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The future of war has been evolving before our eyes in Ukraine, yet the west still plans to fight the last war. In this special episode, guest host Noah Smith (@noahpinion) and Brandon Anderson sit down with Yaroslav Azhnyuk (@YaroslavAzhnyuk), a serial tech founder who went from building PetCube to founding The Fourth Law, one of the world's most advanced AI-guided drone companies. Over two hours we cover the technology, tactics, and geopolitics of drone warfare, and why the modern battlefield has already left the West behind:* Yaroslav's personal history and the Ukraine war [00:01:04 – 00:14:01]* The modern drone tech stack: why FPV drones are the new god of war, the future of the rifleman, fiber optic vs. AI, five levels of autonomy, and the eight dimensions of the autonomous battlefield [00:14:01 – 01:05:13]* The geopolitics and economics of drones: China's manufacturing advantage, the drone race, Western defense readiness, countermeasures, and why the gap is widening [01:05:13 – 01:58:57]For those looking for Noah Smith's commentary, it really gets going around the 00:51:31 mark.Yaroslav Azhnyuk / The Fourth Law:* X: https://x.com/YaroslavAzhnyuk* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaroslavazhnyuk/* The Fourth Law: https://thefourthlaw.aiNoah Smith:* Substack: Noah Smith * X: https://x.com/noahpinionTimestamps00:00:00 Cold Open: China's 4 Billion Drones and the Cameras-to-Explosives Pipeline00:01:04 Introduction: Brandon, Noah Smith, and Yaroslav Azhnyuk00:05:41 From Tech Entrepreneur to Defense: PetCube, Brave One, and the D3 Fund00:10:42 The Ethics of Building Weapons: Dual-Use Technology and the Wolf at the Door00:14:01 The Tech Stack: Cameras, Autonomy Modules, Interceptors, and a Semiconductor Fab00:18:47 Fiber Optic vs. AI: The Radio Horizon Problem and $32/km Cable00:25:32 FPV Drones: The New God of War — 70–80% of Frontline Casualties00:28:28 The Five Levels of Drone Autonomy: From Terminal Guidance to Full Autonomy00:41:37 The Eight Dimensions of the Autonomous Battlefield00:45:32 AI Safety and the Morality of Autonomous Weapons00:51:31 The End of the Rifleman? Noah's 2013 Prediction vs. Battlefield Reality01:05:13 China's Manufacturing Advantage and Western Vulnerabilities01:24:21 Policy Advice for Western Defense: Defense Valley and the Widening Gap01:32:54 The Drone Race: Who's Ahead, Category by Category01:41:57 Countermeasures: Shotguns, Jammers, Lasers, and Fishnets01:58:19 The Wedding and Final Takeaway: Be Prepared for WarTranscriptCold Open: China, FPV Drones, and the New Warning SignYaroslav [00:00:00]: Think about this. Last year, Ukraine produced 4 million FPV drones. Ukraine is not the most industrious nation in the world. China can produce 4 billion of these FPV drones.Noah [00:00:10]: Would you say that right now China is now the supreme conventional military power on Earth, given its ability to manufacture and deploy drones in the quantity and quality that you just described?Yaroslav [00:00:20]: I don't think we have all the information to claim that but we cannot count it out, and that alone should be a big warning sign. As I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that's the short story. And when you think about what your nation, what your patriots are going through, you realize that's the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back, and then the choice becomes very clear.Introduction: Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Petcube, and the Last Flight into KyivBrandon [00:01:04]: Welcome to Latent Space. I'm Brandon. I normally do science podcasts, but today we're going to do something a little bit different. I'm joined by Noah Smith of Noahpinion on Substack and Twitter. And he has lots of interesting things to say about drones. And as a guest, we have Yaroslav Azhnyuk, founder of The Fourth Law and several other, drone-related startups. To get started, it is February 23rd, 2022. You are running a pet startup. You're connecting pets with their owners. Let's go in just a little bit of background. How did you get started in tech, and what were you working on before the Ukrainian war started?Yaroslav [00:01:50]: Good to be here. Thank you. On February 23rd, late in the evening, 11:00 PM Kyiv time, my wife and I landed in Kyiv. Actually, then she was a fiance. We came from Lviv, where we were looking at a church, where our wedding should have taken place. And we got into this cab ride from the airport to our home, and the driver was like, “You crazy. Like, everyone's leaving Kyiv. Why do you come?” We're like, “What? Nothing's going to happen. Dude, chill.” And then obviously, eight minutes later, or eight hours later, the bombs fell in the city. It was quite surreal. We probably landed on the last flight that landed in Kyiv, or one of those last flights. My background, I'm a tech guy. Studied applied mathematics in Kyiv Polytechnics, born and raised in Kyiv. My parents are old PhDs from academia, and grandparents too. Like, everything, from linguistics to nuclear physics. And I'm an entrepreneur, so I've built a bunch of companies. Petcube is the one you were referencing. So I lived in San Francisco 2014 to 2020, building Petcube, which is one of the leading, pet device companies in the world, selling lots of pet cameras. And then, yeah, as I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that's the short story.February 24th: Leaving Kyiv as the Invasion BeginsNoah [00:03:28]: February 24th, I guess a few hours after you, go to check out your wedding chapel, what do you do?Yaroslav [00:03:37]: We had a plan for this situation. So my parents and family live in Kyiv, and we're like, “Okay, this has actually started. The worst has, come true.” And so we basically packed our belongings and got in the car and spent 17 hours driving west. And that was pretty sure most people in our audience watched at least one apocalyptic movie in their life, so that was exactly like that. Like, felt exactly like that. Missiles are falling. Like, there was smoke in Kyiv. Like, my dad and I went, like, to central part of the cities. It's probably, likeYaroslav [00:04:20]: 800 meters from presidential office, to pick some stuff up at his workplace. Because he's, like, the head of an academic institution, so he had to get some of the things with him. And super surreal. Like, the streets are empty. Like, the gas stations are out of gas. Like, we found some gas station. We didn't have, like, spare canisters with us, so we're like, We figured out, like, the car was diesel, so like, we figured out, if it's diesel, you can actually store it in plastic, canisters, and we bought some window wash for the cars. We poured it out of the canisters, and we poured the diesel into that. Yeah, so it was like that. And then, like, helping friends get out, like my friend and his dog. Like, we found Like, my brother was also, like, riding in a separate car. We found a place for my friend who didn't have a car. It was like, yeah, it was like, totally surreal. And we didn't know of course, and you didn't know this will last for so long. You didn't know whether Ukraine will be able to defend Kyiv. And it was like, yeah, very little information and very little insight into future.From Pet Cameras to Defense Tech: Building for Ukraine and the Free WorldNoah [00:05:42]: What are your thoughts with regards to how do you, defend, Ukraine? So you eventually start building drones Like, what is the process to get from there from where you were building, devices that connect owners with pets to building drones, and what other things did you do to help the war effort in the process?Yaroslav [00:06:07]: It's definitely non-trivial, right? Like, I didn't go, to I didn't get any, like, military education when I was a student. Like, normally, in Ukraine, you would, you would go to like, this military school even if you're getting higher education in any other, sphere. I decided to skip that which is like, an unusual way to go. And I never thought that I will be somehow engaged in a war effort. Like, what is war? Of course, wars are over. It's the end of history. So one thing you got to understand about, like, many Ukrainians and like, I guess, it's also true about most of the people I met here in the US, that your who you are in terms of your nationality is a big part of your identity. So when that gets under attack, it's something deeper than just the country you live in gets under attack, right? And I Day one, I figured I'm going to I'm going to fight back with everything I can, right? But I didn't think on day one that I'm actually going to do, weapons. And a bunch of things. We were reaching out to a number of American, congresspeople and senators, and basically advocating for support of Ukraine, for voting for lend lease, which has happened in May 2022, but didn't actually work as expected. We helped start, Brave One, which is now a very important defense innovation cluster, sort of like a DIU here in the US. We helped start, a fund called D3. It's like, it was started or co-started by Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. So a bunch of these odd things, but then eventually I was like, “Okay,”by 2023 it was obvious this thing, A is going to last a lot more time, and B, that the whole world is shifting and that there's going to be a new arms race, that the warfare is redefined by drones as platforms. And for the first time in history, you have a platform that is software defined, that can increase your battlefield capabilities, in a in a step change just overnight. So it's like if you were able to push a software update and get all of your Roman legionnaires a new helmet? That has never been possible before. It's the first time in the history of war this is possible. So all of that and many other things like, supply chain fragilization, and the impact that AI is going to have on all of this all these things have become evident to me in 2023, and it's like, “Okay, I should do what I do best, or what I know how to do best, start a tech company, and sort of leverage the global techno capitalist machine, to provide, defensibility to Ukraine and the free world.” So that's literally the mission of the company, increase defensibility of Ukraine and the free world. And then there was some sort of soul-searching and like, asking yourself. It's like, “Okay, am I Actually, I know nothing about weapons. Am I actually, like, ready to make, things that other people use to kill other bad people?”Yaroslav [00:09:36]: When you think about what your nation, what your Compatriots are going through And think about all the terror of places like Bucha, the occupied cities in the east and south, the abducted children, the raped women, all the economic damage that's being done, and the intention to destroy a whole nation, to genocide the people of Ukraine, you realize that's the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back. And then the choice becomes very clear. And look, we're just passing the ammunition. We're not doing the actual job. The actual fighters and defenders and heroes are people in the armed forces. We're just support.The Moral Question: Weapons, Responsibility, and Fighting BackNoah [00:10:33]: I have so many questions. Actually, I know you seem to have a question. Do you want to ask anything?Yaroslav [00:10:38]: No, I'm just listening. Go ahead.Noah [00:10:40]: I do want to talk about, some of let's say, the moral issues, like you just said. You endYaroslav [00:10:50]: I think there are no issues there.Yaroslav [00:10:52]: What would an example of a moral question be in this case?Noah [00:10:55]: No, I mean Okay. As you just said, you are creating the tools, but others are using them.Noah [00:11:05]: I was maybe thinking of having this conversation later, but one of the questions is like, is it actually you are going to be building them for your homeland, which you are building it for your homeland, which is I think, very a strong morally defensible position, but this technology is not going to stay with you, right?Noah [00:11:26]: This you will probably be selling these to other people Yeah. So the future is really where the moral issues may come into playYaroslav [00:11:38]: The this question becomes, easier and more complete if we ask this not about a particular technology or particular weapon, if we think that this question actually applies to any kind of technology Right? So -Knife or fire. You can use knife to do surgery and save people's lives, or you can use it as a weapon to take people's lives.Noah [00:12:06]: Cut tomatoes, too.Yaroslav [00:12:08]: Cut tomatoes too.Noah [00:12:09]: Yes, knife.Yaroslav [00:12:09]: That's helpful.Noah [00:12:10]: In Japan, sword and knife, they, call the same word.Yaroslav [00:12:14]: It's like, it's with any technology. Large language models, right? Look at how powerful they are and yet they're available to anyone in North Korea or in Russia.Yaroslav [00:12:29]: That's one side of the argument. The other side is As a maker, what is your responsibility for how the tools you're creating, will be used? There's definitely some responsibility, right? Then How should the decision process look like? Should you, like, try to calculate all the possible scenarios before starting to work on something? Or do you create something that is needed now to save people's lives, and then think about, addressing the unwanted edge cases later? In ideal world where there's like, or okay, it's not ideal world. In a mythical world where there is some one governing party and it gets to decide everything, and there is no other country, that can, decide on their own, you could say, “Well, we need to calculate for all the consequences, and only then, maybe build this building, by replacing this park because, maybe we need this park in the city,”right? So that kind of situation. But when you're in a situation where you're in a forest, in front of a wolf, you first going to deal with the wolf that wants to eat you, and then you're going to go consult Greenpeace. So that's kind of situation that Ukraine is in.The Fourth Law, Odd Systems, and Ukraine's Drone StackNoah [00:13:59]: Enough. Because this is a tech podcast, I did want to spend some time talking about, sort of the tech in that you've developed and what you've been working on. So can you explain, I guess, first of all, like, the problem that you were trying to solve from a technical standpoint? And I think, and then maybe, like, go into some of the solutions and some of the design process that led you from designing, little laser-guided, guiding lasers with a with an iPhone versus Having drones.Yaroslav [00:14:34]: Like, it so happened, that my partners and I, we sort of So I started one company called The Fourth Law, and its goal was and is to Make, massively scalable on-drone autonomy. And then In parallel with that together with my, Petcube co-founders, partners, and friends, we started another company called Odd Systems Which, was focused on making thermal cameras. Cameras, thermal cameras are seeing thermal radiation and are used to see at night. And we're now sort of those companies are getting closer and closer together and we're probably going to merge them. And this group of companies is currently the leading, team in on-drone AI and thermal imaging on the Ukrainian battlefield, and Likely one of the leading, if not the leading in the world. So We have these, like, three sort of business units, which are cameras, drone autonomy, and drones. So the cameras and drone autonomy sell daytime and nighttime cameras and different types of drone autonomous modules to other drone manufacturers, over 200 drone manufacturers in Ukraine. And then the UAV, business unit sells the drones themselves to the armed forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian government. And there are different types of drones. Those are sort of front strike, as we call them, so those are sort of FPV strike drones and the bombers, and then interceptors. And there are different kinds of interceptors. We do Shahed interceptors and we do ISR interceptors. We don't do the deep strike-FPV Drones, Interceptors, and Battery-Powered WarfareNoah [00:16:32]: What's an ISR interceptor?Yaroslav [00:16:33]: ISR is stands for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and those are basically drones which are which, Russians are using to watch over positions and then communicate where, the targets are coming.Noah [00:16:48]: It's a reconnaissance.Yaroslav [00:16:48]: That's, the ISR is sort of a classical term for a for a reconnaissance drone.Noah [00:16:53]: Are all of these battery-powered drones that you just described? ‘Cause I know that the sort of deep strike drones still have, like Some sort ofYaroslav [00:17:01]: Internal combustion engine?Noah [00:17:02]: Internal combustion engine. Are all the things you're talking about battery-powered?Yaroslav [00:17:06]: What we're working on is all battery-powered, right? We don't do the deep strikes, right? And then in terms of autonomy-Noah [00:17:12]: You can catch a Shahed with a battery-powered thing. It's not Fast to catch.Yaroslav [00:17:17]: No, absolutely. Look, Shahed interceptor, like ours, it's called Zero, it goes up to 326 kilometers per hour.Noah [00:17:26]: For reference, how fast is a Shahed?Yaroslav [00:17:28]: Eight, like, in internal phase it could be 280, but in cruise phase it's, like, 220-ish.Yaroslav [00:17:36]: Yeah. And sorry, I'm not like you can convert that into miles if you're interested.Noah [00:17:41]: No, that's fine.Noah [00:17:41]: Multiply by two thirds or point six or something.Yaroslav [00:17:44]: That's easy. Yeah, I was saying that for autonomy modules, right, we, -We make systems, autonomous systems for frontline, for interceptors and some for deep strikes as well, and then different levels of autonomy. So from terminal guidance, which is like lasts 500 meters, give or take, to autonomous bombing, to autonomous target detection, to autonomous navigation and all of that across day and night, different terrains, different time of the year, different platforms like quadcopters and fixed wing, and maybe some other platforms. So it's quite a wide variety of products. We also have like our own simulation. We have our own training school for the war fighters. And we're about to start construction of two, semiconductor plants to make, sensors for thermal cameras. So that's super exciting for me as a computer science guy is Doing semiconductors. Super cool.Noah [00:18:49]: Like in terms of kind of core drone technologies, you basically are one is an FPV replacement without fiber optics, and the other isYaroslav [00:18:59]: YouNoah [00:18:59]: Signal tracking with interceptorsYaroslav [00:19:00]: With or without fiber optics. Fiber optics Is just like, sort of a communication module.Yaroslav [00:19:05]: You can, you can use classical analog, video link and radio link. Those would be two separate radios. You can do digital, or you can do fiber optic, and then fiber optic Has its own advantages but also adds weight and decreases, the distance and decreases, how fast you can, sort of turn and With a drone. Yeah.Noah [00:19:33]: Do you need AI for fiber optic drones?Yaroslav [00:19:36]: Like you can use AI for fiber optic drones. AI replaces a human, right? Fiber optic is making your communication link more resilient. So those are slightly different goals. Like if you want, you can have, AI controlling hundreds of fiber optic drones instead of having 100 operators for each.Fiber Optics, Radio Horizons, and Terminal GuidanceNoah [00:20:03]: I guess I thought that the key reason that people moved to fiber optic drones was for like electronic, countermeasures. Or I guess to counter those.Yaroslav [00:20:13]: I think that's a correct assessment from sort of a public awareness standpoint. In practice it's somewhat more difficult Because besides electronic countermeasures, you have these issues of a radio horizon For FPV drones, which means that asYaroslav [00:20:36]: I believe Earth is round Some people disagree. But basically if you fly a drone and you have a land station over here and a drone flying over hereYaroslav [00:20:49]: If your drone is flying high, you have good direct radio visibility. If your drone goes low, and usually, Russian infantry and vehicles, they're on the ground and you want to hit them, you need to go low. Lower you go, maybe you'll get behind a hill or behind a forest, and if you're far enough, you'll just get behind the curvature of the earth. You get into what's called a radio shadow. And then That is a real bummer because for the last, be it 60 or 20 meters, you won't be able to see anything and it will be very difficult to hit the target. So to counter that what-- And then the distances that these FPV drones, act on they're, they can be quite large. So for example, here in the US there was this drone dominance program competition, and in drone dominance the furthest distance was about 10 kilometers.Noah [00:21:44]: What was drone dominance? What was that competition?Yaroslav [00:21:47]: Drone, the drone dominance is a is a program started, by the US government, to accelerate the development of drone technology here in the US.Noah [00:21:57]: Got it. And the longest range thing they were using was 10 kilometers.Yaroslav [00:22:00]: Was 10 kilometers, right. In Ukraine, like if your drone doesn't fly at least 20, 25, it just, no one's interested in it, and the usual hits are happening. It was like, okay, many hits are happening between 30 and 40 kilometers, and that's what expected from a regular 10-inch, FPV drone. So at that distance, even at altitudes of like 60 to 100 meters, you might start losing, the link. So some of the earlier AI technology that was fielded in FPV drone was this terminal guidance technology. That was the first product that we ever, launched that helped you as an operator, once you see the target from two, three, 500 meters, you lock onto the target and then, it just, drives the drone towards the target no matter what, even after you lost the visual connection. So optic fiber solves that. However, if you want to go like 20 kilometers with optic fiber, that will add an extra three kilos, of useful weight to your drone. SoNoah [00:23:12]: ‘Cause the cable that you have to unspool as you go weighs.Noah [00:23:15]: It is heavy.Yaroslav [00:23:15]: At first, like the spool is about 800 grams, so a bit less than a kilo, and then, and then think about 10, 10 kilometer optic fiber is another kilo, something like that. That takes away from your useful mass and then now you have like, you need a 15-inch drone and it can only carry maybe one or two kilos of explosives if you want to go, 20 kilometers. If you want to go to 30 or 40, like 30 is probably max. 40 is like very problem problematic on optic fiber. And then the problem with optic fiber is it's actually getting super expensive. So and why? Because of all the data centers for AI. That's literally the same optic fiber-Noah [00:24:01]: We're running out of centersYaroslav [00:24:02]: That's being used there.Yaroslav [00:24:02]: Like when Ukrainians and Russians come to Chinese factories to buy the optic fiber, they're like, “We're out. We sold it out to the Americans.”? That's the craziest thing. So optic fiber went up in price from like, $4 per, kilometer to like, $32 per kilometer in a few months in the beginning of this year. And I'veBrandon [00:24:26]: Claude Code is stopping the Russian drone effort here.Yaroslav [00:24:30]: Ukrainian as well. Yeah.Brandon [00:24:31]: Ukrainian. But I read somewhere that the Russians had grown more dependent on fiber optic drones relative to the Ukrainians, and that's one reason why the Ukrainians have sort of regained the initiative in drones recently.Brandon [00:24:42]: How accurate's that?Yaroslav [00:24:43]: The Russians were the first ones to scale that. I think by as of now, Ukraine has caught up. I think, like, as of maybe three months ago, Ukraine is mostly caught up on fiber optic. Yeah.Brandon [00:24:57]: What percent of damage would you say is in terms of FPV drone damage would you say is now fiber optic versus, like autonomous?FPVs as the New God of War: Tanks, Artillery, and Cost per KillYaroslav [00:25:07]: For our, for our audience, I actually, I cannot answer that question. Like, it's like I know the answer, but I would not disclose that. But for our audience, I think another interesting fact is out of all the casualties on the front line Between 70 and 80% are done by FPV drones.Brandon [00:25:30]: FPV drones are the new weapon of universal weapon of warfare.Yaroslav [00:25:34]: It'sBrandon [00:25:35]: Land warfare, anywayYaroslav [00:25:35]: They used to say that artillery is a god of war because artillery used to cause, like 80% of casualties, and now On that ranking-Brandon [00:25:46]: FPVYaroslav [00:25:47]: FPV drones rule.Brandon [00:25:48]: FPV drones are the god of war.Yaroslav [00:25:51]: Sort of. Dethroned artillery. But it's not to say that artillery is not useful, is not needed. Like, all of these systems are needed. Maybe except cavalry, although Russians still use it. I know, have you seen the videos of Russians using mules and horses?Brandon [00:26:09]: What is the usefulness-Yaroslav [00:26:10]: It'Brandon [00:26:10]: Of a tank in the in the modern-Yaroslav [00:26:11]: That's where we need Greenpeace to say a word, but they're silent. Yeah.Brandon [00:26:15]: What's the use of a tank on the modern battlefield?Yaroslav [00:26:21]: It's diminishing.Brandon [00:26:22]: Diminishing.Yaroslav [00:26:22]: However, I think there might be technologies which will, revive the tank. Look, tank still provides you armor, and armor is important. Like, you still need to armor and firepower, right? Like, you can be an armor personal carrier that provides you, armor. The challenge that currently exists is armor is not very well protected against incoming drones. However, there are ways to do to protect it. We were previously talking about this before the podcast. The CEO of Rheinmetall, recently sort of ridiculed, Ukrainian drone industry, saying that like, there is nothing interesting there, no real innovation, no to stand Compared to like, Rheinmetall or Boeing, and it's all made by housewives. There was like, obviously a ton of memes about this people ridiculing the CEO of Rheinmetall. And one of the best quotes, I heard on this topic is from my friend, Alexey Babenko, who's, the head of and founder of VIARI Drone, which is one of the largest manufacturers of FPV drones. They're our partner. They're using our autonomy. So he said that the drones we manufacture in one day will be more than enough to destroy all the tanks Rheinmetall manufactures in a year.Yaroslav [00:27:52]: Then, yeah, cost-wise, of course, a drone is like, $500 and a Rheinmetall tank is what, probably 5 million-ish or maybe more.Brandon [00:28:00]: Don't mess with those housewives.Yaroslav [00:28:03]: Drone wives.Brandon [00:28:04]: Drone wives.Yaroslav [00:28:06]: That's it.Noah [00:28:06]: There's a classic saying that everyone always fights the last war.Noah [00:28:12]: Yet do How did So from your standpoint, how did we get to the point where tanks became irrelevant in at least for now In a matter of just a few years?Yaroslav [00:28:24]: Look, I think it's the same way, how do we get to the point that calculators become irrelevant?Yaroslav [00:28:31]: Now we have iPhones. Like, why would you need a calculator? Technology progresses and its influence grows non-linearly. It's all exponential. So I can tell you that full autonomy, when you put it on a drone Look, so if you, if you think about a tank and a like, it's not a direct comparison, but even, like, a drone and a artillery shell or like, sort of cost per kill, an artillery shell for 155 caliber, which is a standard NATO caliber Currently market price is about $4,000 per piece. So compare that to say, $400 per drone. That's 10 times more expensive. Account for the amortization of the artillery gun and for how vulnerable it is and what is the sort of tactical, capabilities it gives you as compared to a drone. You'll figure out that an FPV drone is maybe three orders of magnitude, more versatile, more useful, more capable than artillery and many of than a classic artillery. Many of Because there are different types of artillery. Not just, like, one 155. You have mortars, you have all that. But give or take, roughly three orders of magnitude maybe. Again, it doesn't have that firepower. It's not one-to-one comparison still.Yaroslav [00:29:53]: Now, take that FPV drone. When you put full autonomy on that FPV drone, which can be not very expensive, like systems that we're, producing are like, in hundreds of dollars of pure bombFull Autonomy: From Human Pilots to Smartphone-Directed Drone MissionsNoah [00:30:06]: Just interrupt. You said full autonomy Just a second ago you were saying that the autonomy here is guidance, right? It's not decision-making.Yaroslav [00:30:14]: No, I was I was saying that's the f-First and sort of easiest pieces of autonomy that was fielded by us. But if you, if you add full autonomy to a droneBrandon [00:30:24]: He, I think he's asking what does it can you, for the listeners, can you explain What the term full autonomy means?Yaroslav [00:30:29]: Basically, I think a good way to think about an FPV drone is like an iPhone of warfare. It's, like, very inexpensive, very mass producible, very versatile. You don't need a bunch of other things when you have a iPhone in your pocket. You don't have, need an MP3 player, you don't need a calculator, don't need other things. All right? So FPV drone is an iPhone. Or like, okay, Apple please don't sue me, is a smartphone. And then, when you add autonomy to it sort of becomes like Uber or ride sharing. Okay? So what it means is instead of actually being a trained pilot who has this complex remote controller device which requires a couple months of training to actually pilot the drone, and then having to pilot it for 30 minutes, flying towards the target, et cetera, et cetera, now you basically, you have your smartphone, you have a drone, you pick your smartphone, you say, “We are here. The bad guys are here. Go and get them.” And the drone goes up, flies in a given direction, localizes itself on the map, finds the dedicated area where they, the bad guys are supposed to be sees the bad guys, bombs them, return, like, watches, so does a damage assessment, returns back, sits down, and then you can pick it up and watch the video if you didn't have the radio link, right?Noah [00:31:59]: That's a bomber drone.Yaroslav [00:32:00]: That's full autonomy for a bomber drone, right?Noah [00:32:03]: You're saying that no human decision is made in this entire process?Brandon [00:32:06]: That's not, that's not what he's saying.Yaroslav [00:32:07]: A human decision was made at the beginning of the process-Noah [00:32:09]: I get it. I get itYaroslav [00:32:09]: The same way as you would fire an artillery.Yaroslav [00:32:12]: When you fire an artillery, you don't stop at like, 500 meters away from a target and ask it whether, you want to strike or not. That's exactly, a human decision is always made at some point. So when you do that's full autonomy, and such full autonomy is happening as we speak. And such full autonomy increases the capabilities of an FPV drone, which is already, like, three orders more powerful than an artillery shell. Full autonomy increases its capabilities by four orders of magnitude because now you can have 100 times as many people who can use it, because you don't need to train those people, and this is important. You can have 10 times, mission success rate, and you can have 10 times utility per drone because now instead of being one-way kamikaze, it's, it can be a bomber.Brandon [00:33:05]: Now wait, let's, you said 10 times mission success rate, which means that fully autonomous bomber drones succeed in their missions 10 times more often than human piloted bomber drones do. That's an important thing to know.Noah [00:33:17]: Maybe, to push back onBrandon [00:33:19]: They're super, they're superhuman. They're, they' 10X superhuman.Yaroslav [00:33:22]: They're not vulnerable to electronic warfare. They don't care about the radio horizon. They don't lose track during navigation. They are not susceptible to human error when, an artillery shell or other drone blows up besides you and you're like, “Hell no,”like, “I'm getting out of here.” Right? That doesn't happen to an autonomous drone. Like, all of those things. Like, we have, like, one of the brigades that's using our drones with just first level autonomy They literally said that their success rates-Brandon [00:33:53]: What's first level autonomy?Yaroslav [00:33:54]: First level autonomy is just the terminal guidance.Yaroslav [00:33:57]: By the way, we have video of that. We can watch that.Brandon [00:33:59]: Terminal guidance means a human gets it nearby and then the AI takes over.Yaroslav [00:34:03]: The human flies it all the way, like 30 kilometers towards the target, and obviously the target was probably given to that human by someone who's flying some ISR drone, some reconnaissance drone, right? So all the way to the target, and once you see the target from a distance of 500 meters, you do target lock, and from there drone flies autonomous. So just that feature alone, it has increased the guy's, his call sign is Grom, so it has increased his, mission success rate, like precision of mission, yeah, mission success rate from 20% to 71%, and it also increased his kill zone from three kilometers to 10 kilometers, which means there's certain area around the front line which is designated kill zone. Whenever enemy goes into that area, it's almost guaranteed to be to be destroyed by a drone. And then obviously the drones are not launched from like, the zero line. They're usually launched from like, minus 10 kilometer-Mission Success, Failure Modes, and the Five Levels of AutonomyBrandon [00:35:03]: What is a zero line?Yaroslav [00:35:05]: Zero line is sort of an imaginary line of control, of two conflicting forces.Brandon [00:35:14]: It's important to explain these things to a lot of the listeners who areYaroslav [00:35:17]: Thank you for askingBrandon [00:35:18]: Familiar with warfare.Noah [00:35:20]: Myself.Noah [00:35:20]: I'm one of those listeners.Brandon [00:35:20]: You said that level one autonomy, in other words just terminal guidance, just, like, human gets it to the finish line and then it goes over the finish line, increases mission success from 20 something percent to 71%, or something like that.Yaroslav [00:35:33]: Increases the kill zoneBrandon [00:35:34]: Increases the kill zoneYaroslav [00:35:34]: Three kilometers to 10 kilometers.Brandon [00:35:36]: Got it.Yaroslav [00:35:36]: On both parameters-Brandon [00:35:37]: What is full autonomy, dude? AndNoah [00:35:38]: Actually on real quick, can we define mission success and like, maybe in a way, what are the failure modes of missions?Brandon [00:35:44]: I have a guess what mission success is.Noah [00:35:46]: But I couldBrandon [00:35:47]: Get ‘em.Yaroslav [00:35:49]: No, but that's a very good question, in fact, because, even if you fly into the target, well, first the target can be damaged or destroyed. Those are two different modes. Then there can be different targets. A sole infantryman is one kind of target. A dugout where supposed there are some, enemies there is another kind of target, and a some mechanical equipment is another type of target. Radio emitting equipment, which, like, often, like, the targets that the military want to get more than anything else is the some enemy radio tower or something like that or some small radio dish that really makes life difficult in that area, in that combat area. So those are different targets, right? It can be destroyed, can be damaged.Then sometimes, the drone hits but doesn't explode. Like, that happens. And then, there are other failure modes. You didn't even reach the target because you were A jammed by electronic warfare; B, you lost the control over drone because of the radio horizon; C, you were jammed by a different type of electronic warfare that happens way before You hit the target area. It's, impacting your, video receiver. So like jamming on video or jamming on control are two different types of jamming. Then something malfunctioned on a drone, just a mechanical malfunction, maybe like a motor broke or like, whatever. So all of those are different failure modes. Yeah, or maybe you got lost, you're navigate navigating to your, to your target. That happens, too.Noah [00:37:41]: The Level one autonomy, basically you manage to point in a direction.Noah [00:37:49]: You go there, and then the last mile The drone taking over.Yaroslav [00:37:52]: We define this like, I define that but it sort of got picked up by the industry. We define five levels of autonomy. So level one is terminal guidance. It's what we just discussed. Level two is bombing. Level three is autonomous target detection and engagement decision. Level four is autonomous navigation. And level five is autonomous takeoff and landing.Noah [00:38:15]: Those are good things to knowYaroslav [00:38:16]: Those are five levels of autonomy. Now, if youNoah [00:38:19]: I have a question for you.Yaroslav [00:38:19]: Sorry. Like, let me finish withNoah [00:38:21]: SorryYaroslav [00:38:21]: Theoretical part.Noah [00:38:23]: What is Tesla running at right now?Yaroslav [00:38:25]: Tesla?Noah [00:38:25]: No, sorry.Yaroslav [00:38:26]: That's very good point. Like, it's exactly, it was inspired by the levels of self-driving autonomy.Noah [00:38:32]: Waymo's level five, right?Noah [00:38:35]: You just tell it where you want to go, it picks you up, and then you go there.Yaroslav [00:38:36]: I think, like, if you, if you look at the classic definitions of self-driving cars, Waymo is still, like, level four because it still requires even remote, but still, like, human control. It's like if Waymo gets in trouble, there is an operator who takes over and resolves this. So that would still be a level four. It doesn't map directly, but it's also five levels.Brandon [00:38:58]: Can I, can I interject a question here? In terms of an FPV drone that's like a suicide drone that'll just blow itself up killing something, how do what it hit? Like, does it, just transmit back, or do you sort of like, lose track of it and hope it hit? Like, what happens to that?Yaroslav [00:39:16]: That's a great question. SoBrandon [00:39:18]: You need another droneYaroslav [00:39:19]: Like, the current battlefield in Ukraine is saturated with different types of drones. So obviously you have all the FPV drones and last year alone, Ukraine manufactured about 4 million of these, and then Russia's maybe, like, 20% less than that. And for this year, the publicly voiced target was 7 million on Ukrainian side. So it's, like, serious numbers. We're getting in serious numbers here. And then besides those, there are different, reconnaissance drones, ISR as we call them, and there are sort of tactical level ISR where we, both Ukrainians and Russians usually use, Mavic, drone by DJI. And then there are a bunch of locally produced drones, which are sort of fixed wing drones that can stay in the air for much longer than Mavic, maybe, like, half an hour. And then, there are drones that can stay for many hours or even up to a day. And those drones have, are more expensive, have more expensive cameras, et cetera, et cetera. We hunt those drones that Russians launch. The Russians hunt our drones, and so on. But ideally, when you, are a group of soldiers operating an FPV, you'll have someone in your, company, or someone in your platoon who has an ISR asset that will do target designation for you. They'll say, “Oh, like, there's a Russian vehicle over there. Go and get him.”and you go there, you get it, and they're like, “Okay, confirmed.”Battlefield Surveillance and the Eight Dimensions of AutonomyBrandon [00:40:57]: Those guys are watching. They have their own drones in the sky.Yaroslav [00:40:59]: Target destroyed. They have, like, a carousel of drones because One Mavic cannot stay more than 30 minutes. ItBrandon [00:41:06]: They're constantly surveilling the battlefield.Yaroslav [00:41:07]: Almost every spot on the battlefield.Yaroslav [00:41:11]: It's not always the case. Sometimes you will not have a surveillance asset, so then you would launch another FPV just to confirm that there was a hit. Then if you see there was a hit and you're not sure if it completely destroyed, you maybe hit again for good measure.Brandon [00:41:26]: You double tap.Yaroslav [00:41:28]: That's how it works. But I was about to give you another sort of piece of taxonomy. So you have five levels of autonomy, right? Then you have sort of eight dimensions of autonomous battlefield. So what is eight dimensions? It's crucial to understand how autonomy evolves in a modern, battlefield environment. So dimension number one is level of autonomy. What are the capabilities that your asset has? Dimension number two is the platform you're operating on. So it can be a quadcopter, a fixed wing drone, different types of maybe, like, a long range drone or short range drone, but it can also be a missile. You can have autonomy even on an artillery shell or a ground vehicle or a sea vehicle. So all of those are different platforms. Level three would be domain. So it's ground to ground or ground to air as an intersection, or ground to sea or sea to air. They're all, like, all the nuances with different domains. Then level four, would be higher levels of autonomy, such as swarming, drone carriers, drone nests, et cetera.Brandon [00:42:39]: Now when you're saying level, you're talking about dimensions, not about-Yaroslav [00:42:42]: Sorry. YeahBrandon [00:42:43]: Autonomy levels. So dimension four.Yaroslav [00:42:43]: The dimension. Yeah, I used to say I was supposed to say dimension. I say dimension because each of them works with another, right? So you might have, like third level autonomy, fixed wing drone operating in land to air, and stuff like that right? And then operating in a swarm or operating from a nest. Right? Then you have, sort of dimension number five is environment. So is it day or night? Is it summer or winter? Is it, humid, cold, dry? What kind of target is it? Is your target hiding in a forest, or is it, behind a hill or within buildings? So all of that is environment. Then you have, dimension number six is command and control. How are you dealing with or like, tens of thousands of those assets around the battlefield? How are you coordinating that on the higher levels of command? How are you collecting data? All that.Yaroslav [00:43:44]: Dimension number seven would be infrastructure, so things like simulation, data collection tools, security, deployment mechanisms, et cetera. So all those systems have to be developed separately and integrate with all the others. And finally, dimension number eight is sort of distribution. Have you deployed 100 of these systems or 100,000 of these systems? Because those are two very different ballgames. So that now gives you a more broad overview of how autonomy propagates across the battle space.Targeting, Human Responsibility, and Rules of EngagementNoah [00:44:23]: As someone who has done machine learning and had gone out of distribution and had things, go horribly wrong, you were talking several of these, kind of axes of thinking about drone warfare seem like they could be very susceptible to some sort of distribution shift if you start making things autonomous.Yaroslav [00:44:41]: Like what?Noah [00:44:41]: I mean Well, first ofYaroslav [00:44:43]: If the I'm very interested Sort of sort of kinds of scenarios that you're thinking about.Noah [00:44:48]: Like the most obvious one is you, if I assume these are computer vision guided systems for at least the last mile, how do you ensure that oh, well, like you now have some fog roll in or something, and you, the drones just attack the wrong thing? Or maybe, it probably will not turn around and fly back and attack you, but youYaroslav [00:45:10]: Same, the same, the same question, how do you ensure that your mortar fire hits the right thing? Well, it's like mortar fire, give or take half a kilometer could be plus or minus. So maybe you fire one, and then you fire another. So drones are actually, much better in being precise in those scenarios. And I think, to your point, I think five to 10 years from now it will be immoral to use weapons without AI.Yaroslav [00:45:44]: ‘Cause weapons without AI will be more likely to cause, collateral damage or unwanted damage. Same way, it will be immoral to drive your own car manually on a public road because it's more likely to cause, unwanted damage.Noah [00:46:02]: Wow, I never considered that mightBrandon [00:46:04]: Really? That's definitely coming.Yaroslav [00:46:07]: Anyway.Brandon [00:46:07]: No, but that' I don't know, it's an obvious, an obvious thought. I agree with you.Brandon [00:46:12]: I, No, they, obviously they're not going to let you drive once most of the cars on the road are autonomous.Noah [00:46:17]: No, that one, don't I believe.Yaroslav [00:46:19]: No, I think you were you were talking about drones, right?Brandon [00:46:21]: The drones, right. Cool.Yaroslav [00:46:22]: The weapons, right?Brandon [00:46:23]: Friendly fire and collateral damage and stuff like that is all minimized with AI.Brandon [00:46:27]: Here's my question. Take all let's go to level six autonomy. Let's take all of the target selection. Let's take all the battlefield data, integrate it into one big AI, and have that big AI basically be in command of the battlefield And agentically do target selection.Yaroslav [00:46:44]: Be the general, right?Brandon [00:46:44]: It's a general. It's, you've cut humans out of the loop except maybe as dexterous robots, repairing drones and fastening things to drones or maybe something like that because you don't have those robots yet. How soon are we there? AI general.Yaroslav [00:46:58]: The most important thing to ask ourselves is who will be faster to that us or our adversaries?Brandon [00:47:07]: I assume us, but how fast will we be to that? I hope us.Yaroslav [00:47:11]: I hope so too.Brandon [00:47:12]: How fast can we Like when are we looking at that in terms of like horizons years?Yaroslav [00:47:18]: Like technically, it could be done now. The question is of course, there's, some engineering work to be done. The bigger challenge is deployment. Right? So okay, technically Like operation in Iran, right? They, the publicly, it was claimed that I think Palantir system was used for target designation, et cetera, et cetera. So it is not exactly as you say, the AI makes all the decisions, but basically AI goes through all the data you have, gives you these 1,027 different targets and says, “You-- To confirm, please press Okay.” And you look at the targets and you're like, “Yeah, sounds right. Press Okay.”so that's, I think that's where we are now already, or we were a couple weeks ago as we're recording this on April 10th. Another question is how massively deployable it is. Is it, like, every decision being made like that or is it, like, just some of the decisions made like that? And then different levels of command and control. There you have, like, the platoon, the company level, the battalion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the tricky thing here when we get into that territory, the tricky thing is If your enemy is getting advantage of being Thousand times faster than yourself by deploying such systems What do you do?Yaroslav [00:49:10]: You got to-Brandon [00:49:12]: The if the enemy is a thousand times faster than you at deploying those systems?Yaroslav [00:49:16]: Like, if enemy starts deploying level six autonomy, as you call And you have not started doingBrandon [00:49:22]: You're in troubleYaroslav [00:49:23]: Yes, exactly. So you have to catch up. So my point is that it is very important to think about the safety of these systems, but that thinking should not slow you down in developing them because they are critical for your existential, survival, right? And like, one person who doesn't think, doesn't get to think about the ethics of the war is a dead person. That person surely doesn't get to think about that.Brandon [00:49:52]: What would be the safety risk of such a system?Yaroslav [00:49:55]: Of course-Brandon [00:49:56]: Friendly fire?Yaroslav [00:49:56]: Just wrong decisions, right?Brandon [00:49:59]: I see.Yaroslav [00:49:59]: Maybe, these decisions-AI Command Decisions, Dead Zones, and Complex BattlefieldsBrandon [00:50:06]: Skynet AI decides it's going to useYaroslav [00:50:08]: No, these-Brandon [00:50:08]: Drone army to kill usYaroslav [00:50:09]: Decisions will not only be made about drones. They are likely to made about what the humans should do on your side as well. Then obviously some environments are more like Ukrainian-Russian war, where you haveBrandon [00:50:26]: It will have to choose to risk lives. It will have to choose to sacrifice human lives-Yaroslav [00:50:28]: Of courseBrandon [00:50:29]: On your side.Yaroslav [00:50:29]: Of course. And then some environments are just, like, dead, like, dead zones and there are no civilians there, or virtually no civilians close to the front line because, like, super dangerous. Everyone has evacuated from there. But there are other environments which are more like, okay, there's a counterterrorist operation. There's, like, a group of terrorists or a group of civilians. Or like, it's like the recent operations in Iran, I imagine that the US and Israeli forces do not want to harm civilians. They only targeted the military targets there, right? So in those situations, it's a different level of responsibility for that decision-making as well. And then there is just such a big variety of those military missions, and I'm not even, like, well-informed or well-educated in military science to tell you about all those scenarios. We would need to put some general besides me, and maybe a Ukraine general and American general would have told you very different stories about these things.Brandon [00:51:34]: Got it. Can I ask a few more questions? All right. So in 2013, I wrote one of my first, paid articles ever was about how the era of drones will change human society. I was just sitting around bored thinking about things.Yaroslav [00:51:54]: You were way ahead of your time.Brandon [00:51:55]: I said, I said, “The following will happen.”Yaroslav [00:51:57]: It's, this article is real. I've read it.Yaroslav [00:51:58]: It's actually-Brandon [00:51:59]: I said small autonomous, suicide drones, will cleanse the battlefield of human infantry. Human infantry will not be able to stand against swarms of AI-powered, suicide drones. That was I didn't even know about, like, AlexNet at the time, I think.Yaroslav [00:52:19]: You're just an avid sci-fi reader.Brandon [00:52:23]: I'm an avid sci-fi reader, but also, like, it's not Like, there will be a way to do that. It's a it's a nonlinear multidimensional search problem, and you get enough compute, you'll find some search algorithm that will get you there. And soBrandon [00:52:38]: I, yeah, I think that one sentence describes the bitter lesson right there.Brandon [00:52:41]: It's just like it's a multidimensional search space. You search it somehow. I don't know. Figure out some get a grad student-Yaroslav [00:52:47]: Sooner or laterBrandon [00:52:47]: To make a search algorithm.Brandon [00:52:48]: It's not that hard. Anyway, so but then, but I guess the point is The point is that human infantry on the battlefield will be will be gone at the end. I wrote that in 2013. Many people on social media laughed at me for that called me hysterical, said things like, “Electronic warfare will knock all the drones out of the sky.”like, “You need humans to hold ground.”that's something you still hear from a lot of people on social media today. I feel that this article that I've written has never been directionally wrong. It has gotten more and more right steadily over time, and that we're very reading the battlefield reports from Ukraine, where, human infantry are basically guy, like a few guys hiding in dugouts for months, and I'm not sure what they're doing.Yaroslav [00:53:35]: That's on Ukraine's side. On the Russian side, that's just like a zerg rush.Brandon [00:53:38]: The zerg rush, and then they just die. Then, but they have some guys in dugouts too, right? Like hiding in dugouts for months.Yaroslav [00:53:45]: They have. Yeah.Brandon [00:53:45]: Like, but that like, what are those guys doing in the dugouts? Are providing, like, frontline, like, reconnaissance? Like, what are they doing?Yaroslav [00:53:54]: If there is a guy in a dugout with some bullets and automatic weapon, the other guy cannot come and take the that dugout. That'Brandon [00:54:07]: I seeYaroslav [00:54:08]: They are they're establishing control over territory.Brandon [00:54:10]: I see. So that is so there still is a use for human infantry on the battlefield as of today.Yaroslav [00:54:15]: LikeBrandon [00:54:15]: How long will that last?Yaroslav [00:54:17]: I think it will last for a while. This is funny. There's this whole Layer of the modern culture, a modern Ukraine culture built around the war-related stuff. So there is this -Punk rock band, that is called SZC, I guess in English that would be. Which stands short for like a deserter or something like that. So anyhow, this band has a song titled “2030.” It's basically about the year 2030, and the war still goes on as like the whatever, third world war or whatever. And they basically, they, sang about the AI and like cyborgs and everything, but the simple infantry is still needed, and we're still, like, getting cold in those dugouts, and we're still doing our job. That's sort of the theme of the song. And it seems like that's actually what's going to happen. There areGround Robots, Simulation, and the Limits of World ModelsBrandon [00:55:30]: Ground robots will not replace humans in the dugouts soon.Yaroslav [00:55:34]: I'm very much interested in following the whole humanoid robot theme andBrandon [00:55:39]: What about like a dog robot?Noah [00:55:41]: Or just mobile controlled platforms or something.Brandon [00:55:44]: Spider robot, yeah.Brandon [00:55:45]: Everything evolves into a crab.Brandon [00:55:46]: You build a crab robot.Yaroslav [00:55:47]: A humanoid-Noah [00:55:48]: The carcinization of warfare.Yaroslav [00:55:51]: There is a lot of utility in humanoid robots because the world is designed around humanoids. So I would not, like, 100% disqualify the possibility that sometimes 10 years in the future, humanoid robots, will be actually fighting. So that's an actual Terminator kind of scenario.Brandon [00:56:14]: Yeah, in the first Terminator movie, you look at what they've got on the battlefield, they've got flying bomber drones and humanoid robots.Yaroslav [00:56:20]: Look, the cost of large language models of running them is getting so low, you can have basically an inexpensive computer running, what was a state-of-the-art model a year and a half ago, running it locally on a device with an open source model, which also means that the Chinese can have it, the Russians can have it, the North Koreans can have it, et cetera. So that is already possible. And with when we're looking at the acceleration of the neural nets, I would've, if not the acceleration of the large language models, I would've said that I don't think that humanoid robots will be able to be useful in the battlefield earlier than in 10 years. But if you account for the exponential, it might be five years or so. The problem with all of the autonomous systems, and it's like starts with self-driving cars and even with all the AI, like modern day AI agents, to make them really, useful, you have to solve such a long tail of edge cases, that it's really difficult to make them useful. Like we were promised, self-driving cars, what, like 2007, Sebastian Thrun and Google, and even before that all the challenges, everything. And Elon of course told us it's going to be one year from 2014, and now we still don't have self-driving Teslas everywhere. We have Waymos in SF and some other places, but they're still, like, not perfect. So I think, I expect something similar from self-flying drones and fully autonomous drones, and we saw that firsthand as with each level of autonomy that we're adding, there is a very wide distance between a prototype and something that is ready to be scaled to millions of units and something that has been scaled to millions of units. But the race with like AI coding tools is just insane. So things might accelerate very fast, faster than we can imagine.Noah [00:58:46]: I think your point is that with due to this long tail behavior Level one autonomy as you've defined it, is actually very natural. Like you basically are just solving an image recognition and tracking system.Yaroslav [00:59:02]: It's actually interesting that you say it that way, and I thought about this the very same way, and we have this joke that there are like 200 companies in Ukraine which are trying to solve last mile, targeting or terminal guidance. It seems like we're like the only company that actually solved that because even that problem-Noah [00:59:22]: I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's at least something that you imagine given our current state.Yaroslav [00:59:26]: Like us and Eric Schmidt, like Eric Schmidt's companies are pretty good.Yaroslav [00:59:29]: Like, I actually have lots of respect to what they're doing, and they're, they have been practically influential and helpful on the battlefield, and they have good engineering.Noah [00:59:38]: I wasn't, I wasn't saying it's trivial. I'm just saying this is a something naturally adaptive based upon things that we know work, well. But some of the other domains that where you do have to make decisions and you have a long tail become much harder, and you worry about edge cases more.Yaroslav [00:59:57]: Like the more, the more complex behavior you're trying to simulate, the more edge cases there are right? The more ways to do it wrong there are. And then there are different approaches. It's like if you think about, if you read academic papers about robotics, right? You sort of the robot is represented as something that has the sort of sensor input, and then you have three, levels of sort of logics or decision-making, which are perception, planning, and control, and then you have actuators as output.So pre-neural nets, you would do perception output and control all with classic logics, right? Then, with AlexNet and computer vision, you could do perception with neural nets and the rest with logic. You cannot currently do each of those separately with neural nets, each of those separately with logics, or you can just have one huge neural net that just takes lots of sensory data. It's not just pixels. Could be sound, could be accelerometer, could be everything, as input, and just outputs the controls. And some of the self-driving car companies are doing that or like, experimenting between different ways of doing that. So you can also, like, think about that and the way you implement those features, also influences how much degrees of freedom the system would have, right? Like control, you can do it classical algorithmic control with common filters and PAD filter, PAD controllers, et cetera, or you can do a neural net, that was trained in a gym with a reinforcement learning, et cetera. And those would be two different behaviors of a system.Noah [01:01:53]: I-- Maybe my point was just much more high level. It'Yaroslav [01:01:56]: Or you can If you go even like, if you go high level, you can, you can like train to like have whatever, like Feifei Li and folks who are doing like physical, sortBrandon [01:02:08]: World modelsYaroslav [01:02:08]: World models, right, physical intelligence, they're trying to make these big models and sort of understand the world and then supposedly you have such model and you can tell a drone, “Okay, like, go over that hill and like, find the bad guys and then get them,”or “Make me a video, make me a photo of the guy smiling and get back to me.” Right? That's one way. Another way you have like these subsystems, like one is navigation, another is finding the person, another is like getting to them to take a photo. And those are again, very different behaviors. And then it's not that one is necessarily better than the other, and we might have more technological ability to do one or another. But all of those systems will exist. And then again, you should always keep in mind that it's only the not only the good guys that are developing these systems, the bad guys are developing these systems as well.China's Drone Supply Chain and the West's Manufacturing GapNoah [01:03:00]: I guess where I'm going with this back to Noah's original thought with the end of the end of the soldier. And so in order to replace-Brandon [01:03:10]: Or at least the end of the rifleman.Noah [01:03:11]: Or the end of the rifleman, yeah.Yaroslav [01:03:13]: I'm not seeing that very close, and it was like I'm, as much as I'm a lover of sci-fi and all of that and a technologist, the more I try to beYaroslav [01:03:27]: Like the I try to have certain humility about these things, and like the military, domain and there was just so much human history and blood and tears, dedicated to sort of understanding this art of war and perfecting it and so on. There is so much knowledge in there that I don't feel like I even started to comprehend, a lot of that. But one thing that I really understood is that even though drones are now making eighty percent of the casualties, you go to the actual officers, you talk to the actual, like, brigade commanders, corps commanders, and they explain to you, how all of it fits together, how when you're thinking about an operation that involves a couple thousand people to get this piece of land, out of the enemy's hands, deoccu deoccupy it, how it is so complex, it involves, dozens of different types of drones and then land operations and reconnaissance operations, psychological operations and then aviations and tanks and logistics and all kinds of these different assets. So modern warfare is really very complex, and the fact that the drones are the latest, coolest thing, and then the AI is latest, coolest thing, doesn't mean that now it's that and only that right? So yeah. Whoever's looking into that I think should realize that it's not just what the press talks about, that the reality is much more difficult, much more complex.Brandon [01:05:17]: Let's talk about China and China's manufacturing capabilities. So suppose that someone, like suppose the United States went to war with China. AndYaroslav [01:05:26]: I hope not.Brandon [01:05:27]: I hope not as well. And then but suppose that drones were very essential to that war of all the types of drones that we're talking about here, and that suppose that China said, “All right, well, you need X and Y and Z, to make those drones to fight us, and we control the production of X and Y and Z, so we're just going to cut you right off, and now you have no drones.”Brandon [01:05:47]: I know that a number of countries, including Ukraine and Taiwan, have been making moves to China-proof their drone productions that China couldn't do that. Examples of things they might be able to cut off might include rare earths, fiber optic cable that you were talking about before, various other things that where even if they don't control one hundred percent of the production, they control enough of the production that would be extremely expensive to produce it without relying on Chinese sources. Or the market's fragmented enough, et cetera. What do you see as China's key bottlenecks, and how easy are those to overcome in terms of China-proofing drone production in case of a war against China?Yaroslav [01:06:30]: Let me start with a saying that -Although China does not sell directly to Ukraine and it does sell directly to Russia, a lot of Ukrainian supply chains, they start in China, right?Yaroslav [01:06:49]: We're not in a conflict with China, and we would not want to be in a conflict with China. And we'd hope that China stays a neutral power between Ukraine and Russia and the US as well. That said, the scenario that you're describing, everything is much worse.Yaroslav [01:07:11]: Think about this. Last year, Ukraine produced four million FPV drones. Ukraine is not the most industrious nation in the world.Yaroslav [01:07:19]: China can produce four billion of these FPV drones.Yaroslav [01:07:23]: China can make them not drones with propellers, but fixed-wing drones, which go not forty kilometers far, but maybe two to three hundred kilometers inland.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Mujahid Muhammad. Interview Summary Interview with Rushion McDonald – Money Making Conversations Masterclass Interview Purpose The purpose of this interview is to demystify personal finance, redefine wealth‑building, and emphasize the importance of preparation, capitalization, and disciplined planning. Mujahid Muhammad, a personal financial coach and founder of Wealth Coaching Stratosphere, shares a deeply personal journey marked by financial success, failure, rebuilding, and hard‑earned wisdom. Through candid storytelling, the interview reframes wealth not as risky speculation or quick wins, but as a long‑term process grounded in personal financial stability, liquidity, and informed decision‑making. The conversation is designed to help everyday people avoid common financial traps and approach real estate and investing from a position of strength rather than desperation. Major Themes & Key Takeaways 1. Experience Is the Best Teacher Mujahid’s financial philosophy is rooted in lived experience. After building a seven‑figure real estate portfolio early in life, he suffered devastating losses due to Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 housing collapse. These setbacks reshaped his understanding of leverage, risk, and preparation. Key takeaway: Financial success without safeguards can collapse quickly. 2. Leverage Without Liquidity Is Dangerous One of the most powerful lessons Mujahid shares is that being “asset‑rich but cash‑poor” is a vulnerable position. His earlier strategy relied heavily on leverage without sufficient reserves, leaving him exposed when disaster struck. Key takeaway: Liquidity is protection; leverage alone is not wealth. 3. Fix Personal Finance Before Building Businesses Mujahid stresses that many people pursue entrepreneurship or real estate in hopes of fixing personal financial struggles—often with disastrous results. Instead, personal financial stability must come first. Key takeaway: Solve your personal finances before using business to create wealth. 4. Wealth Is a Process, Not a Product The interview reinforces that financial improvement isn’t something you buy—it’s something you build over time. Mujahid emphasizes facing financial reality honestly instead of avoiding uncomfortable truths. Key takeaway: Progress starts by looking at the numbers, not ignoring them. 5. The Five Financial Stratospheres Mujahid introduces his Wealth Coaching Stratosphere model, outlining five levels of financial development: Financial Failure Financial Health Financial Fluency Financial Wealth Financial Independence Each stage represents a mindset and requires different behaviors and priorities. Key takeaway: Knowing your financial “stratosphere” determines your next move. 6. Capitalization Comes Before Real Estate Mujahid advises against entering real estate before reaching financial fluency. While creative financing exists, retaining real estate requires cash flow, reserves, and patience. Key takeaway: You can buy property with little money—but you cannot keep it that way. 7. The Importance of Capital and Opportunity Funds He emphasizes saving, emergency funds, and opportunity funds as prerequisites to investing. Capital allows individuals to recognize and act on opportunities without panic. Key takeaway: Capital creates clarity—and choices. 8. Infinite Banking and Financial Autonomy Mujahid explains the Infinite Banking Concept, which focuses on reclaiming control over the banking function through properly structured life insurance, allowing individuals to access capital without relying on traditional lenders. Key takeaway: Financial independence includes controlling how you access capital. 9. Debt Freedom Is Hard—but Worth It Through personal stories of tackling significant student loan and consumer debt, Mujahid emphasizes that debt freedom requires sacrifice, time, and unity—especially within marriage. Key takeaway: Debt freedom is attainable, but only through commitment and discipline. 10. Coaching Provides Accountability and Perspective Mujahid describes financial coaching as objective guidance from someone who has navigated the journey before. Coaching is positioned as a serious commitment, not casual advice. Key takeaway: Accountability accelerates growth. Notable Quotes “Leverage without liquidity is stupidity.” “We try to use business to solve personal finance problems—and that’s backwards.” “Wealth is a process, not a product.” “You can acquire real estate with no money—but you can’t keep it that way.” “Capitalization changes how you see opportunity.” “If you have a six‑figure income, your problem is usually you.” “Debt freedom is hard—but it’s worth it.” “Preparation puts you in a position of strength.” Overall Message Mujahid Muhammad’s interview is a ground‑truth masterclass in financial realism and discipline. His story strips away hype and reframes wealth creation as a methodical, values‑driven process that begins with personal accountability and preparation. Ultimately, the conversation challenges listeners to shift from chasing opportunity to becoming prepared for opportunity, reinforcing that sustainable wealth is built through patience, liquidity, education, and intentional planning. #SHMS #STRAW #BEST #AMISee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Mujahid Muhammad. Interview Summary Interview with Rushion McDonald – Money Making Conversations Masterclass Interview Purpose The purpose of this interview is to demystify personal finance, redefine wealth‑building, and emphasize the importance of preparation, capitalization, and disciplined planning. Mujahid Muhammad, a personal financial coach and founder of Wealth Coaching Stratosphere, shares a deeply personal journey marked by financial success, failure, rebuilding, and hard‑earned wisdom. Through candid storytelling, the interview reframes wealth not as risky speculation or quick wins, but as a long‑term process grounded in personal financial stability, liquidity, and informed decision‑making. The conversation is designed to help everyday people avoid common financial traps and approach real estate and investing from a position of strength rather than desperation. Major Themes & Key Takeaways 1. Experience Is the Best Teacher Mujahid’s financial philosophy is rooted in lived experience. After building a seven‑figure real estate portfolio early in life, he suffered devastating losses due to Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 housing collapse. These setbacks reshaped his understanding of leverage, risk, and preparation. Key takeaway: Financial success without safeguards can collapse quickly. 2. Leverage Without Liquidity Is Dangerous One of the most powerful lessons Mujahid shares is that being “asset‑rich but cash‑poor” is a vulnerable position. His earlier strategy relied heavily on leverage without sufficient reserves, leaving him exposed when disaster struck. Key takeaway: Liquidity is protection; leverage alone is not wealth. 3. Fix Personal Finance Before Building Businesses Mujahid stresses that many people pursue entrepreneurship or real estate in hopes of fixing personal financial struggles—often with disastrous results. Instead, personal financial stability must come first. Key takeaway: Solve your personal finances before using business to create wealth. 4. Wealth Is a Process, Not a Product The interview reinforces that financial improvement isn’t something you buy—it’s something you build over time. Mujahid emphasizes facing financial reality honestly instead of avoiding uncomfortable truths. Key takeaway: Progress starts by looking at the numbers, not ignoring them. 5. The Five Financial Stratospheres Mujahid introduces his Wealth Coaching Stratosphere model, outlining five levels of financial development: Financial Failure Financial Health Financial Fluency Financial Wealth Financial Independence Each stage represents a mindset and requires different behaviors and priorities. Key takeaway: Knowing your financial “stratosphere” determines your next move. 6. Capitalization Comes Before Real Estate Mujahid advises against entering real estate before reaching financial fluency. While creative financing exists, retaining real estate requires cash flow, reserves, and patience. Key takeaway: You can buy property with little money—but you cannot keep it that way. 7. The Importance of Capital and Opportunity Funds He emphasizes saving, emergency funds, and opportunity funds as prerequisites to investing. Capital allows individuals to recognize and act on opportunities without panic. Key takeaway: Capital creates clarity—and choices. 8. Infinite Banking and Financial Autonomy Mujahid explains the Infinite Banking Concept, which focuses on reclaiming control over the banking function through properly structured life insurance, allowing individuals to access capital without relying on traditional lenders. Key takeaway: Financial independence includes controlling how you access capital. 9. Debt Freedom Is Hard—but Worth It Through personal stories of tackling significant student loan and consumer debt, Mujahid emphasizes that debt freedom requires sacrifice, time, and unity—especially within marriage. Key takeaway: Debt freedom is attainable, but only through commitment and discipline. 10. Coaching Provides Accountability and Perspective Mujahid describes financial coaching as objective guidance from someone who has navigated the journey before. Coaching is positioned as a serious commitment, not casual advice. Key takeaway: Accountability accelerates growth. Notable Quotes “Leverage without liquidity is stupidity.” “We try to use business to solve personal finance problems—and that’s backwards.” “Wealth is a process, not a product.” “You can acquire real estate with no money—but you can’t keep it that way.” “Capitalization changes how you see opportunity.” “If you have a six‑figure income, your problem is usually you.” “Debt freedom is hard—but it’s worth it.” “Preparation puts you in a position of strength.” Overall Message Mujahid Muhammad’s interview is a ground‑truth masterclass in financial realism and discipline. His story strips away hype and reframes wealth creation as a methodical, values‑driven process that begins with personal accountability and preparation. Ultimately, the conversation challenges listeners to shift from chasing opportunity to becoming prepared for opportunity, reinforcing that sustainable wealth is built through patience, liquidity, education, and intentional planning. #SHMS #STRAW #BEST #AMISteve Harvey Morning Show Online: http://www.steveharveyfm.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Win Make Give podcast, hosted by Ben Kinney with co-hosts Chad Hymes and Bob Stewart, explores the top leadership books to elevate your influence and effectiveness. Featuring insights from renowned authors like Andrew Grove, Joe Calloway, Ben Horowitz, John Maxwell, Sam Walker, and Clint Swindoll, this episode dives into essential reads such as "High Output Management," "Work Like You're Showing Off," "Five Levels of Leadership," and "Engaged Leadership." Discover strategies for developing leadership qualities, creating winning teams, and cultivating a culture of engagement and growth. Resources: High Output Management by Andrew Grove Work Like You're Showing Off by Joe Calloway The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz The Five Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell The Captain Class by Sam Walker Engaged Leadership by Clint Swindall ---------- Connect with the hosts: •    Ben Kinney: https://www.BenKinney.com/ •    Bob Stewart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/activebob •    Chad Hyams: https://ChadHyams.com/ •    Book one of our co-hosts for your next event: https://WinMakeGive.com/speakers/   More ways to connect: •    Join our Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/winmakegive •     Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://WinMakeGive.com/sign-up •     Explore the Win Make Give Podcast Network: https://WinMakeGive.com/   Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network 00:00 Exploring Leadership Through Books and Unique Reading Strategies 05:28 Andrew Grove's Impact on Leadership and Management Literature 09:40 Embracing Boldness and Innovation for Future Success 14:22 The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz 18:14 Exploring Leadership Levels and Influential Leaders 24:50 The Unseen Leaders Behind History's Greatest Sports Teams 33:00 Engaged Leadership and the Importance of Organizational Change

In this episode, Neil dives into the constant, often critical chatter happening inside your head. Drawing insights from Shad Helmstetter's book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, Neil explores how our internal dialogue acts as the programming language for our lives. With research suggesting that up to 80% of our daily self-talk is negative and unconsciously inherited from childhood, many of us are running on outdated "mental malware." KEY TAKEAWAYS Your Self-Talk is Your Programming: Your subconscious mind acts exactly like a computer (GIGO: garbage in, garbage out). It accepts the repetitive thoughts you feed it as absolute truth, which in turn dictates your attitudes, feelings, and actions. Beware of the 80% Trap: Research indicates that roughly 80% of an average person's daily self-talk is entirely negative. This constant internal pessimism heavily influences how you behave and the limits you place on your own potential. Childhood "Malware": Much of your negative self-talk isn't even your fault; it's the result of early childhood conditioning. Well-meaning parents, teachers, and authority figures inadvertently installed limiting beliefs that you accepted without a filter. The Five Levels of Self-Talk: Your internal dialogue exists on a spectrum from the bottom of the "poo pile" to deep empowerment. Conscious Overwriting: You have the power to "reprogram" your brain. By consciously choosing to repeat positive, intentional statements, you use the same mental pathways that installed your original fears to overwrite them with self-executing routines for success. BEST MOMENTS  "Your subconscious mind works like a computer: it accepts what you repeatedly tell it for better or worse, as truth. As the computer guys say, GIGO: garbage in, garbage out." "80% of what you think and what you say to yourself is doing you down, influencing how you act, what you believe, and what results you're going to get out of life." "These were mainly credible authority figures who were effectively installing mental malware in your young brain. It's not your fault they got in." "You're just using the same pathway that the malware used to get into your system in the first place, in order to install better software or scripts now." "If you change the voice in your head from negative and automatic to positive and intentional, you can reshape your mindset, you can reshape your habits, and you can have more happiness and success in life." VALUABLE RESOURCES  www.Neilcowmeadow.com info@neilcowmeadow.com HOST BIO Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years' experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil's invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

In this episode, I explore a pattern I've seen time and time again.Problems don't really disappear. They evolve.And often, they return in different forms until something within us shifts.I introduce a model I call the five levels of uncertainty, from variety and adventure through to challenge, problems, and crisis. But the real insight sits in the middle.Because there's a point where we either choose challenge… or we avoid it.And that decision shapes everything that follows.The challenges we choose tend to grow us.The ones we avoid tend to return.If you've ever wondered why certain patterns keep showing up in your life, this might give you a different way of looking at it.If this message resonates with you, come and join me in the upcoming free training on www.joepane.com.au

This talk was given by Gil Fronsdal on 2026.04.12 at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA. ******* Video of this talk is available at: https://youtube.com/live/Ns5YXMQ39Sw. ******* A machine generated transcript of this talk is available. It has not been edited by a human, so errors will exist. Download Transcript: https://www.audiodharma.org/transcripts/24566/download ******* For more talks like this, visit AudioDharma.org ******* If you have enjoyed this talk, please consider supporting AudioDharma with a donation at https://www.audiodharma.org/donate/. ******* This talk is licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

This talk was given by Gil Fronsdal on 2026.04.12 at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA. ******* Video of this talk is available at: https://youtube.com/live/Ns5YXMQ39Sw. ******* A machine generated transcript of this talk is available. It has not been edited by a human, so errors will exist. Download Transcript: https://www.audiodharma.org/transcripts/24566/download ******* For more talks like this, visit AudioDharma.org ******* If you have enjoyed this talk, please consider supporting AudioDharma with a donation at https://www.audiodharma.org/donate/. ******* This talk is licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

BONUS MONDAYS: On today's episode, we welcome Masati, a profound explorer of consciousness and near-death experiences, who has crossed the veil not once but three times. His journey is one of spiritual discovery, immense transformation, and an enduring quest to understand the essence of existence. Through these experiences, Masati has gained unparalleled insights into the multi-layered nature of reality, from time and space to the deeper truths of human identity.From the moment of his first near-death experience, Masati found himself detached from the physical, immersed in a place of boundless possibilities. “It's like pure white, a realm of potential and creation,” he shared. This awakening ignited his thirst for knowledge about the universe's architecture and our place within it. Over time, he would learn to rewrite the narratives of his life, a practice he now uses to help others shift their perspectives and transcend their limitations.His second crossing brought him into a deeper understanding of spiritual mechanics. As he drowned in Belize, pulled into an underwater void, Masati experienced an expansiveness unlike anything before. This time, he transcended the tunnel of light and accessed what he calls the "universal database" or the ultimate collective consciousness. “You realize you can rewrite the meaning of what happened to you, and in doing so, transform your present and future,” he explained. This realization, while liberating, also led to years of dark nights of the soul, as he learned to integrate these higher truths into a grounded life.In his third near-death experience, Masati reached what he terms "the mastery level." Hovering at the edge of the universe, he experienced a state of pure awareness beyond identity, judgment, or reference points. “In pure spirit, you don't have a physical or human identity. You simply are.” This profound state allowed him to reshape not just his understanding of existence but also his physical being. Emerging with a renewed vitality, he now serves as a bridge between the ethereal and the tangible, helping others tap into their limitless potential.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/next-level-soul-podcast-with-alex-ferrari--4858435/support.Take your spiritual journey to the next level with Next Level Soul TV — our dedicated streaming home for conscious storytelling and soulful transformation.Experience exclusive programs, original series, movies, tv shows, workshops, audiobooks, meditations, and a growing library of inspiring content created to elevate, heal, and awaken. Begin your membership or explore our free titles here: https://www.nextlevelsoul.tv

Dr. Richard Massey spent decades inside the medical system — from USAF medic to pharmacy school to anesthesiology — before a personal betrayal by his own education cracked the paradigm wide open. In this deeply moving conversation, Richard introduces us to what he calls family biology: the idea that our nervous systems carry inherited loyalty programs from the womb, designed to absorb our ancestors' suffering as an act of love — and that what we call illness is often that love story facing backwards. We explore the intelligence of the heart, the trilogy of conception, how birth events silently script our relationship to work and intimacy, and why the body is never broken — only in repair. Richard walks us through real cases where autoimmune conditions, atrial fibrillation, and even terminal diagnoses dissolved once the ancestral connection was restored. If you've ever sensed that healing goes deeper than the body and further back than your own lifetime, this conversation will show you how deep the roots actually go.Dr. Richard Massey is a former anesthesiologist, pharmacist, and USAF medic who left conventional medicine to pursue integrative and ancestral healing. Based in Austin, Texas, he works with blood and matrix fluid microscopy, heart coherence monitoring, family constellations, and what he calls family biology — a blend of German New Medicine, Recall Healing, and ancestral medicine.(00:00) Episode Teaser(00:30) Opening Conversation(02:15) Episode Start(03:52) License Revoked Turning Point(06:00) The Body is Always Healing(08:35) Nervous System Original Programming(12:32) Reprogramming Methods(16:24) Medical Awakening Story(26:18) Birth Imprints and Labor(33:15) Conception Trilogy Numbers(45:04) Ancestral Heart Intelligence(55:26) Five Levels of Healing(01:02:35) Rebirthing and Mirror Imprint(01:05:53) Autoimmune as Inner Conflict(01:08:36) Recall Healing Breakthrough(01:15:49) Great Dane Experiment - Territory and Heart Attacks(01:27:58) Repair Phase Survival Tools(01:32:52) Blood Patterns and Heart PracticeGuest Linkshttps://www.instagram.com/docmassey1949/Connect with UsStart the free 7-Day Self-Esteem ResetJoin our free Telegram communityJoin our membership Friends of the TruthAccess all our links

Whether it's ageism at the Oscars, celebrities yo-yoing between praise and criticism for their bodies, or TikTok resurrecting the worst diet culture throwbacks… we're breaking down the traps, the triggers, and the truth behind what's happening to women right now. SHOWNOTES Are Women Ever Enough? Why Gwyneth Paltrow's Dress Broke the Internet and Sparked Ageism Drama Can We Ever Win? Why the “Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't” Narrative Hurts Women The Impossible Beauty Standard: Praising and Criticizing Celebs for Looking Young AND for Being “Too Skinny” Eating Disorders, SkinnyTok, and Heroin Chic: Why Obsession With Thinness Is Coming Back And How To Fight It Class and Access: Plastic Surgery, Weight Loss Drugs, and Who Gets to “Keep Up” The Fragility Beauty Standard: How Unrealistic Expectations Are Literally Making Us Sick (Shoutout to Jameela Jamil!) Real Talk About Botox, Fillers, and How Numbing Your Face Can Actually Dull Your Joy Dating After 40: Nicole Kidman's Rules, Why Women Are Done Wasting Time, and the Surprising Stats Relationship Red Flags, Financial Infidelity, and the Five Levels of Safety You NEED to Know The Homewrecker Trope: Why Women Get Blamed for Affairs, Not Men Love Wins: The Most Beautiful Unrequited Love Advice to End on a Positive Note Thank you to our sponsors: Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/lisa Cozy Earth: code COZYLISA for 20% off https://cozyearth.com FOLLOW ME FOR UPDATES & FUTURE LIVES:  Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/lisabilyeu/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/womenofimpact⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@lisa_bilyeu?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisabilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Whether it's ageism at the Oscars, celebrities yo-yoing between praise and criticism for their bodies, or TikTok resurrecting the worst diet culture throwbacks… we're breaking down the traps, the triggers, and the truth behind what's happening to women right now. SHOWNOTES Are Women Ever Enough? Why Gwyneth Paltrow's Dress Broke the Internet and Sparked Ageism Drama Can We Ever Win? Why the “Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't” Narrative Hurts Women The Impossible Beauty Standard: Praising and Criticizing Celebs for Looking Young AND for Being “Too Skinny” Eating Disorders, SkinnyTok, and Heroin Chic: Why Obsession With Thinness Is Coming Back And How To Fight It Class and Access: Plastic Surgery, Weight Loss Drugs, and Who Gets to “Keep Up” The Fragility Beauty Standard: How Unrealistic Expectations Are Literally Making Us Sick (Shoutout to Jameela Jamil!) Real Talk About Botox, Fillers, and How Numbing Your Face Can Actually Dull Your Joy Dating After 40: Nicole Kidman's Rules, Why Women Are Done Wasting Time, and the Surprising Stats Relationship Red Flags, Financial Infidelity, and the Five Levels of Safety You NEED to Know The Homewrecker Trope: Why Women Get Blamed for Affairs, Not Men Love Wins: The Most Beautiful Unrequited Love Advice to End on a Positive Note Thank you to our sponsors: Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/lisa Cozy Earth: code COZYLISA for 20% off https://cozyearth.com FOLLOW ME FOR UPDATES & FUTURE LIVES:  Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/lisabilyeu/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/womenofimpact⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@lisa_bilyeu?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisabilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Take the Individual Disciple Making Assessment: https://discipleship.org/disciple-maker-assessment-info/ Join us for the 2026 National Disciple Making Forum: https://discipleship.org/2026-national-disciple-making-forum/  In this episode Josh interviews Dr. Bobby Harrington, founder of Discipleship.org, about Jesus-style disciple making, the five levels of disciple making culture, and how assessments help individuals and churches grow. They discuss the distinctions between Discipleship.org and Renew.org, share findings from national studies, and highlight emerging Level Five churches and resources to help churches reproduce disciples who make disciples. Listeners are invited to take the personal and church assessments at discipleship.org and to join the National Disciple-Making Forum to learn practical practices for intentional, multiplying disciple-making. Take the Church Disciple Making Assessment: https://discipleship.org/disciple-making-culture/

THE FIVE LEVELS OF CONSECRATION | DR DAVID OGBUELI #consecration #purity #holiness #power

In this episode, we share a framework you can use to help you activate and build the delegation skill.

WOW!!!

America is facing a retirement reckoning. A recent survey shows Americans believe they need $2.1 million to retire comfortably. Yet 62% have saved less than $150,000.In this episode, Jerry breaks down:• The structural retirement savings gap• Why wages stopped keeping up with productivity• The Social Security shortfall projected by 2032• Inflation and sequence of returns risk• Longevity and healthcare shock risk• The Five Levels of Financial Freedom• The Three Bucket Strategy for retirement planning• Roth accounts, dividend income, and managing equity exposureRetirement is not an event. It is a long-term risk management strategy.

AI Assisted Coding: Stop Building Features, Start Building Systems with AI What separates vibe coding from truly effective AI-assisted development? In this episode, Adam Bilišič shares his framework for mastering AI-augmented coding, walking through five distinct levels that take developers from basic prompting to building autonomous multi-agent systems. Vibe Coding vs AI-Augmented Coding: A Critical Distinction "The person who is actually creating the app doesn't have to have in-depth overview or understanding of how the app works in the background. They're essentially a manual tester of their own application, but they don't know how the data structure is, what are the best practices, or the security aspects."   Adam draws a clear line between vibe coding and AI-augmented coding. Vibe coding allows non-developers to create functional applications without understanding the underlying architecture—useful for product owners to create visual prototypes or help clients visualize their ideas.  AI-augmented coding, however, is what professional software engineers need to master: using AI tools while maintaining full understanding of the system's architecture, security implications, and best practices. The key difference is that augmented coding lets you delegate repetitive work while retaining deep knowledge of what's happening under the hood. From Building Features to Building Systems "When you start building systems, instead of thinking 'how can I solve this feature,' you are thinking 'how can I create either a skill, command, sub-agent, or other things which these tools offer, to then do this thing consistently again and again without repetition.'"   The fundamental mindset shift in AI-augmented coding is moving from feature-level thinking to systems-level thinking. Rather than treating each task as a one-off prompt, experienced practitioners capture their thinking process into reusable recipes. This includes documenting how to refactor specific components, creating templates for common patterns, and building skills that encode your decision-making process. The goal is translating your coding practices into something the AI can repeatedly execute for any new feature. Context Management: The Critical Skill For Working With AI "People have this tendency to install everything they see on Reddit. They never check what is then loaded within the context just when they open the coding agent. You can check it, and suddenly you see 40 or 50% of your context is taken just by MCPs, and you didn't do anything yet."   One of the most overlooked aspects of AI-assisted coding is context management. Adam reveals that many developers unknowingly fill their context window with MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools they don't need for the current task. The solution is strategic use of sub-agents: when your orchestrator calls a front-end sub-agent, it gets access to Playwright for browser testing, while your backend agent doesn't need that context overhead. Understanding how to allocate context across specialized agents dramatically improves results. The Five Levels of AI-Augmented Coding "If you didn't catch up or change your opinion in the last 2-3 years, I would say we are getting to the point where it will be kind of last chance to do so, because the technology is evolving so fast."   Adam outlines a progression from beginner to expert:   Level 1 - Master of Prompts: Learning to write effective prompts, but constantly repeating context about architecture and preferences Level 2 - Configuration Expert: Using files like .cursorrules or CLAUDE.md to codify rules the agent should always follow Level 3 - Context Master: Understanding how to manage context efficiently, using MCPs strategically, creating markdown files for reusable information Level 4 - Automation Master: Creating custom commands, skills, and sub-agents to automate repetitive workflows Level 5 - The Orchestrator: Building systems where a main orchestrator delegates to specialized sub-agents, each running in their own context window The Power of Specialized Sub-Agents "The sub-agent runs in his own context window, so it's not polluted by whatever the orchestrator was doing. The orchestrator needs to give him enough information so it can do its work."   At the highest level, developers create virtual teams of specialized agents. The orchestrator understands which sub-agent to call for front-end work, which for backend, and which for testing. Each agent operates in a clean context, focused on its specific domain. When the tester finds issues, it reports back to the orchestrator, which can spin up the appropriate agent to fix problems. This creates a self-correcting development loop that dramatically increases throughput.   In this episode, we refer to the Claude Code subreddit and IndyDevDan's YouTube channel for learning resources.   About Adam Bilišič Adam Bilišič is a former CTO of a Swiss company with over 12 years of professional experience in software development, primarily working with Swiss clients. He is now the CEO of NodeonLabs, where he focuses on building AI-powered solutions and educating companies on how to effectively use AI tools, coding agents, and how to build their own custom agents.   You can connect with Adam Bilišič on LinkedIn and learn more at nodeonlabs.com. Download his free guide on the five levels of AI-augmented coding at nodeonlabs.com/ai-trainings/ai-augmented-coding#free-guide.

The way organizations think about artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace has shifted dramatically over the past few years. While early conversations centered on isolated experiments and technological hype, organizations now face the much harder task of integrating AI into the fabric of how work gets done. We welcome Melissa Reeve, author of “Hyper Adaptive: Rewiring the Enterprise to Become AI Native,” to discuss what AI adoption really means for people, processes, and culture.Melissa tackles some tough questions about organizational complexity, shifting operating models, and the critical role of culture and systems thinking in successful AI integration. Listeners will get candid advice on starting small, experimenting with purpose, and preparing for the rewiring ahead. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...03:38 Integrating AI into organizations12:47 AI Native enterprise structure15:51 Dynamic AI governance framework18:58 AI implementation foundations23:56 Process mapping for AI integration29:44 Balancing efficiency and leadership focus37:02 Start small with value streams40:59 Innovative organizational funding models42:14 Starting a skills-focused organization47:03 Digital Twins in Product TestingNavigating the AI Revolution at WorkMelissa Reeve's journey began on the factory floors of Toyota, learning firsthand how small process shifts can drive system-wide change. Building on years of research and influence from Lean, Agile, and DevOps practitioners, Reeve authored a five-stage maturity model she calls hyperadaptive, designed to guide organizations through the incremental steps needed to become truly AI-native.The five stages of Melissa's model:Foundation – Build organizational understanding of AI; create dynamic governance structures and clarify guardrails. Optimization – Identify and optimize business processes for AI interactions; move beyond basic experimentation. Agents & Automation – Develop and manage AI agents that execute tasks and processes autonomously. Rewiring – Shift organizational architecture from rigid hierarchies to flexible, value-stream teams funded and incentivized differently. Hyperadaptive – Fully sense-and-respond organizations capable of real-time adaptation.Melissa splits these into two main categories: Basecamp (the first three stages, where most companies currently operate) and the Emerging Frontier (rewiring and hyper adaptivity).Why Organizations Struggle with AI IntegrationAccording to Melissa, most organizations are stuck because they underestimate the support structures required for successful AI adoption. It's not just about updating technology, in fact, 70-80% of AI success depends on people, culture, and processes, not algorithms. Companies often rush to deploy AI agents or experiment without a clear North Star, leading to pilot fatigue and an 80% failure rate. Many organizations haven't even finished laying the foundational groundwork, such as establishing unified governance or mapping work processes.Another common pitfall is the tendency to try everything at once. Pressure for fast results drives teams to bite off too much, resulting in burnout and costly errors.Moving from Experimentation to Purposeful TransformationPlaying with AI is not a strategy. While experimentation is necessary, organizations must put bounds on these efforts, know why they're experimenting, what hypothesis they're testing, and what success will look like.One necessary precursor is getting to grips with how your organization actually works. Many leaders lack visibility into workflows, decisions, and skillsets, making process optimization difficult. Reeve suggests collaborative process mapping—sometimes supported by AI tools—to unlock tacit knowledge and identify where AI can augment or reinvent workflows.Organizing Around Value StreamsOne of the most transformative elements is the shift from function-based silos to cross-functional value stream teams. Melissa draws on examples from Toyota, Zappos, and Unilever—organizations that reimagine workflows, funding mechanisms, and team incentives to deliver value rather than preserve hierarchy. Dynamic budgeting, focused experimentation, and flexible team structures help organizations scale AI success without tearing up everything at once.Culture, Upskilling, and Durable SuccessAI's impact will be decided by how well organizations invest in people. Unilever's Future Fit program exemplifies this approach, aligning reskilling efforts to individual purpose and business needs. It's not algorithms that set successful organizations apart, but their ability to create cultures and support systems that empower people to adapt, reinvent themselves, and thrive amidst change.Start small, experiment with purpose, invest in support structures, and prepare to rewire not just technology, but how your organization thinks about work itself. AI may be the catalyst, but people, empowered and organized around value, are the key to lasting transformation. Resources & People MentionedHyperadaptive: Rewiring the Enterprise to Become AI-Native Connect with Melissa ReeveMelissa M. Reeve on LinkedIn Connect With Red Thread ResearchWebsite: Red Thread ResearchOn LinkedInOn FacebookOn TwitterSubscribe to WORKPLACE STORIES

Send us a textSubscribe to my Substack for weekly decision-making frameworks: https://maaponte.substack.com/Not all thinking is created equal. There are five distinct levels—and most people get stuck at Level 3 without realizing it.In this episode, I break down the Cognitive Ladder: from recall to comprehension to application to transfer to evaluation. I share the story of a student who could memorize the Constitution but couldn't apply it to modern life, a teacher who transferred literary analysis skills to crisis intervention, and the Level 5 judgment call I had to make when deciding whether to fire a beloved teacher.What you'll learn:The five levels of thinking (and how to diagnose where you are)Why smart people struggle when the context changesTraps at each level and how to avoid themHow I transferred thinking skills across four different careersThe difference between knowing how to do something and being able to adapt itHow to move up the ladder one rung at a timestep-by-step methods to move up a levelaligning tasks with levels to lead and teach betterbuilding tolerance for ambiguity and owning decisionsIf you want to go deeper on this, if you want to diagnose your thinking level and frameworks for moving up the ladder, I write about this every week in my Substack. If you want the insider of Substack, that's a $10 a month, and the link is in the show. Support the showJoin My Substack for more content: maaponte.substack.com

Free Up Your Time While Developing Your Team In this solo episode, Megan Long breaks down why so many Seconds-in-Command and Integrators struggle with delegation, usually because it was modeled poorly for them or they've fallen into the trap of thinking "it's faster if I just do it myself." The game-changer comes from understanding two critical frameworks: first, before giving any feedback, ask yourself "is this preference or is this policy?" Most leaders waste time correcting work that's different from how they'd do it, not work that's actually wrong. Second, there are five levels of delegation—from "carry out instructions" for new employees to "act independently" for trusted team members—and the biggest mistake is not being clear about which level you're using before handing off work. For Seconds-in-Command specifically, you need to factor in what your CEO will ask you about and remember that your entrepreneur's preferences become policy, even when they seem trivial. When you get delegation right, you're not just getting work off your plate, you're building the skill sets of your team. You'll hear all about: 01:32 - Breaking the mental stigma around delegation: it's not about dumping tasks, it's about developing people and giving opportunities for growth 02:53 - Common false narrative: "It's faster if I just do it myself" because you don't like how they do it 03:16 - Delegation Secret #1: Preference vs. Policy - Before giving feedback, ask yourself if the work needs to change to be correct, or if it's just different than how you'd do it 03:48 - Real-world example: The agenda with mixed fonts and no icebreaker - is this worth feedback? 04:46 - The flip side: Ruinous empathy from Kim Scott's "Radical Candor" - when you avoid giving necessary policy feedback to protect feelings 05:17 - Delegation Secret #2: The Five Levels of Delegation - delegation isn't all-or-nothing; clarity on the level is key to success 05:57 - Level 1: Carry Out Instructions - for new employees or when you've already made the decision 06:42 - Level 2: Research and Report - gathering information while you reserve decision-making 06:56 - Level 3: Research and Recommend - they provide pros, cons, and their opinion; you give final authorization 07:24 - Level 4: Decide and Inform - they make the decision and tell you after; high trust, just avoiding surprises 08:06 - Level 5: Act Independently - highest level; full autonomy with no required reporting back 08:57 - How to choose the right delegation level: consider who's doing the work, your trust level, criticality of work, and what your CEO will ask you 10:12 - Creating a success checklist before delegating so you can define what "nailing it" looks like regardless of preference 10:40 - The exception to preference vs. policy: When it's the entrepreneur's preference, treat it like policy   Rate, review & follow on Apple Podcasts Click Here to Listen! OR WATCH ON YOUTUBE If you haven't already done so, follow the podcast to make sure you never miss a value-packed episode. Links mentioned in the episode: Second First Membership Second First One-on-One Coaching Second First on Instagram Second First on LinkedIn Megan Long on LinkedIn

Apply to Join Churchfront Premium Apply to Join Churchfront Pro Free Worship and Production Toolkit Shop Our Online Courses Join us at the Churchfront Conference Follow Churchfront on Instagram or TikTok: @churchfront Follow on Twitter: @realchurchfront Gear we use to make videos at Churchfront Musicbed SyncID: MB01VWQ69XRQNSN   Podcast Notes: Leadership & Scaling from Solo to 10+ Team Members with Jake Gosselin Overview Matt interviews Jake Gosselin about growing Churchfront from a one-person YouTube channel into a 10+ person church AVL systems integration company. They talk through leadership growth, hiring, delegation, and how to maintain vision while scaling, with direct parallels to church leadership. Key Topics & Timestamps Vision as the Foundation (00:00–05:32) Why clear vision needs to come before leadership development Churchfront's mission: "Equip church leaders in spaces with innovative solutions for thriving ministry." The importance of a mission statement, vision statement, and core values A two-day workshop at Ramsey to clarify and communicate vision Natural progression from YouTube creator to leading a 10-person team Key Quote: "If there is no clear vision of where you're trying to bring that organization, then everything else that we're about to talk about with leadership development and scaling an organization is kind of irrelevant because nobody knows where you're going." The Transition from Hands-On to Hands-Off (03:23–07:54) How Jake went from knowing everything to empowering team decision-making Building systems so problems get solved without senior leader involvement Decision-making frameworks around mission, vision, values, and finances When leaders should stay involved vs. when to delegate Team members now have authority and clarity to address issues independently High-risk or costly decisions still require senior leader involvement Key Quote: "It's so cool that my brain, even though I can keep up with a lot of things, I can no longer keep up with all of the cool things that are happening in the business and probably some of the headaches." Hiring A-Players (07:54–13:04) Essential hiring criteria: Mission alignment — genuinely excited about equipping church leaders Self-leadership — evidence of personal discipline (health, appearance, habits) Character references — take time to call references and vet thoroughly Working Genius Assessment — using Patrick Lencioni's framework to build balanced teams Team vetting — multiple team members interview candidates Churchfront Focus: Churchfront only works with churches (not corporate AV, DJ setups, or other venues). Candidates need to genuinely care about the local church. Working Genius Details: $25 assessment (WIDGET acronym) Identifies whether someone leans toward Wonder/Invention vs. Tenacity/Galvanizing traits Helps place people into roles that fit their strengths Recommended for church staff to understand their "genius zones" Key Quote: "If you can't lead yourself, you can't lead others very well." The Challenge of Letting Go (13:37–16:56) Why control is tempting but unsustainable for growth Long-term vision motivates delegation Media/marketing was Jake's original specialty and the hardest area for him to delegate to Matt Over time, Matt learned Jake's standards and expectations Hiring people who are better than you in specific areas Real Examples: Chris installs, rigs, mounts, and runs cable better than Jake Spencer models and drafts 3D spaces faster in Vectorworks James creates better schematics Senior Leader Principle: Leaders should understand all departments without controlling them. Spend a few hours learning the basics so you can make informed decisions about major investments. Church Application: Senior pastors should take Churchfront courses (a couple half-days) to be more informed than most lead pastors when making major AV decisions. Key Quote: "I'm motivated by the long-term vision of where this is going and how big the organization has to go that I'm just like, 'Yeah, I don't need to control everything. I don't want that life where I feel like I have to because I'm just going to be miserable about that.'" Present Leadership Without Micromanaging (17:46–19:40) Weekly team meetings where everyone shares what they're working on Asking: "What did you do last week?" and "What are you working on this week?" (3–10 minutes) Five minutes with each team member can make a huge impact Being present builds trust across the org chart Service businesses succeed based on team health and performance Jake shifted from solo productivity to supporting team members Key Quote: "That five minutes of interaction with one of your team members a week, no matter where they're at in the org chart, goes a long way because they're like, 'Oh wow, our senior leader knows me. I can trust him.'" High-Leverage Activities (19:50–23:16) Definition of leverage: low input, high output—like a tool that multiplies your strength. What Jake focuses on now: Pre-design client conversations — 2–3 hours per project that sets the trajectory for large-budget projects (using Wonder/Invention/Visionary strengths) Media creation — 30 minutes to a few hours can reach thousands (what built Churchfront over 8–10 years) Leader development — multiplication only happens as the team grows from 10+ toward 20–30 For church leaders: Sunday preaching — communication at scale (in-person and online) Developing other leaders — especially in areas where you're less gifted Key Quote: "What can I put lower input into and gives me high output? That's what a lever or a tool is." Leadership Evolution (23:23–25:23) John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership (applied): Position — title alone (doesn't get you much) Permission — relationships; people give you permission to lead Productivity — "Follow me because I produce results" (how Churchfront started) Leader development — "Follow me because I'll equip you to lead others" (current focus) Multiplication — creating leaders who create leaders Jake's journey: 2016: solo entrepreneur and highly productive individual Read leadership books and understood the growth track Started with productivity to get things off the ground With 10 people (and aiming for 20–30), he must focus on leader development to reach multiplication Key Insight: Leadership maturity means realizing it's more people-focused than anything else. Advice to 2016 Jake (25:44–28:06) What Jake would tell his younger self: "Buy more Bitcoin" (half-joking) With what he knows now, he could do in 2–3 years what took 10 But he wouldn't rush it—focus on the journey Be a man of good character Follow God Keep sustainable work-life balance Care for spouse and kids Don't rush—God multiplies right inputs into massive outputs Seek wise counsel on business strategy and online marketing Show up and do the work every day For young 20-somethings Jake mentors: Focus on self-leadership and the basics Better strategies exist—learn from wise voices Put in consistent daily work People don't see the late-night edits and behind-the-scenes grind Key Quote: "A lot of people see Churchfront and they're like, 'Wow, it's like 300,000 subscribers. It's a decent sized little business growing a lot.' It's like, yeah, that's after eight to 10 years of just showing up and doing it every single day." Main Themes Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater As church culture shifts away from overly corporate/produced approaches back toward authenticity, it's still worth keeping the leadership lessons that help organizations run well—especially because leadership often isn't taught deeply in Bible school contexts. Parallels Between Business and Church Leadership Churchfront is a Christian business that prays before meetings and focuses on serving the local church. The leadership principles Jake uses translate directly to church staff leadership, especially for teams of 5–15. The Secret Sauce In service businesses (and churches), the team and people are the product. That's why leader development and team health matter so much. Natural Progression Growth happens in stages. Jake went from being intimidated by the idea of 10 staff members to progressing through each hire and stage—each step building confidence for the next. Practical Takeaways for Church Leaders Clarify your vision first—mission, vision, and core values you return to weekly Hire A-players only—take time, use assessments, and get team input Build decision-making systems so your team can solve problems without you Stay present without micromanaging—even five minutes per person per week helps Focus on high-leverage activities—preaching, leader development, strategic decisions Understand all departments without needing to control them Invest in education—leaders should understand the basics of major spending areas Progress through leadership levels—from productivity to multiplication Prioritize character and self-leadership—in yourself and the people you hire Think long-term—consistent daily effort over 8–10 years creates remarkable results

In this finale of the Five levels of Pleasure we wind it down with the most thought provoking of all the pleasures, an Encounter with God. We discuss the soul of a Yid and how driven it is. We find out how all five pleasures interplay with each other as a need to obtain the highest pleasure. Some fun stories and accents can be found here as well, Enjoy!

SOOOO I get a bit emotional in this one. It is always an emotional journey and I break down my own life and choices. We talk about having purpose and showing it to our kids. Expressing that purpose and how to find it. Along the way we throw in a few stories of dealing with Israeli's. Enjoy!

Live teaching from Pastor Darryl Hall from Lifewell Church in Garland, TX.⁠https://www.lifewellchurch.com⁠View Full Stream⁠https://www.youtube.com/lifewelld⁠Give Online⁠www.lifewellchurch.com/donate.html⁠Feedback⁠https://www.lifewellchurch.com/feedback.html⁠Twitter⁠https://twitter.com/lifewelld

Looking 4 Healing Radio with Dr. Angelina Farella – Dr. Wulfman's approach goes far beyond the typical symptom-based model of medicine. Instead, he looks at what he calls the five levels of the self — physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and spiritual — because real healing rarely happens on just one level. “We are complex beings, and if we want honest answers about why we feel the way we...

Looking 4 Healing Radio with Dr. Angelina Farella – Dr. Wulfman's approach goes far beyond the typical symptom-based model of medicine. Instead, he looks at what he calls the five levels of the self — physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and spiritual — because real healing rarely happens on just one level. “We are complex beings, and if we want honest answers about why we feel the way we...

In this continuation of the Five levels of Pleasure series we delve into the next two pleasures after a quick summary of the fifth level. In all honestly this one gets pretty real and raw. The content isn't for young ears but is a must for older ears. This one is heavy, Enjoy!

In this powerful conversation, I welcome Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. to discuss his new book, The Poisoned Arrow: A Toltec Guide to Overcoming Fear. Miguel shares candidly about how the book emerged from personal experiences, including a concussion, caregiver's fatigue, and a cancer scare, making it a deeply authentic exploration of fear in real-time healing. The discussion weaves together Toltec wisdom, modern challenges such as AI and social media, and practical approaches to working with both rational and irrational fears.About my GuestDon Miguel Ruiz Jr. is a Toltec Master of Transformation and author of multiple books, including The Five Levels of Attachment and The Mastery of Self. He carries forward the teachings of his grandmother, Madre Sarita, the spiritual head of their family. From that early age, he was called upon to translate Madre Sarita's prayers, lectures, and workshops from Spanish into English. In this way, through constant repetition and review, he learned the content of her teachings in both languages. Miguel now brings ancient Toltec wisdom into practical, accessible language for modern life, transforming the lives of countless souls. Find his work:The Poisoned Arrow: A Toltec Guide to Overcoming Fear - Available wherever books are sold

Welcome to the wonderful world of the five levels of pleasure! We explore the difference between comfort and pleasure and how one is meant to being a focus on the pleasures Hashem has given us to enjoy in this world. 

We began a new mini-series covering the incredible Five Levels of Pleasure from Rabbi Noach Weinberg. We begin by exploring Lech- Lecha and continue on as an intro to this mind provoking limud. Enjoy!

“You have to make sure you don't lose the vision of what you started, because the team could begin and can take on a personality of its own. And if you don't manage it, you can get off the vision of what brought you here.”What does it really take to build a thriving speaking business? In this week's thought-provoking episode, Grant Baldwin sits down with Erick Rheam to explore the practical strategies and mindset shifts needed for true longevity in this industry.Erick, an established speaker with years of experience under his belt, opens up about his own journey: the early hustle, the inevitable challenges, and, most importantly, how he's learned to balance ambition with sustainability. He and Grant get real about the myth of constant grind, explaining that putting in the hard work is necessary at the start, but staying stuck in overdrive isn't the secret to lasting impact or happiness.Instead, this conversation dives deep into the habits and boundaries that separate career burnout from long-term success. Erick shares how intentional routines, clear priorities, and strategic rest have shaped his evolution, not just as a speaker, but as a leader, husband, and friend.If you're dreaming about building a speaking business with staying power, this episode is packed with practical takeaways. Tune in for a refreshing look at what it takes to sustain your passion and make an impact for years to come. Whether you're just getting started or already established, Erick and Grant's discussion is a must-listen for any speaker ready to play the long game. Don't miss it!You'll learn:The defining characteristics, obstacles, and recommended advancements for the five levels of a professional speaking careerLevel 1: The Aspiring SpeakerLevel 2: The Amateur SpeakerLevel 3: The Professional SpeakerLevel 4: The Career SpeakerLevel 5: The Legacy SpeakerNot taking the speaking journey for grantedThe importance of being coached at every levelAnd much, much more!“It's fun when you do something that you're really passionate about and aligned with, it's amazing how every other part of your life starts to align once you figure out what that looks like.”Episode ResourcesErick's Website2 Day Booked and Paid BootcampGet Free Speaker ResourcesBook a Call with The Speaker LabCalculate Your Speaking FeeJoin The Speaker Lab Community on FacebookSubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on SpotifySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode 587 Welcome to Loan Officer Freedom, the #1 podcast in the country for loan officers, hosted by Carl White. In this episode, Carl sits down with Kevin Gillespie to unpack the five levels of leadership and authority that actually move teams forward: confidence, discipline, leadership, gratitude, and enjoyment. You will hear how real confidence is a steady presence rather than bravado, why discipline beats motivation when the day gets messy, and how gratitude keeps you centered so you can lead with clarity even in tough markets. Carl and Kevin share practical ways to build joyful cultures that attract talent, turn daily habits into long-term wins, learn faster from hard seasons, and surround yourself with people and rooms that raise your standard. They close with simple steps to model calm, celebrate other people's wins as your own, and use authentic enjoyment to make followership the natural outcome of how you show up. If you want help installing these five levels through six proven growth systems in your branch or team, take the next step at ProfitDrivenPlan.com for a no-pressure strategy call that maps your path to franchise-level value.

In this episode, we sit down with Social Impact Pioneer, social entrepreneur and purposeful leader - Amrit Dhaliwal. As CEO of Walfinch, one of the UK's leading home care franchise networks, Amrit is on a mission to redefine both franchising and social care—bringing innovation, purpose, and people-first values into sectors too often driven solely by margins. Tune in for an introduction to leading with purpose—both for people and for businesses. If you're ready to discover what it takes to be a truly values-driven leader, this is where to start. From transforming an Italian deli into an award-winning restaurant to founding Walfinch in 2019, Amrit's entrepreneurial journey is rooted in spotting inefficiencies and building better systems. Today, under his leadership, Walfinch is rapidly expanding and on course to become a £20 million network, with multiple franchisees expected to reach £1 million turnover within their first three years. His success, however, is not measured by profit alone. Amrit is committed to blending commercial growth with meaningful social impact, ensuring older adults receive exceptional care while franchisees thrive. In a wide-ranging conversation, Amrit shares his philosophy on values-based leadership, the importance of instilling company culture at every level, and why business success is inseparable from purpose. Drawing on influences such as Daniel Pink's Drive, John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership, and Gino Wickman's Traction, he offers practical insights into scaling a purpose-led business in a regulated industry. We also explore the pressing challenges facing the UK's care system, the balance between profit and purpose, and how leaders can resist the pressure for growth-at-all-costs by staying true to their vision. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, a franchisee, or simply curious about the future of social care, this conversation offers timely lessons on resilience, strategy, and building businesses that last. Join us as Amrit Dhaliwal explains why redefining home care is not just a business model but a social mission—one that could shape the future of care in Britain and beyond. Links: Walfinch: https://walfinch.com Amrit's book - Time to Thrive: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Thrive-Revolution-solution-insider/dp/1068664304 John Maxwell - 5 Levels of Leadership: https://youtu.be/jsjlJCOzmhk Gena Wickman – Traction: https://youtu.be/4MdB3tIzhmc EOS Entrepreneur Operating System: https://youtu.be/NNyY7k8uXLE Daniel Pink – Drive: https://www.danpink.com/books/drive/ And if you liked this conversation, please take a listen to: Combining Personal and Business Purpose with Hamzah Sarwar: https://businessfightspoverty.org/combining-personal-and-business-purpose-with-hamzah-sarwar/

rwh20sept Ep.382 – Run With Horses Podcast –   Podcast: rwh.podbean.com Website: www.runwithhorses.net Youtube:  https://youtube.com/@rwhpodcast Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/RWHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwh_podcast Twitter:  https://twitter.com/RWH_podcast Author pages with links to all books on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCSDDVLB – James Norman Smith https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BMGW51FW – Susan Jane Smith **(24:00)** The questions you ask often determine the kinds of answers you get. How do our questions impact our ability to make disciples, develop leaders and plant new churches? That's the topic of today's show! Welcome to Run With Horses! My name is Norman and my goal is to help you thrive as a follower of Jesus. The spiritual life is simple in many ways, but potentially the most difficult part of your life. God invites you to grow, to live intentionally and to join in His mission. It's very cool that we can do that together! Thank you for joining me today! “If you're new here, you can check out past episodes at runwithhorses.net. As always, I appreciate your feedback, questions, and reviews!” **(23:00 – 0:00)* *  PART 1 Run With Horses is on the radio! If you are enjoying Run With Horses, would you let someone know? Contact the radio station or leave a review on your favorite app. We want to hear from you! ⸻ Multiplication Thinking Part 1: The Power of the Questions We Ask (Vision & Theology) Theme: Questions reveal what we believe about God's mission, our role, and the future. ** 1. Why Questions Matter **  Questions expose vision (or the lack of it) Show how “addition” questions limit scope vs. “multiplication” questions which expand possibilities.  Example: “How many people can I gather?” (Level 2 thinking) vs. “How many disciple-makers can I release?” (Level 4-5 thinking). .The Five Levels of Church Mutiplication 1.subtraction 2. Plateau 3.addition 4. Reproducing 5. Multiplication . *** 2. The Five Levels of Leadership (from Hero Maker) ***  • Level 1: I count (thinking addition, personal results).  • Level 2: I count what I do (improving programs).  • Level 3: I count what we do together (team success).  • Level 4: I count leaders I raise up (reproduction).  • Level 5: I count leaders who multiply leaders (movement/multiplication).  • Use examples of how each level asks progressively bigger questions. *** 3. Biblical and Theological Foundation *** .  • Jesus modeled multiplication: He invested in 12 → sent 72 → great commission to all.  • Paul's instruction to Timothy: “Entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Tim. 2:2).  • The kingdom grows like a seed — designed for multiplication, not maintenance (parable of the mustard seed, yeast in the dough). *** 4. Why Maintenance Mindset is Dangerous ***  • It keeps leaders in survival mode (protecting what is).  • It makes ministries inward-focused rather than kingdom-focused.  • Ultimately, it limits generational impact. ***  5. Challenge: ***  • What questions are you currently asking in your ministry?  • Are they addition questions or multiplication questions?  • (Good interactive moment: invite participants to write down their top 2 questions they ask about ministry and assess what “level” they reflect.) ⸻ **(00:00) END PART 1** **(27:00 – 5:00) BEGIN PART 2* Part 2: Asking Multiplication Questions  Leaders at every level can shift from addition to multiplication by the questions they ask. *** 1. Shifting the Question at Every Level of Leadership*** .  • Sunday school teacher: Instead of “How many kids will show up?” ask “How many kids can I equip to share their faith?”  • Deacon/volunteer leader: Instead of “How do I fill this need?” ask “Who can I invite and empower to step into leadership?”  • Pastor: Instead of “How do we grow this church?” ask “How do we plant churches and send leaders?”  • Church planter: Instead of “How do I build this church strong?” ask “How do I build this to multiply from the start?” *** 2. Practical Multiplication Questions to Introduce***  • Who am I discipling right now?  • Who could they disciple next?  • What leaders am I raising up?  • Who in my ministry could replace me if I left tomorrow?  • What's stopping me from giving more away? *** 3. Tools & Practices to Reinforce Multiplication Thinking***  • Permission-giving: Start saying “You can do this” more often.  • Scorecards: Redefine success — not just how many are attending, but how many are multiplying.  • Apprenticing model: Always have someone learning beside you. *** 4. Case Studies / Stories***  • Share short stories of multiplication in action (a teacher who trained kids to lead, a church that planted another church, a small group that reproduced).  • Highlight that multiplication is possible at every level, not just at the top. *** 5. Closing Challenge & Vision Casting***  • Ask participants: “If every leader here multiplied themselves once in the next 2 years, what would happen in our church and community?”  • Cast vision for generational leadership: thinking in terms of “spiritual grandchildren.”  • Call them to choose one multiplication question they'll start asking this week. *** 6. Sample Multiplication vs. Maintenance Questions*** Sunday School Teachers  • Maintenance: How many kids will show up this week?  • Multiplication: Which kids can I disciple so they can share their faith with others?  • Multiplication: Who could I apprentice as a future teacher? ⸻ Deacons  • Maintenance: How do we meet the needs of our members better?  • Multiplication: Who else can we raise up to serve so more people are empowered?  • Multiplication: How do we multiply servant leaders, not just serve needs? ⸻ Sound Booth / Tech Team  • Maintenance: How do I make sure the sound and slides run smoothly this Sunday?  • Multiplication: Who can I train so they can run sound in the future?  • Multiplication: How do we multiply tech leaders so new services, campuses, or ministries can launch equipped? ⸻ Worship Leaders  • Maintenance: How do we sound better this Sunday?  • Multiplication: Who in the band or congregation can I mentor to lead worship in the future?  • Multiplication: How do we multiply worship leaders so that every group, gathering, or church plant has someone to lead? ⸻ Pastors  • Maintenance: How do we grow this church bigger?  • Multiplication: How do we raise up pastors and church planters from within?  • Multiplication: Who are my “Timothys” that I'm intentionally training to multiply leaders? ⸻ Church Planters  • Maintenance: How do I make this church strong and healthy?  • Multiplication: How do I plant in such a way that this church will plant another church within 3 years?  • Multiplication: How do I build a culture of sending from the very beginning? ⸻ General “Every Leader” Questions  • Maintenance: How do I succeed in my role?  • Multiplication: Who am I apprenticing to take my place?  • Multiplication: Who are my spiritual grandchildren — the people being discipled by those I discipled? ⸻ ***  7. Progression of Questions: From Addition to Multiplication*** Level 1: I Count (self-focused)  • How am I doing?  • Did I do a good job teaching / leading / serving?  • Did people like what I did today? (Example: A sound booth worker asks, “Did I get the slides right?”) ⸻ Level 2: I Count What I Do (program-focused)  • How many people showed up to my class, service, or ministry?  • How can I make this better for those who attend?  • Did the event/service/program run smoothly? (Example: A Sunday school teacher asks, “How many kids are in my class this week?”) ⸻ Level 3: I Count What We Do Together (team-focused)  • How is our team doing?  • How can we grow this ministry bigger or better together?  • How can we serve more people as a team? (Example: A deacon asks, “How can our deacon team meet more needs this year?”) ⸻ Level 4: I Count Leaders I Raise Up (reproduction-focused)  • Who am I apprenticing right now?  • Who could I trust to lead if I wasn't here?  • How can I release more people into ministry and leadership? (Example: A worship leader asks, “Who in the band can I mentor to lead a worship set?”) ⸻ Level 5: I Count Leaders Who Multiply Leaders (movement-focused)  • Who are my spiritual grandchildren — the leaders raised up by the leaders I've discipled?  • How do we create a culture where leaders naturally multiply leaders?  • How can we measure success by kingdom expansion, not just local growth? (Example: A pastor asks, “Who are the church planters being trained by the leaders I've already raised up?”) ⸻ ✅ Progression Summary (for a slide or handout):  • Level 1–2 questions: focus on me and my ministry.  • Level 3 questions: focus on our ministry team.  • Level 4 questions: focus on leaders I raise.  • Level 5 questions: focus on leaders who raise leaders.   **(1:00)**  What kinds of questions are you asking? Do your answers move you toward reproduction and multiplication or do they keep you stuck in the status quo? I know what kind of questions I want to be asking! – “Thank you for listening today!  -If you enjoyed the show you can listen to all the past shows wherever you listen to podcasts. A good place to start is at runwithhorses.net. You can also write me at norman@runwithhorses.net or leave a comment on the Run With Horses Podcast facebook page. Don't be discouraged by the challenges you face. Keep your eyes on Jesus and embrace the opportunity to grow through the trial. Until next time, keep your eyes on Jesus and never stop running." **(00:00)**

Spiritual growth isn't about chasing enlightenment; it's about learning to flow with life, release resistance, and discover clarity in the present moment. In this episode, I welcome back returning guest, spiritual teacher and author Chris Cirak to explore his fresh perspective on the five levels of awareness, manifesting vs. co-creating, and how alignment shifts our everyday experiences. We talk about letting go of self-blame, navigating the stages of spiritual awakening, and the power of acceptance as the clearest path to inspired action. We also dive into the gifts and challenges of being highly sensitive, the difference between desire and grasping, and why allowing life to surprise you can lead to deeper joy, purpose, and connection.  Find Chris Cirak, his books, and upcoming workshops and retreats at cirak.com Book an intuitive reading or coaching session with me wherever you are in the world! Meet your spirit guides and receive their message for you. Join the Intuitive Connection Premier Community  Experience a one-of-a-kind in-person retreat experiences at Cactus Blossom Retreat in Escondido, California  Connect and learn with me here: Website Instagram Facebook Connect with like-minded souls in the Intuitive Connection Community Facebook Group Download a copy of my Free Activate Your Intuition Ebook Discover My Online Courses: Activating Your Intuition Find the books mentioned in the episode here! Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summary In this episode, Andy interviews Jim Ferrell, author of  You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life and Leadership. Andy has long been a big fan of Jim's work with The Arbinger Institute, authoring Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace.  In this conversation, Jim unpacks his insights on how leaders can move from a self-focused to a relational mindset. Drawing from his new book, Jim explains why our effectiveness as leaders depends not just on what we do, but on how we view and relate to the people around us. The discussion explores what it means to be relational instead of transactional, how leaders can better navigate conflict, and the subtle ways our self-deceptions hinder growth. Jim also shares practical ideas for building trust, leading with humility, and focusing on outcomes that matter most. This episode is packed with thought-provoking insights that will challenge how you think about leadership, culture, and collaboration. If you're looking for insights on how to become a more relational leader and truly impact those you serve, this episode is for you! Sound Bites “Machines don't have to be great at relation, but they'll be great at everything else. And if we're lousy at relation ourselves, we won't have a job.” "Those who can relate better, that's the uniquely human competitive advantage we bring to the marketplace." "The top people spend most of their time on the relational work, not on the other stuff. So you see it happening already. That's all going to be accelerating." “The most important part of the chart of any org chart is actually all the space in between the names and boxes, because that's where everything's happening, right?” “We went from the body economy to the mind economy to now the heart economy.” “Proximity is not necessarily closeness.” Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:55 Start of Interview 02:07 Jim Ferrell's Backstory and Early Influences 06:17 About Jim Writing Leadership and Self-Deception 08:57 Exploring the Concept of Relation vs. Relationships 10:07 The Five Levels of Relation 13:19 Managing Relation in Organizations 17:29 The Shift to the Heart Economy 20:00 Insights from the Book 'You and We' 27:00 Proximity vs. Closeness in Remote Work 29:08 The Power of Hydrogen and Oxygen 29:46 Remote vs. In-Person Work Dynamics 32:14 The Importance of Connectivity in Teams 33:14 Understanding Relational Space 34:35 Personal Stories of Relation 37:48 How Can We Discern Where We Are in the Levels? And Our Teams? 39:29 The Concept of Compounding in Relations 41:07 The Relational Leap 45:54 End of Interview 46:27 Andy Comments After the Interview 49:23 Outtakes Learn More You can learn more about Jim and his book at Withiii.com/youandwe. For more learning on this topic, check out: Episode 185 with Mitch Warner about the Arbinger book Leadership and Self-Deception. Episode 356 with Eric Barker about why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong. Episode 459 with Adrian Kelly about identity and rethinking success. Pass the PMP Exam This Year If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start. Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year! Join Us for LEAD52 I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks! Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Relationships, Trust, Relational Mindset, Conflict, Self-Deception, Self-Awareness, Influence, Humility, Collaboration, Culture, Authenticity The following music was used for this episode: Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Learn how to apply BNI's Core Values to help yourself move through John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership.

This week, we welcome back Tom Martin, CEO of LawDroid, to discuss his widely read “AI Law Professor” column for Thomson Reuters and his five-level roadmap for legal AI. Martin explains that the framework was inspired by a leaked OpenAI memo and aims to give legal professionals a clearer picture of AI's trajectory. The five levels range from basic chatbots to fully AI-run organizations, with intermediate stages such as reasoners, agents, and innovators. According to Martin, while we are still in the early stages, the release of GPT-5 and its reasoning capabilities has accelerated progress toward higher levels, especially in the development of autonomous agents.The conversation turns to the implications of GPT-5's hybrid reasoning model, which combines inference with step-by-step reasoning to deliver more relevant answers. Martin sees this as a significant shift for the legal industry, moving beyond single-response chatbots toward sustained, goal-oriented AI. He predicts that while the technology for fully autonomous legal agents could be available within a year, widespread adoption in law firms and corporations will take closer to three years. However, with these advancements come ethical concerns. Martin outlines four principles for responsible AI agents: transparency, autonomy, reliability, and visibility, cautioning that AI's knowledge is always bounded and potentially incomplete.Reflecting on the legal industry's pace of change since their last discussion, Martin notes that while some firms are sprinting to adopt AI, others may already be too late to catch up. He warns that professional services organizations must actively integrate AI to remain competitive. The discussion explores the potential for tech giants or AI companies to acquire major legal information providers, and Martin argues that the future lies in blending software, consulting, and education into a unified service model. This integrated approach, he believes, will be necessary for survival in a market where AI is capable of generating solutions without traditional software development cycles.Beyond the legal tech roadmap, Martin shares insights from his teaching at Suffolk University Law School and his observations from producing the “Last Week in Legal AI” news series. He sees both opportunities and risks for the next generation of lawyers, particularly in acting as translators between AI systems and legal practice. The discussion touches on generational attitudes toward AI, with younger users showing both skepticism and heavy reliance on AI for personal and professional support. Martin also addresses societal concerns, from AI in mental health applications to job displacement, and stresses the importance of curating AI outputs with human judgment.The episode wraps with Martin's update on the American Legal Technology Awards, set for October 15 at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, which he describes as “the Oscars of legal tech.” When asked about the biggest challenge for the next few years, Martin points to the uncertainty of where professionals will fit in a rapidly shifting world. He envisions a possible new model that combines service, education, and software to deliver legal help at scale, but stresses that no one knows exactly how the future will unfold. His hope is that the AI-driven abundance ahead will be shared broadly, without excluding people from its benefits.Links:Keep up with Tom's podcast and latest thoughts on the law and innovation at: lawdroidmanifesto.comNab some tickets to this year's Oscars of Legal Innovation at: americanlegaltechnology.comListen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] Blue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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In this LTC NAC Chat podcast episode, Amy Stewart, MSN, RN, DNS-MT, QCP-MT, RAC-MT, RAC-MTA, chief nursing officer for AAPACN, and Jennifer LaBay, RN, RAC-MT, RAC-MTA, QCP, CRC, curriculum development specialist with AAPACN, discuss the Medicare appeals process in skilled nursing facilities. Additional Resources: Medicare Parts A & B Appeals Process: How the Five Levels of Appeal Work – AAPACN Article Medicare Advantage vs. FFS Part A Expedited Determinations: What's the Difference? – AAPACN Article RAC-CTA - Medical Reviews and Oversight for the Advanced Medicare Specialist - Online + PDF – AAPACN On-Demand Course Medicare Basic Training Part 9: Beneficiary Notices Initiative On-Demand Workshop – AAPACN Training Medicare Basic Training Part 10: Medical Review and Appeals On-Demand Workshop – AAPACN Training Original Medicare (Parts A and B Fee-for-Service) Initial Determination/Appeals Process – CMS Flow Chart Beneficiary Notices Initiative – CMS Forms and Instructions for Notices CMS Levels of Appeal – Website Reference

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“Excellent communication doesn't just happen naturally. It is a product of process, skill, climate, relationship, and hard work.” – Pat McMillan Check Out These Highlights:  We all crave deeper connections, but most don't know how to achieve them. In this episode, my guest and I will discuss a powerful framework developed at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, known as the 5 Levels of Communication. From polite small talk to profound truths about ourselves and our relationships, these levels shape every interaction we have, whether we're leading a team, navigating family dynamics, or reconnecting with ourselves. About Chanchal Garg: Chanchal is a speaker, executive coach, author, and facilitator of Stanford's most popular course on interpersonal dynamics. She helps leaders break through limiting beliefs, deepen connection, and lead with authenticity. As the founder of Real Space and author of Unearthed: The Lies We Carry and the Truths They Bury, she guides clients to reclaim their power and voice at work, in relationships, and within themselves. How to Get in Touch with Chanchal Garg: Email: Chanchal@realspaceco.com Website: http://www.realspaceco.com/ Quiz: https://tally.so/r/nrYNbv  Stalk me online! LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/conniewhitman Subscribe to the Enlightenment of Change podcast on your favorite streaming service or YouTube. New episodes are posted every week. Listen to Connie explore new sales and business topics or address problems you may have. 

How often do you genuinely listen—picking up not just on what's said, but on what's left unsaid? For many teams, listening is overlooked, even though it shapes how people connect, lead, and adapt to change.In this episode of The Future of Teamwork, Dane Groeneveld speaks with Oscar Trimboli, author of How to Listen and Head of Coaching Faculty at the Marketing Academy. Together, they explore the five levels of listening and how they influence leadership, communication, and organizational alignment—especially in moments of transition.Whether you're guiding a team through change or looking to improve the quality of everyday conversations, this episode offers a practical lens on what it means to really listen.Key Takeaways:00:00 Introduction to the Future of Teamwork Podcast01:35 Meet Oscar Trimboli: The Listening Expert02:19 The Story Behind Oscar's Listening Quest04:20 Decoding Deep Listening Techniques09:09 The Importance of Acknowledging the Past16:10 Five Levels of Listening29:03 Effective Meeting Preparation30:17 The Power of Process Questions31:40 Permission to Interrupt and Self-Correct34:29 Summarizing and Feedback Techniques37:07 AI in Business Communication43:12 Handling Customer Grievances46:30 The Impact of Listening on Teamwork49:15 Call to Action: Improve Your Listening Skills

As AI continues to evolve, how can marketing leaders ensure they're staying ahead of the curve instead of simply keeping up with it? And how do you navigate the complexities of using AI while maintaining a personal, human touch in your campaigns?Joining us today is Courtney Baker, Chief Marketing Officer at Knownwell and co-host of the AI Knowhow podcast. With a wealth of experience in marketing and AI, Courtney is leading the conversation about how artificial intelligence is transforming the marketing industry and redefining business strategies. She's here to share her insights on the next era of client intelligence and the five levels of AI that are reshaping businesses.Courtney Baker is the CMO of Knownwell, an AI-native Commercial Intelligence platform, and host of the AI Knowhow podcast. Formerly CMO and CRO at Full Focus, she led its transformation from a personality-driven to a product-led brand. With over 200 episodes as host of the popular Focus on This podcast and 50 on AI Knowhow, Courtney continues to pursue elevating humanity while leveraging transformational technology.RESOURCESKnownwell: https://www.knownwell.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brandsDon't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnowThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As AI continues to evolve, how can marketing leaders ensure they're staying ahead of the curve instead of simply keeping up with it? And how do you navigate the complexities of using AI while maintaining a personal, human touch in your campaigns? Joining us today is Courtney Baker, Chief Marketing Officer at Knownwell and co-host of the AI Knowhow podcast. With a wealth of experience in marketing and AI, Courtney is leading the conversation about how artificial intelligence is transforming the marketing industry and redefining business strategies. She's here to share her insights on the next era of client intelligence and the five levels of AI that are reshaping businesses. Courtney Baker is the CMO of Knownwell, an AI-native Commercial Intelligence platform, and host of the AI Knowhow podcast. Formerly CMO and CRO at Full Focus, she led its transformation from a personality-driven to a product-led brand. With over 200 episodes as host of the popular Focus on This podcast and 50 on AI Knowhow, Courtney continues to pursue elevating humanity while leveraging transformational technology. RESOURCES Knownwell: https://www.knownwell.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brands Don't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

The truth will set you free. Do you need more freedom today? Freedom from gnawing anxiety, relentless temptation, debilitating fears? Freedom maybe from some invisible fence around your life that is holding you back? You don't need more will-power. You don't need more resolutions. You don't need more religion. You just need truth. The truth will set you free. The truth is as near as your next thought! Freedom can be as near as your next thought! Join us this Sunday as we continue our series, The Untroubled Heart.

In this episode, Loch introduces the map and practices of non-dual presence. A lot of us have heard about non-duality before. But how many of us have a truly embodied experience of this profound and transformative dimension of our own consciousness? Nondual Presence MapIn Loch's model of The Five Levels of Mind, he refers to non-dual presence as the Fourth Level of Mind — Unity Mind. Throughout the episode, Loch leads you through an experiential inquiry into the nature of both bliss and emptiness and how non-dual presence represents the life-changing union of these two. We all like peak experiences of bliss. But what if the natural experience of our body on a fundamental level was a subtle pervasive Bliss. In this episode, you'll get answers to fundamental questions like: What does non-dual presence feel like? How can you begin to embody this for yourself? How is it different from Subtle Energy, Pure Awareness, and the Mindful Witness? And most importantly, how can you access non-dual presence in your own life to foster a new baseline of unconditional love and Self Leadership.Glimpse & Nondual MeditationThe episode features Loch offering a guided practice and nondual meditation called “Awake-Awareness Energy Embodied.” These mindful glimpses serve as invaluable tools for experiencing ways to access the awake consciousness that is already here within all of us.You can now explore all of Loch Kelly's practices and teachings on the new Mindful Glimpses app, found at https://lochkelly.org/mindful-glimpses. This innovative meditation and wellness app offers daily micro-meditations, step-by-step programs, and simple-yet-advanced tools for awakening.Loch Kelly Bio Loch is the creator of the Mindful Glimpses app, and an award-winning author, psychotherapist, and non-dual meditation teacher. He is also known for his unique practical methods that support awakening as the next natural stage of human development. Backed by modern neuroscience and psychology, Loch introduces Effortless Mindfulness, which combines an ancient form of nondual meditation and IFS psychology that allows immediate access to our embodied awake nature which arises as our calm, clear, and compassionate healing capacity. Connect with Loch: Mobile App: https://lochkelly.org/mindful-glimpsesWebsite: https://lochkelly.org/Donate: https://lochkelly.org/donatePodcast: https://lochkelly.org/podcast

The world is loud with opinions and advice; true listening has become a rare superpower that transforms ordinary interactions into deeply insightful exchanges. Do You Know How To Listen Beyond The Words? . Unlocking the Secrets of Deep Listening with Oscar Trimboli | Dov Baron Show In this episode of the Dov Baron Show, host Dov Baron dives into the transformative power of true listening with acclaimed author and communications expert Oscar Trimboli.  . They discuss Oscar's journey from overcoming personal challenges to mastering the art of listening. Oscar introduces listeners to the neuroscience behind listening, the subtle art of hearing the unsaid, and understanding the unspoken. . Through practical tips and insightful anecdotes, they explore how to enhance your listening skills in both professional and personal settings. Tune in to learn how to become a deep listener and transform your interactions. . Website https://www.oscartrimboli.com/ https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcasts/ Social Media https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscartrimboli/?originalSubdomain=au https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_kkHeR0dGfAZGQ6AGHCvvg . 00:00 Introduction  00:25 Meet Oscar Trimboli: The Listening Expert 02:40 Oscar's Personal Journey and Early Challenges 03:39 The Corporate Epiphany: Listening as a Superpower 07:24 Understanding Assumptions in Communication 12:17 The Five Levels of Listening 14:49 Practical Tips for Effective Listening 17:37 The Power of Asking the Right Questions 20:47 The Numbers Behind Effective Communication 27:30 Applying Listening Skills in Personal and Professional Life 28:57 Conclusion of Part One and Resources . Dov Baron's brand new course has just been released on coursifyx.com/belonging ------------- Titled: "CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING." The course is divided into eight sections, each guiding you through exactly how to create a culture of belonging. . Because: CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING MAXIMIZES PERSONAL AND CORPORATE SUCCESS. Get Ready to strap on the tanks and Dive Deep into What it Takes to Create a Culture of Belonging in your organization! Are you curious to know more? coursifyx.com/belonging .  "Those Who Control Meaning for The Tribe, Also Control The Movement of That Tribe" #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #emotionsourcecode #neuroscience #emotional #meaning #emotional #logic #culture #curiosity #humanbehavior