strangers to the importance of mindset. Your ideas, beliefs, and opinions impact the decisions you make and the results you achieve in business. But there’s one foundational mindset element that isn’t always mentioned when talking about entrepreneurship. “Gratitude means raising employees up instead of dragging them down. That’s what good managers do.” - David Brooke (11:56-12:03) David Brooke is an expert on developing mindset and daily activities to produce significant and lasting results for your business. Known as “the Gratitude Guy,” David has made gratitude his life message even after losing his wife and experiencing other significant losses. Many of the coping mechanisms that people use in difficult times can be destructive. Cultivating gratitude transforms your own thought processes in ways that contribute to your goals in life. Learn to be content. What you have now is enough. Gratitude gets you to focus on what you have instead of what you don’t have. But more importantly, gratitude lets you see that what you have now is enough. Something as simple as writing down what you’re grateful for each day shifts your way of being and the success you achieve in business. Too many people compare themselves to others. Over time, they see themselves as “less than” others. Their attention turns to the things that are missing in life at the expense of recognizing what they already have. “You are the only one who can control your joy and what you’re grateful for. When life happens...choose joy.” - Kyle Willis (21:37-21:52) Gratitude is inspiring, magnifies your impact, and it’s contagious. Life has its ups and downs, and no one is immune to the challenges that arise in business and in personal relationships. Gratitude is essential for today’s leaders. Those who cultivate an attitude of gratitude are more likely to get others on board with their vision.  Setting a good example for others is one of the most important skills you can have as a business leader. Showing gratitude for others and the work they do raises them up instead of dragging them down. They’re more likely to want to work with you, leading to more effective collaboration and better business results. Gratitude can come naturally to some people, but it takes work for others to learn and develop the gratitude habit. There are steps you can take to incorporate gratitude into your mindset and actions. The process begins with looking at yourself and asking, “How is my life working for me?” Then ask yourself, “Do I want to improve?” Become accountable to yourself while recognizing the things in life that bring you value. Keep a gratitude journal and write down everything you’re grateful for. This is a simple yet powerful way to make gratitude a foundational part of your routine. It sets you on the path to set a positive example for others. When you understand and foster gratitude, it carries over to your employees, family, and other relationships. You choose the emotions you experience instead of letting your emotions dictate your actions. You restore the good in every situation. A few minutes of gratitude each day may be all that you need to transform your business and the people whose lives it impacts each and every day. How to Get Involved Visit N2Q online to learn how they can help you renovate your marketing strategies. Join the marketing conversation with Kyle on Facebook in the Marketing from the Roosevelt Room group. Learn more about David Brooke and how to develop an attitude of gratitude at www.thatgratitudeguy.com.

Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast | PlayerFM Keep up with the North Star Podcast. My guest today is Michael Nielsen a scientist, writer and computer programmer who works as a research fellow at Y Combinator Research. Michael has written on various topics from quantum teleportation, geometric complexity and the future of science. Michael is the most original thinker I have discovered in a long time when it comes to artificial intelligence, augmenting human intelligence, reinventing explanation and using new media to enable new ways of thinking. Michael has pushed my mind towards new and unexpected places. This conversation gets a little wonky at times, but as you know, the best conversations are difficult. They are challenging because they venture into new, unexplored territory and that's exactly what we did here today.  Michael and I explored the history of tools and jump back to the invention of language, the defining feature of human collaboration and communication. We explore the future of data visualization and talk about the history of the spreadsheet as a tool for human thought.  “Before writing and mathematics, you have the invention of language which is the most significant event in some ways. That’s probably the defining feature of the human species as compared to other species.” LINKS Find Michael Online Michael’s Website Michael’s Twitter Michael’s Free Ebook: Neural Networks and Deep Learning Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science Quantum Computation and Quantum Information Mentioned In the Show 2:12 Michael’s Essay Extreme Thinking 21:48 Photoshop 21:49 Microsoft Word 24:02 The David Bowie Exhibit 28:08 Google AI’s Deep Dream Images 29:26 Alpha Go 30:26 Brian Eno’s Infamous Airport Music 33:41 Listen to Speed of Life by Dirty South Books Mentioned 46:06 Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig 54:12 Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut People Mentioned 13:27 Rembrandt Van Rijn’s Artwork 15:01 Monet’s Gallery 15:02 Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Impressionist Art 15:05 Picasso’s Paintings 15:18 Paul Cezanne’s Post-Impressionist Art 25:40 David Brooke’s NYT Column 35:19 Franco of Cologne 56:58 Alan Kay’s Ted Talk on the future of education 57:04 Doug Engelbart 58:35 Karl Schroeder 01:02:06 Elon Musk’s Mars-bound company, SpaceX 01:04:25 Alex Tabarrok Show Topics 4:01 Michael’s North Star, which drives the direction of his research 5:32 Michael talks about how he sets his long-term goals and how he’s propelled by ideas he’s excited to see in the world. 7:13 The invention of language. Michael discusses human biology and how it’s easier to learn a language than writing or mathematics.  9:28 Michael talks about humanity’s ability to bootstrap itself. Examples include maps, planes, and photography  17:33 Limitations in media due to consolidation and the small number of communication platforms available to us  18:30 How self-driving cars and smartphones highlight the strange intersection where artificial intelligence meets human interaction and the possibilities that exist as technology improves 21:45 Why does Photoshop improve your editing skills, while Microsoft Word doesn’t improve your writing skills? 27:07 Michael’s opinion on how Artificial Intelligence can help people be more creative “Really good AI systems are going to depend upon building and currently depend on building very good models of different parts of the world, to the extent that we can then build tools to actually look in and see what those models are telling us about the world.”  30:22 The intersection of algorithms and creativity. Are algorithms the musicians of the future? 36:51 The emerging ability to create interactive visual representations of spreadsheets that are used in media, internally in companies, elections and more. “I’m interested in the shift from having media be predominantly static to dynamic, which the New York Times is a perfect example of. They can tell stories on newyorktimes.com that they can’t tell in the newspaper that gets delivered to your doorstep.” 45:42 The strategies Michael uses to successfully trail blaze uncharted territory and how they emulate building a sculpture   53:30 Michael’s learning and information consumption process, inspired by the idea that you are what you pretend to be 56:44 The foundation of Michael’s worldview. The people and ideas that have shaped and inspired Michael.  01:02:26 Michael’s hypothesis for the 21st century project involving blockchain and cryptocurrencies and their ability to make implementing marketplaces easier than ever before “The key point is that some of these cryptocurrencies actually, potentially, make it very easy to implement marketplaces. It’s plausible to me that the 21st century [project] turns out to be about [marketplaces]. It’s about inventing new types of markets, which really means inventing new types of collective action.” Host David Perell and Guest Michael Nielsen TRANSCRIPT Hello and welcome to the North Star. I'm your host, David Perell, the founder of North Star Media, and this is the North Star podcast. This show is a deep dive into the stories, habits, ideas, strategies, and rituals that guide fulfilled people and create enormous success for them, and while the guests are diverse, they share profound similarities. They're guided by purpose, live with intense joy, learn passionately, and see the world with a unique lens. With each episode, we get to jump into their minds, soak up their hard-earned wisdom and apply it to our lives. My guest today is Michael Nielson, a scientist, writer, and computer programmer, who works as a research fellow at Y Combinator Research. Michael's written on various topics from quantum teleportation to geometric complexity to the future of science, and now Michael is the most original thinker I've discovered in a long time. When it comes to artificial intelligence to augmenting human intelligence, reinventing explanation, or using new media to enable new ways of thinking, Michael has pushed my mind towards new and unexpected places. Now, this conversation gets a little wonky at times, but as you know, the best conversations are difficult. They're challenging because they venture into new, unexplored territory and that's exactly what we did here today. Michael and I explored the history of tools. This is an extension of human thought and we jump back to the invention of language, the defining feature of human collaboration and communication. We explore the future of data visualization and talk about the history of this spreadsheet as a tool for human thought. Here's my conversation with Michael Nielson. DAVID: Michael Nielson, welcome to the North Star Podcast. MICHAEL: Thank you, David. DAVID: So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. MICHAEL: So day to day, I'm a researcher at Y Combinator Research. I'm basically a reformed theoretical physicist. My original background is doing quantum computing work. And then I've moved around a bit over the years. I've worked on open science, I've worked on artificial intelligence and most of my current work is around tools for thought. DAVID: So you wrote an essay which I really enjoyed called Extreme Thinking. And in it, you said that one of the single most important principle of learning is having a strong sense of purpose and a strong sense of meaning. So let's be in there. What is that for you? MICHAEL: Okay. You've done your background. Haven't thought about that essay in years. God knows how long ago I wrote it. Having a strong sense of purpose. What did I actually mean? Let me kind of reboot my own thinking. It's, it's kind of the banal point of view. How much you want something really matters. There's this lovely interview with the physicist Richard Feynman, where he's asked about this Indian mathematical prodigy Ramanujan. A movie was made about Ramanujan’s mathematical prowess a couple of years ago. He was kind of this great genius. And a Feynman was asked what made Ramanujan so good. And the interview was expecting him to say something about how bright this guy was or whatever. And Feynman said instead, that it was desire. It was just that love of mathematics was at the heart of it. And he couldn't stop thinking about it and he was thinking about it. He was doing in many ways, I guess the hard things. It's very difficult to do the hard things that actually block you unless you have such a strong desire that you're willing to go through those things. Of course, I think you see that in all people who get really good at something, whether it be sort of a, just a skill like playing the violin or something, which is much more complicated. DAVID: So what is it for you? What is that sort of, I hate to say I want to just throw that out here, that North Star, so to speak, of what drives you in your research? MICHAEL: Research is funny. You go through these sort of down periods in which you don't necessarily have something driving you on. That used to really bother me early in my career. That was sort of a need to always be moving. But now I think that it's actually important to allow yourself to do that. That's actually how you find the problems, which really get, get you excited. If you don't sort of take those pauses, then you're not gonna find something that's really worth working on. I haven't actually answered your question. I think I know I've jumped to that other point because that's one thing that really matters to me and it was something that was hard to learn. DAVID: So one thing that I've been thinking a lot about recently is you sort of see it in companies. You see it in countries like Singapore, companies like Amazon and then something like the Long Now Foundation with like the 10,000-year clock. And I'm wondering to you in terms of learning, there's always sort of a tension between short-term learning and long-term learning. Like short-term learning so often is maybe trying to learn something that feels a little bit richer. So for me, that's reading, whereas maybe for a long-term learning project there are things I'd like to learn like Python. I'd like to learn some other things like that. And I'm wondering, do you set long-term learning goals for yourself or how would you think about that trade off? MICHAEL: I try to sit long-time learning goals to myself, in many ways against my better judgment. It's funny like you're very disconnected from you a year from now or five years from now, or 10 years from now. I can't remember, but Eisenhower or Bonaparte or somebody like that said that the planning is invaluable or planning plans are overrated, but planning is invaluable. And I think that's true. And this is the right sort of attitude to take towards these long-term lending goals. Sure. It's a great idea to decide that you're going out. Actually, I wouldn't say it was a great idea to say that you're going to learn python, I might say. However, there was a great idea to learn python if you had some project that you desperately wanted to do that it required you to learn python, then it's worth doing, otherwise stay away from python. I certainly favor, coupling learning stuff to projects that you're excited to actually see in the world. But also, then you may give stuff up, you don't become a master of python and instead you spend whatever, a hundred hours or so learning about it for this project that takes you a few hundred hours, and if you want to do a successor project which involves it, more of it. Great, you'll become better. And if you don't, well you move onto something else. DAVID: Right. Well now I want to dive into the thing that I'm most excited to talk to you about today and that's tools that extend human thought. And so let's start with the history of that. We'll go back sort of the history of tools and there's had great Walter Ong quote about how there are no new thoughts without new technologies. And maybe we can start there with maybe the invention of writing, the invention of mathematics and then work through that and work to where you see the future of human thought going with new technologies. MICHAEL: Actually, I mean before writing and mathematics, you have the invention of language, which is almost certainly the most significant single event in some ways. The history of the planet suddenly, you know, that's probably the defining feature of the human species as compared to other species. Um, I say invention, but it's not even really invention. There's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that language is in some important sense built into our biology. Not the details of language. Um, but this second language acquisition device, it seems like every human is relatively very set to receive language. The actual details depend on the culture we grow up on. Obviously, you don't grow up speaking French if you were born in San Francisco and unless you were in a French-speaking household, some very interesting process of evolution going on there where you have something which is fundamentally a technology in some sense languages, humans, a human invention. It's something that's constructed. It's culturally carried. Um, it, there's all these connections between different words. There's almost sort of a graph of connections between the words if you like, or all sorts of interesting associations. So in that sense, it's a technology, something that's been constructed, but it's also something which has been over time built into our biology. Now if you look at later technologies of thought things like say mathematics, those are much, much later. That hasn't been the same sort of period of time. Those don't seem to be built into our biology in quite the same way. There's actually some hints of that we have some intrinsic sense of number and there's some sort of interesting experiments that suggest that we were built to do certain rudimentary kinds of mathematical reasoning but there's no, you know, section of the brain which specializes sort of from birth in solving quadratic equations, much less doing algebraic geometry or whatever, you know, super advanced. So it becomes this cultural thing over the last few thousand years, this kind of amazing process whereby we've started to bootstrap ourselves. If you think about something like say the invention of maps, which really has changed the way people relate to the environment. Initially, they were very rudimentary things. Um, and people just kept having new ideas for making maps more and more powerful as tools for thought. Okay. I can give you an example. You know, a very simple thing, if you've ever been to say the underground in London or most other subway systems around the world. It was actually the underground when this first happened, if you look at the map of the underground, I mean it's a very complicated map, but you can get pretty good at reasoning about how to get from one place to another. And if you look at maps prior to, I think it was 1936, in fact, the maps were much more complicated. And the reason was that mapmakers up to that point had the idea that where the stations were shown on the map had to correspond to the geography of London. Exactly. And then somebody involved in producing the underground map had just a brilliant insight that actually people don't care. They care about the connections between the stations and they want to know about the lines and they want some rough idea of the geography, but they're quite happy for it to be very rough indeed and he was able to dramatically simplify that map by simply doing away with any notion of exact geography. DAVID: Well, it's funny because I noticed the exact same thing in New York and so often you have insights when you see two things coming together. So I was on the subway coming home one day and I was looking at the map and I always thought that Manhattan was way smaller than Brooklyn, but on the subway map, Manhattan is actually the same size as Brooklyn. And in Manhattan where the majority of the subway action is, it takes up a disproportionate share of the New York City subway map. And then I went home to go read Power Broker, which is a book about Robert Moses building the highways and they had to scale map. And what I saw was that Brooklyn was way, way bigger than Manhattan. And from predominantly looking at subway maps. Actually, my topological geographical understanding of New York was flawed and I think exactly to your point. MICHAEL: It's interesting. When you think about what's going on there and what it is, is some person or a small group of people is thinking very hard about how to represent their understanding of the city and then the building, tools, sort of a technological tool of thought that actually then saves millions or in the case of a New York subway or the London underground, hundreds of millions or billions of people, mostly just seconds, sometimes, probably minutes. Like those maps would be substantially more complicated sort of every single day. So it's only a small difference. I mean, and it's just one invention, right? But, you know, our culture is of course accumulated thousands or millions of these inventions. DAVID: One of my other favorite ones from being a kid was I would always go on airplanes and I'd look at the route map and it would always show that the airplanes would fly over the North Pole, but on two-dimensional space that was never clear to me. And I remember being with my dad one night, we bought a globe and we took a rubber band and we stretched why it was actually shorter to fly over the North Pole, say if you're going from New York to India. And that was one of the first times in my life that I actually didn't realize it at the time, but understood exactly what I think you're trying to get at there. How about photography? Because that's another one that I think is really striking, vivid from the horse to slow motion to time lapses. MICHAEL: Photography I think is interesting in this vein in two separate ways. One is actually what it did to painting, which is of course painters have been getting more and more interested in being more and more realistic. And honestly, by the beginning of the 19th century, I think painting was pretty boring. Yeah, if you go back to say the 16th and 17th centuries, you have people who are already just astoundingly good at depicting things in a realistic fashion. To my mind, Rembrandt is probably still the best portrait painter in some sense to ever live. DAVID: And is that because he was the best at painting something that looked real? MICHAEL: I think he did something better than that. He did this very clever thing, you know, you will see a photograph or a picture of somebody and you'll say, oh, that really looks like them. And I think actually most of the time we, our minds almost construct this kind of composite image that we think of as what David looks like or what our mother looks like or whatever. But actually moment to moment, they mostly don't look like that. They mostly, you know, their faces a little bit more drawn or it's, you know, the skin color is a little bit different. And my guess, my theory of Rembrandt, is that he may have actually been very, very good at figuring out almost what that image was and actually capturing that. So, yeah, I mean this is purely hypothetical. I have no real reason to believe it, but I think it's why I responded so strongly to his paintings. DAVID: And then what happened? So after Rembrandt, what changed? MICHAEL: So like I said, you mean you keep going for a sort of another 200 years, people just keep getting more and more realistic in some sense. You have all the great landscape painters and then you have this catastrophe where photography comes along and all of a sudden you're being able to paint in a more and more realistic fashion. It doesn't seem like such a hot thing to be doing anymore. And if for some painters, I think this was a bit of a disaster, a bit of dose. I said of this modern wave, you start to see through people like Monet and Renoir. But then I think Picasso, for me anyway, was really the pivotal figure in realizing that actually what art could become, is the invention of completely new ways of seeing. And he starts to play inspired by Cezanne and others in really interesting ways with the construction of figures and such. Showing things from multiple angles in one painting and different points of view. And he just plays with hundreds of ideas along these lines, through all of his painting and how we see and what we see in how we actually construct reality in their heads from the images that we see. And he did so much of that. It really became something that I think a lot of artists, I'm not an artist or a sophisticated art theory person, but it became something that other people realized was actually an extraordinarily interesting thing to be doing. And much of the most interesting modern art is really a descendant of that understanding that it's a useful thing to be doing. A really interesting thing to be doing rather than becoming more and more realistic is actually finding more and more interesting ways of seeing and being able to represent the world. DAVID: So I think that the quote is attributed to Marshall McLuhan, but I have heard that Winston Churchill said it. And first, we shape our tools and then our tools shape us. And that seems to be sort of the foundation of a lot of the things that you're saying. MICHAEL: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, on the other side, you also have, to your original question about photography. Photographers have gradually started to realize that they could shape how they saw nature. Ansel Adams and people like this, you know. Just what an eye. And understanding his tools so verbally he's not just capturing what you see. He's constructing stuff in really, really interesting ways. DAVID: And how about moving forward in terms of your work, thinking about where we are now to thinking about the future of technology. For example, one thing that frustrates me a bit as a podcast host is, you know, we just had this conversation about art and it's the limits of the audio medium to not be able to show the paintings of Rembrandt and Cezanne that we just alluded to. So as you think about jumping off of that, as you think about where we are now in terms of media to moving forward, what are some of the challenges that you see and the issues that you're grappling with? MICHAEL: One thing for sure, which I think inhibits a lot of exploration. We're trapped in a relatively small number of platforms. The web is this amazing thing as our phones, iOS and whatnot, but they're also pretty limited and that bothers me a little bit. Basically when you sort of narrow down to just a few platforms which have captured almost all of the attention, that's quite limiting. People also, they tend not to make their own hardware. They don't do these kinds of these kinds of things. If that were to change, I think that would certainly be exciting. Something that I think is very, very interesting over the next few years, artificial intelligence has gotten to the point now where we can do a pretty good job in understanding what's actually going on inside a room. Like we can set up sufficient cameras. If you think about something like self-driving cars, essentially what they're doing is they're building up a complete model of the environment and if that model is not pretty darned good, then you can't do self-driving cars, you need to know where the pedestrians are and where the signs are and all these kinds of things and if there's an obstruction and that technology when brought into, you know, the whole of the rest of the world means that you're pretty good at passing out. You know what's inside the room. Oh, there's a chair over there, there's a dog which is moving in that direction, there's a person, there’s a baby and sort of understanding all those actions and ideally starting to understand all the gestures which people are making as well. So we're in this very strange state right at the moment. Where the way we talk to computers is we have these tiny little rectangles and we talk to them through basically a square inch or so of sort of skin, which is our eyes. And then we, you know, we tap away with our fingers and the whole of the rest of our body and our existence is completely uncoupled from that. We've effectively reduced ourselves to our fingers and our eyes. We a couple to it only through the whatever, 100 square inches, couple hundred square inches of our screens or less if you're on a phone and everything else in the environment is gone. But we're actually at a point where we're nearly able to do an understanding of all of that sufficiently well that actually other modes of interaction will become possible. I don't think we're quite there yet, but we're pretty close. And you start to think about, something like one of my favorite sport is tennis. You think about what a tennis player can do with their body or you think about what a dancer can do with their body. It's just extraordinary. And all of that mode of being human and sort of understanding we can build up antibodies is completely shut out from the computing experience at the moment. And I think over the next sort of five to ten years that will start to reenter and then in the decades hence, it will just seem strange that it was ever shut out. DAVID: So help me understand this. So when you mean by start to reenter, do mean that we'll be able to control computers with other parts of our bodies or that we'll be spending less time maybe typing on keyboards. Help me flesh this out. MICHAEL: I just mean that at the moment. As you speak to David, you are waving your arms around and all sorts of interesting ways and there is no computer system which is aware of it, what your computer system is aware of. You're doing this recording. That's it. And even that, it doesn't understand in any sort of significant way. Once you've gained the ability to understand the environment. Lots of interesting things become possible. The obvious example, which everybody immediately understands is that self driving cars become possible. There's this sort of enormous capacity. But I think it's certainly reasonably likely that much more than that will become possible over the next 10 to 20 years. As your computer system becomes completely aware of your environment or as aware as you're willing to allow it to be. DAVID: You made a really interesting analogy in one of your essays about the difference between Photoshop and Microsoft Word. That was really fascinating to me because I know both programs pretty well. But to know Microsoft word doesn't necessarily mean that I'm a better writer. It actually doesn't mean that at all. But to know Photoshop well probably makes me pretty good at image manipulation. I'm sure there's more there, but if you could walk me through your thought process as you were thinking through that. I think that's really interesting. MICHAEL: So it's really about a difference in the type of tools which are built into the program. So in Photoshop, which I should say, I don't know that well, I know Word pretty well. I've certainly spent a lot more time in it than I have ever spent in Photoshop. But in Photoshop, you do have these very interesting tools which have been built in, which really condense an enormous amount of understanding of ideas like layers or an idea, different brushes, these kinds of ideas. There's just a tremendous amount of understanding which has been built in there. When I watch friends who are really good with these kinds of programs, what they can do with layers is just amazing. They understand all these kind of clever screening techniques. It seems like such a simple idea and yet they're able to do these things that let you do astonishing things just with sort of three or four apparently very simple operations. So in that sense, there are some very deep ideas about image manipulation, which had been built directly into Photoshop. By contrast, there's not really very many deep ideas about writing built into Microsoft Word. If you talk to writers about how they go about their actual craft and you say, well, you know, what heuristics do use to write stories and whatnot. Most of the ideas which they use aren't, you know, they don't correspond directly to any set of tools inside Word. Probably the one exception is ideas, like outlining. There are some tools which have been built into word and that's maybe an example where in fact Word does help the writer a little bit, but I don't think to nearly the same extent as Photoshop seems to. DAVID: I went to an awesome exhibit for David Bowie and one of the things that David but we did when he was writing songs was he had this word manipulator which would just throw him like 20, 30 words and the point wasn't that he would use those words. The point was that by getting words, his mind would then go to different places and so often when you're in my experience and clearly his, when you're trying to create something, it helps to just be thrown raw material at you rather than the perennial, oh my goodness, I'm looking at a white screen with like this clicking thing that is just terrifying, Word doesn't help you in that way. MICHAEL: So an example of something which does operate a little bit in that way, it was a Ph.D. thesis was somebody wrote at MIT about what was called the Remembrance Agent. And what it would do, it was a plugin essentially for a text editor that it would, look at what you are currently writing and it would search through your hard disk for documents that seemed like they might actually be relevant. Just kind of prompt you with what you're writing. Seems like it might be related to this or this or this or this or this. And to be perfectly honest, it didn't actually work all that well. I think mostly because the underlying machine learning algorithms it used weren't very clever. It's defunct now as far as I know. I tried to get it to run on my machine or a year or two ago and I couldn't get it running. It was still an interesting thing to do. It had exactly this same kind of the belly sort of experience. Even if they weren't terribly relevant. You kind of couldn't understand why on earth you are being shown it. It's still jogged your mind in an interesting way. DAVID: Yeah. I get a lot of help out of that. Actually, I’ll put this example. So David Brooks, you know the columnist for the New York Times. When he writes, what he does is he gets all of his notes and he just puts his notes on the floor and he literally crawls all around and tries to piece the notes together and so he's not even writing. He's just organizing ideas and it must really help him as it helps me to just have raw material and just organize it all in the same place. MICHAEL: There's a great British humorist, PG Boathouse, he supposedly wrote on I think it was the three by five-inch cards. He'd write a paragraph on each one, but he had supposedly a very complicated system in his office, well not complicated at all, but it must have looked amazing where he would basically paste the cards to the wall and as the quality of each paragraph rose, he would move the paragraph up the wall and I think the idea was something like once it got to the end, it was a lion or something, every paragraph in the book had to get above that line and at that point it was ready to go. DAVID: So I've been thinking a lot about sort of so often in normal media we take AI sort of on one side and art on another side. But I think that so many of the really interesting things that will emerge out of this as the collaboration between the two. And you've written a bit about art and AI, so how can maybe art or artificial intelligence help people be more creative in this way? MICHAEL: I think we still don't know the answer to the question, unfortunately. The hoped-for answer the answer that might turn out to be true. Real AI systems are going to build up very good models of different parts of the world, maybe better than any human has of those parts of the world. It might be the case, I don't know. It might be the case that something like the Google translate system, maybe in some sense that system already knows some facts about translation that would be pretty difficult to track down in any individual human mind and sort of so much about translation in some significant ways. I'm just speculating here. But if you can start to interrogate that understanding, it becomes a really useful sort of a prosthetic for human beings. If you've seen any of these amazing, well I guess probably the classics, the deep dream images that came out of Google brain a couple of years ago. Basically, you take ordinary images and you're sort of running them backwards through a neural net somehow. You're sort of seeing something about how the neural net sees that image. You get these very beautiful images as a result. There's something strange going on and sort of revealing about your own way of seeing the world. And at the same time, it's based on some structure which this neural net has discovered inside these images which is not ordinarily directly accessible to you. It's showing you that structure. So sort of I think the right way to think about this is that really good AI systems are going to depend upon building and do currently depend on building very good models of different parts of the world and to the extent that we can then build tools to actually look in and see what those models are telling us about the world, we can learn interesting new things which are useful for us. I think the conventional way, certainly the science fiction way to think about AI is that we're going to give it commands and it's going to do stuff. How you shut the whatever it is, the door or so on and so forth, and there was certainly will be a certain amount of that. Or with AlphaGo what is the best move to take now, but actually in some sense, with something like AlphaGo, it's probably more interesting to be able to look into it and see what it's understanding is of the board position than it is to ask what's the best move to be taken. A colleague showed me a go program, a prototype, what it would do. It was a very simple kind of a thing, but it would help train beginners. I think it was Go, but by essentially colorizing different parts of the board according to whether they were good or bad moves to be taking in its estimation. If you're a sophisticated player, it probably wasn't terribly helpful, but if you're just a beginner, there's an interesting kind of a conditioning going on there. At least potentially a which lets you start to see. You get a feeling for immediate feedback from. And all that's happening there is that you're seeing a little bit into one of these machine learning algorithms and that's maybe helping you see the world in a slightly different way. DAVID: As I was preparing for this podcast, you've liked a lot to Brian Eno and his work. So I spent as much time reading Brian Eno, which I'm super happy that I went down those rabbit holes. But one of the things that he said that was really interesting, so he's one of the fathers of ambient music and he said that a lot of art and especially music, there will sort of be algorithms where you sort of create an algorithm that to the listener might even sound better than what a human would produce. And he said two things that were interesting. The first one is that you create an algorithm and then a bunch of different musical forms could flower out of that algorithm. And then also said that often the art that algorithms create is more appealing to the viewer. But it takes some time to get there. And had the creator just followed their intuition. They probably would have never gotten there. MICHAEL: It certainly seems like it might be true. And that's the whole sort of interesting thing with that kind of computer-generated music is to, I think the creators of it often don't know where they're gonna end up. To be honest, I think my favorite music is all still by human composers. I do enjoy performances by people who live code. There's something really spectacular about that. So there are people who, they will set up the computer and hook it up to speakers and they will hook the text editor up to a projector and they'll have essentially usually a modified form of the programming language list a or people use a few different systems I guess. And they will write a program which producers music onstage and they'll just do it in real time and you know, it starts out sounding terrible of course. And that lasts for about 20 seconds and by about sort of 30 or 40 seconds in, already it's approaching the limits of complex, interesting music and I think even if you don't really have a clue what they're doing as they program, there's still something really hypnotic and interesting about watching them actually go through this process of creating music sort of both before your eyes and before your ears. It's a really interesting creative experience and sometimes quite beautiful. I think I suspect that if I just heard one of those pieces separately, I probably wouldn't do so much for me, but actually having a done in real time and sort of seeing the process of creation, it really changes the experience and makes it very, very interesting. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes it's just beautiful. That's the good moment, right? When clearly the person doing it has something beautiful happen. You feel something beautiful happen and everybody else around you feel something beautiful and spontaneous. It's just happened. That's quite a remarkable experience. Something really interesting is happening with the computer. It's not something that was anticipated by the creator. It arose out of an interaction between them and their machine. And it is actually beautiful. DAVID: Absolutely. Sort of on a similar vein, there's a song called Speed of Life by Dirty South. So I really liked electronic music, but what he does is he constructs a symphony, but he goes one layer at a time. It's about eight and a half minute song and he just goes layer after layer, after layer, after layer. And what's really cool about listening to it is you appreciate the depth of a piece of music that you would never be able to appreciate if you didn't have that. And also by being able to listen to it over and over again. Because before we had recording, you would only hear a certain piece of music live and one time. And so there are new forms that are bursting out of now because we listen to songs so often. MICHAEL: It's interesting to think, there's a sort of a history to that as well. If you go back, essentially modern systems for recording music, if you go back much more than a thousand years. And we didn't really have them. There's a multi-thousand-year history of recorded music. But a lot of the early technology was lost and it wasn't until sort of I think the eighth, ninth century that people started to do it again. But we didn't get all the way to button sheet music overnight. There was a whole lot of different inventions. For instance, the early representations didn't show absolute pitch. They didn't show the duration of the note. Those were ideas that had to be invented. So in I think it was 1026, somebody introduced the idea of actually showing a scale where you can have absolute pitch. And then a century or two after that, Franco of Cologne had the idea of representing duration. And so they said like tiny little things, but then you start to think about, well, what does that mean for the ability to compose music? It means now that actually, you can start to compose pieces, which for many, many, many different instruments. So you start to get the ability to have orchestral music. So you go from being able to basically you have to kind of instruct small groups of players that's the best you can hope to do and get them to practice together and whatever. So maybe you can do something like a piece for a relatively small number of people, but it's very hard to do something for an 80 piece orchestra. Right? So all of a sudden that kind of amazing orchestral music I think becomes possible. And then, you know, we're sort of in version 2.0 of that now where of course you can lay a thousand tracks on top of one another if you want. You get ideas like micropolyphony. And these things where you look at the score and it's just incredible, there are 10,000 notes in 10 seconds. DAVID: Well, to your point I was at a tea house in Berkeley on Monday right by UC Berkeley's campus and the people next to me, they were debating the musical notes that they were looking at but not listening to the music and it was evident that they both had such a clear ability to listen to music without even listening to it, that they could write the notes together and have this discussion and it was somebody who doesn't know so much about music. It was really impressive. MICHAEL: That sounds like a very interesting conversation. DAVID: I think it was. So one thing that I'm interested in and that sort of have this dream of, is I have a lot of friends in New York who do data visualization and sort of two things parallel. I have this vision of like remember the Harry Potter book where the newspaper comes alive and it becomes like a rich dynamic medium. So I have that compared with some immersive world that you can walk through and be able to like touch and move around data and I actually think there's some cool opportunities there and whatnot. But in terms of thinking about the future of being able to visualize numbers and the way that things change and whatnot. MICHAEL: I think it's a really complicated question like it actually needs to be broken down. So one thing, for example, I think it's one of the most interesting things you can do with computers. Lots of people never really get much experience playing with models and yet it's possible to do this. Now, basically, you can start to build very simple models. The example that a lot of people do get that they didn't use to get, is spreadsheets. So, you can sort of create a spreadsheet that is a simple model of your company or some organization or a country or of whatever. And the interesting thing about the spreadsheet is really that you can play with it. And it sort of, it's reactive in this interesting way. Anybody who spends as much time with spreadsheets is they start to build up hypotheses, oh, what would happen if I changed this number over here? How would it affect my bottom line? How would it affect the GDP of the country? How would it affect this? How would it affect that? And you know, as you kind of use it, you start to introduce, you start to make your model more complicated. If you're modeling some kind of a factory yet maybe you start to say, well, what would be the effect if a carbon tax was introduced? So you introduce some new column into the spreadsheet or maybe several extra columns into the spreadsheet and you start to ask questions, well, what would the structure of the carbon tax be? What would help you know, all these sorts of what if questions. And you start very incrementally to build up models. So this experience, of course, so many people take for granted. It was not an experience that almost anybody in the world had say 20 or 30 years ago. Well, spreadsheets data about 1980 or so, but this is certainly an experience that was extremely rare prior to 1980 and it's become a relatively common, but it hasn't made its way out into mass media. We don't as part of our everyday lives or the great majority of people don't have this experience of just exploring models. And I think it's one of the most interesting things which particularly the New York Times and to some extent some of the other newsrooms have done is they've started in a small way to build these models into the news reading experience. So, in particular, the data visualization team at the New York Times, people like Amanda Cox and others have done this really interesting thing where you start to get some of these models. You might have seen, for example, in the last few elections. They've built this very interesting model showing basically if you can sort of make choices about how different states will vote. So if such and such votes for Trump, what are Hillary's chances of winning the election. And you may have seen they have this sort of amazing interactive visualization of it where you can just go through and you can sort of look at the key swing states, what happens if Pennsylvania votes for so and so what happens if Florida does? And that's an example where they've built an enormous amount of sort of pulling information into this model and then you can play with it to build up some sort of understanding. And I mean, it's a very simple example. I certainly think that you know, normatively, we're not there yet. We don't actually have a shared understanding. There's very little shared language even around these models. You think about something like a map. A map is an incredibly sophisticated object, which however we will start learning from a very young age. And so we're actually really good at parsing them. We know if somebody shows us a map, how to engage, how to interpret it, how to use it. And if somebody just came from another planet, actually they need to learn all those things. How do you represent a road? How do you represent a shop on a map? How do you represent this or that, why do we know that up is north like that's a convention. All those kinds of things actually need to be learned and we learned them when we were small. With these kinds of things which the Times and other media outlets are trying to do, we lack all of that collective knowledge and so they're having to start from scratch and I think that over a couple of generations actually, they'll start to evolve a lot of conventions and people will start to take it for granted. But in a lot of contexts actually you're not just going to be given a narrative, you know, just going to be told sort of how some columnist thinks the world is. Instead, you'll actually expect to be given some kind of a model which you can play with. You can start to ask questions and sort of run your own hypotheses in much the same way as somebody who runs a business might actually set up a spreadsheet to model their business and ask interesting questions. It's not perfect. The model is certainly that the map is not the territory as they say, but it is nonetheless a different way of engaging rather than just having some expert tell you, oh, the world is this way. DAVID: I'm interested in sort of the shift from having media be predominantly static to dynamic, which the New York Times is a perfect example. They can tell stories on Newyorktimes.com that they can't tell in the newspaper that gets delivered to your doorstep. But what's really cool about spreadsheets that you're talking about is like when I use Excel, being able to go from numbers, so then different graphs and have the exact same data set, but some ways of visualizing that data totally clicked for me and sometimes nothing happens. MICHAEL: Sure. Yeah. And we're still in the early days of that too. There's so much sort of about literacy there. And I think so much about literacy is really about opportunity. People have been complaining essentially forever that the kids of today are not literate enough. But of course, once you actually provide people with the opportunity and a good reason to want to do something, then they can become very literate very quickly. I think basically going back to the rise of social media sort of 10 or 15 years ago, so Facebook around whatever, 2006, 2007 twitter a little bit later, and then all the other platforms which have come along since. They reward being a good writer. So all of a sudden a whole lot of people who normally wouldn't have necessarily been good writers are significantly more likely to become good writers. It depends on the platform. Certainly, Facebook is a relatively visual medium. Twitter probably helps. I think twitter and text messaging probably are actually good. Certainly, you're rewarded for being able to condense an awful lot into a small period. People complain that it's not good English, whatever that is. But I think I'm more interested in whether something is a virtuosic English than I am and whether or not it's grammatically correct. People are astonishingly good at that, but the same thing needs to start to happen with these kinds of models and with data visualizations and things like that. At the moment, you know, you have this priestly caste that makes a few of them and that's an interesting thing to be able to do, but it's not really part of the everyday experience of most people. It's an interesting question whether or not that's gonna change as it going to in the province of some small group of people, or will it actually become something that people just expect to be able to do? Spreadsheets are super interesting in that regard. They actually did. I think if you've talked to somebody in 1960 and said that by 2018, tens of millions of people around the world would be building sophisticated mathematical models as just part of their everyday life. It would've seemed absolutely ludicrous. But actually, that kind of model of literacy has become relatively common. I don't know whether we'll get to 8 billion people though. I think we probably will. DAVID: So when I was in high school I went to, what I like to say is the weirdest school in the weirdest city in America. I went to the weirdest high school in San Francisco and rather than teaching us math, they had us get in groups of three and four and they had us discover everything on our own. So we would have these things called problem sets and we would do about one a week and the teacher would come around and sort of help us every now and then. But the goal was really to get three or four people to think through every single problem. And they called it discovery-based learning, which you've also talked about too. So my question to you is we're really used to learning when the map is clear and it's clear what to do and you can sort of follow a set path, but you actually do the opposite. The map is unclear and you're actually trailblazing and charting new territory. What strategies do you have to sort of sense where to move? MICHAEL: There's sort of a precursor question which is how do you maintain your morale and the Robert Pirsig book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He proposes a university subject, gumptionology 101. Gumption is almost the most important quality that we have. The ability to keep going when things don't seem very good. And mostly that's about having ways of being playful and ways of essentially not running out of ideas. Some of that is about a very interesting tension between having, being ambitious in what you'd like to achieve, but also being very willing to sort of celebrate the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest successes. Suddenly a lot of creative people I know I think really struggle with that. They might be very good at celebrating tiny successes but not have that significant ambitions, but they might be extremely ambitious, but because they're so ambitious, if an idea doesn't look Nobel prize worthy, they're not particularly interested in it. You know, they struggle with just kind of the goofing around and they often feel pretty bad because of course most days you're not at your best, you don't actually have the greatest idea. So there's some interesting tension to manage there. There's really two different types of work. One is where you have a pretty good goal, you know what success looks like, right? But you may also be doing something that's more like problem discovery where you don't even know where you're going. Typically if you're going to compose a piece of music. Well, I'm not a composer, but certainly, my understanding from, from friends who are, is that they don't necessarily start out with a very clear idea of where they're going. Some composers do, but a lot, it's a process of discovery. Actually, a publisher once told me somebody who has published a lot of well-known books that she described one of her authors as a writing for discovery. Like he didn't know what his book was going to be about, he had a bunch of kind of vague ideas and the whole point of writing the book was to actually figure out what it was that he wanted to say, what problem was he really interested in. So we'd start with some very, very good ideas and they kind of get gradually refined. And it was very interesting. I really liked his books and it was interesting to see that. They looked like they'd been very carefully planned and he really knew what he was doing and she told me that no, he'd sort of come in and chat with her and be like, well, I'm sort of interested over here. And he'd have phrases and sort of ideas. But he didn't actually have a clear plan and then he'd get through this process of several years of gradually figuring out what it was that he wanted to say. And often the most significant themes wouldn't actually emerge until relatively late in that whole process. I asked another actually quite a well-known writer, I just bumped into when he was, he was reporting a story for a major magazine and I think he'd been working, he'd been reporting for two weeks, I think at that point. So just out interviewing people and whatever. And I said, how's it going? And he said, Oh yeah, pretty good. I said, what's your story about? He said, I don't know yet, which I thought was very interesting. He had a subject, he was following a person around. But he didn't actually know what his story was. DAVID: So the analogy that I have in my head as you're talking about this, it's like sculpture, right? Where you start maybe with a big thing of granite or whatnot, and slowly but surely you're carving the stone or whatnot and you're trying to come up with a form. But so often maybe it's the little details at the end that are so far removed from that piece of stone at the very beginning that make a sculpture exceptional. MICHAEL: Indeed. And you wonder what's going on. I haven't done sculpture. I've done a lot of writing and writing often feels so sometimes I know what I want to say. Those are the easy pieces to write, but more often it's writing for discovery and there you need to be very happy celebrating tiny improvements. I mean just fixing a word needs to be an event you actually enjoy, if not, the process will be an absolute nightmare. But then there's this sort of instinct where you realize, oh, that's a phrase that A: I should really refine and B: it might actually be the key to making this whole thing work and that seems to be a very instinctive kind of a process. Something that you, if you write enough, you start to get some sense of what actually works for you in those ways. The recognition is really hard. It's very tempting to just discount yourself. Like to not notice when you have a good phrase or something like that and sort of contrary wise sometimes to hang onto your darlings too long. You have the idea that you think it's about and it's actually wrong. DAVID: Why do you write and why do you choose the medium of writing to think through things sometimes? I know that you choose other ones as well. MICHAEL: Writing has this beautiful quality that you can improve your thoughts. That's really helpful. A friend of mine who makes very popular YouTube videos about mathematics has said to me that he doesn't really feel like people are learning much mathematics from them. Instead, it's almost a form of advertising like they get some sense of what it is. They know that it's very beautiful. They get excited. All those things are very important and matter a lot to him, but he believes that only a tiny, tiny number of people are actually really understanding much detail at all. There's actually a small group who have apparently do kind of. They have a way of processing video that lets them understand. DAVID: Also, I think you probably have to, with something like math, I've been trying to learn economics online and with something like math or economics that's a bit complex and difficult, you have to go back and re-watch and re-watch, but I think that there's a human tendency to want to watch more and more and more and it's hard to learn that way. You actually have to watch things again. MICHAEL: Absolutely. Totally. And you know, I have a friend who when he listens to podcasts, if he doesn't understand something, he, he rewinds it 30 seconds. But most people just don't have that discipline. Of course, you want to keep going. So I think the written word for most people is a little bit easier if they want to do that kind of detailed understanding. It's more random access to start with. It's easier to kind of skip around and to concentrate and say, well, I didn't really get that sentence. I'm going to think about it a little bit more, or yeah, I can see what's going to happen in those two or three paragraphs. I'll just very quickly skip through them. It's more built for that kind of detailed understanding, so you're getting really two very different experiences. In the case of the video, very often really what you're getting is principally an emotional experience with some bits and pieces of understanding tacked on with the written word. Often a lot of that emotion is stripped out, which makes can make it much harder to motivate yourself. You need that sort of emotional connection to the material, but it is actually, I think a great deal easier to understand sort of the details of it. There's a real kind of choice to be to be made. There's also the fact that people just seem to respond better to videos. If you want a large audience, you're probably better off making YouTube videos than you are publishing essays. DAVID: My last question to you, as somebody who admires your pace and speed of learning and what's been really fun about preparing for this podcast and come across your work is I really do feel like I've accessed a new perspective on the world which is really cool and I get excited probably most excited when I come across thinkers who don't think like anyone who I've come across before, so I'm asking to you first of all, how do you think about your learning process and what you consume and second of all, who have been the people and the ideas that have really formed the foundation of your thought? MICHAEL: A Kurt Vonnegut quote from his book, I think it's Cat's Cradle. He says, we become what we pretend to be, so you must be careful what we pretend to be and I think there's something closely analogously true, which is that we become what we pay attention to, so we should be careful what we pay attention to and that means being fairly careful how you curate your information diet. There's a lot of things. There's a lot of mistakes I've made. Paying attention to angry people is not very good. I think ideas like the filter bubble, for example, are actually bad ideas. And for the most part, it sounds virtuous to say, oh, I'm going to pay attention to people who disagree with me politically and whatever. Well, okay, there's a certain amount of truth to that. It's a good idea probably to pay attention to the very best arguments from the very best exponents of the other different political views. So sure, seek those people out, but you don't need to seek out the random person who has a different political view from you. And that's how most people actually interpret that kind of injunction. They, they're not looking for the very best alternate points of view. So that's something you need to be careful about. There's a whole lot of things like that I enjoy. So for example, I think one person, it's interesting on twitter to look, he's, he's no longer active but he's still following people is Marc Andreessen and I think he follows, it's like 18,000 people or something and it's really interesting just to look through the list of followers because it's all over the map and much of it I wouldn't find interesting at all, but you'll find the strangest corners people in sort of remote villages in India and people doing really interesting things in South Africa. Okay. So he's a venture capitalist but they're not connected to venture capital at all. So many of them, they're just doing interesting things all over the world and I wouldn't advocate doing the same thing. You kind of need to cultivate your own tastes and your own interests. But there's something very interesting about that sort of capitalist city of interests and curiosity about the world, which I think is probably very good for almost anybody to cultivate. I haven't really answered your question. DAVID: I do want to ask who were the people or the ideas or the areas of the world that have really shaped and inspired your thinking because I'm asking selfishly because I want to go down those rabbit holes. MICHAEL: Alright. A couple of people, Alan Kay and Doug Engelbart, who are two of the people who really developed the idea of what a computer might be. In the 1950's and 60's, people mostly thought computers were machines for solving mathematical problems, predicting the weather next week, computing artillery tables, doing these kinds of things. And they understood that actually there could be devices which humans would use for themselves to solve their own problems. That would be sort of almost personal prosthetics for the mind. They'd be new media. We could use to think with and a lot of their best ideas I think out there, there's still this kind of vision for the future. And if you look particularly at some of Alan Kay's talks, there's still a lot of interesting ideas there. DAVID: That the perspective is worth 80 IQ points. That's still true. MICHAEL: For example, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, right? He's actually, he's got a real gift for coming up with piddly little things, but there's also quite deep ideas. They're not two-year projects or five-year projects, they're thousand year projects or an entire civilization. And we're just getting started on them. I think that's true. Actually. It's in general, maybe that's an interesting variation question, which is, you know, what are the thousand year projects? A friend of mine, Cal Schroeder, who's a science fiction writer, has this term, The Project, which he uses to organize some of his thinking about science fictional civilizations. So The Project is whatever a civilization is currently doing, which possibly no member of the civilization is even aware of. So you might ask the question, what was the project for our planet in the 20th century? I think one plausible answer might be, for example, it was actually eliminating infectious diseases. You think about things like polio and smallpox and so many of these diseases were huge things at the start of the 20th century and they become much, much smaller by the end of the 20th century. Obviously AIDS is this terrible disease, but in fact, by historical comparison, even something like the Spanish flu, it's actually relatively small. I think it's several hundred million people it may have killed. Maybe that was actually the project for human civilization in the 20th century. I think it's interesting to think about those kinds of questions and sort of the, you know, where are the people who are sort of most connected to those? So I certainly think Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay. DAVID: Talk about Doug Engelbart, I know nothing about him. MICHAEL: So Engelbart is the person who I think more than anybody invented modern computing. He did this famous demo in 1968, 1969. It's often called the mother of all demos, in front of an audience of a thousand people I believe. Quite a while since I've watched it and it demonstrates a windowing system and what looks like a modern word processor, but it's not just a word processor. They're actually hooked up remotely to a person in another location and they're actually collaborating in real time. And it's the first public showing I believe of the mouse and of all these different sorts of ideas. And you look at other images of computers at the time and they're these giant machines with tapes and whatever. And here's this vision that looks a lot more like sort of Microsoft Windows and a than anything else. And it's got all these things like real-time collaboration between people in different locations that we really didn't have at scale until relatively recently. And he lays out a huge fraction of these ideas in 1962 in a paper he wrote then. But that paper is another one of these huge things. He's asking questions that you don't answer over two years or five years. You answer over a thousand years. I think it's Augmenting Human Intellect is the title of that paper. So he's certainly somebody else that I think is a very interesting thinker. There's something really interesting about the ability to ask an enormous question, but then actually to have other questions at every scale. So you know what to do in the next 10 minutes that will move you a little bit towar

Rambling Beach Cast is back in your ear holes with a special intro by the Donald himself! Nick and Seth welcome special guest David Brooke from Adventures in Poor Taste to discuss how the Alien franchise is better than Predator, and the problem of lazy imaginations. Listener questions start around 23:30, and Seth gets an epic rant in on one-sided, for-profit journalism as it relates to Trump and Fox News. Mildly amusing, completely absurd. We ramble on because we can!