Podcasts about grateful

This is a story about not giving up and choosing to be your best no matter what. In Born Lucky, Leland Vittert shares how his father refused to let a label define his son's future. Instead of waiting for the world to change, they chose to rise above it — through relentless effort, earned self-esteem, and the decision to keep showing up, even when life was hardest. It's a powerful reminder that your circumstances don't have to determine your outcome.ABOUT BORN LUCKY In a world of labels being placed on people, one father and one son were determined to break that tag, even if it was one of autism. This is their story. In a world quick to label, judge, and box in people, one father and son stood firm and refused to be defined by an autism diagnosis. If you're channel surfing and happen upon Leland Vittert during his nightly national cable show on NewsNation, he comes off as a poised journalist prying nuggets from guests. If you watched him for years as an anchor at Fox News Channel, you saw him on the battlefields of the Middle East, the anchor desk, and the White House North Lawn. No one, including friends and co-workers, has ever known his full life story and how miraculous it was to get to that point.Leland was a socially awkward boy who didn't speak for years, and when he finally did, teachers and leaders declared him "weird." His unique behavior and inability to connect with his peers made him a frequent target for bullying and exclusion. In one particularly harsh moment, a school principal bluntly told his parents, "The people here think Leland is pretty weird. I guess I do, too." Those words felt like being shot with an arrow, as his parents sat in stunned silence, grappling with their own fears and uncertainties for their son's future. From a young age, Leland showed signs of being Autistic, a term rarely used at the time, struggling with social cues, communication, and behavioral norms that came naturally to other kids. The diagnosis didn't deter his father, Mark. He knew the world wouldn't change for Leland, so he quit his job and began changing Leland for the world. He became a full-time parent-coach, training Leland and teaching him the skills he needed to navigate in society. Simple concepts like eye contact, understanding humor, and instilling motivations had to be taught painstakingly. From hundreds of pushups at age 7 to toughen him against bullies, to coaching him through complex social interactions, Mark's relentless dedication changed the trajectory of Leland's life. Born Lucky offers an intimate look into their inspiring journey. Leland lays bare his experiences of the crushing bullying during middle and high school, the sting of rejection continuing into college, and his ultimate transformation into an esteemed journalist. But above all, this book is a love letter from a grateful son, who despite his diagnosis, trusted his father and defied all odds. It offers hope to every parent and every child who is grappling with their own unique challenges, to be inspired to break labels, tear down the walls that society builds, and create a better future.ABOUT LELAND VITTERT Leland Vittert is the host of On Balance with Leland Vittert and serves as NewsNation's chief Washington anchor. A veteran journalist, Vittert joined NewsNation in May 2021, where he has been pivotal in covering national affairs and delivering special reports across the network's primetime weeknight newscasts. Before joining NewsNation, Vittert worked for Fox News from 2010 to 2021, starting as a foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem and later serving as anchor and correspondent in Washington.Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lucky-Dedicated-Grateful-Journey/dp/140025468XBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.Subscribe now at YouTube.com/@RefocusedNetworkThank you for your time. 

In this UK personal finance Q&A, Pete and Roger tackle six listener questions covering pensions, investing, tax and money mindset. We discuss whether high earners should ever consider opting out of the NHS pension due to annual allowance tax, how to handle family gifts during divorce, and what to do about ERI on accumulating ETFs in a GIA. You'll also hear guidance on rebalancing after strong fund gains, rebuilding finances after an IVA, and investing a £350k inheritance with ISAs, SIPPs and premium bonds. Shownotes: https://meaningfulmoney.tv/QA52    01:34  Question 1 Dear Pete and Roger, Could you provide an opinion on if and when it would be worth at least considering leaving the NHS pension scheme due to tax reasons?  I can sense immediate puckering and this is not something I ask on a whim - I am aware of the comparative value of public sector DB pensions versus other retirement savings methods and indeed encourage the staff I work with to pay in.  I am a senior doctor in my 40s with high NHS earnings and rental income on top. I am one of those affected by Annual Allowance tapering and have significant AA tax bills every year with no end in sight. My projections are that I will have an annual AA tax charge of ~£30k every year going forwards as my income is pretty stable. The annual AA tax charge is up to 40% of the annual capital benefits accrued in any year (i.e. LTA calc of 20 times pension plus 3 times lump sum).  I pay this via scheme pays but the scheme pays loan docked from benefits at retirement is inflated at CPI+1.7% against pension benefits growth of CPI+1.5% from my own research. I don't expect much sympathy as a high earner but no-one wants to pay more tax than they have to and I never hear my situation talked about other than snippets in the depths of Reddit forums.  My plan is to keep ploughing on and engage a full-scale planning review when I turn 50 leaving up to 10 years to consider aversive action once my wife and I have 'enough' pension. Many thanks for your thoughts. David. 09:23  Question 2 Dear Pete and Roger, I want to say a big thank you for all of the guidance you provide, there really is nothing else like it and has been hugely beneficial in organising my finances. My question for you is how to structure gifts to someone who is going through the early stages of a divorce. My sibling is sadly in this situation and our mother is looking to make a sizeable gift to us following the death of our father. How should we be thinking about this and are there any vehicles or structures such as trusts that we could be using to avoid my siblings spouse from being entitled to half of the gift? Grateful for any guidance you can provide in this matter. Best regards, Alfred 13:12  Question 3 Hi, I have held several GIA accounts for many years and I hold accumulating ETFs within the GIAs. Occasionally, I have had to pay CGT through my self assessment when I have sold these ETFs. Mostly, I have always been a basic rate tax payer. I have recently discovered that HMRC requires Excess Reportable Income (ERI) to be declared on accumulating ETFs. In the case of ETFs which receive company dividends, this means I need to take note of the Reporting date of each ETF and add up all notional dividends as if they were paid on the distribution date (6 months later) and if over £500, I should have paid dividend tax on the excess. Also, in the case of some MMF ETFs I hold, these may have an ERI notional interest payment and this would count as being potentially subject to income tax. Since I have sold many of these ETFs and I have not subtracted the ERI amounts from my total gain, I have probably overpaid tax (CGT) rather than underpaid as a basic rate tax payer. However, if I was a higher rate tax payer, I would probably have been underpaying tax if I have not accounted for ERI. This is because the higher rate dividend tax is much higher than the CGT rate. I now understand that to avoid having to calculate ERI on accumulating ETFs each year and keep a running total for each one, most people simply buy distributing ETFs inside a GIA rather than accumulating ETFs and I am in the process of ensuring all my ETFs are the distributing kind inside my GIAs. Should I be concerned about ERI on my accumulating ETFs? Do accountants calculate ERI for their clients on all the accumulating ETFs they hold? If so, how do they do it as there does not seem to be any easy way? Do HMRC ever check that the ERI on accumulating ETFs has been declared (my guess is that they would only bother for high rate taxpayers with large ETF holdings)? How would HMRC even know that you hold large amounts of accumulating ETFs on which you should be declaring ERI? Why is it that hardly anyone seems to know about ERI on accumulating ETFs? 19:14 Question 4 Good morning both, I would like to start by thanking you for all your hard work over the past decade or so. I am a mid 40's year old woman who had no financial knowledge until about 2 years ago. I had a cancer diagnosis which led me to leave a very time consuming and stressful job and take over the family finances which had been neglected for the best part of 20 years. We are now in a much better position; we have filled our ISA's and that of our children, put more money into SIPP's (and opened one in my case) and opened junior SIPP's for the kids. Our mortgage is paid off too. I have listened to all your back catalogue and in some cases relistened to episodes which have been especially useful to our situation! Thank you. My question relates to funds that have done particularly well and what is best to do with them. Some of my earlier fund choices are showing gains of around 50%. This seems extraordinary to me and I am very happy with the return. My Dad (much more experienced who has been doing this for 50 odd years) tells me the best thing to do with these funds is to take out 50% of the gain and reinvest in a different fund. What would your advice be? Take out the whole lot and re-invest? Take out 50% and re-invest that as recommended by my Dad or leave the whole lot in and hope it continues to grow? For background, I am very happy with the gains but we are very much on a catchup programme as we have started so late. The sums involved are still quite small! The ultimate aim is for my husband to retire early. I hope to work again too at some point once all treatment is finished but only part time. I am so grateful for everything you have done and always wait eagerly for the next episode to drop. With very best wishes, Agnes 26:02 Question 5 Hi, Hope you are well and can help a Cornish lass! I am 35 and have never been able to budget or manage finances. In fact I have always buried my head in the sand.  Unfortunately, when lockdown and maternity leave hit at the same time, we could not afford our debt repayments (we had purchased a house in January of 2020 too). We had no choice but to take out an IVA. We are now in the 6th year of this as it was extended as we couldn't release equity from our home. This is due to end in November of this year and I have been doing my best to learn about budgeting and managing finances ready for when this ends.  I have started a spreadsheet to start tracking expenses and aim to start an emergency fund plus a pot for putting some money away for Christmas/birthdays. I have been discussing this with my husband and he thinks we should get an overdraft as soon as the IVA finishes to start building our credit rating, whereas I think we should get a small credit card that we pay off each time we use it. What do you think we should do as our first few steps coming out of the IVA to build more security for our future?  Thank you in advance. Kindest regards Lisa 33:12  Question 6 Salutations, Roger, Pete, My question is on what to do with a lump sum inheritance-y thing as a younger guy. My parents have been very financially successful in business and incredibly generous to my brother and I, and gifted us each an apartment a few years ago, to make use of the "first property" exemptions and the 7 year gift rule. Now that I'm mature enough to understand the opportunity, I've taken control of the management of mine. While I understand it's an incredible income generating asset, I'm not a fan of real estate, and am much more comfortable selling the property and investing in index funds within the variety of wrappers available in the UK. After fees and taxes, should I go through with the sale, I will net approx £350k. My plan is as follows: - £47k into premium bonds (I currently have £3k) - £40k into my SIPP (limited by current salary) - £40k held in cash, to be invested into my SIPP in tax year 2, potentially up to £52k as my salary rises - Remainder into GIA - All invested in Vanguard index tracking funds I'm 26, working as an Officer in the military, so I have an incredibly low cost of living (subsidised accommodation and no utilities), and a non contributory DB pension plan, so no need to allocate money there, and am able to max out my S&S ISA yearly just with my salary. I know these steps are good, but having the best part of £220k in a GIA, paying CGT on the other end of that makes me a little unhappy, especially if I hold it for multiple decades. I'm aware this is a real champagne problem but do either of you have any recommendations on improvements to my plan and mindset, or are you able to poke any holes in my approach? Should I hold more in cash to later invest into my SIPP? Bed and ISA/ SIPP over time? Spend some of it, even? I know it's an aggressive approach, but I'm sort of an "all or nothing" sort of guy, even with investing as is referenced in my 70+% savings rate, but balance has always been hard for me to find. My goal is to be Financially Independent by 36. I'll likely keep working but I like the security of that idea, and the saltily coined term "F-you money". Whatever you both think, I will deeply ponder over and analyse for many hours. Thank you both for the many episodes of top tier information. I would apologise for the lack of brevity, but I know you love it really. Thanks guys, you're both rockstars! Nick

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Go raibh míle maith agat, a chara Yuji - Thanks a million, friend Yuji :) Yuji Beleza is a viral Japanese-Irish social media influencer and language enthusiast and entertainer, known for approaching strangers on the street and surprising them by speaking their native languages. He has millions of followers across platforms like Instagram and Tiktok and inspires people worldwide to connect with each other with smiles, and his incredible commitment to learning is encourging and uplifting :)It was so special to chat with you and hear about your mission to connect with others through the care, joy, effort and consistency of learning other langauges. It's what the world needs!Grateful to have you on the pod, and see your life-affirming videos online connecting with people through laughter, dancing and conversation @yuji_beleza

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Using AI to track symptoms, weigh medication options, and advocate. Not a cure, a toolkit. An honest, careful path without handing over the wheel. Summary Health Hats reviewed Melissa Reynolds' book on pregnancy in 2019, and they bonded over the fact that a man had blurbed it. Now she's on to something new: she’s been figuring out how to use AI to manage a body that’s been hard to live in for two decades. The turning point came in a diagnostic unit, alone in the dark with no idea what would happen next. She opened Claude and asked what the odds were. The answer was enough to let her breathe. What follows is one of the more grounded conversations you’ll hear about patients and AI. She tracks her symptoms in a spreadsheet and asks AI to surface what she’s missing, which is how she learned that her fatigue flares two days before her gut does. She brings research to her GP, who welcomes it and smiles. She nods at the gastroenterologist, who warns her off “that ChatGPT thing.” She’s careful about the politics, careful about the safeguards, and clear that this is for driving your own care, not replacing your clinicians. Her advice for anyone curious is refreshingly un-hyped: know what state you’re in, get a buddy if you’re vulnerable, and tell the tool what you actually need. She calls it a powerful toy, used well. Click here to view the printable newsletter. More readable than a transcript. Contents Podcast episode on YouTube Episode Proem Melissa Reynolds and I bonded when she invited me to review her book on pregnancy, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome in 2019. That still makes us both laugh: a man had written one of the blurbs on the back cover. I thought it was a riot. Melissa thought it made perfect sense because the people who most need to understand what a pregnant body is going through are often the ones standing next to it, trying to help but not quite getting there. Although we follow each other and frequently comment on each other’s posts, our last real conversation was in 2020 about a yoga program she was starting. A few small things from that conversation are still part of my every-other-day stretching and balance routine. I’m drawn to Melissa because she accepts what is, including that hard-to-live-with body, and creates and shares tools for those of us with the same or different diagnoses but similar lived experiences. All for best health. Our friendship has grown virtually, so we can pick up where we left off. This time, I reached out to Melissa after seeing her posts about her exploration of AI. Alone in the dark with a question Health Hats: What lessons are you learning as you use AI? Melissa: It’s funny to say you use AI because it’s hard not to use it now. But I’ve started exploring how AI can support me on my health journey. For a while, I was using it for bits and pieces. Then this gut issue came up. I don’t know if you’ve seen much of the journey, but I suddenly developed severe gut issues. They sent me for stool tests, which I’d never done before, and the results came back abnormally, astronomically high, so they sent me to the hospital. Melissa: They ran all sorts of tests. They rushed me through a colonoscopy, and then I was sitting there on my own in the dark in this hospital room. It’s an ADU unit, so it’s for diagnostic purposes. It’s not a ward. There was no TV, hardly anyone around, and I was quite alone, with no idea what could happen next. Melissa: So, I went into Claude and explained what had happened, and I said I needed to know, statistically, what was likely going on. It talked me through what it could be. That was enough for me to relax and go, okay, that’s cool. Health Hats: Where does it stand now? Melissa: Until a week ago, it looked very likely it was going to be one of those irritable bowel diseases. But right now, we’re completely unclear. I’ve got more specialists to see. But I realized the applications, so I started researching. Deciding to use every tool Melissa: Look, I’ve been sick for 20 years. I’ve been mistreated more than I’ve been well treated, and I’ve lost half my life. A lot of the doctors I saw were, meh. In the last 10 years, I’ve improved my life dramatically, but what upsets me is that I’m still nowhere near normal. That means I was very sick, and most of the doctors I saw were like, meh, even though there were concrete things to treat. They were misdiagnosing me. They were not treating me. Melissa: So I thought I was going to use every tool I had available. I actually told Claude, “Okay, you know my history. We’ve been chatting for a while. Tell me how I can use what you can do better.” The fatigue was signaling two days early Melissa: I do a lot of data analysis in my part-time job, so I thought, let’s get serious about my data analysis. I moved my symptom tracking from a physical book to a spreadsheet. Then I created a prompt where I upload it once a month and say, “Here’s my data. Tell me what you’re noticing that I’m not.” It notices things I don’t. Health Hats: Like what? Melissa: It was the post-exertion malaise flares that I wasn’t quite understanding. Health Hats: Post-exertion malaise. That’s the blowback from overdoing it, the hallmark of ME/CFS and other energy-limiting conditions? Melissa: Yes. It also picked up that when I was having my gut flares, my fatigue would signal a couple of days beforehand. Every time I had a gut flare, my fatigue would worsen beforehand. So, it’s now pretty clear that whatever’s going on with my gut is systemic. It’s part of a larger situation, not just related to my gut. Melissa: The data analysis and the research have been so helpful. I say, do some deep research, and I want you to talk to me about this topic, and it does. But you have to be very clear about what you want it to do. There’s a lot to learn about prompting. It’s very nuanced. Smiling, nodding, and using it anyway Health Hats: How do the clinicians you’re partnering with respond? Are they curious or suspicious? There must be a range of responses. Melissa: It depends. My gastroenterologist keeps saying, “Oh, I hope you’re not using that,” and they always say ChatGPT when they mean AI. So I’m smiling and nodding, but obviously I was. My GP, though, is fantastic. She loves it when I bring her research. She’s engaged. If you’re comfortable with people googling, then AI is just the next step. It’s more efficient than googling. Melissa: And I never go to her and say, “I’ve self-diagnosed myself with this.” It’s more like, “I’ve done some research.” Here’s a practical example. The gastroenterologist suggested a medication, and I don’t feel comfortable taking it. Even though they downplay the interaction with another medication I’m on, I don’t feel comfortable with the overall risk, especially when you’re playing with heart rate and blood pressure. I have low blood pressure and heart rate issues. Melissa: The wonderful thing about AI, compared to what I can do on a hard day, is that it can pull things together. We were talking about this medicine, and it found an alternative, a lower-risk medicine that also supports this other thing. The one thing I don’t want is to end up on loads of medicines and not be sure what’s working. A doctor is surely happy to have me as an informed participant in my care, especially when chronic conditions require patient buy-in. Where the records actually live Health Hats: You’re in New Zealand. I always wonder how the culture and politics around medicine and these tools differ from those here, where it’s a bit of a free-for-all and the guardrails are thin. Melissa: We’re in a very different situation. For a start, we’re a public system, but it’s crumbling. You have the people reliant on it, the people failed by it, and the few who can afford private insurance, which mostly just means you see the same people without being gatekept. We’re very segregated. Each specialty focuses on a single organ. As far as I know, we have one multidisciplinary clinic for long COVID, and it’s in the South Island, so I have no access to it, even though my ME/CFS came on after a viral illness and I’d benefit from exactly that. Melissa: What we do have is one public record that’s stayed with me, and a recent change that allows patients to request any information an organization holds about them. That’s actually how a lot of things changed for me. I got access to my patient portal at 32, and that’s how I found out I’d been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. No one had told me. They’d just written it in there. Health Hats: As opposed to all the times you were misdiagnosed, with both false positives and false negatives. And pulling it all together is the trick. I have a four-pound box of paper from one office, 500 pages, and 291 pages of PDF from another for three months of visits, all out of order and wildly redundant. So much of it is wrong. You start to realize that, at best, it’s grade-D information, and what I put in my journals and spreadsheets is probably the most accurate, which a doctor would never agree to. Melissa: It’s the same here. The onus is still on the patient to gather it all and then use it. That’s a whole other thing, and it’s something I’ve always struggled with. A very powerful toy Health Hats: What words of wisdom do you have for people who are using these tools? Do you want to encourage them or caution them? Melissa: First, think about what state you’re in. If you’re a bit vulnerable, don’t feel confident with technology, or are unsure about any of it, then seek guidance. Have a buddy or a mentor to do it with. Melissa: If you’re like me, data-oriented and logical, deep research is great. But if you’re someone who needs minimal information and more would fry your nervous system, then either don’t do it, ask someone to do it for you, or tell the AI, “I don’t need lots of detail; give me the three key points I can take away.” You can always guide it. Many people use it like they’re talking to someone, which can be useful when you’re working through things. But if you can prompt it well, you’ll get what you need. Melissa: That’s why I’m writing a series of articles. I want to guide people so they can focus on one thing, like how to use their data to get good analysis, because it’s a lot. First, you’ve got to learn how to prompt, then what to put in, then how it works. My articles are trying to make it more accessible. It’s always us, the people who are chronically ill, who are least able to jump on opportunities and make the most of them, and we’re the ones who need it most. But if you’re worried about it or opposed to it, leave it. Health Hats: I’m not a black-and-white person; I’m more nuanced. It helps with some things but not others. One thing I’m struggling with is that it gives me too much to share, and I want to share all that depth. Maybe it’s useful for me, but not for other people. So, I’m learning to set limits. My audience has three minutes or 500 words. Then I can ask more questions. It’s amazing. It’s a toy, in a way. A very powerful toy. Melissa: Thank you so much. I can’t believe it’s been so long. Health Hats: I know. Do we need to make an appointment for another four years? Melissa: No, let’s do six months. Health Hats: Sounds good. See you around the block. Reflection Neither of us is going to be cured, whatever that word even means. But I am living a good life. I am playing music, traveling, and in love. My grandson just turned eighteen and is graduating from high school. Life is good. That is the whole point, really. The point was never the technology. I know my enthusiasm for using Claude turns some people off. A number of you seriously distrust anything with AI in it, and I don’t dismiss that. I’m uneasy too, less about the tool in my hands than about the AI-industrial complex behind it, the money, power, and momentum, something like splitting the atom: enormous force, no guarantee of where it gets pointed. And yet here I am, using Claude and Claude Cowork to cut the forty to sixty hours I spend on each episode down to about twenty. I’ll share how in future episodes. I hold the worry and use the tools anyway. The point is deciding to drive our own train and being glad to have one more tool in the cab. A tool, a toy used best by someone who knows their own mind and keeps both hands on the wheel. Referenced in episode Melissa’s Substack Melissa’s book on pregnancy, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome Melissa’s yoga program Melissa’s book: Fibromyalgia Won’t Win: Learning, Loving and Living with Chronic Pain and Fatigue (Melissa vs Fibromyalgia The Collection), New Zealand’s Right to Records. Please comment and ask questions: at the comment section at the bottom of the show notes on LinkedIn  via email YouTube channel  DM on Instagram, TikTok to @healthhats Substack Patreon Production Team Kayla Nelson: Web and Social Media Coach, Dissemination, Help Desk  Leon van Leeuwen: editing and site management Oscar van Leeuwen: video editing Julia Higgins: Digit marketing therapy Steve Heatherington: Help Desk and podcast production counseling Joey van Leeuwen, Drummer, Composer, and Arranger, provided the music for the intro, outro, proem, and reflection Claude, Perplexity, Auphonic, Descript, Grammarly, DaVinci Inspired by and Grateful to:  Photo Credits  Related episodes from Health Hats https://health-hats.com/fibromyalgia-managing-pain-doing-the-work/ https://health-hats.com/fibro-mama-book-review/ https://health-hats.com/accessible-yoga-honor-your-body/ Artificial Intelligence in Podcast Production Health Hats, the Podcast, utilizes AI tools for production tasks such as editing, transcription, and content suggestions. While AI assists with various aspects, including image creation, most AI suggestions are modified. All creative decisions remain my own, with AI sources referenced as usual. Questions are welcome. Creative Commons Licensing CC BY-NC-SA This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:    BY: credit must be given to the creator.   NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.    SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms. Please let me know. dannyhealthhats@gmail.com  Material on this site created by others is theirs, and use follows their guidelines. Disclaimer The views and opinions presented in this podcast and publication are solely my responsibility and do not necessarily represent the views of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute®  (PCORI®), its Board of Governors, or Methodology Committee. Danny van Leeuwen (Health Hats)

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Jodi joins Murphy & Sam from the hospital where she is still tending to her mom. Grateful Friday comments from YOU, and Jodi's got several to add from this week also. Murphy's got 3 Things to Know Today, Sam has the Hollywood Outsider. Taylor Swift honored by Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg celebrate 51 years since the movie 'Jaws' and what looks to be a big weekend for his brand new movie 'Disclosure.' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

This week on The Grateful Nerd Show, we're joined by Alebrije Genetics for a laid-back conversation about community, cultivation, and the events bringing growers together. We discuss the upcoming Maine get-together, what attendees can expect, and why these grassroots gatherings have become such an important part of the community. Grateful and Nerd also take some time to look back on the recent Grateful Nerd BBQ, sharing highlights from the event, memorable moments, and what made this year's gathering special. More Grateful Nerd:

Award-winning reporter Dejan Kovacevic, a lifelong veteran of the Pittsburgh sports scene, delivers three 'Daily Shot' podcasts every weekday morning, one each covering the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates! Plus three additional 'Double Shot' videos that stream live on YouTube every weekday afternoon starting at 3 p.m. Eastern! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Spielberg's “Disclosure Day” and the Masterpiece of DeceptionThis week a YouTube ad stopped me cold. Steven Spielberg's new film, Disclosure Day, is built around a single premise: the day the whole world is finally “shown” that we are not alone—and it's releasing into the exact season real “disclosure” is being staged in our headlines and our hearing rooms. In this broadcast I make the case that this isn't entertainment. It's preparation—a narrative being seeded to explain away the disappearance of millions, to sell demonic possession as alien contact, and to offer a counterfeit unity that bypasses the cross.But the answer isn't fear—it's discernment. We walk through Matthew 24, the rapture, the counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, and the strong delusion of the last days, and why the blood-bought, Word-anchored believer has nothing to fear and everything to watch for. They're not aliens. And we were never abducted—we were caught-up to be with our Lord!Grateful you're here.— Pablo------------------------------------------Subscribe to receive future broadcasts and articles at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.serpentsndoves.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-------------------------------------------Share.Forward this post, repost it, or pass it along to someone who might need it.Support.This broadcast is listener-supported. If you're in a position to help sustain it, you can do so here:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Me a Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (one-time or monthly)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PayPal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (direct donation)

Award-winning reporter Dejan Kovacevic, a lifelong veteran of the Pittsburgh sports scene, delivers three 'Daily Shot' podcasts every weekday morning, one each covering the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates! Plus three additional 'Double Shot' videos that stream live on YouTube every weekday afternoon starting at 3 p.m. Eastern! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

'It doesn't suck - we're still very grateful for it, each and every time' - Def Leppard guitarist Viv Campbell talked to Frank about how it feels to have thousands of fans singing your songs back to you Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I recently lost one of the greatest loves of my life, my soul dog Huxley.  He passed really unexpectedly on Memorial Day. He was 11 and a half. He was fine that morning. He ate breakfast, he cuddled with us, he sat in the sun while we were at the pool. By that evening, he was gone. He had massive internal bleeding and we had no idea anything was wrong until his gums went pale and we were racing across town to an emergency vet that Memorial Day night. What followed was four hours of the most tender goodbyes I've ever experienced, and then one of the hardest weeks of my life. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to grieve fully, to actually feel it instead of pushing it down and numbing it. I did that in my early 20s after a bad heartbreak, drowned myself in alcohol, and missed the whole thing. I shoved it down and it just kept showing up later as triggers and pain I hadn't processed. This time I felt all of it. The shock, the devastation, the beauty, the signs he's been sending us since.  I'm also sharing something I found in my journal from February, a few months before he died, where I had written about him without knowing what was coming. And what it made me realize about presence and about what being alcohol-free actually means at the deepest level.   IN THIS EPISODE How we lost Huxley and what those four hours of goodbye looked like The three things that determine how deep grief hits, and why losing a dog child can undo you completely What I did differently this time compared to grieving through alcohol in my early 20s, and what that cost me back then The signs Huxley has been sending us since he passed, and why I'm not calling any of them coincidences What I found in my journal from February that I wrote without knowing what was coming Why being alcohol-free is really just another way of saying you are awake to your life What alcohol actually takes from you, and why you feel the bad but miss all the good when you numb   LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED Apply to be our next Thought Leader to master premium selling and thought leader positioning to publish your book and deliver your keynote onstage.  Euphoric the Club is the premier space to lose the desire for alcohol as you surround yourself with successful women who don't drink (and the women who are becoming them). Euphoric the Club includes full access to all of my alcohol-free programs to make alcohol meaningless as your dreams take center stage.  If you know you're meant to help other people change their relationship with alcohol and create a profitable online brand, be sure to get on the waitlist for the Empowered AF Coach 5x Certification – and get 5x certified as a world class alcohol-free empowerment coach, subconscious change coach, success coach, NLP practitioner, and hypnosis practitioner and implement our 0 to $100k Coach Method™ as your build a profitable brand.  Profiling successful people who don't drink and where the alcohol-free lifestyle and entrepreneurship collide. Subscribe to the Euphoric AF YouTube channel. Join over 20,000 souls who tune into weekly newsletters on the competitive advantage you get alcohol-free. Get on the Euphoric newsletter. Read Euphoric: my HarperCollins bestseller on losing the desire for alcohol while getting high on your dream life. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today or grab your free chapter here.    Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram.  And as always, rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide.

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

The world is full of humor, some bad, some good, But a lot of that depends on which stance you take, And I don't mean pretending for I don't believe you should, I'm talking about genuine levity, something you don't have to fake. [full text below] Ep. 458 - Good Happy We begin as always  with the Happy Creed. We believe in Happy,  in Balance and Growth,  of being Mindful and Grateful, Compassionate and Understanding. Yowza Haha My Happy Friends! I may have my low stretches, My times of trouble and strife,  When I feel like one of them wretches Who's losing at the game of life. But that's when my imagination kicks in, That's when I daydream and create, That's when I take my Inherently Happy spark for a spin, And allow my heart, mind and spirit to activate. The world is full of humor, some bad, some good, But a lot of that depends on which stance you take, And I don't mean pretending for I don't believe you should, I'm talking about genuine levity, something you don't have to fake. Today at work someone wrote to ask if I'd been impacted by a new regulation, I did a little research to see, but it turned out it doesn't apply to me, I kept the conversation going since she clearly wanted to talk about the situation, After venting for a spell, she said there was never a dull moment-- I had to agree. So, I responded by saying that I dream of dull moments--which is silly, I know, But sometimes things can get a bit hectic and so uneventful times can seem nice,  She said that made her laugh and so a work email turned into a comedy show, She agreed that life could get complicated and society often exacted a heavy price. I long ago realized, even while bullied for years, that some good could still be found, I could find occasional points of connection, share a joke or even help them out, Bullies are people too--it may not seem like it, but all of us are equally earth-bound, And so we share far more than we may think we do, something I will never doubt. Those moments of ceasefire in their warfare against me, we few and far between, But every once in a while I made a lasting friend because I always look for the good, You might say I'm Good Happy, determined to find what others may not have seen, For I know the true tragedy is denying your own humanity, something you never should. Haha Yowza

More than just a 3rd space, some cafes are platforms for ideas, catalysts for change, and a space specifically organized and designed to grow and nurture their communities.  Led by people with deep convictions and a vivid vision for what can be, these spaces transform and help support the community beyond the coffee.  Today we get to catch up with someone who has spend decades pouring into her community and has learned a lot of very valuable lessons to help you do the same.   Inspired by her afro-indigenous lineage, Blew kind creates transformational experiences where folks can connect deeper within themselves and each other toward their highest self. She offers moments of pause, conversation, and discovery where we can experience daily magic, while being open to heal individually and collectively. Her play involves poetry, crafting, dance, listening to stories, and community space making. Blew kind has developed multiple cultural community organizations in Philadelphia including Franny Lou's Porch cafe, Koku-Roko Learning Co-operative, d'griot café & gallery, and rad.Love; a non-profit fiscally sponsored by the Painted Bride Arts Center to support community programming. Grateful to be involved in the good work, Blew also supports other black, brown, and community leaders on their journey through public speaking and coaching. We discuss: Journey from Franny Lou's Porch to D'griot The Meaning of D'griot and Its Cultural Roots Pandemic Impact and Business Growth Overcoming Resistance and Building Resilience Wealth, Value, and Community Support Community Heart and Giving Back Balancing Personal Fulfillment and Community Service The Value of Humility and Collective Effort Community Collaboration and Unexpected Opportunities   KEYS TO THE SHOP ALSO OFFERS 1:1 CONSULTING + COACHING! If you are a cafe owner and want to work one on one with me to bring your shop to its next level and help bring you joy and freedom in the process then email  chris@keystothshop.com of book a free call now:  https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min    Related episodes: 

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

EWOT for Stroke Recovery: The Affordable Alternative to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Brad Pitzele did not set out to become an oxygen therapy equipment maker. He set out to survive. After years of battling significant health challenges, conventional medicine had given him answers that kept failing him. He tried around 200 treatments. Some helped. Many did not. Then he found EWOT Exercise With Oxygen Therapy, and something finally shifted. Brad’s journey is not the same as a stroke. But what he discovered about oxygen, inflammation, and cellular energy maps directly onto one of the most stubborn obstacles stroke survivors face: the feeling that the brain has gone offline, that the body is running on empty, and that the path back is either impossibly expensive or simply does not exist. In Episode 407 of the Recovery After Stroke podcast, Brad shares what EWOT is, why it works, and why he now makes affordable EWOT systems through his company, One Thousand Roads, specifically so survivors do not have to remortgage their homes to access oxygen-driven recovery. What Is EWOT? EWOT stands for Exercise With Oxygen Therapy. The concept is straightforward: you breathe high-concentration oxygen through a mask while exercising even lightly, and that combination pushes oxygen into parts of the body that normal breathing cannot reliably reach. Most people assume oxygen therapy means a hyperbaric chamber: a pressurized tube, a clinic, a course of treatments costing tens of thousands of dollars. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is effective. Brad describes it as “a heroic treatment.” But it is also inaccessible for most survivors, financially and logistically. EWOT operates on a related principle without the chamber. The key mechanism is not about oxygenating red blood cells; they are already carrying close to their maximum load under normal breathing. The target is the blood plasma. Plasma does not carry oxygen efficiently under resting conditions, but during exercise, even light exercise, blood pressure and circulation increase enough to force dissolved oxygen into the plasma. That plasma can then reach the micro-capillaries, the tiny vessels that feed tissues deep in the body, including areas of the brain that become inflamed and oxygen-starved after a stroke. The Post-Stroke Energy Problem One of the most commonly reported and least-explained symptoms after stroke is fatigue that does not go away, no matter how much a survivor rests. Most survivors are told that is just part of it. Brad’s framework centres on mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria are the energy-producing structures inside cells. After stroke, the cells in and around the affected area are often not dead; they are in a kind of low-power state. Brad describes it as a “brownout”: the lights are on, but dimly. The mitochondria are not producing energy at full capacity, and one significant reason for that is insufficient oxygen supply to the tissue. “The cells that are offline after a stroke are not all dead. Some of them are just starving. Oxygen is part of what feeds them back.” — Brad Pitzele, Episode 407 When EWOT increases plasma oxygen during exercise, it can reach those inflamed, under-oxygenated micro-capillaries that larger vessels cannot access. The result, for some survivors, is a gradual improvement in energy, cognition, and physical capacity, not because the therapy is miraculous, but because it addresses a specific physiological deficit that conventional post-stroke care often does not target. EWOT vs. Hyperbaric: What’s the Real Difference? The honest answer is that EWOT and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are not equivalent. HBOT delivers oxygen under pressure, which drives it into tissue more forcefully. For certain conditions, particularly in acute or severe cases, hyperbaric oxygen has a stronger evidence base.  But for many stroke survivors in the subacute or chronic phase of recovery, access is the defining variable, not theoretical ceiling. A home-based hyperbaric unit costs $50,000 to $75,000. A clinical course can run to $60,000 or more. EWOT systems are available for under $2,000.  The question Brad puts to survivors is not “which is better in a lab?” It is: “Which one can you actually do, consistently, at home, over the months and years that brain recovery requires?” Consistency matters more than peak intensity in long-term neurological recovery.  Starting EWOT With Deficits EWOT does not require running on a treadmill. The exercise component can be a stationary bike, a recumbent bike, or simple seated leg movements with one limb strapped in. The goal is to raise circulation enough to push oxygen into the plasma, not to hit a cardiovascular fitness target. For survivors exploring this option, Brad’s team has built a specific resource at onethousandroads.com/stroke-recovery with a listener discount of $100 to $500, depending on the package. There is also a broader introduction to EWOT at onethousandroads.com/pages/exercise-with-oxygen-therapy. Recovery Is Possible — And It Does Not Have to Be Expensive If this episode resonated with you or if you want to explore more conversations about recovery options that do not require a second mortgage, Bill’s book, The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened, is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. And if the Recovery After Stroke podcast has been useful to you, you can support it financially at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Every contribution helps keep the show going and these conversations accessible to survivors around the world. This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan. EWOT for Stroke Recovery: The Affordable Alternative to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Why pay $60,000 for hyperbaric oxygen? EWOT brings oxygen therapy into your living room — and could help the brain cells that are only offline. One Thousands Roads Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) YouTube Channel Highlights: 00:00 Introduction and Background 05:37 Challenges in Stroke Recovery and Treatment Options 13:45 Understanding Oxygen Therapy and Its Mechanism 15:51 Oxygen Toxicity Explained 19:24 The Importance of Oxygenating Blood Plasma 24:53 Oxygen and Mitochondrial Function 31:16 Adapting Exercise for Stroke Survivors 38:27 Cost and Accessibility of Oxygen Therapy Devices Transcript: Introduction – EWOT for Stroke Recovery Brad Pitzele (00:00) like many of your listeners, when you have a medical issue that isn’t treated by traditional medicine and you’re desperate to get your life back, you’ll try just about anything. You, the lens it goes through is like, Well, how bad can this hurt me? BIll Gasiamis (00:15) Welcome back to Recovery After Stroke. I’m your host, Bill Gassiamas. Today’s guest is Brad Pitzele, founder of 1000 Roads, who overcame significant health challenges of his own and along the way discovered the science behind exercise with oxygen therapy. In this conversation, we get into how increasing oxygen saturation in the blood, specifically in the blood plasma, can help reach the inflamed microcapillaries. That are blocking oxygen delivery to cells in the recovering brain. We talk about mitochondrial dysfunction, post-stroke fatigue, and why Ewatt is worth understanding as an accessible alternative to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Before we get into it, if you’ve found value in this podcast and want to support it financially, you can do that at patreon.com/slash recovery after stroke. And if you haven’t yet read my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened, it is available at recovery after stroke dot com slash book. Here’s my conversation with Brad. BIll Gasiamis (01:19) Brad Pitsley, welcome to the podcast. Brad Pitzele (01:22) Thank you so much. BIll Gasiamis (01:24) Thanks for reaching out and ⁓ connecting with me to educate me on another thing that I can bring to stroke survivors that could potentially help them in the rehabilitation side of their brain. The the thumbnail that people found on YouTube is probably gonna have E W O T on it somewhere. E what. And it sounds something like something out of that ⁓ space war out of out of what is it? Brad Pitzele (01:53) Star Wars. Star Wars. BIll Gasiamis (01:54) Star Wars. Like the Ewok, right? And it doesn’t really mean anything to me. But before we descri tell people what Ewok is, ⁓ tell me a little bit about your background, the work that you do and how it is you came to be on the podcast today is for s for for the specific discussion that we’re gonna have. Brad Pitzele (01:58) Yep. Sure. ⁓ yeah, so I ⁓ I I’m an e recovering engineer. I like to joke. I spent my first decade of my life engineering. later on in life, I left engineering and went into different pursuits and I became chronically ill, had a variety of medical issues, ⁓ cancer, autoimmunity, and eventually Lyme disease. And I was in really bad shape. And a doctor recommended I look into either hyperbaric oxygen or this exercise with oxygen therapy, EWAT, that almost no one had heard of, and I’d never heard of it. ⁓ I I I had tried like everything to get better at this point. I was many years in special diets, ⁓ all sorts of supplements and ⁓ all sorts of modalities and things. And nothing really worked. There was nothing in a matter of fact, some of the medications I took actually gave me cancer. So it kind of forced me on this road to try something different. ⁓ and eventually I found my way back to health through exercise with oxygen when so many things weren’t working. ⁓ and actually later paired that with ⁓ red light therapy. ⁓ and along the way I started because I’m an engineer and I’m inquisitive, I like It was Lyme disease is kind of a do-it-yourself disease. ⁓ so I started digging in and pouring into research, not just on Lyme disease, but autoimmunity, ⁓ chronic illness, ⁓ trying to figure out what the heck was going on with me. And so ⁓ what I found about exercise oxygen therapy along the way was really fascinating to me. and about a year into using it, I went back to that same doctor and he was kind of shocked. At my turnaround, and he was like, What did you use? Did you do oxygen? And I said, I did. And he was like, Who’d you buy it from? I want to tell my patients about it. And I said, I didn’t buy it, Doc. I actually ended up making my own. And he was kind of surprised by that for obvious reasons. And then he said, Well, gosh, would you consider making it for my patient? And so, my patients, and so that’s how we got into this business back in two thousand eighteen. We launched one thousand roads to kinda make exercise with oxygen therapy accessible to people who are dealing with chronic health conditions. BIll Gasiamis (04:39) Okay. And it stems from science, right? There’s scientific data that backs up this exercise with oxygen therapy. Before you go into that a little bit, we don’t have to go deep into it, but we can just ⁓ chat about it. ⁓ when I talk to stroke survivors, they get stuck always with what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? They want the The blue pill, take that one, everything gets fixed. I mean, stroke is not like that, right? And it’s and it’s stroke is also a you’re on your own kind of thing. Because once you get out of the acute phase, once you get sent home, the ⁓ follow up and the medical fraternity doesn’t have a system to kind of say to you, we can’t help you. Speak to that guy. ⁓ that guy might not be able to help you, but but there’s a guy over there. Brad Pitzele (05:09) Yeah. Challenges in Stroke Recovery and Treatment Options BIll Gasiamis (05:33) Like there’s none of that. And stroke survivors need podcasts. They need ⁓ people selling all sorts of crazy stuff that they will almost try almost all the time. They’ll try everything. And then they’ll pick and finally stumble into one that helps and gets them a result. But before we talk about all of that, what I want to do is also go back to what you said about ⁓ a year later, you went to your doctor, he was stunned at the result. We can’t put that down just to eat what? We can’t put that down just to exercise with oxygen therapy. Give me the brief steps on the other things that you also attended to because people miss that. Brad Pitzele (06:15) Yes. Yeah. I well, here’s what I’ll tell you. I started I started to get arthritis in my hands in like 2010 or eleven. and then I started taking traditional drugs for it. And one of the side effects of the drugs is higher risk of cancer and specifically melanoma, which I developed in two thousand thirteen, I wanna say, maybe two thousand fourteen. And that kicked me off the traditional medical path. ⁓ to your point, you don’t you don’t in the stroke recovery, there’s not a traditional path. There it was a traditional path, but it was clear that it was a you know it was a choice between cancer and autoimmunity, and neither one seemed great to me. ⁓ from there I tried so many things, Bill. I did s I actually made a list recently and looked at it because I had it like just off the top of my head, I came up with 200 different things I did try. We’re talking special diets. Eating all sorts of weird, strange things, all sorts of supplements, antibiotics, because it’s Lyme disease, herbal protocols, ⁓ ozone treatments, sa various different types of saunas, ozone sauna, infrared sauna, ⁓ heat steam saunas, ⁓ colonics, coffee enemas, ⁓ weird stuff, you know, you’d never think you’d do. I mean BIll Gasiamis (07:39) You are committed Brad Pitzele (07:42) ‘Cause like many of your listeners, when you have a medical issue that isn’t treated by traditional medicine and you’re desperate to get your life back, you will you’ll try just about anything. You the the lens it goes through is like, Well, how bad can this hurt me? Like like ’cause I know where I’m going right now. For me at least it was a I was just like this gradual step down. It was like I knew like I I couldn’t do this. I had a young family. so, you know, that doctor, I remember him saying, like, look, Brad, we’re trying all these things, we’re gonna get you on thyroid medications and get that right, and we’re gonna do this. ⁓ there on that list of 200, there were about eight things that gave me any kind of benefit that I could identify. ⁓ But I remember he’s like, Brad, we’re gonna take out the big dog. We’re gonna do this ozone treatment. And it’s a special kind where we remove the blood from your body, we inject ozone, put it through UV light, and put it back into your blood. And this helps everyone. Like if nothing else works, this helps, but it’s really expensive. So we’re saving it, kind of. So he he did it. He’s like, do a course of three of them. And he’s like, You might feel bad after it the next day because it kills a bunch of stuff and might you might feel toxic. Or you might feel better. We’re not sure. And give it a few days. And like I did all three of them, I never noticed a difference. And it was ⁓ the most depressing, scary part was like going through that. So when he said go do oxygen, I was like, Okay, like I’ve done everything else. I’m just gonna check the box so the doctor knows that’s not gonna work, so we can go try to find something else. ⁓ And I didn’t believe it was gonna work. I I you know, I didn’t jump on the the bandwagon gung-ho. I was, you know, kind of kicking and screaming. And that was part of the reason I built my own, is because at the time they were so expensive and the they were five to twenty-five thousand dollars. And I was like, I just can’t spend, you know, ten thousand dollars on an experiment. I just can’t do that. ⁓ And he also suggested maybe hyperbaric and that was like fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars. And I was like, geez, if I knew this was the the blue pill, as you said it, if I knew this was the blue pill, I’d go mortgage the house and I’d go do it because like then I could work full and I could do all the things, I could be present for the family, but ⁓ I couldn’t. BIll Gasiamis (10:05) And and and you know what? And it’s not, and and the reason it’s not for a lot of people is because you need to have penumbras the brain from a stroke survivor perspective that are recoverable and that you can bring back to life that are offline, not dead by ⁓ cell death because of the stroke. And there’s no diagnostic process in the majority of the people I’ve spoken to, you can’t diagnose somebody and then work out whether they’re a candidate, and that really Brad Pitzele (10:20) Yeah. Right. BIll Gasiamis (10:33) Pisses me off to somebody gonna have to spend 50 grand to find out if they’re gonna get a result, right? The s the guys that who I’ve interviewed about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, ⁓ Viv clinics, ⁓ those guys will do a thorough diagnostic beforehand to determine whether somebody is a candidate. And whatever that costs, even if it’s five grand, I don’t know what it does cost, but even if it’s five grand, at least you can go, you’re not a candidate, don’t spend any more money. Brad Pitzele (10:38) Yeah. Right. higher yes, you have a higher level of certainty before you spend the money. BIll Gasiamis (11:04) Yeah. And if you do do it, you’re doing it for the other ⁓ non-brain related benefits that you’re gonna get from hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And that’s totally up to you. But it’s not the thing to supposedly fix the arm or the leg that doesn’t work, or to ⁓ repair the damaged cells in your brain. So that part really frustrates me. And if I’m gonna spend that much money, then there’s the opportunity cost as well. It’s like Brad Pitzele (11:33) Yes. BIll Gasiamis (11:34) Now I can’t spend that somewhere else. Brad Pitzele (11:36) Exactly. That was me too. It was like you you knew you had and I was like, man, if I spend this kind of money on it and it doesn’t work, like nothing’s worked for the last, I don’t know, almost ten years at this point. Like how many of these shots do I have in the cannon, right? Like you you know, now I’m I’m depleted and I’m still sick. And that’s even i and you know this, when you’ve got a chronic health condition, sometimes the psych psychology of it all is just as hard as the condition. And If you’re like, wow, now I don’t have money. I feel trapped. There’s nothing I can try. Then hope starts to dwindle. And I say like hope is is like the most potent weapon in recovering from a chronic health condition. It’s a double-edged sword because like you’re s afraid to get hope up because you’ve been let down. But it’s also the thing you need. You ha like when when you start losing hope, and I and I’ve been at that point, it just gets incredibly dark. ⁓ and incredibly scary. so I I think that was part of it. I just wouldn’t allow it. It was the financial part. I you’re right. You only have so many shots out of the bow. But it was also like if it doesn’t work and I am depleted financially you know, I don’t like that that brings me to a a level of hopelessness I I’m not sure I can confront. BIll Gasiamis (12:53) Yeah. And then in order to get back up, you’re getting back up, you’re financially depleted, you’re energetically depleted, your health is depleted. And it’s like, my God, that is a that is like the lowest place that you can find yourself and to get back up is a lot harder. And yet people have still done that, but I know the task is harder. I’ve been in a similar sort of situation. Brad Pitzele (13:12) Yeah. We all love we all love reading that inspirational story. No one wants to live it if they can avoid it, I’ll tell you. Understanding Oxygen Therapy and Its Mechanism BIll Gasiamis (13:23) Avoid it. Yeah, a hundred percent. ⁓ so so you’ve tried all this stuff, you’re unwell, and then somebody says to you, try oxygen. Now, what I imagine when I hear oxygen is get a can from the local gas supplier, ⁓ pop pot in a tube, put it on the back of your chair, wheelchair. You know, I’ve seen a lot of older guys who have got it, and then they’ve got oxygen attached to their face and they’re breathing in oxygen. What specifically did your doctor tell you to get and if you didn’t get what he suggested, like w what did it look like for you? Brad Pitzele (14:00) Yeah, so the challenge with bottled oxygen is number one, it’s almost impossible to get. number two is when you exercise, you can take in a massive amount of oxygen, and that’s part of what makes the the therapy really cool. So y you and I sitting here, maybe we’re taking in three liters of oxygen a minute, okay? ⁓ three liters of air a minute, maybe something like that. ⁓ When you’re exercising, you can easily take in 50 or 60 liters. So it’s a massive multiplier. So you need something that’s going to give you a large amount of oxygen. Now, there’s two ways you can get oxygen in your home. One is that bottle you mentioned, and then you’re always refilling it, and you can imagine lugging one of those things around. ⁓ the other way is there’s a device called an oxygen concentrator, and all you do is you plug it into the wall. And it turns the it purifies the oxygen in the room. So, you know, at sea level, the oxygen in the room has 21% oxygen and it can purify it to 93%. Now, the challenge with these devices is they put out either five or ten liters of oxygen in a minute. So not enough to exercise with. If you were to try to exercise with it, you would also be sucking in this air at 21% and diluting it. ⁓ and so what you do is you take this device and you fill a large reservoir, it’s about a thousand liters, ⁓ and you fill it up. using this device and then you hook up a hose with a mask on it and then you breathe through the mask while you do a fifteen minute exercise session. BIll Gasiamis (15:41) Okay. A reservoir, ⁓ water tank. Oxygen Toxicity Explained Brad Pitzele (15:45) It well it it’s like it looks like a big pillow. So it’s like six you know, two meters by two meters, sort of ⁓ big pillow, six feet by six feet for us still on Imperial. And you fill it up so a thousand liters and it’s you know it’s it’s thin film and so it’s not a a rigid body of something, and then yeah, it’s a bag. BIll Gasiamis (16:06) It’s a bag. Like a bagpipe, a massive bagpipe. Brad Pitzele (16:10) There you go. BIll Gasiamis (16:12) Okay. Okay. W I’m sure there’s an image of that, right? We’ll put it on the screen. People can see it while we’re talking about it, trying to work out what it is. Okay. So this thing is something that you accessed and you used specifically for yourself, how many years ago? Brad Pitzele (16:16) Yeah. Yeah. I’ve s I’ve been using it for a decade straight now. BIll Gasiamis (16:33) Okay. This stuff’s been around for about a decade. This Brad Pitzele (16:37) It’s well, the the research on it goes back to the nineteen sixties and seventies. This it’s really fascinating. actually some of the early research goes back to the turn of the ⁓ twentieth century, the nineteen hundreds. So in the early nineteen hundreds, a gentleman named Otto Warburg won a Nobel Prize for proving that he could turn any cancer or any regular cell into a cancerous cell by depriving it of oxygen. ⁓ and so there’s this really well-established linkage between oxygen and cancer. Even today, a ton of research on that. So in the 1960s and 70s, there was a a German physicist and prolific inventor named Manfred von Arden. Now, and he started to want to do research on Otto’s work, and he he actually started doing research on exercising with oxygen as an anti-cancer protocol. And some of the research he found was really fascinating. what without getting overly technical, basically it our circulatory system, obviously, this is really relevant to stroke, ⁓ people deal in strokes, is as you get down into the the end runs of your circulatory system, there’s capillaries and they’re like thinner than a human hair. And this is where your nutrients and your oxygen are actually exchanged with the cell. And what he found is as we age naturally this inflammation builds up on the lining of our capillaries. And it actually causes the capillaries to swell shut so that now none of your red blood cells can get by. Now, I mean, this is how exquisite our body is designed. ⁓ our capillaries are actually thinner than a red blood cell. So under the most healthy of conditions. A red blood cell actually needs to fold up like a taco to get into our capillaries and deliver that oxygen in the last mile of our circulatory system. So any swelling in that capillary can cause a blockage. And now all the cells downstream are not getting oxygen and in a sufficient quantity. And so they kind of go into what they what he kind of referred to as like a brownout, right? Like it’s a low energy state. They’re doing anaerobic respiration to get some energy. Maybe some of the smaller red blood cells might squeak by here and there and give a little bit, but they’re not getting the full oxygen they need. And what he found is by doing this procedure, just a few times he had very elderly people with very inflamed ⁓ capillaries. He was able to re-establish normal blood flow. And the reason is is oxygen is incredibly anti-inflammatory. ⁓ and a lot of research on that we can go into a little bit later. The Importance of Oxygenating Blood Plasma So, number one, it causes this anti-inflammatory reaction inside these inflamed capillaries to reopen them. But it also does something really amazing that he discovered is when you’re doing this procedure, ⁓ it causes the oxygen to not just attach to our red blood cells like it always does, but it also saturates our blood plasma, which is this clearish liquid that our red blood cells ride on. And Our blood plasma is a thousand times thinner than a red blood cell. So if you imagine these blockages, red blood cells are not getting through, but obviously the blood plasma can get through as long as it’s like as thin as water. So as long as there’s any opening there, and it can immediately deliver oxygen downstream, both to cause an anti-inflammatory impact in the capillaries, but also to all those cells that are starving. And so you can obviously, as we’re talking through this, you can kind of see how this fits folks who are dealing with various different strokes ⁓ and how that can help them as well. BIll Gasiamis (20:32) Yeah. Okay. I d before we spoke I did a little bit of research and found ⁓ as well that there’s some there’s a lot of relevant data with regards to oxygen and ⁓ increasing the oxygenation in the blood. you so tell me a little bit about oxygen. I I don’t understand exactly what that is. I’ve heard of people becoming ill. Because of too much oxygen, ⁓ ill because of not enough oxygen. So what is what what is becoming ill of too much oxygen and why is ninety nine percent saturation not that? Brad Pitzele (21:18) Yeah, yeah. ⁓ good question. So oxygen toxicity can occur if you get too much oxygen under certain circumstances. So if you’re in a hyperbaric chamber too long, it can cause oxygen toxicity. And basically that’s when oxygen gets trapped in your bloodstream and it can’t get out. and You can actually get it without hyperbaric. So hyperbaric is oxygen under pressure. You can get it at normal barracks. So if you were just sitting on the couch breathing oxygen, you could eventually get oxygen toxicity. Now, it would take over twenty-four hours. So if you were breathing just pure oxygen, no exercise, sitting on your couch for 24 plus hours, it starts to get into the risky zone. When you’re doing exercise with oxygen, that’s actually one of the cool things about it that because of the synergies of exercise and oxygen, it’s impossible to get oxygen toxicity for two reasons. one is that reservoir is only a thousand liters. it’s not a high enough dose that you could get a oxygen toxicity. It is a massive dose, it’s about the same amount of oxygen you take in in a day, and you can take it in in 15 minutes, but it’s not more than. And the second reason, even if we could make our reservoir 10x, 100x, and you could exercise nonstop, you still couldn’t get oxygen toxicity because when you’re exercising, your body produces a massive amount of carbon dioxide gas. And that goes into our bloodstream and it increases pressure in our circulatory system. And that actually forces the oxygen out of the circulatory system and into the cells. So it works as a protectant as well from oxygen toxicity. So that’s oxygen toxicity. It’s a real risk. ⁓ Most of the time it’s a very controllable risk. You know, if you’re doing hyperbaric, they’re gonna keep you in there for so long so that you’re not gonna be at risk generally. ⁓ if you’re assigned to do oxygen while you’re stationary at home, they have protocols to make sure you’re not doing it, you know, twenty-eight hours nonstop sort of thing. ⁓ or they have you wear a cannula where where you’re also taking in air and it’s diluting it. ⁓ and in exercised oxygen therapy, it’s not really possible because of the massive amount of carbon dioxide. ⁓ now, not enough oxygen. So if you if you want to measure your oxygen in your blood, the way they normally do it is a device called the pulse oximeter. You can get one for 20 bucks off Amazon. What it does is it looks at how much how many of your red blood cells are saturated with oxygen. And what you’re gonna find in most folks. Is it’s close to a hundred percent. It’s ninety-eight percent, it’s ninety-six percent, ninety-seven percent. ⁓ there’s not a lot of room in our blood for more oxygen. So that’s why it’s important that ewak can actually oxygenate our blood plasma. The same with hyperbaric does the exact same thing, it oxygenates our blood plasma. So BIll Gasiamis (24:26) Okay. I think before you go on, that’s the key ingredient. It’s oxygenating the plasma as well. Where where previously you’ve got let’s say ninety seven, ninety eight percent saturation of your red blood cells. What we’re doing is adding that little bit of extra oxygen into the space where the plasma is. That’s kind of the key difference. Brad Pitzele (24:36) Yes. And there’s two reasons why it’s important. so normally, just for comparison, you and I sitting here, maybe 2% of all the oxygen in our blood is in our plasma, so it’s not very much. ⁓ but under these conditions of IWAT and hyperbaric, we can saturate that blood plasma. And it’s important for two reasons. One, obviously, it increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, but that’s the more minor one. The more major one is that the blood plasma can get into let’s just say the nooks and crannies, smaller spaces in our body where inflammation is blocking off access of red blood cells to downstream cells. And so it can deliver a dose of oxygen where it normally is not able to get. BIll Gasiamis (25:40) You you’ve spent a lot of time on this topic by the sound of things. ⁓ and that’s really awesome. So before we talk about how to actually use a device, how to get a device, how to how to behave while you’re using a device, I wanna understand like how Oxygen and Mitochondrial Function Brad Pitzele (25:52) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (26:02) How you notice the difference in yourself? Because a lot of people ask me what I did in my own stroke recovery. And Brad’s experience is going to be different from the stroke survivor’s experience. My experience was ⁓ I’ve got nothing from the doctors other than let’s monitor your bleed, let’s give you brain surgery. I mean, that’s not nothing. That’s amazing. Like I’m very Brad Pitzele (26:05) Yeah. Yes. BIll Gasiamis (26:31) Grateful for all of that. That removed the the blood vessel that was leaking that was going to potentially kill me. ⁓ so the immediate risk was gone. And then what what I mean I I got nothing is the specialists did their specialty and then I got nothing because they don’t do nutrition, they don’t do exercise, they don’t do meditation, they do brain surgery. And it’s really important for stroke survivors to understand that when you go to a doctor, a neurologist, whoever. Brad Pitzele (26:55) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (27:00) They do a specific thing, and once they’ve done it, they can’t do anything else. And you need to get over the fact that you ⁓ might feel disappointment at the at that I don’t know where to go next, and they don’t know where to send you. Okay, they’re not trained and they cannot legally send you elsewhere. That’s why you’re kind of on your own. So I did meditation, I did nutrition, I did all this kind of stuff and Brad Pitzele (27:16) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (27:27) Somebody who’s interviewed you is Dave Asprey. I would I’ve been following Dave Asprey and a whole bunch of other guys ⁓ probably since around 2012, 2013. And what I learned was how do I reduce the inflammation in my brain? And I had that one area of inquiry, the one area of inquiry that I could personally impact positively by taking out inflammatory foods from my diet. And before that it was, you know, ⁓ processed white bread, it was alcohol, it was cigarettes, ⁓ it was all the stuff that you get in a packet that doesn’t really help to nourish the body, right? So I went back to basics. We’ll call it just for the simplicity of the explanation, we’ll call it protein, ⁓ vegetables and basic carbohydrates like rice or potato. And then what I found was that inflammation decreased, and that was a game changer in how I experienced my brain. And it was a game changer in how quickly I improved neurologically. But just so that people know, it wasn’t the be all end all, it didn’t remove the damaged cells that still are in my head that mean I experienced my the left side of my body in a completely different way than my right side. I’ve got numbness, proprioception issues. I’ve got ⁓ tingling, I’ve got burning, I’ve got ⁓ spasticity, you know, the muscles are tight. So all that stuff is still there. But I have a better experience of the rest of my body and brain because of the things that I took out. But what I didn’t have was the link between exercise, which I do, light exercise, because I’m a stroke survivor. I can’t. use the left side of my body like I used to. so I would do exercise ⁓ like riding an electric bike because it’s easier to pedal, like walking and like doing very light weights at the gym. ⁓ but I didn’t have that oxygen part of the the therapy. And that’s kind of why I interviewed the guys about hyperbaric to understand how oxygen supports how mimicking i a hypoxic brain in the chamber supports ⁓ so how how does like what’s the next part like how does that support the brain to heal let’s give stroke survivors an understanding so that they can kind of grasp that I know we spoke about how oxygen gets into the ⁓ into the red blood cell we spoke about how it gets into the plasma but like Brad Pitzele (30:15) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (30:20) Why is that the next step? Brad Pitzele (30:21) What’s it too? Yeah. It’s a good question. I think you’re right. I you know, we don’t I will say we don’t try to go out and pitch like exercise with oxygen therapy is a panacea or it’s everything for everyone. Even the name of our company, ⁓ one thousand roads, is about paying homage to everyone’s own healing journey and recognizing everyone’s unique journey. So I’ll say that, but So I’ll say that, but what I found about oxygen was in IWA in particular. What was fascinating to me was for me when I was dealing with Lyme disease, which similar to folks who are dealing with the stroke, there’s a variety of different symptoms and s from different causes. And I was trying to treat all these things with different protocols, different supplements that and I found that when I started digging into oxygen, I was shocked at how many of them came back to it. So when you have A stroke, often there’s a lot of ⁓ emerging research about mitochondrial dysfunction. And this is interestingly, mitochondrial dysfunction. Now ten years ago when I was researching it, no one heard of it or cared about it. And it’s really burst onto the scene because you’re gonna find it ⁓ At the heart of so many chronic health conditions, right? ⁓ you’re gonna it’s actually they’re looking at it in cancers, ⁓ chronic illnesses of all sorts, Alzheimer’s, all sorts of cognitive and ⁓ autoimmune conditions, etc., etc. So ⁓ you have this disrupted mitochondria, right? So there was a period of time when your cells were not getting enough energy, whether it was a hemorrhagic stroke and Blood wasn’t being delivered to those cells, so no nutrients, no oxygen, or an ischemic stroke where they were just cut off ⁓ because of a clot or whatnot. And so they were not getting nutrients. In each of these cases, what happens immediately when the cell runs out of oxygen, like I was talking about that brownout, it goes from aerobic respiration to anaerobic respiration. And anaerobic respiration, ⁓ it’s It only can produce 5% of the energy as aerobic. So the cell is in a low energy state, which is the first problem, which means it doesn’t have energy to repair, it doesn’t have energy to take out the trash, detoxify. so it’s kind of stuck. But also ⁓ it creates a lot of metabolic waste. So it creates lactic acid, it creates free radicals, all these things produce more inflammation, like you were talking about. So Now we’ve got these mitochondria, which are dysfunctional. They don’t have the energy to repair. They don’t have the energy to take out all these dead cells or ⁓ you know, all these other byproducts of the immune system and the natural kind of response to this damage, which then leaves more of it hanging around to produce more damage, and they’re producing more damage themselves. So it’s kind of like this swirl, and it’s ⁓ you know, it’s a downward swirl, if you will. ⁓ so When you can re-oxygenate the mitochondria, the first thing you’re doing is you’re giving them the energy to do whatever it is they need to do. ⁓ and that can be the immediate like feeling sharper, like, ⁓ I feel like I can get my thoughts together quicker. ⁓ it can be, ⁓ I feel like I’m more in control of my emotions. And I I don’t feel like sometimes I have a disproportionate emotional response to something. It can be I I don’t have that brain fog. ⁓ you know, that sort of thing. Or I literally have energy. So our brain actually consumes like 20% of all the oxygen in our body. And it’s only like two percent of the mass. So it’s like punching 10x its weight, right? So when your body starts running low on oxygen, it starts conserving. And the one of the things it tells you to do is like cool it, like stop using your muscles. You’re tired. You need to just sit there and veg out. BIll Gasiamis (34:06) Mm-hmm. Brad Pitzele (34:27) while our mitochondria try to catch up. And so that’s often that chronic fatigue that folks with a variety of health conditions, including stroke, feel, which is their bodies like, stop using energy, we don’t have enough. We need to redeploy it for something else more pressing. And so When you can reestablish normal oxygenation, it improves energy. ⁓ it improves sleep, it improves memory. and the the cells have energy to start repairing and detoxifying. ⁓ and then obviously I always think it’s cool because we’re pairing it with oc with exercise. And there’s so much research on the benefits of exercise. You mentioned it was so important, Bill, in in your healing journey. And you know, we know how important exercise is for a stroke survivor. Well, now we’re pairing it with oxygen and we’re using that exercise to catapult more of that oxygen around the body through the circulatory system while your blood vessels are dilated and opening up. So if you’re still dealing with blockages in your microcirculation, which most stroke survivors are. You’re opening them as wide as they they naturally can at that moment, and that’s when we’re feeding more oxygen to them. So it works it kind of hand in hand in that respect. BIll Gasiamis (35:48) All right. Now one glitch. Stroke survivors often are struggling to get into the physical recovery, right? Because the body goes offline, one of the legs doesn’t work, one of the arms doesn’t work. It’s a real challenge, right? So how how can we benefit from that even though we are at just after the acute phase where there is not a lot of capability for Brad Pitzele (36:00) Yes. It’s perfect. Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (36:17) physicality and I I say that so that the stroke survivors listening know that what I’m leading to is that early on it’s probably harder to do ⁓ physical therapy, exercise, et cetera. But again, with time and hope, all of those things can improve. Right. So I I wanna put that out there for stroke survivors, but also like it’s a can it’s a it’s a constraint. Brad Pitzele (36:48) Yeah. And you know, because a lot of our customers are dealing with chronic illness, this is a question that’s not uncommon is like, yeah, but I can’t I’m not out here to run a mile, Brad. I’m like eighty years old and I’m sick or whatever it is. The really ⁓ the really cool thing about ⁓ Ewatt is that it will meet you where you are at. So there is something all of us can do. The goal is to increase your heart rate and your circulation. Cost and Accessibility of Oxygen Therapy Devices and breathe the oxygen. So there’s a few ways you can do it. you know, it doesn’t have to be banging it out on a treadmill trying to get your seven minute mile. ⁓ you don’t need to do that. We have folks, you know, depending on where they are, you can start with slow walking on a treadmill. You can start with calisthenics. You can start with stretching. ⁓ gentle aerobics in your living room. You can start by, you know, lifting weights. You could be sitting and lifting weights with the the hand that’s not. We have folks, and this is probably not so much for ⁓ stroke survivors, but maybe jumping on a ⁓ a rebounder, like a little trampoline if you’ve got the balance one with the handle. ⁓ we have people using under-the-desk pedal bikes, the ones you can get for $49 on Amazon while you’re sitting. BIll Gasiamis (38:03) Beautiful. Brad Pitzele (38:04) while you’re sitting in a chair. And then for the folks who can’t do any of that, we have we even have them doing what I call passive Ewatt, which is they will breathe the oxygen while they get in like a an infrared ⁓ sauna blanket. So infrared sauna will increase your heart rate. And so you will get some benefit out of it. And what normally happens, the the really cool thing about exercising with oxygen is The first thing folks notice, the very first benefit most folks notice when they start doing is the exercise is easier. So I always describe this like if you were ⁓ jogging on a treadmill at, I don’t know, pick a number, you know, four miles an hour and you put the mask on, you wouldn’t feel like you were getting the same exercise at four miles an hour. You you crank it up to four and a half, and then later you crank it up more. And Your endurance actually improves much more quickly than if you were just doing exercise alone. ⁓ and there’s a ton of actually research on you know Olympic athletes using it for performance enhancement, which is not what we’re using for in this, but it’s kind of a nice little side effect. So we have folks who come to us who who are out of condition. We’re not talking about the physical disabilities, but out of condition, we’re like, I couldn’t do. And they’re shocked at what they’re doing and they come back and tell us in three months, look what I’m doing, sort of thing. ⁓ But it will meet you where you’re at. So if you want to do passive Ewatt, you can do that for a while as you’re working and as you start to feel better. Then maybe you’re using the under desk pedal bike. And as you’re getting your balance back and feeling better, maybe it’s a a real stationary bike later or walking on a treadmill and so on and so forth. ⁓ the goal isn’t to bust hump and like try to, you know, get a new record. As a matter of fact, I find that for most folks that sets you back. You wanna kind of you wanna do within an envelope that you’re comfortable with because If we work out too hard, also we set ourselves back because in most chronic health conditions and in stroke, additionally, we talked about this fatigue that’s due to an energy deficit. So if you go out there and overwork, you’re just putting your body in more of a deficit and potentially putting it in more of an inflammatory environment. And we’re trying to do this at a level that’s in you know anti-inflammatory and helping you recover. BIll Gasiamis (40:30) I love that. I love your whole explanation. So in my what I was hoping was you were gonna say that I could just sit there and almost do nothing ⁓ as a stroke survivor, where I’m completely in in just, you know, like week three of the acute after the acute phase, and fatigue is a massive issue and energy is a massive issue, and I’m barely able to stay awake, ⁓ and all of that stuff. And then ⁓ you could do just I hope you I was hoping you were gonna say, But you said the equivalent of ⁓ chair yoga, you know, where all I had to do was just move an arm or move a leg and do something just to get me physically going and then it would benefit. That’s what I love about it. The under-the-leg pedal bike, ⁓ under-the-desk pedal bike is one of the best things because you can strap in your leg with the deficits if you have a leg that has deficits, and you can do all the or the majority of the pedaling with the other leg, which is strapped in. Brad Pitzele (41:07) Mm. BIll Gasiamis (41:29) And you don’t you’re not gonna fall over ’cause you sit in in a chair. ⁓ probably you’re doing it inside your house so the the temperature, the weather is always perfect and ⁓ and you don’t have to door for long, right? You only have to door for a few minutes to start with. Brad Pitzele (41:45) And you’re pulling that other leg around and it’s starting to fire inside here and rebuild those connections. And and as you know, exercise increases ⁓ brain drive neurotrophic factor, which is a growth factor in our brain for BIll Gasiamis (41:51) Mm. Brad Pitzele (42:00) neuroplasticity. So you’re getting you’re getting all of these benefits. So you to your point, for someone who’s if it’s my right leg’s not working and I’m strapped in and my left leg’s doing it, my right leg is firing and it’s firing those neurons at the exact time you have that B D N F as it’s called. So BIll Gasiamis (42:17) BDNF’s amazing. And I also interviewed ⁓ recently a gentleman who ⁓ had spoken about ⁓ Jack Clifford on episode 402 who spoke about kind of ⁓ a protocol that enables you to regenerate blood vessels around the area that’s injured ⁓ to increase the oxygenation and the blood flow ⁓ to potentially those areas where ⁓ brain is offline, not dead. ⁓ so all of these things, ⁓ the previous episode that I recorded with Jack, your episode right now, like all are things that you can do that support brain health, brain recovery, ⁓ overcoming all the some of the challenges that stroke causes. And what I love about this specifically is that you can do it from your house. and you don’t have to go anywhere, but there is a cost. So let’s talk about the cost a little bit because I I want to mention it because of the massive difference to hyperbaric, which can cost up to sixty grand if you go on the right protocol. And ⁓ that’s unattainable for most people, let alone a stroke survivor who just lost their ability to earn ⁓ and may not have sixty grand to splash. Brad Pitzele (43:48) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (43:48) ⁓ so what is the cost of getting a machine, setting it up and putting it in your house? Brad Pitzele (43:54) Yeah. So we sell two different machines. ⁓ we have one machine that’s eighteen hundred and ninety-nine dollars and the other one that’s twenty-four ninety-nine. ⁓ that’s everything you need to get going other than the exercise equipment. and the machines last a long, long time. I think I You know, I think we actually we’ve been in business since 2018 and we had our first customer come back and tell us they wore out their machine like this year. So I have to stop saying we’ve never had one wore wear out yet. So we’ve had one. ⁓ so it it’s one of I think that’s one of the things that’s great about it is it’s something you can do in your house. It’s something that doesn’t take a lot of time. When I was dealing with my chronic health issue, I was joke around about the ceremonies of counting pills and doing this modality and doing that. And they all in stroke survivors, I think, recognize the same thing. It starts to crowd out your life. And then eventually you kind of throw your hands up. You’re like, I it might be helping, but I just don’t have four hours a day for all this stuff. Like I just I need to go on and and live my life too. So it’s something that ⁓ it’s 15 minutes. You do it three to five times a week in your home. ⁓ it’s a one time expense and then it’s you know, it’s something you’ll have for many, many years. BIll Gasiamis (45:12) I love it. Where are you located? Brad Pitzele (45:15) We’re in a Dallas, Texas area. BIll Gasiamis (45:17) Okay. And are these things easy to get and distribute throughout the United States and other places in the world? I don’t know I’ve never heard of it before. So are there other people around who who sell a product that’s similar or can you access them easily? Brad Pitzele (45:35) Well, we do ship worldwide. ⁓ we ship with US power, so people get a power converter we’ve sold to the UK, to Australia, to all over Europe, Asia, ⁓ South America, ⁓ and of course across North America as well. So ⁓ they’re readily accessible. Kind of our mission was You know, when the doctor asked me if I’d make him first patients, I I I I thought about what you were saying about how like spending sixty grand to find out if something’s gonna work. And I felt like I was taking advantage a lot when I was very ill. So we wanted to make something that was accessible to people who are chronically ill. They might not have the ability to earn money. They’re on a fixed in like I have a I guess a deep personal experience and empathy there sort of thing. So ⁓ that’s yeah. So we ship worldwide. BIll Gasiamis (46:27) Yeah. If somebody wanted to reach out to you just to get more information, to have a chat with you, to look at your website, where would they go? Brad Pitzele (46:35) They would go to 1000roads.com slash stroke recovery. We do. And you can find it at the bottom of that webpage, but it’s 1000 Roads HQ. BIll Gasiamis (46:42) And you have a YouTube channel. Okay. What kind of ⁓ things can people find on the YouTube channel? Brad Pitzele (46:56) you can find everything about protocols, benefits, ⁓ how to use it. ⁓ we hit have some customer testimonials and parts of that. ⁓ just talking about the science of it, people’s experience with it, et cetera, et cetera, different use reasons people use it. BIll Gasiamis (47:17) I think it’s very important to bring information like this to stroke survivors so that they can access things in their own home that’s going to make their life better. I wrote a book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened, for the explicit reason to give people like a path forward, a journey forward as to how to ⁓ s how to kind of obtain the silver lining in stroke recovery. And when I wrote it ⁓ in 2018, when I started writing it, something like that, 2018, 2019, I was lacking a lot of the extra pieces that I could put into ⁓ the mindset chapter, for example, or the exercise chapter, or, you know, the nutrition chapter. And In the last five or six years, I’ve been picking up those pieces to sort of attach to those chapters because they’re really relevant. And with the exercise chapter, I think this protocol was the one thing that was missing because I made the point of how important exercise was. I didn’t make the point of how you can exercise and get more bang for your buck during that exercise by Increasing the amount of oxygen that you were getting into your ⁓ bloodstream. How would I have known that if I hadn’t come across the science, which I hadn’t? Plus, there’s only so much you can put in each chapter, but this is the perfect addition. Like, and I love it. So I can go on and on about how much I think this is amazing. Brad, I really ⁓ want to thank you for reaching out and joining me on the podcast. Thanks for the work that you do. I’m glad that you’ve been able to get your health back and now you’re helping other people. Brad Pitzele (49:06) Thank you so much, Bill. I appreciate you having me on. BIll Gasiamis (49:08) Well, that’s it for another episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Might be worth listening to it again. The science here is worth sitting with, oxygenating the blood plasma, reopening inflamed microcapillaries, giving mitochondria what they need to shift out of that low energy state. And the fact that it can be done at home at a fraction of the cost of hyperbaric oxygen therapy makes it worth knowing about. If you want to learn more, or explore the equipment, head to 1000Roads.com Stroke Recovery. Brad has arranged a discount for listeners of this show of between one and 500 dollars, depending on the package you choose. This episode pairs well with the episode 402 with Jack Clifford, which covers a protocol for regenerating blood vessels around the injured area of the brain. The two conversations complement each other. Worth going back to if you haven’t heard it yet. Now, if this episode was useful, please share it with someone who could benefit. And my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became, the Best Thing That Happened, is available at recoveryafterstroke dot com slash book. And if you’d like to support the show financially, I would love it if you could. You can go and do that via patreon.com/slash recovery after stroke. I’m Bill Garciamas. Thanks for listening. See you on the next episode. The post Brad Pitzele – How Exercise With Oxygen Therapy Brings Hyperbaric-Style Benefits Home appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow.Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Americana, Roots, Folk, Blues and Country music. Featured Artists . New and classic tracks.A Gordon Lightfoot Special.

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

Broken, God's Voice, Grateful, Galatians

We cannot wait to move into our homestead but Frankie is fresh out of ACL surgery and has to be healthy before we can get there. Never a dull moment. Here is 20 minutes of our day and we will see you tomorrow. Grateful for Paco: Support South Coast Humane Society

A single Jay-Z verse sparked a much bigger conversation than we expected.In this episode of the Talk My Credo Podcast, the crew brings back one of our favorite segments, "Dope or Doo-Doo?", where we react to trending topics, wild ideas, and culture moments with absolutely no filter.Along the way, we break down Jay-Z's Roots freestyle, discuss politics, community issues, relationships, and a few hilarious life stories.Topics include:

Raj Prakash Paul || The Lord's Church India

The most powerful Jewish morning meditation in the world.The first law in the entire Shulchan Aruch is about waking up like a lion. And the first word out of your mouth sets the entire tone for your day.מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּם שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי בְּחֶמְלָה רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָGrateful. Facing God. The living King. My soul returned. Great is Your faithfulness.If you start every morning with these words, you get the spiritual, physical, and emotional boost you need to live your day on purpose.#Judaism #Torah #MorningRoutine #JewishSpirituality #ModehAni

Have you ever been asked the same question by two different people, one that sat not quiet right, and one that felt easy?Today I want to introduce you to Adbel a human that loves sharing life with others, one that treats friendship like the souvenir of all the places we go and the experiences we haveWe chat about what it means to be someone who seeks out the interjections that connect us, what it looks like to not forget yourself in showing up for others, and why defining ourselves by a title misses so much of who we really areHe shares how he's learned how capable her is, how fear of what might be or what ought be lost isn't something he worries about, but the reality that relationships are at a time, only for a time has been a harder thing to face at timesWe chat about how question like “where are you from” and comments like “your different” miss so much of the value of culture and differences, how growing up in a country that saw his background as one to be hesitant of, how it isn't just the question but rather the motivation behind it, and how it is his responsibility to live his own life first and foremostAbdel is a human who if you are lucky enough to bump into in a line in a foreign country, strike up a conversation, and share a day together, he is one who will remain in your life as a friend you can learn from, be inspired by, know your in a safe space to feel and be heard, and remember what it is to be open and real about how life can be, both good and hardSo tune in today and meet Abdel, a human with a genuine, joy filled passion for being just that, humanAnd to you Abdel thank you, thank you for being a sweet sincere soul, for being the kind that vales connection, of the way you so genuinely share life, your home, and treated me as if I was in my own in yours. You are a reminder of why it is always so worth saying hi. 

Just Grateful for You!

You deserve love even if it's hard to come by, You have value even if it's tough to find, There's a spark deep inside you that refuses to die,  An Inherently Happy source of your spirit, heart and mind. [full text below] Ep. 457 - Bad Happy We begin as always  with the Happy Creed. We believe in Happy,  in Balance and Growth,  of being Mindful and Grateful, Compassionate and Understanding. Yowza Haha My Happy Friends! Have you ever felt that you were bad? Not as in a failure, or in a foul mood, But that you'd gone completely mad, Where something was fundamentally wrong with your attitude? I used to feel that way because I was bullied for years,  Every support system I thought I had failed me, My school, my neighborhood, my family, my faith, my peers, I couldn't understand why nothing helped to even the slightest degree. Everything felt like a personal attack, And I started daydreaming of vengeance on my own behalf, Of increasingly gruesome ways to fight back, And instead of bothering me, they made me laugh. I was turning bad, when once I had been so good,  Once I had been popular and well-liked, Never imagining any darkness could cloud my golden childhood, So that when it did, the pain and terror spiked. And it came out in destructive ways, I broke things, I burned things, I cut myself too, In order to impress others--but to prompt fear, not praise, Which only isolated me further, which didn't help my point of view. I convinced myself that bad was good, that being mean was fun,  I didn't need friends, faith or family, I smoked and hung out in a graveyard at night, I pictured scenarios where I would destroy just about everyone, But even at my lowest point, I still felt that it was unfair, that something wasn't right. That I still deserved love even if it was hard to come by, That I had value even if it was tough to find, That there was some spark deep inside me that refused to die,  An Inherently Happy source for my spirit, heart and mind. And I'm so glad I never let go of that notion, I'm ecstatic that I never completely gave up hope,  Because the Happy that connects all of us is an endless ocean, And acknowledging and embracing it is what gives life infinite scope. Haha Yowza

start Prominent NFL TradesMyles Garrett traded to the RamsAJ Brown officially traded to the Patriots00:28:00 WNBA Commissioner's Cup Gets Started00:31:00 Fred Smith, Jr. officially signs with the Memphis Tigers00:32:00 Women's College World Series is set00:45:00 Mike WallaceNBA Finals thoughtsNew lottery rulesGrizzlies draft plans01:10:00 TV Tuesday'Euphoria' series finale'Hacks' series finaleColamn Domingo is perfect in 'Four Seasons''Widows Bay' is a great scary TV show'Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed' thoughts

What happens when two lighting designers and two manufacturers sit down in the same room and get brutally honest about spec swaps, value engineering, custom details, and what really breaks when a project goes sideways on site? In this episode of LytePOD, host Sam Koerbel brings together voices from London, Florence, and Dubai for a rare, unfiltered conversation about the real friction points between design intent and manufacturing reality. This isn't a polished panel discussion. It's a candid, deeply human look at what it takes to collaborate across continents, timelines, and expectations when the pressure is on, the budget is tight, and the client still expects magic. They reveal why light quality is the designer's non-negotiable, why hiding complexity through simplicity is the hardest detail to execute, and why the best measure of success isn't the rendering or the spec sheet—it's whether the project still looks good two years later and whether the team can still call each other when something goes wrong. They walk through the uncomfortable truths: why there's no magic shelf where everything sits waiting to ship, why manufacturers become true partners only when they stop thinking in catalog codes, and why the sooner designers and manufacturers start talking, the better the final result will be. Whether you're a designer wondering how to collaborate more effectively with manufacturers, a manufacturer trying to understand what designers really need, or anyone curious about what it takes to turn creative vision into built reality—this conversation offers a rare, honest look at the tension, trust, and teamwork required to make great lighting projects happen. Listen now to discover why great lighting isn't about perfection—it's about partnership, communication, and showing up when it matters most. ❤️ Big appreciation for the partners who support this work and trust the vision. They believe in thoughtful conversations, strong community, and letting designers' voices lead. Grateful to build this together. 1️⃣ Mark Lighting - https://watch.lytei.com/mark 2️⃣ Kelvix - https://watch.lytei.com/Kelvix 3️⃣ LEDflex - https://watch.lytei.com/LEDFLEX 4️⃣ Diode LED - https://watch.lytei.com/diode 5️⃣ Targetti USA - https://bit.ly/targettiusa Chapters 00:00:00 Opening: The Reality of Spec Swaps and Value Engineering 00:01:43 Sponsor Spotlight: Mark Architectural Linear 00:02:52 Starting with Light Quality: The Designer's Non-Negotiable 00:08:35 The Hardest Detail: Hiding Complexity Through Simplicity 00:14:28 Manufacturing Reality: Why There's No Magic Shelf 00:20:48 Partnership Over Catalog: When Manufacturers Become Collaborators 00:28:29 Sponsor Spotlight: LED Flex, Diode LED, and Kelvix 00:30:51 Custom vs. Standard: Balancing Innovation and Maintenance 00:35:38 Physics is Physics: Navigating Technical Constraints with Creativity 00:48:24 Sponsor Spotlight: Targetti USA 00:49:13 Biggest Frustrations: Time, Response, and Communication 00:54:07 Installation Reality: When Projects Go Wrong on Site 00:59:00 Closing: It's About People, Not Places

Life can feel confusing when your heart is heavy and the world feels divided. You can be deeply burdened by what's broken around you and still choose gratitude for what God is doing in the middle of it.In this message, we explore what breaks God's heart, what should break ours, and what it looks like to follow Jesus in a world full of fear, division, and noise. If you've ever felt discouraged by church, overwhelmed by culture, or unsure how faith fits into today's world, this message is for you.You'll discover:• Why Jesus-centered faith looks different than religion • What Jesus actually commanded His followers to do • Why love—not fear—should shape the church • How gratitude can grow even when your heart feels heavy • What it means to remove obstacles that keep people from Jesus • Why disagreement doesn't have to destroy compassionJesus didn't call His followers to fear people, shame people, or build barriers. He called us to love boldly, serve generously, forgive freely, and invite people into hope.No matter where you've been, what you believe, or what questions you're carrying, there's still an invitation for you. God is still making things new.

Hello, Beautiful...I'm so grateful you're here with me. This gentle affirmation meditation for moms is a space to reconnect with your unique qualities, inner strength, and beautiful talents. If motherhood has left you feeling stretched thin or disconnected from yourself, these calming affirmations will help you build self-love, gratitude, confidence, and emotional balance. Take a few moments to breathe deeply, release comparison, and remember the incredible woman and mother you already are. Love,

Americana, Roots, Folk, Blues and Country Music. Includes Guy Clark, Lucinda Williams, Neil Diamond, Rosanne Cash and Willie Nelson.VINTAGE AMERICANA SONGS

Moses pitched a tent outside the camp called the "Tent of Meeting." There, God would speak to Moses "face to face, as one speaks to a friend." Across scripture—from Adam and Abraham to Jesus' disciples—God desires friendship with His creation. Yet, in our modern culture, we are experiencing a "friendship recession." We must reclaim the depth of friendship, both with one another and with God, moving past the surface-level encounters we have settled for.Key Points1. God Desires True FriendshipGod doesn't speak to Moses as a subordinate, but as a friend. When Jesus arrived, He wasn't known as a political leader or an entrepreneur, but as a "friend of sinners." He told His disciples, "I no longer call you servants... I have called you friends." Discipleship is friendship. Yet, we often reduce this profound invitation to a scheduled 15-minute "quiet time." God is everywhere; He desires a relationship that permeates our daily lives, not just an appointment on a calendar.2. The Friendship RecessionWe spend more time alone than any previous generation. Friendship has been reduced to a social luxury rather than a daily necessity. If we lack the capacity for deep, vulnerable relationships with the people around us, it will inevitably damage our capacity for a deep relationship with God.Stop finding time; make time. You make time for what you value.Stop finding friends; be a friend. If you go out to be a friend—focused on being interested rather than interesting—you will never lack friendship.3. Grateful, But Not Satisfied (Show Me Your Glory)Moses had seen more of God's glory than anyone—the burning bush, the plagues, the parting of the sea. Yet, in Exodus 33, he asks, "Now show me your glory." He was grateful for past encounters, but he was not satisfied.Many Christians are living off a spiritual high from ten years ago. We have become "domesticated tigers," settling for small, scheduled moments instead of hungering for the wild, full presence of God.A true revival happens when God's people band together and declare, "Show us your glory! We will not be satisfied with what the previous generation experienced. Do it again."4. The Ultimate Glory is JesusHow does God answer Moses' request to see His glory? In Matthew 17, at the Transfiguration, Moses finally stands in the Promised Land alongside Jesus. The glory Moses asked to see in Exodus was ultimately revealed in the person of Christ. If we want to show a hungry generation the glory of God, we must stop pointing to ourselves, our cool aesthetics, or our trendy evangelism strategies. Like John the Baptist, we must simply and constantly point to Jesus in every season of our lives.ConclusionGod has invited us into a profound friendship. As we reflect on what God has done in our lives and in our church, let us be deeply grateful, but never satisfied. Let us reject shallow routines and isolation, choosing instead to pursue God with a "greed for His presence," constantly pointing the world to Jesus.Calls to ActionEvaluate Your Friendship with God: Are you treating God like a scheduled appointment or a true friend? Move beyond the 15-minute quiet time and invite Him into your entire day.Be a Friend: This week, actively make time to deepen a relationship. Ask questions, be vulnerable, and focus on being interested in someone else's story.Point to Jesus: In your victories and your defeats, make it your primary goal to point others to the glory of Christ rather than yourself. Support the show*Summaries and transcripts are generated using AI. Please notify us if you find any errors.

Honesty is the best policy - I apologize for just abandoning those who do listen. I want to be worthy of the call & that means allowing the Bible (word) to wash me, transform me, rebuke me & correct me! Grateful to be a recipient of grace on today. ​A scripture I mentioned in the prayer & I didn't say it fully or completely accurate so here it is below: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Welcome back to the podcast! Today's episode is a little different and honestly really special to me. I'm sitting down with my youngest brother, Taylor, for a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. I'm the oldest of nine kids, Taylor is the youngest, and after my daughter Indy randomly asked me why Taylor had never been on the podcast, I realized this was finally the perfect time to record it. Recently there's been a lot of conversation online around large families, especially after influencer Hannah Neeleman announced the birth of her ninth child. And watching the reactions was fascinating because people seemed split into a few camps: admiration, criticism, and curiosity. Some people thought it looked beautiful. Others questioned whether it was realistic or healthy. And then there were people who were simply fascinated asking, what is it actually like growing up in a family that big? It made me realize—we actually have a pretty unique perspective on that conversation. One of my favorite parts of this episode was reading a paper I wrote as a teenager when my parents announced they were having their ninth baby… Taylor. And to be honest, my initial reaction wasn't exactly excitement. I remember worrying about the comments people made about our family, feeling overwhelmed by the idea of "one more," and wondering how our family could possibly stretch any further. But then I read the ending of the paper, written after Taylor was born, where I admitted something completely different: that our family felt more complete because of him. Reading it back now was hilarious, emotional, and honestly a reminder of how perspective changes over time. Taylor shares what it was actually like growing up as the youngest of nine, and one thing I loved hearing was that what looked "crazy" from the outside just felt normal to him. He talks about how much he loved always having people around, growing up close to nieces and nephews because of our age gaps, and now becoming genuine friends with our siblings as adults. We also talked about how closeness in families doesn't just happen automatically—it comes from prioritizing each other, staying connected, and intentionally creating time together. More than anything, this episode left me feeling deeply grateful. Grateful for siblings, for cousins, for the relationships that continue long after childhood, and especially for my parents. As we talked, I found myself reflecting on how much they gave to create the life we had. And maybe the biggest takeaway from this conversation is this: family life may not always look efficient or easy from the outside, but the relationships built inside of it can become some of the greatest gifts of your entire life. LINKS: All Links Family Brand!  stan.store/familybrand familybrand.com/quiz familybrand.com/retreats.    Episode Minute By Minute: 00:00 – Introducing Taylor + why this episode happened 02:00 – Melissa and Taylor's 17-year age gap 04:00 – The online debate around large families 06:00 – Melissa reads the paper she wrote about baby #9 09:00 – "He makes our family complete" 10:00 – What it was like being the youngest of nine 12:00 – Did the older siblings resent babysitting? 13:00 – The lasting effects of having a big family 14:00 – Becoming friends with siblings as adults 15:00 – The "ingredients" that create sibling closeness 17:00 – Melissa's sisters trip to Paris 19:00 – Challenges of growing up in a large family 20:00 – How their mom raised nine kids with one arm 22:00 – "Shoutout to moms everywhere" 23:00 – Final reflections on family, siblings, and gratitude    

A whole bunch of zeroes as I try to recover from the recent injury to my leg. I've been patient and rested my leg, but the arrival of new Oboz shoes to replicate as closely as possible the sole of my previous boots, puts me close to returning to trail this coming Thursday. Bring it on! Along the way, I managed to grab conversations with Dumb Enough, Grateful, and Blarney Fife at Weary Feet Hostel. I'm using Polarsteps to record my AT thru-hike this year. If you'd like to follow my progress between episodes, as well as photos of my journey, please go to https://www.polarsteps.com/mightyblue and click on the follow button. I used my hike in 2024 on the South West Coast Path in the UK to help raise money for my absolute favorite charity, Parenting Matters, on whose board I've been privileged to serve for over a decade. You can learn more about the hike and the organization–and donate–by visiting Hike with Steve - Empowering Parents, One Step at a Time | Parenting Matters %. I hope you want to support this critical mission. Don't forget. Our entire series of videos from our Woods Hole Weekend in 2022 is now FREE and available at my YouTube page at Woods Hole Weekend - Trailer There, you'll find all sorts of tips and tricks that our guests took away from the weekend that helped them with their own hikes this year. Check it out. I often ask listeners for ideas on who to interview, and I'm sure several of you say, "I could do that. I've got an awesome story to tell." You're the person we need to hear from. If you'd like to be interviewed on the podcast, just register as a guest on the link below, and I'll be in touch. Come on the show! If you like what we're doing on the Hiking Radio Network, and want to see our shows continue, please consider supporting us with either a one-off or monthly donation. You'll find the donate button on each Hiking Radio Network page at Hiking Radio Network . Additionally, you can join our membership at Steve (Mighty Blue) Adams. It's worth checking out what is on offer for you there. If you prefer NOT to use PayPal, you can now support us via check by mailing it to Mighty Blue Publishing, 3821 Milflores Drive, Sun City Center, FL 33573. Any support is gratefully received. Additionally, you can "Zelle" me a donation to steve@hikingradionetwork.com. Or "Venmo" me at @‌Steve-Adams-105. They both work! If you'd like to take advantage of my book offer (all three of my printed hiking books–with a personal message and signed by me–for $31, including postage to the United States) send a check payable to Mighty Blue Publishing at the address just above.

Yesterday we focused on how gratitude makes us feel on the inside. In today's episode, Rachel will guide you through an open-ended journaling practice that will do the opposite. When you are anchored into gratitude, what changes externally in your life? Do you feel you have less hurdles in your day to day? Can you navigate difficulty easier? Does it change the dynamic between you and other people? Tune in to find the impact. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI subscriptions are becoming as essential as internet bills - and just as expensive. The vBrownBag gang takes a hard look at the real cost of LLMs and what happens when the free ride ends. Chris, Shala, and Damian dig into the Anthropic pricing plot twist, why AI data centers consume 10x the power of traditional racks, the DeepSeek distillation controversy, and what happens when the first hit's free phase ends. You'll learn practical strategies for reducing token burn, why local models are becoming a viable cost escape hatch, how to pick the right model for the right job, and why blindly using Opus for everything is lighting money on fire. This is the unfiltered conversation every AI practitioner needs to have - before the subsidies disappear and the real bills arrive. Timestamps 0:00 Cold Open: Get These Darn Kids Off My Lawn 1:27 Chris's Big News: Leaving IBM for Six Feet Up 8:09 How Many AI Subscriptions Do You Have? 16:41 Stack Overflow Is Dead, Long Live Claude 17:12 Don't Just Blindly Copy and Paste (AI Edition) 31:00 Anthropic Gross Margin 2025: Negative 53% 35:30 When Token Costs Exceed a Junior Dev's Salary 42:02 Find the Model That Fits the Job 46:11 AI Multitasking Is a Lie (Just Like Humans) 49:05 We Are Uniquely Bad at Making Money Off This Show 53:19 Supply Chain Attacks and GitHub Actions 54:45 Did We Solve Anything? Yes. No. Maybe. 55:58 Grateful for Friends & Wrapping Up Links from the show:

How can we offer hope for mental health and addictions? Welcome to Flourish-Meant, where we explore stories of hope, healing, and authenticity. In today's episode, "Hope for Mental Health and Addictions," host Tina Yeager sits down with actor, director, producer, and neuroscience graduate Jessica Lee Wrabel—a woman whose journey through postpartum depression and neuroscience expertise have inspired her creative work. Through deeply personal projects like the documentary In the Shadow of Grace and the upcoming feature film Our Shadows, Jessica Lee Wrabel weaves together raw, real-life stories of struggle and overcoming, spotlighting experiences with mental illness and addiction. Together, we'll discover how art can bridge gaps, spark empathy, unlock the doors of faith, and offer tangible steps toward hope for everyone—both inside and outside the walls of the church. Join us for an authentic conversation that promises to leave you inspired and equipped to make a difference. Key takeaways from our conversation: There's Power in Sharing Your Story: Vulnerable, lived experiences can bring comfort and hope to others feeling alone in their struggles. Authenticity matters—healing is often a slow, messy, but beautiful journey. Community & Empathy are Critical: Sometimes the biggest support we can offer is simply to be present. We all have struggles and need each other's grace, inside and outside the church. Resources & Action Steps Exist: Whether it's local organizations, counseling centers, or national networks like NAMI, help is available—but reaching out can be the hardest step. If your community or church doesn't have a resource directory, be the one to start it. Grateful for the opportunity to encourage others and for everyone who has partnered with Wrabel on Shadow of Grace and her upcoming feature film Our Shadows. If you'd like to connect, share your story, or support her movement, reach out at yolliwoodtx.com. We're thrilled to accompany you on this journey of faith, growth, and transformation. As always, we appreciate your support! Please subscribe and share this episode. We can't wait for you to join us for future episodes of Flourish-Meant. To book Tina as a speaker, connect with her life coaching services, and more, visit her website: https://tinayeager.com/ Optimize your mind and body with my new favorite, all-inclusive supplement, Cardio Miracle! I love the energy and focus this health-boosting drink mix provides without toxins, caffeine, or sugar! Get a discount on your purchase with my link: http://www.cardiomiracle.com/tinayeager Manage stress and anxiety in 10 minutes a day with the course presented by 15 experts, Subdue Stress and Anxiety https://divineencouragement.onlinecoursehost.com/courses Connect with Tina at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tyeagerwriting/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinayeager/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tina.yeager.9/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TinaYeager

What does it take to build a career shaped by deep listening, quiet confidence, and the courage to lead without losing yourself in the process? In this episode of LytePOD, host Sam Koerbel sits down with Teal Brogden, co-leader of HLB Lighting Design, one of the world's most influential architectural lighting design firms, to unpack what it really means to lead with empathy, curiosity, and panache. Teal reveals why listening with empathy is the foundation of great design, why presence matters more than perfection, and why the best measure of success isn't the rendering or the award—it's the window washer who feels honored to work on a building because it means something to the community. She walks through the art of asking the right questions, the courage it takes to say yes to adventure while staying grounded in technical rigor, and why collaboration isn't just working together—it's creating space for others to shine and trusting that what you give out is what you get back.

Grateful to Rekortan for hosting a Coaches Speaker Session at the 2026 Penn Relays. Recorded on Friday during the Coaches Hospitality, Rekortan invited coaches and Rekortan teammates to share their running and coaching experiences to give value to the audience. Gill Athletics is grateful for Rekortan's trust to record these sessions to bring them to you in our Gill1918 Project podcast format. There are six speakers in all, you can find them on the Gill Connections podcast published on these dates:5/3 Greg Scholars -AP RANCH5/9 Bella Whitaker- ON5/10 MaryBeth Price -Rekortan5/16 Bill Lawson - IMG Academy5/17 Kevin Quadrozzi - ON5/23 Guy Thomas - Rekortan

It's Memorial Day Weekend. A time to picnic, go to the pool, and celebrate the onset of summer. Right? Well, not exactly. There is a higher purpose to this holiday. Join me for today's Daily Word & Prayer to learn moreTo find Tom on Instagram, Facebook, TiKTok, and elsewhere, go to linktr.ee/tomthepreache