Podcasts about historically

Historically, Christians have favored burial. That practice was not accidental. Burial reflects the biblical pattern of honoring the body, treating death with gravity, and looking forward to the resurrection. In Scripture, the body is not treated as disposable. At the same time, the Bible does not give a direct command that Christians must be buried or that cremation is sinful. Josh and Sam discuss this question on today's episode. The post Should Pastors Encourage Burial Over Cremation? appeared first on Church Answers.

As investors look toward the U.S. midterm elections, the biggest question is what could change. Our Head of U.S. Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore outlines the signals worth watching. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript ----- Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of U.S. Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, I'll be talking about the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. It's Wednesday, September 30th, at 10am in New York. As the elections inch closer, investors are increasingly asking about potential ramifications. We just put out a deep dive covering our expectations, and we arrive at four key takeaways. The first, midterms are unlikely to change the core executive-led policy agenda. As we've been noting for some time, a lot of the policy uncertainty that markets have dealt with since the beginning of 2025 has actually come from the executive branch rather than Congress. Tariffs, trade policy, deregulation, immigration, and export controls are all variables that are going to remain within the White House's authority. So even if control of Congress changes, we don't think investors should assume that those parts of the policy agenda simply go away. Where Congress actually matters more is on fiscal policy. But even there, the range of outcomes is relatively narrow. The main differences revolve around the timing of scheduled SNAP and Medicaid cuts, defense spending, and how future government funding and debt limit negotiations evolve. So, that's our first takeaway. Midterms can change the mechanics of governing, but probably not the broader direction of the executive agenda. That means policy uncertainty, at least across those vectors I mentioned, is likely to stay high. Takeaway number two, we'd be careful about treating the midterms as a direct signal for the 2028 presidential election. Historically, what we see is the issues that dominate a midterm don't necessarily translate to the next presidential race. Looking at the six midterm-to-presidential cycles since 1994, the top-ranked issue changed in five of them. And the issue that ultimately proved decisive in the presidential election was actually already visible at the midterm in only two of the six cases. What elections can tell us, however, is where some of the policy fault lines are beginning to form. We're watching four debates in particular in that context: the fiscal and Social Security debate, individual tax landscape, restrictions on data center development, and healthcare. In our view, across those variables, the useful signal isn't simply which party wins more seats. It's which versions of these policies are beginning to gain traction with voters and within the parties themselves. That actually brings us to takeaway number three. AI is one area where the midterms could matter, but mainly through data center policy rather than broad AI regulation. We think it's important to separate those two issues. So first, on data centers, we do see midterms as a catalyst. And that's because many of the most important policy levers sit at the state and local level: permitting, siting, grid interconnection, large load electricity rates, and tax incentives. So that means that the governorships, utility commissions, and state legislatures can actually have a much more immediate effect on the pace and the location of the build-out than Congress itself. In that vein, our base case remains a conditional build-out, meaning the expected level of AI CapEx can continue. But likely it's going to increasingly concentrate in locations where developers can address concerns around things like electricity costs, infrastructure, water, and community impacts. Broader AI safety regulation is different. Here, we think government configuration actually matters less, and that's because we see comprehensive federal legislation as pretty unlikely in the near term, absent a high salience event or incident. So congressional control is not necessarily the key driver. And finally, takeaway number four: for markets, we see more micro implications than macro ones. For equities, the composition and cohesion of the congressional majority can matter for individual sectors. Congress that's able to negotiate changes to scheduled SNAP or Medicaid cuts, for example, could have implications for consumer and healthcare companies. AI related sectors could also respond to changes in expectations and sentiment pertaining to data center restrictions. For rates, the key question is whether the election produces fiscal outcomes that materially change expected deficits. United Republican control would be the only outcome preserving reconciliation as a potential vehicle. Divided government, conversely, would narrow the scope for new legislation and put more emphasis on funding and debt limit negotiations. And for the dollar, our strategists see the transmission mechanism running primarily through U.S. yields and the growth outlook rather than the election itself. So, bottom line, we don't think the 2026 midterms are likely to produce a wholesale change in the policy or macro backdrop. But there will be important lessons to pick up along the way. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen. And share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

In this episode, growth investor John Pocorobba (founder of Rain King) reveals why the market is set up for a massive acceleration phase over the next decade. Historically, major stock market cycles consist of 10- to 15-year sideways consolidations (like 2000–2015) followed by roughly 25-year secular bull markets. According to John, the supercycle that began in 2009 is about to hit its critical acceleration phase between 2028 and 2033. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Markets remain stuck in consolidation, but beneath the major indexes, the picture looks considerably weaker. Only about 40% of stocks are trading above their 50-day moving averages, while small-caps, mid-caps, utilities, real estate, and financials have faced significant pressure. At the same time, the growing number of stocks hitting 52-week lows and falling below key moving averages may be pushing market breadth toward more extreme levels. Historically, those conditions can become contrarian signals as selling pressure becomes extended. As investors head into the fourth quarter, rising earnings estimates, the return of corporate buybacks, available market liquidity, and increasingly negative sentiment could provide support for a year-end rally. That does not guarantee one. Lance Roberts explains why investors should watch what is happening beneath the indexes and avoid becoming overly risk-averse as Q4 begins. Hosted by RIA Chief Investment Strategist, Lance Roberts, CIO Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer --- Watch the Video version of this report on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/YR2WHQHpryU --- Get more info & commentary: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/insights/real-investment-daily/ --- Do you enjoy our content? Rate us on Google: https://bit.ly/4b9JtEo --- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN --- Subscribe to SimpleVisor : https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new --- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #StockMarket #MarketBreadth #SP500 #Investing #MarketOutlook

In this episode of Behind the Genes, we explore Black communities and health research. Our guests discuss why some people feel research is not intended for them, how historical mistrust affects participation, and what needs to change to make research more inclusive, transparent and beneficial for everyone.  Our host, Sharon Jones, is joined by:  Professor Segun Fatumo - Professor and Chair of Genomic Diversity at Queen Mary's Hospital Christella Matoko - Project manager at Genomics England Hazel Attua - member of the Participant Panel at Genomics England We also hear from Mica and Mary, who took part in the Our health, our stories video on YouTube, who share their reflections on why taking part in research matters for Black communities.  As mentioned in the episode, you can also listen to our latest Genomics 101 episode, What is equity in healthcare?, to learn more about what equity means and why it matters in health research and care.  “Engaging in research is bigger than you. It shapes your community, and it shapes the lives of the children coming in the future.”  You can read the transcript below. Sharon Jones: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Behind the Genes, the podcast that brings you the stories, research, and innovations shaping the future of genomic healthcare. Today, we're exploring Black communities and health research. Why do some Black people feel that research isn't intended for them? What role does trust play in participation? Sharon Jones: And what needs to change to improve health outcomes now and in the future? I'm Sharon Jones, and joining me today are Christella Matoko from Genomics England, [00:00:30] Segun Fatumo, Professor and Chair of Genomic Diversity at Queen Mary's Hospital, London, whose work focuses on improving representation and equity in genomic research, and Hazel Attua, who's a member of the Participant Panel at Genomics England. Sharon Jones: A warm welcome to everyone. So before we dive into these topics, let's start first to try and understand how people perceive research and how that can often influence whether they feel it's something for them. So Christella, I'd love to come to you [00:01:00] first. What comes to mind when you hear the words health research? Christella: I think when I'm talking about health research, what comes to mind is the opportunities to understand certain health conditions in different communities, and it's about understanding that we can get better treatments, and these treatments can prevent health inequalities. Although I might look at it from this lens, the whole of the Black community might not. Christella: I have the knowledge of medical care. I work in Genomics England, [00:01:30] so I understand the benefits of, um, health research and how it can improve outcomes within the healthcare. But when you speak about it in terms of the Black community, research doesn't necessarily sit naturally because of all of the historical mistrust that we've, you know, encountered. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Christella: So for me, good healthcare research should ultimately lead to better outcomes for everyone. And I think when I hear [00:02:00] health research, that's like what I like to think about. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And, and Hazel, like coming to you, does that reflect what you've seen or experienced? Sharon Jones: You know, do you feel that research feels relevant to Black communities and why do you think some people may feel hesitant in, in taking part? Hazel: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with Christella. I think it's difficult for people in the Black community to sometimes trust when research comes out [00:02:30] because previously there's been a lot of mistrust around research because there hasn't always been a lot of research within the Black communities. Hazel: Like when we talk about research, when we talk about, um, for example, with National Genomic Research Library, so when I used to do work with Genomics England- Christella: Mm. Hazel: I specifically was, um, working on the National Genomic Research Library within, um, diverse data. [00:03:00] And so our role was to get more diverse data into the National Genomic Research Library. Hazel: And so for those that don't know what that is, it's like a biobank. And so a biobank is essentially, um, where you help collect samples. So if you've decided to get into research, it's collecting samples, processing samples. So when we decided to do the initiative or when Genomics England decided to do this initiative, I thought it was [00:03:30] amazing because essentially not that much research was done previously for the Black communities. Hazel: And specifically for sickle cell. So to be able to do this, to be able to help understand the background for sickle cell for the Black communities, it's amazing. To be able to get more treatments and interventions, it's great. But like Christella is saying, like, it's interesting to see different people's [00:04:00] perspectives because, again, the trust and the misconceptions around research is different in everybody's eyes because of the, the lack of research that's been done before. Hazel: And so the hesitation around it is like, "Why, why is it only coming about now?" Like, "Why are we doing it now?" But that's the thing about the UK, we're such a diverse population, and it's amazing. So research needs to reflect that. [00:04:30]And so I think hopefully going forward, it actually does do that because we do need treatments and interventions that actually reflect the community. Hazel: Otherwise, we're not gonna get anywhere when it comes to medications, like, health data that actually reflects everyone. Sharon Jones: So we're gonna hear from Mary now, who's a research nurse and midwife, who shares her thoughts on why people [00:05:00] may be hesitant in taking part in research. Mary (Clip): Within the Black community, historically, the lack of participation in research stems from a lack of trust. Historically, I guess the best way to put it is why would I go to a party I've never been invited to? And it's trying to get people to understand that narrative has changed. The lack of trust should never be dismissed. Mary (Clip): It's not a, a myth. It stems from [00:05:30] somewhere. However, there's been so, so, so much change, and I'm hoping that people can see that there are people that really want to make this change for you, for me, for us, for our community. It's so important that, yes, we still hold on to the history of where research is coming from, but we need to paint the picture of the future. Sharon Jones: So Mary's analogy of being invited to a party you've never been to really gets to the heart of that question around trust. So [00:06:00] Segun, I'd love to bring you in at this point. From your experience working to improve representation in genomic research? Sharon Jones: Can you explain to listeners why historically Black communities have felt disconnected to research, and what needs to change to make it feel like it's something for the community rather than something that's being done to the Black community? Segun: So I think we need to get to a point where we acknowledge that there's mistrust. Segun: So some Black community are fed the old, kind of research that is being done on them and not being done with them. You cannot just show up in a community and start asking for their blood sample or asking for their data, and you just do research on them without, uh, proper community [00:07:00] engagement, without getting them involved, without asking them what are the things that are really very, very important, uh, to them. Segun: I think, uh, we researchers and also institution and as well as a nation, UK, where we are taking a lead in global genomics, needs to get to a point where we understand that the trust h-has gone, and, uh, we should not expect the Black community to [00:07:30] give us their trust. Segun: We need to get to a point that where we earn that trust from them, and we're able to do our study on them. So currently in the UK, if you look at some of those, uh, very successful, uh, Black community is really underrepresented. And one of the reason why you hear that is they say that the Black community, they are very hard to reach. Segun: So they're hard to reach because of the same issue. Community engagement has to [00:08:00] be done in a proper way. Yeah, you need to do research in a way that you go to those Black community and don't expect them to come to you. Segun: And we see a lot of that during, uh, during COVID. You see that many, uh, Black community were very hesitant to participate in any vaccine. So we need to get to a point where Black community earn our trust. Sharon Jones: Thank you. Christella, [00:08:30] what do you think about the role that trust plays in deciding whether to participate in research? Sharon Jones: You, you know, given that you've worked on the Generation Study. Christella: I think trust has to be earned, and I think Segun has said it perfectly here in terms of working with the community and coming into the community to understand how the community works. This mistrust that we're talking about is not something of today. Christella: It's something which has been reported on. It's something which we have seen. It's something which has-- it's not a made-up thing. [00:09:00] So when, um, when organisations say Black communities are harder to reach, there is reason for it. That cannot be an excuse not to actually participate with those people in the community to show the difference in which we have made over the years, to understand that we are making changes with the transparency of what we do, you know, creating, um, work which you know where your data is going, because at the end of the day, I'm giving away my [00:09:30] sample. Christella: I want to know who will have access to that sample, where that sample will go. And until we get to a point where we understand that trust has to be earned, it's always gonna be quite difficult if we think Black community are just gonna participate because there's a research available. Sharon Jones: And that's a really fair point. And what do you think, given your sort of experience, what do you think helps build that trust in practice? Christella: I think first of [00:10:00] all, um, not telling and actually going into communities and understanding. So when we talk about the Black community, it's not just a small group of people. Christella: There are Black Caribbeans, there are Black Africans, there are people from different tribes within different countries. So it's not just a, a one-size-fits-all kind of thing here. Yeah. So it's understanding what you're actually trying to achieve, going into places where the Black community [00:10:30] actually congregate, so whether that is church, whether that's community events, whether that's, uh, Black-based events, actually going in and understanding what is it that you would like us to do to show that we are not the research of, you know, the, the early 19th century? Christella: What have we done to show that we are progressing in terms of equality? What have we done in terms of how we're using your data? All those things there, it's not about [00:11:00] things being done to the Black community. It's the, it's the partnership, I think, that needs to be at the forefront of what we do now. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Yeah, and Hazel, coming to you, what do you think enables that participation? Hazel: Again, 100% agree with Chrisella and Segun that it's all about coming to the community and building that trust because it's, it's difficult, and it's about showing up and not just [00:11:30] showing up once. Hazel: It's about consistently showing up and consistently building that trust because it's easy to do a workshop or do an engagement once and tell everyone this is what you're trying to achieve. But if you consistently show everyone who you are, what the research that you're trying to do is, it's not just about telling them about the research, it's understanding who they are before you actually trying to gauge them about the research because, like, [00:12:00] it's breaking down their walls and breaking down their barriers. Hazel: As a Black community, we build up these walls, and I say it as we because we've been let down so many times and- Hazel: like, I say this from my experience, from times where, from the sickle cell community, for example We had treatments that were brought in, so there was, for example, crizanlizumab and [00:12:30] voxelotor that were brought in, and they were approved in, uh, like, 2023, 2024. Hazel: But then in 2024, they were then taken away. So early '24, crizanlizumab was then taken off the shelf. Sharon Jones: Right. Hazel: And then late September, October, voxelotor was then taken off the shelf, and that's very disheartening for patients with sickle cell. And in the Black community, you can see how also people have been let down [00:13:00] again and again Sharon Jones: Yeah. Hazel: in not just healthcare, but in general, like the stigma, the discrimination. And so to come in and just ask people to just get involved in research and then done and dusted- Sharon Jones: Mm-hmm ... Hazel: it's all about treating them as people before asking them to get involved in research. We have to be treated as people before we get involved in anything. Hazel: So it's, I think that's how you get [00:13:30] people to be involved and enable them to get involved in research. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Hazel: It's just treating them as people before anything else. Sharon Jones: And were there any factors for you that, you know, at first you might not have felt comfortable taking part, and what were sort of deciding factors that made you to get involved and participate? Hazel: So for me, coming from, like, a personal point of view, 'cause I was on voxelotor, um, for me It, again, it was very disheartening- Mm-hmm ... um, when it was taken off the shelf, [00:14:00] and it was done very quickly overnight. Sharon Jones: Right. Hazel: And so for me, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, hmm, what do I do? Do I just not trust the system anymore? Sharon Jones: Yeah. Hazel: But then, like the flip side to that is, okay, we've had this drug, and it actually worked for me very well. And the look of that is, okay, so we've had this drug. It was amazing. The potential is we'll get more drugs that will be like this. And so [00:14:30] going into the Diverse Data program and thinking about how we approach people to say, "If you can get involved in this study, the likelihood is we actually might get more drugs, more treatments, more interventions that are going to be as amazing as Voxzelator was." Hazel: Because the likelihood is we've had a drug that was great, and we could actually get more drugs that could be available. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Hazel: But we need research to do it because at the end of the [00:15:00] day, it's research. It's gonna take time, and the results are always gonna shift up and down. So yes, it can be disheartening, but at the end of the day, we've got to keep trying. Hazel: Otherwise, if we don't keep trying, then we're not gonna get anywhere. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Hazel: So I had to ... You have to bite the bullet sometimes, and that's all you can do. So yeah, I think that was what shifted my mindset from not [00:15:30] -from being upset about it to then actually looking at the positives around it. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is a difficult reframe when something that is working so effectively is suddenly kind of shelved, uh, very quickly like that. Sharon Jones: So changing your mindset couldn't have been, couldn't have been easy. Christella? Christella: When we're talking about what, what, um, Hazel has just said in terms of something was available to everyone and then it wasn't available, and then that goes again to what I say about [00:16:00] transparency. I think if there was more transparency about what was happening with this particular drug in the community, there would be that, that trust that would have, there would be more of an understanding, there would be more of a, like Hazel's taken the, the stance of, "Okay, I will still trust in the research because I believe something better will come along." Christella: It's because of also her knowledge within the research. She's been around- she's been around Genomics England, she's been with people that research has really helped. But those in the [00:16:30] community who haven't, they feel disheartened about this, and this is why I say transpare- transparency about what is happening is so important with our community 'cause we-- so we don't feel like things are just being done to us, we actually understand the reasons behind it. Christella: So for me, there's a few points. It's having people who represent the community actually being clinicians, um, being researchers, you know, leading in these community spaces, the transparency, the [00:17:00] long-term relationship that Hazel was talking about within the community. It's not you come in once and then, you know, you get what you want, and then you leave again. Christella: It's also sharing the findings, and it's also having a trusted message constantly in order for the Black community to actually participate in these research. Sharon Jones: Thank you, Christella. So we've got these themes of, like, consistency around trust, around communication, transparency. So Segun, I wanted to come to you now. Sharon Jones: So why-- if people at [00:17:30] home are still trying to understand why this is important, can you explain to them why representation matters in research, and what happens when communities are not adequately represented in research? What is the impact, and how does that show up? Segun: So representation matters in research because eventually a decision about our health will need to be made, uh, with this. Segun: I give you an example of, uh, a, a drug that we have today, medication we have today that is helping to lower cholesterol. So that medication came to be because some African ancestry individuals were involved in a study. So in that study, they found that those African individual, they have, uh, some genetic variation that is helping them to naturally, uh, lower their cholesterol. Segun: So because they included those African ancestry individuals, so we had, uh, PCSK9 inhibitor where the medication was derived. Now this medication is not only useful for, uh, people of, uh, Black community, but for everybody globally. So helping to lower cholesterol and prevent heart attack. Segun: So we are doing ourself harm if we continue to exclude some people from, uh, from res- from research. Diagnosis is very important. So some tool for [00:19:00] diagnosis might not be appropriate for an ethnic group or, or ancestry or maybe, for example, in this case, a, a Black community. Segun: In a research where we get the right diagnosis, uh, the right treatment, uh, for the right people, for the right community. So we cannot just do, uh, all the research on one particular community, and it posts the finding on another community. So representation is really, really very important, not only among, uh, people that participate in research and also in research leadership. Segun: It is much more easier for Black community, uh, to show interest in research if they see somebody that look like them. So the, the representation has to be at every layer, both the [00:18:42] participant and also at the, at the leadership level. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Segun: I give an example for, for my study, uh, genetic risk score, in most of the study that we've done, we've seen that where you develop a genetic risk score from one population, and you try to, uh, transfer that, uh, genetic risk score to a Black community, they do very poorly. Segun: So we need to include-- We need to be able to get to a point where we involve a Black community adequately in studies so that we can [00:20:30] be able to develop, uh, the right genetic risk score to every, every community. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Segun: So represent-representation is really, is really key. Uh, it's not just about fairness. Segun: It's about the, you know, accuracy. It's about, uh, you know, precision. It's about better healthcare. Sharon Jones: Yeah, and it's like you say, it's sort of holistically, it's from participants, but also for people who are working in research that also aids the sort of uptake in participation if you see people who look like you. Sharon Jones: We're now gonna hear from Mica, who is a mum who took part in a Generation study, and she's gonna talk about why getting involved was so important. Mica (Clip): I think as a Black woman, as a Black person, put yourself forward because the narrative at the moment is there's not enough research, and we're getting all these sort of doom and gloom headlines about, you know, Black maternal outcomes, Black men and prostate cancer, for example. And I feel like if we as a community don't put ourselves out there and make ourselves available for research, that narrative isn't gonna change. Sharon Jones: So, Segun, I'd like to come back to you again. On the flip side of that, how can research organisations better involve Black communities? And are there concerns that we've talked [00:20:38] about today that have, uh, been acknowledged and addressed effectively? Segun: So the first thing is that we need to acknowledge there's a problem. Sharon Jones: Yeah. Segun: And we see the Black people are not really, you know, participating in research because of trust. So how do we overcome that? One major thing is relationship or what I call, uh, community engagement. So community engagement is not community consultation. You know, you want to do research, you just [00:22:30] show up at that time you want to do research. Segun: You know, take people's blood sample and go away. So community engagement starts much more years ahead before... So when you have the right relationship with the community, it's much more easier to be able to do research with them. Segun: So we have to ensure that, uh, people that are doing the research are also well represented. So we have people that, that look similar, people that understand the community, uh, people that live among the community, so it's much more easier to help, help us to boost the trust. So the third one that people don't talk a lot about is benefit. Segun: I've done a lot about recruiting people into research [00:21:43] in, in Africa, and there's a benefit sharing component. What we, what we have done in Uganda is that if you have high blood pressure, we have medication. We refer you to, uh, the clinic that is under our own control. Segun: So we support you with your diabetes, support you with your high blood pressure or whatever thing that you have. If we cannot take care of you, that is where we now refer you to either to a doctor or a general, uh, general hospital. This is [00:25:00] really very important that there's a benefit. And also, uh, recently we've been working with, uh, some, uh, big pharmacy company, and we talk about benefit sharing. Segun: Uh, for example, if we done some study, uh, we find some drug and med-medication, and the, the company had make millions of, of USD. So what come back to the community? So now we talk about, okay, can you now build an hospital here in this, uh, village? So we have to think about an appropriate benefit sharing also for the Black community in the UK. Sharon Jones: Thank you. And I know, Christella, you touched upon some of those similar points that Segun made there. What does meaningful community engagement look like for you? Christella: The benefit sharing is so important because we have to understand there is a problem, first and foremost, okay? And we have to understand the impact of that problem. Christella: We have to bring solutions for that problem, but we also need to show those benefits in these communities that we're actually trying to engage with. And for me, when I'm talking about engagement, I'm really looking at co-designing, you know, not just consulting and telling them what to do, but the real difference is between being able to actually co-design the studies around Black people, so you can understand the nuances within the, the communities. Christella: So understanding how to actually engage with these communities is, is really important And I think it's also being honest about the limitations that we have, that we've seen in the past. Christella: You know? It's not about creating engagement which says you are the knight in shining armour and, and you're here to, you know, put a magic wand and [00:24:00] make everything okay. It's literally being honest about, you know, the preconceptions that people have. You know, what you're trying to achieve in the community, that you're actually trying to benefit the community. Christella: It's important that those who are creating these studies don't go into a room and assume how these communities work. It's really about understanding the experience of Black people and letting them be experts of their own experience, using that to then find ways to better engage with, with communities. Sharon Jones: Thank you. And Hazel, is there anything you would like to add? Hazel: I think Cristella and Segun have hit the nail completely on the head. I think co-design is so important when it comes to engaging with the Black community. And I also think that [00:24:49] when it comes to research, it shouldn't just be about the research. Hazel: It should be about, like, essentially giving back to the community as well. So e- exactly what Segun and Cristella were saying. So if we're talking about we need to do questionnaires or giving samples, the community, whoever is, whoever this research is for, should be able to [00:28:30] see results from this. It shouldn't just be a couple of years down the line they still don't know what is coming from this research. Hazel: Because sometimes we do research and people don't understand what's happened to, to this research, and sometimes that is off-putting to people. Sharon Jones: Thanks, Hazel, and we're gonna hear again from Mica, who captures that idea so powerfully Mica (Clip): The research isn't for the NHS, it isn't for any medical institution, it's not for the government. It's for our community. We're at the heart of that research, and, like, we've got a chance to do something about it, and if you're not gonna put yourself out there, then who else is going to? Sharon Jones: So, Segun, how can we ensure the future of healthcare innovations benefit everybody and they don't deepen health inequalities? Segun: I would say that, so what is the benefit of, uh, innovation, if it does not benefit everyone, particularly people that need it the most? Uh, give an example, maybe Hazel will know a lot about this. Segun: So now we have a sickle cell gene therapy. Of course, a few people have benefited, so this probably costs about, uh, millions of USD for one person. This is a great innovation, but who can benefit from it? It's too expensive. No-nobody's able to afford that. So we need to get a point where, so the so-called innovation can get to the right people, people that actually need it, and it's actually cost-effective. Segun: In my own, uh, domain of work, we're trying to develop a new, uh, gene-genomic test or genetic risk score. So what we have seen from the data that is currently available is that, you know, when you develop this, the score from one particular population, it doesn't transfer to other population. So it-- the genetic testing, uh, is a great innovation, but it doesn't, it doesn't really do well in the, in the Black community. Segun: So I think we should have to think much more at the beginning of innovation, uh, whether who is this innovation being prepared for? Who is going to benefit from this innovation? If innovation is not gonna, uh, benefit people that need it most, it doesn't really make any sense. Sharon Jones: That's a good point. And Christella, you also had an example of what happens when communities are not adequately represented in research. Christella: Yeah. So recently, um, in the NHS, they've started to, um, test for [00:27:45] a specific enzyme, which is, which is found in the Black community, um, for cancer patients going through chemotherapy. Originally, there were four enzyme that they tested for, um, in the genes, and they found that there's actually a fifth one which affects Black people within the community. Christella: And it's so important that this happened because Black patients were having, you know, severe side effects to the chemotherapy, and some patients unfortunately passed away due to this particular enzyme. So understanding that our genes do have variants in it and some, as Segun said, some things which work in one community will not always work, um, in a different community. Christella: So now before anyone undergoes a chemotherapy, the cancer patients across England undergo genetic testing, which can then lead into a change of treatment and reduce adverse, um, side effects for the chemo. Now that the NHS can test for this, it's gonna bring better outcomes to those in the Black community going through chemotherapy. Christella: We all know chemotherapy is hard enough to go through, so making it a little bit better for those in our community that are going through it is so important, and that's why we need to be part of this research, 'cause without us, they won't know what's best for us. Sharon Jones: Thank you for sharing that. And if you'd like to understand more about equity, please listen to our Explainer podcast, What Is Equity? Sharon Jones: So let's hear from Mary with a message she'd like listeners to leave with today. Mary (Clip): Thinking about my experiences, I would love listeners to take away the fact that engaging in research is bigger than you. It shapes your community, and it shapes the lives of the children coming in the future. Black communities, we need to know our baseline. Mary (Clip): We need to know where we are starting. It's bigger than us. My engagement helps the granddaughter I don't have, and that's what I need people to know. Sharon Jones: And given what Mary said, I'd like to ask you all, what message would you [00:29:34] like to leave for listeners who are interested in learning about research? I'll come to Christella first . Christella: I think first of all, we have to acknowledge that the questions and the hesitations within the community are very valid, and we have to understand that this makes sense given the history of research. Christella: But I would love listeners to be left with the knowledge that history shouldn't be the final word of our relationship with research. We ask the hard questions that we need to ask and invite those who need to also benefit from this research. And like Mary said, "I'm helping my grandchild that I don't even have yet." Christella: And I think that's how we need to look at it. It's not so much just about us, but it's the future generation. It's about having better outcomes for each and every one of us, and that includes the Black community. So help shape further research, and medicine will actually benefit us in the future. Sharon Jones: Hazel, what message would you like to leave listeners today? Hazel: I think going into research can sometimes be hard. However, I do think research is incredibly important, [00:31:14] especially for the younger generation. Hazel: So I do think that we should get involved. Sharon Jones: Thank you. And Segun? Segun: Yeah, I would like to, uh, recall what, uh, Christella was saying, uh, particularly saying that for everybody, uh, listening to me right now, if you are invited to participate in the research, please participate, you know. Segun: Ask the right question, "What is the research for?" And, uh, how does it benefit you? Maybe not you directly, maybe your children or maybe your grandchildren. Everyone should remember that, uh, so research is ultimately for the people, for better healthcare. Segun: So our contribution really matter. So you're contributing your sample really matter and can change, uh, somebody's life, can change generation. Every participant has something valuable, which is really key. So I would encourage all the listener to participate in research if you are invited. Segun: Thank you. Sharon Jones: I think that's a very salient point. We'll wrap up there. We've covered a lot today, from trust to participation and what is needed to change to ensure that healthcare is for everyone. A huge thank you to our guests, Christella, Segun, and Hazel, for joining me today as we discussed how Black communities are being served in health research. Sharon Jones: If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to hear more, please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for listening. I've been your host, Sharon Jones, and Behind the Jeans is produced by Deanna Barac, Sophie McLachlan, Katie Revell, Adam Wavy, and Patrick Wallace at Bespoken Media. Sharon Jones: Thank you for listening.  

LIVE from ILADS: Tick Boot Camp reconnects with Nicole Bell, CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics, for a focused conversation about one of the biggest challenges in Lyme disease and tick-borne illness: getting an accurate diagnosis. Bell breaks down the differences between antibody testing, antigen testing, and PCR-based direct detection while explaining why stealth pathogens such as Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia can be so difficult to find. She also introduces Galaxy's BBB Direct Detect digital PCR testing, discusses emerging findings involving Babesia species, and explains why a negative antibody test doesn't always tell the entire story. For Bell, the mission is deeply personal. Her husband, Russ, initially tested negative for Lyme disease and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease before his family ultimately discovered tick-borne infections were part of his complex illness. That experience helped redirect Bell's engineering and medical technology background toward improving diagnostics for other patients searching for answers. This interview was recorded live at the ILADS conference, so you may hear some of the energy and background activity of the event throughout the conversation. Why Can Lyme Disease Testing Be So Difficult? Bell begins by explaining one of the fundamental problems with diagnosing Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections: many of the pathogens clinicians are searching for can be difficult to detect. Some occur at low levels in the bloodstream. Others may migrate into tissues or circulate intermittently. Historically, much of tick-borne disease testing has therefore relied on indirect detection — looking for the patient's immune response rather than directly detecting the organism. Antibody testing can provide useful information, but Bell explains why interpretation can become complicated. A patient's antibody response can vary depending on factors including: Timing of infection Individual immune response Immune suppression or dysregulation Previous exposure Previous treatment Medications that suppress immune activity Cross-reactivity Whether an infection is current or historical This is why Bell views antibody testing as one tool rather than the entire diagnostic toolbox. Antibody Testing: Detecting the Immune Response Antibody testing is an indirect testing method. Instead of looking for Borrelia itself, for example, the test looks for evidence that the patient's immune system has responded to it. Bell discusses IgM and IgG antibodies and why timing matters. IgM antibodies are generally associated with an earlier immune response, while IgG responses can take longer to develop. In Lyme disease, that delay creates a particular challenge because early diagnosis and treatment can be especially important. Some infected patients may mount a strong measurable antibody response, while others may produce a weaker or delayed response. Bell points to research showing how dramatically immune responses can differ even under controlled experimental conditions. This creates an important distinction: A test of the immune response is not necessarily the same thing as a test for the pathogen itself. When Antibodies Don't Tell the Whole Story Bell uses her husband's experience to illustrate the stakes. Russ had likely been ill for years before his most significant symptoms emerged. By then, Bell says his immune system was dysregulated and his overall antibody levels were low. His Lyme testing was negative, and his worsening cognitive symptoms ultimately led to an Alzheimer's diagnosis. There is also another side to antibody testing. A person may have antibodies because of a previous infection even when the original infection is no longer active. That can make it difficult to determine whether persistent symptoms are associated with an ongoing infection, an undiagnosed coinfection, immune dysregulation, or another process. Bell's point is not that antibody testing has no value. It is that complex tick-borne illness may require more than one diagnostic tool. Antigen Testing: Looking for Evidence of the Pathogen The conversation then moves from indirect testing to direct detection. One method is antigen testing. Rather than measuring the immune system's response, an antigen test searches for a component associated with the pathogen itself. Bell discusses Galaxy's work with a urine-based Lyme disease antigen approach designed to capture and concentrate a protein shed by Borrelia. Why urine? Bell explains that Lyme-causing Borrelia may not remain abundantly present in the bloodstream. A pathogen-derived protein, however, may be filtered through the kidneys and become detectable in urine. Galaxy continues to work on direct-detection approaches to Lyme disease testing as it pursues broader clinical adoption and regulatory pathways. PCR Testing: Searching for Pathogen DNA Another form of direct detection is PCR testing. PCR looks for genetic material from the pathogen rather than relying on the patient's antibody response. Galaxy uses PCR-based approaches for pathogens including: Borrelia Bartonella Babesia But direct detection presents its own challenge. These organisms may occur at extremely low levels in a sample. A patient can be infected while very little pathogen DNA happens to be circulating in the particular blood sample collected that day. That is where digital PCR, or dPCR, becomes especially interesting. The Three B's: Borrelia, Bartonella & Babesia Bell introduces Galaxy's approach to what Tick Boot Camp often calls the Three B's: Borrelia. Bartonella. Babesia. As patient and clinician awareness of tick-borne illness has evolved, these three pathogens have become increasingly important to the conversation around complex cases. Galaxy's BBB Direct Detect digital PCR testing is designed to directly detect DNA from Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia. Unlike an antibody test asking whether the immune system has responded to a pathogen, direct PCR testing asks a different question: Can we find genetic evidence of the organism itself? How Digital PCR Searches for Low-Abundance Pathogens Bell gives a simple analogy for understanding digital PCR. Imagine searching for a needle in a haystack. Traditional PCR is trying to identify a tiny amount of pathogen DNA — the needle — among an enormous amount of human genetic material — the haystack. Digital PCR effectively divides that haystack into thousands of much smaller piles and examines them individually. That partitioning can make it easier to detect extremely small amounts of genetic material. Galaxy also uses a culture-enrichment step for Bartonella. The blood sample is placed in an environment designed to encourage Bartonella growth before PCR analysis, increasing the amount of target material available for detection. Learn more about Galaxy Diagnostics' direct-detection technology and its approaches to Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia testing. Why Are We Seeing So Many Coinfections? Tick Boot Camp and Bell also discuss an observation that has become increasingly common in patient interviews: many people with complex chronic tick-borne illness aren't reporting only Lyme disease. Instead, patients frequently describe combinations involving the Three B's and other infections. Why? Bell says several factors may contribute. Diagnostic technology has improved. Clinicians have become more aware of coinfections. Ecological research indicates ticks can carry multiple pathogens. But Bell raises another important possibility: patients carrying multiple pathogens may also be among those who become the sickest and therefore are disproportionately represented within chronic illness communities. That distinction matters. Observing many coinfections among severely ill patients doesn't necessarily mean every tick-borne disease patient has the same microbial picture. Bartonella, the Immune System & the Tipping Point Bell discusses Bartonella as an example of the complexity surrounding infection and illness. Exposure may be more common than many people realize, and Bartonella has multiple potential vectors and reservoirs. Bell describes a hypothesis in which some people may harbor an infection while their immune system keeps it under control. Then another infection, environmental exposure, significant stressor, or other immune-disrupting event may alter that balance. A person who had previously remained relatively healthy may cross what Bell describes as a tipping point and begin experiencing significant illness. This raises questions researchers are still working to answer. Were multiple infections transmitted simultaneously? Did they occur through separate exposures? Was one infection already present before another destabilized the immune system? Bell emphasizes that the answer may differ from patient to patient. Emerging Questions About Babesia Some of the most intriguing discussion in this interview involves Babesia. Bell explains that research associated with the North Carolina State University team has identified Babesia species in complex patients beyond the organisms traditionally emphasized in U.S. human babesiosis. She specifically discusses findings involving Babesia odocoilei and Babesia divergens-like organisms and contrasts those findings with expectations surrounding Babesia microti and Babesia duncani. Bell also discusses the possibility of low-level parasitemia — infections involving pathogen levels that may be much lower than the classic severe presentation clinicians associate with babesiosis. These emerging observations raise important research questions about Babesia species, their prevalence, their role in human disease, and whether existing diagnostic assumptions capture the full picture. Bell is careful in the interview to distinguish between what Galaxy's current assay detects and what researchers may suspect based on sequencing and related scientific work. Nicole Bell's Personal Mission Bell's work in tick-borne disease diagnostics grew out of an experience no family wants to have. Her husband, Russ, developed neurological and psychiatric symptoms, including cognitive problems, anxiety and hallucinations. Despite Bell specifically requesting Lyme disease testing early in his illness, his initial test was negative and his diagnostic journey eventually led to an Alzheimer's disease diagnosis. Bell later documented her family's experience in her memoir, What Lurks in the Woods. Today, she brings her engineering background and personal experience together in an effort to improve the diagnostic tools available to clinicians and patients. From MIT & Duke to Galaxy Diagnostics Nicole Bell is CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics and an engineer with extensive experience in medical devices and diagnostics. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. Before joining Galaxy, she worked in technology and medical-device development, including leadership roles involving diagnostic platforms and FDA submissions. Bell became CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics in 2024, bringing together her professional background in engineering and diagnostics with the lessons learned through her husband's illness. The State of Lyme Disease Research Bell is also the primary author of The State of Lyme Disease Research in the United States for the Center for Lyme Action. The paper examines gaps in Lyme disease research and outlines recommendations involving fundamental science, diagnostics, prevention, treatment, and research infrastructure. In this interview, Bell references one particularly important issue explored in that work: delays in Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment are associated with a greater risk of patients experiencing persistent symptoms. Better testing isn't simply about producing a more sophisticated laboratory report. It's about helping clinicians get patients appropriate answers earlier. Key Topics in This Episode Lyme disease testing, Lyme diagnostics, Nicole Bell, Galaxy Diagnostics, Borrelia testing, Bartonella testing, Babesia testing, Three B's, BBB Direct Detect, digital PCR, dPCR, PCR testing, antibody testing, antigen testing, direct detection, indirect testing, stealth pathogens, Lyme disease antibodies, coinfections, polymicrobial tick-borne disease, low-abundance infections, Bartonella culture enrichment, Babesia microti, Babesia duncani, Babesia odocoilei, Babesia divergens, chronic Lyme disease, diagnostic delays, and tick-borne disease research. About This LIVE from ILADS Interview This short-form conversation was recorded in person at the 2025 International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society Annual Scientific Conference, From Terrain to Treatment: Advances in Vector-Borne Illness, held October 9–12, 2025, in San Antonio, Texas. Because these interviews were recorded live at the conference, they have a different feel from Tick Boot Camp's traditional long-form virtual and studio conversations — shorter, focused, and surrounded by the activity of one of the world's major gatherings of Lyme and tick-borne disease clinicians, researchers, advocates, and innovators. Explore all Tick Boot Camp LIVE from ILADS interviews. More from Tick Boot Camp Hear more conversations with Lyme disease doctors and healthcare professionals about testing, diagnosis, treatment, and complex tick-borne illness. Explore the Tick Boot Camp Podcast for interviews with patients, doctors, researchers, advocates, and innovators working to improve understanding of Lyme disease and help people move toward recovery.

One of the things that I have observed about mokuhanga printmakers is that they are always striving to get better in their practice. Mokuhanga is a printmaking medium that challenges the maker in many different ways, and navigating those challenges through hard work and experimentation can ultimately be a very rewarding experience. On this episode of The Unfinished Print, a mokuhanga podcast, I speak with Aafke Ytsma, a printmaker currently splitting her time between Germany and the Netherlands. Aafke is a full-time artist who pushes the possibilities of what one can do with mokuhanga. We discuss how and why Aafke makes such large prints, and how watercolour influences her work. Aafke tells me about her love for the prints of the sōsaku-hanga movement and how they inspire her own practice. We also talk about the risks and rewards of being a full-time artist, crowdfunding and grants. Aafke goes into detail about how she makes her prints through mark-making, and how that process shapes her work. Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints or email me theunfinishedprint@gmail.com Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Artists works follow after the note if available. Pieces are mokuhanga unless otherwise noted. Dimensions are given if known. Print publishers are given if known. Aafke Ytsma - website, Instagram Slidingdoor (2023) 28.5 cm  x 39 cm Sabuchan (2024),  98 cm x 68 cm from the series Summer Autumn Prints  Rijksmuseum — The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is the Netherlands' national museum, with a collection spanning more than 800 years of Dutch art and history. It is particularly known for its holdings of works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals, and other major Dutch artists, as well as its extensive collection of prints, drawings, photography, and decorative arts. More info, here. More info, here.  Art Collective Schaum — Schaum is an art collective focused on contemporary artistic practice and collaboration. The collective brings artists together around shared interests in experimentation, exhibition-making, and developing work outside more traditional institutional structures. More info, here.  Kitaro Paper — Kitaro is a Japanese paper from Echizen, Japan and is associated with traditional papermaking and the production of papers suitable for fine art and mokuhanga. Its papers are valued for qualities such as strength, absorbency, surface character, and their ability to withstand the demands of techniques such as woodblock printing. More info, here.  Mondriaan Fund — The Mondriaan Fund is the public fund for visual art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands. It supports artists, institutions, curators, and other cultural organizations through grants and programs intended to encourage artistic development, international exchange, exhibitions, and public engagement. More info, here.  David Hockney (1937-2026) — was a British artist whose career has encompassed painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, stage design, and digital art. Associated particularly with the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Hockney is known for his vivid depictions of landscapes, swimming pools, interiors, and everyday life, as well as his continued experimentation with new technologies and media. A Bigger Splash (1967) 242.5 cm x 243.9 cm - acrylic Liquitex on a white cotton duck canvas  Elise Wessels — Elise Wessels (1943–2023) was a Dutch collector and patron of Japanese prints whose collection, known as Nihon no Hanga, became one of the most important collections of 20th-century Japanese printmaking outside Japan. Beginning in the 1980s, she collected both sōsaku-hanga and shin-hanga, eventually building an exceptionally comprehensive collection. She founded the private museum Nihon no Hanga in Amsterdam in 2009, and in 2022 donated more than 1,100 prints to the Rijksmuseum. Maureen de Vries -  was the curator of the Nihon no Hanga museum in Amsterdam. Her interview with the Unfinished Print can be found, here.  bokashi - is a mokuhanga technique, where the pigment fades from a heavy colour to a softer, broad colour. Made famous by prints designed by Hokusai and Hiroshige, this technique is, for me, the most popular technique utilized by  mokuhanga printmakers. There are various types: Ichimoji-bokashi or straight line graduation, used in the above mentioned Hiroshige and Hokusai prints. Ichimoji-mura-bokashi or straight line gradation with uneven edge. Ō-bokashi or wide gradation, Ate-nashi-bokashi or gradation without definition. Futa-iro-bokashi or two tone gradation, and ita-bokashi or softer-edge gradation, where the block is cut in a specific way to achieve this style of gradation. All of these styles of bokashi technique take practice and skill but are very much doable. Below is a fine example of bokashi by the printer of this Hiroshige print -     Hiroshige (1797-1858), Shono ,(1832-1833)  from The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido 22.9 cm × 35.6 cm    SieboldHuis — The SieboldHuis is a museum in Leiden, Netherlands, dedicated to Japanese art, culture, and history. Housed in the former residence of Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold, the German physician and Japan scholar who lived in Japan in the 19th century, the museum displays objects from his extensive collection, including prints, paintings, ceramics, lacquerware, maps, and natural-history specimens. It provides an important connection between Japan and the Netherlands and regularly presents exhibitions exploring Japanese art and culture. More info, here.    Kawanishi Hide (1894–1965) — Kawanishi Hide was a self-taught sōsaku-hanga artist who lived and worked throughout his life in Kobe. Inspired by Yamamoto Kanae, he began making woodblock prints in the early 20th century and became an important figure in the creative print movement, exhibiting with the Japan Creative Print Association from 1923. His work is particularly associated with the port city of Kobe, which provided many of his subjects, and is distinguished by bold, vivid colours, simplified forms, and his deliberate avoidance of black outlines. He often used a rounded chisel to soften the edges of his forms, giving his prints a distinctive, almost graphic quality.     Sunset (?) 12.5 cm x 15 cm    Gotō Hidehiko - is a master baren maker and printmaker based in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. His interview with The Unfinished Print can be found here. More into at the  Baren Kikuhide website.     Beyond The Night (1995) 55.5 × 40 cm   passe-partout  - is the French word for picture mat for framing.    Daniel Kelly - is a visual artist and printmaker based in Kyoto, Japan. Daniel Kelly has shown all over the world, and is many museum collections as well. More information can be found, here. Daniel's interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.      Thief (2026) 96 × 66 cm - chine-collé & mokuhanga   gomazuri - is a mokuhanga technique where slight pressure is used with pigments to make a "spotty" image, what look like sesame seeds. It can add depth to your prints. Historically it was seen as a lack of printing proificiency.      Night, Light, Rain (2024) 29 cm x 43.5 cm by Terry McKenna. Notice the gomazrui in the blue circle.    hon baren - a top of the line hand made baren made by craftsmen in Japan. It comes in different strands, 8, 12, and 16. Can be order from Gotō Hidehiko, here.     baren suji zuri - is a mokuhanga technique used with the baren and by the baren to create a circular design and can be layered with various colours. A more detailed description of baren suji zuri can be found, here at woodblock.com      © Popular Wheat Productions Opening and closing musical credit - There Is No Greater Love by Chet Baker (1965)  logo designed and produced by Douglas Batchelor and André Zadorozny  Disclaimer: Please do not reproduce or use anything from this podcast without shooting me an email and getting my express written or verbal consent. I'm friendly :)  Слава Українi  If you find any issue with something in the show notes please let me know. ***The opinions expressed by guests in The Unfinished Print: A Mokuhanga Podcast are not necessarily those of André Zadorozny and of Popular Wheat Productions.***              

In this one, Cody talks to Nat Herz and Veri di Suvero, the editor and publisher behind the revived Anchorage Press. Nat is a longtime Alaska journalist. He spent years reporting for Alaska Public Media and the Anchorage Daily News before he founded Northern Journal—an independent, reader-supported publication focused on in-depth reporting about Alaska politics, natural resources, fisheries, energy, and the environment. Veri comes from the nonprofit and public-interest world, where they worked on issues ranging from consumer protection and energy policy to language access and government transparency. Now, Nat and Veri are both at the Anchorage Press, where they see its revival as a chance to bring back a locally rooted publication with a distinct voice—one that can do serious reporting while still making room for humor, irreverence, and some of the personality the Press has always been known for. In 2022, after decades as Anchorage's alternative newspaper, the Anchorage Press stopped publishing. Now, in 2026, it's getting a second life under new ownership, with Nat and Veri partnering with the independent media company Noisy Creek, which owns The Stranger, the Portland Mercury, and the Chicago Reader. At the center of what Nat and Veri are trying to build is the idea that a local newspaper should actually feel local—shaped by the people, relationships, communities, and subcultures that make a place what it is. Historically, that's something alternative weeklies have been particularly good at: paying attention to the parts of a city that larger news organizations can overlook, and creating a fuller, sometimes messier, and more recognizable portrait of the place they cover.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast wants you to know that there is skiing in New Mexico. Even beyond Taos. Subscribe for constant journeys into such improbable ski realms:WhoJasen Bellomy, General Manager of Pajarito, New MexicoDate RecordedSeptember 28, 2026Also discussedUpgrades across Mountain Capital Partners' portfolio (see chart below), and reader reaction to last week's pods - especially the EuroSki ep with Iain Martin.About PajaritoOwned by: Mountain Capital Partners, since 2014; company also owns:Year founded: 1957 - predecessor ski area, Sawyers Hill, founded nearby by the same ski club in 1944Pass affiliations: Power Pass, Power Pass Select, Power Pass Core - unlimitedBase elevation: 9,000 feetSummit elevation: 10,440 feetVertical drop: 1,440 feetSkiable acres: 280 trail acres + unspecified glade acreage (though Bellomy urges caution in the glades)Average annual snowfall: 125 inchesLift count: 6 (1 fixed quad, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 1 carpet) - view Lift Blog's inventory of Pajarito's lift fleet.Why I interviewed him“Ski New Mexico,” you say? Those three words underwhelm, but the stat sheet suggests that skiers miss out by dismissing New Mexico:Those are respectable vertical drops, and some nice acreage with modernizing lift fleets. Taos gets all the Ikon/Mountain Collective destination attention, and deserves it, after building seven new aerial lifts and otherwise sweeping the place clean over the past dozen years. But just about every New Mexico ski area is investing: Angel Fire props up the state's first sixer for winter 2026-27, just a year after dropping a second quad, Rake's Rider, onto its east side to spread skiers out between blues and blacks:Ski Santa Fe, Ski Apache, and Red River have collectively built or relocated another five lifts in the past decade. Tiny, super-south Cloudcroft seems like a mess, with little online presence and minimal operations (the bump lacks snowmaking). But overall, New Mexico is a bit of a big-mountain secret, with dry desert snow when it comes.The key to this improbable kingdom is base elevations among the highest in America:It's not quite Colorado, but they're high:And it's high enough to get us to nine active New Mexico ski areas in 2026, which is probably nine more than most people think the state has. But even cloud addresses are not enough to keep these survivors around forever. They need snowmaking. Taos' system - a big part of the mountain's modernization under billionaire Louis Bacon, who bought the ski area in 2013 - runs to nearly 11,000 feet. But the smaller areas are building more firepower too. MCP, which operates one-third of those ski areas, stapled together a nice system at Sipapu, the company's first acquisition, in 2000. Now, after years of negotiations, MCP is working with state and Los Alamos County officials on an $18 million snowmaking modernization plan for Pajarito:A five-mile pipe will shuttle water approximately 2,000 vertical feet up from Los Alamos to Pajarito's summit reservoir. But this is not just a snowmaking project: firefighters will be able to tap hydrants along the five-mile route or dip the 10-million gallon reservoir with helicopters. The impact, MCP officials believe, will be substantial, and could mirror the turnaround of the company's Arizona Snowbowl ski area. Prior to running a 15-mile-long snowmaking pipe 3,000 feet up from Flagstaff, Snowbowl's seasons swung wildly, from 162,000 visits in winter 2000-01 to just four operating days the following season. Now, Snowbowl is consistently one of the last ski areas in the nation to close, with a 185-day 2024-25 season that ended on June 1. Repeating that success at Pajarito would, according to officials, give skiers seasons up to 140 days long - more than double the ski area's traditional 60-day winter.So yeah, ski New Mexico, Man. It's weird, I know. Down there in the desert. But there's water if you get creative and work together. (Now we just need to see if MCP can repeat some version of this deal at snow-starved Sandia Peak.)Additional reading* A Ski profile of Pajarito by Nick Heil, 2016* Pajarito's blog tracking the snowmaking projectTranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio. I only included my conversation with Jasen in this transcript - you can read my editorial on MCP or my reaction to reader's comments in the other transcript, but frankly I'd either listen to them or skip those sections.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today has been the general manager of Powerito New Mexico since 2023.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:26.000Stuart Winchester: Bajarito's predecessor ski area, Sawyers Hill, was founded by top American scientists and soldiers working on top secret research, including the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos during World War II.00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: In 1957, the Los Alamos Ski Club moved the facility up to Pareto, where today, 5 chairlifts serve 1,440 vertical feet on 280 skiable trail acres, plus glades. Pareto is one of 13 ski areas operated by Durango, Colorado-based Mountain Capital Partners.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:52.000Stuart Winchester: and one of three that the company operates in New Mexico, including Sipapu and Sandia Peak.00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:09.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to joining the team at Power Reno, he worked at Saddleback, Maine, Sugarbush, Vermont, Pratchett, New Hampshire, and all the way back at the start of his career as a lifty at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. He served a tour in the Marine Corps and spent several years working in air traffic management technologies.00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:16.000Stuart Winchester: Jason Bellamy is my guest. Jason, welcome to The Storm. So good to have you. How is life in the mountains of New Mexico today?00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:24.000Jasen: Oh, man, thanks for having me. Super excited. Uh, busy. And wet, currently.00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:38.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, yeah, yeah, it's… I'm out on the East Coast, it's been raining all weekend, so… so I… look, I know you got a ton going on, so let's jump right into it. The headline, if you go to Powerito's website right now, which, by the way, if I'm saying the name of the scary wrong, you.00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:48.000Stuart Winchester: 2700% more water for snowmaking, so lay this out for us, Jason. What did Powerito's snowmaking system look like before, and what are you…00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:50.000Stuart Winchester: Building up.00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:57.000Jasen: So, historically, it was about 2010 that we were able to.00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:04.000Jasen: while it was still operated by the Los Alamos Ski Club, they put in a very bare-bones snowmaking system.00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:10.000Jasen: and captured surface runoff in the springtime to fill a 10 million gallon pond at the top of the mountain.00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:17.000Jasen: The runoff did not yield enough water to fill that pond.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Jasen: So for…00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:35.000Jasen: pretty near a decade, there's been this effort to get a pipeline connecting the county to the Ski Hill for both wildfire suppression and firefighting capabilities, as well as solidifying the future for the Ski Hill.00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.000Jasen: That pipeline is going to provide us with about, we'll be able to cycle that pond about six times a winter.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:55.000Jasen: Um, which, with 60 million gallons, we should be able to make about 300 acre-feet of snow. So, theoretically, when we're done with this, we could cover the entire mountain with 12 inches of man-made snow.00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:13.000Stuart Winchester: So talk about, I guess, to start with, just that pipeline. I mean, there's echoes here of Arizona Snowbowl, your sister mountain, which ran a pipeline all the way down to Flagstaff from its mountain. And from the press materials, it looks like this is being run up.00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:20.000Stuart Winchester: from Los Alamos. So how long is that pipeline? Where does it start? And what does the effort look like to put that in?00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.000Jasen: Yeah, great question. Um…00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:39.000Jasen: The project started over half a decade ago, the real nuts and bolts of it. It's a really complex project. It involves running that pipeline across DOE land, Llano property, Santa Fe National Forest. We had to get the county, the state, and the federal government.00:38:39.000 --> 00:39:01.000Jasen: behind it, and it's amazing how everyone's come together. So, after about five or six years of negotiating and all the legal work required, we were able to break ground. The pipeline's about five miles long, and as a result of previous wildfires that have sparked up from the overhead power lines, we decided to go ahead and put the power underground as well.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:03.000Jasen: Um, so…00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:16.000Jasen: The… we're also running fiber infrastructure in the road associated with the project so that we can create backhaul to Albuquerque to solidify our communications for the community as well.00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:20.000Jasen: There's a lot more going on with this project than just water.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:22.000Jasen: Oh.00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.000Jasen: The…00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:36.000Jasen: there'll be 4 booster stations to push the elevation to get it to the mountain, and then it'll tie into a 250,000 gallon tank, which will energize all the fire hydrants along Camp May Road.00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:42.000Jasen: And then from there, we push it to the summit pond out of a pump station.00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:52.000Stuart Winchester: So, so we're looking here at the, at the map of, uh, here's Puerto Rico and then here's Los Alamos. Does the, does the pipeline come from up from the.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:59.000Jasen: It does. It starts down just on the corner of the DOE property at the bottom of Camp May Road.00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:03.000Jasen: It's a few thousand feet down, um…00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.000Jasen: Once you get…00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000Jasen: Yes.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:10.000Stuart Winchester: Click around, here's Camp May Road, where it meets up with West Road.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:10.000Jasen: So, on… on…00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:21.000Jasen: Yes, uh, just to the, uh, I guess that would be east on West Road. If you scroll your mouse to the corner there, you can see there's a tank right there.00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:29.000Jasen: We built another half million gallon tank there, and then that's where the first booster pump will reside.00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:45.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Well, that is a major project. I mean, just talk about the effort of that. I, you know, I guess it's a partnership. Did you share in the cost of construction of all this? And what did it take to run a pipeline five miles?00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:50.000Stuart Winchester: And I'm not sure what the elevation is it starts at, but I imagine you have to also push that water up.00:40:50.000 --> 00:41:06.000Jasen: It's close to 2,000 feet of elevation gain, and it is a financial partnership. It's probably one of the first of its kind where we've got federal, state, local, and private dollars to accomplish the mission.00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:55.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:10.000Jasen: It's really just amazing to see the support.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000Jasen: And everything come together. Los Alamos and Mountain Capital Partner developed a.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.000Jasen: an agreement. So, the state was, uh…00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:29.000Jasen: basically funded with a grant, the project, um, for $8 million, and then FEMA's kicking in.00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:30.000Jasen: Um, so…00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:40.000Jasen: an amount to be determined to bury those power lines. Historically, Los Alamos has been very affected by two, um, huge wildfires.00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:53.000Jasen: With hundreds of millions of dollars in, um, asset loss. So, the water getting up there, and Parito, the way it sits, is kind of like a frontline defense to protect the town and the lab.00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:54.000Jasen: Oh.00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:59.000Jasen: So, it's amazing that everything's come together the way it has.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I want to linger on that water point for a moment here, Jason. You know, I never really appreciated this until I was talking to some of the guys who run ski areas in Southern California, and I believe this is your pond right here.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:15.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, which you anticipate being full, and I'm not sure if there's an older picture, if that's what.00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:12.000Jasen: Yes, it is.00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:18.000Stuart Winchester: So so.00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:19.000Jasen: That's pretty current.00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah, so this is Google Earth. So I was speaking with Robbie Ellingson, who runs Mount Baldy, right above Los Angeles, and Carl Kabasinski, who runs Mountain High, just there, I guess, a little bit east of the city. And the way they explained it to me, I never thought about this, was…00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:41.000Stuart Winchester: When they have these full ponds in the summer, the helicopters can just come and dip the pond.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:57.000Stuart Winchester: ponds for fire suppression. And so I, I guess that would help answer the question of, you know, we always hear about water shortages in the, in the West, right? So, so how is the ski area building, you know, all this snow making, don't we have better things to use water for? So, so just talk about that relationship.00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, with… with the, uh, firefighters and… and the firefighting infrastructure this is creating, as well as being useful for snowmaking.00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:18.000Jasen: But yeah, you brought up two interesting points there, sir. First and foremost, yes, they will be able to dip out of the pond. We're also putting in a dry hydrant so that we can hook pump vehicles up to it.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.000Jasen: Um…00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:32.000Jasen: The other thing, I think Mountain High in California, one of the things they did when that fire came through there was they energized their snowmaking system in the summer and just turned on all the snow guns.00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000Jasen: And from what I understand, that that had a beneficial…00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:50.000Jasen: outcome. Um, it could have been a lot worse, apparently. So, there's a bunch of different things, and we've got water now that we can push, you know, multiple locations across the mountain as we build out our pipelines.00:43:50.000 --> 00:44:01.000Jasen: in our snowmaking infrastructure. So we're gonna put water across this 750-acre piece of land that is pretty critical in the defense of Los Alamos.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:08.000Jasen: And then the other thing you mentioned, which I hear a lot, is how can we waste all this water for skiing?00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:21.000Jasen: But fundamentally, if you consider what mountains are, they're a storage device for water during the wintertime. We take the water from the earth, we pump it up the hill, yeah, we're using energy, but we're conserving the water on the hill.00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:36.000Jasen: as stored water, and in the springtime it melts and goes back into the aquifer. So 80 to 90 percent of the water that we use is going to go directly back into the land. I mean, what we're losing is what we lose to sublimation through evaporation into the atmosphere.00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and in the fires in the past where a couple of Poweritos lifts were damaged, having this on site would theoretically have at least mitigated the damage to some point. So what I have up on the screen here, Jason, as you know, but for the folks watching on stormskiing.com or YouTube.00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:09.000Stuart Winchester: is, uh, your phased snowmaking plan. So just talk us through this. Is this year one, year two, year three, or… or how do you… how do you envision or plan for this to play out in real life? And then, you know, here's…00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:14.000Stuart Winchester: Pario's trail map for reference, but just to see the snowmaking plan.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:24.000Jasen: This was originally the concept that we were going to roll with. Like any major project, there's speed bumps in the road.00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:35.000Jasen: So we've had to pivot a little bit. Um, we're putting a lot more resource into the actual delivery of water in year one, so we had to scale back a little bit of the on-hill distribution.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:43.000Jasen: For this winter, we're gonna add about 50% in snowmaking coverage, acreage wise.00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:50.000Jasen: Uh, we did not get into the pump stations. We're working on engineering and design of, um, future pump stations.00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:52.000Jasen: Right now…00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:02.000Jasen: We're at about 1,000 GPM, gallons per minute, for production pumping capacity, and next year we plan to increase that by 400%.00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:07.000Jasen: Um, final design build out of 4,000 gallons per minute.00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.000Jasen: which…00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.000Stuart Winchester: And yeah.00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:11.000Jasen: Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, final of 4,000 gallons per minute. You have some trails in white here that are not phased. Do those already have snowmaking, or do you want to keep some stuff natural? I see your famous kind of front four steepies here. A couple of those are white. So, talk to us about the white trails and what's planned for those.00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.000Jasen: So, those will just be… those will be El Natural?00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:41.000Jasen: Classic, you know, old school bump runs and let Mother Nature take care of those.00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:49.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so another interesting thing about Pyroido, Jason, is…00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:57.000Stuart Winchester: It's the only major New Mexico skier area, other than Angel Fire, that does not operate, as far as I understand it, on U.S. Forest Service land.00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:12.000Stuart Winchester: So who does own the land? You referenced a lot of different entities here. I know there's a partnership with the county. Does MCP own the land? Was that given to the county? Take us through the land ownership and the sort of different parties that are involved here and have an interest.00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.000Jasen: So, the land historically was…00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:22.000Jasen: Um, owned by the Los Alamos Ski Club.00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:28.000Jasen: Through over the course of time, they did some land exchanges with DOE.00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.000Jasen: So back in 14 when the ski club needed support.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:49.000Jasen: Um, James and Mountain Capital got involved, and originally, MCP was going to assume the liabilities of the ski area and operate the ski area. The bank didn't like that arrangement, so it took about 3 or 4 years to get through the legal work.00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:58.000Jasen: And currently, the majority of the land is owned by MCP. That was a requirement from the bank to transfer the liabilities against the assets.00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:05.000Jasen: And then there's one shoulder over on the west side that was originally part of, um…00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.000Jasen: I believe it was the Dunnigan family owned it.00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:17.000Jasen: And they gave it to the ski club, and there was a first right of refusal on any future transfer of the west side.00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:32.000Jasen: So currently, we're still working through the legal details on that. And in the transfer of the land, the ski club said once the pipeline was established and operational, that they would be willing to transfer the remaining land to MCP.00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:39.000Jasen: So that's happening here pretty quickly, and there's still… there's a bunch of legal work to satisfy the first right of refusal.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:46.000Jasen: Um, but essentially, Parrito, the 750-acre parcel, is completely privately owned.00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:48.000Jasen: Oh.00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:50.000Jasen: Which is pretty rare in the West.00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. So you're a little late to snowmaking, but it's… in some ways, I would think…00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:01.000Stuart Winchester: an advantage to install a snowmaking system, kind of…00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:17.000Stuart Winchester: from whole right now, because the technology's gotten so good, right? You can start low energy, you can start with automation, if you want. Talk to us about who you worked with, whether it's SMI or HKD or whoever, uh, to plan out your snowmaking system, and what sort of technology.00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:21.000Stuart Winchester: you're able to deploy to make sure you get the most snow out the most efficiently.00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:27.000Jasen: Yeah, great question. So, the partners that we've most…00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:33.000Jasen: We worked with, uh, Torrent is working with us on some of the pump stations.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:46.000Jasen: The pipe design layout, electrical. Brandon, I'm sorry, Jeff and the guys from Slope Works have been here supporting the physical installation.00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:55.000Jasen: And because of the history of Puerto Rico, we originally had a — it was a TechnoAlpin system. So we've got some legacy TA gear here.00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:04.000Jasen: And then, we've also started working with SMI on some of their equipment. One of the things that, um…00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:11.000Jasen: we're balancing is… there's so much need in terms of how much infrastructure we have to build and how much equipment we have to purchase.00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:16.000Jasen: So we're kind of balancing the future with today's needs.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:22.000Jasen: Automation is not inexpensive, so we're doing kind of a semi automation.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:34.000Jasen: where we can run actuators on the hydrants, but it's not a full-blown system. The original system that was installed back in the early 2010 period, um…00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:41.000Jasen: That system didn't work out very well for Power Reno, so we've pivoted and moved in a different direction.00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, you know, you've had snowmaking for a while. I'd imagine you got some guys who are pretty good at it. I saw one of your videos, you brought in a fellow from Pennsylvania. I always say that Pennsylvania is home to some of the best skier operators in the world because they have to be masters.00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:14.000Stuart Winchester: of snowmaking, because if you don't have it, you're just not going to open. I know you're an East Coast guy yourself, so what have you done as far as, okay, you got this great new system, have you brought in some folks who are more experienced with snowmaking to help out? Are you confident you have the experience yourself?00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:18.000Stuart Winchester: What's your plan to make sure you get the most out of the system right away?00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:36.000Jasen: So we got Brandon on board and one of the things that's challenging at every skier across the country is staffing. So for this winter we really need to nail it and we reached out to Seasonal Labor Solutions.00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:29.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:42.000Jasen: And they have a team of professional snowmakers that basically do the Never Summer.00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:55.000Jasen: Um, so after the guys get done making snow for the Birds of Prey up in Colorado, a couple of those guys are gonna come down and support us this winter for the season to make sure that we get it right.00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:52.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:01.000Stuart Winchester: Awesome, so they're coming straight to you from Beaver Creek. That's… that's impressive. That's good. And, you know.00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:00.000Jasen: Yeah!00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:09.000Stuart Winchester: Tell us how much it helps to be part of a larger group like Mountain Capital. I'm particularly interested because this Arizona Snow Bowl.00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:24.000Stuart Winchester: story just amazes me, how they… and I realize this was done before MCP arrived, but they ran the pipeline all the way up from Flagstaff, and, you know, Arizona Snowbowl, in the 2001-2 season, was open 4 days, and did 3,000 skier visits.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:39.000Stuart Winchester: Last year, even in a bad winter, it was open 134 days, 185 the season before that. They keep it open until June a lot of years, and that's a sister mountain of yours. So we're talking about Arizona, you know, high desert.00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:51.000Stuart Winchester: Probably, I would imagine, a pretty similar climate to what you're dealing with. How much have you learned from talking to them, and how valuable is it to have that support sort of in-house, so to speak?00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.000Jasen: Oh, yeah, it's critical.00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:10.000Jasen: It's funny that you picked up on that. The storyline behind Power Rito and Snowball, I mean, you couldn't draw a more parallel story. It's the same thing. And realistically, you know.00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:08.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:18.000Jasen: what they did in Arizona is exactly what we plan on doing in New Mexico. Um, the…00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:27.000Jasen: Part of that is, you know, our philosophy is skiing first, and it's, you know, as soon as we can open, and as long as we have snow, we're gonna run a chairlift.00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:39.000Jasen: And I do believe New Mexico is ripe for the picking. I think Puerto Rico is slated to become the king of spring. There's a lot of great mountains here, but everyone shuts down like the first or second week of April.00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:43.000Jasen: And that's not the vision that we have for Power Reno at all.00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:49.000Jasen: Well, we plan on having margaritas on the deck, Cinco de Mayo, and hopefully a lot.00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.000Jasen: Few more weekends after that.00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:55.000Stuart Winchester: So, so Pat Ridley, looking back at historical skier visit data was.00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:10.000Stuart Winchester: One of the least busy ski areas in New Mexico, you know, Cloudcroft obviously barely operates, but uh someone within MCP whispered to me that they think that Parito within a few years could be the busiest ski area in New Mexico with these upgrades.00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:12.000Stuart Winchester: Is that is that the aim?00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:16.000Jasen: That's… that's kind of the goal, yeah.00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so how thorough will the transformation be? Because I saw this in some of your materials. Power Radio averaged 60 days open per season. You want to increase that to 120 to 140. Does that mean… I'm not sure if you go 7 days a week right now, and you have the snow, but…00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:36.000Stuart Winchester: But just talk to us about what that could mean for the skier if you're able to achieve that.00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:45.000Jasen: Well, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. I mean, the economic impact for the community, the labor…00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:46.000Jasen: um…00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:52.000Jasen: Bottom line is, yes, we are going 7 days a week, effective this winter.00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.000Jasen: um…00:54:54.000 --> 00:55:05.000Jasen: And the plan is, you know, Thanksgiving, as soon as we can get open. Two years ago, we got a monster storm, and I think we were the only skier in the southwest other than Wolf Creek open.00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:11.000Jasen: And we were busier that day than we were the previous winter. So there's the demand.00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:12.000Jasen: Oh.00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:22.000Jasen: So, from the very first cold snap, and we've designed and built the new snowmaking system that we put in this year to be able to open it with about 40 hours of snowmaking.00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:23.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:33.000Jasen: So, we're looking to do things quite a bit differently, and be super aggressive. Uh, and the plan is, you know, we'll run 7 days a week into April.00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:44.000Jasen: And then as the demand tails off, and the snow starts to melt, we'll run weekends until we just can't anymore. So, my goal is Thanksgiving to May every year.00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Okay. And what's the, what's the sort of alpha trail that opens first, closes last? I don't know, maybe they're different.00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:52.000Jasen: Uh, it would be Pussycat.00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:55.000Jasen: It's kind of shaded, it's in between the two peaks.00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, is that one of those, uh, double black bumpers off of the mother lift?00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:07.000Jasen: No, it's off of Aspen. It sits in the saddle between Aspen and Mother. Um, it's a blue square.00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:11.000Jasen: But it's a really great fall line trail.00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:26.000Stuart Winchester: So, so let's talk about the Aspen lift. So the Aspen lift was one of those ones that was damaged in the 2011 fire. It is, uh, a 1982 SeaTac triple 1,143-foot vertical rise, 3450 length, so a pretty substantial.00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:36.000Stuart Winchester: lift, and, and I think your most important lift out of your base. So, so you got a lot, you're, uh, spiffing that lift up. Take us through Aspen and what you're doing with it this offseason.00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:43.000Jasen: Yeah, so as you pointed out, um, our historical average is about 60 days. Um, that lift.00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:45.000Jasen: um…00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:54.000Jasen: Because of the limited seasons, we looked at that lift and said, you know, all this snow in the world isn't going to do us any good if we can't get the people to it.00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:06.000Jasen: So, we went through… we have major lift projects in the works, but we have to do this piece by piece. The first piece was get the water. Second piece is be able to use the water.00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:16.000Jasen: So as a stopgap for the meantime, we went through and rewired the entire lift, all new controls, new drive.00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:19.000Jasen: New hydraulics for the brake systems.00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:23.000Jasen: We just did the return bull wheel bearing this summer.00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:33.000Jasen: Basically, everything short of the steel and the carrier has been updated, and the goal there was really reliability.00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:39.000Jasen: So when you show up to Puerto Rico this winter, you're not gonna see a sexy new lift, but you're gonna have a very reli.00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:40.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:55.000Stuart Winchester: So, so Aspen Triple's getting an upgrade, and then your rest of your lift fleet, you have 3 doubles. Uh, this Beginner is an 81 Seatech. Uh, Mother is a 76 Riblet double. Uh, Spruce…00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:14.000Stuart Winchester: is a 69 riblet double, and then Townsite is a 94 quad, so I imagine you're pretty happy with Townsite, but what are some of those projects that you're eyeballing? What can you share with us, Jason, about, ultimately, I mean, because once you double the season, the revenue should follow, right? You should be able to make some investments.00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:18.000Stuart Winchester: What would you like the Lyft fleet to look like, ultimately, at Pareto?00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:32.000Jasen: I think currently we're looking at, um, the next… the first focus would be updating Motherlift, um, and I do suspect, based on conversations that we had, that that lift, uh, winds up being a detachable.00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:38.000Jasen: Townsite, I'm really glad you brought that up. That's a 1994 Lyft.00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:43.000Jasen: That exposure got heavy, uh, burn scars during the fires.00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:48.000Jasen: And that lift, as a 94, doesn't even have 4,000 hours on it.00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:49.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:53.000Jasen: So that lift is in pretty, pretty new shape in terms of wear.00:58:54.000 --> 00:59:05.000Jasen: Um, so, the big focus right now, the next piece is, uh, getting the mother lift done, uh, with the new lift, and we've got some other things that we're talking about doing in association with that.00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:15.000Jasen: That peak overlooks the Valle Caldera, which is an absolutely amazing, breathtaking piece of New Mexico landscape. So there's a lot of…00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:33.000Jasen: a lot of opportunity with the detach. Um, discussions around Chandler have been thrown around. Um, the idea being is, you know, from the top of that peak, having a, um, potentially a banquet, um, event center at the top of the lift, and being able to use that in the off-season for.00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:38.000Jasen: Dinners and different type of corporate functions and stuff like that.00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, everyone I talk to, Jason, just tells me that weddings are going off. They're so busy, they can't keep up. It's just, it's such a natural thing, and now folks are starting to think about it, especially in the East. It's really popping. Any thoughts on spruce? I mean, I love an old riblet double.00:59:54.000 --> 01:00:04.000Stuart Winchester: you know, they look cool, uh, there's a couple hundred of them still spinning, but, you know, probably won't last forever. Any ideas for spruce long-term?01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:13.000Jasen: I think, Spruce, that lift, uh, based on the parking lot, there's a stairwell that goes right up to it. It's a really popular lift.01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:00:13.000 --> 01:00:27.000Jasen: It's a redundant lift. You can ski off at Aspen and get the whole middle of the mountain, but that lift does have tremendous value. That would probably be the second lift that we look at.01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:38.000Jasen: The timing on that, I'm not sure. We haven't really gotten that far in the master planning. Um, but based on that profile, I would imagine that that becomes a fixed-script quad.01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:48.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. And, and do you like where the lifts are? You like the layout? They, they did a good job that your predecessors or, or do you wanna move anything around, like as far as where it loads or lands?01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:58.000Jasen: I think there might be a slight realignment on the mother lift. That lift doesn't truly go to the top of the… there's a few feet of elevation that you can gain.01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:04.000Jasen: so that the alignment would kind of come down between, um, Mother… Big Mother Trail and Pussycat.01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:11.000Jasen: And land a little bit closer to the base area, in that triangle of trees at the bottom there.01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:14.000Jasen: And the…01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:26.000Jasen: But realistically, I mean, the scientists and all the folks that worked on this project back in the day did a really great job of laying out the mountain.01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:29.000Stuart Winchester: Is there, yeah, go ahead.01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:28.000Jasen: And…01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:38.000Jasen: Oh, I just… the other thing I think that's kind of cool to know, I don't think that there's a larger ski area in the country that was built by volunteers.01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, no, I don't think so either. There's a lot of, uh…01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:50.000Stuart Winchester: of ones that I'm sure you know from your time in the East that were started with Civilian Conservation Corps, but that wasn't volunteer, those was putting men to.01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:55.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and I… most volunteer-built ski areas are, like.01:01:55.000 --> 01:02:11.000Stuart Winchester: A rope tow and a couple of trails like this is, this is impressive. I, I cannot believe what they did here is, you know, looking around and I, and I know you explained the land situation. Is there any potential for expansion in any direction or, or is this the footprint that you're working with for the foreseeable future?01:01:57.000 --> 01:01:59.000Jasen: Yeah, yeah.01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:15.000Jasen: There's…01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:26.000Jasen: A couple things. So, Camp May is a campground. The county has approached us about doing a management agreement. With the water line, they're going to be able to put water in.01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:30.000Jasen: It's a primitive campground right now. It's beautiful.01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:33.000Jasen: A lot of people come up here to escape the heat.01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:34.000Jasen: um…01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:43.000Jasen: The way this bowl is laid out, it's amazing. When I first got out here, we had, you know, we were skiing on 60, 70 inches of snowpack, and the mountains…01:02:43.000 --> 01:02:45.000Jasen: That we're looking at.01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:56.000Jasen: are completely bare. It's just the sun angle. Uh, it's… coming from the east, it's just… it's pretty trippy. But, um, I think we're pretty much…01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah.01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:04.000Jasen: the footprint that we're in right now is pretty much, I think, about what it's gonna be, just because of the aspect.01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:08.000Jasen: And, you know, where we can hold snow.01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:23.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, two more quick things for you, Jason, I'll let you go. This one's kind of for your more hardcore. I saw in one of your posts that the Crazy Mother Terrain Park was being, uh, quote, regraded into a regular run. Does that mean you're not going to have a terrain park at Barrio this season?01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:32.000Jasen: No, the exact opposite is true. With snowmaking, it gives us the ability to ensure that we can build quality parks.01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:27.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:48.000Jasen: One of the things that I am really passionate about, I grew up ski racing, so getting consistent seasons so that we can host USSA races, support USASA, we want to have events and we want to grow.01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:54.000Jasen: the foundation for our sport to make sure that it survives for the next several generations, so…01:03:54.000 --> 01:04:03.000Jasen: Those pieces, the train parks, the available train for ski racing, and all the ancillary stuff that comes with that, we're 100% behind.01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:17.000Jasen: I've got… I saw a lot of pushback, and I've heard a lot of pushback about the Crazy Mother Train Park getting bulldozed down. The problem was, is that stuff hasn't… hadn't been used in years. Um, they built some really big stuff, and it was too…01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:14.000Stuart Winchester: Really?01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:21.000Jasen: It was too large. We didn't have progression to get to that level.01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:26.000Jasen: When we need something like that, we'll build it again.01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:40.000Stuart Winchester: I've heard the same thing from operators all over the country. Those big ones, they're impressive and people like to look at them, but in reality, they're expensive and not a lot of folks use them or have the skill to use them. So that's a pattern I've seen all over the country.01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, so the last thing I wanted to touch on here, Jason, I mean, I…01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:52.000Stuart Winchester: I mention this every time I talk about MCP, but I think it's hard to… I can't mention it enough. I mean, the PowerPass…01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:56.000Stuart Winchester: This thing is unbelievable. Kids 12 and under are free.01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:12.000Stuart Winchester: Everyone. No parent purchase required. And right now, the PowerPass Core, which is unlimited at your ski area in Sipapu and Sandia Peak, and has lots of access to the other ski areas in MCP's portfolio, it's $449. I mean, it was $299 if you grabbed it early.01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:21.000Stuart Winchester: But talk a little bit about that power pass, and do you think people in Los Alamos really get it? Like, kids 12 and under are free, do you hit the schools, do you hit that hard?01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:14.000Jasen: Yes.01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:28.000Jasen: We do, um, we… it's amazing how the message just doesn't resonate loud enough.01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:35.000Jasen: But when you look at our organization, Skiing First, like, that's real. That's like the Bible.01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.000Jasen: And one of the things I think everyone within the organization looks at is.01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:55.000Jasen: How do we strip back the barriers to access? Price is number one. So the 12 and under ski free, I mean, that's just something that the entire organization just firmly believes in. We want to cultivate and grow our sport, and we feel like there's no better way.01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:58.000Jasen: Than to get kids involved at an early age.01:05:58.000 --> 01:06:01.000Jasen: And then the pass pricing for, um…01:06:01.000 --> 01:06:13.000Jasen: Every year that I've been with MCP, springtime comes around and the pass pricing discussion comes up, and it's not even a discussion because, like, they're not increasing pricing, and they're really proud of that.01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:19.000Jasen: Another thing that we're doubling down on this year, which is really cool, is $9 Lyft tickets.01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:22.000Jasen: I mean, 9 bucks, with a $10 resort credit.01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:25.000Stuart Winchester: We're basically free.01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.000Jasen: We're paying you a dollar, you know?01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:32.000Stuart Winchester: That… and is that… that's not every day, is it?01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:47.000Jasen: No, that's… it's limited availability, but when we launch, um… I think Purgatory, Snowbowl, and Brian had a launch ticket, so if you hop on the computer right now and you say, I want to go ski on such and such day, you can get a $9 ticket with a $10 resort credit.01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:50.000Stuart Winchester: That's incredible.01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:53.000Jasen: It's not gonna last all winter, but… I mean, the deals are out there.01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:06:51.000 --> 01:06:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.01:06:53.000 --> 01:07:01.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and you have, uh, so is it a… when you have a $9 day, is there a limited number of $9, and it goes up to $10 or $11?01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:08.000Jasen: It's incremental. Yeah, it's an extremely dynamic pricing system.01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:03.000Stuart Winchester: et cetera.01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay.01:07:04.000 --> 01:07:06.000Stuart Winchester: All right, well…01:07:07.000 --> 01:07:12.000Stuart Winchester: That's… and have you… have you rolled those out yet at Pareto?01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:15.000Jasen: We plan to launch our tickets in the next couple weeks.01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:18.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, do you know how many days we'll have that $9 price?01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:23.000Stuart Winchester: Is it, like, one or two, or is it, like, dozens.01:07:23.000 --> 01:07:27.000Jasen: No, in October, it'll be, like, 80% of the season.01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:26.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:07:26.000 --> 01:07:36.000Stuart Winchester: Oh my gosh, okay. All right, well, set your timer. All right, I'll leave us with this, Jason, because I have a lot of listeners on the East Coast.01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:29.000Jasen: Yeah.01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:53.000Stuart Winchester: And who have never skied Parado. I imagine most people haven't skied Parado because New Mexico is sort of like the forgotten ski land. Uh, but a lot of my listeners have skied the places that you've worked at. So I know you grew up at Hunter Hunter's Madness. I love Hunter. There's nothing else like it.01:07:53.000 --> 01:08:08.000Stuart Winchester: But it's just, it's just New York City sort of transposed onto the ski slope. Uh, Crotchet, more of a college scene, kind of like, you know, they have the high speed quads, a lot of night skiing, you know, a lot of like beer in a lap. Uh, Sugarbush.01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:25.000Stuart Winchester: More of a resort, lots of natural snow, great skiing, you know, gets busy, but people get spread out around the base, and it has, obviously, the two mountains. And Saddleback is just, like, this glorious, you know, highest elevation in the east, up there. Uh, it doesn't get too busy, because it's far from everything.01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:27.000Stuart Winchester: Of those four.01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:33.000Stuart Winchester: that my listeners are probably familiar with a couple. What is Powerito? Which one is Powerito most like, and why?01:08:34.000 --> 01:08:45.000Jasen: Interesting question. Uh, yeah, New Mexico, the land of enchantment. Um, when I moved out here from the East Coast, everyone asked me why I was leaving the ski industry.01:08:44.000 --> 01:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:54.000Jasen: The lack of awareness… New Mexico's the best-kept secret. You can fly into Albuquerque, grab a rental car, not hit any traffic, and be a skier in less than 2 hours. It'.01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:49.000Stuart Winchester: There.01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: Love it.01:08:54.000 --> 01:08:57.000Jasen: But Paul Rito, I would say…01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:09.000Jasen: I would say it's very similar in feel to Saddleback. Saddleback is kind of a hidden, quiet gem. It's just far enough you have to pass everything else.01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:12.000Jasen: On a busy day at Parrito.01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:18.000Jasen: Because we have 300 acres and we only have fixed scripts getting you up the hill.01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:31.000Jasen: the downhill to uphill ratios are a lot different than what most skiers are today. Throughout my life, I've seen detaches go up where there used to be a double, especially at… Hunter's a perfect example, right?01:09:31.000 --> 01:09:38.000Jasen: When I started skiing there, there was a summit double chairlift, and now there's, I think, 3 different detaches that put you at the top of that mountain.01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:46.000Jasen: Um, so we've increased the uphill capacity and not addressed the downhill capacity, and I think it's watered down.01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:57.000Jasen: the experience a little bit. Powder Retail is the way it used to be. You get to the top of the mountain, and you ski down a trail, and even on a powder day, you have the trail to yourself. It's amazing.01:09:57.000 --> 01:10:01.000Jasen: It's it's what I fell in love with as a kid.01:10:01.000 --> 01:10:04.000Jasen: And Paul Rito still has that.01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:13.000Stuart Winchester: That is an awesome vision. And I read here and there that the Glades are pretty good, and that's something else Saddleback has. Talk to us about the Glades at Power Reno.01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.000Jasen: Yeah, the… with some of the, um…01:10:19.000 --> 01:10:26.000Jasen: When we get sufficient snowpack, you can go into the trees, but with all the burn scars and stuff.01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:30.000Jasen: You really want to be cautious about the woods. Um…01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:35.000Jasen: I'm actually trying to get the tree message removed from our marketing campaign.01:10:33.000 --> 01:10:36.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, I see. Okay. Okay.01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:48.000Jasen: So, uh, I would really define Palo Rito more as… there's certainly trees to get into, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a J Peak, if you will, um, but…01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:54.000Jasen: It's in-your-face fall line skiing, more so than I think most in New Mexico.01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's true.01:10:53.000 --> 01:10:56.000Stuart Winchester: But you are allowed in the trees when there's snow?01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:58.000Jasen: Oh, yeah.01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:13.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. And, uh, just one last thing, just because I… this popped into my head. Saddleback was doing some really cool things with, like, portable rope tows in their terrain park, their lower level, uh, by, like, the Sandy Lift when they put in the new one. Were you involved with all that before you came out?01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:16.000Jasen: I, I was.01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and so that's kind of cool. I really like rope tows for terrain parks because they, you know, you can lap, lap, lap without having to ride a lift. Is that something you've thought about for Power Radio at all?01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:33.000Jasen: Yeah, as a matter of fact, uh, if you want to pull up the trail map, I'll show you kind of what I got thinking here.01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: All right, let's do it.01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:35.000Jasen: So…01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:37.000Stuart Winchester: Here's a trail map.01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:41.000Jasen: Yeah, so the bottom of Lone Spruce…01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:48.000Jasen: Right now, we're having a hard time to really… the beginner lift…01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:53.000Jasen: On a busy day, we don't want to add a lot of traffic on that lift.01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:11:53.000 --> 01:12:04.000Jasen: Down here below East Road on the bottom of Daisy May and the bottom of Lone Spruce, there's a perfect little triangle in there when we're not running spruce lift.01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:16.000Jasen: The thought process is potentially for next year. We're on a surface lift up along the looker's left side of the bottom of Daisy May.01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:24.000Jasen: So that if that lift isn't running, that parking lot is the easiest access to snow, so you could boot up in your car, ride up.01:12:24.000 --> 01:12:30.000Jasen: We've got snowmaking down in there, and that could be the beginning of our future, um…01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:35.000Jasen: uh… beginner level terrain park, and that lift would…01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:35.000Stuart Winchester: That's awesome.01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:40.000Jasen: would give you the bottom of Lowen Spruce, the bottom of Daisy May.01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:43.000Jasen: And also access from that parking lot back to the lodge.01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:53.000Jasen: So, exactly, think of what, you know, the lodge is below the train park at Saddleback, but essentially kind of the same thing that we did at Saddleback.01:12:49.000 --> 01:12:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so…01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:55.000Stuart Winchester: That's really cool.01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:56.000Jasen: To access that lower section.01:12:56.000 --> 01:13:00.000Stuart Winchester: And with a portable rope tower, would you put something more permanent in?01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:03.000Jasen: Probably something a little more permanent.01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:04.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:13:04.000 --> 01:13:05.000Jasen: Um…01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:09.000Jasen: Because even when we do replace Sloan's spruce lift.01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:17.000Jasen: You know, do you really want to ride… if you're just looking to nail a couple features, do you really want to ride a 6 or 7 minute chair?01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:17.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:21.000Jasen: When you can just loop and cycle that lower area.01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:32.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that's awesome, Jason, and I imagine being right above a city, you have a good, you know, young skier demographic for that, so…01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:42.000Stuart Winchester: All right, Jason, listen, I really appreciate all this. This is, uh, it's really exciting, and now I've skied a little in New Mexico, but I gotta get out there, and I'm always telling people these kind of…01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:58.000Stuart Winchester: fringe areas, if you're coming from the East Coast, they see… they're as big as an East Coast ski area, and there's no one there. And they're wonderful skiing, so this sounds, uh… this first time I focused on Power Reno, it sounds kind of like that if you were an East Coast skier coming out.01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:08.000Jasen: Yes, yes. Even on the busiest of days, it's just… it still amazes me how awesome the terrain is. And you know.01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:16.000Jasen: all of the places I've worked, we've talked about some of the different skiers I've worked at, um, in the East. The other thing that I think is important to note.01:14:16.000 --> 01:14:17.000Jasen: Because of…01:14:17.000 --> 01:14:20.000Jasen: Just the quantity of people.01:14:21.000 --> 01:14:28.000Jasen: At 3 or 4 o'clock, the trails get stomped. I mean, you're down to, like, boilerplate, everything's scrapped off.01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:46.000Jasen: And, uh, that was the other thing that blew my mind when I got out here. The quality of skiing from 8 AM to 4 PM is pretty consistent. Like, you just don't get that, oh, you know, I'm going to the pub to have a beer because it's already scraped off at 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock, you know. It's just, it's great skiing from first chair to last.01:14:34.000 --> 01:14:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:37.000Stuart Winchester: Awesome. Yeah.01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.01:14:47.000 --> 01:15:02.000Stuart Winchester: Incredible. All right, Jason. Well, I'm going to come test that theory hopefully this winter. If not, I'll make it out at some point and hope to take a couple turns with you. So thanks so much for all your time, especially I know how busy you are. It's a huge project. I really appreciate it.01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:05.000Jasen: Thanks a lot, Stuart. It was awesome talking to you. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

The only time market breadth has been "this bad" was in 1973 and in 1999 into 2000, says Matthew Tuttle. While it doesn't blare emergency alarm for stocks, Matthew warns on buying AI-related stock dips until Micron's (MU) earnings and urges investors consider hedges for portfolio protection. On Micron itself, Matthew says he would "love to see them blow away the whisper numbers" to add profound confidence the AI trade has a long runway ahead. If earnings disappoint, he sees the report holding potential to "pull everything down" across tech. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

Every sports fan has an era that defines what their favorite team means to them. In this episode of the Historically Speaking Sports Podcast, Dana Auguster and Charles Combs take a trip back through the greatest eras of their favorite NFL teams. Dana makes the case for the San Diego Chargers' Air Coryell era from 1978–1984, while Charles takes us through the New Orleans Saints' Sean Payton and Drew Brees era from 2006 through their Super Bowl XLIV championship in February 2010.Dana revisits the explosive Chargers offenses led by Dan Fouts, Kellen Winslow, Charlie Joiner, John Jefferson and Don Coryell, examining how Air Coryell helped revolutionize the passing game and produced some of the most memorable offensive performances and playoff games of the era. Charles looks at the transformation of the Saints under Sean Payton and Drew Brees, from the franchise's turnaround in 2006 to the emotional journey through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and ultimately the Saints' first Super Bowl championship.But what actually makes an era the greatest in franchise history? Is it championships, legendary players, innovative coaching, unforgettable games, cultural impact—or the memories created for generations of fans? Dana and Charles explore those questions while celebrating two very different eras that left lasting marks on NFL history. From Air Coryell in San Diego to Who Dat in New Orleans, this episode is a celebration of the greatest eras of our favorite teams.To contact the show, e-mail us at Historically.Speaking.Sports@gmail.com.

Election Volatility Comes Into Focus With 36 days remaining until the midterm elections, the market is entering a period that has historically been associated with increased volatility. Midterm election years have traditionally been the most volatile portion of the four-year presidential cycle. The first year following a presidential election is often characterized by optimism surrounding a new administration, while the second year tends to bring greater uncertainty and expectations for policy changes. Historically, the period following the midterm elections has often been followed by a market rally. This year, however, the market has demonstrated considerably more resilience than historical patterns might suggest. The S&P 500 closely tracked its typical presidential-cycle pattern through the previous year before diverging over the summer. Rather than experiencing the weakness often associated with the months leading into a midterm election, the market posted a relatively strong summer. The market’s response to geopolitical developments has also been notable. Following the sell-off tied to tensions surrounding the Iran war earlier in the year, stocks rallied, demonstrating continued resilience despite a challenging backdrop. As the election approaches, some of the effects of rising political uncertainty are becoming more visible beneath the surface of the broader market. While the overall U.S. stock market has historically performed under administrations from both political parties, individual sectors can respond differently to anticipated policy changes. One area worth watching is the industrial sector. Ongoing discussions surrounding data-center development, the reindustrialization of the United States and tax incentives designed to encourage industrial investment have been important catalysts for the sector. In recent weeks, industrial stocks have declined relative to the broader S&P 500 as the perceived likelihood of a Democratic sweep of both chambers of Congress has increased. The relationship is worth monitoring because a change in political control could influence the pace of data-center development and the future of certain tax incentives supporting industrial investment. While these trends do not provide a basis for predicting the outcome of either the election or the market, they offer insight into how expectations surrounding policy can influence individual areas of the market. As the election approaches, continued monitoring of these developments can help identify areas of potential downside risk and inform portfolio decisions as conditions evolve. Reasons for Optimism Despite the concerns facing investors, several underlying economic and corporate indicators provide reasons for optimism. One of the most encouraging developments is the strength of corporate profit margins. Profit margins have reached record levels, and there is a direct relationship between corporate profitability and the valuation of the S&P 500. Strong margins suggest that corporate America remains fundamentally healthy, providing an important foundation for current market valuations. The labor market also continues to demonstrate historical strength. Employment remains an important driver of consumer spending, and continued employment growth supports household income and spending throughout the economy. Personal incomes have also turned higher, providing another positive signal for consumer activity. When employment and income remain resilient, consumers generally have greater capacity to maintain spending, which can help support broader economic growth. Beyond consumers, industrial production remains strong, while manufacturing and trade sales have continued to show encouraging results. These measures provide additional evidence that economic activity remains resilient despite the uncertainty surrounding inflation, interest rates, energy prices and the upcoming election. The current concerns facing markets should not be overlooked. However, focusing exclusively on the negative headlines can obscure some of the positive developments taking place beneath the surface of the economy and financial markets. These indicators serve as important reminders that market conditions are influenced by a wide range of factors. While uncertainty and volatility remain part of the current environment, corporate profitability, employment, personal income, industrial production, manufacturing and trade activity all provide reasons to maintain perspective. There are legitimate concerns to monitor, but there are also meaningful signs of underlying strength. Looking beyond the headlines and considering both sides of the market landscape can provide a more complete picture of the current environment. Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller, AIF® Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Charts of Optimism first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

There are three types of prairie, and in North Dakota, the tallgrass prairie historically dominated the Red River Valley. As the name implies, the tallgrass prairie was dominated by tall grasses that grow to three feet or more. Historically the tallgrass prairie has been estimated to have covered between 140-170 million acres, but I have seen estimates that only 1-4 percent remains.

Could the way you're marketing your rental properties be costing you weeks of vacancy? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason Hull sits down with Kori Covrigaru, co-founder of PlanOmatic, to discuss how professional listing media can help property management companies lease properties faster, reduce vacancy costs, and attract more owners. Kori shares what he's learned from more than two decades in real estate photography, including why professional photos, floor plans, and 3D tours can make such a difference in today's competitive rental market. They also discuss how outsourcing photography can save your team hours of driving and administrative work, allowing you to grow your portfolio without adding unnecessary overhead. If you're looking for ways to fill vacancies faster, improve your property management brand, and give your team more time to focus on growing the business, this episode is worth a listen. You'll Learn [02:14] Kori Covrigaru's Story and PlanOmatic [04:18] Why Professional Photos Help Properties Lease Faster [06:36] How Better Listings Attract Property Owners [10:03] Scaling Your Business Without Adding Overhead [12:28] How PlanOmatic Works and Integrates With Your Software [15:30] Photography Pricing and Who Pays for It [17:36] How AI Virtual Staging Improves Rental Listings [23:58] Providing Photography Services Across Different Markets [28:31] Building a Client-Focused Business Through Communication Quotables "But the biggest reason why it actually makes sense and there's a high ROI for our customers to use us versus what you described as properties with professional photos lease faster." — Kori Covrigaru Pasted "You attract who you are." — Jason Hull  "It's better to know that nothing is happening than to not know that something is happening." — Kori Covrigaru Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) Five, four, three, two, one. All right, we're live. Hey everybody, I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. We are the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. We've been doing this for over 18 years, roughly about now, and we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry.   We are on a mission here at DoorGo to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the BS or eliminate the BS, transform the industry, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, help the best property management entrepreneurs win. And we're particularly genius at three key things: rehabbing property management companies so they make more money, optimizing their growth engines so they add more doors without having to waste money on digital marketing. And we help them figure out and get their ops dialed in so they get more freedom.   Now let's get into the show. Alright, today's guest hanging out with me here is Cory. And Corey, say your last name for me. I'm gonna try it. Kavrigaru. That is an A. Really? What how do you say it? It's Kovrigaru. Kovrigaru. It could be Kovrigaro. It's Roman.   Kori Covrigaru (01:07) That is an A. You got an A. Yeah, it's covrigaro. But you know what? It could be covrigaro. It's Romanian.   I don't speak Romanian. My father and his family were born in Romania. Means bagel maker in Romanian. Yeah, you nailed it. We're off to a good start.   Jason Hull (01:21) Interesting. Okay. He's runs bagel you know, meets bagel maker in Romanian. Okay. All right. Very cool.   Yeah, my brother Bryant actually he runs a property management business. He actually was a Mormon missionary in Romania. So he speaks Romanian. So   Kori Covrigaru (01:37) Wow.   Buona di miniatso. That means good morning. That's about, yeah, the count of 10. We can do it again. That's...   Jason Hull (01:40) There you go. That's more than I ever knew. So now everybody knows. Thank you. All right, cool. So   so Corey is the the co founder of Plan O Matic. And   Kori Covrigaru (01:54) Yes.   Jason Hull (01:55) we're gonna discuss today how high quality listing media can help properties lease faster, reduce vacancy costs, and create a better experience for both owners and prospective residents.   Corey's going to share insights for more than two decades of building one of the nation's largest real estate photography companies and what today's property manager should know about standing out in a competitive rental market. And it has gotten tough to get leasing handled in some markets right now. They've got a lot of inventory, the market shifted, it can be difficult. So we're going to get into that. All right, cool. So   Corey, give us a little background on you so those that are listening can understand what how did you get into entrepreneurism and decide to be crazy like the rest of us and start a business? And like how did this lead to Planomatic? I think it was the short answer is by necessity. I realized early.   Kori Covrigaru (02:48) I think it was the short answer is by necessity. I realized early on   that it was unemployable and in order to provide an income for myself and eventually my family, had to figure   Jason Hull (02:56) And eventually my family.   Kori Covrigaru (02:58) out how to start a business. So I got into Planomatic. I was an entrepreneur major at the first school. I attended SUNY Buffalo my freshman year. played soccer there and transferring to Western Michigan. They didn't have an entrepreneurship major there, but I kind of continued upon that path for myself. And then at some point,   Jason Hull (03:05) Buffalo, my freshman year, I played soccer there, I ended up transferring to Western Michigan. They didn't have an entrepreneurship major there, but I kind of continued upon that path for myself. And then at some   point in college I met someone who had written software or decreased work plans quickly on site, started helping him with his business, and then eventually licensed that software, started my own business, brought my co-founders on board, and then eventually we started using other software, of course. That's how I kind of got into it.   Kori Covrigaru (03:17) In college, I met someone who had written software to create floor plans quickly on site, started helping him with his business, and then eventually licensed that software, started my own business, brought my co-founders on board. And then eventually we started using other software, of course, but that's how I kind of got into it by happenstance.   Jason Hull (03:34) I knew that you know A O B was probably not for   Kori Covrigaru (03:34) But I knew that, know, J-O-B was probably not for me. And   that's what led me to the path I'm on. 22 years.   Jason Hull (03:42) Twenty   two years planomatic. Very cool. Very cool. So cool. So what is Planomatic? Yeah. So Planomatic provides professional photography, floor plans, three D scans, AI virtual staging, and more services to the single family rental property management industry nationwide at speed and at scale. So that's kind of like   Kori Covrigaru (03:50) Yeah. So Plan-O-Matic provides professional photography, floor plans, 3D scans, AI virtual staging, and more services to the single family rental property management industry nationwide at speed and at scale. So that's kind of like our...   you know, if you're familiar with EOS or traction, that's our, that's our elevator pitch. We provide professional photography floor plan, 3D scans, AI virtual for single family rental specifically. We did use to service the for sale by agent space or the traditional real estate agent that sells homes. And we actually pivoted a hundred percent to the single family rental property management industry in   Jason Hull (04:09) You know, if you're familiar with EOS or traction, that's our that's our elevator pitch. We provide photography floor technology scans for single family rentals specifically. We did use to service the for sale by agent space or the traditional real estate agent that sells homes and we actually pivoted a hundred percent to the single family rental, property management industry.   Kori Covrigaru (04:32) 2020, 21, sort of around that time.   Jason Hull (04:36) Okay, okay, got it. So three D scans, pro photography, speed, scale. So for property managers, why is it important to do this stuff well? Why can't they just send out one of their team members that's got an iPhone and just sort of wing it? Okay. Well there's there's a lot are a lot of reasons why that's not the optimal solution.   Kori Covrigaru (04:57) Well, there's a lot. There are a lot of reasons why that's not the optimal solution. Now, look,   I'm not going to say that, you know, it's the same for every property manager and every price range and every market across the U.S. That's not the case. But generally speaking, windshield time is what really cuts into profits.   Jason Hull (05:05) same for every property manager and every price range and every market across the US. But generally speaking, windshield time is is what really cuts into   Kori Covrigaru (05:18) And so what we're able to do is reduce that windshield time. That saves money and makes you more efficient.   We also save a lot of the back office having to download, upload photos, color correct them, download them, sort them, upload them to that folio, build them, rent, find wherever your PMS is. And so we save a ton of time by being integrated with your property management software. But the biggest reason why it actually makes sense and there's a high ROI for our customers to use us versus what you described as properties with professional photos lease faster.   Jason Hull (05:31) Upload photos, color correct them, download them, sort them, upload them, tab folio, building, random, wherever your PMS is. And so we save a ton of time by being integrated with your property management software. But the biggest reason why it actually makes sense and there's a high ROI for our customers to use us versus what you described is properties with professional photos leads   faster.   Kori Covrigaru (05:55) So   we're   able to get out to your property often same day or next day and deliver those assets the day later. So that's like an average of two and a half days from order to delivery when you can have professional leasing photos up on the Zillow platform, up on apartments.com or wherever else you   Jason Hull (05:56) Yeah. We're able to get out to your property often the same day or next day and deliver those assets the day later. So that's like an average of two and a half days from order to delivery and then you can have professional leasing photos up on the Zillow platform, up on Parliament.com, or where   Kori Covrigaru (06:11) may advertise your single family rentals. so by reducing the windshield time and the time it actually takes to get those photos on, we can reduce the time by about 14 days.   Jason Hull (06:12) else you may advertise your scene family rentals. And so by reducing the the windshield time and the time it actually takes to get those photos up, we can reduce the time by about 14 days   and lease that property about 10 days faster once it hits the market with those pro photos.   Kori Covrigaru (06:22) and lease that property about 10 days faster once it hits the market with those pro photos.   Jason Hull (06:27) So two weeks two weeks less. Two weeks less. On average it takes about two weeks from rent ready to get professional listing photos up on the portal. We can do that for you in two to two and half days.   Kori Covrigaru (06:30) Two weeks less on average, takes about two weeks from rent ready to get professional listing photos up on the portal. We can do that for you in two to two and a half days. And   then we can also save your team time so that they're not dealing with going out to   Jason Hull (06:39) And you can also save your team time so that they're not dealing with   Kori Covrigaru (06:42) a property and taking photos and uploading them in the background and doing all that stuff. They can focus on tenants or maintenance issues or communicating with owners or just not have to grow your staff as fast as you grow your business.   Jason Hull (06:47) tenants or maintenance or or communicating with owners or just not have to grow your staff as fast as you grow business.   Got it. So it this gives you leverage, especially during times where leasing gets heavy like the summer and there's an increase in workload and workflow happening, then you can just outsource this piece and get people get really somebody else handling this, which is planomatic, get get photos handled, you know, quickly and get things, you know   Get the property leased a lot faster. Leased a lot faster. I mean it's really at this point it's table sticks, right? In this environment especially.   Kori Covrigaru (07:17) Lease a lot faster. I mean, it's really at this point, it's table stakes, right? In this environment, especially where everything   is so competitive, it's taking a lot more to lease a property. You actually, you need professional   Jason Hull (07:25) Yeah,   Kori Covrigaru (07:28) photos to compete out there. And I really, didn't even mention there is another layer to why it's important to market your properties professionally. That's because that's the first impression that potential owners that may want to hire you see online. I mean, you're dirty laundries out there, right? Like they see how you treat your existing portfolio, your existing.   Jason Hull (07:30) And I I really I didn't even mention there there is another layer to why it's important to market your properties professionally, and that's because that's the first impression that potential owners that may want to hire you see online. Your your very laundry's out there, right? Like they see how you treat your existing portfolio, your existing   Kori Covrigaru (07:47) and the doors that you manage, and they're going to envision their property being in that same spot on your listing page or on your website. And so   Jason Hull (07:47) clients and the doors that you manage, and they're gonna envision their property being in that same spot on your listing page or on your website. Right.   Kori Covrigaru (07:55) you can really elevate your brand and brand yourself professionally by hiring a professional to do your professional property manager. It's like the same reason why you wouldn't recommend an owner or manage their own property. It could work, but it doesn't make sense as far as your time value and what you value, like what's your full-time job.   Jason Hull (07:56) you know, you can really elevate your brand and and and bring yourself professionally by hiring a professional to do the your professional property manager. It's like the same reason why you wouldn't recommend an owner or manage your own property. It could work, you know, it but but it doesn't make sense as far as your time value and what you got you know what's your what's your full time job, right? Let a professional go let them   do it better. That's kind of the way we see it.   Kori Covrigaru (08:16) Let a professional do let them do it better. That's kind of the way we see it.   Jason Hull (08:20) I I think that's a really good point. If you're a property manager listening to this and you're thinking, Well I could just do that myself   You are exactly the problem that frustrates you. These are the investors that are like, I'll just do it myself. You have to have a mindset that it makes sense to outsource to get a better quality product, that it makes sense to get an expert brought in to do expert work. And I love the idea because either you're at the top of your market and you're positioning yourself as the best and you're the best branded and you have the best photos and everything you do is the best, or you got to be the cheapest because in the middle is where you die.   Kori Covrigaru (08:56) Exactly.   Jason Hull (08:56) And that playing the game of being the cheapest and trying to do everything low cost is a great way to have a business that makes you miserable, that isn't fun to run, and isn't very attractive to the best clients. It's gonna attract cheapos. You attract who you are. And so if you want to position yourself mentally, and I coach a lot of clients on this, and if you want to position yourself mentally, you got to get graduate from being a cheapo to maybe a more normal type of buyer. And then you got to graduate from being a normal type of buyer to a premium buyer. And then you can attract everything that you want.   But if you have enough premium buyers, normal buyers, you may turn down or fire a lot of the cheapos and not even work with them. Because the people that care about having nice photos and things looking good also care about things being done well and they probably have more money to spend. They're not   Kori Covrigaru (09:41) Exactly.   Jason Hull (09:41) looking for the cheapest, ugliest option to just get it done. You don't want to be cheap. especially in an area that kind of reverberates across   Kori Covrigaru (09:45) So, yep, I agree. You don't want to be cheap. And especially in an area that kind of reverberates across the   internet that everybody can see your existing clients as well as potential clients. You just don't want that to be your brand's thing. It's like,   Jason Hull (09:54) the internet that everybody can see your existing, you know, clients as well as potential clients. You just don't want that to be your brand's thing.   Kori Covrigaru (10:03) I'm going to cut corners when it comes to marketing your properties, for example. So that's just like the elevate your brand, kind of keep your existing owners, attract new owners. That's one component of the reason why.   Jason Hull (10:07) So that's that's just like to elevate your brand, kind of keep your existing owners, attract new owners. That's one component why.   Yeah, I love it. I mean, nicer photos is nice, but I think for me the benefit as a business owner really is freeing up my team to focus on higher level tasks. They're not being sent out to go be a half ass photographer. So it because it's drive time, going out to do things, they could be getting stuff done, helping onboard new clients, getting the   things done in the office rather than just driving around taking photos. And if they're not really great at it, let an expert do it. So seems to be a no brainer. I'm a business owner   Kori Covrigaru (10:43) And again, I'm a business owner too.   Jason Hull (10:45) too.   Kori Covrigaru (10:46) You might be able to, again, not scale your people as you scale your business. I mean, that's every entrepreneur's dream, right? It's how do I keep my overhead the same as it relates to the revenue, but increase that top line in order to generate more   Jason Hull (10:49) scale your people as you scale your business. I mean, that's every entrepreneur's dream, right? So how do I keep my overhead the same as it relates to revenue, but increase that top line in order to   Kori Covrigaru (11:00) profits, right? So not having that, that, overhead, that permanent W2 employee that's driving around, insured, buying gas while they're, you know, could be doing other things.   Jason Hull (11:02) Not having that that overhead, that permanent W two that's driving around insured, buying gas while they're you know   doing other things, not doing anything at all is is   Kori Covrigaru (11:12) doing anything at all is a high cost.   Jason Hull (11:14) high costs. Yeah. yeah, yeah. You know, like our cars are often just sitting in the driveway, right? Not really doing a whole lot for us, and then we use it occasionally. And but in business you don't want team members, they're just sitting like a car in the driveway. You want them   be productive, getting stuff done and focus on the right things. And so yeah, if you have seasonal work, if photos are just something that happens occasionally, you know, or even pretty regularly, you want to be able to scale without having to just go out and hire. Hiring is one of the most costly things you will ever do. One bad hire usually costs business owners, I find, when we really dig into it, minimum 10 grand. It's 10 grand in opportunity cost, 10 grand in loss   money that's been spent on this team member for about three months before you figure out they're just not going to cut it. And so the less you have to get involved in the hiring piece and you can use a system with experts just when you need it, that is a lot more ideal. Even if it's more expensive to get that thing done, there you don't have that sunk cost of having a team member all the time that you're paying. Exactly. Keep it variable if you can cool. Business in general you can keep   Kori Covrigaru (12:20) Exactly. Keep it variable if you can. In business in general, if you can keep it variable, keep it variable.   Jason Hull (12:24) it variable   Yeah, you you mentioned table sticks. You're talking about the game where the it's who grabs the sticks first? No, it's kind of   Kori Covrigaru (12:32) No, it's kind of like poker,   you know, like required to pay if you're to play the game.   Jason Hull (12:37) Pay if   you're gonna play the game. Okay. Got it. Okay.   Kori Covrigaru (12:41) You up. It's not, you know, if you're playing poker, you have to   ante up. If you're in property management, you have to treat your listing.   Jason Hull (12:47) Got it. I'm obviously   a really seasoned poker pr player. Just kidding. So right, actually, you can tell me if I say it aloud, so I'm looking   Kori Covrigaru (12:51) I hope I get that right. Actually, you put me totally, I say it a lot. So I'm going to look that one up afterwards.   Jason Hull (12:56) at it. All right, cool. So yes, I missed the reference. All right. So very cool. So I I these are some of the benefits. How does Planomatic work? How does this how does this work? G paint the picture. Somebody signs up with you. What's the process? How are they able to leverage you and use you? How does this go?   Kori Covrigaru (13:17) There are a number of ways we are integrated with AppFolio, Buildium, and RentFine. So I integrated what I mean is you register as a Planomatic client, and then you integrate with your property management software. Your portfolio then syncs with our system so you can see   Jason Hull (13:22) Build DM and Redfine. So by integrating what I mean is you register as a priomatic client and then you integrate with your property management software. Your portfolio then syncs with our system.   Kori Covrigaru (13:33) your properties in our system, see what's for rent, what's not for rent, what has professional photos, what doesn't, and make your buying decisions that way with one click. Order photos, order photos, order photos.   Jason Hull (13:36) Rent what has professional photos, what doesn't, make your buying decisions that way with one click, order photos, order photos, order   photos. Yeah. We either dispatch our photography either same day or next day, go out, capture the content, have that content processed and photoshopped, etc., by our team and some tools that we use, and then we sync those assets back with your property management software so you can go ahead and with one click syndicate that property.   Kori Covrigaru (13:43) We then dispatch our photographer either same day or next day, go out, capture the content, have that content processed and photoshopped, et cetera, by our team and some tools that we use. And then we sync those assets back with your property management software so that you can go ahead and with one click syndicate that property as far   as the marketing photos are concerned. They appear in your account ready to go, right sort order with the right captions, the right size.   Jason Hull (14:04) Far as the marketing photos are concerned, they're appear in your account, ready to go, right? Sort order with the right captions, the right   size, etc. And so that entire process from order to delivery is average, you know, averages about two and a half days. and you don't have to download a single thing, like everything just kind of like goes the way it goes. There is another that we've just launched. Actually, this is kind of big news for us, but we've launched the ability to receive work orders now through either property meld or   Kori Covrigaru (14:11) Etc. And so that entire process from order to delivery is average, know, averages about two and a half days. And you don't have to download a single thing. Like everything is kind of like goes the way it goes. There is another way that we've just launched. Actually, this is kind of big news for us, but we've launched the ability to receive work orders now through either property meld or, or   at folio ability and rent finds. So we can actually receive work orders from our customers, just like you order a plumber.   Jason Hull (14:33) Folio ability of our device. We can actually receive work orders from our customers. Just like you order   a plumber to come out to the property, you order Planomatic to shoot photos, we receive that work order, we digest that order automatically, and then two to two and a half days later, you'll find those assets synced with your property management software ready to syndicate in the most ways that we work with our customers. And we do have larger owner operator customers that own their their rentals as well as manage them and those   Kori Covrigaru (14:38) to come out to the property, order PlanoMatic to shoot photos, we receive that work order, we digest that order automatically, and then two to two and a half days later, you'll find those assets synced with your property management software, ready to syndicate immediately. Those are the most organized that we work with our customers. And we do have larger owner operator customers that own their rentals as well as manage them. And those are kind of like we call   them enterprise clients, institutional investors.   Jason Hull (15:04) Clients, institutional investors,   Kori Covrigaru (15:06) They integrate with us in a bit of a unique way. They directly integrate with our platform versus going through property management software because they're typically on either Salesforce or Yardi or some sort of proprietary platform. So those customers have a more direct integration with us. That's pretty much, it's really easy. Just register and go ahead and integrate. You don't have to integrate. You can also just go out and place an order and we'll be there.   Jason Hull (15:07) they integrate with us in a bit of a unique way. They directly integrate with our platform versus going through property management software because we typically want either Salesforce or ERB or some sort of proprietary platform. Okay. Just register and go ahead and integrate. You don't have to integrate the just go out and place an order. Okay. Very cool. And   so if they place an order and you go out there and maybe the tenant   left something or wasn't quite ready. like there's a trash bag in the kitchen or there's something's missing or whatever. The Photoshop guys can kind of get it s that weird thing out or take care of that. It's just AI the thing and it's gone. We don't charge for something like that. We charge for object   Kori Covrigaru (15:44) But as we know today, that's kind of a lasso situation. You just kind of lasso that item. We get rid of those items, and we don't charge for something like that. We charge for object removal that's   bigger. Like if there's a car in the driveway for some reason, or there's a big trash bin, we may charge a little extra   Jason Hull (16:00) Yeah.   Kori Covrigaru (16:00) for that, because that's a little more heavy. But as long as the is vacant, we can take the photos. We can clean up a little bit of a mess.   Jason Hull (16:03) Got it. Okay.   Kori Covrigaru (16:07) It's no big deal. We can do a lot more. can AI virtual stage images, too, but declutter.   Jason Hull (16:12) Okay.   Cool. Got it. I I'm sure people listening to this are like, this sounds great. This sounds really cool, but what is the cost? Is that something you can tell talk about? Yeah, the cost in and right now we we do have a membership program, so it it does impact that and we do have a prepay and save, but Okay. But the cost is a la carte. You don't have to pay like this, you know, per month subscription. It's like literally you have an   Kori Covrigaru (16:23) Yeah, the cost in right now, we do have a membership program, so it does impact that, and we do have a prepay and save, but the cost is a la carte. You don't have to pay like this per door per month subscription. It's like literally you have an order to place with   us. Great. Go on, place one order for photography only. Our minimum there is 10 photos. You can also place an order for photos and 3D tour and a floor plan.   Jason Hull (16:40) place with us, great. Go on place one order for photography only. Our minimum there is ten photos. you can also place an order for photos and three D tour and a floor plan.   Kori Covrigaru (16:50) I believe that photos, know, everything's like for, for 15 photos, a 3d tour and a 2d floor plan. We're talking under 300 bucks per property setting. 270. It's like off the rack, 15 photos, 3d.   Jason Hull (16:51) Okay. I believe that photos, you know, everything's like for f for fifteen photos, a three D tour and a two D floor plan, we're talking under three hundred bucks. Okay. Awesome. Two seventy it's like off the rack.   Yeah, that's great. And this would be easily be something that you could   offer as part of your packages or your offerings and have the owner pay for as part of the leasing process. I was gonna backtrack and say it's free. Right. Right. You should be tweaking your owner and you should be probably marking that up for all the coordination just that you do. I mean it's transparent, but we don't really support the kickbacks or or charging more and saying, you know, tell them it was more or whatever it is, but   Kori Covrigaru (17:19) I was going to backtrack and say it's free. It's free to the property manager, right? Because you should be choosing your owner and you should be probably marking that up for all the coordination, just like you would mark up in the work that you do. mean, of course, transparently, we don't really support kickbacks or charging more and saying, you know, tell them it was more or whatever it is. But yeah, this   is something that most property managers that we work for are starting to change their process, change their owner agreement to make sure that that owner   Jason Hull (17:40) Yeah, this is something that most property managers that we work for are starting to change their process, change their owner agreement to make sure that that owner   Kori Covrigaru (17:49) pays for those marketing photos and it makes sense, right? Because once that owner picks up and leaves and takes their door with them, those photos are then obsolete, right? for the property manager. it makes a lot of sense. And a lot of owners are like, yeah, of course we need professional photos to market my property.   Jason Hull (17:50) pays for those marketing photos and it makes sense, right? Because once that owner picks up and leaves and takes a vote with them, those photos are then obsolete, right? So for the for the property managers. So it makes a lot of sense. And a lot of owners are are like, Yeah, of course we need fashion for this.   Kori Covrigaru (18:04) It's my property.   Jason Hull (18:04) Yeah, obviously.   And then if they can explain everything you just explained about the benefits of this, then to their clients, the then the owners will say, Yeah, no brainer. I should do this. I'll pay the extra money.   I'll pay and mute.   Kori Covrigaru (18:16) That should be in the agreement. mean, that's something, yeah.   Jason Hull (18:20) Got it. Okay, very cool. What else do people typically ask about Planomatic or what what else are am I are we missing? Those that are listening that might usually be curious about.   Kori Covrigaru (18:30) I you know, I don't want to call it a silver bullet because I don't   know that I believe necessarily in silver bullets. Are you, are you with me on the silver bullet thing? All right, good. Just making sure. So AI virtual staging has, has provided us with significant data that shows that it works almost like a silver bullet. mean, properties with AI virtual staging just lease faster. get more showings, more, more.   Jason Hull (18:35) Silver bullets? Are you are you with me on a silver bullet thing? Yeah, yeah. So AI virtual staging has has provided us with significant data that shows that it works almost like a silver bullet. I mean, yeah. Properties with AI virtual staging just lease faster. They get more showings, more   more applications, and it's been kind of wild.   Kori Covrigaru (18:59) and it's been kind of wilder.   That's something that we've seen from our institutional folks. They take a lot more time to research ROI on specific products that we offer. one of the...   Jason Hull (19:02) That's something that we've seen from our institutional folks. They take a lot more time   to research on RLI on specific products that we offer. So everybody knows kind of what staging is, right? If you're selling a home and it's usually a more expensive home, you call a company a staging company and they'll bring a big U-Haul with a bunch of furniture and they'll come and they'll drop it off and they'll put it in, and then you'll have your listing photos taken, right? Because listing photos look so much better.   Kori Covrigaru (19:12) Yeah. So everybody knows kind of what staging is, right? If you're selling a home and it's usually a more expensive home, you call a company, a staging company, and they'll bring a big U-Haul with a bunch of furniture and they'll come and they'll drop it off and they'll put it in. And then you'll have your listing photos taken, right? Because listing photos look so much better with   furniture. Well, for the longest time, we've been able to virtually stage real estate photos. We've had to do it with a human being and that costs a lot. You know, that costs a lot.   Jason Hull (19:32) furniture, well for the longest time we've been able to virtually stage real estate photos. We've had to do it with a human being and that's cost a lot, you know, that   costs a lot more money. But today the advances of AI and we see it all you know commercials on TV and everything, we can virtually stage and by virtual stage I mean s like take a a photo of a vacant room. Yeah. Go go to our staging vendor, a software company, click a button, choose   Kori Covrigaru (19:42) But today, with the advances of AI and we see it all over commercials on TV and everything, we can virtually stage. And by virtually stage, mean, take a photo of a vacant room, go to our staging vendor, a software company, click a button, choose between   Jason Hull (20:00) between various different styles for staging. Okay. And then it actually places that furniture in the image and and you and it looks like s it's scary how real   Kori Covrigaru (20:00) various different styles for staging. And then it actually places that furniture in the image and it looks like it's scary how real it looks.   Jason Hull (20:09) it looks. Right, yeah. And so when you have when they have properties that are are staged or virtually staged, and we label them virtually staged just   Kori Covrigaru (20:11) And so when you have, when you have properties that are staged or virtually staged and we label them virtually staged just to make sure that.   Jason Hull (20:18) to make sure that you've got the virtual staging in the photos. Does this show up in the three D tour or stuff like that? It doesn't show up in the three D tour. It does however show   Kori Covrigaru (20:25) doesn't show up in the 3d tour. does, however, show up   in the photography carousel, of course. And we typically have like a before and after. It allows for the potential renter to envision their lives in that, versus seeing it as an empty box. So naturally there's been more, we've all looked for real estate before and we've clicked through properties and when the photos are bad, it's you kind of move on. Cause like you don't stuff in that mess, right?   Jason Hull (20:31) Got it. I mean we have like a before and after. It it it allows for the potential renter to envision their lives. Right, they can imagine it. Versus seeing it as an empty box. So naturally they're gonna spend more we all looked for real estate before and we've clicked through properties and photos of that it's you kinda move on. Yeah, yeah. You don't withten that mess,   right? When it's nicer photos you stop and and so the the furniture really helps the potential rent to stop spending more time   Kori Covrigaru (20:53) When it's nicer photos, you stop. so the furniture really helps the potential renter stop, spend more time on that listing   and eventually get more showings and more applications.   Jason Hull (21:02) Sure. Yeah. I've moved into places and you know, seeing how they had it decorated before or seeing photos how they decorate it gave me an idea of, we could do something like this, or here's what I want to change. Because you're not starting with just this blank slate and trying to be creative. And so yeah, I think it helps people's imagination so they can picture their life in there. Okay,   Kori Covrigaru (21:23) Yep. It just cause you to stop, you know.   Jason Hull (21:25) cool. And there's you you were citing there's evidence.   that virtual staging significantly increases the results as well. So not just having good photos, but also good photos that are virtually staged, you're now maximizing the the return on this. And the and the virtual staging that that's   Kori Covrigaru (21:41) And the virtual staging, that's really inexpensive.   I think it's 36 bucks for three rooms, if I'm not mistaken.   Jason Hull (21:46) It's thirty six bucks for three rooms. Yeah.   Kori Covrigaru (21:49) So it's like a huge ROI   Jason Hull (21:51) Cool.   Kori Covrigaru (21:52) to order virtual staging on top of your professional photo.   Jason Hull (21:54) Sure, a lot cheaper than real staging.   Kori Covrigaru (21:58) Where'd you go?   Jason Hull (21:59) So yeah, got it. Very cool. anything else that we're missing about Planomatic? Sounds very cool. Yeah.   Kori Covrigaru (22:05) Yeah, no, I mean, I'm again, been an   entrepreneur for about 22 years. We have a high focus on, on client communication and client support. So that's one thing that's like paramount for me. I always tell my team, it's better to know that nothing is happening than to not know something is happening, meaning keep the customer updated. You know, even if we don't have the resolution yet for you, like we'll figure it out or we're working on it. So when you work with us, you really understand those, that's part of our core values. really.   Jason Hull (22:10) we have a high focus on on client communication and client support. So that's one thing that's like paramount for me. I always tell my team it's better to know that nothing is happening than to not know something is happening. Meaning keep the customer updated. Yeah. You know, even if we don't have the resolution yet for you, like we'll figure it out or we're working on it. So what when you work with us, you really understand those that's part of our core values. It   really emulates through the entire organization. So that's really important to us. Our integration, of course, is is really important and allows for   Kori Covrigaru (22:30) emulates through the entire organization. So that's really important to us. Our integration, of course, is really important and allows for our customers to   be able to transact with us. Again, business 101, make it as easy as possible for your customers to transact with you. So we've tried to make that a reality. And then, know, we're business owners, we're a small business, just like you all are, you know, just like you are, Jason, just like our property management clients are. And we just want to...   Jason Hull (22:39) To be able to transact with us, make our business one on one, make it as easy as possible for your customers to transact with you. So we've tried to make that a reality. and then you know, we're we're business owners, we're small business just like just like you all are. We're not just like you are, Jason, just like our our our property management clients are. and   we just wanna be successful in helping our clients make more money and and gain more market share, and and that's what we strive for every day. So we have the same   Kori Covrigaru (22:59) be successful in helping our clients make more money and gain more market share. And that's what we strive for every day. So we have the same struggles,   but same successes that every business owner does. We're not PE-backed or VC-backed.   Jason Hull (23:08) Same struggles, but same successes does with the RP backed or PC backed on P back back.   Got it. So I know there's a lot of people listening that are gonna think, because I hear this all the time, even with with what we do at DoorGrow, will this work in my market? I'm in a big city, will this work in my market? I'm in a small town. How do you source photographers? So before you answer that, I'm gonna share a quick word from our sponsor. So our sponsor today is Vendoroo. So if you're working with   Door grow, you're growing doors, right? And that means you have to keep figuring out how to keep up with the maintenance. So instead of doing that, we recommend that you use Vendoroo to have maintenance figured out for you with AI. Some of our clients are getting 85%, 95% of their maintenance coordination handled by Vendoroo, which is amazing. Vendoroo brings the best practices, workflows, and AI intelligence. They've developed across hundreds of property management operations and puts it into work, into your business.   It's an AI that answers the phone. It troubleshoots with residents. It coordinates vendors. It does follow-up. It drives the work order all the way to completion. It could probably work with Plan O Matic, right? So as you add doors, you don't have to keep reinventing maintenance. Let Vendoroo build your maintenance for you. Like so many of our DoorGrow community members have already done. You focus on growing your doors. Build an AI-first maintenance department that will scale with you forever.   Use Vendoro. Cool. All right. So tell us how do you handle photographers? Because some people are thinking, well, this might be hard in my town. They who do they know in, you know, Podunksville, you know, wherever I'm at, you know. Or they might think I'm in a really big city and maybe photographers, there's challenges with getting good ones and they're so expensive or w whatnot.   Kori Covrigaru (25:01) You hire a team to, you know, to   Jason Hull (25:02) You hire a team to to you know.   Kori Covrigaru (25:04) onboard, to hire, to onboard, maintain these contract photographers nationwide. That's kind of what we've   Jason Hull (25:09) Yeah.   Kori Covrigaru (25:09) done. we've perfected that, almost perfected that. I think one really important thing to note about us is we try to make it as simple as possible for our photographers to work with us from all the software. And it hasn't historically been that way and we're getting closer to it, but what software do they have to download and register for on our system?   Jason Hull (25:13) Almost almost perfected that. Yeah. One really important thing to note about us is we try to make it as simple as possible for our photographers to work with us from all the software and and and it hasn't historically been that way. We'll get any closer to it, but what software do they have to download and register for on our system?   Yeah. what specifics, like how are the instructions given out? What about access to to you know these doors and and I'm not talking about just one method. It's like there are so many different methods.   Kori Covrigaru (25:30) What specifics, like how are the instructions given out? What about access to these doors? And we're not talking about just one method. It's like there are so many different methods. I'm trying to key   box, so there's a key hidden. There's this, there's that. Call this number, get this code, right? So it's just a lot. I mean, we've been doing this since 2004. We've been in the SFR space since 2012, handling hundreds of shoots a day.   Jason Hull (25:41) trying to key box so there's a key hidden there's this there's that call this number get this code right so it's just a lot I mean we've been doing this since 2004 we've been in the SFR space since 2012 handling hundreds of shoots a   day for larger companies and smaller companies and so there's a lot a lot of its experience of just like okay here are all the you know here are all the edge cases this is what you do in this case and also just being available for them to pay them of course enough to make it make sense but we have   Kori Covrigaru (25:56) for larger companies and smaller companies. And so there's a lot of experience of just like, okay, here are all the edge cases. This is what you do in this case. And also just being available for them. You have to pay them, of course, enough to make it make sense, but we have to pay them enough   for the business to operate, right? So it's a very delicate, it's the hardest thing that we do is find quality photographers, educate them, onboard them, maintain them, and then keep them happy.   Jason Hull (26:11) good enough for the business to operate, right? So it's a very delicate it's a har it's the hardest thing that we do is is find quality photographers, educate them, onboard them, maintain them and keep them happy. Yeah. it's   Kori Covrigaru (26:25) It's as tough as it sounds. And it doesn't matter if it's a small market or a huge market. Huge markets with a lot of people have their own challenges. There's traffic, there's cost of living, it's higher. Small markets, you don't have all that, know, it's to find quality people   Jason Hull (26:26) it's as tough as it sounds and and it doesn't matter if it's the small market or a or a huge market, but you huge markets with a lot of people have their own challenges. There's traffic, there's cost of living to hire small markets, you know, have all that you know, hardly fine   Kori Covrigaru (26:41) in the specific industry. it's just, hire the right people to take care of our great network of planet tech.   Jason Hull (26:40) quality people in the specific industry. So it's just hire the right people our great network with planetary. Yeah.   This is some of the magic that you've spent a lot of time dealing with. And I'm sure people that have tried going and getting a photographer, tried doing it themselves, tried editing photos, like that is just so time intensive, so much work. And if you're a business owner doing this stuff, that's the dumbest trade you could ever make. You should offload that, get that off your plate because the speed of you is the speed of the business and the team.   And you should calculate your time as worth the the top line revenue of the company and what that comes out to per hour. And so you should not be doing this stuff. So now another challenge that people deal with, and I don't know if there's a way your system addresses this, but there's been a lot of challenges with scammers stealing photos from people's listings, putting up other listings elsewhere, tricking people into giving money. Is there any way we can combat that through   Kori Covrigaru (27:37) No.   Jason Hull (27:38) the photography?   Kori Covrigaru (27:39) You know, I think with general awareness around how sort of the internet works and how, and the general awareness of what AI   Jason Hull (27:40) But I think with general awareness around how sort of the internet works and how to t and and the general awareness   Kori Covrigaru (27:46) is capable of, I think people are more skeptical these days. I don't think everybody's just sending out checks and routing numbers and checking numbers. Cause we hear, I'll be honest, we hear less noise about it lately. And I think it's around the awareness. Historically, you know, we, we watermark photos. can watermark photos, however you, you know, property   Jason Hull (27:48) skeptical these days, right? Yeah. Everybody's just sending out checks and routing numbers and 'cause we hear we hear less noise about it lately and I think it's awareness. historically, you know, we we watermark photos, we can watermark photos   Kori Covrigaru (28:05) manager wants to watermark photos.   AI today, you can get rid of those watermarks in like a half a second, Free AI account. So man, it's changing rapidly right now. I don't have a recommendation that will just solve all of those problems. think that you have to be very careful. I would still watermark. You have to be careful where you put your images. There are applications out there like...   Jason Hull (28:08) Photos with AI today, you can give rid of those watermarks. Yeah. Yeah. So man, it's it's it's changing rapidly right now. I don't have a a a recommendation that will just solve all of those problems. I think that I mean you have to be very careful. I s I would still watermark, you have to be careful where you put your images. there are there are applications out there like   Kori Covrigaru (28:34) invisible watermarks that you can kind of track across.   Jason Hull (28:35) invisible watermarks and you can add it. Yeah,   I've heard about the invisible watermarks lately. Claude and some of these tools   Kori Covrigaru (28:40) Yeah.   Jason Hull (28:40) are adding invisible watermarks to stuff, to text, to images, to things that are created. So people will go, this was created by AI. Here's where it came from. I think it's a matter of educating your your potential renters. I think it's a lot a lot it's you know still   Kori Covrigaru (28:48) Yeah. I think it's a matter of educating your potential renters. think it's a lot of it's, know, Zillow has to make it,   has to educate their users, right, to make sure that people aren't just going and sending random checks out and putting it all over the listing media and all over your brochure and description. I think it's really important. If you're a renter, don't go on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. Stick to the internet listing services that are, you know, tried and true, I think.   Jason Hull (29:11) stick to the listing services that are you know tried and true.   Kori Covrigaru (29:19) I think that's the most important thing is like just watch where you put your listings, make sure it's reputable.   Jason Hull (29:20) Think that's the most important thing. It's like just watch where you put your listings, make sure it's reputable. Very cool. Love   it. So, Corey, tell us a little bit about the philosophy that you try to instill with your company, with the people that are in your business, like maybe the values that that you guys espouse. Give people a feel for what the culture is like at Planomatic. We are exceptionally client for meaning, I don't like to say no.   Kori Covrigaru (29:41) We are exceptionally client forward, meaning I don't like to say no to clients. I like to ask   more questions and I don't like giving an update without a resolution that's coming up. And I get copied on a lot. I drive my team nuts, Jason. I mean, I drive work because I'll reply to a random support ticket or response from our team. I'll just, I'll.   Jason Hull (30:00) Yeah. I'll reply to a random support ticket or or response from our team and I'll just   Kori Covrigaru (30:08) I'll reach out to that team member and I think there's a better way we could have handled this reply. And if I'm the customer, like, when are you getting back to me?   Jason Hull (30:08) I'll I'll reach out to that team member and say, hey, I think there's a better way we could have handled this reply. If I'm the if one of the customers are like, when are you getting back to me?   Kori Covrigaru (30:15) Right. And I think that's like most important again, it's, better to know, like everybody hears it from me. It's better to know that nothing is happening than to not know that something is happening. And so we have this, we have this phrase we use, we hold the client at the center of the organization, no matter what. one thing I haven't talked about recently, but I think it's really cool. And it's something that we've kind of put in place in 2020 or 2021 is we have personas.   Jason Hull (30:17) And I think that's like the most important. Again, it's it's better to know like everybody hears it from better to know that nothing to not know that something is happening. So we have this we have this phrase we use, we hold the client at the center of the organization no matter what. one thing I haven't talked about recently, but I think it's really cool and it's something that we've we kind of put in place in twenty twenty twenty or twenty twenty-one is   Kori Covrigaru (30:37) our customers, they're real names, right? So we started out with Emma. Emma is our enterprise client. Emma is typically a   Jason Hull (30:37) percent of our customers. They're real names, right? So we start out with Emma. Emma is our enterprise client. Emma is typically   Kori Covrigaru (30:46) single family rental owner operator. Emma raises money through institutional capital, whether that be publicly traded on Wall Street or private equity money or pension plans.   Jason Hull (30:47) A single family rental owner operator. Emma raises money through institutional capital, whether that be publicly traded on Wall Street or private equity money or pension plans.   Emma is usually a customer that uses his own software and integrates directly with our platform. Emma has this National Rental Home Council, Emma Emma. So   Kori Covrigaru (30:57) Emma is usually a customer that uses her own software and integrates directly with our platform. Emma has this National Rental Home Council, Emma, Emma, Emma. And then we have Paul.   Jason Hull (31:09) these are your customer, you've got customer avatars so that when you are building out your products and services.   you are have them in mind and you know these categories of clients or buyers of your services will, you know, maybe perceive it a certain way and the product's geared towards these personalities. That's exactly right. And we we   Kori Covrigaru (31:27) That's exactly right. And we, we talk about   Emma and Paul all day long. It's just natural. Like I'll, I'll be talking to. So Paul, Paul is when we got into,   Jason Hull (31:33) Tell us about Paul. Who's Paul?   Kori Covrigaru (31:37) servicing the third party property manager that manages,   Jason Hull (31:40) Well you're breaking up a little bit. Say that again.   Kori Covrigaru (31:43) when we, when we started servicing the third party property manager, you know, a smaller business that, that manages 50 to up to, you know, a thousand doors.   Jason Hull (31:45) When we when we started servicing the third party property manager, you know, a a smaller business that that manages fifty to up to you know a thousand   doors, that persona was so different, and we named that persona Paul, Paul the property manager. Okay. Paul uses folio or building arm or or rent client or rent manager, right? Paul doesn't own their properties, they have clients. Paul's typically smaller, Paul's usually regional. Paul goes to the n national rental.   Kori Covrigaru (31:55) that persona was so different and we named that persona Paul, Paul the property manager. So Paul uses Azzolio or Bildium or Rentvine or Rent Manager, right? Paul doesn't own their properties, they have clients. Paul's typically smaller, Paul's usually regional. Paul goes to National   Association of Residential Property Management conferences, NARPAM.   Jason Hull (32:15) National Association of Residential Property Management Conferences. Not that   and and so those are important to like know what each customer wants. The real value is that we've like humanized our clients. Yeah. It's no longer client or or you know ACE property management company wants this. No, it's it's Paul. It's it's it like we have these personas, we have these images of what Paul might look like and what Emma might look like. And so it really helps the team   Kori Covrigaru (32:19) And so those are important to know what each customer wants, but the real value is that we've humanized our clients. It's no longer the client or Ace property management company wants this. No, it's Paul. We have these personas, we have these images of what Paul might look like and what Emma might look like. And so it really helps the team   humanize the customer and realize that we're talking to human beings.   Jason Hull (32:44) humanize the customer and and realize that we're we're talking   to human beings. These are real people not just folks behind the screen or whatever it is. Yeah, I love it. Every every small small examples of things that we've done, one of our core values is we create genuine relationships, right? Our customers. We love we love that core value. So everything that we do, it's just like the longer you're in a business, the more you realize that communication and support, how you   Kori Covrigaru (32:48) real people, they're not just folks behind the screen or whatever it is. And so every small examples of things that we've done, one of our core values is we create genuine relationships, right? With our customers. We love that core value. So everything that we do, it's just like the longer you're in business, the more you realize that communication and support and how you, it's not how you   treat the customer when things are going well, it's how you.   Jason Hull (33:13) It's not how you treat the customer when things are   going well, it's how you treat the customer, communicate to the customer when things aren't ideal. How you get back on track. Get the client to say, you know what? That got screwed up really, but they took such good care of me so quickly and they gave me this and they got out back for property that. That's what brings customers back more and more. It's not it's not, you know I I believe. Actually that's what keeps me buying from the same, you know, vendor or from the same board is if I'm treated.   Kori Covrigaru (33:16) treat the customer and communicate to customer when things aren't ideal. How do you get back on track? You get the client to say, you know what, that got screwed up royally, but they took such good care of me so quickly and they gave me this and they got out back to the property that, that's what brings customers back more and more. It's not, it's not, you know, I believe actually that's what keeps me buying from the same, you know, vendor or from the same, or as if I'm treated   with respect and communicated with respect and that's what   Jason Hull (33:45) Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great tip for those listening to map out your ideal customer profile or your ideal client profile. Map out the avatars that you tend to serve. There's usually a small category of clients that are the ones you're really going after that you're serving. this is true in any business. And the more clear and the more you humanize them and the more you realize what their strengths, what their challenges are, what their pains, their frustrations, their concerns are.   And you map this out, the better you're going to be able to do marketing, target them, create your sales presentation, scripts, pitches, whatever you're doing to be more effective and to teach your team about them so they understand these different avatars. And so yeah, we've done the same thing at DoorGro. We have very clear avatars that we target and that we focus on. And yeah, and we gear our products towards directly towards those avatars and what their challenges are. So love that. It's a great tip to share.   and I love the the I the the focus on relationships, which I think is is paramount. So cool. Well Corey, great stuff. Really appreciate you coming on, telling us about Planomatic. How can people find Planomatic and how can they get started? the easiest way is just planomatic.com, just like it's spelled. you can   Kori Covrigaru (34:59) The easiest way is just planomatic.com, just like it's spelled. You can email me always   at k-o-r-i at planomatic.com. You can also find us in the marketplace on Atfolio's marketplace, Buildium's marketplace as well. We're all over Narpoem, so if you come to our show, come find us. We're usually in one of the bigger booths because we're preferred partners with Narpoem. So it's not too hard to find us. Go to our website, check us out, reach out to me. Always happy to hear from classic.   Jason Hull (35:13) in this marketplace as well. We're all over Narbum. So if you come to a show, come find us. we're usually in one of the bigger booths because we're for partners with Narbum. So it's not too hard to find us. Go to our website, check us out, reach out to me.   Always happy to hear from class prospects as well as existing clients. Any feedback anybody has that's another things we ask for.   Kori Covrigaru (35:27) Prospects as well as existing clients any feedback anybody has that's another things we ask for a hell of a lot of feedback often   too much But yeah easy to find and we welcome everybody   Jason Hull (35:36) But yeah, easy to find. Cool,   awesome. Tell them that you heard about them from the DoorGro Show podcast if you see this.   Kori Covrigaru (35:42) Talon, DoorGro, I've got a special coupon if you tell me you heard about us   from the DoorGro show. I'll hook it up.   Jason Hull (35:49) Cool.   Awesome. We appreciate that. So that he'll give you a special deal. All right. Very cool. Well, Corey, thanks for being here. Appreciate you coming on the DoorGrow show. For those that are enjoying this or watch our show, if you've ever felt stuck or stagnant, you want to take your property management business to that next level. You've been hitting a wall. You've been frustrated for a while. You've tried different marketing channels. You feel like you're just getting sold a bill of goods sometimes. You're just you're frustrated.   Reach out to us at doorgrow.com, we can help. So for a free training on how to get unlimited free leads, text the word leads to 512-648-4608. Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners by going to doorgrowclub.com. You can also join that by going to getting our DoorGrow Hub app that is in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.   And if you want tips, tricks, or ideas and to learn about our offer, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgrow.com/slash subscribe. And if you found this episode even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'd really appreciate it. It helps us out. Until next time, remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone, all by yourself. So let's grow together. Bye everyone.  

What does it mean to be a "Viking" in 2026? Daniel Farrand and in-house archaeologist Mags Haggar sit down with fitness creator and storyteller Tank Tolman to examine the divide between historical Norse reality and modern warrior culture. Historically, "víking" was a seasonal maritime raid, not an ethnic identity.Today, however, millions look to Norse archetypes to reclaim discipline and mental resilience. The trio breaks down why toxic, shame-based "alpha" gym culture fails, how the Hávamál champions hospitality and self-control, and why the ancient concept of the drengr—honour, loyalty, and quiet competence—is what modern seekers are actually searching for.Tank also explains how his gamified tabletop fitness community helps beginners build lifelong physical strength without shame.Unlock 300+ back-catalogue episodes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/nordicmythologypodcastHandcrafted historical goods: https://www.hornsofodin.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's show we're going to talk about a Washington Supreme Court decision that, on the surface, is about natural gas.But I think the much more interesting story is what this ruling could mean for the way laws are written, and by extension, for real estate investors trying to understand the rules under which they are making long-term investment decisions.The case is called Climate Solutions versus State of Washington. On September 17, the Washington Supreme Court struck down Initiative 2066, a ballot initiative that Washington voters had approved in 2024. The initiative was broadly aimed at protecting access to natural gas and limiting government policies that would discourage its use.But the court did not strike it down because of the merits of natural gas policy.It struck it down because of the way the initiative was constructed.Washington's Constitution contains a remarkably simple sentence. Article II, Section 19 says:“No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.” Historically, courts have allowed fairly broad legislation. A bill dealing with transportation, for example, can obviously contain provisions governing roads, transit, bridges and funding.But the Washington court emphasized that it is not enough for every provision merely to relate to some enormously broad title.There must be what the court calls vertical rational unity — the provisions have to relate to the overall subject of the legislation.But there must also be horizontal rational unity. In other words, the provisions need to relate meaningfully to each other.43 states have similar single subject provisions in their constitution. So this is not just a Washington issue. This ruling will likely be cited in other jurisdictions. ------------**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

Is the market beginning to rotate from mega-cap growth stocks into value? Our Factor Rotation model has shifted away from large-cap growth and toward value as the gap between overbought growth stocks and oversold value stocks widens. Large-cap growth has been exceptionally strong, with MGK reaching new highs and becoming increasingly overbought. Meanwhile, VTV and large-cap value stocks have been under pressure, leaving parts of the value market significantly oversold. Historically, extremes like these can set the stage for capital to rotate between market sectors and styles. That does not mean a market crash or correction is imminent. Instead, the model suggests investors may be starting to take profits in some heavily weighted mega-cap growth names while moving capital toward more defensive and value-oriented stocks. Lance Roberts explains what the latest momentum signal and Factor Rotation model are showing, why growth-versus-value matters, and what investors with heavy technology exposure may want to watch next. Hosted by RIA Chief Investment Strategist, Lance Roberts, CIO Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer --- Watch the Video version of this report on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/46Y-k5LfWxA --- Get more info & commentary: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/insights/real-investment-daily/ --- Do you enjoy our content? Rate us on Google: https://bit.ly/4b9JtEo --- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN --- Subscribe to SimpleVisor : https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new --- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #StockMarket #Investing #GrowthStocks #ValueStocks #MarketRotation

Adam Crowley and Dorin Dickerson react to this shocking reality about the Pirates' 2026 season.

Chris Sullivan with a Chokepoint: The Kingston Ferry terminal ticket booth change was successful in some ways, but also needs a little more work // Mike Dobuski with Tech Tuesday: Meta has a new AI agent out, and its receiving backlash // Patrick De Haan from Gas Buddy on historic high prices for diesel // Charlie Harger Commentary on initiatives against natural gas in Washington // David Fahrenthold on the White House blocking several news organizations from access to the White House Pool // Art Dahlen on his organization "Battlefield Addiction" and what they do to help addicts in Seattle get clean // Gee Scott with takeaways from Sunday's Seahawks victory

In hour three, a list of trick plays the Dolphins might need to consider using vs. the Chiefs. Accepting the fact that 0-17 is on the table for the Miami Dolphins this season. Plus, the studs ... but mostly duds ... from the Dolphins' Week 2 loss in San Fran.

San Francisco 49ers postgame reaction and locker room intel following a dominant win over the Miami Dolphins at Levi's Stadium. David Lombardi breaks down Brock Purdy's historic near-perfect QBR performance, Christian McCaffrey's 100th career touchdown, and the latest injury updates on Mike Evans and Demarcus Robinson. Plus, we dive into the 49ers' defensive adjustments, the pass rush led by Nick Bosa, Fred Warner's impact, and exclusive postgame locker room reaction from Trent Williams, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk and Brock Purdy. Timestamps: 00:00 - Mike Evans Injury Update & Locker Room Intel 00:30 - Brock Purdy's Historic Performance 02:02 - Christian McCaffrey's 100th Career TD & Purdy Reaction 03:47 - George Kittle & Kyle Juszczyk Postgame Press Conference 05:40 - First-Half Challenges & Run Defense Adjustments 07:18 - Purdy's Growth, Mick Lombardi Offseason Work & Key Plays 09:12 - 49ers WR Injury Updates: Robinson, Pearsall & Kirk 10:31 - Defensive Line Updates & Fred Warner on the Run Defense 13:43 - Brock Purdy Throwing Chart & Defensive Standouts 16:32 - Kyle Juszczyk's Full-Circle Touchdown Moment 17:48 - Trent Williams Exclusive Locker Room Interview #49ers #FTTB #BrockPurdy #SanFrancisco49ers #NFL #ChristianMcCaffrey #TrentWilliams #GeorgeKittle #MikeEvans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Understanding the Supply Shock The Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates in line with market expectations. Because interest rates had already moved higher ahead of the decision, the increase itself was largely anticipated and had already been reflected in financial markets. The move also followed rate increases from other major central banks, including the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. The more important question is what comes next. Historically, raising interest rates can be an effective tool for addressing inflation caused by strong demand. Higher borrowing costs make it more expensive to finance purchases, which can encourage consumers and businesses to delay spending. In turn, that reduces current demand and can help bring supply and demand back into balance. This creates a challenge when inflation is being driven by a supply shock. The current pressure in oil markets is an example. The issue is not necessarily that consumers suddenly want more gasoline. Rather, there is a constraint on the amount of oil available. Consumers still need to purchase gasoline even when prices rise, meaning higher interest rates do little to address the underlying supply shortage. That creates a difficult combination. Interest rate increases raise the cost of borrowing at the same time that the cost of essential goods and energy is increasing. If the current rate increase remains a one-time move, its impact may be relatively limited. A prolonged rate-hiking cycle, however, could create additional pressure without directly addressing the supply-side factors driving prices higher. Another development to watch is the relationship between the United States and China, particularly as the two countries navigate the global energy market. China is one of the world’s largest oil consumers and also produces significant amounts of refined petroleum products for export. Discussions between the two countries could have implications for global energy supply, tariffs and other geopolitical issues. The combination of energy prices, monetary policy and geopolitical developments makes the coming months an important period for investors to monitor. The Impact of Energy on Inflation Energy prices are one of the most visible ways consumers experience inflation. With gasoline prices around $4 per gallon in the Birmingham area and higher prices being seen across much of the country, energy costs are increasingly noticeable in household budgets. Consumers are particularly sensitive to gasoline prices because there is not always an immediate substitute. Higher prices can therefore have a direct impact on day-to-day spending and become an increasingly prominent part of the broader inflation discussion. One important measure to understand is Personal Consumption Expenditures, or PCE. PCE measures the prices paid by U.S. consumers for goods and services and is one of the inflation measures closely monitored by the Federal Reserve. Energy spending currently represents roughly 4% of total U.S. PCE. That percentage is significantly lower than it was during some previous periods, including the 1980s and early 2000s, when energy represented a much larger share of consumer expenditures. That distinction is important when considering the global impact of higher oil prices. While U.S. consumers certainly feel higher energy costs, the effect can be substantially greater in emerging economies where households devote a larger portion of their disposable income to energy. The total amount the United States spends on oil also provides useful perspective. U.S. oil consumption has generally remained around 20 million barrels per day in recent years, outside of the unusual conditions of 2020. At an average price per barrel, that translates into hundreds of billions of dollars in annual oil expenditures. When oil prices rise, the total amount spent on energy increases significantly even if consumption remains relatively steady. At approximately $80 per barrel, for example, annual expenditures are substantially higher than at lower price levels. At $100 per barrel, the increase becomes even more pronounced. That additional spending has broader economic implications because more consumer and business dollars are directed toward energy rather than other goods and services. As the year progresses, the path of oil prices will therefore remain an important factor in the inflation outlook. If energy prices remain elevated, consumers are likely to continue feeling that pressure, particularly as the economy moves toward the midterm election year. Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller, AIF® Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Shocks and Demand first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

fWotD Episode 3424: Ashton-under-Lyne Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Saturday, 19 September 2026, is Ashton-under-Lyne.Ashton-under-Lyne, also known simply as Ashton, is a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom. The population was 48,604 at the 2021 census. Historically a part of Lancashire, it is on the north bank of the River Tame, in the foothills of the Pennines, six miles (ten kilometres) east of Manchester.Evidence of Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Viking activity has been discovered in Ashton-under-Lyne. The "Ashton" part of the town's name probably dates from the Anglo-Saxon period, and derives from Old English meaning "settlement by ash trees". The origin of the "under-Lyne" suffix is less clear; it possibly derives from the Brittonic-originating word lemo meaning elm or from Ashton's proximity to the Pennines. In the Middle Ages, Ashton-under-Lyne was a parish and township and Ashton Old Hall was held by the de Asshetons, lords of the manor. The town became a market town from 1414 when the manor was granted a royal charter.The introduction of the cotton trade in 1769 transformed Ashton both economically and geographically, with the town being replanned in a grid. The factory system, and textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution triggered a process of unplanned urbanisation in the area, and by the mid-19th century Ashton had emerged as an important mill town at a convergence of newly constructed canals and railways. Ashton-under-Lyne's transport network allowed for an economic boom in cotton spinning, weaving, and coal mining, which led to the granting of municipal borough status in 1847. The population grew from 2,859 in 1775 to 34,886 in 1861, two-thirds of its modern-day size, as a direct result of this extensive industrialisation.The town saw significant economic decline in the 1920s, with the majority of its mills closing due to insufficient exports. Nevertheless, the town has continued to thrive as a centre of commerce, and Ashton Market is one of the largest outdoor markets in the United Kingdom. In response to high levels of unemployment and deprivation since the town's deindustrialisation, Ashton-under-Lyne underwent extensive regeneration over the course of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Modelled on the nearby town of Hyde, this included both local infrastructure improvements and a focus on training and education. The bus and tram networks were integrated into a single hub which opened in 2020, with plans to connect the National Rail station as well. A second wave of local regeneration has begun in the 2020s, with mayor Andy Burnham designating the area as a Mayoral Development Zone, and promising investment into housing, businesses, and green space. Ashton Town Centre is now home to the Ashton Arcades shopping centre (opened 1995), a large IKEA store (opened 2006), and Ashton Market (reopened 2008), which was voted the best in the country in 2014. Further development of the outdoor market is continuing with the replacement of over 100 stalls by a canopied area with cabins and stalls.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:29 UTC on Saturday, 19 September 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Ashton-under-Lyne on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Emma.

A newly premiered Chinese counterintelligence TV drama Jiaofeng has captured widespread attention on both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Jiaofeng, which means “clash” in Chinese, chronicles a two-decade-long saga of how spies from Taiwan conducting espionage operations on the mainland are brought to justice.近日，一部新上映的中国反间谍电视剧《交锋》在中国大陆和台湾地区均引发广泛关注。该剧剧名“交锋”意为“较量、对抗”，讲述了台湾间谍在大陆从事间谍活动并最终受到法律制裁的二十年间谍斗争故事。Produced with guidance from the Ministry of State Security, the drama draws from numerous real-life cases, shedding light on the covert battles which are often overlooked.该剧在国家安全机关指导下制作，取材于大量真实案件，展现了那些常常被忽视的隐蔽战线斗争。It portrays a team of national security police officers who are skilled, courageous and committed to combating spy operations, choosing to remain unsung heroes.剧中塑造了一批国家安全警察形象，他们专业过硬、勇敢坚定，致力于打击间谍活动，却选择成为默默无闻的英雄。It also offers a nuanced depiction of spies from the Taiwan island, avoiding a stereotyped narrative.该剧同时也对来自台湾地区的间谍进行了较为细致的刻画，避免了简单化、脸谱化的叙事方式。The popularity of the drama stems not only from the twists and turns in its intricate plot, detailed authenticity and well-developed characters but also from insights it offers into the current situation across the Taiwan Strait and the trajectory of cross-Strait relations.《交锋》的热播，不仅源于其跌宕起伏的剧情、细致的真实性以及丰满的人物塑造，也在于其对当前台海形势和两岸关系发展走向提供的思考。Historically and legally, Taiwan has been an integral part of China since ancient times.从历史和法律角度看，台湾自古以来是中国不可分割的一部分。Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share common origins, culture and ethnicity, forming a community with a shared future.海峡两岸同胞拥有共同的血脉、文化和民族渊源，形成了休戚与共的共同体。The deep-rooted kinship, cultural ties and people-to-people bonds between the two sides have endured through time and can never be severed.两岸之间深厚的亲缘关系、文化联系和民间纽带历经岁月延续，无法割裂。In the TV drama, a poignant scene unfolds when the seriously ill father of a spy in Taiwan urges him to reconnect with relatives on the Chinese mainland.剧中有一幕令人动容：一名台湾间谍身患重病的父亲劝说儿子重新与大陆亲属取得联系。This plea to seek family roots shows that many families on the Taiwan island have their origins in the Chinese mainland. Such blood ties and family affections cannot be separated by the Strait.这份寻根的请求展现出，台湾许多家庭都源自中国大陆。这种血缘联系和亲情纽带，不会因为一道海峡而被割断。The Democratic Progressive Party authorities have long promoted "de-Sinicization" education in Taiwan, attempting to distort the national and ethnic identity of residents, especially young people on the island.长期以来，民进党当局在台湾推动“去中国化”教育，试图改变岛内居民，尤其是年轻人的国家和民族认同。But compatriots both on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan are families connected by blood, and political manipulation by the DPP authority cannot alter the immutable fact that people on both sides of the Strait are Chinese.但两岸同胞血脉相连，民进党当局的政治操作无法改变两岸民众同属中华民族这一事实。Peace, a universal aspiration of humanity, is also the shared wish of people on both sides of the Strait.和平是全人类共同追求的目标，也是两岸民众共同的愿望。As depicted in the TV drama, the mainland resolutely counters infiltration attempts of spies from Taiwan, aiming to eliminate the separatist undercurrents that disrupt peace, promote the reunification of families and prevent conflict.正如电视剧所展现的那样，大陆坚决防范和打击来自台湾方面的渗透活动，旨在消除破坏和平的分裂倾向，促进两岸家庭团聚，避免冲突发生。The DPP authorities, however, obstinately pursue their separatist "Taiwan independence" agenda through military means, attempting to stoke tensions and create turbulence.然而，民进党当局通过军事手段推动其“台独”议程，试图制造紧张局势和不稳定。They have increased the island's defense budget for 2027 to an all-time high of NT$1.12 trillion ($35.4 billion), pushing Taiwan's defense budget to cross the NT$1 trillion mark for the first time.据报道，民进党当局已将台湾2027年的防务预算提高至创纪录的1.12万亿新台币（约354亿美元），使台湾防务预算首次突破1万亿新台币。Such reckless and belligerent policies will only deplete Taiwan's resources and further escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait.这种被批评为冒险和强硬的政策只会消耗台湾资源，并进一步加剧台海紧张局势。Mainstream public opinion in Taiwan favors peace over conflict, development over recession, cross-Strait exchanges over hostility, and dialogue over confrontation.台湾社会主流舆论倾向于和平而非冲突、发展而非衰退、两岸交流而非对立、对话而非对抗。Yet, driven by separatist ambitions, DPP leader Lai Ching-te moves against public opinion, fully exposing his role as a “Taiwan independence” advocate and saboteur of peace.然而，在分裂主张推动下，民进党领导人赖清德采取与上述民意相悖的行动，被文章指责为“台独”支持者以及破坏和平的人物。Set in the 1990s, Jiaofeng depicts intelligence operatives from Taiwan coming to the mainland posing as business people and scholars.《交锋》的故事背景设定在20世纪90年代，描绘了台湾情报人员伪装成商人和学者进入大陆开展活动的情节。These operatives are able to infiltrate key departments on the mainland, including scientific research institutes, before they are discovered and eventually punished by law.这些人员试图渗透大陆科研机构等重要部门，最终被发现并依法受到惩处。Today, the mainland has an overwhelming advantage over Taiwan.当前，大陆在综合实力方面较台湾地区具有明显优势。It is determined to thwart separatist acts and safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.大陆坚持反对分裂活动，维护国家主权和领土完整。Going forward, the mainland will continue to firmly advance the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.未来，大陆将继续推动两岸关系和平发展。The reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is an inevitable trend and the shared aspiration of the people.两岸统一是不可阻挡的趋势，也是人民共同愿望。Achieving complete reunification is indispensable for China's rejuvenation.实现完全统一对中国实现民族复兴至关重要。As a character in the drama puts it, the reunification of the motherland will definitely happen.正如剧中人物所说，祖国统一一定会实现。Only through China's reunification can cross-Strait “clash” be resolved and tensions avoided. Separatist forces advocating “Taiwan independence” will fail in their endeavor and end up in the dustbin of history.只有实现中国统一，才能解决两岸之间的“较量”，避免紧张局势。主张“台独”的分裂势力最终将失败，并被历史淘汰。【词汇提炼】counterintelligence /ˌkaʊntərɪnˈtelɪdʒəns/ n.反间谍工作；反情报活动espionage /ˈespiənɑːʒ/ n.间谍活动；谍报活动covert /ˈkəʊvɜːrt/ adj.秘密的；隐蔽的infiltrate /ˈɪnfɪltreɪt/ v.渗透；潜入saga /ˈsɑːɡə/ n.长篇故事；传奇经历kinship /ˈkɪnʃɪp/ n.亲属关系；血缘关系sever /ˈsevər/ v.切断；割裂reunification /ˌriːˌjuːnɪfɪˈkeɪʃn/ n.统一；重新统一

Today we're diving into a lab order that almost every ob-gyn, midwife, and labor-and-delivery nurse were traditionally trained to do: the routine Postpartum Day 1 Hemoglobin and hematocrit. For decades, checking a patient's H&H after delivery was automatic. Didn't matter if it was a smooth, uncomplicated vaginal birth with minimal blood loss or a complex emergency C-section- come 6:00 AM the next morning, someone was drawing blood. Historically, the logic felt airtight: First, visual estimation of blood loss (the EBL) during delivery is notoriously inaccurate; clinicians often underestimate heavy bleeding by as much as 30 to 50 percent. Second, severe postpartum anemia can be sneaky. A patient might look fine lying in bed, but an undetected crash in hemoglobin can lead to severe fatigue, impaired bonding, delayed recovery, or even delayed postpartum hemorrhage complications. And third, early detection meant early intervention- giving iron or transfusing blood before the patient got discharged home. It was standard, it was defensive, and it felt safe. But here is the million-dollar question: Is a blanket, universal Postpartum H&H actually evidence-based in modern obstetric care? Or are we just poking healthy, asymptomatic patients, driving up healthcare costs, and treating lab numbers instead of the clinical patient? Today we will be looking at what the major guidelines, including ACOG, actually say, and why target-based screening has long replaced universal testing. Let's get into it!1. Ruiz de Viñaspre-Hernández R, Gea-Caballero V, Juárez-Vela R, Iruzubieta-Barragán FJ.The definition, screening, and treatment of postpartum anemia: A systematic review of guidelines. Birth. 2021. 2. Anemia in Pregnancy: ACOG Practice Bulletin, Number 233.Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2021. Committee on Practice Bulletins—Obstetric3. Muñoz M, et al. Patient blood management in obstetrics: management of anaemia and haematinic deficiencies in pregnancy and in the post-partum period: NATA consensus statement. Transfus Med. 2018 Feb;28(1):22-39

There are two kinds of people in politics. People who think they're creating gravity, and people who discover they're merely orbiting somebody else's planet.That's become one of the most fascinating political phenomena of the modern era.Donald Trump has created a strange condition in politics where otherwise intelligent people begin confusing proximity to power with ownership of power.No crazy Leftist issue stands alone. In a weird way, all their idiocy is interconnected.They're symptoms of a broader worldview.Look at foreign policy.The same movement that warns endlessly about threats to democracy often seems oddly reluctant to confront regimes that actually suppress democracy.Iran gets nuance.China gets nuance.Hostile governments get nuance.American citizens who disagree politically get investigations.That's a curious set of priorities.Then there's the military.Historically, armies existed to win wars.Simple concept.Not complicated.You train fighters.You develop strategy.You project strength.You defeat enemies.Yet increasingly, our military appears expected to function as a graduate seminar with camouflage.Diversity metrics.Sensitivity training.Identity initiatives.Social theories.Everything except the one thing soldiers have traditionally been expected to do.Fight and win.Again, the contradiction emerges. Kevin Jackson has been called, the "white-collar" Joe Rogan. Given their similar backgrounds in TV, comedy, and martial arts, it's easy to see why people enjoy Kevin's show so much. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Investing can feel overwhelming. With countless funds, strategies, market forecasts, and opinions competing for attention, it's easy to assume that successful investing requires constant analysis and a complicated portfolio.But it doesn't have to.For decades, Sound Mind Investing has offered an indexing strategy called Just-the-Basics, designed around simplicity, diversification, and minimal maintenance. According to Mark Biller, Executive Editor and Senior Portfolio Manager at Sound Mind Investing, a straightforward indexing approach can also work alongside more active investment strategies.The key may not be choosing between active investing and indexing, but understanding how both can fit in a well-designed portfolio.How Index Investing WorksIndex investing begins with a simple idea: rather than trying to beat the market, investors seek to earn approximately the market's return.They typically accomplish this through low-cost index funds that track a particular market benchmark. Because these funds generally require less active management, their expenses tend to be lower than those of actively managed funds.Over time, those lower costs can be significant. “Indexing is based on the idea that an investor is going to give up trying to beat the market in favor of just earning the market's return,” Biller explains.Sound Mind Investing's Just-the-Basics strategy takes that concept and keeps it intentionally simple. It uses three stock index funds and, when appropriate for the investor's asset allocation, a bond index fund.Once established, the strategy requires relatively little maintenance—typically an annual portfolio rebalance. That simplicity can make indexing especially appealing to investors who don't want to continually monitor markets or make frequent investment decisions.Active Investing or Indexing? Why Not Both?Investors sometimes treat active management and indexing as competing philosophies. Either you try to outperform the market, or you simply track it.SMI takes a different approach. Although the organization may be better known for its active strategies, Just-the-Basics was actually the first investing strategy introduced in the SMI newsletter more than three decades ago.Rather than viewing active investing and indexing as an either-or decision, Biller suggests thinking in terms of both-and.That approach can be particularly useful for investors whose workplace retirement plans offer mostly index funds. For example, an investor might use low-cost index funds inside a 401(k) while employing active strategies elsewhere in the portfolio.Combining the two can create another layer of diversification without requiring every investment account to follow the same approach.Why Use More Than One Stock Index Fund?If simplicity is the goal, why not simply purchase a total stock market index fund?That would certainly be easy. But SMI has historically used three separate stock index funds instead. There are practical reasons for that.When Just-the-Basics was first introduced, total stock market index funds were not yet widely available. More importantly, many workplace retirement plans still do not offer a true total-market option.Most plans, however, offer something similar to an S&P 500 index fund that tracks large U.S. companies. They may also offer a small-company fund and an international fund. Using several index funds makes it possible to build broader diversification even when a total-market fund isn't available.Otherwise, investors who substitute an S&P 500 fund for a total-market fund could end up concentrated primarily in large U.S. companies.That concentration has worked especially well for much of the past 15 years, but recent performance does not necessarily predict future performance.Why Diversification Still MattersThe dominance of large U.S. companies in recent years has raised questions about whether investors still need meaningful exposure to smaller companies and international markets.SMI believes they do, although the organization has adjusted its allocations over time. The challenge is determining how much weight investors should place on recent history compared with longer-term market patterns.Large-company stocks have been exceptionally strong during the past 15 years. But when SMI examined a longer 30-year period, the picture became more complicated.Large companies slightly outperformed smaller and mid-sized companies over the full period. But when those 30 years were divided into two 15-year segments, the leadership changed. The more recent period favored large companies, while the earlier period favored the broader extended market.That serves as an important reminder: market leadership can change.Diversification means accepting that not every part of your portfolio will be the top performer at the same time. The goal is not necessarily to own only what has recently performed best, but to build a portfolio prepared for different market environments.What About International Stocks?International stocks present perhaps the more difficult diversification question.Foreign stocks have significantly lagged U.S. stocks over much of the past few decades. That has caused some investors to wonder whether international exposure is still necessary.Biller points to the concept of mean reversion—the tendency for an asset class that has significantly underperformed over a long period eventually to improve, while an asset class that has experienced exceptional performance may eventually cool.Historically, U.S. and international stocks have alternated leadership over extended periods.SMI has therefore maintained some international exposure while reducing its allocation. The Just-the-Basics strategy previously devoted 20% of its stock allocation to foreign investments; it has since reduced that figure to 10%.The goal isn't to assume that history will repeat itself perfectly. Instead, it's to maintain some diversification while acknowledging the changing structure of global markets. And because the strategy is simple, investors can adjust those percentages based on their own situation and investment philosophy.Indexing Can Help Investors Emotionally, TooDiversification isn't only about mathematics. It can also influence investor behavior.Active investing inevitably produces periods when a strategy trails the broader market. During those times, investors may become frustrated and begin questioning their approach.Biller describes a common temptation: when an active strategy underperforms, investors may think, “I should have just bought the index.”Holding some indexed investments can reduce that all-or-nothing feeling. Part of the portfolio simply tracks the broader market while another portion follows an active strategy. That can make it psychologically easier to remain disciplined when one approach temporarily falls behind another.And investor behavior matters. Even a sound strategy can fail to produce its intended results if an investor repeatedly abandons it based on short-term performance.What Could a Simple Index Portfolio Look Like?For investors interested in a basic indexing approach, the structure does not have to be complicated. The Just-the-Basics stock allocation is approximately:60% large U.S. companies30% smaller U.S. companies10% international companiesDepending on an investor's age, goals, risk tolerance, and overall financial situation, investors can also incorporate bonds into the portfolio. The exact percentages are less important than the underlying principle: build a diversified allocation you understand and can maintain consistently.For many investors, similar funds may already be available inside their workplace retirement plan.Simple Can Still Be WiseInvesting does not need to become a full-time job.Active strategies may make sense in some situations. Other times, simply owning diversified, low-cost index funds is entirely appropriate. For many investors, the right answer may include elements of both.What matters is having a thoughtful plan rather than constantly reacting to whatever has recently performed best.As stewards of what God has entrusted to us, our goal isn't to make investing unnecessarily complicated. It's to make wise, informed decisions with patience, discipline, and an appropriate understanding of risk.A simple, diversified investment strategy that you understand—and are prepared to stick with—can go a long way toward accomplishing that goal. To learn more about Sound Mind Investing's Just-the-Basics strategy and other approaches to investing, visit SoundMindInvesting.org.On Today's Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:I'm 66, retired, and receiving Social Security, but I recently went back to work part time. My husband and I are debt-free but have only about $30,000 left in savings after cashing out our 401(k)s. Should I put most of my new income into my employer's 401(k), or would another investment strategy make more sense?Resources Mentioned:Become a FaithFi PartnerSound Mind InvestingSMI Indexing: Checking Up On Just-the-Basics (Article by Mark Biller on SoundMindInvesting.org)Home Equity and Reverse Mortgages: The Cinderella of the Baby Boomer Retirement by Harlan AccolaFaithful Steward: FaithFi's Quarterly MagazineFaithFi Field Guide: How Much Money is Enough? Our Ultimate Treasure: A 21-Day Journey to Faithful Stewardship by Rob WestWisdom Over Wealth: 12 Lessons from Ecclesiastes on MoneyLook At The Sparrows: A 21-Day Devotional on Financial Fear and AnxietyRich Toward God: A Study on the Parable of the Rich FoolFind a Certified Kingdom Advisor® (CKA)FaithFi App Remember, you can call in to ask your questions every weekday at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. You can also visit FaithFi.com to connect with our online community and partner with us as we help more people live as faithful stewards of God's resources. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Jon Thompson, senior pastor of Sanctus Church, a multisite church on the east side of Toronto. Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years and has helped lead the church through seasons of growth, renewal, revival, and cultural change. In this conversation, he shares insights from his latest book, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival, and explores how churches can faithfully witness in an increasingly post-Christian—and even re-paganized—culture. Learn to minister in a re-paganized culture. // Jon believes Canada offers a glimpse of where many parts of the United States may be heading. Churches are increasingly engaging people with little or no Christian memory alongside Muslims, Hindus, atheists, New Agers, nominal Christians, and people shaped by contemporary cultural movements. The challenge is not simply to defend Christian truth, but to communicate the gospel thoughtfully and winsomely to radically different audiences at the same time. Open the three evangelistic doors. // Historically, love, word, and power describe three ways people encounter God. Love demonstrates God's character through hospitality and care. Word clarifies truth through preaching, apologetics, and teaching. Power reveals God's presence through experiences such as healing, deliverance, dreams, and other supernatural encounters. Jon argues that churches need all three doors open because different people encounter Jesus through different pathways. Admit your church's bias. // Most churches naturally lean toward one or two of these categories. Conservative evangelical churches often emphasize word. Other churches may prioritize love through compassion and justice, while still others focus heavily on supernatural experiences. Jon encourages leaders to honestly identify their bias and intentionally elevate the areas they tend to neglect. A healthy church needs all three working together rather than allowing one to dominate. Don't let fear quench what God is doing. // Jon tells the story of a woman who came to faith out of Hinduism after experiencing visions, spiritual conflict, and encounters with Jesus. When her church removed those elements from her baptism testimony because leaders were uncomfortable with them, she felt that an essential part of her story had been denied. Jon warns that fear, theological bias, and lack of experience can cause churches to suppress genuine ways God may be working in people's lives. Choose encounter and systems. // Jon believes churches often falsely pit spiritual encounter against organizational structure. Healthy churches need both. Leaders should build systems that support what God is doing without attempting to control it. As spiritual activity increases, churches may need to adjust volunteer processes, pastoral care systems, staff expectations, and leadership structures. The goal is not to eliminate order but to make the organization flexible enough to respond when circumstances change. Understand renewal, revival, and awakening. // Jon distinguishes between renewal, revival, and awakening. Renewal is the recovery of first love in individual believers. Revival is a sovereign move of God that He initiates and ends where sin is revealed and there’s widespread healing. Awakening happens when revival leads to widespread conversion. Leaders should not assume revival is guaranteed, but they should remain faithful and responsive whether God brings extraordinary renewal or simply calls them to steady obedience in an ordinary season. Start by refusing to resist God. // Before changing structures or launching new ministries, Jon believes leaders should begin with a simple posture: “Lord, whatever you want to do, I won't fight you.” Many pastors love God but still struggle to trust Him when ministry becomes unpredictable. Jon encourages leaders to confront their fear, relinquish control, and remain open to correction, repentance, and change. To learn more about Jon Thompson and his books, including Convergence, Perseverance, Presence, and the upcoming re-release of Deliverance, visit jonthompsonresources.com or Amazon.com. Other Conversations with Jon Thompson Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point with Jon Thompson // February 8, 2024 What if John Stott, John Wimber, Dallas Willard & Andy Stanley Planted a Church with Jon Thompson? // March 14, 2019 Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it's time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich from the unSeminary Podcast. Listen, you’re going to want to lean in today for this conversation because I think this kind what you’re going to get a sneak peek on is something that’s impacting churches all over the world that’s having, I think, an interesting kind of moment and is maybe points to a bit of where God is at work. And I think could for many churches that are listening in today, give them a sense of maybe some next steps, what the kind of evolution or the development of their church, what that could look like for the future.Rich Birch — Plus, it’s one of those times where I get to talk with like a real live friend, somebody that I know from the real world, not just on the internet, which is so fun. Excited to have Jon Thompson with us. He is the senior pastor at Sanctus Church, a multi-site church in the east side of Toronto with four in-person locations plus church online. This church began in 1985 with just 40 people meeting and now averages over 2,600 weekend attendees with a plan to reach 3,600 by the end of the decade and open a sixth site in the T. Dot in Toronto in the six by 2030. Rich Birch — Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years, starting as a youth pastor before becoming the senior pastor. He holds both a masters from Tyndale and a doctorate from Fuller. He grew up in Ecuador from missionary parents, he and his wife, Joanna, who’s incredible, have three kids. His books include Convergence, Deliverance, and Perseverance. And the brand new one that I’m excited to have him talk about today, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival. And it’s from our friends at Zondervan Reflective.Rich Birch — Jon, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you’re here today. Welcome.Jon Thompson — Yeah great to be here. Great to be back on the podcast. Hang out with a real friend, like you said, and hi to anyone listening anywhere around the world today.Rich Birch — Yeah, this is good. I’m excited for this. For folks that haven’t maybe picked up a past episode, which you haven’t, you should go go back and find them. Jon’s been on a couple times, a few times. But give us kind of a picture of a normal Sunday at Sanctus. Who’s in the room? Give us a flavor for the church.Jon Thompson —  Yeah, so our church is located, like you said, on the east side of Toronto. And some of your viewers will know this, but lots might might not. Toronto is the most multicultural city on earth, more than London, more than, well, LA, more than New York, more than Singapore, more than Hong Kong. And so there’s between 150 and 300 heart languages spoken every single day in our amazing city, by the way, you got to come to Toronto. The food culture is unbelievable…Rich Birch — That’s true. That is true.Jon Thompson — …and unparalleled because everyone’s here. So on a Sunday morning, depending on our locations, again, because we have rural sites, urban sites, and suburban sites, which makes life interesting to say the least, but we probably got 55 plus identified nationalities. We probably I think we’re on 13 on staff right now. And so everything from someone from Hong Kong to someone who’s moved here from Pakistan. We’ve got Congolese. We’ve got Irish. I mean just fill in the blank and you’re going to discover the amazing diversity of the human race on this side of heaven. And we you know we made a decision a long time ago that we were going to fight for Revelation 7 on this side of uh the moment. Rich Birch — So good. Jon Thompson — And it’s exciting, it’s hard, it’s difficult, and it’s um and it’s worth it.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. You know, Canada is and I know we share this conviction. I know you’ve said it and I’ve said it on other podcasts when we’ve had Canadian friends on the podcast. But I think it’s really important, particularly, you know, 95 plus percent of the people listening are in the States. But I think it’s important just to to set the context. Because in a lot of ways, Canada is a few a few years ahead or behind, depending on what language you want to use, of our friends in the States. What do you mean by that? When you say that, what springs to mind?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a very interesting place, right? Because Canada moved from, ah you know, Christendom worldview, to a nominal Christian worldview, to a struggling Christian worldview, to a post-Christian worldview. And now I think we’ve moved to a new place, which is not post-Christian, but repaganized.Jon Thompson — And so it’s a it’s a fascinating place. Because In our context, One moment, you’ll be talking to someone who still has Christian memory, who actually doesn’t love Jesus at all, but it’s a family thing. And it’s nominal Christianity. Jon Thompson — The next moment, you’ll still run into a Mormon telling you you’re worshiping the right and wrong Jesus. The next moment, it’s a New Ager. The next moment, it’s ah a Muslim activist. The next moment, it’s a transgender activist. The next moment, it’s someone who has no clue at all on anything.Jon Thompson — And so what’s fascinating about up here is you’ve got modern, postmodern. You’ve got conservative, you’ve got liberal. You’ve got the heart of the sexual revolution in the center center of our city. It’s one of the hubs of that globally. You’ve got every religion on earth. And you’ve got churches that are dying.Jon Thompson — I think, I don’t know of the latest stats. I still think that they’re they’re estimating one third of churches will close in the next decade in Canada, like physical ah buildings will close. And while that’s happening. And all that’s happening. You’ve got still sort of Christianity memory in certain groups, and then there are churches that are exploding. Jon Thompson — And so the the way I talk about we’re a little ahead is we are your future in some form. Because we’re facing down Jesus and how we deal with the gift of immigrants globally, but also the complication of that. We’re dealing with having to pivot the gospel to an a Muslim person, a Hindu person, a nominal Christian, and and a Mormon all in one conversation.Jon Thompson — There are Bible belts left in Canada, very small ones. But like Abbotsford, for example.Rich Birch — Little teeny tiny belts.Jon Thompson —  But but there are those places.Rich Birch — Sure. Yep.Jon Thompson — At the same time there is the post-christian thing. And the reason why I think our American friends should pay more attention to us is not because we’re we’re having a third cousin issue up here and we’re jealous. It’s because actually we reflect where you’re going. Because there are going to be sections in the United States that probably will remain nominally Christian and culturally Christian for a very long time. You know, in certain parts of Houston, for example, or maybe in sections of Kentucky or Louisiana. But then you go to New York and LA or Seattle. And here’s the point. The church has to speak to both audiences at once, which feels in contradiction. But isn’t.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah and I’ve definitely seen that. I like the uh the re-paganizing language you know I’ve used the uh the pre-christian that we’ve it’s like we’ve gone kind of all the way through. And that that totally has been my experience serving here. You know I took a break. I was in the States for a number of years better part of a decade and then came back. And one of the things I’ve noticed has been this shift kind of under the current. We used to say we used to joke actually we ain’t your mama’s church. But like, you can’t make that joke anymore because like mom didn’t go to church. Grandma didn’t go to church. Like nobody in there, you know, we run into that all the time. Like that’s, you know, really common.Jon Thompson — So like literally this week. This week, my daughter is doing swimming lessons. A woman comes up to us and says, hey, I hear you’re a pastor.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson —  Really tragic thing. She says, my husband’s dying, 45 years old. And so my wife and I end up speaking to her, praying for her. And she’s like, I have never. So she’s 45 grown up Canada. She says, I’ve never owned a Bible. I’ve never read a Bible. Could I have a Bible? Jon Thompson — Now, for you listening in the Bible Belt before you dismiss this conversation and say not our fight, I just…May I do something for a moment? That might not be true because you’re surrounded by 400 churches. But every time you go online, it is your reality. So what we experience physically in Canada you digitally experience every day. And you have to be as as adaptive thoughtful, winsome, orthodox on your digital thinking as you do your physical thinking. And again, I’ll say this a little strongly. I find a lot of you aren’t.Rich Birch — Okay. We’re starting off spicy, which is great. Okay, so you’ve seen a lot of people. Part of what I love about Sanctus, friends like, I’m trying to, again, give some context. For folks that are listening in, Sanctus is known as a, you know this is a life-giving church. People, they come to Jesus here. This is the kind of place where people take steps towards faith in in Christ, which is amazing. You’ve seen a lot of that happen over the years at Sanctus—thousands of people. When you look back on some of the patterns in people’s lives, some of the, you know, the kind of themes that come back time and time again and how they arrived at that sort of decision. What are you noticing in people’s lives?Jon Thompson —  Well, like I just said about the diversity of our place, the diversity of conversions come from those places. And so like on a Sunday morning, I mean, our baptisms aren’t more epic than yours or anyone else. I mean, praise the Lord. Right.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — We’ve got we’ve got 10 year olds confessing the faith of their parents. But it won’t be unusual for literally, I mean, this just happened. So we’ll have like two or three, not babies, but children who say, you know, I want to get baptized. And the next person’s like, I grew up an atheist. I’ve encountered the living God through Christ. The next person is I’m a former witch. And I just actually want to renounce Satan in the tank. And the next person’s like, I used to be a Muslim. And now I’ve actually found out that Jesus is Lord.Jon Thompson —  So, so, that is not now an uncommon experience at any of our sites. And what is behind that is not only that the gospel is good for everyone—praise the Lord—but we worked really hard to make sure that all the doors are open evangelistically to all people. And that gets to our bias in spiritual gifts. But you know—and we’ve had this conversation many times, you and I, Rich—but there are three historic categories that Bobby Clinton invented years ago we’ve used where he divides all the gifts, love, word, and power.Jon Thompson — So love gifts demonstrate the love of God in the room. Word gifts clarify who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t. Power gifts evidence his presence in the room. That’s true of gifts, but to take a farther step out, those are three doors evangelistically.Jon Thompson — And this is why this is so critical. Because we have to have all three of those doors—such as, hospitality, apologetic defense of the gospel, and miracles and deliverance—open all the time. Because these are the ways people have always come to faith in our movement for 2,000 years. Jon Thompson — Now, all three doors have to lead to the true Christ because there are fake Jesuses. And there’s lots of heresy out there. And it has to be involved in repentance and belief and evidence by baptism. Amen. But I find most churches, theologically and experientially, are comfortable with one or maybe two of those things. And as I always lecture on this, like formally, if you sit on a three-legged stool and there are three legs…Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — …and one leg is missing. You wobble on the best of days, but you usually fall down.Rich Birch — Yeah. I’d love to kind of double click on love, word, and power, these three legs of the stool. And so familiar with, some people will be familiar with that framework for gifting like you talked about, and but kind of give us a little more, you gave you kind of a quick overview of each of them from an evangelistic point of view, but kind of give me some examples or what it might look like in a church that’s opening that that door evangelistically, you know, the love, word, and power door.Jon Thompson — Yeah, and um I think we’re going to talk about this a little bit later. I mean there’s a lot behind these statements.Rich Birch — Yep. Yes.Jon Thompson —  Like almost 30 years of conversation. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — But like this is the best way I’ll say it. I’ve seen this in my life. I’ve seen this in my kids’ life. I’ve seen this across our church for two two plus decades, almost three now. Can I tell some stories that might help?Rich Birch — Yeah of course. I love a good story.Jon Thompson — Yeah, so… yeah so like here here’s a great example guy a young adult guy is in his basement.And he’s smoking weed, high as a kite. Freaks freaks out. Okay, great.Rich Birch — Shocker.Jon Thompson — Shocker. But actually sees a demon and like panics. Calls someone at our church, a friend of his, and is like, I’m really scared. And she laughs. And she’s like, no problem. So her first thing is not. Oh you’re an idiot. Her first thing is not, oh, you’re inventing that. The first thing is not, well, of course you’re high, you’re seeing that. Her first reaction is, well, I’ve got an answer to that.Jon Thompson — She’s like, yeah, his name is Jesus. By the way, if you say his name, watch the demon leave and then come talk to us. So the guy—total pagan—does it. Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — The demon leaves. He shows up next Sunday. He’s radically converted. Didn’t used to be able to read, by the way, very well. Now reads at a PhD level and on a theology sort of thing, like radically converted. And his starting point was a power encounter.Jon Thompson — Now the person next to it, next to him in a conversation is the one listening to John Lennox at Oxford on the the lack validity and the historicity of Jesus.Jon Thompson — Or or you know, and we’re like, yeah, of course. And then the next person, we were just talking to this on staff. So one of our so SLT members (senior leadership team) was talking about his conversion story. And his conversion story is one of his relatives—I think it was his mom—was really sick in the hospital. Two nurses come in, and and are Christians, start praying over her, and basically start committing you know hospitality in the hospital, probably in a way they’re not supposed to. She’s radically saved, ends up leading her son to Christ, and the hus…Jon Thompson — And and so so here’s all I’m trying to say. We have a gift bias that everyone should know their gifts and be using them not only internally in the church, but see how they work out evangelistically, but beyond the gift thing. This for us is normal. We talk about this in our sermons. We actually take the Bible literally in the sense of what we’ve defended is what we believe. I find a lot of conservative people defend the scriptures and don’t believe the thing they’re defending.Jon Thompson — So for us, when I look at the book of Acts, I’m like, we will see people come to faith through healings and through deliverances and through visions and through dreams, as much as John Lennox or or our good new friend Wes Huff from Canada, who’s on every podcast showing up why the Bible is reliable, and also through that incredible, Hey. Can you just talk to me? I’m really sad. Jon Thompson — And what I’m begging churches to do is this this matrix gives you the ability to pivot to multiple people, but you have to have a culture that believes this, defends it, defines it.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Jon Thompson — And makes the weird normal, as we’ve said for years.Rich Birch — Yeah, okay. So you earlier you talked about how most churches are comfortable with one or maybe two, back to the three-legged stool.Jon Thompson —  Yep.Rich Birch — Unpack that a little bit. How have you seen that? Or maybe even more pointedly, how do you fight a get that against that in your own church? Because I you know I can see naturally we would all kind of lean in one way because of our giftings.Rich Birch — you know As a leader, I always see I see the world through my lens. And so the stuff that’s important to me, if I was leading, we would be we’d love all that stuff, but we might not be into the other two. So help help me understand, what does that look like? How do you fight against that at Sanctus?Jon Thompson — So I’ll step back and just say that you know this has been almost like a three-decade journey. For us, everything changed when we got serious about spiritual gifts, unpacking them and doing all of that. That’s a different podcast we’ve done. But what I will but what i will say is this… is that there are most conservative evangelical churches are word churches: Who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t, the power of preaching. I’m all for it. I preach for a living. And by the way, for people who are starting to dismiss me, I’m reformed in my soteriology. And not only that, I’m an expository preacher. So you don’t get to throw me out the window too quick. Jon Thompson — So, I mean, i’m’m I’m all I’m all for that. But that is not the answer. It’s part of the answer. And so what we continually have done is when we realize that love, word and power are things that are all needed at once, we made them equally important. In staffing, in our conversations. That’s one. Jon Thompson — Two, you need to admit as a church where you’re comfortable and where you’re not. Because there’s a lot of churches, for example, that I always say it like this. You can have all the word people on earth in your church and know all truth, but you’re cold as anything and you’re not even sure if anyone’s been saved lately. Jon Thompson — I’m in all sorts of other churches where it’s love, love, social justice, and hospitality. But I’m like, but are you believing heresy? Do you even have any compass? Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — And then I’m in other environments where it’s, you know, glory clouds and all this amazing spiritual stuff. But I’m like, do you even know the source of this?Jon Thompson — Where is this coming from? Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good.Jon Thompson — Just because it’s good doesn’t mean it’s from our Lord. The spirit of Antichrist and Christ are identical in action. So so what we’ve tried doing is saying, number one, we have to admit these three things are important. Number two, we have to come up with language for each one of them and affirm them. Number three, and you just did it live so I love this, you need to admit where you’re limited.Jon Thompson — So you’re like, Jon, I mean we know each other you’re like One of my strongest spiritual gifts is leadership. That’s what you said. This is the way I immediately instinctually and spiritually react. So, Rich’s responsibility, if he was the senior pastor, is then to publicly talk about why he’s actually not biased in other directions and why he needs to be, and find other people to be that voice.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good.Jon Thompson — Because a lot of people want to be open to this, but since they have not experienced it, they don’t know what to do. And I’m like, right, because it’s about interdependence. It’s not just about you.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I think this is a great framework. And you know, it it explains what I can think think could be what’s missing in, you know, so many of our churches and you know we so many of us are are led by uh very gifted word-oriented gift people. Like our churches are led by those people… Jon Thompson — Right. Rich Birch — …and which is amazing… Jon Thompson — Yep. Rich Birch — …but we could miss the other two. And you know in the last year our mutual friend Jeff Brody said something and that resonates with what you were saying. He’s talked about, you know you might believe that it’s true, but is it real for you? And that has like resonated with me so so deeply. It’s similar to when you talked about you know conservatives defend what they don’t necessarily believe. And you know, does this actually work out in our lives, I think is a powerful idea.Rich Birch — Now, there was a story in your book about a young woman who left Hinduism and then joined a reformed church.Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — I thought this was a vivid example. And particularly for us on the system side, I thought, oh, this is a good way to kind of systematize this…Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — …or think about this at a systems level. Can you unpack that story?Jon Thompson — A hundred percent. And I just want to acknowledge as we keep going, I know the vast majority of your viewers or listeners are more probably on the system side executive pastor, like that type of leader, which by the way, without you, we all die. So thank you for all your service and what you do.Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah. Yep.Jon Thompson — We’re so thankful for you. But as we keep having this conversation, think this is a challenge for you to think deeply theologically, even before your systems, because what you systematize better be true. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jon Thompson — And so this is a great example of what we’re talking about. So I teach a course up here in a seminary on spiritual conflict, a very boring, non-controversial course. And so I was teaching this, I think it was two years ago now, and a young woman comes on and takes the course, and she is in tears at the end of one of the lectures. And ah and it’s all, it’s online. So so she said, can I meet?Jon Thompson — So I said, yeah. She says, look, she said, I just, I was radically saved out of Hinduism, which is incredible, and and she said soI you know I became a christian, I renounced my hinduism, and I I have no background. Either my family are Hindus or atheists and nothing in between, which even shows you the contradiction there. Her family is made up of atheists and Hindus.Rich Birch —Right.Jon Thompson — Like she is the embodiment of what we’re talking about.Rich Birch — Absolutely.Jon Thompson — And so she says, well, I’m going to find a church. She goes to a very small Reformed church locally, like a Christian Reformed, Dutch Reformed church. They’re of course excited that she’s come to faith, which is great. The average age in the church is much older. She told me, I think she’s the first adult baptism in over a decade or maybe two.Jon Thompson — So, because of course they’re covenantal, they baptize children overall. Fun. So he’s like, well, we want to hear your story. So she writes the whole story of encountering Jesus through visions and dealing with demons and Jesus setting her free. And so submits the the testimony, and the pastor edits every single encounter out of it. And this is like in the last three years in Toronto.Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jon Thompson —  This is in Toronto.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — And so she said, why have you edited this out? And he said, because I don’t fully understand this, though it’s true. My people will be afraid and I don’t want to make them afraid. And right there, she wept. And then she said to me. When I took your class, you not only affirmed everything that happened to me was true. Second of all, you gave me the theological principles and categories scripturally and historically to show that I am in the great line of succession of the church. If anyone should be defending the great line of succession of the church, it’s the Reformed kids. I mean, those reform kids.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson —  And so what I want to point out is in that story, fear and lack of experience, and theological bias ended up quenching what the Spirit wanted to do. Jon Thompson — And I just want to say to anyone listening. I’m not saying that every environment that you’ve been in has been perfect. I mean i think a lot of us have had experiences spiritually where people with right motives have done things wrong.Rich Birch — Yep, true.Jon Thompson — And we ended up getting hurt. So it’s sort of like dating. If you’ve ever dated and broken up or you married and and then and then got divorced, the amount of intensity it takes to re-engage is a lot. Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — So there’s a lot of you listening, you’re like, Jon, I don’t want this conversation because I don’t want to touch that again. And I’m like, you have to. You have to. The scriptures are chock full of this. This is the only way we’re going to do well between retreat and revival, whether you’re in an environment where everyone’s a false nominal Christian or everyone’s not a Christian at all. This has been the pattern since the beginning. And it’s the way the Spirit works. So maybe I’d encourage some of you to pray about your fear and your anger. So you can get on with the thing.Rich Birch — So good. and And I would say um this, what we’re talking about right here, that story of um you know, this this you know young Hindu woman who came to know Jesus, praise God, amazing story. And, you know, kind of God appearing in dreams and all of that. I feel like has, been or I don’t feel like, has become more normative in my church experience in the same kind of climate that that you’re in. And that was not normative 30 years ago when I started. Rich Birch — Like, you know, it is this kind of like, you know, we have a laundry list of similar conversations where it’s like, you know people are having dreams and then wandering into church you know they’re having dreams on a Tuesday you know between Monday and Tuesday night and then they’re just wandering to the church because they’re like I think that’s a church over there. And are like hey, Jesus told me to come here. And you know then we end up having you know deeper conversations and they you know their life gets transformed. Rich Birch — I don’t remember that stuff going on. That’s happening more, which makes sense, I think, in this context of you know this uh what did you call it repaganizing or you know pre-christian kind of context because, you know, the Spirit’s got to work directly. He’s got to, you know, get directly encounter people. So I think that’s, you know, interesting. Rich Birch — So the people that might be because people listening and…you want to say something?Jon Thompson — Well, I was just going to say, yes, and…Rich Birch — Yep. Good.Jon Thompson — 30 years ago, it was happening.Rich Birch — Sure.Jon Thompson — See, this is this is what we have to admit. Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — It was happening, but we weren’t open.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.Jon Thompson — So for a lot of you listening you’re like, well I don’t live in Toronto. I’m like, I know you don’t. But what you legitimize from your pulpit tells your people what you’re allowed to talk about.Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So if you’re going to have a sincere conversation about love, word, and power, and how the Spirit really works evangelistically, whether you’re speaking again to a a cultural Christian or someone else, here’s the point. I guarantee you in the Bible Belt, lots of people are having dreams too.Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — They just have been told that’s weird, and we don’t talk about that.Rich Birch — Those are the kind of things we don’t talk about here. Yeah.Jon Thompson —  Right.Rich Birch — That’s good. Okay, so pivoting in a slightly different direction. One of the things that I love about Sanctus that’s, you know, if you’re kind of in the outer orbit of the church, eventually you’ll start to hear like, oh, they have a deliverance ministry over there. That’s not on the list of like, you know, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, pioneer girls, deliverance ministry that I hear like in so many churches out there. And you’ve had it for a long time. What does that actually look like? So like an average Tuesday, how does that fit into what’s going on at Sanctus?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a conversation we wanted nothing to do with. Again, we were just again, you know Willow Creek, seeker-sensitive, historic church.Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — And this is like 27 years ago now where people started coming to us and they’re like, I think I have something happening in my life that is beyond psychological or biological wiring. And we were like, we are not that church that does that. That’s the weird people down the street. You know, we’ll deal with them in heaven, but you know. And the Lord wouldn’t give it up. Jon Thompson — So 27 plus years later, I think we’ve had either been involved in or helped assist globally in a thousand cases. And just for, I love how you put that. It’s just normal for us. It’s not this thing. It’s a thing. Jon Thompson — So for us, a worship team practice and, you know, a youth gathering taking place, an Alpha running and a deliverance having the same building is just normal. Because again, our bias on spiritual gifts is there’s 21 gifts, 21 directions. We need to try to make sure that all the gifts are employed in some way. And this is a certain group of gifts.Jon Thompson — So, yeah, we’ve done it for years. The whole story of that is in the book, Deliverance, which I think you and I maybe have talked about. It’s coming out again in February through Zondervan Reflective.Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — That’s the whole story. But like for us, dealing with the demonic, both in oppression issues and demonization issues and sanctification with Christians, but also evangelistically with non-Christians is just sort of normal.Rich Birch — Yeah. So good.Rich Birch — Yeah, I yeah there’s ah there’s a lot there that you I just think is kind of ah a great part of the story that God’s writing at your church, and I think can be instructive to many of us as we’re thinking about the future.Rich Birch — So let’s let’s kind of draw in the person that’s listening, maybe like an executive pastor, church of, I don’t know, 800 to a thousand, something like that. And they’re struck by this idea this like ooh maybe we are only opening one door. We’re not talking about these other these other doors. We’re not engaged in any of that.Rich Birch — Where would you suggest that they start? (Outside of actually picking up a copy of the book.) I you know I think that’s an obvious thing where we’re going to get to, but like outside of that, how would you help them think about um you know what they should be thinking about?Jon Thompson — Yeah. So just to step back a little to this question. This book conversation we’re having is about how you deal with an environment where renewal and retreat are happening in the same place. That’s very true in our social media feeds and it’s true in a lot of our cities.Jon Thompson — So I happen to know you and I happen to know your church. Because I’ve been conspiratorially involved behind the scenes at points. So your church’s own story is where all your people need to begin.Jon Thompson — And it’s this. Only when the leaders decide not to resist God will things change. And what I mean by that is not like open rebellion against God. It’s this. The lead, I just happen to know there were moments in your church’s own story where the leaders went, you know what? We’re not going to resist you anymore, Lord. What do you want to do?Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — That was it. That and that’s not, you know, like earthquake you know, feel. But it changed everything. I mean what are you starting this week? Is it this week you’re starting? 30 days of like. praying, or has that happened?Rich Birch — Well, yeah, we’ve done that already, which is amazing, and but there’s more of that coming… Jon Thompson — Yep. Right. But… Rich Birch — …like it’s there’s there’s lots of that stuff happening that wasn’t happening 10 years ago for sure.Jon Thompson — Right. The inception point, though, is when people just went like this. You know what? We’re afraid.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — We don’t understand. We prefer system over encounter. We prefer system over encounter and they’re not in competition, but both have to be there. So, Lord, what do you want to say? What do you want to do? That’s the starting point. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — Because before you work out the theology of love, word, and power and start thinking about how you, you know, witness to people from all the nations and not have a you know a vicious reaction towards them. And how you think through the, like all that.Jon Thompson — The first place is you say to the Lord, I won’t fight you. And the truth is the vast majority of us love God, but don’t trust him. And I said this on a former podcast with you. And and and lots of executive pastors, when they hear me talk, way more than this, get nervous because this starts sounding like Pandora’s box. Well, how do I systematize this? And what would be the implications?Jon Thompson — And I’m like, yeah, before any of that conversation, have you said to the Lord, whatever you want to do, I won’t I won’t fight you.Rich Birch — So good.Jon Thompson — Most pastors would say they have not prayed that. I don’t think. I also think, too, there are a series of systems that relate to what happens in an empowered encounterist church, a systemized church, and then a church going through a revival. Three very different things. And there’s there’s a set of systems.Rich Birch — You want to unpack…you want to unpack that a little bit?Jon Thompson — Yeah, sure. So I mean, there are lots of amazing churches that are commonly faithful who serve communion and preach God’s word and help the poor. And and and and those are all guaranteed places of encounter according to the scriptures. And so amazing. They’re that’s good. That’s right. That’s holy. And that’s one expression of it. Jon Thompson — When you start saying to the holy spirit not only common faithfulness but anything else you’d like to do? At that moment I have a saying, most people praying for revival aren’t praying for revival, they’re praying for a normal church on Monday, they just don’t know it.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jon Thompson — And what I mean by that is most people praying for revival are actually praying for a church where the Spirit is more present, there are more encounters, and everyone’s using their gifts and loving each other better. That’s not revival. That is actually what it’s supposed to be. So when you have a whole group of encounters taking place more than a system, there are other things you have to adjust like we’ve done. Jon Thompson — For example, you start asking your volunteers, what are your spiritual gifts? You start clarifying from the front what encounters look like. You start building house rules of how encounters are handled. It’s part of your intake process. You think about this through pastoral care. There’s no dismissing of experience. You now become an interpreter of experience 24-7.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jon Thompson — So like there’s that. And then there’s revival. And revival is a sovereign act of God where everything falls apart, and all sin is revealed, and there’s en masse healing. And if it’s a genuine move of God that moves from renewal to revival to awakening, there’s en masse conversion.Jon Thompson — And as I share in the book, because we went through a three year experience with that, it was documented. There’s another set of organizational rules. I was meeting with a lot of leaders in England for the last three years because they are experiencing this genuinely. And I was just telling them what we went through historically. And I used the analogy for the executive pastors or the admin leaders saying, You’ve got to think about renewal and revival like being on a bike. And I said, you’re all English and you all ride bikes, so you should be fine.Jon Thompson —  And I just said, you know how there are gears on a bike? And I just said, when a move of God actually takes place, you have one set of things that are in place for that. And then when you go back to normal, you use another set. And we just said, you have to have a code word for your staff where you literally say, Monday was normal. Wednesday is now not normal, so the whole system collapses and now looks like this. And when the Spirit walks back, you go, okay. We’re going back to the other gear. Jon Thompson — That thinking is incredibly important in renewal and revival environments for sustainability of staff, for clarification of experience, and also for literal helping people not burn out. Because when God shows up, all hell and heaven break loose. And and maybe I’ll just throw this out quickly too.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — We should never forget that a lot of people dismiss revival-like environments because a lot of things are done wrong. And that’s a horrific starting point. Actually, that’s true in all of this.Jon Thompson — So we forget that, you know, I don’t know if I said this on this pod one of this one of these episodes, but we forget that that that Moses went up the mountain. The people were looking at the physical Shekinah glory of God. And while God was present in the most magnificent of way, they still built the golden calf in real time while they’re looking at him.Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — So anytime there’s a significant move of God, the devil is in the room, the flesh is in the room, and God’s in the room at the same time. If you think God’s just going to be in the room, you’re going to end up dismissing much of what he’s done.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Talk about, you kind of you breezed over this, but I think it’s an important piece of the puzzle—the connection between repentance and revival, you know, and how repentance fits into the overall picture. The reason why I asked that, I don’t know, a year ago, I was at an event where a bunch of leaders were there and there was a Gen Z leader who has been involved in some stuff that’s been going on. And led like a public confession experience with the leaders that were there. And he was challenging us around you know, basically the question was like, well, why why is why repentance? Why is that such a big deal? Rich Birch — And this leader, which I loved, you know, was like, Well, hasn’t that isn’t that always the way? Like isn’t that what isn’t that what this is about? Like aren’t we aren’t we shouldn’t repentance be a part of the transformation of Jesus in in our lives like that? How can you separate those two? And I was like, oh yeah, right. Rich Birch — But I think that that… issue could be the fear you know you’ve mentioned talked about fear a little bit could be a part of the fear that’s in many leaders lives today. Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — It’s like man, I’m not sure I want to engage that. Unpack that. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I’ll I’ll I’ll do it like this. The language we’ve come up with, because I always find that categories are helpful for translation and expectations. So we always talk about renewal as the recovery of first love in an individual’s life.Jon Thompson — Revival is a sovereign act of God that he initiates and he ends. Awakening is when mass conversions take place out of a revival. What you’re talking about is probably the renewal category even more than the revival. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Thompson — Revival people tend to mush everything together, which is never helpful.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — And it really bothers me.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So and I’m friends with lots of the people. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Jon Thompson — So I keep helping I keep saying, please, please help us. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — So here’ here’s what I would say about you know repentance. Yes, of course, it’s always part of the thing. Of course it is. And It’s a fascinating reflection when we look at Adam and Eve. The very first thing that Adam and Eve did when they sinned is they hid. So hiddenness is the first sign of trouble. Then they tried fashioning something to cover their hiddenness. Then, of course, God comes and finds them, exposes them and gives them a better, of course, covering. Jon Thompson — Why this matters is this gets back to the love and trust thing. Lots of us are comfortable with Jesus at the wedding of Cana. Most of us are not okay with Jesus glorified at the Mount of Transfiguration. Or actually the encounter between Jesus and John in Revelation 1. Jon Thompson — And so I think a lot of times as leaders, and and let me just say this boldly too, your people will not go beyond you. You are Moses to your movement. And so I think saying to the Lord, you know, I’m open to what you would say to me, good or bad. And would you help me be in a position where I would want to repent. Jon Thompson — And I think this is okay to say. Regularly, I pray that the Holy Spirit would give me desires I don’t have. Because I don’t have lots of desires for repentance or you know. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So I think for leaders listening, whether God decides sovereignly to bring revival to your church or awakening to your area is not the starting point. That’s actually a sovereign decision. And in in the book, I talk about how I’m really concerned these days that everyone’s saying revival’s coming, revival’s coming. I’m like, actually, the Bible says revival’s not guaranteed. You have to ask if he’s decided to come. If he says, yes, you pray back the prayers, then all Heaven and hell breaks out.Jon Thompson — But if he doesn’t do that, in other words, if summer doesn’t come and you’re stuck in winter you still have to be involved in common faithfulness, including no hiddenness as a leader. And so anyone listening, I would just encourage you to trust the goodness of the God you continually tell others to trust in.Jon Thompson — I was writing a section. yesterday for a sermon I’m doing out of Mark where, you know, Martha is serving in Lazarus’s house and Mary takes the nard and smashes it on Jesus’s feet. And Judas gets really pissed off and says, how dare you do this? Jon Thompson —  And I was reflecting on how her—everyone ready, system leaders?—her uncontrolled, embarrassing, inappropriate public activity exposed his double life. And so I just want to challenge everyone that when genuine encounter starts happening, systems are not the enemy, but it will expose double lives.Rich Birch — So good, Jon, this is I feel like we could go for so long about these things. And I’m always got I got a page of notes here and other questions I’d love to ask you. But this is super helpful.Rich Birch — So the thing for folks that haven’t been tracking along, you’ve been writing a number of books.Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — And that, you know, and they they hang together as a bit of a the thing you’re tricking people into is it’s like they think it’s one book, but really it’s like it’s like a Tolkien, more than trilogy. Kind of talk to us how these all fit together. At least that’s how I see them. I see them as like, it’s kind of one continuous conversation around the similar kind of stuff. How does Presence, this current work, fit in the context of the other stuff that you’re working on?Jon Thompson — Sure. You are right about the conspiracy. And I’ll take I’ll take the Tolkien nod.Rich Birch — Yes, I figured you’d like that.Jon Thompson — That’s very kind of you, because I don’t deserve it. I only quote him once in all my books, though. So the only once for one section.Rich Birch — Oh nice. Yes.Jon Thompson — ah Yeah, here’s how I would say it. Convergence is the is the story and the theology of how we wrestled down love, word, and power from the gift side of things. How it was implemented. How we move, basically what is the theology thing what is it what does it feel like, how do you actually build house rules around it, all the good and bad that happened with it, and then tells the story of the renewal and revival we went through, and how we survived it. So that’s book one.Jon Thompson — Book two, well, it’s not really book two anymore, but I’ll do it like this. Deliverance, which comes out in February, is a 25-plus year theological and practical experience of how we dealt with the demonic.Jon Thompson — Perseverance, book three, which is still out which will disappear soon, is all my reflections at the midway point on survivability, because you and I have talked about this before, only 30% of leaders in the Bible end well; 70% fail. The stats have not changed. So there’s a lot of the first two things involved in this. Jon Thompson — This book Presence is talking honestly about retreat and revival, talking about incarnation and why multiple models of church that feeling contradiction to each other is the point. That’s always been the point, which again, for a lot of you as admin leaders, I’d really beg you to read this, not because it’s my book. Because a lot of the battles between churches is a misunderstanding of mission. Jon Thompson — And then I talk about how love, word, and power are employed evangelistically, and then walk again through revival and how you can ask for it and what you do if He says yes or no. But the majority of the book is actually on long-term witness to a very diverse, complicated world.Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.Jon Thompson — That’s the trellis.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson —  And the book I’m writing right now is on suffering, but we’re not there yet.Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Friends, I would strongly encourage you, you know, listen, I’ve had multiple friends, multiple teams who have just been incredibly blessed by by Jon’s work and has challenged and done the best kind of disruptive work that this kind of thinking can do. And so i would strongly endorse uh you know that you pick up copies of Presence for your team. Rich Birch — This could be a great um you know resource to work through with your leaders and ask the question all the time. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? Don’t just let these be ideas in your head, but something you can really wrestle with. Rich Birch — Where do we want to send people to pick up, you know, to get copies and all that stuff. I’m assuming you can get them on Amazon, but are there other places we want to let people know about?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so Amazon, of course, is easy for all of us these days. But jonthompsonresources.com has it too. J-O-N. Jon Thompson Resources will have all of that. Like I said, Convergence is out. Presence comes out September 22nd. Deliverance is re-released in February 2027. And Perseverance is available now and will disappear and then we’ll come back…Rich Birch — It’s like the Disney vault.Jon Thompson — …sooner than later. It is like, it’s like the Disney. Yes, it is like the Disney vault.Rich Birch — That’s a throwback to the, the you know for people of a certain age, we’ll get that. And Gen Z friends will be like, what? What are you talking about? Rich Birch — Well, Jon, I just also want to just publicly honor you. You’re you’re doing a fantastic job. Like it’s been fun to watch over the years, your continued leadership and the positive impact you’ve been having and the community that you have stewarded. And you know I can’t I love when you know more people get a chance to interact with you. So thanks so much for being here on the show today. Appreciate your time with us. Thank you.Jon Thompson — Yeah, thanks for your friendship and your prayers. 

Episode 267: API Heat Transfer was responding to requests for quotation when, according to research in one of its priority segments, buyers had already decided who they trusted. The manufacturer of heat exchangers had strong products and deep engineering expertise. It understood much less about how customers chose a supplier for a particular order. It would have been easy to miss the gap in understanding. API's revenue grew with healthy margins. Some customers had been buying for decades. But familiarity didn't necessarily give customers enough reason to defend API when a competitor offered a lower price or faster delivery. Daniel Herrmann, API's Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy, joins Rob Markey to explore how the company is changing its approach. Historically, a customer provided a specification, API built and shipped the product, and the relationship largely paused until the next order or service problem. Their research revealed how much happened while API wasn't in the conversation.  "We realized we were leaving value on the table," by not maintaining the relationship after the sale, but before another RFQ had been requested, Daniel explains. "More importantly, we were not there for our customers when [it] mattered." Getting involved earlier required more than scheduling meetings. Account managers agreed that talking with customers was a good idea. But without an order or technical question to discuss, they weren't sure how to make those conversations useful. API introduced regular reviews with larger customers. They developed a global sales development program to help the API team discuss customers' priorities, alternatives, and business plans. As Daniel puts it, "Investing in the relationship is selling." API also began broadening whose feedback it sought. Procurement's satisfaction with a shipment could reveal little about the maintenance team's experience after a year of operating the equipment. A new relationship survey reaches across decision makers to help API understand what transaction scores alone could miss. Daniel shares with Rob that his focus now is creating what he calls a "central nervous system" for understanding customers and turning stronger relationships into a repeatable way of doing business.  The work is still underway. Rob and Daniel examine the test ahead: whether these changes will lead customers to buy more, give API a greater share of their spending, and generate more profitable business. Guest: Daniel Herrmann, Vice President, Corporate Development & Strategy, API Heat Transfer Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics 02:01 – The "invisible infrastructure" behind data centers, power systems, and everyday life 09:19 – API's traditional product-first, transaction-focused model 11:00 – The difference between genuine loyalty and customer inertia 13:33 – Why some customers were leaving  21:38 – How aftermarket service can strengthen loyalty and customer lifetime value 26:16 – Building customer relationships when there is no order on the table 27:18 – Why "investing in the relationship is selling" 30:03 – Moving beyond transactional NPS to measure overall relationship health Notable Quotes 11:00: "We weren't asking whether this growth was based on inertia or genuine loyalty. And by inertia, I mean the way we had always done things and customers always engaging in a certain way. We never dug into that because everything felt good." 13:50: "We had a very consistent finding that the real purchase decision happens before the RFQ, and we were in this RFQ stage. And we didn't really understand the buying stages because we never had to previously. But when the purchase decision happens, we're not actually in the room, and so vendor selection is effectively determined before any procurement process begins." 22:02: "And there's a real parallel to API's business. Historically, we were not holding these service contracts, and we were not maintaining continuity. So every time a customer needed something after our initial sale, we were starting from scratch. And that really limits how much loyalty you can build, and it limits your share of lifetime value that the customer represents." 27:18: "Investing in the relationship is selling. That's part of the process, and that's how you evolve out of a transactional mindset. It's: you're not an order taker, you're a partner, you're a consultative partner." 37:12: "Frankly, what drew me to API was this gap that I recognized immediately where we have 150 years of history, over 120 engineers, more than a million installations, and one of the most comprehensive portfolios. But we hadn't really built the centralized commercial infrastructure to match that, and, you know, I always look at that as a central nervous system to understanding your customers."

Hello! This is Episode 422. This is Way #22 of the 44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home series, and we’re continuing through Section Five: The Building Envelope. In the last two episodes, we covered thermal mass and window selection. Before that, in Way #19, we talked about what building tight actually means: why you want a continuous air barrier, and why airtightness and ventilation have to be designed together. This episode is about a layer that sits within the wall and roof assembly of your home: the building wrap. Way #22 is: Review Building Wraps to Manage Moisture for Climate. [For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/422] Historically, especially in Australia, we’ve seen foil sarking act as this layer. However, with learnings over time about how this has detrimentally affected the performance of the building envelope, as well as how it has trapped moisture inside the wall, bringing issues such as mould and rot, better products are now available to do this job. Yet, the industry isn’t up to speed with this, and in some cases, is still installing the wrong building membranes, and using the wrong detailing, which continues to create long-term issues. Getting it right with building wraps involves knowledge of building science and construction detailing, and your climate and construction methodology is key to ensuring the best solution for your project. So, what I’m sharing in this episode will get you started, but it’s super important to be discussing this in detail with your team. Don’t assume that, just because it’s in the local building regulations, your team is across it. As always, if you'd like to access a full transcript of this episode and links to any resources I mention, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/422. Now, let's dive in! RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST: For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/422 Accessing my free '44 Ways' E-Book will simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home. You can download your free copy here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/ Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Markets reversed sharply after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh signaled another potential rate hike by year-end and no rate cuts next year. Now the S&P 500 is testing support near the 100-day moving average as investors reassess what tighter monetary policy could mean for stocks. Historically, markets have tended to struggle during the first three months after the Fed begins hiking rates before recovering over the following year. But history is an average, not a forecast. With earnings still strong, corporate interest coverage at historically high levels, and bond yields already doing some of the Fed's tightening work, this cycle could play out differently. Lance Roberts examines the S&P 500's 50-DMA, 100-DMA, and 200-DMA support levels, the potential downside toward 7,200–7,000, and why risk management could become increasingly important if the Fed hikes again. Hosted by RIA Chief Investment Strategist, Lance Roberts, CIO Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer --- Watch the Video version of this report on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/x3R2_RXa6ew --- Get more info & commentary: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/insights/real-investment-daily/ --- Do you enjoy our content? Rate us on Google: https://bit.ly/4b9JtEo --- * REGISTER for our next in-person Retirement Income Workshop, "Saturday, September 19, 2026: https://tracking.realinvestmentadvice.com/l/1052953/2026-06-17/2kkcz --- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN --- Subscribe to SimpleVisor : https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new --- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #FederalReserve #StockMarket #InterestRates #SP500 #Investing

Historically low volatility may be masking a meaningful shift in market risk and the AI trade. This week, Macro Risk Advisors CEO and Alpha Exchange Host Dean Curnutt explains why unusually low stock correlations make tail hedging increasingly compelling. We explore volatility pricing, crowded correlation trades, the Treasury market stress, why AI stocks could suddenly move together, and whether the Fed can calm markets. Enjoy! TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 05:08 Why Stock Correlation Collapsed 10:49 What's Driving The Dispersion Trade? 18:45 Ads (Token 2049, Avalanche Summit) 20:21 Could Volmageddon Happen Again? 27:16 Why Tail Hedging Looks Attractive 35:35 Can Portfolio Insurance Ever Be Free? 39:55 Systematic Or Discretionary Hedging? 42:33 Where Could Market Risk Emerge? 47:27 Can The Fed Calm Markets? 53:22 Closing Thoughts FOLLOW GUEST › X – https://x.com/Dcurnutt › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-curnutt-4060157/ › Macro Risk Advisors – https://www.macroriskadvisors.com/ › Alpha Exchange – https://www.axpod.com/ FOLLOW THE SHOW › Forward Guidance – https://x.com/ForwardGuidance › Felix – https://x.com/fejau_inc › Telegram – https://t.me/+CAoZQpC-i6BjYTEx › Blockworks – https://x.com/Blockworks EVENTS › Join us at Digital Asset Summit 2026 Asia October 7th & Digital Asset 2026 London November 10-11th https://blockworks.com/events › Get your TOKEN2049 tickets and 10% DISCOUNT here: https://checkout.token2049.com/events/asia?promo=DASPODCAST10&utm_source=fg&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=daspodcast&utm_id=DASPODCAST › Avalanche Summit NYC lands Sept. 16–17. Save 15% with code BLOCKWORKS15: avalanchesummit.com/registration DISCLAIMER Nothing said on Forward Guidance is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are opinions, not financial advice. Hosts and guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

In this epsiode of the ATA Podcast, guests Olivia Caputo and Jamie Hartz tell us about Language Access Cards, a free downloadable resource from ATA that Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals can present in settings like hospitals and courtrooms to request assistance in their language and to prompt language services providers for assistance with language access resources. Historically, federal agencies and organizations that receive government funding have had to take reasonable steps to assist those who are LEP. If an agency or organization does not assist those who are LEP, it may be violating the law. ATA wants to help you access these services in your language!   Download the Language Access cards here: https://www.atanet.org/client-assistance/know-your-rights-to-language-access/   If you don't see your language or would like to volunteer to translate a version of the card, reach out at pr-chair@atanet.org.   Show Notes: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): https://www.aclu.org/affiliates HHS Office for Civil Rights: https://www.stopbullying.gov/language-assistance-services Medicare: https://www.medicare.gov/ Social Security Administration: https://www.ssa.gov/ Language Access Resources by Location: https://www.atanet.org/client-assistance/know-your-rights-to-language-access Join ATA: https://www.atanet.org/member-center/join-ata/ Benefits of ATA Membership: https://www.atanet.org/member-center/benefits-of-membership/ The ATA Podcast Archive: https://www.atanet.org/news/the-ata-podcast/ ATA Events Calendar: https://www.atanet.org/ata-events/ ATA Socials: https://linkin.bio/americantranslatorsassn  The ATA Chronicle: https://www.ata-chronicle.online/ ATA's 67th Annual Conference: https://www.atanet.org/ata67/   Please send comments, questions, or requests about this podcast to podcast@atanet.org. Thank you for listening!   Audio Production: Derek Platts | Technical Support: Trenton Morgan

In this episode of Grandma's Silver, Allie Kochinsky is joined by Michael and Lucas Krauss, the father-and-son team behind Authentic Designs, a Vermont-based company that has handcrafted historically inspired lighting for more than sixty years.As part of the podcast's collaboration with Colonial Williamsburg's WILLIAMSBURG brand, this episode explores how traditional lighting has shaped everyday life for generations, from welcoming guests at the front door to creating a gathering place around a table. Michael and Lucas share the story of their family-run business, the artistry behind handcrafted lighting, and how a collaboration with WILLIAMSBURG continue a tradition of American craftsmanship rooted in history.Along the way, the group discusses why historic design feels relevant today and what it means to create products meant to last.In this episode:The story behind Authentic DesignsWhy historically inspired lighting still resonatesThe craftsmanship behind handmade American lightingLighting as an essential part of hospitality and homeCollaborating with the WILLIAMSBURG brandCreating heirloom-quality objects that illuminate daily lifeRESOURCES:Visit the Authentic Designs website here.Follow along on Instagram and/or Facebook.If you enjoy Grandma's Silver, follow the podcast and share this episode with a friend who loves heritage, design, and timeless living.

Historically, databases were responsible for storing data and returning exact results in response to queries. However, AI is now bending that contract in a new direction. Applications increasingly expect structured and unstructured data to come together. This is pushing databases into territory that looks more like search, where relevance and ranking matter and results are no longer strictly exact. Agents are also beginning to write their own queries and even propose their own schemas, which raises new questions about how data should be structured, governed, and trusted. Sailesh Krishnamurthy is a VP of Engineering at Google, and in this episode he joins Matt Merrill to discuss his background, how databases have evolved over the past fifty years, and where the field is heading as AI reshapes how data is queried, structured, and trusted.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Inside Google’s Database Infrastructure for the AI Era appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Historically, databases were responsible for storing data and returning exact results in response to queries. However, AI is now bending that contract in a new direction. Applications increasingly expect structured and unstructured data to come together. This is pushing databases into territory that looks more like search, where relevance and ranking matter and results are no longer strictly exact. Agents are also beginning to write their own queries and even propose their own schemas, which raises new questions about how data should be structured, governed, and trusted. Sailesh Krishnamurthy is a VP of Engineering at Google, and in this episode he joins Matt Merrill to discuss his background, how databases have evolved over the past fifty years, and where the field is heading as AI reshapes how data is queried, structured, and trusted.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Inside Google’s Database Infrastructure for the AI Era appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Historically, databases were responsible for storing data and returning exact results in response to queries. However, AI is now bending that contract in a new direction. Applications increasingly expect structured and unstructured data to come together. This is pushing databases into territory that looks more like search, where relevance and ranking matter and results are no longer strictly exact. Agents are also beginning to write their own queries and even propose their own schemas, which raises new questions about how data should be structured, governed, and trusted. Sailesh Krishnamurthy is a VP of Engineering at Google, and in this episode he joins Matt Merrill to discuss his background, how databases have evolved over the past fifty years, and where the field is heading as AI reshapes how data is queried, structured, and trusted.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Inside Google’s Database Infrastructure for the AI Era appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Historically, databases were responsible for storing data and returning exact results in response to queries. However, AI is now bending that contract in a new direction. Applications increasingly expect structured and unstructured data to come together. This is pushing databases into territory that looks more like search, where relevance and ranking matter and results are no longer strictly exact. Agents are also beginning to write their own queries and even propose their own schemas, which raises new questions about how data should be structured, governed, and trusted. Sailesh Krishnamurthy is a VP of Engineering at Google, and in this episode he joins Matt Merrill to discuss his background, how databases have evolved over the past fifty years, and where the field is heading as AI reshapes how data is queried, structured, and trusted.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Inside Google’s Database Infrastructure for the AI Era appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Historically, databases were responsible for storing data and returning exact results in response to queries. However, AI is now bending that contract in a new direction. Applications increasingly expect structured and unstructured data to come together. This is pushing databases into territory that looks more like search, where relevance and ranking matter and results are no longer strictly exact. Agents are also beginning to write their own queries and even propose their own schemas, which raises new questions about how data should be structured, governed, and trusted. Sailesh Krishnamurthy is a VP of Engineering at Google, and in this episode he joins Matt Merrill to discuss his background, how databases have evolved over the past fifty years, and where the field is heading as AI reshapes how data is queried, structured, and trusted.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Inside Google’s Database Infrastructure for the AI Era appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Historically, what are the main influences on English fashion vocabulary?And how does clothing linguistics differ abroad? Kelly Higgins-Devine reveals all with the Lord of Language Professor Roly Sussex, and Senior Lecturer in Fashion at QUT, Dr Tim Lindgren. 

Implementing the Right to Decide Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Supporting the Legal Capacity of All Persons with Disabilities (Hart, 2025) addresses one of the most controversial questions in contemporary human rights law: how can persons with severe cognitive disabilities make their own decisions?Historically, vulnerable persons have been considered incapable, and guardians were appointed to represent their interests, which has led to serious abuses. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted in 2006, requires that they receive support to make their own decisions. However, governments claim it is impossible to fully implement this international requirement.In this book, Dr Janos Fiala-Butora tackles the issue of decision-making from both a legal and theoretical perspective. He explores how supported decision-making could incorporate safeguards to protect the vital interests of vulnerable persons in order to present a viable legal alternative to guardianship. The book accepts that some persons' abilities are very limited, but contends that guardianship is not the appropriate response, even in such cases. Instead, the book presents a unique Modified Support Framework, which can incorporate all persons with disabilities, fulfilling the goals of the CRPD. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A strange and beautiful family of creatures known as ammonoids nicely illustrate the illogic and lack of scientific reasoning used by defenders of evolution. While the chambered nautilus is the only species of ammonoid that exists today, the fossil record reveals hundreds of extinct species. Some, like the chambered nautilus, had relatively simple shells, while others had intricately detailed shells with ruffled, wavy walls.Historically, evolutionists have always explained this variation by saying that, like all other living things, ammonoids evolved from simple to complex. An ammonoid specialist developed a system that mathematically rates shell complexity, based on factors like the length and number of loops and spirals in the shell. He concluded that even though the relatively simple chambered nautilus survives, those with more complex shapes had a survival advantage in the past. He argues that the ammonoids evolved from complex to simple, thus proving evolution.Simple to complex? Complex to simple? Both arguments cannot be used in science to support evolution. The fact that supporters of evolution illogically argue in both directions shows that evolution is not scientific. It is merely a philosophy that seeks to explain the creation without need for the Creator. But ultimately, evolution is unable to explain the creation without our Creator.Proverbs 12:5“The thoughts of the righteous are right, but the counsels of the wicked are deceit.”Prayer: Lord, deliver us from the deceitfulness of unbelievers. Amen.Ref: Toronto Star, "Survival of the simplest." To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1232/29?v=20251111

In this episode of our series "The Negative Image," Sarah and Pastor Ryan dive deep into Checkbox #13 of our end-times signs: the miraculous double eclipse of Ramadan 2024. Could a lunar and solar eclipse, occurring exactly 1,400 years after the very first observed Ramadan in 624 AD, be the ultimate supernatural marker pointing to the rise of the biblical Antichrist?  Episode OverviewIn Islamic eschatology, the emergence of the Mahdi (the "guided one," whom we believe is the negative or reverse image of the biblical Antichrist) is said to be preceded by two specific astronomical signs: a lunar eclipse on the 15th day of Ramadan, and a solar eclipse at the very end of the month. Historically and physically, a solar eclipse during the crescent moon at the end of Ramadan is considered an astronomical impossibility. But in this episode, we unpack how the unique alignment of visual horizons and time zones on March 25 and April 8, 2024, perfectly fulfilled this ancient prophecy in our hemisphere—just 8 months before  “Our Guy” rose to power in Damascus on December 8, 2024. We also tackle heavy questions from our viewers, including why popular candidates like Donald Trump do not fit the biblical description of the Antichrist, why we hold to a post-tribulation rapture, and how staying filled with the Holy Spirit is our only true defense against the coming deception.CONNECT WITH THESE FINAL DAYSWebsite: thesefinaldays.orgSubscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheseFinalDaysTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thesefinaldaysFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesefinaldays X: https://x.com/TheseFinalDays

A climate expert experiences eco-anxiety firsthand after living through France's hottest summer on record. France tries to find its place in the new space race. And the story of the earliest known photograph still visible today. Eco-anxiety is on the rise in France after a summer of unprecedented heatwaves led to wildfires, scorched crops and the deaths of at least 7,000 people as well as livestock and birds. Juliette Decq, a climate adaptation consultant, says fear is a normal response to the reality people are now facing. A mother of two young children, she experienced that reality firsthand when her own home became unsafe. She talks about her anger over France's lack of preparedness, not least in schools, but also about the solidarity she witnessed in her local community as they helped people protect themselves. Eco-anger, she says, can be a force for change. (Listen @0') Historically a leader in Europe's space programme, France is reassessing its role in space. Although French astronaut Sophie Adenot is currently on the International Space Station, France's space ambitions haven't focused on human space flight. But as the US and China ramp up their Moon missions and space becomes increasingly industrialised, France is looking to find its place. Space policy analyst Xavier Pasco explains how Europe is positioning itself as a regulator in a rapidly changing sector that has, until now, remained largely unchecked. (Listen @20'10'') French inventor Nicéphore Niépce took the earliest surviving photograph in July 1827: a scene from a window that might have taken days to make. He fell into obscurity, and the photo itself was lost. Now it's returning to France, as part of a celebration of 200 years of photography in his honour. (Listen @14'15'') Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani. Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, Apple podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast app.

AI is changing software development faster than most organizations can adjust their processes around it. Developers can generate code, tests, documentation, and prototypes in a fraction of the time those tasks once required. Business owners who have never written software can now describe an idea to an AI tool and have something working surprisingly quickly. That creates tremendous opportunity, but it also changes where the real value in software development lives. In the second half of our conversation with Laura Chattington, CEO of Rebalance Network Limited, we explored what happens when producing code is no longer the hardest part of building software. Laura argues that developers still have an important role, but the value they provide is shifting toward understanding the problem, managing risk, assuring quality, and connecting technology to business outcomes. About Laura Chattington Laura Chattington is the CEO of Rebalance Network Limited and works with established entrepreneurs and corporate leadership teams to turn AI capabilities into measurable business value. Laura began her career as a software engineer and has more than 20 years of experience spanning technology, business, communications, and leadership. Her work includes AI strategy and transformation programs, executive AI workshops, AI CEO programs, the AI Evolution Multiplier, and the Four Levels of AI Value framework. Learn more through Rebalance Network, connect with Laura Chattington on LinkedIn, or follow Laura Chattington on YouTube. AI Has Lowered the Barrier to Building Software One of the most significant changes AI has introduced is access. Entrepreneurs and other non-technical users can now experiment with software without immediately hiring a development team. They can create prototypes, automate workflows, connect systems, and build surprisingly capable applications by working directly with AI. Laura sees this happening regularly with the businesses she works with. The challenge is determining where experimentation should stop and professional software engineering needs to begin. An AI assistant will enthusiastically keep building when you ask it to. It may make an assumption, misunderstand a requirement, or introduce a problem that isn't immediately obvious. Someone without a technical background may see a working application and reasonably assume everything underneath it is working correctly as well. A software engineer sees a different set of questions. How is the data protected? What happens when an integration fails? How does the application handle unexpected input? Can it scale? How is it tested? What assumptions did AI make while generating the solution? That knowledge hasn't suddenly become irrelevant because AI can write code. In many ways, it has become more important. Bad Scope on Rocket Fuel Laura offered one of my favorite descriptions of this problem during our conversation: AI can become "bad scope on rocket fuel." Software teams have always struggled with poorly defined requirements. If the customer and development team don't clearly understand the problem, developers can spend months building something before everyone realizes they were solving the wrong problem. AI changes the speed of that mistake. A poorly scoped project can now generate a tremendous amount of code and functionality very quickly. That can create the illusion of progress because there is always something new to demonstrate. However, producing more software doesn't necessarily mean you are getting closer to the correct solution. This is something I've seen repeatedly from the testing and quality side of software development. Speed is valuable only when you maintain confidence in what you're producing. Accelerating implementation while removing validation simply moves problems downstream, where they usually become more expensive to fix. The goal shouldn't be to slow AI down. It should be to build the right quality gates around that speed. Quality Assurance Becomes More Important, Not Less This led to one of the more interesting parts of our conversation. Laura believes AI may change the relationship between software development and quality assurance. Traditionally, developers have often received most of the attention. Development creates the product, while QA can sometimes be treated as the group that appears later and tells everyone what is wrong with it. AI disrupts that equation. If AI can generate large amounts of code quickly, simply producing code becomes less of a differentiator. The more important question becomes whether the generated software is correct, reliable, secure, maintainable, and actually solving the intended problem. As Laura explained, the challenge becomes how we use the intelligence and speed AI provides while retaining high-quality assurance throughout the process. That doesn't mean developers disappear and testers take over. It means development and quality need to become much more tightly connected. Developers need to understand validation, testers need to become involved earlier, and teams need automated checks and human review positioned throughout the development process. AI gives us speed. Quality gives us confidence that we're moving quickly in the right direction. Developers Need to Rethink the Value They Provide This also raises an uncomfortable question for developers: if AI can write much of the code, what exactly are we being paid to do? The answer can't simply be typing faster. Laura argued that software engineers need to think more creatively about the value they bring to the table. Knowing how software works remains important, but understanding what should be built and why becomes increasingly valuable as implementation gets easier. A developer who understands the business can identify assumptions before they become expensive mistakes. They can recognize when a proposed AI solution creates unnecessary risk, determine where automation makes sense, and help leadership distinguish an impressive demo from something that can safely support the business. That combination of technical understanding and business communication creates a significant opportunity. Laura saw a similar pattern early in her own career as a Java developer. Her ability to communicate with the business pulled her toward management and leadership roles. She sees that opportunity emerging again for technical professionals who can bridge the gap between AI capabilities and business outcomes. What Do You Do With the Time AI Gives Back? The conversation then returned to a question from the first half of the interview: what happens when AI dramatically reduces the time required to perform work? Suppose a task that once took a week now takes two hours. Saving that time sounds impressive, but the time savings alone aren't necessarily business value. The real question is what happens to the rest of the week. Laura believes relatively few businesses have figured this out. Organizations may purchase AI licenses and encourage adoption, but simply giving employees tools doesn't create a strategy. Leadership needs to decide how the capacity created by AI will be used. If a 100-person organization gives each employee several hours back every week, the combined capacity can be enormous. That time could improve customer service, accelerate product development, generate new revenue, reduce delays, or allow teams to solve problems they previously didn't have time to address. Without that next step, the company has optimized a task without necessarily transforming the business. Look for the Biggest Pressure Points Laura shared an example from working with a leadership team in the urgent healthcare sector. Before spending time with the organization, she could have arrived with a long list of sophisticated ways the company might use AI. Once she understood how the organization actually worked, however, she discovered something much simpler: people were spending huge amounts of time in meetings. Some meetings existed because people had missed previous meetings. Others were necessary to communicate information that had already been discussed elsewhere. Executives needed to catch up before attending another meeting, creating another cycle of lost time. The valuable AI opportunity wasn't necessarily an elaborate new application. It was using AI to capture meetings, summarize information, create executive reports, and prepare people before they entered the next conversation. That kind of workflow could return a substantial amount of time to the organization. You don't discover opportunities like that by starting with a list of AI tools. You discover them by understanding how people work. Start With Pain, Then Apply AI That example reinforces a principle we continue returning to throughout this season of Develpreneur: start with the problem. Look at where the organization is spending its time. Find the repeated manual work, communication gaps, customer frustrations, delays, and bottlenecks. Determine which problems are actually expensive enough to solve, and then ask where AI can provide leverage. Laura described two questions she looks at when working with organizations. First, where is the business spending large amounts of time that AI could reduce? Second, how could AI help customers reach their desired outcomes faster? The second question is particularly important because it moves AI beyond internal productivity. Saving employees five hours is useful. Helping customers achieve an outcome twice as fast may fundamentally change the value of your product or service. That's where AI starts becoming a business strategy rather than another productivity tool. Faster Iteration Changes How We Build AI may also change some of the traditional assumptions around software planning. Historically, implementation was expensive. Organizations could spend months designing a solution and creating detailed specifications because getting development wrong meant wasting months of work from an expensive development team. When implementation becomes dramatically faster, the economics change. Laura's approach is to maintain the necessary scope and fundamentals while recognizing that teams can now learn through much faster iteration. Instead of spending months trying to document every possible detail before anything gets built, teams can create something smaller, validate it, learn from it, and iterate. That doesn't mean abandoning requirements or planning. It means adjusting the amount of upfront work to the cost and speed of implementation. From a quality perspective, that makes feedback loops critical. Faster iteration only works when teams can quickly determine whether the change actually works. Automated testing, monitoring, user feedback, and clearly defined outcomes become essential parts of an AI-accelerated development process. The Opportunity Is Bigger Than AI One of Laura's strongest messages was that many business leaders know AI represents a significant competitive transition, but they still don't know how to convert it into measurable value. That's an opportunity for developers. The technical professionals who succeed in this environment won't necessarily be the people who know every new model or AI framework. Those technologies are going to continue changing too quickly. The more durable skill is being able to walk into a business, understand how it operates, identify where technology can create leverage, build the appropriate solution, and establish enough quality assurance to trust the result. For developers who can also communicate that value to business leaders, the opportunity becomes even larger. AI can generate code, create tests, and automate processes. What businesses still need are people who understand what should be built, where the risks are, how to know whether it works, and how it creates value. That may ultimately be one of the biggest changes AI brings to software development. It isn't eliminating the need for good developers. It is forcing us to become much clearer about what being a good developer actually means. Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

Sometimes it's not the kids - it's the adults around them that make parenting so difficult! Today we are answering your questions about difficult in-laws, boundaries with extended family, and tricky friendships that can make even simple parenting scenarios more complicated. Tune in and learn something practical to help you navigate whatever you're facing this week.Episode Recap:Should I re-engage my family of origin? Historically, it has been painful. (5:30)I'm struggling with my sister-in-law who tries to parent my kids (8:30)We are raising our kids far from family - how do I bring this grief to God? (11:55)One of my close friend's children is just plain destructive, how do I handle that? (16:07)Scripture: Romans 12:18 (NIV) “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”Discussion Questions:Generally speaking, are boundaries easy for you to create? Is there a relationship in your life that regularly makes parenting harder? What specifically is creating tension?Where do you need a clearer boundary with extended family? What keeps you from setting it?Are you carrying grief over the family relationships you wish your kids had? Have you honestly brought that disappointment to God?Resources:Use code WT20 to get $20 off SOAR registration today! Pick up a copy of Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud & John TownsendReach out to have Karen come speak in your community.Want More of This Conversation?During Wire Talk+, Karen and Emily share real-life examples of how boundaries have brought freedom to their relationships and Karen offers her best in-law advice! Become an Insider today to get bonus content each week, join quarterly Zoom calls with Karen and sustain the ministry of this podcast! 

Do no harm but take no shit.Historically, especially under a patriarchal rule, women have been taught to be selfless, self sacrificing, useful, and kind over everything else. The goal is to be seen and not heard. To be pleasant and palatable. While I think those are great virtues and attributes under a normal context, the patriarchy is not a normal context. Our society puts profits over people, so being taught to be self sacrificing is dangerous. Our society doesn't have our best interest at heart. Am I telling you to not be kind, or generous? No. I am telling you to back off of the self sacrificing role that a lot of us were forced into. Compliance, obedience, and self sacrifice is dangerous, yet it's what many of us women were taught as the “normal” expectation of us. Remember that Matilda couldn't access her magic until she was pissed off.SOURCES:https://meridianuniversity.edu/content/shadow-work-meaning-in-jungian-psychology-explainedhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassionate-feminism/202505/the-post-forties-villain-erahttps://livstclaire.substack.com/p/villain-eraRead Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we start by discussing our daughter's summer geometry crash course, and I forgot how much I hate proofs. I also tell the story of getting stuck at the Salt Lake airport with the Portland Thorns professional soccer team, which hit me with a wave of nostalgia for my old Ultimate Frisbee team days, followed by Kristin's late-night ladder saga trying to fix a chirping smoke detector on our vaulted ceiling while I was useless from the airport. Then we get into something a little more serious: the whole Hank Green AI situation, where he admitted to using ChatGPT to help write video scripts and got a wave of backlash from his own audience. I get into my personal line in the sand with AI, which is that I don't want it anywhere near my creative work, and we touch on something Hank said that I hadn't really considered before: that interacting with LLMs might be giving people unhealthy dopamine hits. We talk about where this all might be headed, why creativity feels different from other tech advancements, and why I think this whole AI conversation deserves more nuance than a 60-second hot take. Takeaways: Interacting with LLMs may trigger dopamine responses similar to social interaction, which could make them more habit-forming than people realize. AI tools can be genuinely useful for research and administrative tasks, but using them to generate creative content removes the human decision-making that gives creative work its meaning. The backlash Hank Green received for using AI in his video scripts sparked a broader conversation about where the line should be drawn between helpful tool and creative shortcut. Historically, people have expressed similar fears and backlash toward new technologies, from the printing press to photography to typing, though AI raises unique concerns around creative authorship. AI models are trained on human-created content, so widespread reliance on AI to create that content going forward could gradually dilute the human originality models depend on. — To Get Tickets to Wife & Death: You can visit Glaucomflecken.com/live  We want to hear YOUR stories (and medical puns)! Shoot us an email and say hi! knockknockhi@human-content.com Can't get enough of us? Shucks. You can support the show on Patreon for early episode access, exclusive bonus shows, livestream hangouts, and much more! –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://www.patreon.com/glaucomflecken⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Also, be sure to check out the newsletter: https://glaucomflecken.com/glauc-to-me/ If you are interested in buying a book from one of our guests, check them all out here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dr.glaucomflecken If you want more information on models I use: Anatomy Warehouse provides for the best, crafting custom anatomical products, medical simulation kits and presentation models that create a lasting educational impact.  For more information go to Anatomy Warehouse DOT com. Link: https://anatomywarehouse.com/?aff=14 Plus for 15% off use code: Glaucomflecken15 As a proud FIGS Ambassador, visit https://WearFIGS.com and use code DrGFIRSTFIGS to shop, stay updated on new launches, and learn more about FIGS advocacy projects. Check out FIGS on social platforms: @wearfigs -- A friendly reminder from the G's and Tarsus: If you want to learn more about Demodex Blepharitis, making an appointment with your eye doctor for an eyelid exam can help you know for sure. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.EyelidCheck.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information. Head to http://www.cozyearth.com and use my code KNOCKKNOCK for an exclusive 20% off. Produced by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Human Content⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Hebert discusses the fiscal debates surrounding Social Security's impending 2032 shortfall. Hebert refutes the idea that raising tax rates increases treasury revenue, noting that tax revenue historically remains constant at 17–18% of GDP because high rates prompt tax avoidance. Instead of "starving the beast" of resources, Hebert advocates for "starving the beast of responsibility" by decentralizing programs through federalism to cut administrative costs. He urges structural reforms to Social Security, highlighting that the ratio of workers supporting each retiree has plummeted from 40-to-1 down to 2-to-1. (4)