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The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is made in the USA. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CaberfaeOwned by: The Meyer FamilyYear founded: 1937Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 2 days, blackouts* Freedom Pass: 3 days, no blackouts Base elevation: 1,076 feetSummit elevation: 1,561 feetVertical drop: 485 feetSkiable Acres: 200Average annual snowfall: 120 inchesLift count: 5 (1 fixed-grip quad, 3 triples, 1 carpet – view Lift Blog's inventory of Caberfae's lift fleet)The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO; also since Tim and Pete were on one screen, the transcript does not differentiate between them).Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the storm. I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Thursday, September 17th, 2026, and we are going to mix things up a little bit today. Instead of starting with the takes, we are starting with the guests, and I have some great guests today.00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:40.000Stuart Winchester: They are the general managers of Cabrifay Peaks, Michigan, with over 200 acres of terrain served by 4 chairlifts across 3 peaks, with a 485-foot vertical drop.00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000Stuart Winchester: Cabar Fay is one of the largest ski areas in Michigan's Lower Penins.00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: The ski area averaged 120 inches of lake effect snowfall per winter.00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:06.000Stuart Winchester: Their family has operated Cabaret since 1980. They are co-general managers, with Tim Meyer on the right, handling everything on the mountain, and Pete Meyer on the left, taking care of everything off. Tim and Pete, welcome to the storm. I'm always hyped to talk Cabaret. How are you guys doing today?00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:11.000Pete Meyer: Good. We're doing awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah.00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and trigger warning for any Sparties or Buckeyes out there who want to go to the video version on stormskiing.com or YouTube. Me and Tim are both proudly rocking our Wolverines gear. This is a shirt I wore to the maze out when Michigan blasted Oklahoma in the big house this past weekend. So we're feeling.00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000Stuart Winchester: Although I understand Tim's also got a little Sparty, side loyalty.00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:35.000Pete Meyer: Yes, my children, both my sons are Spartans, so that's…00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, as soon as my daughter got into college, I bought all the gear for her place. So, you know, there's tons going on at Cabaret, and I want to start…00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:36.000Pete Meyer: It.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:54.000Stuart Winchester: with this coming expansion, and you, you announced this a while ago, and I'm gonna share my screen here so that everyone can see, uh, see this as we talk through it.00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: And this is where I am never quite as fast as I want to be. Uh, but… okay. So, here is the Cabra Fay trail map. This is the one I took off your website this morning, so it's the most current that I have. Uh, and last time I talked to Tim in, I think, 2021, when you came on the podcast.00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it…00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:31.000Stuart Winchester: This East Peak triple chair was still still in a theory phase and you hadn't built yet. Now that's in place and we'll talk about that in a minute and how that's gone. But talk to us about the Green Mountain triple chair, what we're getting and why you're building it.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, so, um…00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:40.000Pete Meyer: I'm going to start with why, because it's kind of an interesting story, you know.00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:51.000Pete Meyer: we… when we put in the East Peak lift, we took out the shelter chairlift, the double. They started in almost the same place, but the shelter… the shelter lift.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:54.000Pete Meyer: let off about halfway up the hill.00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000Pete Meyer: And because we we have our dads before us and then and then we also have continued to develop the terrain.00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:13.000Pete Meyer: the terrain changes and the flow changes. And what happened over time, like, especially over the last.00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.000Pete Meyer: 25 years or so.00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:23.000Pete Meyer: we kept adding on to Smiling Irishman and making it wider and wider and wider, and it got busier and busier and busier, so…00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:29.000Pete Meyer: The shelter chairlift was essentially letting off these new skiers.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000Pete Meyer: in the middle of flowing traffic. And…00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.000Pete Meyer: We thought when we put in the East Peak lift.00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:41.000Pete Meyer: Now we're gonna take these lower end skiers to the top.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:55.000Pete Meyer: we're going to give them a longer run, and the new part we're giving them is actually the easier half. They're already negotiating the tougher half, the steeper half, and the narrower half. If we add the upper half, it's easier, it's wider, it should be fine.00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:06.000Pete Meyer: And that's what we thought. And so we put it in and then but then what we found and this is the this is the piece that you learn as you go.00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.000Pete Meyer: is…00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:15.000Pete Meyer: The new skiers accepted being let off at the lower level, and having to merge into traffic, because.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:32.000Pete Meyer: They didn't really know any different and that it was the psychological factor. Well, I'm only halfway up the mountain. I can, I can do this. When we took them up to the top, you know, that East Peak lift actually feels like a out, it almost feels like an out West lift. It has.00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:43.000Pete Meyer: like, three rises, you know? So you ride… you go up over a break, and then you… and then you go again for a while, and then up over another break, and then you're coming into the top, and you… you know, you're above…00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:47.000Pete Meyer: Tree line, basically, and you can see the horizon, and it just…00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:51.000Pete Meyer: would kind of psych out that new skier, you know, they would just, they would.00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.000Pete Meyer: They'd get up there and kind of freeze and panic, and…00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:06.000Pete Meyer: say, there's no way I'm gonna go down, you know, I'm not gonna go down that hill. And, uh, so we found our ski patrol having to give a lot of lessons just to get people down the hill, and…00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:13.000Pete Meyer: And, um, and so we, we just, we kind of knew that we had a, you know, a little bit of an issue that we had to work through.00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:21.000Pete Meyer: And so Pete and I would be talking, you know, and I would say, I think I have it all figured out, you know, I'm saying, um…00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:34.000Pete Meyer: we just need to give them… make sure that all the… every single new skier gets a lesson, and we get them ready to… you know, we get them ready to go. And a lot of the… a lot of this is the school groups, you know, the different groups, and we do offer lessons.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.000Pete Meyer: to everybody, but sometimes they don't take them, and, you know, they slide, they slide through, and…00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.000Pete Meyer: And so.00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:50.000Pete Meyer: Pete and I were having a meeting on Green Mountain with our ski patrol director, Katie, and Dennis, one of our top instructors.00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000Pete Meyer: And we think we have it all figured out. You know, we're just we just need to put them through a lesson and then and then problem solved.00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.000Pete Meyer: And…00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:12.000Pete Meyer: And Dennis, our ski instructor, was like, almost grabbed right onto my jacket. He's like, you don't understand. I can't get them ready for East Peak on this.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:23.000Pete Meyer: we need something in between, and I… and… and so it's like, oh, oh, well, what do you need, Dennis? And he pointed up at the Green Mountain, and he said, we need that.00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:41.000Pete Meyer: And I… I said, well, I think we have a plan for that on a cocktail napkin somewhere. We could go look at that again. So basically, what… what hap… what it was is we… we had always had this. We… we actually had lift lines staked out, and we hadn't been looking at doing this. We just thought it would be…00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:51.000Pete Meyer: the last thing that we do. We thought we would… we would continue to develop into the… into the backcountry area, and then do the Green Mountain expansion later.00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:06.000Pete Meyer: But what the… what the customer told us was, no, you need the Green Mountain expansion now. So that's the why and the how, that all of a sudden that thing kind of appeared out of nowhere, and why it was a two…00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:14.000Pete Meyer: why it's a two-year construction, because there's nothing over there. No services. Um, so we've had… we had to…00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:18.000Pete Meyer: You know, we had to do the final planning kind of fast.00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:30.000Pete Meyer: so we wanted to take 2 years to do it. Um, and so what are you getting? You're getting about 135 vertical feet, a brand new Doppelmayr triple.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.000Pete Meyer: uh, that's just like East Peak and just like Vista, so it's gonna show this, you know, it's gonna take the new skier, um.00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:43.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and get them going on a lift that's similar to what we have throughout the area.00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:55.000Pete Meyer: it runs a little bit slower, has a bigger chair spacing, so it's going to be a little bit easier to load and unload. And when it's all built out, we should have 4 or 5.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:00.000Pete Meyer: really, uh, easy trails, but with character. I mean, these aren't just…00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:14.000Pete Meyer: you know, a football field at 10 degrees that doesn't have any character. These are, you know, tree-lined, um, interesting slopes. Uh, the lift itself actually goes through the woods.00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.000Pete Meyer: and part of the way, and it's just a really neat development. So we think that.00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:32.000Pete Meyer: You know, even though it's not big vertical, it lifts about a thousand feet long. The terrain has really good character and we think it's going to be really popular.00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:47.000Stuart Winchester: I've always loved that about Cabaret. My favorite section of Cabaret for the folks who are watching is this sort of lower section where all the trails split off. And I've always found it a little confusing and fun. And I like confusing. I like it. I feel like it makes ski areas feel bigger than they are.00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: I want to zoom out a little bit and connect this expansion to some larger ski industry narratives, because the narrative that won't die is that the big corporate consolidation and big passes are killing the independents.00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:15.000Stuart Winchester: here I'm looking at Cabra Fay, family-owned for the last 46 years, and in 2016, you put in a brand new triple chair right here on North Peak. In 2022, you put in the brand new East Peak triple chair, and then you're putting in this brand new Green Mountain triple chair next year, at least that's the plan. I mean…00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:31.000Stuart Winchester: So you're affording three new chairlifts. Uh, you know, Monarch was willing to tell me out in Colorado. Yeah, we, and we paid cash for them. I don't know if you, if you have, you know, theories on debt. I know a lot of scare operators like Platykill in New York, like to stay out of debt, but, but how did Cab.00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:40.000Stuart Winchester: How is Calgary managing all these capital upgrades, and what does it say, do you think, about independents competing in 2026?00:31:41.000 --> 00:32:05.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, I don't have access to the checkbook, so you have to let me answer that one. No, that's a great question, Stu. And Tim kind of hit on this on his first podcast with you, but when Tim and I got moved back here in 2001, we had what I call like soul crushing debt. You know, it was just crippling, like every dollar we made had to go and service the debt.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:08.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we didn't have…00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:18.000Pete Meyer: really any money to even make capital improvements or to do much of anything. So our our main mission early on was try to try to get out of debt and get out of that hole.00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:35.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, our dad's done a nice job developing and building, and they got it out of bankruptcy. So when you get something out of bankruptcy, they've already cut every corner and done all kinds of deferred maintenance, pushed it all off. So we had quite a bit to deal with, and it was a long…00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:36.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:46.000Pete Meyer: the long slugfest. Tim and I call those the dark days, you know, about 10 years of just really grinding. And then, finally, right, you know.00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:58.000Pete Meyer: about 2015, we were able to, uh, to get out of debt, and then… and then we started to, um, really put capital back into it, and that's why we decided on… on…00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.000Pete Meyer: Uh, putting in some new chairlifts, and yes, we have not gone back into debt since.00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:14.000Stuart Winchester: That's fantastic, and as you think to the future, okay, you have this North Peak quad chair, built in, I think, 92, and then you have the South Peak triple, which I think early 80s lift, it's a riblet, which…00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:29.000Stuart Winchester: As you know, is out of business now. I think this one's a SeaTac. So, I don't know if when, you know, you give a really good summary, Tim, of how East Peak changed traffic around the mountain. Uh, I, I've seen a, there's a ton of comments. I was just scrolling through, through Lyft blog for the folks watching.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:41.000Stuart Winchester: to show Peter's excellent pictures of that lift. And the Cabaret page on there has a ton of comments, and I'm sure you've seen them. So, there's a lot of wondering, it seems, among skiers.00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:44.000Stuart Winchester: Why the quad is still here, because it…00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:57.000Stuart Winchester: they don't seem to think it runs a lot, and they think the triple does the job. Is there any thought of moving the quad, or do you really need 7 seats here? Or, just thinking long-term, what does the lift distribution look like across Cabaret Fay as you look at this map?00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:13.000Pete Meyer: Well, I think that we do need the quad on the busiest days, right? Otherwise, the reason we put the Vista Triple in there is the lines on the quad used to get so long. And it was like, that's the artery. I mean, you know, more people.00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.000Pete Meyer: go through the North Peak complex.00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:34.000Pete Meyer: every day than than the others, you know, because it's the middle. And so it's you go through there on your way to and from South Peak, and a lot of people just ski there because it's really really good inter advanced, intermediate and intermediate type terrain, and even some advanced beginner terrain. So it.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:43.000Pete Meyer: It services a wide range of abilities. So I think you want to have the two lifts.00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:45.000Pete Meyer: Um…00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:58.000Pete Meyer: I think ultimately, though, we want to have more places for people to go, more pods of skiing, so that actually you do run the quad less and less, but you have it there so that on the really busy days.00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:14.000Pete Meyer: you can turn it on and have, you know, a lift that doesn't have a line that somebody can sit on and ride up. But, um, I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, right now, Stu, we run it 3 days a week, Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays, the busier days, and so…00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:24.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we don't run it, uh, Monday through Thursday, just because it's a redundant lift, and we don't need the uphill capacity, um, is… is why people say it's not running some of the time.00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I guess what I was getting at is, is there a world where you move the quad over here to serve some of this backcountry terrain and in the top of Green Mountain? As it's, as there's kind of open space on the trail map and, and knowing Gary Milken, how he designs maps, he sometimes leaves that space.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:57.000Stuart Winchester: for expansion. So, so what's the thought around, you know, and you alluded to it earlier when you were thinking about a lift for backcountry, and Tim, you had mentioned even maybe reviving those halls. I don't know if that's still a possibility. I don't know if they're still sitting at the bottom of the mountain here, but what's the thought on.00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.000Stuart Winchester: potential expansion over in this area or lifts in this area long term.00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:17.000Pete Meyer: I think that would be the next frontier. So, somewhere in the bottom… because you've skied here, Stu, you know if you go through the backcountry, you run out of gas, and then you have… and then you have to walk, and that's why we call it backcountry, because it's a…00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:27.000Pete Meyer: Because it's a tearful experience for many people coming out of there in the flats. And so somewhere down in that basin.00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:40.000Pete Meyer: there could, there could be a lift someday that goes up to east of the top of East Peak. And Stu, what Tim had alluded to earlier in his first answer is that that was our original plan, so that would have been.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:58.000Pete Meyer: Uh, that was the plan to be our next chairlift, was to service that area. But due to the reaction and the response of our skiers, you know, we deviated and focused on… and moved to Green Mountain. Um, and, you know, one thing we found is that transition from the magic carpet, right there on the trail map, you can see, to the East Peak chair.00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:15.000Pete Meyer: was just too much for most of our skiers. And not only were we not doing Cabaret any favors, but we're not doing the industry any favors. You know, it's just, it was asking them to do too much, too big of a, make too much of a jump. So by putting in this East Peak.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:30.000Pete Meyer: chair, and then we'll have all green runs that'll all be, um, varying degrees of difficulty of a green run, but all of them will be in between the Magic Carpet slope and the Smiling Irishman slope, so it'll be a really nice.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:43.000Pete Meyer: transition, and quite frankly, we think a lot of school groups and a lot of skiers are going to come out, um, and never get off that chair, and stay on Green Mountain all day, and have a wildly successful day, and want to return, um, to not only Cabaret Fay, but to other ski.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:48.000Stuart Winchester: I love it, and I can confidently say, because I ski all over, uh, that Cabaret is now…00:37:48.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: And, and especially once you put in this new lift, it's one of the most modern up to date ski areas in the entire region. And, and that wasn't always true. When I first skied at Cabaret in the nineties, it was a lot of haul double chairs. I mean, these, these guys were over here, the, the quad and the, and the triple, but.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:11.000Stuart Winchester: that, that throwback feel to it. And I know, Tim, when you were on last time, uh, you, you talked, you lamented a little bit.00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:23.000Stuart Winchester: getting rid of the last rope toe for the carpet, and just sort of the emotion of it, even though you knew it was logically the right thing. What if you could bring back a little throwback by putting a little rope toe right here to bring people out of the backcountry?00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:27.000Pete Meyer: Well, you know, it's funny, I…00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:36.000Pete Meyer: I was kind of slow to warm up to getting rid of that rope toe. I guess, you know, I always had that old school…00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:52.000Pete Meyer: you know, I learned on a rope toe, my kids learned on a rope toe, your kids are going to learn on a rope toe, which is just backwards thinking, right, for a for a ski area manager to have that kind of thought process. I'm not sure. I know where you're going. I mean, no one knows what the future holds.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:09.000Pete Meyer: I do see ski areas having a lot of success with train parks with fast tows that service them. Again, another cocktail napkin plan that we have that we're not going to get into in this interview is something like that on our property down the road.00:38:58.000 --> 00:38:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:16.000Pete Meyer: Um, so there, you know, I could see that kind of a thing, but, um…00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:26.000Pete Meyer: And… but I think… I don't know if we would ever want to put a surface tow out of the backcountry area unless, for some reason, we weren't going to lift serve it.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.000Stuart Winchester: Got it.00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:31.000Pete Meyer: But, you know, I guess, you know, no one knows for sure.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:37.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I wanna… I wanna back up on the Green Mountain expansion a little bit, if… if you'll let me.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Sure.00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, do it. Let's do it.00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:44.000Pete Meyer: When we were at the Midwest, uh, show this year, there was a, there was a fireside chat, and we were talking about.00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:54.000Pete Meyer: We're talking about, you know, turning first-time skiers into second-time skiers, and making the experience the best it can be.00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:06.000Pete Meyer: And so that we have… we have success in that arena. And the Green Mountain… the Green Mountain is… is really a missing piece, because you're looking at our trail map, and you see how the parking lot is laid out.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, so if you're, you know, trying to make it as easy as possible for somebody who's never skied before.00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.000Pete Meyer: You can park on pavement right in front of our ticket office.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:24.000Pete Meyer: Get out of your car, walk a short distance on heated sidewalks to the ticket office.00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.000Pete Meyer: Get… pay for everything you need. Pay for your skis, pay for your ticket, pay for your rentals, pay for your lesson, and then walk up to the… walk up to the, um…00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:37.000Pete Meyer: Rental.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:52.000Pete Meyer: In your, in your regular boots, so it's easy walking, go inside, take your stuff off, take your boots off, get your boots, get your skis and come and then, and then secure your lesson at the end and then walk out the door.00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:09.000Pete Meyer: And you're 30, you know, you're 30 feet from where the ski school meets and you're right at the bottom of the conveyor. So it's really easy to start out and we can get you going on the conveyor. We can virtually get anybody that can stand up on skis or snowboard up to the top.00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:13.000Pete Meyer: And then put, you know, all their energy into getting them down the hill.00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:28.000Pete Meyer: And then once you outgrow that, you just get off the conveyor and you ski down a little slope right onto the East Peak lift. Or, I'm sorry, onto the Green Mountain lift. So now you're right there, and you have this real easy area.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:37.000Pete Meyer: to learn to ski, and then when you, when you're ready, you just ski down, just ski down the hill to the east peak lift. So the, the flow.00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:42.000Pete Meyer: for that never ever in the in the ah, the the.00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:51.000Pete Meyer: possibility of getting them to come a second and third and fourth time is really real, and I think… I think we're in, like, a new stratosphere for getting…00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:59.000Pete Meyer: you know, getting people, uh, skiing. And then as it flows, you know, the next step, the next place to ski is East Peak.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.000Pete Meyer: And then as you get a little more daring, you work your way into the North Peak complex, and then eventually over to South Peak. So the flow is really natural, and I think it's going to work out extremely well.00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like a mini, uh, Copper Mountain. I know you're a Winter Park guy, but it, you know, the, the, the viability… You know what, the exciting thing, I think, for skiers who are not novices, who know Cabaret Faye well.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:12.000Pete Meyer: Yeah.00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: starts to creep back into old Caber Fay. And, and when we've talked a while ago, Tim, I, I didn't have a good perspective, but some new maps have popped up on ski map.org, which is my go to for old trail maps. And this one I think shows the old terrain really well. So here's the road looping around, here's the parking lot.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:47.000Stuart Winchester: And then here's all the terrain. And so I… Google Earth also makes it really easy. So as I go here…00:42:47.000 --> 00:43:02.000Stuart Winchester: I am, for those who are watching, I am zooming in on… so this is what you were talking about, you kind of just park on pavement, you get out here, for those watching on YouTube or StormSkiing.com, the carpet's right around here, and then this will be green, is that right?00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.000Pete Meyer: No, if you go, if you, if you go back to that old, old trail map, like you can see right to there, there's a.00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:14.000Pete Meyer: A rope toe — there's two rope toes right there, right up that line, top of that peak. There was two rope toes.00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.000Stuart Winchester: Right there? Okay.00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000Pete Meyer: Uh, heading up that way, and another rope tow coming out at 90 degrees from… from the top.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:19.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:37.000Pete Meyer: And that shack still is up there to this day. It's a two-story tow shack where we had three different rope tows coming in. So it's going to come right up to the top of that. And that area was always called practice area. That was the old name of it. So if you look at old trail maps, you'll see that word practice area.00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:24.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.000Pete Meyer: It's a great name for a learn to ski area.00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, here's another map, the 1971 map has it as practice area. Okay, so I was assuming that you were digging that up, but I guess you're taking earth from there for the other… is that where you took it for East Peak? Is that what this big sandpit is?00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:07.000Pete Meyer: Oh, that's more of the West Ridge area out into that area. So we're actually off to the left. It's all still green. Up into there, yeah, so it'll be a nice natural hilltop with big mature trees, tree line runs. It's gonna be really, it's gonna be really nice.00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000Stuart Winchester: So as you… so you can see, for those watching, this is old cab buffet. These are… this is all abandoned, right? I… do you still own this? I mean, it… because once you put the lift up here.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:37.000Stuart Winchester: It seems like it could potentially open some of this backside terrain. I know people would love that. It also makes you very big. I don't know if that's on your radar as Cabaret continues to grow and succeed, but what are the thoughts on this really cool abandoned terrain that you have back here? And Tim, I know we talked about this a few years ago, but I also know that thoughts evolve over time.00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:44.000Pete Meyer: So we do still own all of that. So that area you're looking at, we do own it.00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:55.000Pete Meyer: I think that we don't have any plans to go back into that area at this time, but you never know.00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:04.000Pete Meyer: Going back, though, a little bit, we don't want to get too far into the weeds. Unless you want to get into the weeds, we can go. Um, I brought my machete, so we can…00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.000Stuart Winchester: I live in the weeds, man, that's, uh, my…00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:22.000Pete Meyer: we can do what we need to do. But when… way back, going way back to 1982, 83, when South Peak opened, you know, South Peak was redeveloped, all that… a lot of that terrain was still running back then. We were riding T-bars and rope tows on the North Ridge, and West Ridge was alive, and.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:31.000Pete Meyer: The practice area tow was still running. So I remember that stuff, you know, as a kid, all happening. And when South Peak was built.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:43.000Pete Meyer: it was so much bigger than all that, you know, vertical-wise. It was, like, twice, you know, twice the vertical, um, real snowmaking, real grooming.00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:56.000Pete Meyer: people just abandoned the back… the back hills. They just went… they left that. They left that area, and they went to Salt Peak. And that's really why it all closed, is people just stopped going back there. It just wasn't as good. So…00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:46.000Stuart Winchester: Or did they?00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:00.000Pete Meyer: I often think maybe it just is better to be a memory.00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:05.000Pete Meyer: But but who knows? You know, down the road it could be what it could be.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think between opening the backcountry and that, uh, the Green Mountain expansion, I think you excited some folks. Alright, that, that's, uh, that's, that's all really cool. I appreciate you taking me inside that. Let's talk passes now, and I'm.00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: the screen share here. So, uh…00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:36.000Stuart Winchester: Cabrefe joined IndyPass as an inaugural member in 2019, and has been on that pass every season since, for the 2026-27 season. Cabrefe has, and I'm just laying this out for the listeners, uh, Cabrefe has departed the IndyPass and has joined.00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:51.000Stuart Winchester: The full icon pass, uh, on their two day tier, which is only on the full icon pass, not on the icon base, there's no access, and there's also holiday blackout, so the only mountains that are holiday blacked out on the full icon are the, the two day mountains, of which.00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:55.000Stuart Winchester: Cabaret is now one. So, so talk us through.00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:03.000Stuart Winchester: your experience with IndiePass and the decision, ultimately, to leave that partnership and to join up with ICON.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:09.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, sure, Stu, we have a feeling this might be a topic of conversation today, so…00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:11.000Pete Meyer: So we.00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:11.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:22.000Pete Meyer: There's a lot of layers to this answer, and this decision was not made quickly or lightly, and a lot of analysis and discussion went into it.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:37.000Pete Meyer: To be quite honest, we were… we've been frustrated with the IndyPass a little bit for a couple years, and we kind of… we kind of laid out a bunch of, um, the pros and cons list, and the cons list was a lot longer than the pros, and so we… we ultimately kind of came to this decision to exit, and um…00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:53.000Pete Meyer: We're going to talk about — I'll talk about a couple of those reasons now. But before I do, I think it's important to provide some history and some context with Cadbury and IndyPass. So as you mentioned, Indy launched in 2019. We were an early adopter. We had some great conversations with Doug Fish that summer.00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:10.000Pete Meyer: Doug worked really hard to get this pass going. We really enjoyed our conversations. He kind of could answer the questions that nobody could answer. He knew things that nobody else knew. And I still remember to this day, I'm like, Doug, how do you know all this? And he's like in his raspy voice.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:21.000Pete Meyer: I just know, you know, so it's like, it was kind of cool. So we had confidence that, uh, that he could implement this pass and make it successful, um, because he knew what it took. So we…00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:26.000Stuart Winchester: I'm sorry to interrupt. I may have been the first ever Cabaret Redemption on the Indie Pass since November 2019.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:25.000Pete Meyer: You know what? That's this.00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:30.000Pete Meyer: It wasn't, it was December 5th, 2019.00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. It…00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:39.000Pete Meyer: So, I was gonna get into that in a little bit, but now I'll hit on that. So then, um, in digging through all these redemptions, which I was gonna get into.00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, okay, go ahead.00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Sorry, I spoiled it.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:56.000Pete Meyer: And pouring this data, I was like, Stuart Winchester, you were redemption number one for us. I don't know if you knew that. And I remember it to this day because I never heard your name. I never heard of your podcast. I don't even know if you had it going then.00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:49.000Stuart Winchester: Wow, that's cool.00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yah.00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: It launched, uh, that October, so it was brand new. Mm-hmm.00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.000Pete Meyer: That October? Okay.00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:14.000Pete Meyer: So the… our… my office is right behind the ticket window, and the ticket teller… our office… the ticket manager wasn't in there, so the ticket teller came and got me when he came to the window. I have this, uh, IndiePass, I don't know what to do with it. So I was showing her how to…00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.000Pete Meyer: redeem it in in Brooklyn.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:43.000Pete Meyer: New York pops up. Oh, I got to talk to this guy. I go, you mean that you drove all the way here just to ski at Cabra Faith in Brooklyn, New York? And you're like, yeah, I did. And I thought, I'm like, this pass is awesome, right? It's great, guys. But then we talked a little bit more and you said you had family in the area and we're in the area for a while. So I was really high for a long time on the UniPass because of that. But I didn't know it was you until I was digging through the data. I'm like, oh, that's.00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so.00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, that's cool.00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:58.000Pete Meyer: That's that's so. So anyways, anyways, we'll where was I? So okay, so then we were the first as part of that. Then we were the 1st ski resort in the Lower Peninsula to to commit to the to Indy Pass, and I'm not sure about.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.000Stuart Winchester: Love that.00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:01.000Pete Meyer: Um, the UP, uh.00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:16.000Pete Meyer: But the only one in the Lower Peninsula. And so we knew at that time, well, this isn't going to do anything unless we get a couple more ski resorts to join. So we had reached out to a few. And Pete Bigford was interested. And he was the CEO and president of Shanty Creek at the time.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:30.000Pete Meyer: And Pete had said, yeah, we'll do it, but we need a couple of downstate resorts to join as well. So then we reached out to Jamie at Swiss Valley, she said yes, and Doug at Cannonsburg, and he said yes. So that first year, we had four.00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:33.000Pete Meyer: Um, resorts on the Indy Pass. And…00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:45.000Pete Meyer: During that time he that 1st year he charged resorts a thousand dollars to get in. So we we had conversations. We're like, well, let's let's try it. The worst we can do is be out a thousand dollars right? So we had these.00:50:45.000 --> 00:51:00.000Pete Meyer: 4 ski areas in, and we did… I think we did 44 redemptions that first year. It was… it was virtually nothing. I don't even think it covered the… the $1,000. It might have come… but… but we liked the concept, it was neat, and the word got out, and then… and then Crystal Mountain joined, um, the next year.00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:53.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow. Okay.00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:06.000Pete Meyer: Uh, and then, so we kind of hit a critical mass there, and then it was a really good pass, um.00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:16.000Pete Meyer: for a long time, for a while, for several years. And one thing that Doug had said, and during that first year, I think in 2019, they had about 50.00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:32.000Pete Meyer: ski resorts on the pass, if I remember. And he said, I really hope to get it to 80 to maybe 100 passes. Um, and you as an early adopter, um, Cabaret will have say who gets in, in, in your particular region, because I really want to keep it, do just a couple ski resorts per region.00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.000Pete Meyer: not to not to oversaturate the market. Like, yeah, great. This sounds sounds really good.00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:40.000Pete Meyer: So then as we go on, um…00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:50.000Pete Meyer: he sells the pass to, uh, Entebani and Eric. Um, and great for Doug, we're happy for Doug, he worked really hard to make that pass, good for him for selling it. Um, can't fault him.00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:05.000Pete Meyer: Um, and then we like to say, like, Eric, Eric took the pass and put it on steroids. You know, it's just, he, he's, he's done a wonderful job with it. You know, he's obviously very, very intelligent, very successful, running three different businesses, um, um, and doing well at all of them.00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:57.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.000Pete Meyer: But he's blown it up. He just had a different mission.00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000Pete Meyer: than than Doug had. Right? So what did that evolve into?00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.000Stuart Winchester: Blowing it up, you mean making bigger, right?00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:22.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, making it bigger. Like, Doug was gonna keep it small and couple to each region, and we were gonna have an input on, you know.00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:35.000Pete Meyer: to try to prevent it from being oversaturated. So, I know the Midwest has a lot of ski areas on the pass, but, like, our world is Michigan and our, more specifically, northern Michigan.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:36.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.000Pete Meyer: So it got down to where we had 6.00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:56.000Pete Meyer: um, ski resorts within a 60-mile radius in northern Michigan, right? So if you drop a pin, you can drive within, within 60 miles, you can get to six resorts on it. Um, that density just became too much for us, because that's 12 visits, right? If a skier buys an Andy Pass, they can ski 12 times, two at each place. It's great for them, they get a lot of.00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:12.000Pete Meyer: Um, the problem is, is what we're seeing, and we're watching the numbers every year, um, and it was easy to do because there's not a ton of redemptions, but how many of those people were former Passovers, right? And that percentage kept rising every year.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:25.000Pete Meyer: So what it became and evolved into is just a direct competitor of our own season pass product. And that's ultimately reason number one why we — it just oversaturated.00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:26.000Pete Meyer: And.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.000Stuart Winchester: So, go ahead.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.000Pete Meyer: And, you know, so…00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:34.000Pete Meyer: I and I think the the Indy Pass really for a lot of ski resorts.00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:51.000Pete Meyer: doesn't move the needle a ton, um, financially. Uh, for… for us, it really didn't, and I felt like we were… did a reasonable number of redemptions, so we could… we could take it… take it or leave it. It doesn't have a big impact. It affects the customer more. Like, that decision was hard, the person who bought it in the past.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:56.000Pete Meyer: Um, but I think Eric's a stand-up guy. He'll let anybody who…00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:07.000Pete Meyer: who bought an E-Pass, and their favorite resort is not on that, they'll give a refund to anybody who wants one. So the Cabaret listeners know that, and I think that's nice of him to do. Also, for those.00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:19.000Pete Meyer: um, Cabaret, uh, listeners who bought an Indy add-on. He'll honor that for this year, from what I understand. So, it's a couple of really good things that he's doing there, so we're thankful, thankful for that. But, um.00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:28.000Pete Meyer: through conversations, and we just decided it was time to get out. So that's reason number one. I got a couple more reasons if you've got time.00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:41.000Stuart Winchester: Well, let's linger on that for a second. I mean, for me, it just comes down to good old-fashioned free market competition, right? Where there's another pass available that is looking for smaller mountains like Caber Fay. It also signed mountains like Buck Hill and.00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:58.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and uh… Wild Mountain over in Minnesota, just small areas near populations that are popular. I saw you catching some heat in comments to me, you know, on my platforms and social media, because you go from the Indy Pass, which maxed out at $419.00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:16.000Stuart Winchester: to the full Icon, which is $1,449 right now, and I know you can upgrade and buy a discounted Icon session pass, but I don't want to overstate it. What's the reaction been like from your pass holders, and how have you handled that?00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:24.000Stuart Winchester: The fact that you're no longer available on the cheap discounted pass, multi-mountain pass, but you are available on the very expensive one.00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:27.000Pete Meyer: Great question, great question, because we've been getting…00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:42.000Pete Meyer: Uh, we've been getting both, uh, good and, and bad feedback from it. So, what, what it comes down to is the, is the decision to, to, uh, leave Indy and, and join OCCON. Those, those decisions were, were mutually exclusive. Like, like, we had made the decision to.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:52.000Pete Meyer: to leave Indy, um, before we even started to Icon. And we had a lot of conversations of, hey, let's just… let's just be… let's just be independent and not on any… any, uh…00:55:52.000 --> 00:56:08.000Pete Meyer: Multi resort pass, you know, there's a lot of really successful and really nice ski resorts that have that model, like Perfect North Slopes, Cascade in Wisconsin. We always go out and ski somewhere every spring and I went out to the Tahoe area this year and skied at Mount Rose, you know, that place is.00:55:58.000 --> 00:55:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:18.000Pete Meyer: that place is phenomenal. They're not on any, any, um, any pants. And, um, it was neat to ski there, and just see they had a similar vibe and feel that, um, Cabaret had, right?00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right. That's right.00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:23.000Pete Meyer: So quite a bit more, quite a bit more. Yeah, yeah.00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:21.000Stuart Winchester: Just a little more elevation.00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:24.000Stuart Winchester: They're at, like, 9,000 feet.00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:27.000Pete Meyer: Absolutely, but it was great terrain. So.00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:29.000Pete Meyer: After we left the Indy Pass.00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:31.000Pete Meyer: Then we, um…00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:46.000Pete Meyer: Started talking to the folks at ICON, and I want to give a shout out to Aaron Keene and Caitlin Windauer, those girls are really sharp and would answer all the questions. It kind of reminded me of the early DuckFish days where they were all knowing and knew a lot of answers to everything.00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:53.000Pete Meyer: We talked to them for a long time. We weren't in any rush to make a decision to go down this road.00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:57.000Pete Meyer: And you know what ultimately decided for us is.00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:10.000Pete Meyer: We want to do what's best for our core customer, and our core customer is our season pass holder, okay? And this IndyPass or this IconPass brought on this reciprocal benefit of a three-day.00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:27.000Pete Meyer: 3 day session pass you can get for 50% off. Right? And that adds a lot of value. To our pass holders. And so we've been hit as much as the negativity that you've seen online for leaving any pass, we've been getting messages from our pass holders saying, hey, thank you for this benefit. This is great.00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:13.000Stuart Winchester: It's.00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:15.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, three day. Yeah. Okay.00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:43.000Pete Meyer: I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna take a trip. And then we've known we've gone out west together and 3 days of skiing is plenty. Like we like to ski bell to bell and it's you're by that 3rd day you're waking up and you're like you can't even move your legs for you know we're so so we think it's a nice.00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah.00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:55.000Pete Meyer: Uh, you can ski locally here, you can head up in, um, hit up, hit up both Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands, or drive over to, uh, Blue Mountain, Ontario, so you don't have to get in a plane. So it's.00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:11.000Pete Meyer: Uh, of our pass holders. Cause we know, we know, Stuart, that nobody's going to buy a full icon pass for two days at Cabaret. We, we know that that wasn't even the, like Pete said, we're, we do like our independence and, and.00:57:57.000 --> 00:57:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:04.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:25.000Pete Meyer: And we like to create these partnerships that are good for our core customers. The people that commit to us, we're going to give you the best we can. And so, you know, that that three day session pass is just it's it's.00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.000Pete Meyer: It's a it's a great benefit for our core customers.00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:47.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's like you take a trip to Steamboat, or Palisades Tahoe, or a lot of the mountains that are on that. So, you know, it all makes sense, and I like the, you know, Boyne, Cabaret, sort of on one team, and then you have Nubs, and Crystal, and Treetops, and Shani on the other. I think that's good for skiers, it's good for.00:58:47.000 --> 00:59:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, two more, two more things I wanna talk about and then we'll get out of here. Uh, I, I really wanna talk about your season pass. $299 unlimited. I think it was even a little cheaper for early birds, but that's what it is right now. Uh, 219 for weekday, 129 for Sunday. That, that's an awesome, awesome deal.00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:18.000Stuart Winchester: by any measure. I noticed you no longer have the Saturday-Sunday pass, and I think it's been a couple years, and it also… Saturday lift tickets are more than Sunday, so it seems as though, from my point of view, you're really trying to manage the experience on Saturday. So, talk about your season pass suite.00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:27.000Stuart Winchester: And how that relates to your mountain management as far as making sure when people show up, they have a good experience.00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:42.000Pete Meyer: No, you're exactly right. You hit the nail on the head right there. We're trying to preserve the Saturday experience. That's the day everybody wants to ski. So if you're going to be on a pass and ski at Calgary on a pass, you got to have the seven-day week pass.00:59:42.000 --> 01:00:00.000Pete Meyer: And we wanted to protect that experience and not get overcrowded, not get overrun, and that's one of the main reasons that we got rid of the weekend pass. The weekend pass, we roll out, it was a $99 weekend pass in 2007 when we launched that, and that thing went all the way till.01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:14.000Pete Meyer: I think 2000 or 2001, we had that, so we had that for a long time, and that brought a lot of skiers here and exposed us as we continued to get better, and they saw the resort that we had, and all the work that Tim was doing on the hill.01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:21.000Pete Meyer: And then that just evolved into trying to manage the volume levels on Saturdays.01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a great deal. And, uh, you know, even, even as it's risen past 99, I mean, you know, 299, there's, there's a lot of resorts in the West that are charging more than that for a day this year. Beaver Creek's topping out at 392. So I love it. Okay. The last thing I want to.01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:48.000Stuart Winchester: This one's a little personal, and I know I talked to you about this, uh, it was about 4 years ago, Tim or Pete, I forget, it was maybe both of you I was talking to. So I want to talk about this Trail Starkey.01:00:48.000 --> 01:01:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, I knew Dick Starkey. I'm friends with his daughter Crystal from way back. We went to school together. Uh, and, and I met him and I, I was always just remember being very impressed by him. He had a really good presence. Uh, he was, he was very fit and active and, and did a lot of things.01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:09.000Stuart Winchester: Um, I didn't know him super well, but I met him a few times, and… and I… I just want to talk about, you know, he passed.01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000Stuart Winchester: Four or five years ago now, and I noticed this trail and, and I said, oh, is that, is that named after Dick? And, and you said it was. So, uh, can, can you talk about the Starkey trail? Talk about Dick Starkey and, and, uh, his legacy at Cabre Fay and, and, and why it was fitting to name a.01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:34.000Pete Meyer: Yeah, Dick was a volunteer patroller at SP, patroller at Caber Fay for…01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:42.000Pete Meyer: I think… I… I think as long as… as my dad was around, you know, uh, Dick was there, and so, you know.01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:52.000Pete Meyer: 40… however many years, 40… 40-some years, he was a patroller at Cabaret, and uh… you know, just had a big presence, you know, you knew him.01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:52.000 --> 01:02:01.000Pete Meyer: Played football at Ferris. Great stories about that. He was a captain and so he's tough.01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:02.000Pete Meyer: And.01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:17.000Pete Meyer: just a… just a great guy, great patroller, great mentor, um, a ton… lots and lots of stories about Dick Starkey for another day, but, uh, just somebody that we wanted to honor, and, um, so, you know, we made that change.01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:21.000Stuart Winchester: And why this trail? Why this, uh, why did you choose this one?01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:35.000Pete Meyer: you know, that… I don't… I don't know why we picked that one. We just… we… we… I think we… the, um… the previous name was an old, you know, an older name that… that… that honored a…01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:47.000Pete Meyer: an older ski instructor, but I think we thought, you know, maybe… maybe it was time for a change there. Some… maybe just something a little more relevant to… someone more relevant to…01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000Pete Meyer: You know, this this last, you know, 40 years of caprophage tradition.01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. And, and I believe, I believe Crystal still, uh, volunteer patrols there as well, right? Yeah.01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:59.000Pete Meyer: Yes. Yes, she is.01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's great. I haven't talked to her in a minute, but hi, Crystal. Hope you're doing great. Pete.01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:05.000Pete Meyer: No, no, not about the trail.01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:22.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay, all right. Well, hey, listen, guys, I really appreciate catching up with you. There's so much always going on at Cabaret, and we were long overdue, so let's do it again soon, and I gotta get up there and ski that East Peak lift, because I haven't been in a minute, so I really appreciate that, and I'll talk to you guys soon, and thanks so much.01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:25.000Pete Meyer: Thanks, Stuart. Thanks a lot, Stu. Appreciate it.01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:26.000Stuart Winchester: All right, talk soon.01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:28.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let me just…01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:43.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, that was Tim and Pete Meyer of Cabaret. I love Cabaret. It was my pseudo home mountain when I lived in Michigan. It was just 90 minutes down the road, so I never had a season pass there.01:03:43.000 --> 01:03:51.000Stuart Winchester: but I would go there a lot. I mean, and this was, you know, lift tickets were $20 or something back then, so it didn't really matter, and they had a lot of specials. So, I want to…01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:57.000Stuart Winchester: wrap up today, I want to talk about lift tickets a little bit, because there's some lift ticket deals going on.01:03:57.000 --> 01:03:59.000Stuart Winchester: And…01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:14.000Stuart Winchester: I'll tell you about the deals first, and then I'll, I'll tell you what I make of them as a, as a theme. So we're gonna focus on Colorado for a moment. So Arapahoe Basin, to celebrate its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets every Wednesday.01:04:14.000 --> 01:04:29.000Stuart Winchester: from late December through April, except for December 30th, which is holiday week, of course. Uh, they are $50 on Wednesdays outside of those windows, so early season at A-Basin, and then late season, and of course, uh, the mountain typically goes until June.01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:35.000Stuart Winchester: $80 lift ticket today, based in on their anniversary weekend, Saturday and Sunday, December 5th and 6th.01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:45.000Stuart Winchester: Also, anyone born in 1946, making you 80 years old, skis free all winter. Uh, A-Basin has a lot of ways to get in cheap. They have 3-day packs.01:04:45.000 --> 01:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: With no blackouts, any day, use any 3 days for $249. They have midweek packs, 5 days for $319. Midweek season pass is $539, and a full is $699, and of course, A-Basin is unlimited on both the Icon and the Icon.01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, base pass, and I wanna see…01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, they did get rid of the fall pass. I had…01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:21.000Stuart Winchester: I had emailed, because… because A-Basin used to have this great pass for, like, 250 bucks. It was from opening day until Christmas, but they did get rid of it. Uh, and… and they… Shayna from A-Basin emailed, and she told me.01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:37.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, for background, that was a very small audience for, for us who were interested in the Fall Pass pack. So, uh, so thank you, Shayna, for getting back to me so quickly, and I'd sent that right before the podcast started. So, so A-Basin deals on Wednesdays, you know, put that down in your.01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:55.000Stuart Winchester: List if you, if you wanna actually day ski and maybe you have an epic pass, but you wanna, you miss a basin. Uh, and then Thursdays Copper Mountain is again doing $99 Thursdays. They're play for every Thursdays and a portion of that goes to a good cause. They're doing that every Thursday from January 7th to April 8th.01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:04.000Stuart Winchester: Including the holiday week in February, I don't know if that's a mistake, but grab it while you can, because I don't think they can take it back once you buy it. Uh, and then.01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:05.000Stuart Winchester: $99 a copper.01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:19.000Stuart Winchester: starting Monday, April 12th, which is pretty awesome. So, if you wanted to do a little day ski, and, you know, right now you can still buy tickets and everything, or still buy passes, because we're recording this on September 17th.01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:30.000Stuart Winchester: But if you're listening in the future, you could do a Wednesday $80 a day basin, a Thursday $99 at Copper Mountain. It's not a bad couple days in Summit County for a pretty reasonable price, given.01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:44.000Stuart Winchester: prices in 2026 for lift tickets at most mountains. Uh, down the road, Aspen, for its 80th anniversary, is doing $80 lift tickets Saturday and Sunday, December 12th and 13th. They also offered…01:06:44.000 --> 01:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, tickets for $3 and 75 cents for Monday, December 14th. But those are sold out and they, I'm pretty much sure they sold out instantly. And it's funny ‘cause they didn't even market it at first. And, and Aspen folks tell me they just blew off the shelves. So that is for Aspen's 80th anniversary.01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:17.000Stuart Winchester: Same year as, uh, a basin is celebrating right now. And of course, some of the little guys around there, you know, ski Cooper hasn't announced their lift ticket prices yet. And I know it's small, but it's still, it's, it's a place you can go. It's high. There's no snow making. It's all natural snow.01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:22.000Stuart Winchester: $49 midweek tickets at Ski Cooper last year, maxed out at $99 on weekends.01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:30.000Stuart Winchester: Down the road, if you're on your way to Aspen, Sunlight, which has 1,750 feet of vertical drop.01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:46.000Stuart Winchester: And two brand new lifts. Well, one was from a base and used, but it was only 20 years old. So they put in two brand new lifts last year. Big vertical. Uh, their lift tickets max out at $109. Midweek, they're $74 to $94. It's a fun little area. It gives you Colorado.01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: with a little bit more of a… a throwback Colorado, old Colorado feel. So, so the question here is.01:07:53.000 --> 01:07:57.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see a rationalization?01:07:57.000 --> 01:07:58.000Stuart Winchester: In the lift ticket market.01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Are we starting to see ski areas value the skier that.01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:19.000Stuart Winchester: maybe has an Icon Pass, but wants to ski another mountain for a day? Or I guess more in this case, since Copper and A-Basin are both Epic Pass mountains, are we seeing them take advantage of the fact that right now, if you look at prices for.01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Breckenridge, it's $153 to ski on Friday, November 6th. Who knows what they'll have open? Probably not a lot.01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's 180 that day. Breckenridge goes over 300 for peak days. Uh, and on Monday, April 19th, as, as copper has dropped to 99, Breck right now is set to have a $179 walkup price for Monday, April 19th. So.01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:49.000Stuart Winchester: I think you're seeing some smart reactions from some of the…01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:55.000Stuart Winchester: larger players and showing there's still a competitive market in Colorado. The question is…01:08:55.000 --> 01:09:07.000Stuart Winchester: will Vail follow? In their earnings call, one of their earnings calls recently, uh, Rob Katz, or their end-of-year earnings, their CEO, Rob Katz, said that Lyft ticket sales had softened considerably.01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:14.000Stuart Winchester: To absolutely no one's surprise, uh, because of the price of lift tickets. So, Ken Vale…01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:27.000Stuart Winchester: find a way in the softer seasons to start to compete, because it's clear that their direct compe

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The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast supports bears, quadrangles, and liberal interpretations of The Iliad. Sign up for the free or paid newsletter to get updates on none of these things. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too. Paid subscribers can leave a comment in the article below, or by joining The Storm's chat (also below). I'll respond to some comments in the next episode, which is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 14.The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is September 10th, 2026, and we have some big, big news in Ski World today.00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: So one of the things that I focused on since launching the storm in 2019 is the rapid.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:30.000Stuart Winchester: Exponential growth in US based multi mountain ski passes and one of the biggest icon pass today released five new partners for the 2026 to 27 season. So I'm gonna break those down for you.00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:46.000Stuart Winchester: I am going to talk a little bit more about IndyPass and some of their partner shuffles. Then we are going to be joined by IndyPass owner, Eric Mogenson, who will give us a breakdown on all things happening with Indy, Black Mountain, and Entebeni Systems.00:06:46.000 --> 00:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: reader reaction, but I want to jump right into Icon Pass. Icon hits us today with, as I said, 5 new ski areas, 3 are full partners, and those… which means 7 days on the Icon Pass.00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:06.000Stuart Winchester: 5 days on the Icon Base Pass. All 3 are in Asia.00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:13.000Stuart Winchester: The first is Matarau, Japan. That will be ICON's 10th ski resort in Japan.00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:28.000Stuart Winchester: And then, Icon, last year, was the first U.S.-based pass to add a ski area in China, and Icon adds two more today, though they're nowhere near the ski area that it added last year. They are sort of close.00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:47.000Stuart Winchester: to each other. So, we're gonna break those down first, and then ICON added two mountains to its two-day tier, uh, which it calls Bonus Mountains, which ICON insists are not ICON Pass members, uh, but I insist they are, because you can access them with your ICON Pass. Therefore, they are on.00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: the Icon Pass, no matter what Altera tells us. So, let's start with Montreal, Japan, and if you're on…00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.000Stuart Winchester: The…00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: If you're on the video, I'm going to share my screen here because we're going to do a little visual helping.00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so let's take this away. All right, so the first one I want to break down.00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.000Stuart Winchester: is…00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:26.000Stuart Winchester: Madarao, Japan, and I've actually written about this ski area before, because they were an IndiePass member, and this is the article that I wrote back in 2023, when Madarao joined IndiePass, and Indie's been a big leader in.00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Bye.00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:40.000Stuart Winchester: building out a network in Japan. So, the ski resorts in Japan are interesting. I've not skied there, but I've been there in the summer and ridden the lifts around.00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiing is very much like a mix of…00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:58.000Stuart Winchester: The Cottonwoods and New England. And what I mean by that is, if you're looking at the screen here, you can see the stats on Mattarau. 512 inches of average annual snowfall.00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:12.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but not a lot of vert, 1,444 feet, and as you can see from the trail map, if you're looking here, it's not a big trail footprint. So, what I mean when I say Cottonwoods is the snowfall, and when I say…00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:29.000Stuart Winchester: New England, I mean the size. They tend to be not huge vert, sort of compact. If they do have a lot of vert, like the Jacuba Valley ski resorts that are on Vail, they tend to go, uh, kind of straight up and be side by side. You don't have a lot of the mega resorts as you would have.00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:40.000Stuart Winchester: in North America, or especially in Europe. So, it's good that the passes are all building density in Japan, because the ski areas are not…00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: This is not a place that you would go to necessarily.00:09:43.000 --> 00:10:02.000Stuart Winchester: like Vail Mountain and spend a week, or like Whistler. Another thing I want to note about Japan, you can see here that Matarau has some glade zones marked. In a lot of cases, skiing off-piste or in the trees, even though that's what Japan is known for, in a lot of cases, my understanding is that that's pretty heavily policed and forbidden.00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:17.000Stuart Winchester: So you really have to research your ski areas before you go over to figure out which ones will actually allow you to go off-piste, which is what most of us want to do, right? If we're coming from North America, we're going there for the big powder. Japan is a little more of an on-piste tradition.00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:21.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit more like Europe. So, I…00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:33.000Stuart Winchester: there's… to underscore the scope of what we have now available to us in Japan as U.S.-based pass holders. So, with the addition of Madarao today.00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:49.000Stuart Winchester: Now, 53 ski areas in Japan have joined the Epic, Icon, Indy, or Mountain Collective Passes. And I actually, I want to show you something I have that's really cool. So, I have this gigantic chart, and it's kind of…00:10:49.000 --> 00:11:04.000Stuart Winchester: it's kind of hard to navigate, but I'm slowly making it a little bit better. And so this is a chart that's variously called a bunch of different things. Right now, I'm calling it the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sometimes it's been the Passmaster.00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:17.000Stuart Winchester: 5,000. And I just kind of change the name whenever I want, but the link is always the same. And what I've… it's a really slow Google Sheet, and I definitely need a better platform, but if you go, there's all these tabs.00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: Down at the bottom, and again, this is where it's nice to have the video, so you can see what I'm showing you here. So I have all these tabs. One of the tabs is all MegaPass ski areas. So I have this divided up, and these are just little tables that pivot off the main table, so all the stats are up to date.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.000Stuart Winchester: So first, I have this…00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:42.000Stuart Winchester: chart here with all ski areas that are on any U.S.-based pass, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second.00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: Then I have…00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:59.000Stuart Winchester: all U.S. ski areas, then I have New England, I have Japan, so let's pause on Japan for a moment. 53 ski areas, 11 Epic, 10 Icon, 32 Indy, 1 Mountain Collective. You can see all the stats down here. Again, not big.00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:16.000Stuart Winchester: skiable acre footprints, and really, Japan measures things differently than North America. They tend to measure snowpack rather than inches of snowfall. I did find a good average annual snowfall chart on Powderhounds, which is a great site that I'll talk more about.00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:25.000Stuart Winchester: for international research of ski areas. But if you see these acreage totals, you know, there's really nothing much.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:35.000Stuart Winchester: Here's Niseko United, it's 2,100 acres, that's 5 ski resorts combined, right next to each other. Rasutsu is, uh, is 2,000, but most of these are under…00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:51.000Stuart Winchester: 500, so you really prepare yourself for that. It's one place, I think, Japan, where it would help to get a guide. Everything tends to be pretty cheap once you get on the ground. In Japan, the lift tickets are nothing, so having someone to show you around and show you where you can go under the ropes.00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:57.000Stuart Winchester: is a good idea. And, you know, I want to jump ahead to reader feedback for a moment. So I had…00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:14.000Stuart Winchester: this comment from Allison Wood. She said, I look forward to seeing your future efforts. I know there's enough in American skiing to discuss, but I'd be curious if you would further discuss European Alps destinations. It seems to be growing in popularity due to competitive pricing versus U.S.00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:28.000Stuart Winchester: Western resorts. A week at Big Sky appears to be the same price as a week in Switzerland for those in the Eastern USA. The answer is absolutely yes. I do want to cover the Alps and Japan and all of these international destinations more.00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:43.000Stuart Winchester: I don't have the personal on-the-ground knowledge base with those ski areas that I do with the U.S. ski areas, so I'm reaching out to my contacts in Europe, in Japan, who know these resorts intimately, and I'm gonna bring them on the show to try to help us make sense, because if you go back.00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.000Stuart Winchester: We go back to the Encyclopedia Britannica for a second.00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.000Stuart Winchester: You'll see that…00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.000Stuart Winchester: The, uh… if I can get to it…00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so Japan has 53 ski areas, Canada has another 55, and most of us can sort those out easily enough. The harder ones is Europe. I mean, Europe, there's 61 ski areas, and sometimes a ski area in Europe is, you know.00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:21.000Stuart Winchester: 10 ski areas that put together are as big as all the ski areas in Utah. So I really need some help to break those down. But that's the great thing about this new format is that it will allow me to bring in more voices more frequently since there's more frequent shows. All right.00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:38.000Stuart Winchester: Icon also today added two ski areas in China, and the best site to just get the basics of any ski area in the world is, I've found, skiresort.com. They have a profile of every ski area. They tend to keep it up to date. I don't know who runs the site.00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:54.000Stuart Winchester: I would like to connect with them at some point, but this is really my go-to for… so this is Betahu, I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong, one of the ski areas that ICON added in China, and they have all the basic information, the elevation, which is not high, it's all in meters, obviously, out of the U.S.00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:01.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, what I really like is the lift breakdown and the trail map. So, the… the thing about the ski areas in China.00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:07.000Stuart Winchester: is just like everything else in China, they're pretty much brand new. I read this really interesting.00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:13.000Stuart Winchester: quote in the New York Times several years ago, and the notion.00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:16.000Stuart Winchester: was basically China…00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:31.000Stuart Winchester: stayed pretty much in the 19th century for all of the 20th century, and then it got to the 21st century in about 10 years. So, you go there, there's high-speed rail, everything's new, there's new buildings. The ski resorts are new as well, and you can see this in their lift fleet. I mean, this…00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.000Stuart Winchester: You know, they have a…00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:49.000Stuart Winchester: six eight-person gondolas, one six-person gondola, two high-speed six-packs, three high-speed detached quads, no fixed grip lifts at all, and then you take a look at the trail map, and again, this is probably a little more like Japan, where these are.00:15:49.000 --> 00:16:03.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit smaller ski areas than what we're used to, uh, as far as the Mountain West. But, you know, it's all very well interconnected. I would expect a lot of on-piste skiing. You know, with a… with a immature ski culture, I wouldn't expect a lot of glade stuff.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:19.000Stuart Winchester: to be developed. Kind of talking on my rear end, to be honest, because I've not skied in China or even been to China, but these are my perceptions with the different ski cultures I know. I'll try to track down someone who knows better. Here's the other Icon Pass resort, Lake Songwa Resort, and I want to make…00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:30.000Stuart Winchester: that we kind of have an Aspen-Crested Butte situation going on here, so Sangua and, uh, this other one they added, uh…00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:49.000Stuart Winchester: Beidou, there, as you can see on this Google map, they're 24 miles apart in the mountains, but it looks like about a 4-hour drive, so there's not really a road through the city. It's the same kind of deal with Aspen and Crested Butte, where they're pretty close, but it's a long drive around. These are seasonal roads that Google doesn't know about, so it's about a 5-hour drive in the winter.00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.000Stuart Winchester: I believe. So…00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: We have these, and then, if you want to go to China to experience skiing, Icon gives you the means to do so. And then, Icon added…00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:16.000Stuart Winchester: to their 2-day tier, which again, they're saying is not IconPass. I want to talk about the 2-day tier a little bit in general. So, Icon started this 2-day tier.00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:23.000Stuart Winchester: last year, and I think what they were trying to do is mirror what Vail did.00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:37.000Stuart Winchester: with its feeder ski areas and all these little places that are bought all over the country, Mount Brighton in Michigan, and Afton Alps in Minnesota, and Wilmot in Wisconsin, and all the resorts around Cleveland.00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:49.000Stuart Winchester: and you know, Alpine Valley. And then there's the names escaping me. Boston Mills, Brandywine. I just skied there and did a write-up on it. So so yeah, they're.00:17:49.000 --> 00:18:04.000Stuart Winchester: Vail bought up all these ski areas. Well, Icon, instead of doing that and buying, has added two days only on the full Icon Pass, which is currently $1,449, uh, two days to 11 different ski areas around the country.00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:19.000Stuart Winchester: It's been growing that list. Silver Star was one last year, and it converted to full Icon, but right now, if you're on the screen share, you can see the 11 that are currently on the Icon Pass two-day roster. So we…00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:23.000Stuart Winchester: had today the additions of Cabarfay Peaks in Michigan.00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:37.000Stuart Winchester: In Wyoming, we had snowy range. So Caberfay Peaks is actually, it's an awesome ski area. It's one of my favorite ski areas. I grew up about an hour and 15 minutes from there.00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.000Stuart Winchester: And with Cabot Fay, it…00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:55.000Stuart Winchester: It's a really fun place. They're constantly building it up. And what the cabaret you see today is very different than the cabaret that existed a long time ago. It basically used to be a two mile sprawl of rope tows and starting in the 1980s.00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the families that owned it dug up from the bottom here.00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:07.000Stuart Winchester: and added to the top. So they went from a couple hundred vertical feet to 485 vertical feet, and it continued to…00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:18.000Stuart Winchester: expand, and they have another expansion in the works over here on Green Mountain. Should be coming 27-28, and I'm gonna have Tim and Pete Meyer from Calgary Fay Peaks on next week to talk about that a little more.00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.000Stuart Winchester: And then we have…00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:36.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's Snowy Range, Wyoming, and Snowy Range might seem like a little bit of a weird one, but Snowy Range is actually very logical. They've had a long-standing relationship that's in southern Wyoming. It's not, it's only a couple hours from Steamboat. They have a long-standing relationship with Steamboat.00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:51.000Stuart Winchester: to a snowy range season pass for 300 and some dollars this year. They changed that to half off in a 3 day icon session pass, which is good at Steamboat and several other mountains. And now, if you have a full icon, you would also get 2 more days at Steamboat.00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:54.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, or you would actually get 2 days at Snowy Range.00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:00.000Stuart Winchester: if you were, you know, wanted to escape the crowds at Steamboat one day. So, we are gonna…00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.000Stuart Winchester: Come back to…00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:16.000Stuart Winchester: IndyPass in a moment. Actually, I have one more IndyPass update, then I'm gonna go to Eric. So, Mission Ridge and Blacktail in Washington have left IndyPass.00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:19.000Stuart Winchester: Hold on, let me just…00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:25.000Stuart Winchester: So Eric, I'll be right there.00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000Stuart Winchester: We'll get to Mission to Blacktail in a minute. I'm gonna bring Eric in.00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: And I'm going to stop my screen share.00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Eric?00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:43.000Erik Mogensen: What's up, man?00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:57.000Stuart Winchester: How you doing? Joining us now is the director of IndyPass, the founder of Entebeni Systems, and the operator of Black Mountain, New Hampshire. Eric Mogenson is a good friend of the storm, and he joins us now from where? Where are you, Eric?00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:05.000Erik Mogensen: I am, uh, calling in from Black Mountain, New Hampshire, our new home, and I'm up at the Alpine Cabin.00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:18.000Stuart Winchester: I want to start on the Alpine Cabin. Tell us what the Alpine Cabin was when you arrived at Black Mountain and what it has turned into from what it is and from a revenue standpoint.00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:07.000Erik Mogensen: Yep.00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:34.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, so, um, I spend the first 8 to 10 hours of my day working with our engineering and product teams, and most of it is in front of a computer or on the phone, but by 5 PM I try to be up here on the mountain every.00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:52.000Erik Mogensen: night. Like, doing trail work, on the excavator, snowmaking, lift work. But I keep a desk up here in the summer. Couldn't keep a desk here in the winter. Um, but I do keep a desk up here so that when I have an idea, or I want to come write something down, or I want to watch a YouTube video, or do something, this place is super productive for me.00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:11.000Erik Mogensen: It's like my peaceful, happy place in the summer. In the winter, there is nothing peaceful about this place. This, this place rages, uh, European style. So, when we took over Black Mountain, the Alpine cabin, the credit card receipts from the Alpine cabin the year before.00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:22.000Erik Mogensen: were $38,000, uh, for the season in sales. Um, and the year after, our first year that we took it over, it was over $300,000.00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:29.000Erik Mogensen: Um, and then our second year, it was over $600,000, and most of that comes down to champagne.00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:38.000Erik Mogensen: But don't look at champagne as something you drink. Champagne is something that you use to celebrate. And so I think.00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:50.000Erik Mogensen: The long-winded answer to your question is, is the Alpine cabin is truly a place to celebrate the sport and culture of skiing, and people are definitely holding on to that.00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:03.000Stuart Winchester: It's an amazing space, and if folks aren't familiar with Black Mountain, that's the main double chair to the summit right behind you, and it goes right over the alpine cabin. It's a party scene, and it's a lot of fun.00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:00.000Erik Mogensen: Oh, yeah.00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:20.000Stuart Winchester: Going from $38,000 to $600,000, 20X in revenue, I mean, Eric, that's the kind of revenue stream that could change the path of a lot of small ski areas. Is that replicable, do you think, at some of these smaller family-owned ski areas around the country that.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:25.000Stuart Winchester: are really tied to old revenue models and just need a little spark.00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:32.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I don't know if you can scale the champagne necessarily, but you can definitely scale.00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:51.000Erik Mogensen: the focus on the culture of skiing. And I think that's really what the independents do so well, is that, you know, the wood fireplaces smell authentic, the people are very authentic, the ski trails are authentic, they're weird, they're quirky, the lifts are slow, right?00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:06.000Erik Mogensen: Those a lot of people look at those things. We've been programed as skiers to see those things as liabilities. They're actually our biggest assets. And so, yeah, the Alpine, you know, the Alpine cabin was a little 200 square foot patrol shack.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000Erik Mogensen: that sold some, you know, beer and hot dogs.00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:21.000Erik Mogensen: But we never looked at that as a liability. We never looked at that as, hey, we need to go build a 20,000 square foot mid-mountain lodge, take on a ton of debt.00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:32.000Erik Mogensen: Um, we really looked at it as an opportunity, and I think every single small ski area has that exact same opportunity to focus on the authenticity of the product that they deliver.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:48.000Stuart Winchester: There's been a ripple effect, too. I mean, what can you tell us about skier visits before and after you purchased it? Because Black, for background, for people who are not familiar with Black, the reason you own Black is because they announced they were closing on Facebook. They said, we're done. The skier has been open since 1930, whatever.00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:57.000Stuart Winchester: said, we're done, this was 3 years ago, and you said, no. And you tried to find a buyer, looked for a year, uh, and decided to buy it yourself. So, so…00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: You took a dying skier, what did the skier visits revenue look like when you got it, and what do they look like today?00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:15.000Erik Mogensen: It was about $700,000, $750,000 in top line revenue when we bought the whole ski area. Yeah, including the $32,000 in hot dogs and beer at this cabin.00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.000Stuart Winchester: That's the whole ski area.00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:27.000Erik Mogensen: Um, so it was the entire ski area. I don't quite know what the skier visits were. Um, we know what the ticketed visits were, but I would guesstimate that the skier visits were somewhere between, you know, 10 and 15,000.00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:43.000Erik Mogensen: Um, in our second year, we took it to $2.5 million in top line revenue. Um, we've surpassed $5 million, uh, here in our 25th or 26th month. And skier visits, you know, all in, including employees and the whole thing, right about 55,000.00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:48.000Erik Mogensen: So it's been a big turnaround. It's been interesting, learned a lot.00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:50.000Erik Mogensen: And.00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:56.000Erik Mogensen: I think this is 100% doable by most of the smallest areas on the planet.00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000Erik Mogensen: You just have to realize that if you want a different and better result, you have to take different and better action.00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I mean, you proved me wrong, because I, you know…00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:16.000Stuart Winchester: I thought Black had maybe just had its time, because it's surrounded by two Vail Own Mountains and Cranmore, which is a high-speed lift. Sunday River is right down the road. Uh, you have intense competition from Epic.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:26.000Stuart Winchester: and… and Black Mountain is not an especially snowy mountain, like, say, Smuggler's Notch, we'll talk about in a minute. I… I didn't know if… if it had enough aura.00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:38.000Stuart Winchester: But it seems like you've either tapped the aura or created it, and really turned it around, and really given me a lot of hope that a lot of the ski areas that we see around the country, that…00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:45.000Stuart Winchester: Seem to be up against this modernization curve, they can't quite get ahead, might be able to take other routes to get there.00:26:45.000 --> 00:27:00.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, and I think, too, Stu, it's worth noting, like, yeah, I'm proud of what we've done here, but there's a lot of really good operators out there that have done this, too. You know, having grown up in Buffalo, which I'll call, like, the Eastern Midwest of the Midwest.00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:10.000Erik Mogensen: Right? There's really well-managed ski areas that focus on the food and beverage, that focus on the authenticity, um, that drive a ton of other revenue.00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:23.000Erik Mogensen: Um, that are creative, uh, in that way, and I think we just have to be accepting of those things. We have to be accepting of them, we have to share what works, uh, share what doesn't work, and collaborate, um.00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:29.000Erik Mogensen: And and then we'll be fine. We'll be fine. These little skier is have a huge advantage.00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:39.000Erik Mogensen: in the fact that they are… they are run by authentic and passionate people. That… they… they are… they are run…00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:46.000Erik Mogensen: not as a profit center. Um, and yes, they need to be profitable to be sustainable and have reinvestment, right? But…00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:51.000Erik Mogensen: These little ski areas have such a remarkable advantage over some of the big areas.00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:57.000Erik Mogensen: and and how they're managed and what their direction looks like. We just have to take advantage of it and talk about it more.00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:06.000Stuart Winchester: this is just the beginning of the story, too. All right, let's switch over to Andy Pass, and, you know, my questions around Black, when you were initially taking it over, were…00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:24.000Stuart Winchester: how many retro ski areas does New England have room for in a market? Like, Mad River Glen has crafted its whole image around being this retro ski area. You know, they groom, they make snow up to 2,000 whatever feet, the single chair is a 1940 whatever, but they rebuilt it in 2007, so…00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.000Stuart Winchester: It is a well-maintained place.00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:42.000Stuart Winchester: as sort of like a museum. It's… it's… it's… the facade is old school, and it skis that way, but really, it's… it's been well tended to. Smuggler's Notch is another one of those that feels like 1960s, around 1960s haul lifts, including.00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:57.000Stuart Winchester: One of the longest in the country, the Madonna lift. Uh, and I saw black in that same mold and said, okay, how many of these do we have room for? But Smuggs is, at the end of the day, a awesome ski area, and you added it to IndyPass. I mean, how big of a victory is that for New England skiers?00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000Stuart Winchester: to now have Smuggs, Jay, Waterville, all these ski areas on the one pass.00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:11.000Erik Mogensen: I mean, look, you've got… you've got Smogs, you've got Jay, you've got Bolton, you've got Cannon, you've got Waterville, um.00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:28.000Erik Mogensen: we've really leveled the playing field in the East, and it's exactly what we intend to do in other places of the country, and also around the world. Uh, and I think what we're proving here in New England, there's been a lot of focus with IndyPass in New England over the last two years, and a lot of that has to do.00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:44.000Erik Mogensen: With Black Mountain and our move and our things there. But what we're proving we can do here, we are going to replicate in other markets. There's no question in my mind. And I think what we're going to replicate is the fact that you don't have to be epic. You don't have to be iconic.00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:50.000Erik Mogensen: to be a really stable, well-earning business. You can be part of an independent group.00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:09.000Erik Mogensen: and still push and plow forward, and compete. So, you know, and I… look, I don't judge a ski area by its vertical. Don't judge a ski area by how many high-speed lifts it has. I think that's the mistake that we keep getting pulled into in skiing. And our… it's the mistake that we make as well as operators, and we…00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:16.000Erik Mogensen: we pass that mistake on to the consumers, right? Bigger is not better, it's just bigger.00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:33.000Erik Mogensen: Faster is not better. It's just faster, right? More lifts. Sure, that sounds great, but you have to pay for those lifts as well. And so that is going to there's that money doesn't just come from the sky that that money is going to be passed on to the consumer.00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:41.000Erik Mogensen: And the more and more we continue to do that, the more and more expensive and exclusive skiing's gonna become. So, again, I'll bring it back to…00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:51.000Erik Mogensen: One of the greatest advantages these places have are being small, are having slow lifts, are being independent, are being authentic. And that's exactly what Smugs is.00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:01.000Stuart Winchester: However, SMUGS also has 2,600 feet of vertical, 1,000 acres of skiing, and 322 inches of average snowfall. The numbers do help.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:08.000Erik Mogensen: They do, but I'll leave the numbers to your spreadsheets that I can barely understand at this point.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000Stuart Winchester: The numbers do help, though, it's offline.00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.000Stuart Winchester: Well, that makes two of us and probably everyone else.00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:11.000Erik Mogensen: Those will speak for themselves.00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so having Jay and Smugs on there is an awesome combo. You know, I think that…00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:28.000Stuart Winchester: Indy and Doug before you, when Doug… I know Doug's still heavily involved, but the founder of the Indy Pass, Doug Fish. I think you have done a great job of building these little nodes of skiing.00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:44.000Stuart Winchester: around the country, and now around the world. So the… the donut hole has always kind of been Colorado, Utah, Tahoe, and that's because that's where Epic and Icon logically went. Those are the three biggest ski markets. But I want to talk a little bit first about the Midwest, where.00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:59.000Stuart Winchester: Indy built a really nice network, and you have a lot of ski areas in the Midwest. You have… 37. Uh, you've had some big departures this year. Lutzen, Granite Peak, and Snow River, run by Midwest Family Ski Resorts.00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:16.000Stuart Winchester: Went over to Icon, and Lutzen is, for the listeners, biggest ski area in Minnesota. It skis like a New England ski area. Granite Peak, you know, lots of high-speed lifts. Charles Skinner really turned that place from a dump into something nice. And the Snow River's on the come up. It's in a nice snow belt in Michigan.00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:19.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, you know, how much…00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:27.000Stuart Winchester: Did you see those as drivers of IndyPass sales in the Midwest? And how concerned, if at all, are you that they departed?00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:41.000Erik Mogensen: Well, look, let's… let's talk… I mean, the moose in the room here is that that… that loss sucks for us. Like, there's no way around it. Um, it… it… it's a bummer. It stings. Uh, I really like Charles Skinner. I really like Charlotte. I think they're both.00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:57.000Erik Mogensen: really great operators. They're very, very smart. They're very, very sharp. We had a we had a great call around when we kind of showed them what the revenue was in their last season, and we talked through it, and very, very amicable. I've always relied. Have some great, you know, dinner conversations with Charles.00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:12.000Erik Mogensen: And and I think they're great. They they have to make a move. They made a business decision to go to Icon and Icon makes that very, very, very attractive. You know whether or not that initial sales pitch.00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:29.000Erik Mogensen: translates into the long-term vision? I don't know. I firmly believe that, you know, Midwest skiers are some of the most authentic and purposeful, you know, skiers on the continent, and they'll figure it out. I think we have lots of options, there's no question.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:38.000Erik Mogensen: But none of them are going to be quite like those Midwest family resorts. And so we'll have to see what happens. It stings, but I don't.00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:42.000Erik Mogensen: What I've really learned about Indy is that.00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:47.000Erik Mogensen: Our our strength is in the diversity of of.00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:56.000Erik Mogensen: the resorts that we've put together. It's not on a… it's not on a single one resort, or a single resort operator. Um, so…00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:01.000Erik Mogensen: I hate losing resorts, but I'm never afraid to lose them and/or replace them if necessary.00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:12.000Stuart Winchester: So, when they go to ICON, there's a couple different tiers for ICON. So, Midwest family went to the traditional 7-5 tier of 7 on full ICON, 5 on ICON base. Today.00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:19.000Stuart Winchester: I kind of announced that Cabaret, a former IndyPass partner that actually just left Indy, was a founding member in 2019.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:32.000Stuart Winchester: left for Icon. That news just broke. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Buck Hill similarly left Indy for Icon today, a couple of years ago. Is that too new to process, or what are your thoughts on Cabra Fact?00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:48.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I think it's exactly the same where, you know, we, we, you know, Cabrifay is a great ski area. Um, we're sad to see them go. We, you know, look, they're independent for a reason. They get to make their choice. They've made their choice. They're going to go to Icon. The consumers can make their choice of where they go and where they want to.00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:05.000Erik Mogensen: they want to spend their time and money. You know, we're going to fight as hard as we can to drive as much value for the operators and the consumers as possible. I can tell you, we had some people that had left for that icon two day product that now want to come back because of the payout.00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:22.000Erik Mogensen: Or lack thereof. So, look, none of this is static. One thing I can absolutely guarantee everybody on the pass and everyone listening to this is, is this is going to happen every single year forever. You're going to have people come, you're going to have people go. And we're all going to think it's way more consequential.00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:33.000Erik Mogensen: than it actually is. The reality is, is that indie sales for the last 7 seasons continue to go like this, and we're directing more and more.00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:39.000Erik Mogensen: revenue, meaningful revenue to these independent resorts. And that's not going to stop.00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. The, uh… another place you have…00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.000Stuart Winchester: Good.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:55.000Stuart Winchester: cluster is the Pacific Northwest. Mission Ridge and Blacktail, which are jointly owned, recently announced that they left, and I reached out.00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.000Stuart Winchester: to…00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mission Ridge.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:06.000Stuart Winchester: COO and GM Matt Neubauer, and I just asked him, you know, what's going on, and this was his email, this is a quote.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mission Ridge's agreement ran through the end of the 25-26 season, and we declined to seek a new one. Being independent means making the calls we think are right for the mountain long term.00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:32.000Stuart Winchester: So, that's basically echoing what you just said, the mountains will make the right decision. Uh, Blacktail's situation is different. This is a continuation of the email. Uh, they reached out to establish a new agreement before the old one ended and did not get engagement on it. Indy did reach out after passes, went back on sale September 1st, but by then, Blacktail had moved on.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:42.000Stuart Winchester: and was preparing for the season ahead. So that was the rationale that I have for Matt. He didn't want to talk about it further publicly, but that was his on-the-record statement.00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:59.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I, I, you know, look, Stu, I, I think as good as it is for your ratings, you know, I, we're not gonna hang out every, every scary as, you know, laundry and every single conversation. Um, I would disagree with how that was had. I think, I think one of the greatest things about India is we have.00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:09.000Erik Mogensen: 300-plus resorts around the world. One of the hard things about Indy is that we have 300-plus resorts around the world. It's a lot of contracts to manage, it's a lot of things.00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:07.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:19.000Erik Mogensen: I could, like, tell you from the ski area operating, um, perspective, like, I feel everything's nice and chill all summer, and we're doing really good, and then all of a sudden it's, you know.00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:35.000Erik Mogensen: September 1st, and it's like, wow, we got a lot to do in the next 60 days before we make snow. And I think every single ski area operator runs through that. Uh, and there's a lot going back. Stu, sometimes I have to go look at your spreadsheets to understand who's on the pass.00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:52.000Erik Mogensen: That's why we usually give everything to you ahead of time so that you can, like, count them up and do the math and do everything. So it's hard. But I would say, that team at Blacktail is world class. Jesse is and is incredible. We've I've always had a great relationship with Jesse.00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:08.000Erik Mogensen: We'd welcome them on the pass. I don't think that that's changed. And I think that Blacktail and Mission Ridge are two very different ski areas. And I'm really fascinated and hopeful that they figure out a way.00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.000Erik Mogensen: how to make the whole thing work between the two of them.00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you still have a really nice set of resorts out there with White Pass, and 49 Degrees North, and Mount Hood Meadows, and Bluewood, and Brundage, and Tamarack. And Tamarack's interesting, because so Tamarack, and I want to clarify this, I've actually gotten a lot of inquiries about this, people emailing me telling me my charts are wrong.00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, which… which happens, you know, they're… they're big and… and, uh, unwieldy, so I get things wrong, but that's… they're always a work in progress. But, uh, they're telling me Tamarack's not in the past because they joined Icon today, which… which obviously they did. Uh…00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.000Stuart Winchester: So what's going on with Tamarack? Are they on Indy?00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:59.000Erik Mogensen: Tamarack's on Indy, um, you know, we're excited about Tamarack, we've always been excited about Tamarack. Again, Scott, really great operator, um, super smart guy, great ownership group.00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:13.000Erik Mogensen: You know, I think we could probably comment on that a little bit further. But you know my job is not to speak for these resorts, Stu. My my job is to support them, and there's a difference between supporting them and speaking for them.00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:20.000Erik Mogensen: So, I'll always support them, and what Tamarack decides to do and where they decide to sit is good, but.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:23.000Erik Mogensen: I'm comfortable saying that Tamarack's on Indy.00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, in general, you know, when Buck Hill joined the Icon 2 Day last year, you said adios. I think that's what was my understanding from a distance, correct me if I'm wrong. What was different about the Tamarack situation? Why are you making the exception for Tamarack?00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:52.000Erik Mogensen: Look, I think, look, Icon's aggressive. They're aggressive. They're trying to add as many people as they possibly can to that two-day pass. You know, I think that there's a lot of promises on that, and I think they have a very aggressive sales team.00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:08.000Erik Mogensen: Which is which is good. They're they're, you know, trying to replicate what Indy has done. So we'll just have to see what happens. But I would say that I would I would say that, you know, I have a I have a good relationship with a couple people over in that organization.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:15.000Erik Mogensen: And I think they're trying to figure out what they're going to do. But there's no question that we're in, you know, pretty intense competition right now.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:18.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let's…00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:32.000Stuart Winchester: wrap up on that. Let's talk about Snow King, because the Indy Pass, you know, part of the reason the Indy Pass is able to grow so fast, from my point of view, was Doug had this great insight that the ski areas that Epic and Icon were overlooking.00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:38.000Stuart Winchester: Did have value collected onto a pass, and when you put them all together as a dynamite product.00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:47.000Stuart Winchester: and now I think, as you said, ICON's going for that, and then you have the Snow Pass, and the Snow Pass, uh…00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:02.000Stuart Winchester: has signed Snow King as a partner, and that's a long-time Indy Pass partner, and I can read these emails if you'd like, or you can just talk through it yourself on how you see the Snow King.00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.000Stuart Winchester: um…00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:05.000Stuart Winchester: conflict here.00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:20.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, look, I wouldn't really say that there is any controversy here. I think Snow King is staying on Indy. Um, you know, Ryan and I never discussed any sort of litigation, and I connected him directly with you so that he could, you know, explain the situation for himself.00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:36.000Erik Mogensen: Look, again, it's not my job to get out in front and speak for these resorts. These are really great resorts with phenomenal and sophisticated operators, and they can speak for themselves. So, what I can do, Stu, is, you know, say, hey, Ryan.00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:43.000Erik Mogensen: you know, you're on Indy, and you're not on the snow pass, copy you on that email, and then you can read the email to the group.00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:46.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, the email…00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:50.000Stuart Winchester: from Ryan said.00:41:51.000 --> 00:42:06.000Stuart Winchester: Stuart, hi Stuart, this is Ryan Stanley, General Manager of Snow King. That is correct, we're going to remain on the Indy Pass this upcoming season and also offer two free tickets to the Snow Pass holders without receiving compensation, meaning Snow King will not receive compensation.00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:16.000Stuart Winchester: We are fairly desperate for some skier visits and are working on an offer for free and or $20 tickets to other pass holders as well. You know, I…00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:18.000Stuart Winchester: Ran this…00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:20.000Stuart Winchester: Bye.00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:22.000Stuart Winchester: Snow pass and.00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:26.000Stuart Winchester: I can read this email from Joe Heschen that he sent me today.00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:33.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, he said, Hi Stuart, I'm a bit confused by how this has become so complex. As stated, we have signed a signed agreement with Snow King.00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:43.000Stuart Winchester: While I would like to keep their details confidential, you are welcome to share ours. Our goal with this is not to profit, but rather to gather a group to work together for the betterment of the industry.00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:56.000Stuart Winchester: And then, it sounds like Snow King will be working with Indy and Snow Pass this season, which is great news for them. Thank you. Go Hessian. So, from Snow Pass's point of view, Snow King is still on both passes.00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:16.000Erik Mogensen: I don't know, Stu's starting to sound like a big old, you know, fun high school group text message here. I don't, I, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Um, again, I think Ryan's email's pretty clear. I'm not gonna speak for Ryan, not gonna speak for Joe. Um, they're definitely, you know, Snow King is definitely on the Indy Pass. We're definitely gonna pay them, just like we have.00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:21.000Erik Mogensen: every year. We're definitely gonna push a lot of visits to them. Um, you know, I'm not…00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:33.000Erik Mogensen: entirely sure, uh, beyond that. Uh, and, and, you know, Ryan, again, Ryan's a really smart guy. I've enjoyed talking to him. Um, I've spent a…00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:49.000Erik Mogensen: few, you know, longer phone calls, and he is desperate for skier visits, and I get that. He's a small skier area in the shadow of Jackson Hole, and doesn't have a ton of population to pull from. Most of the population that's coming through is destination visits.00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:57.000Erik Mogensen: And he needs more skier visits. We… we want Snow King to get skier visits. We… we… and if Ryan wants to comp…00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:07.000Erik Mogensen: you know, snow pass holders, or icon pass holders, or epic pass holders, then that's fine. I think that's great. But just because Ryan is going to comp.00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000Erik Mogensen: the Snow Pass doesn't mean that he's on the Snow Pass, and just because Ryan is going to comp Icon Pass holders, that doesn't mean that he's joined the Icon Pass. Um, all I can come down to, again.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:27.000Erik Mogensen: is that Snow King's on the Indy Pass, um, and from our perspective, they're giving some free tickets to some of the other passes.00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:35.000Erik Mogensen: Hopefully, that checks everyone's box for early September ski area drama.00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:43.000Stuart Winchester: All right, it is an ongoing story. I just have a lot of conflicting information from…00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:56.000Erik Mogensen: What we should do is just, you know, get Uncle Joe on the call, and get Ryan on the call, and you on the call, and we all talk about it, right? Like, I think it's… I don't think it's that complicated, and frankly, it's not that big of a deal.00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:12.000Erik Mogensen: And I question the intentions behind making it a big deal. I think that, you know, Snowpass is definitely looking for us to bite into a controversy, and we're just not going to.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:22.000Erik Mogensen: We're just not going to. We… our job is to focus on the independent resorts and make sure that we drive more visits to more independent resorts.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:23.000Erik Mogensen: more often.00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:31.000Erik Mogensen: It's really simple, you know, and I think, I think in general too, Stu, like, you know.00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:26.000Stuart Winchester: Do you? Yeah.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:46.000Erik Mogensen: What I've gotten from a lot of our operators and partners and people in skiing is they're just very confused by this. And again, it might be good for ratings or listeners, but there is no litigation here.00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:56.000Erik Mogensen: there is no problem with Snow King. They're a great, valued partner. You know, this comment, you know, an idea around democratizing skiing, right? Like.00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:08.000Erik Mogensen: you know, let's let every resort build their own reciprocal deal with, you know, Jersey Joe's commission-based software pitch, right? That's cute, that sounds nice, but in practice, IndiePass exists for a reason.00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.000Erik Mogensen: It's a lot more work for skier is and most importantly.00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:20.000Erik Mogensen: It's much more fragmented and a confusing product for the consumer. A single pass with a single price point.00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:22.000Erik Mogensen: And a lot of partners.00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:28.000Erik Mogensen: you know, mitigates the patchwork of one-off deals, and that's the whole reason IndyPass exists.00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:37.000Erik Mogensen: More people skiing more often at independent resorts, right? Like, we redirect tens of millions of dollars a year to independent operators.00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:48.000Erik Mogensen: Arguing that somehow the absence of the IndyPass is better for the industry is nonsensical at best. It would just give Icon and Epic a more…00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:51.000Erik Mogensen: More opportunity to eat our lunch. So…00:46:51.000 --> 00:47:02.000Erik Mogensen: you know, we can… we can dive into all the muddy details all day long, but I don't see any controversy here. We're super excited to have snowpack… I mean…00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:04.000Erik Mogensen: Snow King.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:15.000Erik Mogensen: on the Indy Pass. Um, and, you know, maybe you just have to come up with a different color for it on your spreadsheet, like some sort of gradient between the two. Whatever you want to do, we trust you.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:32.000Stuart Winchester: Let me zoom out a little and make this a little more conceptual, because you've told me before that IndyPass doesn't make money, and I believe you're still sticking to Doug's original ratio of 15% for admin, which I doubt covers admin. So 85% traditionally was paid out to the resorts, correct?00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:49.000Erik Mogensen: Correct. Oh, yeah. Still the case. Yeah. No, I mean, look, we, we, you know, 85% of every passport just goes back to the independents. And remember, look, we, we take 100% of our money in on credit cards. We pay the ski resorts in check cash. Right. So we're also eating that credit card fee.00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:36.000Stuart Winchester: Is that still it? Okay.00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:59.000Erik Mogensen: So now you're down to, you know, 12% in change. Running a pass like this, it's not profitable. We never looked at this as being profitable.00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:53.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:10.000Erik Mogensen: I really bought IndyPass because I knew that Doug was going to exit and needed to exit, and I thought some of the other people that would buy the pass.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:21.000Erik Mogensen: would view it more as a media company or a marketing opportunity, and less of something that I think is very important for the independents. So…00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:39.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, you know, Snowpass has committed to giving 80% back, um, to the resorts in their first year, and then something else beyond that, right? And the difference between 80% and 5%, right? You know, it sounds like 5%, but if you actually do the math, that's a 25% difference.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:49.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, and so we pay every resort the same percentage back of their, you know, top ticket price. We've always done that, um, so…00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:55.000Erik Mogensen: That's what we do, that's what we've done, that's what worked, and that's what we.00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:59.000Stuart Winchester: So to zoom out to the conceptual level a little bit here, I want to look at…00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:09.000Stuart Winchester: Snow King's neighbor, Jackson Hole. Okay, so Jackson Hole is on Icon. They're also on Mountain Collective. You've taken a pretty firm stand that Indy.00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:16.000Stuart Winchester: partners should be exclusive with Indy. If you're looking at a ski area like Snow King that is desperate for.00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:18.000Stuart Winchester: for visits.00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:24.000Stuart Winchester: why cut that pathway off? Why is it important to make indie exclusive and not say, okay.00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:39.000Stuart Winchester: case by case, if you're, uh, you know, certain resorts, if we don't have an exclusivity agreement with you, like, maybe you want to give, you know, Brundage a higher payout because they're a destination and… and to be exclusive, but maybe some of these other ones, you give them all the tools in the toolbox. What…00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:42.000Stuart Winchester: Why is that not an option? Or is it an option?00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:48.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I just, I think it complicates things, number one. Number two, I just don't find it very equitable. The great thing about IndyPass, look, I get…00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:58.000Erik Mogensen: There's a lot of conversations all the time when we have a larger resort wanting to join, or has joined, or wants to renew about getting a bigger payout.00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:08.000Erik Mogensen: What I can tell you for as long as I own and run IndyPass, I'm going to treat every single resort the same. I'm not going to make special side deals.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:14.000Erik Mogensen: That's just what we're going to do. I think it's a mistake to do that.00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:20.000Erik Mogensen: Everyone's going to get the same. Everyone's going to be the same. Everyone's going to get the same percentage payout.00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000Stuart Winchester: It.00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:23.000Erik Mogensen: No special deals.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:37.000Stuart Winchester: So let me wrap on that point. So you added Smugs, your New England network is lights out. You know, like I said, Jay, Smugs, Cannon, Waterville, Saddleback, and a bunch of smaller places, including Black Mountain. Doug was concerned when he started the pass.00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:48.000Stuart Winchester: About dilution in the marketplace, and if you put too many ski areas in a market, you would both cannibalize their season pass, and drive down their yield, or their eventual payout.00:50:49.000 --> 00:51:04.000Stuart Winchester: you have filled in a lot more density, and when I've asked you about it in the past, you said that's a data-driven decision, so can you break that down for us, and what gives you confidence that adding smugs is not going to take away from.00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:08.000Stuart Winchester: Fulton Valley, or Jay Peak, or Cannon, or Titus.00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:23.000Erik Mogensen: Well, we know exactly how many pass holders we're adding every single year, right? We, we have a unique control over how many passes we sell, right? So we have, we know the data that comes in on one lever and we 100% control the amount.00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:43.000Erik Mogensen: of passes in that lever that we sell. So it's just simple math, right? It isn't even that complex of a spreadsheet. Uh, you wouldn't even have to have it in a spreadsheet. So we need to add enough customers to make sure that we don't over dilute Bolton's payout or those things. And what's remarkable is the data shows us this is, I think now our fourth season.00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:49.000Erik Mogensen: of owning and operating the IndyPass is that we just keep going in the right direction.00:51:49.000 --> 00:52:04.000Erik Mogensen: And that's the reality. Like, JPEAK and Bolton's payout, the check that they get from IndyPass and take to the bank to pay their bills and buy more chairlifts and more snowmaking pipe and pay their employees, is only getting bigger and bigger.00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:08.000Erik Mogensen: With smugs on the pass. And again, I cannot.00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:23.000Erik Mogensen: reiterate enough how sophisticated of an operator these guys are. Like, the DeLauriers are smart. They see the numbers, you know? Christian Knapp at PGRI, he sees the numbers. Steve Wright, these are smart guys. John Schaefer, the…00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:27.000Erik Mogensen: Really smart. You know, if they figure it out.00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:30.000Erik Mogensen: I think that that itself.00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Jay has been, uh, has recommitted to Indy several times, uh, through one-year contracts. All right, Eric, IndyPass is still on sale?00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:56.000Erik Mogensen: Uh, 80 Pass is on sale right now, yes. I think what we've announced is we've said tomorrow's the day. I think we could go into midday Saturday. Um, it's… it's hard to tell, right? We look at a couple numbers, we look at people that have put things in their cart, and what the potential conversion rate is, and where things go, and…00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000Erik Mogensen: the geography around them. We definitely have a very firm ceiling on what we're gonna sell.00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:10.000Erik Mogensen: When we're going to sell that through, that's the hard part. But yeah, we've identified that tomorrow's the day.00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:16.000Stuart Winchester: And this will be the end of 26-27 IndyPass sales guaranteed, or is there a chance for a flash December sale or something?00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:30.000Erik Mogensen: There is never a guarantee of anything in this thing. We are talking to some pretty major additions as well that I think would be meaningful, and we'll have to decide if that's a this year thing or a next year thing with them.00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:46.000Stuart Winchester: I mean, you've already added over 40 new partners. India has more partners than Epic, Icon, Mountain Collective, Snowpass, and Mountain Collective Capital's Powerpass combined around the world. So you're saying we should expect or could expect more partners?00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:32.000Erik Mogensen: Alright.00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:49.000Stuart Winchester: In advance of the 26-27 winter?00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:02.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can tell you that there will definitely be some more. And I think, Stu, it's actually about 60 new additions. And I know you don't like to count the cross-country ski areas, but we should maybe find a separate tab for them on the spreadsheet.00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:12.000Erik Mogensen: Every ski area matters to us here, whether it's cross country or downhill or big or small. I think that's what makes us different.00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, you know, I didn't start stop counting them out of malice. I stopped because I couldn't really understand them, and the maps kind of looked like a brain scan, and some would leave, and it was just a lot. I was already trying to track too much.00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:44.000Stuart Winchester: I will take that piece of advice, though, and I will see if I can find a place where they make sense. Eric, really appreciate everything today, appreciate everything you're doing with Indy and Black Mountain, and look forward to catching up with you again really soon.00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:49.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah. Thanks so much, Stu. Keep those spreadsheets going, dude.00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:47.000Stuart Winchester: Alright.00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:51.000Stuart Winchester: That's all I do.00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:52.000Erik Mogensen: Yeah, I know. See ya.00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:53.000Stuart Winchester: All right, take care.00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:53.000Erik Mogensen: Bye.00:54:55.000 --> 00:55:05.000Stuart Winchester: All right, that was Eric Mogensen, director of IndyPass, owner of Black Mountain, responding to some of the questions.00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: initial conversation I had with Joe Heschen the other day. So, uh, that's great. We have no more clarity on Snow King, and this episode went a little off the rails, because I need to… there's gonna be a lot of experimentation here, guys.00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the… the opening take, I'm realizing, I don't know if I should be recording that before the guest. I think maybe I need to start with the guest, because otherwise, I end up having to cut myself short. So…00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.000Stuart Winchester: I want to get to some reader reaction.00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:42.000Stuart Winchester: To close us out today.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:44.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:47.000Stuart Winchester: The first comes from…00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: Matt Hart.00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:03.000Stuart Winchester: He said, really, this is in reaction to Brian Norton's interview yesterday about Loon Mountain's expansion. Matt Hart, really good, loved Brian's description of the expansion and how they will make it work from an operations point of view.00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:06.000Stuart Winchester: Catcher's mitt for snow, love it.00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:21.000Stuart Winchester: And then, and then Matt asks, did he give you grief for calling the Timbertown expansion that little one LOL? I, no, he didn't, but, but it is, I mean, it was a 30 acre expansion on a huge ski area. So, uh, I don't know, maybe, I think they, uh.00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:36.000Stuart Winchester: you know, I'm always the tourist, so anytime I'm asking these guys anything, they… I think that it sounds a little ridiculous, because they live it every day of their life. It would be like them asking me a question about my cats, you know, it's something that I'm around every day.00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:46.000Stuart Winchester: All right, this is a comment from Robert, a paid subscriber, which is the way you can interact with the show is to be a paid subscriber to the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:56:46.000 --> 00:57:00.000Stuart Winchester: Robert says, again, of the Brian Norton pod yesterday, great second effort. Are you planning to stick to a drop time of about 4 p.m. Eastern time? What is your anticipated schedule? Daily, four days a week, three?00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:07.000Stuart Winchester: 4pm drop makes for a nice way to wrap up the day, at least for those in a compatible time zone.00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:22.000Stuart Winchester: And then Brian Bench, paid subscriber, says, ditto on sharing the anticipated schedule. We humans are creatures of habit, and so would be great to know when we can generally expect these to land. Excited for your chat with Eric today. Well…00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:23.000Stuart Winchester: Brian.00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:26.000Stuart Winchester: I have an amazing guest.00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: scheduled for…00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:46.000Stuart Winchester: Sep

Ashurbanipal was the ruler of the Assyrian empire in the 7th century BCE. His 38-year reign was marked by both scholarship and a terrifying brutality. Research: "Babylon." Britannica Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, 18 Mar. 2025. libraries.state.ma.us/login?eburl=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.eb.com&ebtarget=%2Flevels%2Freferencecenter%2Farticle%2FBabylon%2F11618&ebboatid=9265928. Accessed 19 Aug. 2026. Ashurbanipal Library Project. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/index.html " Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631000306/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f497ef8d. Accessed 14 Aug. 2026. Bonatz, Dominik. “Ashurbanipal's Headhunt: An Anthropological Perspective.” Iraq , 2004, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One (2004). https://www.jstor.org/stable/4200564 “Ashurbanipal.” https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/ashurbanipal Fincke, Jeanette C. “The British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project.” Iraq , 2004, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One (2004). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4200559 Hughes, Tristan. “Ashurbanipal: The Last Great King of Assyria.” The Ancients podcast. 8/20/2025. https://shows.acast.com/the-ancients/episodes/ashurbanipal-the-last-great-king-of-assyria Osborne, James. “He tried to conquer knowledge itself – instead this ancient Mesopotamian king resorted to rule with terror.” History Extra. 8/14/2025. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/he-tried-to-conquer-knowledge-itself/ Taylor, Jonathan. 'About the project', Ashurbanipal Library Project, The Ashurbanipal Library Project, Department of the Middle East, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, 2022 http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/Abouttheproject/ The British Museum. “Who was Ashurbanipal?” https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-was-ashurbanipal Urbanus, Jason. “Royal Bibliophile.” Archaeology. Jul/Aug2024, Vol. 77 Issue 4, p40-41. Wilkes, Jonny. “Ashurbanipal 'the Great', the Lion of Assyria.” History Extra. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/who-was-ashurbanipal-lion-assyria-facts/ Wiseman, Donald John. "Ashurbanipal". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ashurbanipal. Accessed 17 August 2026 Wisnom, Selena. “The Library of Ashurbanipal.” History Today. 4/4/2025. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/library-ashurbanipal See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The second part of Percy Fawcett's story delves into his fascination with a document known as Manuscript 512 and how it impacted his life. His obsession led to his disappearance; there has been endless speculation about what exactly happened. Research: Biello, David. “Ancient Amazon Actually Highly Urbanized.” Scientific American. August 28, 2008. “The Brazilian Indigenous People.” Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/peoples/brazilian Britannica Editors. "Mato Grosso". Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/place/Mato-Grosso Canal-Soler, Jordi. “The man who died searching for the Lost City of Z.” National geographic. June 13, 2024. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/percy-fawcett-search-lost-city-of-z Fawcett, Lt-Col P.H. “Exploration Fawcett.” Hutchinson & Co. London. 1953. “Fawcett’s Bones Believed Found; Explorer Lost in Brazil Jungle in ’25.” New York Times. April 4, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/04/04/82103136.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “Fawcett Mystery Unsolved.” New York Times. Nov. 5, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/11/05/81775504.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 Grann, David. “The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.” Doubleday. 2009. “Hidden City Is the Goal.” Los Angeles Times. Jan 12, 1925. https://www.newspapers.com/image/380427463/ Hutchison, Percy. “Hunting for Lost Explorers in the Jungles of Brazil.” New York Times. Jan. 26, 1930. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/01/26/96041140.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 Moutinho, Sofia. “A Foundation of Trust.” Science. Nov. 6, 2025. https://www.science.org/content/article/unearth-their-past-amazonian-people-turn-language-white-men-understand “'Lost' report exposes Brazilian Indian genocide.” Survival International. April 25, 2013. https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9191 “On Colonel Fawcett’s Train in Unknown Brazil by Air and River.” Illustrated London News. Sep 10, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143308620/?match=2&terms=%22Vincenzo%20Petrullo%22&search-id=72603589-1171-4291-b93b-9c5eeffb7d90&search-rank=1 “Percy Fawcett.” Spike Island. https://www.spikeislandcork.ie/percy-fawcett/ “Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett DSO, (MiD).” Tiegnmouth & Shaldon Remembers WW1. Teign Heritage. https://www.teignheritageworldwar.org.uk/index.php/lieutenant-colonel-percy-harrison-fawcett Pezzati, Alessandro. "The Lost Explorer." Expedition Magazine59, no. 2. September, 2017. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-lost-explorer/ Potts, Mary Anne. “Finding Machu Picchu: A Look at Explorer Hiram Bingham, A Real-Life Indiana Jones.” National Geographic. May 26, 2010. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/machu-picchu-hiram-bingham “Remembering Col. Fawcett in WWI.” Torquay Museum. Nov. 4, 2021. https://torquaymuseum.org/news/view/remembering-col-fawcett-in-wwi Ribeiro, Taisa Alves and André Luiz Alves Moreno. “Towards an Archaeology of the Written Culture of Chapada Diamantina-BA: The Case of Manuscript 512.” Garimpus: Journal of Languages, Education and Culture in Chapada Diamantina. Vol. 2, no. 1. 2021. https://www.revistas.uneb.br/garimpus/article/view/8740 “Son of Lost Explorer Says Bones Are Not Fawcett's.” New York Times. Nov. 4, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/11/04/96221387.html?pageNumber=66 Squires, Cole. “TRANSCRIPTION/TRANSLATION NOTES (Manuscript 512).” Harvard. https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/mathe320_2021/exhibits/manuscript512/translation.pdf “Sustainable Mato Grosso.” Amazon Fund. https://www.amazonfund.gov.br/en/projeto/Sustainable-Mato-Grosso/ “Swindon Woman Awaits News of Colonel Fawcett.” Swindon Advertiser. April 13, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1209686028/?match=2&terms=%22percy%20fawcett%22&search-id=667a33c0-fac9-457e-bcf9-349a1d9b7e9f&search-rank=2 “Why do they hide?” Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3104-why-do-they-hide See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fawcett’s life has invited controversy and speculation, because he was a man who did a mix of great and shady things. Part one covers his early life, marriage, military service, and early visits to South America. Research: Biello, David. “Ancient Amazon Actually Highly Urbanized.” Scientific American. August 28, 2008. “The Brazilian Indigenous People.” Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/peoples/brazilian Britannica Editors. "Mato Grosso". Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/place/Mato-Grosso Canal-Soler, Jordi. “The man who died searching for the Lost City of Z.” National geographic. June 13, 2024. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/percy-fawcett-search-lost-city-of-z Fawcett, Lt-Col P.H. “Exploration Fawcett.” Hutchinson & Co. London. 1953. “Fawcett’s Bones Believed Found; Explorer Lost in Brazil Jungle in ’25.” New York Times. April 4, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/04/04/82103136.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “Fawcett Mystery Unsolved.” New York Times. Nov. 5, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/11/05/81775504.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 Grann, David. “The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.” Doubleday. 2009. “Hidden City Is the Goal.” Los Angeles Times. Jan 12, 1925. https://www.newspapers.com/image/380427463/ Hutchison, Percy. “Hunting for Lost Explorers in the Jungles of Brazil.” New York Times. Jan. 26, 1930. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/01/26/96041140.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 Moutinho, Sofia. “A Foundation of Trust.” Science. Nov. 6, 2025. https://www.science.org/content/article/unearth-their-past-amazonian-people-turn-language-white-men-understand “'Lost' report exposes Brazilian Indian genocide.” Survival International. April 25, 2013. https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9191 “On Colonel Fawcett’s Train in Unknown Brazil by Air and River.” Illustrated London News. Sep 10, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143308620/?match=2&terms=%22Vincenzo%20Petrullo%22&search-id=72603589-1171-4291-b93b-9c5eeffb7d90&search-rank=1 “Percy Fawcett.” Spike Island. https://www.spikeislandcork.ie/percy-fawcett/ “Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett DSO, (MiD).” Tiegnmouth & Shaldon Remembers WW1. Teign Heritage. https://www.teignheritageworldwar.org.uk/index.php/lieutenant-colonel-percy-harrison-fawcett Pezzati, Alessandro. "The Lost Explorer." Expedition Magazine59, no. 2. September, 2017. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-lost-explorer/ Potts, Mary Anne. “Finding Machu Picchu: A Look at Explorer Hiram Bingham, A Real-Life Indiana Jones.” National Geographic. May 26, 2010. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/machu-picchu-hiram-bingham “Remembering Col. Fawcett in WWI.” Torquay Museum. Nov. 4, 2021. https://torquaymuseum.org/news/view/remembering-col-fawcett-in-wwi Ribeiro, Taisa Alves and André Luiz Alves Moreno. “Towards an Archaeology of the Written Culture of Chapada Diamantina-BA: The Case of Manuscript 512.” Garimpus: Journal of Languages, Education and Culture in Chapada Diamantina. Vol. 2, no. 1. 2021. https://www.revistas.uneb.br/garimpus/article/view/8740 “Son of Lost Explorer Says Bones Are Not Fawcett's.” New York Times. Nov. 4, 1951. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/11/04/96221387.html?pageNumber=66 Squires, Cole. “TRANSCRIPTION/TRANSLATION NOTES (Manuscript 512).” Harvard. https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/mathe320_2021/exhibits/manuscript512/translation.pdf “Sustainable Mato Grosso.” Amazon Fund. https://www.amazonfund.gov.br/en/projeto/Sustainable-Mato-Grosso/ “Swindon Woman Awaits News of Colonel Fawcett.” Swindon Advertiser. April 13, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1209686028/?match=2&terms=%22percy%20fawcett%22&search-id=667a33c0-fac9-457e-bcf9-349a1d9b7e9f&search-rank=2 “Why do they hide?” Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3104-why-do-they-hide See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August is supposed to be quiet, but a routine house clearance leads Harry and Simon into a mystery of missing valuables and storage lockers. Join the guys as they navigate tech chaos in their new Grade II listed shop, Harry's candid talk on weight loss, and a standout lot: a rare 1910 Louis Vuitton trunk made for Encyclopedia Britannica. From Lego therapy to customer service battles, unpack the wild, human side of the auction world.CONTACTthegavelandthegabble@gmail.comLinktreeYouTube www.youtube.com/@thegavelandthegabbleInstagram @thegavelandthegabbleTwitter @GavelandGabble TikTok @laughingauctioneerwww.windsorauctions.co.ukwww.lymebayauctions.co.ukABOUT THE PODCAST The Gavel and The Gabble is a podcast hosted by Harry and Simon who, together, are lucky enough to run two provincial Auction Houses in Windsor, Berkshire and Seaton, Devon.Now we know there are lots of TV shows about buying and selling antiques and collectables but we thought followers of this podcast would like to hear about what goes on behind the scenes of an actual working auction house as we go about our daily business, the characters we meet, the things we find, and the things we wished we had never found.Famed for our slightly different auctioneering style, constant chatting on the rostrum, awful jokes. Stick with us as we bunk off to record anecdotes, interview others in the industry and basically gabble on. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a rating. Music from LemonmusicstudioProduction by David Burd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kunal Sen, former CIO at Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster on art and science in a world of AI. After 25 years as a scientist, Kunal became a visual artist at the age of 60 as well as the author of a critically acclaimed memoir, and brings a unique insight to the way machines and humans create. Arguing the potential and the limitations of AI in software engineering, creativity, and art, he highlights AI's strengths in novelty and usefulness but its inability to replicate human intentionality and shared experience.

The reality of the Bavarian Illuminati is much less dramatic than conspiracy theories would indicate. It wasn’t a mystical organization, but a protest organization formed by a rather conceited man who was frustrated with the Catholic church. Research: Britannica Editors. "illuminati". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/topic/illuminati-group-designation Carlson, Michael. “Robert Anton Wilson [Obituary].” The Guardian. Jan. 17, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/18/guardianobituaries.usa “Two Letters from Adam Weishaupt, Founder of the Order of the Illuminati (1776).” German History Intersections. https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/knowledge-and-education/ghis:document-190 “1776.” Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. https://www.lmu.de/en/about-lmu/lmu-at-a-glance/history/1776/ Goldenbaum, Annika. “250 Years of the Order of the Illuminati: New Research Puts Gotha in the Spotlight.” Centre for Transcultural Studies. Universitat Erfurt. https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/forschungskolleg-transkulturelle-studien/ueber-uns/aktuelles/news/news-detail/250-years-of-the-order-of-the-illuminati-new-research-puts-gotha-in-the-spotlight Greene, Jim, MFA. Discordianism. EBSCO. 2024. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/discordianism Hernandez, Isabel. “Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati.” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/profile-adam-weishaupt-illuminati-secret-society “To the Fathers Departing for Germany.” Georgetown University Library. https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/ignatius-letters/letter12 Galer, Sophia Smith. “The accidental invention of the Illuminati conspiracy.” BBC. July 11, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170809-the-accidental-invention-of-the-illuminati-conspiracy Stauffer, Vernon. “New England and the Bavarian Illuminati.” Columbia University. New York, 1918. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/newenglandbavari00stauuoft Taylor, Michael. “British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797–1802.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, 2014, pp. 293–312. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24690289 Miller, Shari Parsons. “Illuminati.” EBSCO. 2022. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/illuminati#bibliography Robison, John. “Proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Free masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.” Philadelphia : T. Dobson. 1798. https://archive.org/details/proofsofconspira00r/page/n9/mode/2up Vickery, Matthew. “The Birthplace of the Illuminati.” BBC. Nov. 28, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20171127-the-birthplace-of-the-illuminati See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A lot of European accounts of Sayyida al-Hurra’s life characterize her as a pirate, but that really isn't accurate. She was a a leader of a city-state and a queen of a sultanate. Research: Ali, Adam. “The Pirate Queen of the Mediterranean: The Story of Al-Sayyida al-Hurra.” Medievalists.net. https://www.medievalists.net/2022/08/pirate-queen-mediterranean-al-sayyida-al-hurra/ Britannica Editors. "Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026. El Haimeur, A. (2024). Sayyida Alhurra: A forgotten North African queen and war leader: A forgotten North African queen and war leader. Africana Annual, 1(1), 44-60. https://doi.org/10.17161/africana.v1i1.19207 Hellman, Rick. “Researcher reclaims 16th century Moroccan woman leader from obscurity.” University of Kansas. 4/17/2024. https://news.ku.edu/news/article/researcher-reclaims-16th-century-moroccan-woman-leader-from-obscurity Lebbady, “Women in Northern Morocco: Between the Documentary and the Imaginary.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 32. 2012. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41850741 Mourtada-Sabbah, Nada and Adrian Gully. “'I Am, by God, Fit for High Positions': On the Political Role of Women in al-Andalus.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies , Nov., 2003, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Nov., 2003). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3593222 Rafferty, John P.. "From Pirate to Admiral: The Tale of Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Jun. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/story/from-pirate-to-admiral-the-tale-of-barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026. Sparkes, Jason Idriss. “Sayyida al‑Hurra: An Early Modern Decolonial Muslim Exemplar.” Religions 16: 1362. 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111362 Verde, Tom. “Malika VI: Sayyida Al-Hurra.” AramcoWorld. 1/4/2017. https://www.aramcoworld.com/articles/2017/malika-vi-sayyida-al-hurra Williams, Terry. “Pirate Profile: Sayyida al-Hurra.” Queen Anne’s Revenge Project. 5/25/2020. https://www.qaronline.org/blog/2020-05-25/pirate-profile-sayyida-al-hurra See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

War, war and more war today. But not just that! We will also see Priscus make some grisly reforms to the Vestal Virgins, get himself some shiny royal regalia, enmesh his royal family into Roman society, and start a whole lot of building projects. Also, which Hogwarts house was Numa Pompilius?NOTE: A bit of a content warning at around 10 minutes and 19 minutes. We don't go overboard as per usual, but there's only so many ways you can dress up punishments for Vestal Virgins and people taking drastic steps to get out of things.Time period: 616- 578 BCERelevant individuals:Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, 5th King of RomeArruns Tarquinius Collatinus, nephew of PriscusLucius Tarquinius, eldest son of Priscus and TanaquilArruns Tarquinius, second son of Priscus and TanaquilTarquinia I, wife of Marcus Junius BrutusTarquinia II, wife of Servius TulliusTanaquil, Queen of RomeSources for this episode:Appian (1972), Appian's Roman History in Four Volumes (Volume I). London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.Cassius Dio (1961), Dio's Roman History (Volume I). Translated by E. Cary. London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.Chisholm, H. (ed.), Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Tarquinius Priscus, Lucius. Available at Wikisource.Dionysus of Halicarnassus (1960), The Roman Antquities of Dionysus of Halicarnassus (Volume II). Translated by E. Cary. London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.Eutropius (1760), Eutropius: Epitome of the Roman History. London: Printed for W. Johnston et al.Livy (1971), The Early History of Rome. Translated by A. de Selincourt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.Matyszak, P. (2008), Chronicle of the Roman Republic: The Rulers of Ancient Rome from Romulus to Augustus. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.Orosius (1936), History Against the Pagans. Translated by I. W. Raymond. Available at Attalus.Pliny the Elder (1938), Natural History (Volume X, Book 36). Translated by D. E. Eichholz. Available at Wikisource.Sextus Aurelius Victor (1825), Galerie Romaine, ou les Hommes Illustres de Rome et les Cesars. Translated by A. Caillot. Paris.Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (online) (Accessed 02/11/2025 and 12/07/2026).

Once Lucumo son of the Corinthian exile Demaratus, Lucius Tarquinius decides that he wants more from life than being a rich Roman Senator, commander and trusted friend of the king- and his wife Tanaquil has the same idea. When Ancus Marcius dies and his sons are still underage, I'm sure Tarquinius can be trusted to be completely honest and above board. Right?NB: Lucius Tarquinius gets the epithet Priscus later during the reign of the seventh king of Rome, but we're going to be referring to him as Priscus throughout to make everything clearer.Time period: 616 BCERelevant individuals: Ancus Marcus, 4th King of Rome; Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, 5th King of Rome; Tanaquil, Queen of RomeSources for this episode:Appian (1972), Appian's Roman History in Four Volumes (Volume I). London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.Cassius Dio (1961), Dio's Roman History (Volume I). Translated by E. Cary. London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press.Dionysus of Halicarnassus (1960), The Roman Antiquities of Dionysus of Halicarnassus. Translated by E. Cary. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd.The Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica (2024), Cypselus (online) (Accessed 10/07/2026).Eutropius (1760), Eutropius: Epitome of the Roman History. London: Printed for W. Johnston et al.Livy (1971), The Early History of Rome. Translated by A. de Selincourt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.Matyszak, P. (2008), Chronicle of the Roman Republic: The Rulers of Ancient Rome from Romulus to Augustus. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.Orosius (1936), History Against the Pagans. Translated by I. W. Raymond. Available at Attalus.Sextus Aurelius Victor (1825), Galerie Romaine, ou les Hommes Illustres de Rome et les Cesars. Translate by A. Caillot. Paris.Singal, P., Bhatnagar, D. P. and Kaur, S. (2006), Anthropometric Profile and Development of Facial Hair in Male Athletes. Journal of Exercise Science and Physiotherapy 2: 52- 58.Smith; W. (ed.) (1867), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. In Three Volumes (Vol. 1-3.). Boston: Little, Brown, And Company.

Samuel Plimsoll was an advocate for better working conditions for sailors, and for a lot of other things. A lot of contemporary accounts refer to him as an agitator. Research: Bibby, Miriam. “Samuel Plimsoll and the Plimsoll Line.” Historic UK. June 14, 2024. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Samuel-Plimsoll-Line/ Britannica Editors. "Samuel Plimsoll". Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Plimsoll “Death of Mr. Samuel Plimsoll.” The Lichfield Mercury. June 4, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/797510210/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 “Friends of Humanity.” Democrat and Chronicle. Apr 27, 1913. https://www.newspapers.com/image/135735684/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 Glover, William. “Samuel Plimsoll and the 1880 Carriage of Grain Legislation.” The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord, XXX, No. 4 (Winter 2020), 419-448. https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol30/tnm_30_419-448.pdf “Jack Tar’s Friend.” The Atchison Daily Globe. July 17, 1896. https://www.newspapers.com/image/479999267/?match=4&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 Japp, Alexander H. “Good men and true : biographies of workers in the fields of beneficence and benevolence.” Philadelphia. Gebbie. 1890. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/goodmentrue0000unse/page/10/mode/2up Jones, Nicolette. “The Plimsoll Sensation.” London. Little, Brown. 2006. Langenberg, William H. “The Plimsoll Mark.” U.S. Naval Institute. Naval History. June 1992. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1992/june/plimsoll-mark “Lundhill Colliery Explosion.” Northern Mine Research Society. https://nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/yorkshire/lundhill-colliery-explosion-barnsley-1857/ “The Name of Samuel Plimsoll … “ Birmingham Gazette. June 4, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/815489724/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 “People's College Sheffield (1842 - 1878).” University of Sheffield. https://archives.shef.ac.uk/agents/corporate_entities/212 Plimsoll, Samuel. “Our Seamen: An Appeal.” London. Virtue. 1873. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/b20406691/page/n15/mode/2up Robertson, Jen. “It's Plimsoll Day! (and we're talking about ships, not shoes).” National Museums Liverpool. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/its-plimsoll-day-and-were-talking-about-ships-not-shoes See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Huxley is an example of having a good attitude about publicly acknowledging errors and learning from them. He earned the nickname “Darwin’s bulldog” for his very vocal support of Darwin’s work, and he wanted to promote science and education, particularly to people that didn’t normally have access to those things. Research: Bernoulli, D., Jenkyns, H.C. “Thomas Henry Huxley, a stone tablet, coccoliths, and deep-sea sediments in the high Alps.” Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 112, 1661–1669 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-023-02330-5 Bowen, Keith. “Thomas Henry Huxley.” Ebsco. 2024. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/thomas-henry-huxley Burkhardt, Richard W.. "Jean-Baptiste Lamarck". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Baptiste-Lamarck Darwin, Charles. “On the Origin of Species.” JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. London. 1859. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1228/1228-h/1228-h.htm Desmond, Adrian J. "Thomas Henry Huxley". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Jun. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Henry-Huxley Dolan, John R. “The famous and lesser-known illustrations of Thomas Huxley’s Bathybius.” History of Oceanography. International Commission of the History of Oceanography. https://oceansciencehistory.com/2020/07/13/the-famous-and-lesser-known-illustrations-of-thomas-huxleys-bathybius/ “Freshwater Bathybius.” Nature 4, 49–50 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004049b0 “The Great Debate.” University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/great-debate “The History of Evolutionary Thought.” Understanding Evolution. Berkeley University. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-history-of-evolutionary-thought/1800s/early-concepts-of-evolution-jean-baptiste-lamarck/ Huxley, T.H. “Agnosticism.” K. Paul, Trench. London. 1889. https://archive.org/details/a622650700huxluoft/page/169/mode/1up Huxley, T.H. “Aphorisms and Reflections. From the Works of T. H. HUXLEY, Selected byHenrietta A. Huxley. Macmillan and Co. London. 1907. Accessed online: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/Book/Aphor.html Huxley, T.H. “Autobiography and Selected Essays.” Riverside College Classics. 1909. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1315/1315-h/1315-h.htm#link2H_4_0007 Huxley, T.H. “Collected Essays, Volume V: Science and Christian Tradition.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15905/15905-h/15905-h.htm Huxley, T.H. “Evidence as to man's place in nature.” D. Appelton and Co. New York. 1863. https://archive.org/details/evidenceastomans00huxl/page/n1/mode/2up Huxley, T.H. “On Some Organisms Living at Great Depths in the North Atlantic Ocean.” Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. viii., new Series, 1868, pp. 203-212. http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM3/bathy.html Huxley, T.H. “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals.” Project Gutenberg eBook. 2001. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2932/pg2932-images.html Joshi RS. “The Inner Root Sheath and the Men Associated with it Eponymically.” Int J Trichology. 2011 Jan;3(1):57-62. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3129131/ Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste. “Zoological Philosophy.” Macmillan. London. 1914. https://archive.org/details/ZoologicalPhilosophy Lyons, Sherrie L. “Thomas Henry Huxley : the evolution of a scientist.” Prometheus Books. New York. 1999. McGraw, Donald J. “Bye-Bye Bathybius: The Rise and Fall of a Marine Myth.” Bios, vol. 45, no. 4, 1974, pp. 164–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4607257 “Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963.” The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1963/summary/ Pearce, JMS. “Thomas Henry Huxley.” Hektoen International. Sept. 18, 2020. https://hekint.org/2020/09/18/thomas-henry-huxley/ Schwartz, Joel S. “Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley, and ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.’” Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 23, no. 1, 1990, pp. 127–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4331120 “Thomas Henry Huxley.” Darwin Correspondence Project. University of Cambridge. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/thomas-henry-huxley “Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895).” Humanist Heritage. https://heritage.humanists.uk/thomas-henry-huxley/ Tunstad, Erik. “Darwin's Bulldog: Thomas Huxley 200 Years.” Prosa. July 10, 2025. https://prosa.no/artikler/aktuelt/darwins-bulldog-thomas-huxley-200-ar Wyhe, John van. “It ain't necessarily so ...” The Guardian. Feb 9, 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/feb/09/darwin.myths See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The evolution from leather-soled shoes of the 19th century to the sneakers people wear today started slowly, then built momentum. Many of the big names in sneakers today got their start surprisingly early in the process. Research: “A Column for the Girls.” Brooklyn Eagle. July 28, 1895. https://www.newspapers.com/image/50411759/?match=1&terms=%22sand%20shoes%22 Barrett, Jennifer. “The History of Adidas and Puma.” Newsweek. March 13, 2008. https://www.newsweek.com/history-adidas-and-puma-86373 Bisno, Adam. “The search for lost X-patents.” USPTO. July 13, 2022. https://www.uspto.gov/blog/the-search-for-lost-x “Brand Story.” Dunlop. https://www.dunlopboots.com/why-dunlop/brand-story Carpenter, Julia. “Adidas vs. Puma: The Family Rift That Shaped the Sportswear Industry.” History. May 6, 2026. https://www.history.com/articles/adidas-puma-rivalry-dassler “Chuck Taylor Converse All Star: The Man Who Made the Shoe.” Indiana Historical Society. https://indianahistory.org/events/chuck-taylor-converse-all-star-the-man-who-made-the-shoe-2/ “The Company.” New Balance. https://www.newbalance.gr/en/etaireia/profil/?__cf_chl_f_tk=TZRFzU2s58Jw3z.lFjWqe.bQmjADyBkIMMpMI4v.Cuk-1783279660-1.0.1.1-sWRq2n.zJUdoWCA6sKXCjtDKIRGvxztpX5Rhq4MRJ4s Cousens, Nico. “Inventions that made the modern running shoe.” Kilburn & Strode. April 17, 2018. Cunliffe, Paul and Lauren Hirst. “Co-founder of £2.5bn brand started out as factory help.” BBC. Oct. 1, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8jdlndg0xo Department of Nike Archives. “From Waffle Iron to World Stage: The True Story of the Nike Moon Shoe.” Nike. Sept. 15, 2025. https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-moon-shoe-waffle-iron-true-history “Fashion Notes.” The Times-Union. July 22, 1882. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1275226621/?match=1&terms=%22lawn-tennis%20shoe%22 “The History of the Sneaker.” The Washington Post. May 14, 2002. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/05/14/the-history-of-the-sneaker/aa2096d1-a7e2-4427-a324-cb603512722d/ Hunt, Kristin. “11 Comfy Facts About Keds.” Mental Floss. March 26, 2022. https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/fashion-beauty/11-comfy-facts-about-keds “The Invention of the Iconic Vans Skateboarding Shoe.” The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.” https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/invention-iconic-vans-skateboarding-shoe “Journey of an Icon: The History of the Chuck Taylor All Star.” Nike. https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/converse-chuck-taylor-all-star-iconic-sneaker-true-history Keller, Kate. “A Brief History of America’s Obsession With Sneakers.” Smithsonian. May 18, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/brief-history-americas-obsession-sneakers-180969116/ Lorge, Barry Steven, Aberdare, Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron. "tennis". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Jun. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/sports/tennis Lou, Michelle. “Nike’s rare ‘Moon Shoe’ is sold for $437,500, shattering the auction record for sneakers.” CNN. July 23, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/nike-moon-shoe-sold-auction-trnd “Notice! Tennis Players!” Des Moines Register. June 8, 1888. https://www.newspapers.com/image/127760140/?match=1&terms=%22lawn-tennis%20shoe%22 “Off The Wall- Since 1966. The Story Of Vans.” Vans. https://www.vans.com/en-us/about#early-1970s “Patent India Rubber or Gum Elastic Shoes.” Monmouth Democrat. January 22, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/496911351/?match=2&terms=Wait%20Webster “Peachtree Through the Years 1970-2021.” Atlanta Track Club. https://www.atlantatrackclub.org/event-information-history “Plaint of an Old Shoe.” The Boston Globe. Aug. 23, 1894. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430680218/?match=1&terms=sneaker “Plimsoll Draws the Line.” Nautilus International. April 24, 2026. https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/telegraph/plimsoll-draws-the-line/ “Puma and Adidas' rivalry has divided a small German town for 70 years — here's what it looks like now.” Business Insider. October 2018. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-puma-and-adidas-rivalry-divided-their-founding-town-for-70-years-2018-10 Rickey, Melanie. “Flash of Genius.” The Independent. June 28, 1996. https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/flash-of-genius-1339404.html “Sneakers.” Record-Journal. Aug. 8, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/674954692/?match=6&terms=sneaker “Sneakers Latest in Women’s Wear.” The Battle Creek Enquirer. May 18, 1913. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1044420723/?match=1&terms=sneaker “’Sneakers’ the Things.” L'abeille De La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans Bee). Nov. 11, 1904. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1323250586/?match=1&terms=sneaker “Sneakers – Worldwide.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/footwear/sneakers/worldwide Sun, Michael. “‘Everyone owns at least one pair’: $75bn sneaker industry unboxed in Gold Coast exhibition.” The Guardian. Nov. 25, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/nov/26/sneakers-unboxed-hota-shoe-exhibition-gold-coast-queensland-australia Tikkanen, Amy. "history of sneakers". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-sneakers Turner, Thomas. “The Production and Consumption of Lawn-Tennis Shoes in Late-Victorian Britain.” Journal of British Studies. JULY 2016, Vol. 55, No. 3 (JULY 2016), pp. 474-500. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26598891 Turner, Thomas. “The Sports Shoe: A History from Field to Fashion.” Bloomsbury. 2019. Umoh, Ruth. “Here’s how much Nike’s billionaire founder paid for the infamous swoosh logo in 1971.” CNBC. Sept. 5, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/05/heres-how-much-nikes-billionaire-founder-paid-for-its-swoosh-logo.html “Value of the sneakers market worldwide from 2018 to 2030.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1017918/sneakers-market-value-forecast-worldwide/ “Where Basketball was Invented: The History of Basketball.” Springfield College. https://springfield.edu/about/birthplace-of-basketball “40. For a method of attaching leather soles to boots and shoes of India rubber; Wait Webster, city of New York, May 21.” Journal of the Franklin Institute. Volume 14, Issue 6. 1832. Page 391. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-0032(32)90275-0. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Charles Goodyear's work is important to so many things we have in the 21st century. But his life and his work to create a stable rubber was full of problems -- many of them caused by Goodyear himself. Research: Britannica Editors. "Charles Goodyear". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Goodyear “Charles Goodyear.” Who Made America? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/goodyear_hi.html “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanization of Rubber.” National Inventors Hall of Fame. https://www.invent.org/inductees/charles-goodyear “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanized Rubber.” Lemelson-MIT. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/charles-goodyear “Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyear-and-the-vulcanization-of-rubber/ “Charles Goodyear’s Machine for Making Rubber Fabrics.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyears-machine-for-making-rubber-fabrics/ “Death of Charles Goodyear.” Carbondale Advantage. July 21, 1860. https://www.newspapers.com/image/638799032/?match=2&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22 Goodyear, Charles. “Gum-elastic and its varieties : with a detailed account of its applications and uses, and of the discovery of vulcanization.” New Haven. Published for the Author. 1853. https://archive.org/details/gumelasticitsva121853good/ Goodyear, Charles. “IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA-RUBBER FABRICS.” United States Patent Office. June 15, 1844. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714081931/http://www.dpma.de/docs/service/klassifikationen/ipc/auto_ipc/us3633a.pdf “Goodyear’s Gum Elastic Drapery and Parchment.” The Washington Union. May 4, 1837. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1038143941/?match=3&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22%20mail Iles, George. “Leading American Inventors.” H. Holt 1912. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hn0_AAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s “India Rubber Fabric.” Daily Cleveland herald. October 10, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1073496245/?match=1&terms=%22Charles%20Goodyear%22 Slack, Charles. “Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century.” Hyperion. 2003. Snow, Richard F. “Charles Goodyear.” American Heritage. April/May 1978. Vol. 29, Issue 3. https://www.americanheritage.com/charles-goodyear See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After earning her first-class degree in chemistry from Oxford, Dorothy embarked on an impressive career in the new field of X-ray crystallography. She would ultimately earn many, many accolades for her work. Research: "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, Biophysical Society. “Profiles in Biophysics: Dorothy Hodgkin.” 2016. https://www.biophysics.org/profiles/dorothy-hodgkin Boon, Rachel. “Curator Rachel Boon celebrates the work of Dorothy Hodgkin.” Science Museum. 12/10/2014. https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/celebrating-dorothy-hodgkin-britains-first-female-winner-of-a-nobel-science-prize/ Bragg, Sir William. “Concerning The Nature Of Things.” London. Bell & Sons. 1932. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222386/ Bud, Robert. "Discoverers and developers of penicillin (act. 1928–1950)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-97279 Dodson, Guy. “Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910--29 July 1994.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Dec., 2002, Vol. 48 (Dec., 2002). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650256 DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Wed. 24 Jun 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/dorothy-hodgkin/ Ferry, Georgina. "Dorothy Hodgkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin. Accessed 24 June 2026. Ferry, Georgina. "Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1910–1994), chemist and crystallographer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-55028 Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life.” Bloomsbury. 1998, 2014. Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: on proteins and patterns.” The Lancet, 384, 1496-1497. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61912-7/fulltext Ferry, Georgina. “The making of an exceptional scientist.” Nature. Vol. 464. April 29, 2010. Gamble, Jessa. “When Hodgkin met Thatcher.” Nature. Vol. 514. October 16, 2014. Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot. “The X-ray analysis of complicated molecules.” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/hodgkin-lecture-1.pdf Hodgkin, Dorothy. “The Pugwash Movement.” India International Centre Quarterly. Vol. 13, No. 2. June 1986. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001474 Howard, Judith A.K. “Dorothy Hodgkin and her contributions to biochemistry.” Nature Reviews. Vol. 4. November 2003. gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003072/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8d7c4045. Accessed 23 June 2026. Pearce, JMS. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994).” Hektoen International. https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-frs-1910-1994/ Perutz, Max. “Dorothy Crowfoot ” The Independent. Via The Crystallographic Community. https://www.iucr.org/people/crystallographers/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-by-m.f.-perutz Pietzsch, Jochim. “Perspectives: Enhancing X-ray vision.” Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/perspectives/ Ramaseshan, S. “Dorothy Hodgkin and the Indian Connection.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , Jan., 1996. http://www.jstor.com/stable/531845 Root-Bernstein, Robert. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Structure as Art.” Leonardo , 2007, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20206415 Science History Institute Museum and Library. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin/ The Royal Society. “Dorothy Hodgkin FRS.” https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion/case-studies/scientists-with-disabilities/dorothy-hodgkin/ “Science for peace Building cultures of cooperation and non-violence through scientific collaboration.” 2025. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep73183.6 University of Oxford History of Science Museum. “Modelling the Structure of Penicillin.” https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/backfromthedead/exhibition/the-structure-of-penicillin/index.html Vijayan, M. “An outstanding scientist and great humanist: An obituary of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” Current Science, 10 August 1994, Vol. 67, No. 3 (10 August 1994). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24095820 Wallace, Rob. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Captured by Crystals.” National World War II 3/16/2022. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/dorothy-hodgkin-penicillin-insulin See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dorothy Hodgkin's career in X-ray crystallography impacted a lot of science in the 20th century. Part one of her story covers her early life and formative experiences that led her to her field of research. Research: "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, Biophysical Society. “Profiles in Biophysics: Dorothy Hodgkin.” 2016. https://www.biophysics.org/profiles/dorothy-hodgkin Boon, Rachel. “Curator Rachel Boon celebrates the work of Dorothy Hodgkin.” Science Museum. 12/10/2014. https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/celebrating-dorothy-hodgkin-britains-first-female-winner-of-a-nobel-science-prize/ Bragg, Sir William. “Concerning The Nature Of Things.” London. Bell & Sons. 1932. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222386/ Bud, Robert. "Discoverers and developers of penicillin (act. 1928–1950)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-97279 Dodson, Guy. “Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910--29 July 1994.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Dec., 2002, Vol. 48 (Dec., 2002). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650256 DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Wed. 24 Jun 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/dorothy-hodgkin/ Ferry, Georgina. "Dorothy Hodgkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin. Accessed 24 June 2026. Ferry, Georgina. "Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1910–1994), chemist and crystallographer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-55028 Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life.” Bloomsbury. 1998, 2014. Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: on proteins and patterns.” The Lancet, 384, 1496-1497. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61912-7/fulltext Ferry, Georgina. “The making of an exceptional scientist.” Nature. Vol. 464. April 29, 2010. Gamble, Jessa. “When Hodgkin met Thatcher.” Nature. Vol. 514. October 16, 2014. Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot. “The X-ray analysis of complicated molecules.” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/hodgkin-lecture-1.pdf Hodgkin, Dorothy. “The Pugwash Movement.” India International Centre Quarterly. Vol. 13, No. 2. June 1986. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001474 Howard, Judith A.K. “Dorothy Hodgkin and her contributions to biochemistry.” Nature Reviews. Vol. 4. November 2003. gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003072/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8d7c4045. Accessed 23 June 2026. Pearce, JMS. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994).” Hektoen International. https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-frs-1910-1994/ Perutz, Max. “Dorothy Crowfoot ” The Independent. Via The Crystallographic Community. https://www.iucr.org/people/crystallographers/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-by-m.f.-perutz Pietzsch, Jochim. “Perspectives: Enhancing X-ray vision.” Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/perspectives/ Ramaseshan, S. “Dorothy Hodgkin and the Indian Connection.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , Jan., 1996. http://www.jstor.com/stable/531845 Root-Bernstein, Robert. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Structure as Art.” Leonardo , 2007, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20206415 Science History Institute Museum and Library. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin/ The Royal Society. “Dorothy Hodgkin FRS.” https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion/case-studies/scientists-with-disabilities/dorothy-hodgkin/ “Science for peace Building cultures of cooperation and non-violence through scientific collaboration.” 2025. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep73183.6 University of Oxford History of Science Museum. “Modelling the Structure of Penicillin.” https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/backfromthedead/exhibition/the-structure-of-penicillin/index.html Vijayan, M. “An outstanding scientist and great humanist: An obituary of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” Current Science, 10 August 1994, Vol. 67, No. 3 (10 August 1994). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24095820 Wallace, Rob. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Captured by Crystals.” National World War II 3/16/2022. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/dorothy-hodgkin-penicillin-insulin See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 81: Zombies This episode was recorded on May 19, 2026, and posted on July 4, 2026. Introduction Welcome to No Bodies Episode 81 Introductions to our panel of living dead talking heads - Lonely of Lonely Horror Club, Mike aka That Horror Teacher, Billy D of Halloween Babies Podcast, and Kenan aka Plague Doctor Al Today's Topic: Zombies Welcome to Season Four! - 0:4:00 A recap of our all time stats Our reflections on recording as a crew Our most streamed episode to date Introduction to Today's Special - Zombies- 0:12:00 Our experience with zombie media Zombie movie history crash course Our favorite zombie themes The Coroner's Report - 0:32:00 Why do you think zombies have become such an enduring subgenre of horror? Feature Length Review 1 - 0:33:00 White Zombie (1932) Feature Length Review 2 - 0:45:00 The Return of the Living Dead (1985) Feature Length Review 3 - 1:00:30 Savageland (2015) Feature Length Review 4 - 1:17:00 Outside (2024) Feature Length Review 5 - 1:37:30 Mads (2024) Best & Worsts of Zombie Horror - 1:56:00 Suzie's Deep Cuts - 2:05:00 Closing Thoughts - 2:13:30 What other horror subtypes/other film genres do you want to see mashed up with zombies? Keep Up with Your Hosts Check out our instagram antics and drop a follow @nobodieshorrorpodcast.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for exclusive video episodes coming soon! Take part in our audience engagement challenge - The Coroner's Report! Comment, share, or interact with any Coroner's Report post on our socials to be featured in an upcoming episode.  Lonely - read more from Lonely and keep up with her filmstagram chaos @lonelyhorrorclub on Instagram and www.lonelyhorrorclub.com. Mike - Follow Mike's reviews @thathorrorteacher on Instagram.  Billy D - follow Billy on Instagram @halloweenbabiespodcast and listen to Halloween Babies wherever you get your podcasts. Check out Billy's band Mt. Forever and their new EP on Spotify. Kenan - Check out Kenan's Healthline discussions on YouTube here and here, and follow his horrific anatomy musings on Instagram @plaguedoctoral.  Music Credits No Bodies Theme - LHC Theme by Jacob Pini @jacob.pini Bumper: Dying Together by Billy Davis 99 Bars by Billy Davis Epic Optimist Theme - Main Titles from Who Shot Mamba? by Daniel J. Coe Apothecary Theme - The Apothecary of Alluring Anatomy & Astonishing Aromas by Billy Davis Fighting the Dragon Theme - Fighting the Dragon by Billy Davis Ghost in the Machine Theme - Ghost in the Machine by Billy Davis Deep Cuts Theme by Billy Davis Leave us a message at (617) 431-4322‬ and we just might answer you on the show! Sources Eldridge, A. (2026, January 2). zombie. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/zombie-fictional-creature Moreman, C. M. (2022, April 21). The dark history of zombies [Video]. TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m_moreman_the_dark_history_of_zombies  Walking Dead: The Walking Dead Phenomenon: A deep dive into zombie culture. (2026, May 10). Faster Capital. Retrieved July 3, 2026, from https://fastercapital.com/content/Walking-Dead--The-Walking-Dead-Phenomenon--A-Deep-Dive-into-Zombie-Culture.html?__cf_chl_f_tk=x0xqy91c577_71o.P2EYHltAEZtOTISVHal4PJvP4h0-1783110967-1.0.1.1-k_aLytxrv8LlpPt.a.kHveQAIwf7ftE6yjEjokmIDkU  Zombiepedia. (n.d.). Fandom. Retrieved July 3, 2026, from https://zombie.fandom.com/wiki/Types_of_Zombies

On September 16, 1890, Louis Le Prince vanished. He was never seen or heard from again. While that is the most well-known thing about him, he had a whole life before that which involved some very intriguing things. Research: “Amongst the persons …” The Leeds Mercury. August 2, 1870. https://www.newspapers.com/image/390297596/?match=1&terms=%22Louis%20Le Prince%22 Atreyee Gupta. “The Disappearance of Louis Le Prince.” Materials Today. Volume 11, Issues 7–8. 2008. Page 56, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1369-7021(08)70160-3. Aulas, Jean-Jacques and Jacques Pfend. “Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, inventeur et artiste, précurseur du cinéma.” 1895. Vol. 32. 2000. https://doi.org/10.4000/1895.110 Britannica Editors. "Étienne-Jules Marey". Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Etienne-Jules-Marey Casey, Keiron. “The mystery of Louis Le Prince, the father of cinematography.” Science + Media Museum. Aug. 29, 2013. https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/louis-le-prince-created-the-first-ever-moving-pictures/ “CINEMATOGRAPHY Pioneers of Early Cinema: Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (1841-1890?).” National Media Museum. https://www.meiermovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PioneersOfEarlyCinemaLouisLe Prince.pdf “First Surviving Film.” Guinness World Records. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-surviving-film Fischer, Paul. “The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies.” Simon & Schuster. 2022. “Hannibal Goodwin.” National Inventors Hall of Fame. https://www.invent.org/inductees/hannibal-goodwin Kelley, Peter. “Louis A. A. Le Prince and the Whitley Family.” Oak Leaves. Oakwood and District Historical Society. Summer 2002. https://www.oakwoodchurch.info/Oak%20Leaves%20Part%203%20-%20Louis%20A%20A%20Le%20Prince%20and%20the%20Whitley%20Family%20by%20Peter%20Kelley.pdf Le Prince, A. “METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING ANIMATED PICTURES OF NATURAL SCENERY AND LIFE.” U.S. Patent Office. Jan. 10, 1888. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/26/13/3c/c0bd20490abc9b/US376247.pdf Lewis, Maria. “The tragedy of Louis Le Prince.” ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image). https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/tragedy-louis-le-prince/ “The Life, Mystery and Legacy of Louis Le Prince.” Leeds Museums & Galleries. https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/blog-life-mystery-and-legacy-of-louis-le-prince-fylq Marey, Etienne-Jules. “Chronophotographic gun.” Google Arts and Culture. https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/chronophotographic-gun-%C3%89tienne-jules-marey-otto-lund/KAFgqcxSaDadqw?hl=en “New research centre honours father of film.” The Reporter. University of Leeds. May 19, 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20120205020340/http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/490/s6.htm “PUBLIC HEALTH STATEMENT NITROBENZENE.” Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp140-c1-b.pdf Rawlence, Christopher. “The Missing Reel: the untold story of the lost inventor of moving pictures.” New York : Atheneum : Maxwell Macmillan International. 1990. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/missingreeluntol0000rawl/mode/1up “Single-lens Cine Camera by Louis Le Prince.” Science Museum Group. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co18634/le-prince-single-lens-cine-camera-cine-camera-cinematograph Swift, John. "Siege of Paris". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Siege-of-Paris-1870-1871 Britannica Editors. "Franco-German War". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/event/Franco-German-War Youngs, Ian. “Louis Le Prince, who shot the world's first film in Leeds.” BBC. June 23, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33198686 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The story of the Roman catacombs is vastly different than that of the catacombs of Paris, as Rome’s are much older and were created for very different reasons. Research: Bonello, Giovanni. “Charting the enigmatic life of Antonio Bosio.” Times of Malta. Dec. 6, 2014. https://timesofmalta.com/article/Charting-the-enigmatic-life-of-Antonio-Bosio.547468 Bonello, Giovanni. “How Antonio Bosio Became famous Worldwide.” Times of Malta. Dec. 13, 2014. https://timesofmalta.com/article/How-Antonio-Bosio-became-famous-worldwide.548393 Bosio, Antonio. “Roma sotteranea.” 1650. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=zCXXSKqq3nQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false Britannica Editors. "Edict of Milan". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Aug. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edict-of-Milan Britannica Editors. "First Jewish Revolt". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Mar. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Jewish-Revolt Britannica Editors. "Law of the Twelve Tables". Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Mar. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-the-Twelve-Tables “The Catacombs of Rome.” The Atlantic Monthly. March 1858. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1858/03/the-catacombs-of-rome/627225/ Coleman-Norton, Paul R. “The Twelve Tables.” 2024 (eBook). https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14783/pg14783-images.html “Diocletianic Persecution.” Ebsco. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/diocletianic-persecution “Jews in Roman Times.” The Roman Empire. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/jews.html Lamberton, Clark D. “The Development of Christian Symbolism as Illustrated in Roman Catacomb Painting.” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 15, no. 4, 1911, pp. 507–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/497187 Munro, Dana Carleton et al. “Translations and reprints from the original sources of European history : series for 1897.” University of Pennsylvania. 1898. https://archive.org/details/translationsrepr00munr/page/n3/mode/2up Northcote, James Spencer. “The Roman Catacombs.” Sophia Institute Press. 2017. (Reprint) Northcote, James Spencer. ““The Roman Catacombs; or Some Accounts of the Burial Places of the Early Christians in Rome.” Philadelphia. Peter F. Cunningham. 1857. (Reprint) Osborne, J. “The Roman Catacombs in the Middle Ages.” Papers of the British School at Rome , 1985, Vol. 53 (1985), pp. 278-328. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40310821 Perrottet, Tony. “Explore Rome’s Hidden Underworld, Where a City Lurks Beneath a City.” Smithsonian. April/May 2025. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/explore-romes-hidden-underworld-city-beneath-city-180986228/ “PONTIFICAL COMMISSION FOR SACRED ARCHAEOLOGY – Historical Notes.” Vatican. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/archeo/inglese/documents/rc_com_archeo_doc_20011010_cenni_en.html Richter, J. P. “Early Christian Art in the Roman Catacombs.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 6, no. 22, 1905, pp. 286–262. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/856226 “The Roman Catacombs.” Architecture. April 20, 1888. No. 414, p. 224. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433084078983&seq=414&q1=catacombs “The Roman Catacombs.” Scientific American, vol. 58, no. 20, 1888, pp. 312–312. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26094597 Rossi, Giovannie Battista de, et all. “Roma sotterranea : or, Some account of the Roman catacombs, especially of the cemetery of San Callisto ; comp. from the works of Commendatore de Rossi with the consent of the author.” Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer. London. 1869. https://archive.org/details/a606740800rossuoft/a606740800rossuoft/page/6/mode/2up RUTGERS, LEONARD VICTOR, and לאונרד רוטגרס. “הקטקומבות היהודיות ברומא: הערכה מחודשת / THE JEWISH CATACOMBS OF ROME RECONSIDERED.” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי היהדות, י, 1989, pp. 29–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535611 Terry, Andrea, and John Osborne. “Un Canadien Errant: Charles Smeaton and the Earliest Photographs of the Roman Catacombs.” RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review, vol. 32, no. 1/2, 2007, pp. 94–106. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630755 Yeomans, Sarah. “City of the Dead.” Archaeology, vol. 61, no. 4, 2008, pp. 55–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41780388 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pulaski is often built up into an almost mythic figure who represents patriotism, bravery, freedom, independence, and the U.S. as a melting pot. a nation of immigrants. But there’s also a very different version of his story. Research: “Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, 29 May 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-24-02-0072. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 24, May 1 through September 30, 1777, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, p. 98.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-24-02-0072 “General Count Casimir Pulaski: ‘The Father of the American Cavalry’: First Commander of Washington’s Cavalry; Commander of the Independent ‘Pulaski’s Legion.’” The American Catholic Historical Researches , JANUARY, 1910, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 1 (JANUARY, 1910). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44374799 American Battlefield Trust. “Casimir Pulaski.” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/casimir-pulaski Britannica Editors. "Confederation of Bar". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Sep. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Confederation-of-Bar. Accessed 20 May 2026. Britannica Editors. "Confederation of Bar". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Sep. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Confederation-of-Bar. Accessed 21 May 2026. Britannica Editors. "Kazimierz Pułaski". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Mar. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kazimierz-Pulaski. Accessed 20 May 2026. Britannica Editors. "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/place/Polish-Lithuanian-Commonwealth. Accessed 21 May 2026. Britannica Editors. "Stanisław II August Poniatowski". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stanislaw-II-August-Poniatowski. Accessed 21 May 2026. Byczkiewicz, Romuald K. “For Your Freedom and Ours: Casimir Pulaski, 1745-1779.” Sarmatian Review(Vol. 26, Issue 1). George Washington’s Mount Vernon. “Casimir Pulaski.” https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/casimir-pulaski Georgia Southern University. “Georgia Southern researchers solve Casimir Pulaski mysteries, subject of Smithsonian Channel’s ‘America’s Hidden Stories: The General Was Female?’” 3/28/2019. https://www.georgiasouthern.edu/2019/03/28/georgia-southern-researchers-solve-casimir-pulaski-mysteries-subject-of-smithsonian-channels-americas-hidden-stories-the-general-was-female-free-screening-on-arm Hautzinger, Daniel. “Who Was Casimir Pulaski, the Polish Revolutionary War Hero Honored with a Holiday and Street in Chicago?” WTTW. 11/17/2025. https://www.wttw.com/playlist/2025/11/17/casimir-pulaski-revolutionary-war Jones, Charles C. Jr. “Casimir Pulaski: An Address Before the Georgia Historical Society.” 1/13/1871. Savannah. 1873. https://polona.pl/item-view/8e95b726-b73c-4a27-9070-d7750b57cc4f Jones, Charles Colcock. “Sepulture of Major General Nathanael Greene : and of Brig. Gen. Count Casimir Pulaski.” Augusta, Ga, 1855. https://archive.org/details/sepultureofmajor00jonerich/ Kajencki, Francis C. “Casimir Pulaski, Cavalry Commander of the American Revolution.” Southwest Polonia Press. 2002. Kajencki, Francis C. “The Pulaski Legion in the American Revolution.” Southwest Polonia Press. 2004. Makarewicz , Stanislaw. “The Four Birth Records of Kazimierz Pulaski.” https://www.poles.org/birth.html Manning, Clarence A. “Casimir Pulaski, a Soldier of Liberty.” Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, January, 1944,Vol. 2, No. 2 (January, 1944). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24725053 Moyer, Del-Louise. “Rebecca Langley and the Pulaski Banner.” Pennsylvania German Blog. 11/22/2015. https://alyssumarts.com/2015/11/22/rebecca-langley-and-the-pulaski-banner/ National Archives. “Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application File R. 8205, for Eleazer Phillips, South Carolina.” NAID: 196395780. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/196395780? National Park Service. “Casimir Pulaski Memorial.” https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/pulaski.htm National Park Service. “Casimir Pulaski.” Fort Pulaski National Monument. https://www.nps.gov/people/casimir-pulaski.htm Pienkos, Angela. “Bicentennial Look at Casimir Pulaski: Polish, American and Ethnic Folk Hero.” Polish American Studies , Spring, 1976, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring, 1976). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20147942 Pinkowski, Jack. “Mysteries Surrounding Casimir Pulaski.” "Bialy Orzel," April 18, 2008, p. 26-27. https://www.poles.org/L_Kaz/E_Kaz.html Pula, James S. “Pułaski at Savannah: A Journey through Fact and Fiction.” The Polish Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (2022), pp. 5-33 (29 pages). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48805968 Pula, James S. “Whose Bones Are Those?: The Casimir Pulaski Burial Controversy.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly , 2016, Vol. 100, No. 1 (2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43855885 Somers, Jennifer. “Who was Casimir Pulaski? Why does Illinois celebrate him?” KSDK. 3/6/2023. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/history/casimir-pulaski-day-illinois-meaning-first-monday-in-march/63-2698e93d-1c82-4e42-ac52-4ab47903ccde Spencer, Richard Henry. “Pulaski's Legion.” Maryland Historical Magazine. September 1918. Ungvarsky, Janine. “Casimir Pulaski.” Ebsco. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/military-history-and-science/casimir-pulaski United States Senate. “Ex. Doc. No. 120: Reports of the Secretaries of State, War, an d the Treasury, respecting the services of Count Pulaski.” Wickham, Jonathan, director. “The General was Female?” Smithsonian Channel - America's Hidden Stories. 4/8/2019. Williams, Henry. “An address delivered on laying the corner stone of a monument to Pulaski, in the city of Savannah.” Commissioners of the Monument Fund. 1855. https://archive.org/details/addressdelivered00geor/ Wizevich, Eli. “Discover the Short Life and Long Legacy of Casimir Pulaski, a Polish Cavalry Officer Who Became an American Revolutionary Hero.” Smithsonian. 3/6/2025. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discover-the-short-life-and-long-legacy-of-casimir-pulaski-a-polish-cavalry-officer-who-became-an-american-revolutionary-hero-180986162/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I was a child, the entirety of human knowledge was contained on the bottom shelf of my parents' bookcase, in alphabetical order. It was basically the internet printed out, bound in 26 volumes, and called The Encyclopedia Britannica. The problem was, you could familiarize yourself with most of it and still not know what it was like to have a girlfriend. Not that I'm speaking from experience; I'm just saying there's more to know than knowledge. I'm meditating on T.S. Eliot's “Choruses from ‘The Rock'” this week, thinking about how much truer this is in the so-called “Information Age” than it was a century ago. The endless cycle of idea and action,Endless invention, endless experiment,Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.Where is the Life we have lost in living?Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuriesBring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.Psalm 111, like the Britannica, is presented as an acrostic: the A-Z, (or, if you like, Alpha to Omega) of Wisdom. Yet it presents a very different vision of understanding than mere trivia recall, avoiding all the fascinating details and diving instead to the whole heart of the matter. Knowledge can be downloaded, transferred, quantified. Wisdom is not like that. Wisdom is relational, contextual, and fruit-bearing. Knowledge measures matter, but wisdom measures meaning. What does it all mean? Let's explore it together this Sunday. 

Boyle is frequently described at the first modern chemist, but his work encompassed much more than that. Among other things, he was a founding member of the Royal Society. Research: Boyle, Robert. “An account of Philaretus during his Minority.” Accessed online: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E650001-100.html Boyle, Robert. “New experiments physico-mechanicall.” Oxford. 1660. https://archive.org/details/chepfl-lipr-AXA74/mode/1up?q=proportional Boyle, Robert. “New experiments physico-mechanical, touching the air.” London. Richard Davis. 1682. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A29007.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext Boyle, Robert. “The Sceptical Chymist.” London. J. Crooke. 1661. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22914/pg22914.txt “Copy of Sir Robert Boyle's Will.” Brief History of Blue. https://omekas.prattsi.org/s/HistoryofBlue/item/109 “December 31, 1691: Death of Robert Boyle.” This Month in Physics History. APS News. Dec. 1, 2016. https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2016/12/this-month-in-physics-history Henderson, Felicity. “What Scientists Want: Robert Boyle’s To-do List.” The Royal Society. August 26, 2010. https://royalsociety.org/blog/2010/08/what-scientists-want-boyle-list/ Highmore, Nathaniel. “The history of generation. Examining the several opinions of divers authors, especially that of Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Discourse of bodies ...” 1651. Accessed online: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kv5tr2uz/items Martin, Christy. “Full Boyle.” Distillations Magazine. Science History Institute Museum and Library. May 13, 2012. https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/full-boyle/ Masson, Flora. “Robert Boyle: A Biography.” London: Constable & Company Ltd. 1914. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73234/pg73234.txt Principe, Lawrence M.. "Robert Boyle". Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Apr. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Boyle “Robert Boyle (1627-1691): Sherborne School library benefactor.” The Old Shirburnian Society. https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/robert-boyle-1627-1691/ “Robert Boyle: wishlist of a Restoration visionary.” The Guardian. June 3, 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/jun/03/robert-boyle-royal-society-wishlist “The Royal Society of London.” National Museum Australia. https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/exploration-and-endeavour/royal-society-london Sweeney, Patricia E. “Robert Boyle.” Ebsco. 2022. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/robert-boyle West, John B. “The Original Presentation of Boyle’s Law.” Journal of Applied Physiology 1999 87:4, 1543-1545. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1999.87.4.1543 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is for you if you've been telling yourself "business is just hard"... and wondering if that's actually true, or if maybe you're making it harder than it has to be (doh).There's a real difference between the natural messiness that comes with growth (and yes, success is messy; no that's not the problem!) and the kind of hard that happens when you're taking 30 steps when 3 would do. Today we're talking about how to tell which one you're in.I'm sharing four common ways business owners turn the messy middle into an uphill battle:The role your expectations are secretly playingThe gap between your plan and your actions (and what's actually creating it)What connection — or the lack of it — is doing to your momentumThe confidence disconnect that makes selling feel way harder than it needs toThe question I keep coming back to - one I learned from a colleague at Encyclopedia Britannica, of all places - is: what's the problem you're actually trying to solve? Because when you can answer? Everything else gets a lot simpler.You don't need to berate yourself to success. You don't need to be shoving yourself uphill. But you do need someone willing to ask you the hard question - because trust me, we are ALL very good at ducking it. Join the Uncomplicating Business Lab Community:  https://www.torpeycoaching.com/thelabGrab your free masterclass here: https://torpeycoaching.kit.com/freemasterclass

Samuel Hartlib doesn’t exactly spring to mind when thinking about influential figures of the 17th century. But he served as a sort of conduit for information and connections among them as he sought to promote his ideas regarding theology and education. Research: Britannica Editors. "Samuel Hartlib". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Mar. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Hartlib Britannica Editors. "Thirty Years’ War". Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Mar. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/event/Thirty-Years-War Britannica Editors. "John Dury". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Dury Hartlib, Samuel, OR John Dury. “A Further Discoverie Of The Office Of Public Address For Accommodations.” 1648. The Hartlib Papers. University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=main&docname=14A_02_03 Hartlib, Samuel. “Ephemerides 1635.” The Hartlib Papers. University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=main&docname=29_03_01&term0=transtext_ephemerides#highlight Hartlib, Samuel. “Ephemerides 1650.” The Hartlib Papers. University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=main&docname=28_01_49&term0=transtext_ephemerides#highlight Hartlib, Samuel. “Ephemerides 1651.” The Hartlib Papers. University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=main&docname=28_02_01&term0=transtext_ephemerides#highlight Hartlib, Samuel. “Ephemerides 1659.” The Hartlib Papers. University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=main&docname=29_08_01&term0=transtext_ephemerides#highlight McDowell, Nicholas. “The Oxford Handbook of Milton (Oxford Handbooks).” OUP Oxford. 2009. Kindle Edition. Masson, Victoria. “The Origins & Causes of the English Civil War.” Historic U.K. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Origins-of-the-English-Civil-War/ Milton, John. “Tractate on Education. A FACSIMILE REPRINT FROM THE EDITION OF 1673. EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY OSCAR BROWNING, M.Α.” Cambridge University Press. 1890. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=KzsVAAAAYAAJ&rdid=book-KzsVAAAAYAAJ&rdot=1 “Pact Signed By Dury, Comenius And Hartlib, And Later By William Hamilton.” The Hartlib Papers. March 3, 1642. The University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/hartlib/view?docset=additional&docname=7E_109T&term0=transtext_pact#highlight Trevor-Roper, Hugh. “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” Liberty Fund Indianapolis. 1967. https://web.archive.org/web/20061213185209/http://olldownload.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/TrevorRoper0256/Crisis17thC/0098_Bk.pdf Turnbull, G. H. “Samuel Hartlib’s Influence on the Early History of the Royal Society.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 10, no. 2, 1953, pp. 101–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/530806 Turnbull, G.H. “SAMUEL HAKTLIB A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND HIS RELATIONS TO J. A. COMENIUS.” Oxford University Press. 1920. https://ia801209.us.archive.org/21/items/cu31924027998859/cu31924027998859.pdf Webster, Charles. “A Portrait of Samuel Hartlib: In Search of Universal Betterment.” Open Book Publishers. 2025. Accessible online: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0486 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication guy, bringing you tips and strategies on communication that will boost your business. Now in our eighth year of producing this video, audio podcast. And as you know, I do not just share my on— my own wisdom about business communication, but I bring on an expert and our conversation will enlighten you and me both with tips and strategies that will help us boost our business. Today it’s a wonderful privilege to welcome a long-time friend, colleague, associate, mentor, Terry Brock, coming to us from Orlando, Florida. Terry Brock is a communicator and I can underscore that. Since he was a kid, in fact in second grade, he has been writing. He worked as a journalist for many years and his undergraduate degree is in communications working with radio, TV, and newspaper. Today Terry and his partner and fiancé, Gina Carr— and Gina was a recent guest on the Biz Communication Show— Terry and his fiancé, Gina Carr, have a membership program called Stark Raving Entrepreneurs where they help people build their business, leveraging the daylights out of AI and other tech. Today he joins us again to talk about what is happening and how you can move your business to the next level. So, I know you’ll join me in welcoming Terry Brock. Hello, Terry. Terry Brock: Great to be with you, Bill. Thank you for having me on board. Bill Lampton: Well, your— your introduction, which you kindly provided, did not even begin to describe your uh immense qualifications, which I’m very familiar with. Not long ago, Terry, you and I were having a visit, as a matter of fact, you and Gina came to see me here in my home in Gainesville, Georgia, and I remember asking you how many countries you had spoken in, directed seminars in, or done training in. What is that latest number? I know you’re a global presenter, what is that latest number? Terry Brock: Well, the latest as of now is uh 44 countries and counting. So, they would include um places like England and Canada and France and Dubai, and even Texas. And so, you know, a lot of different places there. Bill Lampton: Well, truly, you— you— some people call themselves a global speaker because they made one presentation outside the country, but you definitely are a global speaker. And in recognition of the great impact you’ve had globally, you have received the highest honors available from the National Speakers Association. And I still remember in 1998, I believe it was, you and I met at a National Speakers Convention, and then I had other encounters with you when you lived in Georgia and we were both members of the Georgia Chapter of the National Speakers Association. This was before you set your business and your residence in Orlando, Florida. One of the great traits that you have, and there are many as a presenter, is that you involve your audience. It’s not just [laughter] it’s not just what I would call a— a mannequin with a mouth. [laughter] Just somebody who spews out a message and hope people are getting it. And also, you’re not a novice who, when you want to get your audience involved, you say, “Hey, anybody got any questions?” and there’s this [laughter] there’s this frightening deadly silence. Share with us, please— many of us are presenters, whether we’re professional or whether we’re business and professional people— share with us some of the strategies and techniques that you use, Terry, to get your audience vocally and physically involved in the presentation. Terry Brock: Well, that’s a good question because I think that’s important when you’re connecting with people. You want to find out what it is that’s on their mind. One of the things I found a change that I’ve done recently that helps, maybe this will help some of the viewers and listeners here, often I would ask for, “What would you like to hear about? What topic do you want to hear?” And that’s good, not bad, they might say, “Well this or that.” We work do a lot with AI. So, they’d want to know about using Chat GPT for this or maybe using Gemini for this or how does this tool work, etc. Those are good, but even better is when you can do your research and then lean forward and ask people, “Where are you having problems right now? What are some of the big frustrations you’re having with technology? What’s the biggest problem you bump into with Chat GPT or what are your biggest concerns or worries about it?” Something like that, those kind of questions that are tailored for the market, whatever it is that you’re serving, does a lot better. I think in terms of what a surgeon, a physician would do, when you go into this physician’s office, the physician often doesn’t say, “Well, would you like to know more about this medicine or would you like to know about this medicine?” No, they say, “How you doing? Any pain, any hurt, anything I can do to help you out?” A really good physician will do that and so, I’ve been thinking that’s a probably a good way to do it, and I think then you respond back to the people based on where they’re hurting. And by the way, as you know this very well, Bill, today, we’re in a great shape as better than ever before. That sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true because now we can do the research and find out where are they hurting. Where are they bumping into problems? With tools like Perplexity, it does great work with research. So does Chat GPT now and Gemini and particularly Grok. Grok is giving you real-time information of what’s going on right now, particularly relevant in some areas when there’s say a crisis or an emergency going on. So, I think what we want to do is be aware of what’s possible and then always be oriented toward how do we solve their problems. Nice to talk about a topic and we’ll mention that, okay fine if it’s relevant to them, but more importantly, find out where they’re hurting, where they’re bumping into real-world pain and how we can grab a tool over here that’ll help that or a tool over here that’ll solve that problem. Bill Lampton: Audience analysis is absolutely a vital key because the presenter, whether you’re an executive or whether you’re a professional speaker, the presenter, if— if it’s a solo act, audiences today are— are not um they’re not going to stick with you, and so you need— and I see perpetually, you and I both know Lois Creamer who advises us so often about what is happening in the speaking business. And one of the points that she makes repeatedly is that we must be problem solvers. We must not just be topic experts, but we must be problem solvers. And carrying this just a little bit farther, Terry, you’ve done your audience analysis and you get up to present, and knowing you, you do not talk for 60 minutes or whatever is allowed without really getting the audience involved. And as— and as I said a few minutes ago, the old way is saying, “Hey, anybody got any questions?” [laughter] and of course, usually no one will be the first one, and there— there are none. So, how do you get true involvement, feedback, maybe a Q&A? How do you get the audience stimulated to do that, guided to do that? Terry Brock: I don’t think there’s any one particular way to do it, but there’s some things we can do today that help a lot. Like for instance, I recently spoke uh out in Texas uh to a group of people that are in landscape and in nurseries, that working with those and earning with, out of the green industry, growing just wonderful, wonderful people. And I wanted to study their industry and find out what are they going through. So, I used my buddies, as I like to say, my buddies Chat GPT, Perplexity, Grok, and some other tools out there to find out what is going on, what is bothering people in those industries out there in Texas right now. And so, I knew some of the issues that were going on, and I had some fun with it, Bill. You’ll appreciate this. What I did is I looked at what was going on, and one of the issues they’re having concern with right now is with labor— getting people to come and work for them, what the prices are going to be for labor, etc., etc., and the shortage. And so, what I did is I say, “I understand that in your industry right now, here in Texas, you’re going through uh labor issues trying to find out,” and they’re kind of shaking their head going, “Yeah, he knows what he talking about.” I say, “Let me show you a way we can figure that out,” and what I did is I reached over, grabbed my phone, went over to Chat GPT, popped it into voice mode and I said, “Chat GPT, need you to act as an expert here in Texas in the area of nursery and with grooming and growing shrubs and things like that. What is going on right now that is causing problems in labor? What are— do you see happening in that?” And it came back and gave me an extensive conversation there about what’s happening, the issues, etc. I cut it off saying, “Okay, okay, that’s real good. Hang on just a minute.” And I paused, I looked at them, I say, “Is what Chat GPT told us accurate?” And they said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s true, but uh we all know that.” I said, “Yeah, that’s right. And you want to know what he can do to tell you to get around that and work around it.” They go, “Yeah.” I say, “Okay, we just confirmed though that he knows what he’s talking about. He,” because I was using the male voice at that time, “he was there, uh give me the information to that what was said. Is that correct, correct?” And they’re all going, “Yeah.” I go, “Now, the other issue is what?” And they told me some of the issues. I said, “That’s right.” And then I said, “I repeated that back into Chat GPT, and it came up with some solutions for them, some of which they had heard, some they had not. They’re writing it down, they go, ‘Oh, this is great.’ And I said, ‘This is what’s happening right now in the industry and this is how you can do it.’ If we had more time right now, we could go further in-depth on it, but here’s how you can do it on your own.” And I gave them the instructions on what to do with Chat GPT or other LLMs. So, Bill, cycling back around to what you’re asking about, find those areas where they’re hurting, where they, your audience, has pain, and then customize it. And today, we can leverage the daylights out of these tools to help us find out what’s really going on underneath the surface because people will go— go out on Reddit, and they’ll type, “Boy, I’m really mad with this company because they did this and this and this.” And then you start watching that, does that replicate in other areas? “Oh, okay. Now we know something that’s good here.” This company has been doing this in a couple areas, people don’t like that. Guess what we need to tell that company? “Hey, yeah, listen to what people are talking about.” So, it’s like you’re getting a sneaky way to do it, but using it right here with our phones, our LLMs like Grok, Chat GPT, Gemini, and some others, Claude also a very good one. Bill Lampton: Audience analysis is absolutely a vital key because the presenter, whether you’re an executive or whether you’re a professional speaker, the presenter, if— if it’s a solo act, audiences today are— are not um they’re not going to stick with you. And so, you need— and I see perpetually, you and I both know Lois Creamer who advises us so often about what is happening in the speaking business. And one of the points that she makes repeatedly is that we must be problem solvers. We must not just be topic experts, but we must be problem solvers. And carrying this just a little bit farther, Terry, you’ve done your audience analysis and you get up to present, and knowing you, you do not talk for 60 minutes or whatever is allowed without really getting the audience involved. And as— and as I said a few minutes ago, the old way is saying, “Hey, anybody got any questions?” [laughter] And of course, usually no one will be the first one and there— there are none. So, how do you get true involvement, feedback, maybe a Q&A? How do you get the audience stimulated to do that, guided to do that? Terry Brock: I don’t think there’s any one particular way to do it, but there’s some things we can do today that help a lot. Like for instance, I recently spoke uh out in Texas uh to a group of people that are in landscape and in nurseries, that working with those and earning with, out of the green industry, growing just wonderful, wonderful people. And I wanted to study their industry and find out what are they going through. So, I used my buddies, as I like to say, my buddies Chat GPT, Perplexity, Grok, and some other tools out there to find out what is going on, what is bothering people in those industries out there in Texas right now. And so, I knew some of the issues that were going on, and I had some fun with it, Bill. You’ll appreciate this. What I did is I looked at what was going on, and one of the issues they’re having concern with right now is with labor— getting people to come and work for them, what the prices are going to be for labor, etc., etc., and the shortage. And so, what I did is I say, “I understand that in your industry right now, here in Texas, you’re going through uh labor issues trying to find out,” and they’re kind of shaking their head going, “Yeah, he knows what he talking about.” I say, “Let me show you a way we can figure that out,” and what I did is I reached over, grabbed my phone, went over to Chat GPT, popped it into voice mode and I said, “Chat GPT, need you to act as an expert here in Texas in the area of nursery and with grooming and growing shrubs and things like that. What is going on right now that is causing problems in labor? What are— do you see happening in that?” And it came back and gave me an extensive conversation there about what’s happening, the issues, etc. I cut it off saying, “Okay, okay, that’s real good. Hang on just a minute.” And I paused, I looked at them, I say, “Is what Chat GPT told us accurate?” And they said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s true, but uh we all know that.” I said, “Yeah, that’s right. And you want to know what he can do to tell you to get around that and work around it.” They go, “Yeah.” I say, “Okay, we just confirmed though that he knows what he’s talking about. He,” because I was using the male voice at that time, “he was there, uh give me the information to that what was said. Is that correct, correct?” And they’re all going, “Yeah.” I go, “Now, the other issue is what?” And they told me some of the issues. I said, “That’s right.” And then I said, “I repeated that back into Chat GPT, and it came up with some solutions for them, some of which they had heard, some they had not. They’re writing it down, they go, ‘Oh, this is great.’ And I said, ‘This is what’s happening right now in the industry and this is how you can do it.’ If we had more time right now, we could go further in-depth on it, but here’s how you can do it on your own.” And I gave them the instructions on what to do with Chat GPT or other LLMs. So, Bill, cycling back around to what you’re asking about, find those areas where they’re hurting, where they, your audience, has pain, and then customize it. And today, we can leverage the daylights out of these tools to help us find out what’s really going on underneath the surface because people will go— go out on Reddit, and they’ll type, “Boy, I’m really mad with this company because they did this and this and this.” And then you start watching that, does that replicate in other areas? “Oh, okay. Now we know something that’s good here.” This company has been doing this in a couple areas, people don’t like that. Guess what we need to tell that company? “Hey, yeah, listen to what people are talking about.” So, it’s like you’re getting a sneaky way to do it, but using it right here with our phones, our LLMs like Grok, Chat GPT, Gemini, and some others, Claude also a very good one. Bill Lampton: I remember, uh Terry, that [laughter] I was not the most technical guy ever to go into this business, and I would imagine that you remember a publicist, Raleigh Pinsky. Raleigh wrote a book on how to become highly influential, how to publicize yourself. And I go back to a time, and I’ve told this on the Biz Communication Show before, but it’s highly relevant. I go back to a time when I was just starting out and Raleigh Pinsky’s and I got on a phone conversation. She was in Arizona, I was in Georgia, and I said, “What do you think I need to learn to get started?” And she mentioned a couple of things and I said, “Oh, oh, no. That’s— that’s just way too complicated for me.” And she said, “Bill, we’re not hanging up this phone until you get this right.” And I finally did, Terry, and guess what? It was how to copy and paste on the computer. [laughter] Terry Brock: I’m thinking you still use that little ditty now every— every so often. [laughter] Bill Lampton: So, we’ve come a long way. And what amazes me so much about artificial intelligence and the particular tools that you mentioned is that when you ask a question, which is the way to really find the information, the second that you stop typing the question, AI begins giving you the answer. [laughter] And— and and um I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t try to sell an— an Encyclopedia Britannica today, Terry. [laughter] You know, we get our answers uh much more instantly, much more specifically, and there’s nothing at all outdated about them. One of the points that we observed at the start is how you’ve spoken in so many countries, how you have been awarded the highest award of the National Speakers Association. And Terry, there are people who are listening, I’m sure, who are curious about the speaking profession today. And there are some who have had some speaking experience and they’re thinking about becoming a professional speaker. So, right after this message, we want your advice on how we would go about doing that. Be back in a couple of seconds. [Commercial Break] Bill Lampton: We’re here on the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication guy, welcoming the opportunity to speak with Terry Brock, one of my long-time friends, associates, mentors, and certainly a role model. Terry, just before that short break, I mentioned that there are people who are wondering, how do you get started today? Not 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when you and I started. How do you get started today to become a professional, full-time professional speaker? Terry Brock: Well, there’s no one way to do it because it varies from a lot of people, but a way that I have seen and we’re seeing with many, many professional speakers is you want to be knowledgeable and an expert in a particular area, so that you can solve problems. As you were saying before and our friend Lois Creamer talks about that extensively. So, you want to be able to solve problems and do it in a way by presenting. But people need to know about you. Right now, competition is white-hot. There’s so many people that are speaking, that are giving information, and doing a very good job of it, too. So, you’ve got to stand out in a real good way that solves their problems. A good way that I have found works for me, works for you, Bill, and is working for many other people as well, is make sure you have a very good professional appearance on YouTube, regularly. Regular communication that you send out, being able to stay in touch with people solving their problems. If people want answers, they often go today to YouTube. YouTube has exceeded the viewers on the traditional networks, long ago. No longer are we tied to ways that it was years ago when we’d have the three networks, or then the cable stations. Today, we’re doing it on the net and YouTube is there because it can get fine-tuned. I’m amazed, and Gina and I sit and watch YouTube and are amazed at the kind of specificity and degree of influence that is out there for many different people in given fields. We have certain people that we follow in AI, certain people that we follow with um improving our lives, certain people— I like following uh the Stoic philosophy, and seeing what they’re doing. I’m a big fan of Miyamoto Musashi, the Japanese samurai warrior long ago, and people like that. I like to see those and they have a lot of channels for that. This is the beauty of it. So, I would say to get started, think about the problem you can solve first, not just what you can do or what you think is a nifty groovy idea. “Well, that’s real good, Sparky, but uh [laughter] it doesn’t really matter what you think, what matters is what they think.” So, this is where the LLMs, those large language models, AI tools can show us people are looking for help in this area, and they’re not getting enough of it. And by the way, that’s an area that you know about that’s really good or you could learn it because it’s very close. It’d be like if a medical doctor needed to learn about a given disease but she hadn’t studied that yet, she hadn’t studied as much about that, but she could easily come up to speed on it, studying on her own, studying at the University of YouTube, we call it that euphemistically, [laughter] going out there, taking in some college courses, some extra medical courses to learn that disease if a lot of people are there and it ties in with her background. That’s the way to do it today. You find out those areas where people are hurting, where they have a need, you find the— well like they told us in business school, you find a problem and you solve it. You want to find out what’s going on, and today we’ve got the research to be able to do that as never before. I was just doing some research uh before our call today on some areas that are going on and what you can trust online and what you can’t trust. And it was really revealing for me. I’m going to be sharing that later today at our Stark Raving Entrepreneurs meeting. It happens to be today we’re going to be talking about things, and showing this tool that has shown what was going on, and we knew that it was going on then, but there were other tools that were saying something different. And then they were even saying what is happening now, that’s not true, that’s misinformation, that was a term they were using, or disinformation. And yet, it really was happening and now we can look back and go, “Okay, this is good to know for the future.” That way when you know what is right, and you know what is accurate and a reliable source, and you know how to use that tool, now you got a real edge and that gives you the ability to get out and speak as a speaker. And another thing, Bill, if I could mention, right now, again I agree with you, the market has changed. It’s no longer the way it used to be in the field of professional speaking. Yes, there’s still is a place for a person standing on a stage with a microphone, real people there, talking to them. There is a place for that. We like that, we like that human connection. But also, there’s other ways we communicate— that we communicate as you and I are doing right now with video. We’re communicating with one person to many so you can do that. Our Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, we do that where we have people around the world that join us and we get a chance to solve problems and have feedback as if we were in the same room. Find out how you can do that, how you can communicate in other ways. We’re also doing a lot with writing, now more than ever, and it’s easier than ever because we can get the LLMs to help us write— not writing it for us, but as an assistant giving us the raw material that we then take and craft along with what we want. Audio is still very strong with podcasts. You can do audio-only or you can do audio and video that would be on say YouTube, where you might have an interview. This is a great way for you to solve problems. Often people talk about what we are as a professional speaker and I say that we all need to aim for being a CSP. Now, CSP has a meaning within the National Speakers Association of a Certified Speaking Professional. That’s a good thing to have for professional speakers. I encourage them to look into it. I have one myself, but I don’t mean that in this case. Here I mean CSP is a communicator who solves problems. That’s what we need to go for. Find out what the problems are, how you can solve it, and then have the skills in communication to use that, and you can learn a lot about that from the Biz Communication guy, Bill Lampton. Those of you watching this, I’m going to embarrass Bill a little bit here but uh he is incredibly good. He also has his doctorate, a real doctorate in communication. He has helped many people with this, and he can help you with these kind of areas and more. So, get in touch with this young man. He’s got some real wisdom. Bill Lampton: Thank you for that very kind endorsement, Terry. I am— I am a— a true devotee of YouTube. To me, this is a visual encyclopedia that— that is— it’s in your and my price range. [laughter] We get so much free advice there on practically any topic from a great range of experts. And I remember you and I were having a conversation, as we do often sharing ideas, about a year and a half ago. I mentioned to you that I had started doing YouTube Shorts, which is 60 seconds or less. And you said, “Bill, that’s a good idea.” Well, Terry, I now produce, while I continue to host interviews such as this, I now produce three 60-second-or-less YouTube Shorts a week because you and I know and all of our viewers and listeners know that our attention span is not what it was even 20 years ago. There was a time when people would listen to very long monologues or even very long dialogue, but we want it quickly now and so, I— I have found value in YouTube Shorts and I assume you’re producing those as well. Terry Brock: Oh yeah, I find them really helpful because people want information quickly and you can get a lot of views that way. People get a chance to know you and then it can lead to your long-form videos which would be there and what they do. Actually, the way YouTube does it now, it was 60 seconds and now they say it can be three minutes or less, which is okay, but Bill, you’re right on target once again. 60 seconds and less gets more views because people think three minutes, boy, that’s a long time. Huh? [laughter] But they’re thinking of it that way. So, we’ve got to adapt and change to the market. And that’s the important whenever we’re alive, we’ve got to say not— let me— don’t let me tell you about what’s happened in the past, I mean, that’s— we— that’s nice, but when you think about it, Bill, when you and I were younger, when I say think of uh like 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s around in there, there were things that people were looking at that were in the past at that time. Well, what we’ve got to always do throughout history is say, what are people looking for now? Right now, right now. Now, we can bring in what we had in the past, you and I talking about uh Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, Seneca, and people like that, the Stoics like that, that’s good. Their wisdom is still good today and that’s what we can bring in versus some of the styles and customs that might have been valid in the 1820s or the 1840s or the 1900s. Whatever it is, that’s okay. What we’ve got to do is focus on what people want right now. Bill Lampton: Terry, we have time for one more question. I invite you to tell us about something I mentioned in the introduction, Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, which is your weekly grand training opportunity. Tell us the format, what happens, and also, how do we get access to that? Terry Brock: Well, thank you for asking. It’s a program that’s designed to help entrepreneurs who uh want to get out there and do things on their own, serving a market by using technology particularly. Using video was one thing we did, we were actually called Video Rockstars before we became Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. But now what we do is we show people every week, like today we’re going to do that, how to use certain tools and how to make that work to translate into business. How to use AI, how to use Grok, how to use Chat GPT, how to use these. Matter of fact, today, I’m going to be talking about Grok in key areas where you can use that tool to generate business, to do research, to create magnificent videos more than you can in other places, and the audio as well. These kind of things that are available. So, Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, we give people an opportunity to build their business the way they want and we build it on a rock-solid foun— philosophy that we both, Gina and I, embrace and that is, live and let live. Do whatever you want in life. Bill Lampton: How do we— how do we access uh that? Is it a membership deal or is it just come in and— and watch or what— what’s the deal on that, Terry? Terry Brock: Yeah, it’s a membership and we offer the opportunity for people to get involved. Come over to starkravingentrepreneurs.com. If you go to starkravingentrepreneurs.com, you’ll find the information there, all of it’s there. And uh let us know and if you got a specific question, drop me a note. I’m terry@terrybrock.com and be happy to help you and work with you on that because you need to ex— do the things you want to do in life. As long as you’re not harming someone else, get out there and have fun, learn it and build your business. It’s really the best way to secure your future and those of your loved ones is to have your own business where you’re not dependent on anyone else, but you can do it on your own and make the world a better place. Bill Lampton: I certainly endorse Stark Raving Entrepreneurs and I encourage every viewer and listener to check into that. Terry, as always, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing you periodically on the Biz Communication Show and always, you’re not contemporary, you’re way ahead of contemporary. [laughter] You’re a— you’re a pace setter and anytime important change comes along that we need to be aware of, you’ve— you’ve got on the leader’s cap. You learn it and then, very fortunately for the rest of us, you translate it into our lingo and you help us learn these vast new accessories, or I’ll call them really necessities, that we need for success. Certainly, we have viewers and listeners who want your contact information, so will you share that with us, please? Terry Brock: Yes, and you can reach me at terry@terrybrock.com. And those of you that might be joining with audio, Terry and Brock can be spelled different ways, so Terry is T-E-R-R-Y and Brock is spelled the right way, B-R-O-C-K. So, terry@terrybrock.com, and I answer all of those requests that I can get to, which is usually 100%, so I’ll look forward to hearing from you on that. Bill Lampton: Thank you, Terry. And I— I believe that Terry Brock, if I were to look back over three decades, if I were to look at the top three coaches, mentors, colleagues who have taught me and who have encouraged me and who have supported me, Terry Brock would be in that top three, there’s no question about it. Terry Brock: Thank you, Bill. Bill Lampton: And now I’d like to give my contact information. My YouTube channel is Bill Lampton, PhD. On there, you— in fact, I go back, Terry, to 2007 when I started recording instructional videos about communication. And many of those are solo presentations, but in the last eight years, the Biz Communication Show has been hosting experts. So, I hope and encourage you to, when you go to my YouTube channel, Bill Lampton, PhD, to subscribe there. Then, my website, since my tagline is Biz Communication guy, logically, my website is bizcommunicationguy.com. When you’re there, you’ll have an opportunity, which I invite you to take, to subscribe to my podcast, which I hope you will do. And then I welcome telephone conversations so that I can hear what your communication problems and challenges are, explore solutions, find if I’m the resource that you need to work with, or do I refer you to someone else. And an initial call like that has no financial involvement. That number, 678-316-4300. Before we close, I want to recognize the co-producer of the Biz Communication Show, Mike Stewart, Nashville-based. He’s been a marketing and technology guide for me for many years. And his website is localinternetpresence.com. Terry Brock, again, so many gems of wisdom, so many guidelines from a genuine unquestionable expert, and that’s you. So, please tell us how you would sort of pull together our conversation today and leave us with a minute and a minute and a half of what I might say are— are some nuggets or some gems that we really ought to remember and act on? Terry Brock: We are living in an exciting time right now. It’s also very scary when we see AI changing our world profoundly, really every day, new things happen, it can get scary, but there’s great opportunities for those who can understand what’s happening and then be able to take that and use it to do good for others. Helping others out, helping them to achieve their goals is the way to do it. When you can help others get what they want, you’ll be able to get whatever you want, my buddy Zig Ziglar said that long ago, that you can get anything you want if you help enough other people get what they want. Take the power that’s available with AI and all these other little tools that are out there, that can help you to serve others better, to help them meet their needs, and by doing that, you’ll have the lifestyle that you want, the future that you want. The more you can help them, the better off you’ll be. Bill, it’s an honor to be with you as always. I appreciate you and for those of you watching it, get to know this guy. I know him one-on-one, he is genuine, sincere, and he really knows his stuff with a real PhD. I mean, he earned it and all that. So, he’s a guy you want to get to know for your communication, to get better and better. Bill, thank you so much for having me with you today. Bill Lampton: My privilege and keep that calendar handy because as you know, I will call on you again. And three months from now, we— we will have other remarkable changes that you have mastered and we’ll be calling on you, so keep that calendar handy. Terry Brock: You bet. Bill Lampton: Thanks to those of you who joined us for this dynamic conversation with Terry Brock on the video and on the audio portions of the Biz Communication Show. Invite you to be with us again next week for another informative, interesting, exciting, and beneficial version of the Biz Communication Show. I’m Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication guy.

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Joshua Bate, founder of Bonfires.ai and DeciWorld, for a wide-ranging conversation covering knowledge management, graph technology, ontologies, decentralized science, and the future of how humans organize and share information. They break down the differences between personal and enterprise knowledge management, explore why flat ontological graphs may be the key to making diverse knowledge bases interoperable, and get into why traditional RAG systems break down at scale and how graph RAG offers a more principled solution. The conversation expands into the philosophy of categorization, the slow death of basic "gentleman science" under institutional pressures, and how decentralized protocols might restore a kind of mycelial knowledge network connecting small groups of researchers, enthusiasts, and communities — much like the original spirit of the encyclopedia before it was co-opted by institutions. You can learn more about Joshua's work at bonfires.ai and deci.world or follow him on X at @Bonfiresai and @DeSciWorld.Timestamps00:00 - Stewart introduces Joshua Bate, founder of Bonfires.ai, discussing personal versus enterprise knowledge management and their fundamental differences at scale.05:00 - Joshua explains ontologies as classifiers for knowledge structures, describing their two-year search for a perfect ontology and ultimately building a flat, ontology-less graph protocol.10:00 - Stewart connects categorization to shamanic practice and intercategorical theory, noting how major companies like Netflix and Yahoo built graph-based ontologies while the discipline remains underappreciated philosophically.15:00 - Joshua traces Bonfires origins through decentralized science, explaining how NFT community excitement inspired redirecting capital toward funding unconventional researchers locked out of institutional systems.20:00 - Joshua describes building federated knowledge networks through hackathons and conferences, comparing the vision to what Wikipedia could have been with decentralized incentive structures.25:00 - Discussion shifts toward inevitable collapse of rigid scientific institutions, debating patchwork age theory, nation-state fragmentation, and rhizomatic versus arboreal knowledge structures.30:00 - Joshua articulates the mycelial network vision, enabling direct cross-cultural information access where individuals control their own narrative lens, warning against collective we thinking and authoritarianism.Key Insights1. Knowledge management exists on a spectrum from personal to enterprise, but the founder of Bonfires argues this split is artificial. He believes knowledge itself does not respect those boundaries, and that small groups, researchers, hobbyists, and large institutions all possess knowledge that can and should interoperate with each other.2. After two and a half years of searching for the perfect ontology to structure their knowledge graph, the team concluded that no perfect ontology exists. Their solution was to build the flattest possible graph structure with only events, entities, and edges, creating a base layer others can build specialized ontologies on top of.3. Graph-based knowledge systems are more efficient than traditional databases for AI traversal because once a graph is computed, it is relatively free to query. Graph RAG combines the discovery power of vector search with the structured precision of graph traversal, solving many hallucination problems associated with standard retrieval augmented generation.4. Basic scientific research, the soil from which applied discoveries grow, is deteriorating because institutional funding structures only reward commercially viable outcomes. The founder built his platform partly to redirect community-driven capital toward researchers who are doing important work without institutional support.5. The institutionalization of science has historically blocked the open exchange of ideas that drove the original scientific revolution. The human spirit for open inquiry has not changed, but people cannot pursue it without financial support, and building decentralized infrastructure could restore that possibility.6. A federated knowledge network would allow individuals to access information from any contributor and filter it through their own preferred lens, rather than receiving information pre-filtered by centralized platforms. This represents a form of information symmetry similar to how mycelial networks distribute nutrients across a forest.7. The concern is not whether current scientific and governmental institutions will change but in what direction the rebuilding goes. Those capitalizing on the transition carry the same incentives as the previous era, which risks reproducing the same problems inside new structures.

There are so many things in our modern world that we presume are fairly recent inventions. But the three things we’re going to talk about in this instance are quite old, but they have close associations with the recent past. Research: Abbott, David, PhD., ed. “The Biographical Book of Scientists: Engineers and Inventors.” Peter Bedrick Books. New York. 1985. “Bad Breath.” Medline Plus. https://medlineplus.gov/badbreath.html#:~:text=Teenagers-,Summary,help%20give%20you%20fresher%20breath. Berlin, Erika. “‘The Myriad Reflector’: The Early, Forgotten Disco Ball.” Mental Floss. May 21, 2015. https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/myriad-reflector-early-forgotten-disco-ball Britannica Editors. "aeolipile". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Jun. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/technology/aeolipile Britannica Editors. "Heron of Alexandria". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria Garber, David. “Meet Me Under the Disco Ball: A History of Nightlife’s Most Enduring Symbol.” Vice. June 4, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-me-under-the-disco-ball-a-history-of-nightlifes-most-enduring-symbol/ Handwerk, Brian. “The History and Science Behind Your Terrible Breath.” Smithsonian. Feb. 13, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/halitosis-horrors-how-bad-breath-became-americas-worst-nightmare-180962104/ HØYRUP, JENS. “A NEW EDITION OF THE METRICA OF HERON OF ALEXANDRIA.” Physis. Vol. LIII. 2018. http://akira.ruc.dk/~jensh/Publications/2018%7BR%7D06_A%20New%20Edition%20of%20the%20Metrica%20of%20Heron%20of%20Alexandria_S.pdf Hughes, J. Donald. “Hero of Alexandria.” Ebsco. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/hero-alexandria Mendell, H. “Hero and the tradition of the circle segment.” Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 77, 451–499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00407-023-00308-y “Mint! From the Ancient World to Modern Manchester.” Manchester Museum. Aug. 17, 2018. https://storiesfromthemuseumfloor.wordpress.com/2018/08/17/mint-from-the-ancient-world-to-modern-manchester/#:~:text=The%20ancient%20Egyptians%20invented%20breath%20mints%20to,*%20Severely%20worn%20teeth%20*%20Tooth%20loss “Myriad Reflector Will Feature Annual Fall Opening Odeon Ball.” Great Falls leader. Sept. 4, 1921. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1018804435/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 “Plant of the Month: Mint.” JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/plant-of-the-month-mint/ Pliny the Elder. “The Natural History.” Translated by John Bostock and Henry T. Riley. Taylor & Francis. London. 1855. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/50041 Rossen, Jake. “All That Glitters: A History of the Disco Ball.” Mental Floss. Dec. 30, 2021. https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/music/disco-ball-facts-history “Saltair.” Salt Lake Telegram. June 13, 1921. https://www.newspapers.com/image/288643722/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 Smith, Grafton Elliot, et al. “The Papyrus Ebers.” Ares Publishers. Chicago. 1974. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924073200077&seq=5 “Strike the Banners.” The Kentucky Post. August 31, 1945. https://www.newspapers.com/image/760821309/?match=1&terms=%22L.%20B.Woeste%22 “Wonderful Falls Short of Expressing the Grandeur of the Rotary Charity Ball.” The Piqua Daily Call. Jan. 26, 1917. https://www.newspapers.com/image/935844964/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 Woeste, L.B. “Myriad Reflector.” U.S. Patent Office. Feb. 6, 1917. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9e/4c/73/00bfc626d3f664/US1214863.pdf Woeste, L.B. “Myriad Reflector.” U.S. Patent Office. March 13, 1928. https://ppubs.uspto.gov/api/pdf/downloadPdf/1662554?requestToken=eyJzdWIiOiIyM2QyOTAxNi1iNjVhLTRkNTAtYWEyOS0zZjAyOWMwYmZiMWUiLCJ2ZXIiOiJmZjg4ZmU5Yy1iOTA2LTQxZDUtYTQxMS02MGM5Mzk3NTk0YzYiLCJleHAiOjB9 “Woeste Rites Are Set.” Cincinatti Enquirer. April 11, 1933. https://www.newspapers.com/image/103141821/?article=7dc922a9-f0a9-42b8-a61e-f9e92a7b3557&terms=%22Louis%20B.%20Woeste%22 Woodcroft, Bennet, ed. “The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria.” Taylor Walton and Maberly. London. 1851. Accessed online: https://www.thehopkinthomasproject.com/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Hero/index-2.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Graunt was a shopkeeper in 17th-century London who followed his own curiosity to a rather grand result. His work gave rise to the fields of demography and epidemiology. Research: Berke, Olaf, et al. “Celebration day: 400th birthday of John Graunt, citizen scientist of London.” Environmental Health Review. 63(3): 67-69. 2020. https://doi.org/10.5864/d2020-018 Britannica Editors. "John Graunt". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Graunt Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Sir William Petty." Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Apr. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/money/William-Petty Clark, Andrew. “Aubrey’s ‘Brief Lives.’” Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1898. https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/briefliveschiefl01aubruoft/briefliveschiefl01aubruoft.pdf Connor, Henry. “John Graunt F.R.S. (1620-74): The founding father of human demography, epidemiology and vital statistics.” Journal of medical biography 32,1 (2024): 57-69. doi:10.1177/09677720221079826 Eschner, Kat. “People Have Been Using Big Data Since the 1600s.” Smithsonian. April 24, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-using-big-data-1600s-180962949/ Glass, D.V., et al. “John Graunt and His Natural and Political Observations [and Discussion].” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 159, No. 974, A Discussion on Demography (Dec. 10, 1963), pp. 2-37 Published by: The Royal Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/90480 Graunt, John. “Natural and political observations mentioned in a following index, and made upon the Bills of mortality.” Oxford : Printed by William Hall, for John Martyn, and James Allestry, printers to the Royal Society MDCLXV [1665]. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2356017R KARGON, ROBERT. “John Graunt, Francis Bacon, and the Royal Society: The Reception of Statistics.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 18, no. 4, 1963, pp. 337–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24621352 Kelsey, Holly. “Sovereign and the Sick City in 1603.” Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Aug. 23, 2016. https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/sovereign-and-sick-city-1603/ Lewin, C. G. "Graunt, John (1620–1674), statistician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. August 08, 2024. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-11306 Pepys, Samuel. “The Diary of Samuel Pepys.” GEORGE BELL & SONS. London. 1893. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4200/pg4200.txt Smith, R.M. (2008). “Graunt, John (1620–1674).” The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_758-2 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He's running a newsletter with over a million subscribers and an engagement rate that turns traditional wisdom on its head. Sean Devlin, a veteran in the newsletter space, pulled back the curtain to reveal the strategies behind his success. Having scaled "Nice News" to over 800,000 subscribers before its acquisition by Encyclopedia Britannica, and currently running "All Healthy" with an astounding 1.3 million subscribers and a 52% open rate, Sean is doing something different. He shares his unconventional approach to content, monetization, and growth that prioritizes reader value and long-term relationships over short-term metrics. If you're building an audience and want them to genuinely look forward to your emails, this episode is packed with actionable insights you won't want to miss.Timestamps:00:00 Introduction01:01 The power of habit-forming newsletter sections02:47 Why creators get email formats wrong04:09 The long-term perspective on engagement metrics06:40 Balancing clickbait with true value07:19 Achieving high open rates with a massive list09:46 Monetization through seamless sponsorships18:01 The art of increasing sponsorship rates20:56 Taking responsibility for advertiser performance22:14 Newsletter design and structure essentials27:10 Leveraging lead magnets and quizzes for acquisition30:51 Optimizing for subscriber payback period38:38 The content creation flywheel45:30 The overlooked importance of newsletter design47:27 Crafting an engaging newsletter opening51:11 Fixing underperforming emailsIf you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe, share it with your friends, and leave a review. I read every single one.Learn more about the podcast: https://nathanbarry.com/showFollow Nathan:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanbarryLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanbarryX: https://twitter.com/nathanbarryYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thenathanbarryshowWebsite: https://nathanbarry.comKit: https://kit.comFollow Sean:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seancdevlinAll Healthy: https://www.allhealthy.comFeatured in this episode:Kit: https://www.kit.comFeedly: https://feedly.comAirtable: https://www.airtable.comMidjourney: https://www.midjourney.comSpark Loop: https://www.sparkloop.appHighlights:01:01 – Designing sections for reader habit formation07:19 – Maintaining 50%+ open rates with 1.3M subscribers09:46 – Integrating sponsorships seamlessly within content15:01 – Iterating on flexible pricing for sponsors22:14 – Importance of visual design in newsletter trust30:51 – Reducing subscriber payback period strategies45:30 – Why newsletter design is a critical hot take

The Memphis Massacre was a truly horrific wave of destruction and violence, including sexual violence, against the Black community of Memphis just a year after the end of the U.S. Civil War. Research: “Memphis Daily Appeal Interviews Frances Thompson (1876),” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed April 9, 2026, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/3717. “The Outrage Mill.” The North Missouri Register. 9/14/1876. “The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made during the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress, 1865-’66.” Washington: Government Printing Office. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/SERIALSET-01274_00_00-002-0101-0000/context Blank, Christopher. “Do The Words 'Race Riot' Belong On A Historic Marker In Memphis?” Code Switch. NPR. 5/2/2016. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/02/476450908/in-memphis-a-divide-over-how-to-remember-a-massacre-150-years-later Britannica Editors. "Memphis massacre of 1866". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/event/Memphis-Race-Riot. Accessed 8 April 2026. Carriere, Marius. “An Irresponsible Press: Memphis Newspapers and the 1866 Riot.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly , Spring 2001, Vol. 60, No. 1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42628498 Davis, Justin A. “How a disabled Black trans woman left her mark on 19th-century Memphis.” The Emancipator. 6/13/2024. https://theemancipator.org/2024/06/13/topics/histories/how-a-disabled-black-trans-woman-left-her-mark-on-19th-century-memphis/ Donald, Bernice Bouie. “When the Rule of Law Breaks Down: Implications of the 1866 Memphis Massacre for the Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Boston Law Review. Vol. 98. 2018. Equal Justice Institute. “On this day - Apr 30, 1866: White Police and Mobs Terrorize and Kill Black Residents in Memphis.” https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/apr/30 Harper’s Weekly. “The Memphis Riots.” 5/26/1866. Johnson, Charles F. and T.W. Gilbreth. “The Freedmen’s Bureau Report on the Memphis Race Riots of 1866.” 5/22/1866. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-freedmens-bureau-report-on-the-memphis-race-riots-of-1866/ Kimberley, Lewis. “’If you kill him, you have got to kill me first’: examining individual and collective loyalties during the Memphis Massacre (1866).” American Nineteenth Century History. Vol. 25, 2024. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14664658.2024.2316465 O’Donovan, Susan and Beverly Bond. “ ‘A History They Can Use’: The Memphis Massacre and Reconstruction’s Public History Terrain.” The Journal of the Civil War Era. 8/15/2016. https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2016/08/history-can-use-memphis-massacre-reconstructions-public-history-terrain/ Stryker, Susan. “To Appear As We Please.” Aperture, Winter 2017, No. 229, Future Gender. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44898154 Walker, Barrington. “'This is the White Man's Day': The Irish, White Racial Identity, and the 1866 Memphis Riots.” Left History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997. https://doi.org/10.25071/1913-9632.5336 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humans have been exchanging tokens of friendship since before recorded history. From calling cards to Valentines to Christmas cards, the modern greeting card industry evolved. Research: “America’s First Christmas Card.” Albany Institute of History and Art. https://www.albanyinstitute.org/online-exhibition/50-objects/section/america-s-first-christmas-card Britannica Editors. "scarab". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Apr. 2014, https://www.britannica.com/topic/scarab Britannica Editors. "greeting card". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/greeting-card Brown, Ellen F. “Christmas, Inc.: A Brief History of the Holiday Card.” JSTOR Daily. Dec. 20, 2015. https://daily.jstor.org/history-christmas-card-holiday-card/ Chase, Ernest Dudley. “The Romance of Greeting Cards.” Rust Craft. Cambridge, MA. 1956. “Dali at Hallmark.” Hallmark Art Collection. https://www.hallmarkartcollection.com/creatively-thinking/stories/dali-at-hallmark/ “Esther Howland 1847.” Mount Holyoke. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/directory/alum/esther-howland Evans, Elaine Altman. “The Sacred Scarab, Occasional Paper.” McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. University of Tennessee. January 1, 1996. https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/1996/01/01/sacred-scarab/ Greeting Card Association. “The History of Greeting Cards.” https://www.greetingcard.org/history/ Hanc, John. “The History of the Christmas Card.” Smithsonian. Dec. 9, 2015. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-christmas-card-180957487/ Henry, William E. “Art and Cultural Symbolism: A Psychological Study of Greeting Cards.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 6, no. 1, 1947, pp. 36–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/426176 Kavanagh, Marybeth. “Louis Prang, Father of the American Christmas Card.” The New York Historical. Dec. 19, 2012. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/prang Koon, Wee Kek. “How ancient Chinese new year cards went from elites’ greetings to bribery instruments.” South China Morning Post. Jan. 31, 2026. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/chinese-culture/article/3341675/how-ancient-chinese-new-year-cards-went-elites-greetings-bribery-instruments?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article Korolkov, Maxim. “‘Greeting Tablets’ in Early China: Some Traits of the Communicative Etiquette of Officialdom in Light of Newly Excavated Inscriptions.” T’oung Pao, vol. 98, no. 4/5, 2012, pp. 295–348. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41725988 Lee, Ruth Webb. “A History of Valentines.” 1984. Newberry, Percy E. “Scarabs: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian Seals and Signet Rings.” London. Archibald Constable and Co. Ltd. 1908. https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft.pdf Purcell, Denise. “Authentic Messaging and Independent Makers Drive Greeting Cards' Next-Gen Relevance.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce. https://www.uschamber.com/co/good-company/launch-pad/greeting-card-next-gen-relevance#:~:text=The%20category%20is%20massive:%20According,card%20market%20at%20$7%20billion. Grafton, Samuel. “Holly Leaf and Copper Plate.” The North American Review, vol. 226, no. 6, 1928, pp. 660–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25110633 Shoichet, Catherine E. “This ‘visionary’ woman changed the way many Americans celebrate Valentine’s Day.” CNN. Feb. 14, 2024. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/13/style/esther-howland-valentines-card-history-cec Schmidt, Leigh Eric. “The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the Culture of Consumption, 1870-1930.” The Journal of American History, vol. 78, no. 3, 1991, pp. 887–916. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2078795 Stupperich, Andy. “Art Education: Louis Prang's Christmas Card Competitions.” The Henry Ford Museum. January 29, 2026. https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/articles/art-education-louis-prang%27s-christmas-card-competitions Terrell, Ellen. “Esther Howland and the Business of Love.” Library of Congress. March 23, 2016. https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2016/03/esther-howland-and-the-business-of-love/ “World's first printed Valentine's Card.” A History of the World. BBC. 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/L1NM_6mWRymAMKXcRDlXJA Wright, Helena E. “A winning design: Prang’s Christmas card contests of the 1880s.” National Museum of American History. December 23, 2019. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/winning-design-prangs-christmas-card-contests-1880s See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you stuck in a loop of starting and stopping? In this powerful episode of The Consistency Queen, host Elsa Morgan reveals the hidden pattern holding you back, and exactly how to escape it for good.If you've ever:Wanted to invest in yourself but held back at the last secondStarted posting content authentically… then stoppedFelt like your own thoughts are sabotaging your successRepeated the same limiting decisions over and over…this video is for you.Elsa shares the exact mindset shift that helped her go from bankruptcy in 2009 to building a multi-million dollar business. She explains how outdated beliefs (like using an old Encyclopedia Britannica) keep you stuck, and how journaling + intentional thought replacement can rewire your behavior, emotions, and results.You'll learn:Why your thoughts dictate your behavior and outcomesHow to identify patterns that keep you in the loopThe #1 reason you keep self-sabotagingHow to become an emotionally mastered version of yourselfWhy your past struggles (even bankruptcy) can become your biggest blessingElsa also names two key resources that transformed her journey:

Celebrating 15 Years of Public Art and Community Engagement - A Conversation with Conrad BennerJoin us as we explore the vibrant art scene in Philadelphia with Conrad Benner, founder of Streets Department, a platform dedicated to documenting and promoting public art for over 15 years. Discover insights about community-led projects, the impact of murals, and the future of urban art and media.Timestamps:00:04 - Introduction and overview of Philadelphia's thriving art scene01:17 - Conrad's role and daily work with Streets Department02:30 - The podcast journey and collaborations with WHYY and ROHOM03:44 - Discussing the importance of long-form conversations and media independence06:27 - Social media strategies: humor, virality, and community storytelling07:47 - Supporting artists and public art through independent platforms and Patreon11:45 - Highlights of key projects and impactful moments over 15 years13:01 - The influence of community-led murals and public art programs14:00 - The success of the 24/7 transit petition and its impact15:02 - Public transit challenges and advocacy in Philadelphia16:53 - Broader issues: taxes, infrastructure, and city funding18:10 - The power of urban planning and rail infrastructure in Philadelphia19:34 - The significance of murals and community stories in public spaces21:14 - Future aspirations: writing a book and expanding public art projects24:30 - Upcoming mural projects celebrating LGBTQ+ leaders in the Gayborhood29:23 - The enduring importance of storytelling, conversation, and community engagementAbout Streets DeptFounded as a photo-blog in January 2011, Streets Dept has grown into a multi-platform showcase of Philadelphia public art and public space. We discover and celebrate commissioned and non-commissioned art on the streets and in the public spaces of Philadelphia. And sometimes we also curate it! We believe deeply that the public space has a profound effect on us as individuals and on our city as a whole, and our purpose is to explore how all of us build and use public spaces creatively. You can find our work here on the blog, across social media (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Threads), on our Patreon, in our publications, on our monthly walking tours, and, of course, on the streets.Streets Dept was the winner of the Philadelphia Geek Award for ‘Geek Culture Journalism' (2011); named one of the ‘Best Blogs for Travellers' by The Guardian (2013); beat out the one-and-only Gritty to win of the ‘Never Delete Your Account‘ award at the first annual Billy Penn awards, The Billies (2019); and has been notably mentioned by Time Magazine (2011), Encyclopedia Britannica (2012), Instagram (2014), Mashable (2015), Thrillist (2016), Philadelphia Style Magazine (2016), Philly Voice (2016), Highsnobiety (2017), Curbed National (2017), Travel + Leisure (2018), Artblog (2019), South Philly Review (2021), 6 ABC (2021), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2021), Philadelphia Gay News (2022), Philadelphia Magazine (2022), The Philadelphia Inquirer (2023), NBC's 1st Look (2023), and The New York Times (2023), among others! About Conrad Benner, Founder/EditorConrad Benner is the Founder/Editor of StreetsDept.com. A Fishtown, Philadelphia born-and-raised photo-blogger, curator (Streets Dept Walls and Mural Arts Philadelphia), and podcaster (WHYY's Art Outside), Conrad's work explores the art of our public spaces and the artists who create it. Resources & Links:Streets DepartmentMural Arts PhiladelphiaConnect with Conrad Benner: • InstagramFollow us and our links here: https://bio.site/em3ry

After returning to Russia, Kropotkin was captured and imprisoned. But his life took many turns from there, and in 1902 he published his book book “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.” Research: "Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003701/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=ed5ae018. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Adams, Matthew S. “Rejecting the American Model: Peter Kropotkin’s Radical Communism.” History of Political Thought , Spring 2014, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring 2014). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26227268 Avrich, Paul, Miller, Martin A. "Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Alekseyevich-Kropotkin. Accessed 23 March 2026. Avrich, Paul. “Kropotkin in America.” International Review of Social History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 1 – 34 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859000006192. Davis, Mike. “Kropotkin and Climate Change.” Transnational Institute of Social Ecology. 1/4/2018. https://trise.org/2018/01/04/kropotkin-and-climate-change/ Kinna, Ruth. “Kropotkin's Theory of Mutual Aid in Historical Context.” International Review of Social History , AUGUST 1995, Vol. 40, No. 2. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44583751 Kropotkin, P. “Fields, Factories, and Workshops: or Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work.” G.P. Putnam’s Sons. New York and London. 1913. Kropotkin, P. “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.” London. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1906. Kropotkin, P. “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.” New York. McClure Phillips & Co. 1902. Kropotkin, Peter Alexeievich. "Memoirs of a Revolutionist." Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 11-13. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3456600019/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f35f5dcf. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Kropotkin, Peter. “Anarchism.” Encyclopedia Britannica 11th 1911. Kropotkin, Peter. “The Conquest of Bread.” New York. Vanguard Press. 1926. Macauley, David. "Anarchism." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2009, pp. 38-40. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3234100023/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=d3a1d4db. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Montpetit, Mathilde. “Peter Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899).” The Public Domain Review. 1/13/2026. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kropotkin-memoirs/ Moron, Gary Saul. “Kropotkin’s dead goose.” The New Criterion February 2022. Prince P. A. Kropotkin. Nature 106, 735–736 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/106735a0 Quinn, Adam. “’Abolish the Monopolizing of the Earth’: Nature, Science, and the Environmental Politics of Transnational Anarchism.” Radical History Review. Issue 145 (January 2023). DOI 10.1215/01636545-10063606 Saytanov, Sergey V. “The Anarchist Who Stood Up to Lenin and the Bolshevik Coup of October 1917.” History News Network. July 19, 2015. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-anarchist-who-stood-up-to-lenin-and-the-bolshe Vollaro, Daniel. “When Anarchists Speak of Thoreau.” The Thoreau Society Bulletin, Spring 2016, No. 293 (Spring 2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44651625 Wills, Matthew. “Peter Kropotkin, the Prince of Mutual Aid.” JSTOR Daily. 2/4/2025. https://daily.jstor.org/peter-kropotkin-the-prince-of-mutual-aid/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Kropotkin was incredibly influential in the development of anarchism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Part one of this subject focuses on the formative moments in his early life that contributed to his becoming an anarchist communist. Research: "Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003701/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=ed5ae018. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Adams, Matthew S. “Rejecting the American Model: Peter Kropotkin’s Radical Communism.” History of Political Thought , Spring 2014, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring 2014). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26227268 Avrich, Paul, Miller, Martin A. "Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Alekseyevich-Kropotkin. Accessed 23 March 2026. Avrich, Paul. “Kropotkin in America.” International Review of Social History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 1 – 34 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859000006192. Davis, Mike. “Kropotkin and Climate Change.” Transnational Institute of Social Ecology. 1/4/2018. https://trise.org/2018/01/04/kropotkin-and-climate-change/ Kinna, Ruth. “Kropotkin's Theory of Mutual Aid in Historical Context.” International Review of Social History , AUGUST 1995, Vol. 40, No. 2. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44583751 Kropotkin, P. “Fields, Factories, and Workshops: or Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work.” G.P. Putnam’s Sons. New York and London. 1913. Kropotkin, P. “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.” London. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1906. Kropotkin, P. “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.” New York. McClure Phillips & Co. 1902. Kropotkin, Peter Alexeievich. "Memoirs of a Revolutionist." Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 11-13. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3456600019/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f35f5dcf. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Kropotkin, Peter. “Anarchism.” Encyclopedia Britannica 11th 1911. Kropotkin, Peter. “The Conquest of Bread.” New York. Vanguard Press. 1926. Macauley, David. "Anarchism." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2009, pp. 38-40. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3234100023/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=d3a1d4db. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026. Montpetit, Mathilde. “Peter Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899).” The Public Domain Review. 1/13/2026. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kropotkin-memoirs/ Moron, Gary Saul. “Kropotkin’s dead goose.” The New Criterion February 2022. Prince P. A. Kropotkin. Nature 106, 735–736 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/106735a0 Quinn, Adam. “’Abolish the Monopolizing of the Earth’: Nature, Science, and the Environmental Politics of Transnational Anarchism.” Radical History Review. Issue 145 (January 2023). DOI 10.1215/01636545-10063606 Saytanov, Sergey V. “The Anarchist Who Stood Up to Lenin and the Bolshevik Coup of October 1917.” History News Network. July 19, 2015. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-anarchist-who-stood-up-to-lenin-and-the-bolshe Vollaro, Daniel. “When Anarchists Speak of Thoreau.” The Thoreau Society Bulletin, Spring 2016, No. 293 (Spring 2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44651625 Wills, Matthew. “Peter Kropotkin, the Prince of Mutual Aid.” JSTOR Daily. 2/4/2025. https://daily.jstor.org/peter-kropotkin-the-prince-of-mutual-aid/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join me this week as I delve into the history of reincarnation, the idea that, when you die, you can be reborn into the body of another. Where did the idea come from? Who believes in it today? And what evidence is there to support it? Let's fix that. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Medium "Reincarnation"Readers Digest "Chilling Reincarnation Stories: Meet 6 People Who Lived Before"Institute of Noetic Sciences "Exploring the History of Reincarnation Beliefs"Indian Journal of Psychiatry "The mystery of reincarnation"Encyclopedia Britannica "Reincarnation"Wikipedia "Reincarnation"Shoot me a message! Support the show

What if everything you think you know about nutrition is backwards… and the true source of all nutrients has been right in front of you the entire time? In this powerful solo episode, Darin breaks down one of the most fundamental, yet misunderstood, truths in biology: plants are the origin of nearly all life, energy, and nutrients on Earth. This isn't about ideology or diet trends, it's about core scientific principles that reshape how you think about food, energy transfer, and your place in the ecosystem. From photosynthesis and the origins of protein to the hidden inefficiencies of the food chain and the intelligence of soil microbiomes, this episode is a deep dive into why going closer to the source may be the most powerful shift you can make for your health, and the planet. What You'll Learn Why plants are the primary source of all nutrients and energy The science of photosynthesis and its role in sustaining life How the 10% energy transfer rule impacts your nutrition Why eating animals is essentially consuming "second-hand energy" The truth about protein, and why all amino acids originate from plants How soil microbiomes directly influence your health The real source of vitamins, minerals, and even oxygen Why phytoplankton produces up to 70% of Earth's oxygen The misconception around B12 and where it actually comes from How to think about food as a connection to the origin of life Chapters 00:00:03 – Opening: creating a roadmap to a SuperLife 00:00:33 – The plastic crisis and hidden everyday environmental impact 00:01:05 – Toxic exposure from common products like toothpaste 00:01:35 – Sustainable alternatives and reducing daily toxins 00:02:07 – Sponsor: Bite toothpaste and regenerative practices 00:02:48 – Opening the conversation: are you ready for a new perspective? 00:03:10 – The question no one asks: where do nutrients actually come from? 00:03:39 – Tracing food back to its true origin 00:04:08 – Every nutrient begins with plants 00:04:50 – Why Darin eats plant-based: beyond philosophy 00:05:24 – Strength, performance, and long-term plant-based living 00:05:55 – Science vs belief: shifting how you view food 00:06:05 – The foundational statement: all organic material originates from photosynthesis 00:06:21 – What photosynthesis really is and why it matters 00:06:44 – Plants as the base of every food chain 00:07:10 – Scientific confirmation: the foundation of life on Earth 00:07:54 – Plants as the only true producers of nutrients 00:08:07 – How sunlight becomes proteins, fats, and vitamins 00:08:51 – Photosynthesis as the source of all food and oxygen 00:09:06 – The biosphere's dependence on plant life 00:09:30 – What would happen if photosynthesis stopped 00:10:02 – The origin of photosynthesis billions of years ago 00:10:43 – Plants as the original creators of organic matter 00:11:09 – The Great Oxidation Event and the rise of oxygen 00:11:36 – Every breath you take comes from plants and phytoplankton 00:12:19 – Plants as the source of food, air, and life 00:12:39 – The thermodynamic argument for plant-based eating 00:13:10 – The 10% rule of energy transfer explained 00:13:45 – Why 90% of energy is lost between trophic levels 00:14:08 – What happens when you eat food: energy conversion 00:14:45 – From plant to cow to human: massive energy loss 00:15:08 – Why eating animals is highly inefficient 00:15:31 – Accessing nutrients at their origin 00:16:21 – Animals as processors, not creators, of nutrients 00:16:57 – "You're buying used goods": a new way to think about food 00:17:10 – Economic cost of second-hand energy 00:17:41 – Sponsor: Manna Vitality and frequency-based wellness 00:19:05 – Financial and nutritional inefficiency of animal products 00:19:55 – The protein myth: where amino acids really come from 00:20:28 – Essential amino acids and plant synthesis 00:21:02 – Plants as the origin of all protein building blocks 00:21:36 – Why animals don't create protein 00:22:04 – "Plants are the manufacturers, animals are the distributors" 00:22:34 – Energy loss through the food chain 00:23:02 – The microbiome connection: soil to gut 00:23:32 – Plants and microbes as a unified system 00:24:23 – Nitrogen fixation and why legumes are protein-rich 00:25:18 – Why there is no such thing as "no protein in plants" 00:25:53 – The hidden world of the soil microbiome 00:26:08 – Soil as a living ecosystem supporting plants 00:26:43 – The connection between soil, plants, and human health 00:27:18 – Eating plants as interacting with an ecosystem 00:27:53 – How microbes influence immunity and nutrient absorption 00:28:33 – Why animals are not the origin of nutrients 00:29:20 – Darin's global journey discovering nutrient-dense plants 00:29:55 – Going directly to the source vs relying on animals 00:30:31 – Where vitamins actually come from 00:31:05 – The truth about B12 and microorganisms 00:31:41 – Why animals are not the true source of B12 00:32:23 – Practical approach to B12 supplementation 00:32:56 – Minerals: from soil to plant to human 00:33:30 – How animals get minerals from plants 00:34:01 – Bioavailability and how to optimize plant nutrition 00:34:38 – Phytoplankton and oxygen production 00:35:17 – The core realization: plants are the origin of everything 00:35:51 – Darin's 20-year plant-based journey 00:36:18 – Eliminating the "middleman" in nutrition 00:36:53 – Moving closer to the source with every meal 00:37:16 – Closing: increasing connection to the source of life     Thank You to Our Sponsors Bite Toothpaste: Go to trybite.com/DARIN20 or use code DARIN20 for 20% off your first order Manna Vitality: Go to mannavitality.com/ and use code DARIN12 for 12% off your order.     Join the SuperLife Patreon: This is where Darin now shares the deeper work: - weekly voice notes - ingredient trackers - wellness challenges - extended conversations - community accountability - sovereignty practices Join now for only $7.49/month at https://patreon.com/darinolien     Connect with Darin Olien: Website: darinolien.com Instagram: @darinolien Book: Fatal Conveniences Platform & Products: superlife.com New Show: Roadmap to Happiness     Key Takeaway: "Every nutrient you consume, every breath you take, every ounce of energy in your body can be traced back to one place—plants. The closer you move to that source, the more efficient, direct, and connected your nutrition becomes. Everything else is just a step removed from the origin of life itself."     Bibliography/Sources: Primary Production & Photosynthesis as Nutritional Origin Blankenship, R. E., et al. (n.d.). Photosynthesis. PubMed Central. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5264509/  Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Photosynthesis. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/photosynthesis  Nature Education. (n.d.). Photosynthetic cells. Scitable. https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/photosynthetic-cells-14025371/  Evolutionary History of Photosynthesis Imperial College London. (2021). Photosynthesis could be as old as life itself. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210324142839.htm  Phytoplankton and Oceanic Oxygen Production NASA Earth Observatory. (n.d.). What are phytoplankton? NASA. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton  National Ocean Service. (n.d.). How much oxygen comes from the ocean? National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. (n.d.). Does the ocean produce oxygen? Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/ocean-facts/does-the-ocean-produce-oxygen/  Trophic Energy Transfer (The 10% Rule) Biology LibreTexts. (n.d.). 46.2C: Transfer of energy between trophic levels. Boundless Biology. https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/General_Biology_(Boundless)/46:_Ecosystems/46.02:_Energy_Flow_through_Ecosystems/46.2C:_Transfer_of_Energy_between_Trophic_Levels  University of Michigan. (n.d.). The flow of energy from primary production to higher trophic levels. Introduction to Global Change. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/globalchange/lectures/flow-of-energy/  Wikipedia. (n.d.). Trophic level. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level  Plant Amino Acid Synthesis Hildebrandt, T. M., et al. (2021). Amino acids in plants: Regulation and functions in development and stress defense. Frontiers in Plant Science. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8559698/  Soil-Plant-Human Microbiome Connection & Vitamin B12 Origin Raaijmakers, J. M., & Mazzola, M. (2020). Healthy soils for healthy plants for healthy humans: How beneficial microbes in the soil, food and gut are interconnected. EMBO Reports, 21(8). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7403703/ Nitrogen Fixation Mahmud, K., et al. (2020). Current progress in nitrogen fixing plants and microbiome research. Plants. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7020401/  New Mexico State University Extension. (n.d.). Nitrogen fixation by legumes. NMSU. https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_a/A129/ Mineral Cycling and Nutrient Origin Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Biosphere — Nutrient cycling. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/biosphere/Nutrient-cycling  Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Nutrition in plants. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/nutrition/Nutrition-in-plants Phytoplankton as Foundation of Life Falkowski, P. (2012). Ocean science: The power of plankton. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/483S17a

Gladys Bentley was a part of the Harlem Renaissance as a performer – she played piano and sang in ways that drew huge crowds starting in the 1920s, and she was completely out as a lesbian. But her story takes some surprising turns. Research: Adkins, Judith. “These People Are Frightened to Death.” Prologue Magazine. National Archives. Summer 2016. Vol. 48, No. 2. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html Britannica Editors. "rent party". Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Nov. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/topic/rent-party Chase, Bill. “House Rent Parties Were an Institution.” New York Age. Oct. 29, 1949. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40993834/?match=1&terms=Gladys%20Bentley Church, Moira Mahoney. “If This Be Sin: Gladys Bentley And The Performance Of Identity.” University of South Carolia. (Theses and Dissertations.) 2018. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5705&context=etd “Colored Detective Lieutenant Acquitted of Murder Charge.” Philadelphia Tribune. Aug. 4, 1927. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1135383911/?match=1&terms=Maceo%20Sheffield The Doll House advertisement. Dec. 12, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image/580248504/?match=1&terms=Gladys%20Bentley “Gladys Bentley, Entertainer, Dies.” Alabama Tribune. Montgomery, Alabama. February 12, 1960. https://www.newspapers.com/image/554602763/?clipping_id=66402293 “Harlem’s Gladys Alberta Bentley, Friend Of Cary Grant, Stanwyck, And Others, Way ‘Out’ Ahead Of Her Time.” Harlem World. June 24, 2023 https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/harlems-gladys-alberta-bentley-friend-of-cary-grant-stanwyck-and-others-way-out-ahead-of-her-time/ “J.T. Gipson Dead.” California Eagle. July 17, 1952. https://www.newspapers.com/image/693556889/?clipping_id=172230200 Levette, Harry. “Movie Lots Gossip.” The Call. Aug, 22, 1952. https://www.newspapers.com/image/957555211/?match=1&terms=%22Never%20Married%20to%20Gladys%20Bentley%22 Moses, Alvin. “Alvin Moses Says.” Chicago Defender. Dec. 30, 1944. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1135809373/?match=1&terms=Gladys%20Bentley “New York Police Launch Drive on Harlem Cafes.” The Chicago Defender. March 17, 1934. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1136311398/?match=1&terms=Gladys%20bentley Onion, Rebecca. “An Affectionate 1932 Illustrated Map of Harlem Nightlife.” Slate. April 15, 2016. https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/04/e-simms-campbell-s-1932-illustrated-map-of-harlem-nightlife.html Roy, Rob. “’8 to the Bar,’ Style Gladys Bentley Made Famous, a World Favorite Today.” The Chicago Defender. May 14, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1135895140/?match=1&terms=Gladys%20Bentley Russonello, Giovanni. “Gladys Bentley.” New York Times. Overlooked. 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/gladys-bentley-overlooked.html Shah, Haleema. “The Great Blues Singer Gladys Bentley Broke All the Rules.” Smithsonian. March 14, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/great-blues-singer-gladys-bentley-broke-rules-180971708/ “Wales Padlock Law Censors Risque Theater.” EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/wales-padlock-law-censors-risque-theater Wilson, James F. “Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies PERFORMANCE, RACE, AND SEXUALITY IN THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE.” University of Michigan Press. 2010. Winchell, Walter. “On Broadway.” Evening Courier. Feb. 6, 1933. https://www.newspapers.com/image/480106281/?match=1&terms=%22Gladys%20Bentley%22 Yaeger, Patricia. “Editor’s Note: Bulldagger Sings the Blues.” PMLA, vol. 124, no. 3, 2009, pp. 721–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25614318 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Émile Coué genuinely seems to have wanted to help people by teaching them how to plant helpful directives in their subconscious minds. Whether he was effective is something that's still debated. Research: Baldwin, J. Mark, et al. “A Disclaimer.” Science, vol. 12, no. 309, 1900, pp. 850–850. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1629542 Baudouin, Charles. “Émile Coué and His Life’s Work.” American Library Service. New York. 1923. https://digirepo.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/55330740R/PDF/55330740R.pdf Baudouin, Charles. “Suggestion and Autosuggestion.” New York. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1921. https://dn720207.ca.archive.org/0/items/suggestionauto00bauduoft/suggestionauto00bauduoft.pdf Britannica Editors. "Émile Coué". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emile-Coué “Coue, After Goodby Lecture, Flees City.” Boston Globe. January 31, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430295545/ “Coue Explains How to Use Auto-Suggestion.” Boston Globe. January 7, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430953338/?match=1&terms=Coue COUÉ, EMILE. “SELF MASTERY THROUGH CONSCIOUS AUTOSUGGESTION.” AMERICAN LIBRARY SERVICE PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK. 1922. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27203/27203-h/27203-h.htm “Delirium Tremens.” Cleveland Clinic. June 5, 2023. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25052-delirium-tremens “EMILE COUÉ DEAD; A MENTAL HEALER; Many Made Well by Saying ‘Every Day, in Every Way, I'm Growing Better and Better.’” New York Times. July 3, 1926. https://www.nytimes.com/1926/07/03/archives/emile-Coué-dead-a-mental-healer-many-made-well-by-saying-every-day.html Heid, Markham. “Is Hypnosis Real? Here’s What Science Says.” Time. March 2, 2023. https://time.com/5380312/is-hypnosis-real-science/ Myga, Kasia A et al. “Autosuggestion: a cognitive process that empowers your brain?.” Experimental brain research 240,2 (2022): 381-394. doi:10.1007/s00221-021-06265-8 Neal, E. Virgil, ed. “Hypnotism and hypnotic suggestion. A scientific treatise on the uses and possibilities of hypnotism, suggestion and allied phenomena.” New York State Publishing Company. Rochester, NY. 1906. https://archive.org/details/hypnotismhypnoti00roch/page/n9/mode/1up “Pliny 1813 Years Ahead of Coue … “ Boston Globe. January 30, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430295455/?match=1&terms=Coue Rapp, Dean R. “‘Better and Better—’ Couéism as a Psychological Craze of the Twenties in England.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 10, no. 2, 1987, pp. 17–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23413989 Sage, X. Lamotte. “Hypnotism As It Is: A Book for Everybody.” New York State Publishing Company. Rochester, NY. 1900. Accessed online: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Hypnotism_as_it_is%3B_a_book_for_everybody_%28IA_hypnotismasitisb00sage%29.pdf Sari, N. K. et al.“The role of autosuggestion in geriatric patients’ quality of life: a study on psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology pathway.” Social Neuroscience, 12(5), pp. 551–559. 2017. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2016.1196243 Schlamann, Marc et al. “Autogenic training alters cerebral activation patterns in fMRI.” The International journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis 58,4 (2010): 444-56. doi:10.1080/00207144.2010.499347 Whiteside, Thomas. “Better and Better.” The New Yorker. May 9, 1953. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1953/05/16/better-and-better Yeates, Lindsay B. “Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action.” Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.3-27. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374753633_Emile_Coue_and_his_Method_I_The_Chemist_of_Thought_and_Human_Action See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week I sit down with Jenny Chan, director of Pacific Atrocities Education, to talk about the many "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government in the years leading up to and during World War II. We've talked about the generals, the battles, the military movements, but we haven't yet focused on the victims. These women from China, Korea, etc. were often tricked or even downright abducted and forced into comfort stations where they were repeatedly abused by members of the Japanese Imperial Army around the clock. But who's telling their story? To this day there are many who deny this sort of government sanctioned sexual slavery even happened. Let's fix that. Check out the Pacific Atrocities Education website here! Snag Jenny's book "The Undrowning Lotus" here! Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources: Wikipedia "Nanjing Massacre"Encyclopedia Britannica "Russo-Japanese War"Encyclopedia Britannica "Treaty of Portsmouth"Harvard Law School "J. Mark Ramseyer"Shoot me a message! Support the show

In this eye-opening episode, Lesley Logan sits down with Gail Hugman, an educator with 50 years of experience, to relieve the immense pressure modern parents place on themselves. If you've ever felt like your child's success is a direct reflection of your daily micromanaging, Gail's expert insight offers a massive exhale. She explains how to step back from cultural expectations, stop doing everything for your kids, and allow their innate brilliance to surface. This conversation offers grounded shifts that reduce conflict and help children grow into capable, confident adults. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:The "brick walk" exercise that teaches children how to concentrate.Why we must talk to children about the actual "process" of listening.Handling the "Why should I?" question instead of answering "because I said so."The difference between a child's natural life and world life.Why executive skills like self control must be taught.Episode References/Links:Gail Hugman's Website - https://www.lessonsalive.comGail Hugman's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lessonsalive_gail_hugmanGail Hugman's Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/LessonsAliveMaking the Pennies Drop by Gail Hugman - https://a.co/d/0gjopl85100 Things to Learn Before You're 10 by Gail Hugman - https://a.co/d/058Bxn24A Short and Simple Book for the Why's by Gail Hugman - https://a.co/d/064U6RRYLittle Hum by Gail Hugman - https://a.co/d/0f5DhWwgGuest Bio:Gail Hugman is a distinguished educator and author with 50 years of experience dedicated to helping children—and their parents—thrive by mastering the internal skills that traditional schooling often overlooks. While many focus solely on academic grades, Gail's work targets the root of a child's success: motivation, mindset, and the "how-to" of learning. Through her unique methodology, she provides children with the essential tools to become self-motivated, focused, and confident individuals who take pride in their own achievements. Drawing on her deep passion for human development and the neuroscience of learning, Gail's approach centers on teaching executive function skills such as concentration, listening, and self-control. She recognizes that in a fast-paced world, neither schools nor overwhelmed parents always have the specialized resources to instill these foundational life skills. Gail bridges this gap, transforming the family dynamic by helping children become independent and capable. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Gail Hugman 0:23  Thing is, I say to parents, sometimes, this child came to join your life, not to take it over. Lesley Logan 0:24  That's so good. Gail Hugman 0:11  Teach them what they need to know to be as independent as they can be at every single stage, because that's what a little human being craves.Lesley Logan 0:25  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. Lesley Logan 1:08  Be It babe, okay, so, today's episode, if you don't have children, you might be like, this isn't for me. I hope you listen either, because it might help you make sense of your childhood. It might help you support your friends who are parents. If you've already parented, you might think it like I hope you listen, because I have a parenting expert. Well, if not parenting expert, I would call her a education expert of children, and her be it action item for every single one of us to support children is amazing and wonderful and simple and hard and complicated and necessary and doable, and I'm really excited about it, because, ladies, I've been I've been trying to figure out how to help you prioritize yourself first. And for many of you, there is the love and responsibility of your children that are keeping you from that, from prioritizing yourself first, from being it till you see it, from doing the Pilates you say you want to do. And my hope was that Gayle hugman, our guest today, could give you some tools, some support, some insight into the role that you have. And hopefully that allows you to not just be the parent you want to be, but be the human you want to be in this world. And while I don't have kids, I hope I don't offend anyone in my in my inquiries and my observations and my wonders. But I also truly believe in every single one of you who are parents and so grateful when I'm older, someone's child does need to help take care of me. So there's a weird thing where I would like someone's child to take care of me because I don't have any of my own but also I want you to have the life you so dreamed up and wanted for yourself and for them, and so I hope this episode really supports you in that, and I'd love to hear your takeaways. Here is Gail Hugman. Lesley Logan 2:53  All right, Be It babe. I'm excited. I've have not ever had a guest like this before. One I got to meet this amazing person in real life, on our mullet tour in Essex area, and she loves Pilates. So you my Pilates lovers, know that this woman loves Pilates too. Been doing it a long time, but I I got to know what she does for a living. I thought, oh my gosh, this is a guest I haven't had. I've had a lot of guests that help my my listeners as women as as perimenopausal women as as perfectionist women, but I haven't had anyone who helps them as parents, you know, who add a lot of pressure to themselves to be whatever the world says I need to be as a parent. So Gail Hugman, will you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?Gail Hugman 3:38  I'm Gail Hugman And I have now been teaching for 50 years, and I help children flourish, and I help parents flourish with them. That's my USP.Lesley Logan 4:00  50 years. That's a long time. How did you get into that?Gail Hugman 4:05  I spent 30 years in London schools, and it used to hurt me to watch potential that I didn't have time to develop and I didn't want to be a principal or a head teacher, because the higher I went, the more paper I saw, the fewer children I saw. And my magic happens with the children. And so I decided to leave, and I asked a young teacher, what is it you find most challenging in teaching? He was just starting. I knew I was just leaving, and he said, immediately, motivation. I can get the children to do what they have to do, but I can't get them to want to do it. And I thought, right, that is what I'm going to do. And the journey has been 20 years long now. I have had the privilege of going into people's homes and working out, initially, an assessment for the children, because, to start with, didn't have a clue what I was going to do. I remember my very first client came along and she said to me, Oh, great, you're leaving teaching. Will you be a minder? My son's minder is leaving the school, and they are thinking of excluding him because he doesn't pay attention and he doesn't this. And I thought, I'm not going from almost headship to being someone's minder. And I said, Absolutely not. I said, but I'll teach him to concentrate. And then I thought, What have I just said?Lesley Logan 5:58  The show says, Take messy action, be it till you see it so like that is right there everyone, if you've ever done that, you have done you have been being it till you saw it.Gail Hugman 6:11  So and remember, each time I would say to someone, I'm going to teach them that I knew they were going to pay me for this and so I've got to deliver. With that particular child, and I can't say, oh, I had a magic wand, and it happened overnight, but I realized that when we educate children nowadays, it's very two dimensional, and it is almost you give them a screen, or you give them a book, or you talk to them, but you don't do enough practical exercises. And so that very first boy, who was 11, I had a little rim in my garden on the edge of the grass, it was one brick all the way around. It was only small. And I said to him, I want you to walk on that brick edge. And of course, he thought it was very funny, and he did it, but he kept falling and coming off it. And I said, I want you to walk on there with your hands on your head, and when I could see, after a few attempts, that he was actually focused, I said to him, what you're now feeling is called concentration, and that is what you need in school. And I said when you are walking up the driveway to your school, because I knew the school, I want you to say to yourself, I am walking the path of focus and concentration until you get into your classroom, and I asked the school if they would mind keeping him. I told them what I was trying to do, and I would phone him every night after school and check that he had improved. Now, as I say, it wasn't, you know, overnight, but that boy was not excluded from school. He went on to pass his exams. It was, I would say, three or four months before he actually would be more focused and I wasn't in the room. That's what amazed me. Lesley Logan 8:35  That's amazing. Gail Hugman 8:36  So that started my journey of if I can teach children, I couldn't. I didn't, I didn't have a wall to take with me. Lesley Logan 8:45  Yeah, yeah. Gail Hugman 8:46  So I thought, how can I do this in other people's homes? So you get a glass of water, and you fill it as full as you can, preferably, mother's best glass, and you say, I want you to walk from this side of the kitchen to that side of the kitchen without spilling any and then you have the same effect. You are walking the path of focus and concentration what you're now feeling we call concentration, and I have used this exercise, or exercises like it, to teach children about self control, about being focused, about being in that state when they're in school. And I had to write books about it for parents, because I thought every parent needs to know how to do thisLesley Logan 9:43  right, because they're getting calls from the school that your kids being disruptive, or your kid and look, we there are neurodivergent children. There's different ways of learning, but being told all these things, and then they're trying to figure it out themselves, and it becomes just yelling and why can't you concentrate in school? But no one's teaching them to concentrate. You know, it's teaching them the feeling.Gail Hugman 10:03  And the listening. When you say to a child, listen, I walked into a classroom, and on the wall was a poster about listening, good listening, and it had little pictures like this, cross-legged and I thought, How is a child meant to learn to listen? From that poster added to which industry or commerce spends millions teaching adults to listen? Why? Why? I thought, why don't we teach children to listen? And I remember my books are full of stories. I remember a child at one of the top London schools I was asking to repeat a question, and I said to him, you know, go outside, get your jacket, or get your jacket, go outside and bring something in. And I said, repeat that to me. And this child was nine and a half 10 years old. So he said, put your jacket on and go outside. No, where I want every single word. So I repeated the sentence. I didn't get all emotional about it. I didn't get annoyed. I just repeated the question, so can you say it back to me? So we had another go. Didn't work, so I had another go. And these, these are firsts. So I did it again. Now it took nine attempts. He started to giggle because he realized that he wasn't getting it. And to my horror, his father had been listening outside the room, and when I left, his father said to me, I would never have believed that if I had not heard it with my and I said, when we talk about listening to children, we don't talk about the process. And when we say, are you listening, they think, yes, I'm hearing. And we have to start to talk about process. What is the process that is going on in your head when you're listening? So that's how it started. And then what developed was, how do I get a child to engage in school? You know when a child says, Why should I favorite question of every parent, right? Why should I? Lesley Logan 12:46  Yeah. And then they say, because I said, so. Gail Hugman 12:51  Yeah. I remember a boy doing this to me went just towards the end of teaching. He came into my class as a new boy quite late in the year, and he was having a difficult time, and I said something to him, and he stormed out of the room, and I stormed after him, and I said, come back in that classroom, because I'm responsible for him. And he said, Why should I? And I thought, I said, good question, and I went back into the classroom. As I went, I said, wait there. And I thought, why should he? Why should he? And there are a lot of questions children have in the heat of the moment. Why should he, in that particular instance, I went back outside because I didn't know this boy, and I said, You don't know me, but I am responsible for you while you're here, and the reason you should come back in the classroom is because I need to be sure that you're safe, and I would like a little respect, and I will give you some. You followed me in and it's nobody explained it because I said, I could have said because I said, So, but then it doesn't get you anywhere.Lesley Logan 14:11  Yeah, you're correct. You're you're extremely correct. And also, like, it doesn't, it doesn't develop trust. So then anything else you want to teach them. They're like, who told who made this person, the person I have to learn from. My father is a traffic school, like a he, I don't know if you have these in London, but he's a crossing guard, right? So the school let's out, and he's yes, yes, yes. So he's new at it, and he this is, this is his first school year doing it, and they had him at an elementary school, and they switched him to this high school, and the city council person was watching one day, and the principal was there, and they go, oh, like, how's it going? How are the kids treating you? And they're watching the kids, like, fist bump my dad and like, say something nice. And my dad's like, asked him how there's how was the game last week? And they're like, how did you, and it's two weeks, get these kids to, like, respect you. And he was like, I respected them first. Yeah, yeah. And I think, like, that's the hard part, because also it requires patience and a bit of self awareness. Like you had to have the awareness to go, okay, hold on. Let me think about that. But I think, like a lot of people, don't give themselves the time to do that. I think, I think a lot of parents are overwhelmed.Gail Hugman 15:29  I'm not surprised. And what came out, I remember sitting with another boy who was a bit why should I ish? And I thought, what can I say to this child? Because I don't know how I have been graced by so many wonderful clients who just handed the children over and said give me a result. Yeah. And I'd sit next to a child and think, What do I say to change the way they're thinking? And on one occasion, I sat with this boy, and I said, You do realize, don't you, that when you're born, you get not one, but two lives that got his attention. And I said, let me explain it this way. And I drew a diagram, and I said, Look, here's zero, and I drew a line, and I put, here's 100 and this is where you're born, at zero, and we all hope we're going to get to 100 or beyond. And I said, but between zero and 100 you have a job to do. Do you know what that job is? And they look at you and it's like, learn? I say your job is to develop to be the very best thing that you can be, the very best human being that you can be. That's what nature wants. I said, unfortunately, you've been born into a world where the environment isn't necessarily all helpful, and so you have two lives. You have an inside life, which I call your natural life, and that is automatic for every single person on the planet. So you start as a child, then you become a nightmare, then you become a young adult, then you become a you know, proper, grown up, and then you become a senior before you go home. And I go through this process with them, I say that is the same. Doesn't matter what color you are, doesn't matter where you live in the world, doesn't matter who your parents are. That is the same for every single child. I suppose your wildlife is completely different to every other person, and you are to look at the world which is full of good things and not good things. And that's why you're given parents at the beginning, because your parents have been here long enough to recognize the not good things, and your job is to grow and develop your natural life by choosing things to do in the world that are going to help you do that. So if you want to be a patient person, you could paint pictures, or you could make pots, or you could learn to be an athlete, or you could do Pilates. It depends what you want to grow in yourself and what you think will help you do that. And I talk to them about school this way, when they say, Why do I have to do algebra?Lesley Logan 19:05  You're so good at making a teenage boy's voice.Gail Hugman 19:11  And I said, Well, algebra is fantastic because it teaches your brain logic and reasoning. So it's not the algebra you want, it's the logic and reasoning. And so I've learned through all these messy actions what to say to those questions of, why should I? Who cares? So what? These things I think develop, because children are intuitively born to grow, born to develop. They run into all sorts of things in the world that knock them off that path. And I totally believe know you can correct me if you like, but I'm probably going to continue to believe that when we're born, we're born with this massive potential, and providing we don't get stopped by negativity of some kind, we can easily be put back onto that line of development if we're given the right tools to do it. And that's what my job is. Helping them flourish means putting them back. So if they are suffering because there's been a divorce and they don't understand, they don't understand, then I don't talk about the divorce. I talk about look over here for some success, because we are natural born healers. I know you have to work at it, Lesley, I have to work at it. I was in Pilates this morning. I saw Sam, I said, I'm going to tell Lesley I was in Pilates this morning, but that's me healing me, and we are natural healers. So children will recover very quickly if we can put them back on that natural line, so that they are focused on what they are growing in themselves and choosing to do in the world to help them grow, not and the most important thing, I don't want them to change, to be something they think the world wants. Lesley Logan 21:37  Right. Okay, I have a couple questions. One, so assuming, like, everyone can't call you tomorrow, maybe they can, right, like, can parents help them get put back on the natural line? Does it have to be someone other than them? Does that have to be a third party, or can a parent actually do what you did, which is, like, have the thought, like, Okay, how do I have an honest thought with this kid? And, like, put them back on that. How do you do that? And then the other question went out of my head, so it'll come back when you answer.Gail Hugman 22:17  I think what parents need to realize is that this person in front of them is the most fantastic, creative, sensitive, intelligent form of life on this planet, and step back and stop your reaction, which is born in you because of the culture that we're in step back and have what I call, sorry dads, it's a mommy moment. It's one of those moments where you talk human to human, because they do have those moments every you know, I told a little boy, I'll never forget this. One of my early lessons in private practice. I told a little boy that the year before he was born, the planet was here, and I drew a circle, and I said it had countries on it, and I drew little shapes. I'm not, not an artist. I drew little shapes. I said it had giraffes on it, and donkeys and butterflies. And I was drawing as I was talking. And I said it had all these wonderful things, trees, and it had 6 billion, however, many 100,000 people on it. Your mum was here, your dad was here. You hadn't been created yet. And then, wee, you arrived, and you changed the world forever. Now you can see it's really busy here, and not everyone is happy. Do you want to make the world better or not? And he's he said to me, I want to make it better. I want to make it better. So I said, Well, you ask your mum how she felt when you were born, because you changed her life forever. You changed your dad's life forever. And they loved it, maybe not straight away, but they loved it. And after I'd had this whole lesson. This was that I went through with this child. I got a phone call later that night from his mother, and she was crying, and she said, I had to call you because my son told me what you said to him, and he said, I want to thank you for having me, Mummy. Lesley Logan 23:07  Oh I'm gonna cry. Gail Hugman 23:58  Thank you for having me. Isn't that amazing? And I when I look at a child, I mean, my first, my very first book, was actually a letter to the head teacher. When I said I was going to retire or resign from teacher, I wanted to go privately. And I got up in the middle of the night, and I wrote this letter. I thought, what is it that's different? Because he asked me, I want to know what you do, and what is it? What is it I do that's different? I teach English, I teach maths, I teach reading, and I come up in the middle of the night, and I thought, it's not what I do, it's how I think. That's what's different. I think that each child, as I said, is highly intelligent without any help. They may not have the language to express it, but they they are so clever, they are so creative. You know, I told the children in the school once, you have to be economical with paper, because we're short of money and I don't want to see any paper wasted. So please don't waste any paper. Carry on with the lesson. At the break, a little boy came to me and he said, Miss, I have got a way that you can get more paper. So I said, Oh, really, how do you do that? He said, what you do? He said, you get a plain piece of paper and you go to the photocopier and you copy it. Now isn't that clever? So I got a plain piece of paper, I took it to the photocopier, and I explained to him why I'd laughed, and he said, Ah, but isn't that that was an eight year old child.Lesley Logan 26:49  So one of the things I loved when I met you Gail is like, I I don't have any children, but I am amazed by like my the children that I've been able to have in my life in different ways, like my niece and nephew. I remember, like, the my nephew is, like, two and a half years old, maybe just two, and I was holding him, and he looked at the picture, and he goes, That's my dad. That's Ella. And I said, Who is this? He's like, That's bubba. He pointed himself out, like two years old. And I was like, I have no idea. Maybe that's what two year olds do. But I was impressed and that he could, like, look at a picture. I knew all this. He gets this Christmas gift, he puts it on, he starts performing. I was like, he's amazing, like, that is, like, this kid is just, like, got this creativity in him, right? Like, all these different things. And I taught these 11 year old girls, and they have all these thoughts going on in their head. And I was just like, Oh, my God, this is you are why I'm not gonna have children, but I'm amazed by what you're doing, and it scares the hell out of me, but, like, but I also, I see all this, and you're like, you know, these kids have all these they're so clever, they're born so smart, and then something happens, right? Like, like you said, there could be a negative thing that happens, or divorce or or they go to school, and they're not given that respect or that challenge. They're not taught the focus or taught to listen and it goes and then they become 18 year olds because they just keep getting passed along. And so I wonder, like, is it the mummy moments, or is it, how do parents facilitate this being that already has a lot of it that it needs like, is there.Lesley Logan 28:21  It's got everything. It's got everything. Lesley Logan 28:25  I guess how do they not fuck it up Gail? Gail Hugman 28:27  Yeah, right. Mine did. My confidence was gone by the age of 11 because I failed an exam I was expected to pass. And then I met a boy of five years old, who could not sit still, who did not make eye contact, who talked all the time. He was extraordinary, and his parents very intelligent. They had three boys very close together, and they said, We don't know what to do with him, you know, can you help? And they said he was autistic. They said he was this, they said he was that. And I said, Well, I don't think he's autistic. I don't know why I said that. And I said that to them. I don't know why I'm saying that, but I don't think he's autistic, but he is something. And they said, you know, a child doesn't normally like this boy ask for Encyclopedia Britannica to be read to him at bedtime when he's four. That's unusual. And this child I stayed with 18 years until he went to university, because his parents would allow me to try different ways to engage him. And the first one you know, talk about neurodiverse people. Try to control the children you cannot control children. See this right here, that's proof you cannot control that's how I got it. Trying to control them. You have to teach them to control themselves by showing them right and wrong, right being what's good for them. And no, don't do that, because it annoys me. I would say to a child, if you do that, I'm going to get irritated. Is that okay with you? Can you change it? Yeah. So instead of me trying to control them, I'll tell them the consequence of what they're doing, and say that's what's going to happen. Is that okay with you? And it seems, I mean, this is why I wrote the books, because I've been trying to get my message out there for 20 years. I couldn't articulate it at first. I just knew it had to be different.Lesley Logan 31:04  Yeah, I love what you're saying, because it's for the Pilates instructors I've taught listening like this is what I say. Joe Pilate never said don't. Never said don't do that, don't, don't put your shoulders in your ears, or don't do that. He never said that. He would tell you what to do, like, he would. Gail Hugman 31:18  Exactly. That's how brains work. Well, that's what my motto for parents is don't, "Don't do." Don't say don't. Do tell them what to do. Somebody said to me, can you tell me how to stop my children trashing the lounge, because that's my special space, and they've got a playroom, but they don't play in there. They play in the lounge, and they keep trashing it. So I said, Have you told them? Have you told them it's your special place? Have you asked them to help you look after it? Lesley Logan 31:56  Yes, this is okay. So I take so, as we all know, and those, in case you missed it, I have no children. So when I tell people about like, creating a schedule that allows them to put themselves first and prioritize themselves, they go, must be easy for you. You don't have children. Okay? I have three companies, you guys. So let's just I'm busy too. Okay, I'm busy too. We all have our own busys, but when one of the pushbacks I get is always from the moms who, by the way, have partners who can participate and don't, and it's so you know, that's a whole different therapist. It's a whole different thing. But this one particular woman said to me, Well, I would love to go on a walk in the morning. I see your walks every morning, and I would love to do that, but there's too much to do to get the kids to school. I said, Oh, how old are your children? And they're 12 and 14. They're 12 and 15. Thank you, Gail. Thank you, Gail. Thank you. It took I was like, okay, thankfully part of this face is Botox. So the reaction was, you know, less. But I was like, I was like, oh, but do they want to do adult things? Like, they want to go to the movies with their friends, they want to take the train, they want to do adult things. And she's like, Yeah. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, do you think that they could get themselves ready for school in the morning? Like, have you like, I'm assuming they are, like, able bodied 12 and 15 year olds. I can't, like, I'm not talking about the ones who have special needs. I'm talking like, able bodied. She's like, yes, I said, Have you asked them, hey, I would like to go for a walk in the morning. What can we do the night before to make sure you get to school on time. Like, have you, like, asked them and guess what the next day, Gail, she went for a walk in the morning.Gail Hugman 33:28  Yeah. I know it's not rocket science. So the thing is, I say to parents sometimes, this child came to join your life, not to take it over.Lesley Logan 33:47  That's so good. Gail Hugman 33:48  Teach them what they need to know to be as independent as they can be at every single stage, because that's what a little human being craves. You know, I had a child I was teaching, and he had a little baby sister of four. Well, I say little baby, it sounds cute. She was a feisty little thing, and she used to stand in the doorway, and I had these roll up pencil cases, and as I was finishing the lesson, I'd be about to roll it up, and she'd come running in, me do, me do, me do. And I would give it to her so that she could roll it up. Because all they crave is responsibility, and they want to be part of the tribe they see grown ups, and they want to be that. So please teach them that don't do it for them. So many parents will do it for them. Yes, up to about four. Why? You can get your bag ready for school. You know, do you really need me to do that? What is wrong that you can't do that? That's a problem, isn't it? How you and sometimes the teenagers, I will say, Okay, do you want to live at home all your life? And they will say no. Well, do you want your parents to tell you what to do, or would you like to make decisions for yourself? And they said, Well, I want to do it myself. I said, Well, what can you do to reassure your parents that they have done a good job with you and you can do that, and that starts a whole different discussion. So you take your youngster and you have those discussions, what do I need to do to help you get the results you want? You know, homework. People will fight over homework. And I say, Look, if you go into an exam, you have got 40 minutes, an hour, whatever it is, if you spend two hours doing homework, you are not training that brain to perform in an hour's exam. So if the homework is meant to take 30 minutes, give them 30 minutes. If the homework isn't finished in 30 minutes, tell them you will go with them to the teacher and be there while they explain either it's too hard or they didn't focus, or whatever the reason so that they are responsible for the homework. Lesley Logan 36:38  Right. You're you're supporting, you're the guy, but you're not. Yes. You know this all. I mean, like, first of all, it sounds amazing. And also, and like, it's, it's not simple because it's not simple, but it's also, I look at the like we talk about these everyone blames the reason why, you know, Gen Z and these kids are living with their parents as, like, it's a cost thing. And yes, yes, life is more expensive now, but my mom was a school teacher, a fifth grade school teacher for some of these kids who would be in that generation, and she had to stop sending home. She would not their, their their paper that was due in fifth grade. She made time in class for them to handwrite it, because she didn't want the parents to do it, and the parents were like, well, I need to be able to see how it's how they're doing. And she said, No, I will do that. I will tell they can tell you how it's going. Why don't you ask them how it's going, but they're going to write it in class, because she could tell the parents were doing the homework. So she said to start eliminating homework so that kids wouldn't be responsible for the homework. And so I think, like, part of it is that parents almost taking, maybe it's ego, maybe, I don't know, because I'm not a parent, but like, they're not the representation that you think, like, I feel like there's this, like, Oh, if my kid gets bad grades, it's a reflection upon me, versus like, How can I help them figure out the grades that they could get? You know, like they there's this weird bulldozing thing happen? I'll do it for them. And then you wonder why they live in the basement. And then you blame it on costs, but it's but it's also because they have never been responsible for things. Gail Hugman 38:09  Yes, and there is when we're born we have something called executive function skills. We all need them. We all need them for learning and for living. And in school we don't teach them necessarily, we expect the children to have them. The first one that I teach often self-control. The next one focus and attention. The next one organization, and if parents would focus on teaching those skills, then the children would do better if they're organized, if they're able to manage time. And that's the whole thing about homework. You know, if they if the teacher said, spend 10 minutes on it, spend 10 minutes on it. And if you're looking out of the window, and that's supposed to be spent on homework, then you go in tomorrow and say, I'm sorry I looked out the window, and you take the consequence, because parents will say, if you don't do your homework, you won't have dessert, and I couldn't see the connection.Lesley Logan 39:14  Yeah, yeah, right, they're not seeing the connection. Like, that's like, that's not how what the habits coaching that I did, like he always said, rewards are not how habits are created, because they're too often too far away from the actual thing that you're doing. So yeah, yeah. Okay. Gail, I feel like everyone, I hope I have, I hope everyone like who has a parent friend listens to this. Because look, I think raising a child is probably one of the hardest things that people ever do. I taught 11. Gail Hugman 39:41  Absolutely. I haven't got any either. Lesley Logan 39:45  I taught I had, I had these two girls that I taught from 11 to 16, and I have a call with one of them on Friday, who's now 20 years old. Oh my god. And like, I mean, like, I don't know how I don't have gray hairs just from the five years. Like, raising her twice, two hours a week. But like so I definitely don't want to make make light of it, but I also can't sit here and guide women on being it till they see it, if the number one reason they say they don't have time for themselves is because they're doing all these things for their children when we know it's that's not what's going to help your kid thrive, and it's not helping the parent either.Gail Hugman 40:22  No, absolutely, you have to remember, between birth and the age of three, that brain in your child, you give birth to a baby, you give birth to a brain, and that brain will have made something like 3 trillion connections without any help from you. And by the age of three, our stress response is already determined. Isn't that extraordinary? Lesley Logan 40:50  Extraordinary. Gail Hugman 40:51  And so what a parent needs to be looking at or the biggest question, this is one of my tips, the biggest question that I'm always asking myself, What is this child actually learning from what they're now doing? So if you are fighting with them over homework, what are they actually learning? That you're unreasonable, that they've got to do it themselves. What are they actually learning if, if you are running around after them, giving them their bags, giving doing everything for them, picking up their dirty washing, and what are they actually learning from that? So take a step back, get a glass of wine. I don't mind, but think, what is my child actually learning, and what do they need? Because this world is changing so quickly, they will need self-control whatever happens. They will need to be able to plan whatever happens. You know these things. And I saw somebody on TV yesterday talking about, AI is the latest kind of phase of technology, so they still need these skills, yeah, and if you rely on all this mechanical stuff, I mean, it's wonderful, because I can talk to you and you're thousands of miles away, but we still have to develop those skills to be able to live a fruitful life and get to the end having achieved the very best we could be. Lesley Logan 42:37  Gail, I think I could talk to you forever. We did go into your Be It Action Items already, I know. We're going to do a quick like, where can people find you, follow you, work with you, get your books. Will the books help them be better at this?Gail Hugman 42:49  Yes, definitely. This, this one and this one, Making the Pennies Drop, and 100 Things to Learn Before You're 10, are the two critical ones. A Short and Simple Book for the Whys. Very little. That is the letter I wrote to my head teacher. And this is a very special book, and it is my latest book. It's called Little Hum. Have we got time for me to just read the beginning? Lesley Logan 43:18  Yeah, go ahead. Gail Hugman 43:19  Tiny bit. Okay, once upon a time, far away in the universe where the stars always twinkle and the angels do the dusting, there lived a young, unseen longing, and his name was Little Hum. We cannot tell you exactly what he looked like, because even to this day, no one has ever really seen a longing, young or old. Now, as is the way with young longings, Little Hum wanted something more than anything in the whole universe, even more than Christmas. Little Hum wanted an adventure. He knew these things could be arranged. And Little Hum is the story of us all. It is to do with the human core and to get his adventure, he discovers he needs a body.Lesley Logan 44:15  Oh my gosh, okay. Well, clearly every single expecting parent and parent in my life is getting books for Christmas.Gail Hugman 44:21  I'm on Amazon. You can get the books on Amazon, and my website is lessonsalive.com. That's me. Lesley Logan 44:30  I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful for these. If you have any other tips you want to add to this episode, I'm happy to listen to them. If you feel really good about what you gave us, it's so much good stuff. So Be It Action Items for everyone are in here. But what do you think, Gail?Gail Hugman 44:45  I think, I think, yes, I've told you a lot. I don't remember now, it all goes like that. Lesley Logan 44:52  Yeah. It's all right. They're great, Gail Hugman 44:53  Yeah. I hope if there are any questions, you can message them to me and I will answer them if I can, if any of your audience have questions, I'm happy to answer.Lesley Logan 45:03  Yeah, I hope they do. I really hope they do, because I do think that there is an into there's there's a connection between these women being the best versions of themselves and the pressure they put on themselves as parents that are not helping them or their kiddos. And I just want to take that pressure off, because it's this weird pressure that isn't helpful. And there isn't a parenting class. When you go through this thing, you just like, are supposed to know, and then they put this guilt on you, and especially, it's more heavy on the women, and I don't and that, one, that's not fair. But also we don't need to pass it on to anyone else. We just get rid of it. And what if we could teach like this? And I think it's wonderful skill, especially with all the stuff that's changing. Obviously, your kids are going to learn different things in school than you did because of technology, but they could use those three things that you said in that tip. (inaudible) Yeah, those skills. Gail, Gail Hugman, I know your books, you're so amazing. Thank you so much for being here. You guys, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Let Gail know. Send this to a friend. Send this to a parent in your life. If you feel like your parents did this for you, go thank them. That would be a nice thing for them. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 46:11  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 46:54  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 46:59  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 47:03  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 47:10  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 47:13  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Journalist and writer Elizabeth Bisland was sent on a trip around the world in 1889, in a sort of race against Nellie Bly. But that was not something she wanted to be known for. Research: Bisland, Elisabeth. “At the Sign of the Hobby Horse.” Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Riverside Press. 1910. https://archive.org/details/atsignofhobbyhor0000eliz/page/n12/mode/1up Bisland, Elizabeth, 1861-1929. “A Candle of Understanding: a Novel.” New York and London: Harper & brothers, 1903. Bisland, Elizabeth. “In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World.” New York. Harper & Brothers. 1891. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bisland/stages/stages.html Bisland, Elizabeth. “Societies for Minding One's Own Business.” The North American Review. 11/1/1910. Bisland, Elizabeth. “The Art of Travel.” From The woman's book, dealing practically with the modern conditions of home-life, self-support, education, opportunities, and every-day problems. 1894. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_LBEhBEGmUq4C/ Bisland, Elizabeth. “The Truth About Men and Other Matters.” New York. Avondale Press. 1927. Britannica Editors. "Lafcadio Hearn". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Sep. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lafcadio-Hearn. Accessed 18 February 2026. Codrescu, Andrei. “The Many Lives of Lafcadio Hearn.” The Paris Review. 7/2/2019. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/02/the-many-lives-of-lafcadio-hearn/ “Foley, Alethea "Mattie",” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, accessed February 19, 2026, https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/300004770. Goodman, Matthew. “Elizabeth Bisland’s Race Around the World.” Public Domain Review. 10/16/2013. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/elizabeth-bislands-race-around-the-world/ Harrison-Kahan, Lori and Karen E. H. Skinazi. “The Girl Reporter in Fact and Fiction: Miriam Michelson's New Women and Periodical Culture in the Progressive Era.” American Quarterly , Jun., 2002, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 2002). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30041927 Heitman, Danny. “Lafcadio Hearn in New Orleans.” HUMANITIES, May/June 2012, Volume 33, Number 3. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/lafcadio-hearn-in-new-orleans New York Times. “MRS. E.B. WETMORE, AUTHOR, DIES IN SOUTH; Former Elizabeth Bisland of This City to Be Buried in Woodlawn Today.” 1/19/1929. https://www.nytimes.com/1929/01/09/archives/mrs-eb-wetmore-author-dies-in-south-former-elizabeth-bisland-of.html Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. “Historical and Archaeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.” June 1991. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA242489.pdf Roggenkamp, Karen. “Dignified Sensationalism: ‘Cosmopolitan,’ Elizabeth Bisland, and Trips around the World.” American Periodicals , 2007, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20770967 Rose, Alex. “Elizabeth Bisland: Around the World in 76 Days.” Science Museum Group. 1/30/2023. https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/rare-globe-celebrates-elizabeth-bislands-voyage-around-the-world/ Science Museum Group. “Elizabeth Bisland 1861-1929.” https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp172999/elizabeth-bisland Tutwiler, Julia R. “The Southern Woman in New York.” The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life. February, 1904. https://archive.org/details/the-bookman-1895-1933/1900-1909/1904/The%20Bookman%20v18n06%20%281904-02%29%20%28unz%29/page/624/mode/1up Tutwiler, Julia R. “The Southern Woman in New York: Part 2.” The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life. March, 1904. https://archive.org/details/bookmanareviewb05unkngoog/page/50/mode/1up Vatican Apostolic Library. “Elizabeth Bisland.” En Route Project. https://enrouteproject.com/en/the-research/the-female-travelers/elizabeth-bisland/ Williams, Susan Millar. “L’enfant Terrible: Elizabeth Bisland and the South.” The Southern Review; Oct 1, 1986; 22, 4; ProQuest pg. 680. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amado Rodriguez Jr. started his blog, The Official Encyclopedia Sneakérica, with one goal... to do for sneakers what Encyclopedia Britannica did for everything else. No hype. No "buy it now" buttons. Just the deep cuts, the real history, and the stuff that gets lost when everybody's chasing the algorithm.He's @SneakerProfiler on Instagram, a B-boy whose parents came from Puerto Rico, a military veteran who ran constantly during his time in the Army, and a marathon runner who might know more about the ZX Series than most people at adidas right now.We talked for a long time over video. He had shoes. A lot of them. Here are some of the places we went.Amado traced the entire modern running shoe back through the Osaga cantilever outsole, the dual-density foam on the SL 72, and the torsion system in the ZX 1000, making the case that most of what we consider revolutionary in 2015 was figured out in 1972. He held each one up to the camera to prove it. He also showed off a Wales Bonner SL 72, an adidas Rivalry 414 collab from a Milwaukee shop, a Saucony Jazz 81 he wore the day his daughter was born, and an Osaga that the brand's founder's grandson sent him.We got into the ZX 8000 and the AZX collaboration series, and why adidas doesn't do enough to connect the dots between their performance history and the retro shoes sitting on boutique walls right now. We talked about Jacques Chassaing and why someone needs to keep crediting him, because he's too humble to do it himself. And we talked about Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl... not the shoes specifically, but the moment, and what it meant for people who understood the full context of what was happening on that field.This is one of those conversations where the shoes are almost beside the point. Almost.In this episode: The NBA knockoff shoes that started everything. What Puma Suedes have to do with b-boy culture. Why the Osaga cantilever outsole from 1976 feels better than most shoes made today. The ZX Series as the skeleton of every running shoe that came after it. Jacques Chassaing and what adidas owes him. Why brand copywriting for sneakers is just a "brick of text" most of the time. Bad Bunny, Residente, and why adidas going quiet during the Super Bowl halftime show might have been the right call after all. And why the stories being built now, the blogs, the podcasts, the substacks, are the encyclopedia that the sneaker world actually needs.Find Amado: Instagram: @SneakerProfiler Blog: The Official Encyclopedia SneakéricaSUPPORT THE SHOW:Donate Through Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/sneakerhistoryBuy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/nickengvallEarly Access, Exclusive Videos, and Content On Patreon: https://patreon.com/sneakerhistorySubscribe on Substack: https://substack.com/@sneakerhistoryIf you are interested in advertising to our audience, contact us: podcast@sneakerhistory.comCHECK OUT OUR OTHER SHOWS:For the Formula 1 Fans - Exhaust Notes: https://exhaustnotes.fmFor the Fitted Hat Fans - Crown and Stitch: https://crownandstitch.comFor the Cars & Sneakers Fans - Cars & Kicks: https://carsxkicks.comFor the Creators & Creatives - Outside The Box: https://podcasts.apple.com/id/podcast/outside-the-box-convos-with-creators/id1050172106[Links contain affiliate links; we may receive a small commission if you purchase after clicking a link. A great way to support the pod!]—––––—––––—––––—––––—––––—––––—––––—––––Our podcast is proudly...Recorded on Riverside: http://www.riverside.fm/?via=sneakerhistoryHosted & Distributed By Captivate: https://bit.ly/3j2muPbGET IN TOUCH:Robbie - robbie@sneakerhistory.comMike - mike@sneakerhistory.comRohit - rohit@sneakerhistory.comNick - nick@sneakerhistory.comDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Spotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

The second part of the discussion of embroidery history covers blackwork and Opus Anglicanum, then embroidery samplers and beetle-wing embroidery. Research: Абильда, Айжан. “Scythians are creators of embroidery art.” Qazaqstan Tarihy. May 24, 2019. https://e-history.kz/en/news/show/7178#:~:text=Embroidery%20is%20a%20traditional%20East,a%20wedding%20or%20a%20party. Angus, Jennifer. “Nature’s Sequins.” Cooper Hewitt. Sept. 14, 2018. https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/09/14/natures-sequins/ “The art of printing textile.” Musee de L’Impression sur Etoffes. https://www.musee-impression.com/en/the-collection/ Badshah, Nadeem. “Bayeux tapestry to be insured for £800m for British Museum exhibition.” The Guardian. Dec. 27. 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/27/bayeux-tapestry-to-be-insured-for-800m-for-british-museum-exhibition “Bayeux Tapestry.” UNESCO. https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/bayeux-tapestry “The Bayeux Tapestry.” La Tapisserie de Bayeux. Bayeux Museum. https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ Binswanger, Julia. “These Delicate Needles Made From Animal Bones May Have Helped Prehistoric Humans Sew Warm Winter Clothing.” Smithsonian. Dec. 11, 2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-delicate-needles-made-from-animal-bones-may-have-helped-prehistoric-humans-sew-warm-winter-clothing-180985601/ Britannica Editors. "Scythian art". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 May. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/art/Scythian-art “Chasuble (Opus Anglicanum).” The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/466660 Chung, Young Yang. “Silken Threads: A History of Embroidery in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.” Abrams. 2005. Daniels, Margaret Harrington. “Early Pattern Books for Lace and Embroidery.” Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club. https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/nb33_lac.pdf “DMC.” Textile Research Center Leiden. https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/organisations-and-movements/companies/dmc “Dragon Robe Decoded.” Sotheby’s. May 23, 2019. https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/dragon-robe-decoded Embroiderers’ Guild. https://embroiderersguild.com/ Embroiderers’ Guild of America. https://egausa.org/ “Embroidery Techniques from Around the World: Crewel.” Embroiderer’ Guild of America. Oct. 28, 2024. https://egausa.org/embroidery-techniques-from-around-the-world-crewel/ Francfort, H.-P., 2020, “Scythians, Persians, Greeks and Horses: Reflections on Art, Culture Power and Empires in the Light of Frozen Burials and other Excavations”, in: , Londres, British Museum, p. 134-155. https://www.academia.edu/44417916/Francfort_H_P_2020_Scythians_Persians_Greeks_and_Horses_Reflections_on_Art_Culture_Power_and_Empires_in_the_Light_of_Frozen_Burials_and_other_Excavations_in_Londres_British_Museum_p_134_155 “Girlhood Embroidery.” Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://www.pilgrimhall.org/girlhood_embroidery.htm Gower, John G., and G.C. Macaulay, ed. “The Complete Works of John Gower.” Clarendon Press. 1901. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71162/71162-h/71162-h.htm#Page_1 “Introducing Opus Anglicanum.” Victoria and Albert Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/about-opus-anglicanum?srsltid=AfmBOor2pOTddjxaPC9AXHvvQuGXD4Tyx9N3zBeISzMSDHX1KnaUnfnL “Introducing the Scythians.” British Museum. May 30, 2017. https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/introducing-scythians Nazarova, Yevhenia. “Ukraine's Ancient 'River Guardians.'” Radio Free Europe. Oct. 17, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/scythian-dig-ukraine-river-guardians-discovery/31507187.html "Ancient Peruvian Textiles." The Museum Journal XI, no. 3 (September, 1920): 140-147. Accessed December 22, 2025. https://www.penn.museum/sites/journal/843/ “Embroidery – a history of needlework samplers.” Victoria & Albery Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/embroidery-a-history-of-needlework-samplers “History of The Broderers.” The Worshipful Company of Broderers. https://broderers.co.uk/history-broderers “The History of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry.” Reading Museum. https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/britains-bayeux-tapestry/history-britains-bayeux-tapestry Kennedy, Maev. “British Museum to go more than skin deep with Scythian exhibition.” The Guardian. May 30, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/30/british-museum-skin-scythian-exhibition-tattoo-empire Lattanzio, Giaga. “Byzantine.” Fashion History Timeline. FITNYC. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/byzantine/ Leslie, Catherine Amoroso. “Needlework Through History: An Encyclopedia.” Greenwood Press. 2007. Libes, Kenna. “Beetle-Wing Embroidery in Nineteenth-Century Fashion.” Fashion History Timeline. FITNYC. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/beetle-wing-19thcentury/ Liu Y, Li Y, Li X, Qin L. The origin and dispersal of the domesticated Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, in China: a reconstruction based on ancient texts. J Insect Sci. 2010;10:180. doi: 10.1673/031.010.14140 “Mrs. Jacob Wendell (Mary Barrett, 1832–1912).” The New York Historical. https://emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/68658/mrs-jacob-wendell-mary-barrett-18321912 Muntz, Eugene and Louisa J. Davis. “A short history of tapestry. From the earliest times to the end of the 18th century.” London. Cassel & Co. 1885. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofta00mntz/page/n3/mode/2up Pohl, Benjamin. “Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestryas monastic mealtime reading.” Historical Research. 2025. https://academic.oup.com/histres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hisres/htaf029/8377922 Puiu, Tibi. “Pristine 2,300-year-old Scythian woman’s boot found in frozen Altai mountains.” ZME Science. Dec. 29, 2021. https://www.zmescience.com/science/scythian-boots-0532/ Razzall, Katie. “Bayeux Tapestry to return to UK on loan after 900 years.” BBC. July 8, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go Royal School of Needlework. https://royal-needlework.org.uk/ Salmony, Alfred. “The Archaeological Background of textile Production in Soviet Russia Territory.” The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club. Volume 26. No. 2. 1942. https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/periodicals/nb_42_2.pdf “Sampler.” Victoria & Albert Museum. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O46183/sampler-jane-bostocke/ Schӧnsperger, Johann. “Ein ney Furmbüchlein. 1525-1528. Met Museum Collection. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/354716 Schӧnsperger, Johann. “Ein new Modelbuch … “ 1524. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/354660 Shrader, Dustin. “Embroidery Through the Ages.” Impressions. July 28, 2023. https://impressionsmagazine.com/process-technique/embroidery-through-the-ages/39234/#:~:text=The%20Age%2DOld%20Beginning&text=We%20tend%20to%20typically%20think,to%20generation%20across%20the%20millennia. “Silk Roads Programme.” UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/silkroad-interactive-map Sons of Norway's Cultural Skills Program. “Unit 8: Hardanger Embroidery.” 2018. https://www.sofn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/unit8hardanger_rev8.11.pdf “Suzhou Embroidery.” Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.” https://asia-archive.si.edu/learn/for-educators/teaching-china-with-the-smithsonian/videos/suzhou-embroidery/ Teall, John L., Nicol, Donald MacGillivray. "Byzantine Empire". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire Warner, Pamela. “Embroidery: A History.” B.T. Bedford, Ltd. 1991. Watt, James C. Y., and Anne E. Wardwell. “When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles.” Metropolitan Museum of Art. Harry N. Abrams. New York. 1997. https://cdn.sanity.io/files/cctd4ker/production/d781d44d3048d49257072d610034400182246d3e.pdf Watt, Melinda. “Textile Production in Europe: Embroidery, 1600–1800.” The Met. Oct. 1, 2003. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/textile-production-in-europe-embroidery-1600-1800 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first installment of this two-parter covers ancient embroidery around the world, and then focuses on European embroidery, Chinese dragon robes, and the Bayeux Tapestry. Research: Абильда, Айжан. “Scythians are creators of embroidery art.” Qazaqstan Tarihy. May 24, 2019. https://e-history.kz/en/news/show/7178#:~:text=Embroidery%20is%20a%20traditional%20East,a%20wedding%20or%20a%20party. Angus, Jennifer. “Nature’s Sequins.” Cooper Hewitt. Sept. 14, 2018. https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/09/14/natures-sequins/ “The art of printing textile.” Musee de L’Impression sur Etoffes. https://www.musee-impression.com/en/the-collection/ Badshah, Nadeem. “Bayeux tapestry to be insured for £800m for British Museum exhibition.” The Guardian. Dec. 27. 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/27/bayeux-tapestry-to-be-insured-for-800m-for-british-museum-exhibition “Bayeux Tapestry.” UNESCO. https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/bayeux-tapestry “The Bayeux Tapestry.” La Tapisserie de Bayeux. Bayeux Museum. https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ Binswanger, Julia. “These Delicate Needles Made From Animal Bones May Have Helped Prehistoric Humans Sew Warm Winter Clothing.” Smithsonian. Dec. 11, 2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-delicate-needles-made-from-animal-bones-may-have-helped-prehistoric-humans-sew-warm-winter-clothing-180985601/ Britannica Editors. "Scythian art". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 May. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/art/Scythian-art “Chasuble (Opus Anglicanum).” The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/466660 Chung, Young Yang. “Silken Threads: A History of Embroidery in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.” Abrams. 2005. Daniels, Margaret Harrington. “Early Pattern Books for Lace and Embroidery.” Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club. https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/nb33_lac.pdf “DMC.” Textile Research Center Leiden. https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/organisations-and-movements/companies/dmc “Dragon Robe Decoded.” Sotheby’s. May 23, 2019. https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/dragon-robe-decoded Embroiderers’ Guild. https://embroiderersguild.com/ Embroiderers’ Guild of America. https://egausa.org/ “Embroidery Techniques from Around the World: Crewel.” Embroiderer’ Guild of America. Oct. 28, 2024. https://egausa.org/embroidery-techniques-from-around-the-world-crewel/ Francfort, H.-P., 2020, “Scythians, Persians, Greeks and Horses: Reflections on Art, Culture Power and Empires in the Light of Frozen Burials and other Excavations”, in: , Londres, British Museum, p. 134-155. https://www.academia.edu/44417916/Francfort_H_P_2020_Scythians_Persians_Greeks_and_Horses_Reflections_on_Art_Culture_Power_and_Empires_in_the_Light_of_Frozen_Burials_and_other_Excavations_in_Londres_British_Museum_p_134_155 “Girlhood Embroidery.” Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://www.pilgrimhall.org/girlhood_embroidery.htm Gower, John G., and G.C. Macaulay, ed. “The Complete Works of John Gower.” Clarendon Press. 1901. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71162/71162-h/71162-h.htm#Page_1 “Introducing Opus Anglicanum.” Victoria and Albert Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/about-opus-anglicanum?srsltid=AfmBOor2pOTddjxaPC9AXHvvQuGXD4Tyx9N3zBeISzMSDHX1KnaUnfnL “Introducing the Scythians.” British Museum. May 30, 2017. https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/introducing-scythians Nazarova, Yevhenia. “Ukraine's Ancient 'River Guardians.'” Radio Free Europe. Oct. 17, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/scythian-dig-ukraine-river-guardians-discovery/31507187.html "Ancient Peruvian Textiles." The Museum Journal XI, no. 3 (September, 1920): 140-147. Accessed December 22, 2025. https://www.penn.museum/sites/journal/843/ “Embroidery – a history of needlework samplers.” Victoria & Albery Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/embroidery-a-history-of-needlework-samplers “History of The Broderers.” The Worshipful Company of Broderers. https://broderers.co.uk/history-broderers “The History of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry.” Reading Museum. https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/britains-bayeux-tapestry/history-britains-bayeux-tapestry Kennedy, Maev. “British Museum to go more than skin deep with Scythian exhibition.” The Guardian. May 30, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/30/british-museum-skin-scythian-exhibition-tattoo-empire Lattanzio, Giaga. “Byzantine.” Fashion History Timeline. FITNYC. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/byzantine/ Leslie, Catherine Amoroso. “Needlework Through History: An Encyclopedia.” Greenwood Press. 2007. Libes, Kenna. “Beetle-Wing Embroidery in Nineteenth-Century Fashion.” Fashion History Timeline. FITNYC. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/beetle-wing-19thcentury/ Liu Y, Li Y, Li X, Qin L. The origin and dispersal of the domesticated Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, in China: a reconstruction based on ancient texts. J Insect Sci. 2010;10:180. doi: 10.1673/031.010.14140 “Mrs. Jacob Wendell (Mary Barrett, 1832–1912).” The New York Historical. https://emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/68658/mrs-jacob-wendell-mary-barrett-18321912 Muntz, Eugene and Louisa J. Davis. “A short history of tapestry. From the earliest times to the end of the 18th century.” London. Cassel & Co. 1885. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofta00mntz/page/n3/mode/2up Pohl, Benjamin. “Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestryas monastic mealtime reading.” Historical Research. 2025. https://academic.oup.com/histres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hisres/htaf029/8377922 Puiu, Tibi. “Pristine 2,300-year-old Scythian woman’s boot found in frozen Altai mountains.” ZME Science. Dec. 29, 2021. https://www.zmescience.com/science/scythian-boots-0532/ Razzall, Katie. “Bayeux Tapestry to return to UK on loan after 900 years.” BBC. July 8, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go Royal School of Needlework. https://royal-needlework.org.uk/ Salmony, Alfred. “The Archaeological Background of textile Production in Soviet Russia Territory.” The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club. Volume 26. No. 2. 1942. https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/periodicals/nb_42_2.pdf “Sampler.” Victoria & Albert Museum. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O46183/sampler-jane-bostocke/ Schӧnsperger, Johann. “Ein ney Furmbüchlein. 1525-1528. Met Museum Collection. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/354716 Schӧnsperger, Johann. “Ein new Modelbuch … “ 1524. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/354660 Shrader, Dustin. “Embroidery Through the Ages.” Impressions. July 28, 2023. https://impressionsmagazine.com/process-technique/embroidery-through-the-ages/39234/#:~:text=The%20Age%2DOld%20Beginning&text=We%20tend%20to%20typically%20think,to%20generation%20across%20the%20millennia. “Silk Roads Programme.” UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/silkroad-interactive-map Sons of Norway's Cultural Skills Program. “Unit 8: Hardanger Embroidery.” 2018. https://www.sofn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/unit8hardanger_rev8.11.pdf “Suzhou Embroidery.” Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.” https://asia-archive.si.edu/learn/for-educators/teaching-china-with-the-smithsonian/videos/suzhou-embroidery/ Teall, John L., Nicol, Donald MacGillivray. "Byzantine Empire". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire Warner, Pamela. “Embroidery: A History.” B.T. Bedford, Ltd. 1991. Watt, James C. Y., and Anne E. Wardwell. “When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles.” Metropolitan Museum of Art. Harry N. Abrams. New York. 1997. https://cdn.sanity.io/files/cctd4ker/production/d781d44d3048d49257072d610034400182246d3e.pdf Watt, Melinda. “Textile Production in Europe: Embroidery, 1600–1800.” The Met. Oct. 1, 2003. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/textile-production-in-europe-embroidery-1600-1800 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The origins of self-help writing are often traced back to ancient times. This episode talks through some early versions of it, the goal-setting advice of a founding father, and the beginnings of the modern self-help genre. Research: Brady, Diane. “Charles Manson’s Turning Point: Dale Carnegie Classes.” Bloomberg Businessweek. July 22, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130925204803/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-22/charles-mansons-turning-point-dale-carnegie-classes Britannica Editors. "Lunyu". Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Jan. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lunyu Britannica Editors. "Norman Vincent Peale". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norman-Vincent-Peale Carnegie, Dale. “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” London. Vermillion. Digital: https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/english-collections-1/How%20To%20Win%20Friends%20And%20Influence%20People%20-%20Carnegie%2C%20Dale.pdf Fairbanks, Douglas. “Laugh and Live.” New York. Britton Publishing Company. 1917. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12887/pg12887.txt Fontaine, Carole R. “A Modern Look at Ancient Wisdom: The Instruction of Ptahhotep Revisited.” The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 44, no. 3, 1981, pp. 155–60. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3209606 Franklin, Benjamin. “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 1916. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm#X Battiscombe G. “THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAH-HOTEP AND THE INSTRUCTION OFKE'GEMNI: THE OLDEST BOOKS IN THE WORLD.” London. John Murray. 1906. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30508/30508-h/30508-h.htm Lilienfeld, Scott O. and Hal Arkowitz. “Can positive thinking be negative?” Scientific American. May 1, 2011. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-positive-thinking-be-negative/ Ray, J. D. “Egyptian Wisdom Literature.” Wisdom in Ancient Israel. Ed. John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 17–29. Stableford, Brian. “Samuel Smiles.” Ebsco. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/samuel-smiles Seneca, Lucius Annaius, and Garth D. Williams (tr.). “On the Shortness of Life.” https://ia601705.us.archive.org/25/items/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife/Seneca%20on%20the%20Shortness%20of%20Life.pdf Tabor, Nick. "Dale Carnegie". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Nov. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dale-Carnegie See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joseph Medill was a powerhouse in 19th century journalism who made no attempt to conceal his bias when it came to political writing. He also had a fascinating second career due to a tragedy, when he became a politician. Research: Anderson, Jeffrey Justin. “JOSEPH MEDILL: HOW ONE MAN INFLUENCED THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION OF 1860.” Thesis. Roosevelt University. 2011. https://www.proquest.com/openview/6c0d810b769e5f18c08a028835deba88/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750 Britannica Editors. "Joseph Medill". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Medill Britannica Editors. "Chicago Tribune". Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Aug. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-Tribune “Chicago History.” Chicago.gov. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/about/history.html#:~:text=Incorporated%20as%20a%20city%20in,Hare%20and%20Midway%20International%20airports. Hughes, Frank. “Lincoln and the Tribune: A Great American and a Great Paper to Mold U.S. History.” Chicago Tribune. June 10, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/169275545/ “Joseph Medill, Giant of Journalism.” Chicago Tribune. June 10, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/370685102/?match=1&terms=Joseph%20Medill “Joseph Medill Is Dead.” Chicago Tribune. March. 17, 1899. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/355009623/?fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM1NTAwOTYyMywiaWF0IjoxNzY1MjUwOTIxLCJleHAiOjE3NjUzMzczMjF9.T6Xs_g5fD6JZTwZSYECT73-0gILoXji25OQ_fIX1MI4 McKinney, Megan. “The Magnificent Medills: America's Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor.” Harper Collins. 2011. Medill, Joseph. “Mayor Joseph Medill Inaugural Address, 1871.” https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-joseph-medill-inaugural-address-1871/ Moses, John. “Biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of the representative men of the United States : Illinois volume.” Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. 1896. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/biographicaldi1271mose/page/12/mode/2up Smith, Richard Norton. “The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick 1880-1955.” Houghton Mifflin. 1997. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marjorie Merriweather Post is most often mentioned today as the person who built Mar-a-Lago. But she was a unique figure as a woman who helmed a huge corporation when she was still in her 20s in the early 20th century. Research: Britannica Editors. "C.W. Post". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Oct. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-W-Post “C.W. Post a Suicide in California Home.” New York Times. May 10, 1914. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/05/10/100089022.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “The Diplomatic Legacy of Marjorie Merriweather Post.” National Museum of American Diplomacy. April 8, 2021. https://diplomacy.state.gov/stories/the-diplomatic-legacy-of-marjorie-merriweather-post/ Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. https://hillwoodmuseum.org/ “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86.” New York Times. Sept. 13, 1973. Gruson, Kerry. “Post Home for Sale for $20 Million.” New York Times. July 16, 1981. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1981/07/16/195929.html?pageNumber=59 Martin, Roland. "Marjorie Merriweather Post". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Sep. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marjorie-Merriweather-Post Merolle, Guilhem. “Marjorie Merriweather Post’s most famous jewels.” Collectissim. Dec. 15, 2024. https://www.collectissim.com/en/marjorie-merriweather-post-most-famous-jewels/ Reid, Jan. “C.W. Post.” Texas Monthly. March 1987. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/c-w-post/ Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Meriweather Post.” Villard. 1995. Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “Marjorie Merriweather Post: The Philanthropic Heiress Who Built Mar-a-Lago.” Saturday Evening Post. November 14, 2023. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/11/marjorie-merriweather-post-the-philanthropic-heiress-who-built-mar-a-lago/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.