Podcasts about How It Began

In the first 2025 episode of the Small Business Matters Podcast, Sierra Piedmont's founder and CEO Scott Pate joins Tim and Taylor to discuss the importance of the client experience and delivery speed to small business success. Scott shares his journey as a third-generation entrepreneur who began in the oil industry and ultimately founded a business in environmental engineering. Please tune in for insights on leadership, maintaining a healthy level of passion for your business, and how walking the El Camino can change your business—and your life. Episode Highlights: • What Matters to Small Business [0:3:10] • How It Began [0:03:45] • Leadership Roles [0:06:49] • Employee Interaction [0:07:48] • Benefits of a Peer Group [0:09:15] • Competitive Advantages [0:11:40] • Learning from Mistakes [0:13:52] • Advice to Aspiring Business Owners [0:14:59] • Experiencing the El Camino [0:16:08] • Analogy Between Small Business and the El Camino [0:18:59] • Rapid Fire [0:20:40] • Contact Information [0:24:45] • Takeaways [0:25:12] • SBM Announcements [0:27:43]

In this episode, branding expert Andy Suggs stops by to shed light on one of the small business owner's most confusing areas of responsibility: marketing. Andy shares his expertise on defining and building your brand, understanding the 12 different brand archetypes, and common mistakes small businesses make. Tune in to learn how consumers digest information today, how Aaron Rents underwent a successful engagement that transformed their brand, and how a simple day of fishing turned into an epic tale. Episode Highlights: • What Matters to Small Business [0:1:58] • How It Began [0:02:46] • Defining Your Brand [0:04:19] • Examples of Great Branding [0:07:24] • What a Brand Engagement Looks Like [0:09:47] • Branding Mistakes Small Businesses Make [0:15:58] • About Reckon Branding [0:17:59] • Leading Client Onboarding [0:19:28] • What's Different Today [0:20:34] • Aaron Rents: Portrait of a Successful Brand Engagement [0:23:00] • One Piece of Marketing Advice [0:27:44] • Rapid Fire [0:30:13] • Takeaways [0:35:00] • Contact Information [0:35:55] • SBM Announcements [0:37:33

Ever wondered how someone can turn a life-altering diagnosis into a journey of extraordinary achievement and transformation? Dean Hall's story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the healing power of nature. From the depths of a chronic leukemia diagnosis to the exhilarating heights of setting world records in extreme distance swimming, Dean's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Join us as we dive deep into his experiences and discover how reconnecting with nature and understanding its effects on health played a pivotal role in his incredible healing process. Enjoy this episode? Please share it with at least ONE friend who you think needs to hear it! Key Discussion Points: Journey with Chronic Leukemia: Dean's personal experience with chronic leukemia and how it shaped his life.  Psychosomatic Creation and Diagnosis: The effects of psychosomatic creation and how diagnoses can impact mental and physical health.  Self-Identifying with Diagnosis: The dangers of self-identifying with a doctor's diagnosis and how it affects overall well-being.  Reconnecting with Nature: The transformative power of nature on health and well-being.  World Record Achievements: Dean's accomplishments as a world record holder and what they meant for him personally and professionally. About Dean Hall:  Dean Hall is a therapist, success coach, best-selling author, and speaker with over 30 years of experience. He is a two-time cancer survivor and world record-setting swimmer, having swum Oregon's 187-mile Willamette River and Ireland's River Shannon during his cancer treatment.  Dean's radical cancer remission, inspired by his nature adventures, led him to create The Wild Cure Way. His mission is to encourage people to leave urban environments and explore nature for authentic healing of mind, body, and spirit. For more information, visit: thewildcureway.com   The Way Forward podcast is sponsored by: NEW BIOLOGY CLINIC: Experience individually tailored terrain-based health services with virtual consults, practitioner livestreams, movement classes, and more. The New Biology Clinic's motivation is to make you healthy and keep you that way. Visit https://NewBiologyClinic.com and enter code TheWayForward for $50 off your activation fee. Members of The Way Forward get the full activation fee waived. Become a member of The Way Forward here: https://thewayfwrd.com/membership-sign-up/ ————————— ORGANIFI: Experience the delicious taste of Organifi's products infused with 250mg of shilajit. Explore their full collection and enjoy 20% off your entire order by going to organifi.com/twf. ————————— ORGANIC MUSCLE: Organic Muscle is revolutionizing sports nutrition by exclusively utilizing non-GMO ingredients from USDA Organic farms. Experience the fusion of organic purity and scientific excellence at https://organicmuscle.com, and unlock a 15% discount with code "FORWARD15" at checkout. ————————— For more on The Way Forward, please visit: https://thewayfwrd.com Visit our online marketplace for discounts on a variety of the best holistic health brands and products: https://thewayfwrd.com/store/ For all of our links, visit: https://www.flowcode.com/page/thewayforward Support The Way Forward and Alec's work: https://thewayfwrd.com/donate/ FIND YOUR PEOPLE! Join The Way Forward to connect with like minded men and women near you, businesses near you, and more! The best part? You pay whatever you want!: https://thewayfwrd.com/membership-sign-up/ Do you run a freedom-oriented or holistic health-oriented business? Join our FREE business directory here: https://thewayfwrd.com/directory-form/ You can watch The Way Forward Podcast on YouTube, Unite, Bitchute & Rumble Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWayFwrd Unite: https://unite.live/channels/the-way-forward/the-way-forward Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/a3s3CiyELVd8/ Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/TheWayFwrd ————————— *This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without expressed written permission from The Way Forward, LLC. The purpose of this presentation is to convey information. It is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure a condition; nor is it to be considered medical or legal advice, opinion or recommendation. This information is presented in the spirit of service for all.*   0:00 - Cancer, Forest Bathing, and Bio-having 3:45 - Introduction  6:55 - How It Began? 24:44 - Diagnosis and Its Effects 33:33 - Emotional Trauma and Physical Manifestation of Symptoms 42:55 - Human Biofield and Overlapping Trauma 58:50 - What Lead to Second Cancer? 1:01:29 - What Made You Who You Are? 1:12:40 - Aggressive Upturn in Lymphoma  1:32:26 - Cold Water Therapy 1:43:58 - Nature vs Cancer  2:02:54 - Lymphoma and Self Esteem 2:10:00 - Showing the Other Path 2:21:20 - Ability to Connect with Natural World  2:29:00 - Closing Thoughts

Episode 121 Today we are joined by Dr. Chris Impey to talk about exoplanets, the search for life in space, and the search for meaning on Earth.   Dr Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 220 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. He is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, won its Education Prize, has been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council's Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World, and eight popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes.    Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript (AI Generated) ian (01:16.703) Our guest today is a university distinguished professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 220 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He's won 11 teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. He's a past vice president of the American Astronomical Society, has been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council's Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology, and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World and eight popular science books. I'm very excited to welcome Dr. Chris Impey to the podcast today. chris_impey (02:07.898) Yeah, delighted to be with you. zack_jackson (02:09.75) Welcome. That's quite an introduction. Ha ha ha. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. ian (02:12.983) Yeah. Obviously, I shortened down what you sent us, and it was tough for me to do that, Chris, because you've done a lot. You know, obviously, I was at fellow academic. I understand the need to do peer-reviewed research and those types of things in our field, but I was really impressed with how much writing you've done for the general public, both articles and also your books. You've written a novel. You've been on several podcasts. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about your background, what is you do, and then how you also got into that part of your profession of making sure you communicate with the general public as well? chris_impey (02:53.298) Sure, you won't hear it in my voice, my accent, but I was born into Edinburgh, I'm a Scott. I had a little transatlantic childhood that sort of wiped out the Scottish borough, but if you feed me single malt whiskey it would come back. And of course, I'm sure you noticed if you've gone to Britain that you look up and there are not many stars visible there. So once I decided to do astronomy I knew I was going to leave, so I did my undergrad work in London. zack_jackson (03:04.15) Thank you. Bye. Ha ha ha! chris_impey (03:22.938) and never look back and I'm a dual citizen now. So astronomy is big in Arizona. I've not looked elsewhere. The grass is never greener anywhere else. We're building the biggest telescopes in the world and we have five observatories within an hour's drive. So this is the perfect place to do observational astronomy. So I'm very happy. But then as people's careers evolve, you know, the writing research papers is important. It's the sort of stocking trade of the academic. But it's also, you know, the texture of the average research article is that of a three-day old bologna sandwich. It's almost designed to be indigestible writing. The constraints of an academic discourse make that happen. So I was always interested in more popular writing, so I segued into textbooks. And then I realized the problem with them is that you've written a textbook and that's a nice challenge. But then the publisher just wants you to update it every year or so. It's like, okay, that's not so exciting. I think I'm not going to do this anymore. And then I think more broadly, apart from just liking education and being very committed to teaching and mentoring students, you know, I've just seen the, well, even before the sort of large waves of misinformation and the assault on facts in our culture, it's, I viewed it as an obligation of a professional scientist to communicate to a larger audience because, well, to be blunt, we're paid by the taxpayer. zack_jackson (04:26.05) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (04:44.15) Hmm. chris_impey (04:54.118) And also, there's a lot of misinformation out there, and science is often misperceived or characterized in wrong and inappropriate ways. And so I think all scientists should not just stay in their little lane doing research, but they should, if they can, some better than others. And not everyone can be Neil deGrasse Tyson. That's fine. But I think there's an obligation to communicate to larger audiences. And once I got into it and got practiced and better at it, then I now understand that I mean, it's like I couldn't imagine not doing it. chris_impey (05:32.018) And the books just, okay. And so books just flow out of that because writing popular articles is just a sort of lighter version of writing a technical article. And then, you know, you want a meaty subject. You do a book-length version. So I've been writing about cosmology and astrobiology. And I've started about 10 years ago I say, I think this is my ninth book, Exoplanets. So books are fun. They're more challenging. ian (05:32.543) I almost had to sneeze. Sorry, go ahead. Ha ha ha. chris_impey (06:01.958) to take on a big subject and distill it down and make it, you gotta make it, have a resonance for a person with no, maybe with no background in astronomy or maybe just a little background and you're taking them through what could be a very esoteric subject. So that, I like the challenge of that. Although the books are exhausting. Once I've done a book, I don't wanna, I almost don't wanna look at a book or read a book or write a book for a while. zack_jackson (06:28.65) do people ask you like when's the next one coming out? Like right after you finish. It's like having a baby. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. chris_impey (06:31.898) Of course. Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's like I'm not going to go there about the having a baby because my wife would my wife would give me a hard time. There's nothing like having a baby. You can't even imagine, you know, and and and she and yeah, and she's right. But like having a baby, you know, women may feel that and then they do it again, you know, so I write the book, have have a slight, you know, trauma afterwards or just let down. It's a little bit of a let down sometimes. zack_jackson (06:43.89) That is a good man. Good job. ian (06:45.766) Yes. chris_impey (07:01.918) you finished any big-ish thing. But I do like writing, so I'm committed to it. zack_jackson (07:02.094) Hmm. ian (07:09.303) Yeah. zack_jackson (07:10.05) So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot chris_impey (07:15.718) Yeah, it's a super hot field with the number has up to 5,300 last time I checked on NASA's website. And remember, you know, 1995, the number was zero. So this is all, this is all the last few decades and it's just growing gangbusters. And now it's a slightly unfortunate because I have, we have students here who are working on exoplanets or astrobiology. And, you know, there was a time when if you discovered one cool Earth-like planet or water world, ian (07:27.244) I remember that. chris_impey (07:45.818) about it. Well now you know you'd have to find a hundred interesting things to write a paper. So the bar has been raised just by the success of the field. But the interesting thing is that it's moving to a new phase. So the most of what's known about those 5300 exoplanets is not much at all. They're basically is either a mass or a size or maybe both and you get a density and know it's a gas planet or a rocky planet. And that's it. We can't characterize zack_jackson (07:46.792) Hmm. zack_jackson (07:54.15) Yeah. zack_jackson (08:04.316) Hmm. chris_impey (08:15.698) thousands of exoplanets. So the next stage of the game, everyone's taking a deep breath in the research field is to try and characterize the atmospheres and the geology and of course find life. And that's just a very hard experiment. It's just much harder than detecting an exoplanet in the first place. So there's sort of excitement in the air because if I were betting, I would say that within five to seven years, we will have done the experiment of looking for life or Earth planets that are nearest to us and will either know the answer. Either there will be microbes on those planets that have altered their atmospheres or there won't be and that will be an amazing experiment to have done. So it's really on the horizon. But it's daunting because it's a very difficult experiment. Earth-like planets are a billion times fainter than the stars they orbit. So you have to, and they're far away so they appear very close to their star. So you have to isolate the planet from the star, blot out the billion times brighter and then smear the feeble reflected light from the exoplanet into a spectrum and look for molecules that indicate life like oxygen, ozone, methane, water vapor and so on. ian (09:26.503) But the molecules you're looking for are always in the atmosphere itself, right? Like you wouldn't, and I understand that, and I think we all do, but, you know, some people listening may not realize that that's, that's what you're looking at. When you're talking about with the spectrum is that makeup of the atmosphere, nothing about like if there's, if it's a rocky planet, what's on the ground, I guess. zack_jackson (09:26.614) Now. chris_impey (09:30.458) there. chris_impey (09:45.358) Right, right. And it's important for people to realize that the characterizing the exoplanets is done in that indirect way. For instance, of those 5,300, only 150 have ever had an image made of them. You know, seeing is believing. It's nice to have images of exoplanets. That's a hard thing. And those images are, you know, they're pathetic, a few pixels. They're just pale blue dots in a far away. So there's no, and if you ask this, ian (10:02.488) Right. zack_jackson (10:03.35) Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (10:15.678) The question of when will we be able to make an image of an exoplanet to be able to see continents and oceans? The answer is maybe never. The answer is decades or a very long time because it's just too hard to make images that sharp of things that far away, even with space telescopes. So astronomers have to be a little more indirect and the clever method that's on the table now and will be done, James Webb is doing some of this but was never built to do this experiment, it will actually be better done with the huge... set of ground-based telescopes under construction. So the experiment is you use the star to backlight the exoplanet when it crosses in front of it, and the backlit, the light from the star filters through the atmosphere of the exoplanet and imprints absorption from these relevant molecules called biosignatures. So that's the experiment you're doing. And it's still hard. And it's also not clear you'll get an unambiguous answer. You know, obviously, and its cousin ozone are the prime biomarkers because on Earth, the oxygen we breathe, one part and five of our air, was put there by microbes billions of years ago. So the reverse logic is if you see oxygen on an exoplanet or in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, it must have been put there by life because oxygen is so reactive, so volatile that it disappears. If there's not life to sustain it, say the biosphere of the Earth shut down overnight, the entire biosphere just shut down. ian (11:41.803) Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (11:45.458) just imagine the thought experiment. Within five to seven billion, a million years, so very short time in geological terms, the oxygen, that one part in five we breathe, would be gone. It would rust things, it would dissolve in seawater, it would oxidize with rocks, and it would be gone. So if it were not put there originally by life and then sustained by photosynthesis and other life processes, it would disappear. So the logic, therefore, is if you see it elsewhere, bang, it's got to be microbes putting it there and causing it to be there. ian (12:16.845) Yeah. zack_jackson (12:16.95) Hmm, unless there's some hitherto unknown non-living process by which these things happen. chris_impey (12:24.058) Right. So that's a good point. And there is a debate there because the data that's going to come in, well, first of all, it'll be noisy. It won't be beautiful, perfect spectra. So they'll be ambiguous to interpret. And then when you see it, what is the, where's, does the bar set for being enough? And the geologists have weighed in on this. And so whereas the sort of simplistic view as well, if you see any significant level of oxygen, certainly 18% like on the earth, what's got to be biology. zack_jackson (12:41.694) Yeah. chris_impey (12:54.218) That's pretty much true, but geologists have figured out ways where without biology, just with geochemical reactions, if you conjure up a geochemistry, you can get 6%, 5%, 7% oxygen. That's quite a lot, more than most people would have expected. So the geologists are saying, well, hold on. Yes, a lot of oxygen is probably a biomarker, but you would have to know more about the planet to be sure that it didn't have some weird chemistry and geology going on. for any of the other biomarkers. Methane is a biomarker too because it's produced on earth, you know, mostly by life, a good fraction of that, cow farts I think. But so it's the same argument. So these wonderful and difficult to obtain spectra are going to be, everyone's going to jump all over them and hope they give an unambiguous answer, but they might not. Science is not always as cut and dried as that at the frontier, which is where we are. But it's the zack_jackson (13:34.511) Hmm. Sure. chris_impey (13:53.958) exciting experiment and it will be done fairly soon. ian (13:58.804) Okay. chris_impey (14:01.358) And then a sort of related issue is that it's not just microbes. I mean, that's just looking for life as we know it on the earth. You could also look with the same technique, and this is an interesting possibility, for what are called techno signatures. So biosignatures is just evidence of life, typically microbes, because we think most life in the universe is going to be microbial, even if it's not exactly like our form of biology. But you could also look for things technology like chlorofluorocarbons, which you know, were responsible for almost killing the ozone layer for a few decades until we sort of ruled them out of refrigeration units. And there are other chemicals that are produced by industrial activity in a civilization, which would normally be very trace ingredients in an atmosphere, barely, you know, not present at all really. And if you could detect them in an atmosphere, it would be indirect evidence of a technological or industrial civilization. Realization on that planet and that will be very exciting. So that's the same method being used to ask a very different question But it's a more challenging experiment because these are trace ingredients. I'll give you an example I mean, we're all aware of climate change global warming and we've seen the carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere Increased by 30% roughly in the last few decades. That's quite a lot. It's obviously concerning and we know the implications But if you step back and look at the earth from afar and say, well, shouldn't that just be obvious? Shouldn't some other alien civilization look at the Earth and say, oh, those people are really screwing up. They're killing their atmosphere with climate change and fossil fuel burning? The answer is probably not because carbon dioxide is a trace ingredient of our atmosphere, and 30% increase on a trace ingredient would actually be very hard to detect from a distance. So even that dramatic thing that we are all anxious about on our planet industrial activity and fossil fuels is not dramatically obvious from a distance. So these are quite difficult experiments. The techno-signature experiment is much harder than the biosignature experiment. zack_jackson (16:13.592) Hmm. ian (16:14.165) Interesting. rachael (16:17.101) One of the things that you had said when looking at these exoplanets was, you know, we look at them and we want to see them and what's going on with them. And then you added the line, and of course, detect life. And that's where our conversation has gone for the last couple of minutes. But I'm wondering, you added that phrase that seems to think that finding life is part, entire reason for studying exoplanets. And I'm wondering, A, why you think that? And B, what that says about, you know, making it very narcissistic and Earth-centered, what that says about us. chris_impey (16:54.799) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (17:02.778) Right. Okay. So good question. I can unpack that in parts. I mean, yes, if I were a geologist or a planetary scientist, I'd be just pleased as punch and happy as a pig in a poke to just study exoplanets. That's all that I'm happy. I've got 5300 new, new geological worlds to study. Whereas the solar system only has a handful. Oh, yeah. So depending on your discipline, you might be totally zack_jackson (17:16.049) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe rachael (17:19.507) Right! chris_impey (17:32.718) properties. But astrobiology, I mean astrobiology writ large is the study of life in the universe, and the context for that search for life in the universe is the fact that we only know of one example of life, and that's on this planet. And everything in astronomy and the history of astronomy, and the Copernicus onwards, has told us we're not special, has told us there's nothing singular zack_jackson (17:59.891) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (18:02.718) about our solar system, about our galaxy, or our position in the galaxy, and so on. In space and time, we are not special. And so, you know, for biology to be unique to this planet, when the ingredients are widespread, we've detected carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, the biogenic elements out to distances of 12, 13 billion light years, almost to the birth of the universe. Water is one of the, you might think it's special. Earth is a water world. Well, actually, some of the exoplanets have 10 to 30 times more water. water than the Earth. So it's not, the Earth isn't really a water world even, pale blue dot, it's not that special. And water is one of the most abundant molecules in the universe too. So all the ingredients, the table is set for life in the universe. And as the universe is evolved and is quite old, more and more of those biogenic elements are made by stars and spat out into space to become part of new star systems and planets. And so in an old mature universe with a lot of heavy elements, and with many habitable locations now, we the best guess is 20 billion Earth-like habitable worlds just in our galaxy, then it just, whether or not it's central to astrobiology, it absolutely begs the question, is biology unique to this planet? Because it really shouldn't be statistically. However, logically, you know, to be correct and scientific, it's possible that there were a unique set of accidents and flukes that led to life on Earth, and it is unique. It would still chris_impey (19:33.038) It's historical science to wonder how life on earth developed and nobody's ever built a cell from scratch in the lab people have done various parts of that experiment and They can't connect all the dots, but they've done some very interesting experiments that certainly suggest It's not a fluke that the whole thing happened. You need time. You need the possibilities of Chemicals bumping into each other and getting more complex, but that tends to happen It happens if you do it in a computer it in a lab as well as you can. And so the context of the ingredients for life being so widespread and there not seeming to be any sort of bizarre, flukish occurrence in the development of at least replicating molecules that could store information, if not a full cell, would certainly lead you to anticipate life elsewhere. And then game on, because the big question then is, so there are two almost binary questions you're trying to answer, which is why the field is so exciting. Is there life beyond Earth, yes or no? And then if yes, is it like our life? Is it biology? Because everything on Earth, from a fungal spore to a butterfly to a blue whale, is the same biological experiment. They seem like very diverse things, but that's one genetic code. experiment that led to that diversity after a long time, after four billion years of evolution. And there's no reason to expect, even if the ingredients for life and the basis for biology exist far beyond Earth and in many locations, there's no real reason to expect that it would play out the same way elsewhere. And so that second question, is it like Earth life, is a very big question. rachael (21:27.201) Just as a curiosity, when did, if you know, when did microbes appear on Earth? chris_impey (21:39.158) So the earliest, the indications of life on Earth, the history of that is really tricky, because as you know, the Earth is a restless planet, and we weren't there, it's historical science, and it's possible you may never answer the question, but the big problem is the restless Earth. It's very hard, there's only a handful of places on Earth, Western Australia, Greenland, somewhere in South Africa, where you can find four billion year old rocks. They just don't exist. I mean, everything's been churned by geology and eroded rachael (21:46.661) We weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. rachael (21:56.104) Right. chris_impey (22:09.338) Weathered and so on so just even and that's about when we think life started So you're dealing with you know a crime scene where the evidence has been trampled many times and the crowds have just Obliterated the evidence so that's a hard thing and then the second hard thing is that the incipient Traces of life as you get to cells are very indirect They're sort of just you they're biochemical tracers or sorry there. They're chemical imbalances isotopic imbalances of versus normal carbon and so on. Because you're not looking for fully fossilized cells. So if you're just looking at what would be called chemical tracers of life, they're pretty good, but argumentative, this field is not resolved, traces that go back about 3.8 billion years. If you're asking when do you have the first fossil life forms, fossilized microbes, single cells, rachael (23:00.421) Okay. chris_impey (23:09.238) to 3.4, 3.5 billion years, and that's people then stop arguing about it. I think they believe that evidence. And then there's this enormous long time between that and multi-celled organisms. That step in the evolution of life seems to have taken a long time. You could infer that that means it's difficult or doesn't happen very often, but that's a dangerous inference from data of one. All the inferences, hazardous. So astrobiologists have to keep pinching themselves and saying, it's a sample of one. It's a sample of one. rachael (23:30.921) Thank you. Thank you. zack_jackson (23:32.75) Thank you. Bye. rachael (23:39.721) One does not make a line. One day to... That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. chris_impey (23:41.139) Don't draw too many conclusions. So, yeah, the cell formation, the evolution of the first cells and microbes seem to have taken 300 or 400 million years from the first chemical traces of life. But those chemical traces, we don't know. There's that Zircon that was found in Western Australia, 4.404 billion years accurately measured by radioactive dating. chris_impey (24:09.378) environment and so there's evidence really soon after the earth formed when it was just a hellhole of a place you know impacts and craters and geological activity that the earth surface was almost tacky like magma and yet there were there were any ingredients for life there so nobody would rule out life going back very close to the formation of the earth but then but tracing all these evolutionary paths is really hard I mean we have stromatolites which are modern descendants of the first microbial colonies. You can go to Western Australia, Shark's Bay, I've been there and it's great, they're stromatolites. These were just the same as they were now three billion years ago, it's really cool. One of the things you can't see behind me is my stromatolite collection. rachael (24:53.985) Yeah. rachael (24:59.962) One of the reasons, yeah, that's fascinating. It makes a collector about that. It makes a collector. Um. Yeah. zack_jackson (25:00.071) kind of a few collections chris_impey (25:01.578) Yeah. Oh, well, three. Does that make a collection? ian (25:05.749) It's good enough. chris_impey (25:07.958) Well, yes. It's like primitive counting systems, one, two, many. So I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. rachael (25:13.941) That's right. zack_jackson (25:15.016) Ha! rachael (25:19.021) One of the reasons I was asking that question about Earth, because you were talking about these very far away planets and looking for microbial, likely microbial life, then showing up in the atmosphere by its various products. And so my question was stemming from how far back are these planets that we're looking at? a really long time to create its microbes, then perhaps, since we're looking so far back in time, that maybe those microbes exist now, but when we're looking at them, they didn't exist. Right, that lovely time, space question. chris_impey (25:51.579) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (26:02.098) Right. So in that context, it's important to say that the exoplanets we're finding are in our backyard. So Kepler, NASA's Kepler mission is really responsible for almost half the exoplanets, even though it stopped operating a few years ago. And so the most exoplanets we know of are within 100 to 1,000 light years. And that's our backyard. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. rachael (26:12.785) Okay. rachael (26:28.064) Oh, close. Yeah. chris_impey (26:32.398) And of course, logically, therefore, we're only seeing them as they were a century or millennium ago, which is no time geologically. So we can't see that far back. So we're not really looking at ancient history. However, the more important point, having mentioned that carbon nitrogen, oxygen, and water have been around in the universe for a long time, is that we now can very confidently say, even if we can't locate such objects, that an earth clone, rachael (26:32.606) Okay. rachael (26:38.901) Yeah, it's no time at all. Yeah. chris_impey (27:02.098) something as close to Earth as you could imagine, could have been created within a billion years of the Big Bang. And that's seven billion years before the Earth formed. So there are potential biological experiments out there that have a seven billion year head start on us and then add the four billion four and a half billion years of evolution. And that's boggling because you know, we can't imagine what evolution and biology might come up with given 10 or 12 billion years to evolve rather zack_jackson (27:11.75) Hmm. chris_impey (27:31.958) Maybe it makes no difference at all. Maybe these things are slow and they're hard and the Earth was actually one of the fastest kids on the block rather than one of the slowest kids on the block. We don't know. Sample of one again. We'll just put that as a big asterisk over almost everything I say so I don't have to keep saying sample of one. Okay. zack_jackson (27:32.014) Hmm. rachael (27:41.861) Simple of one. zack_jackson (27:42.808) Yeah. zack_jackson (27:48.834) No. rachael (27:49.221) That'll just be today's episode title, right? Today's sample of one. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. chris_impey (27:51.14) Yeah, right. zack_jackson (27:52.65) That's Apple F1. chris_impey (27:55.038) Yeah, induction is a bitch when you can't do it. zack_jackson (27:55.492) So. zack_jackson (28:02.51) So we've talked a lot about the how it's possible, how we might detect it, but what do you think it might do to our sense of self and our sense of spirituality, our sense of humanity, our sense of earth? Should we start discovering life outside of, or at least biological markers in other places? chris_impey (28:28.898) Right. I mean, I think it sort of bifurcates if we find microbial life elsewhere and improve it, you know, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. And even if we don't know if it's our biology or not, it's just a biomarker that's irrefutable or set of biomarkers. That will be a transformative, epochal event in the history of science. It'll be dramatic. But it will make front page headlines and then fade, I would say, fairly rapidly, because it's microbes. zack_jackson (28:44.618) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (28:58.858) Like, that's Ponskum or stuff on your shower curtain, like, okay, who cares? So, I mean being facetious, but not too facetious, because I think the public will just be interested and science interested people will be very interested, and books will be written, and documentaries will be made, and so on. But in the public consciousness, I don't think it will permeate very far or persist very long. Of course, the counterpoint of if we decide we found intelligent life in the universe through those techno markers. zack_jackson (29:03.391) Ha ha ha. chris_impey (29:28.978) you know, the search for artificial radio or optical signals from some civilization. So they're obviously artificial and they couldn't have been produced by nature. That will be more profound, of course, because that's companionship in the universe. And that will raise all sorts of questions. So I think it really divides that way. And since the universe logically, if life exists in the universe elsewhere, there'll be many more microbes than intelligent civilizations. You know. ian (29:29.523) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (29:58.858) seed in that first mode. Although SETI is a side bet. I mean SETI for 65 years has been placing this little side bet. Okay, yeah, we can look for microbes and those are hard experiments and now we can almost do it. But let's always place this side bet of jumping over the evolutionary path from microbes to men or humans and look for those intelligent technological civilizations directly. And so it's worth doing. I'm not science scientists are divided on SETI, even astronomers are divided on it, whether it's a worthwhile pursuit or not, whether it's even scientific or not. That's the strongest critique of SETI is that unlike, you know, if I wanted to go to the National Science Foundation and get a million dollar grant to study some issue of, you know, solid state physics or high energy physics, I'd have to propose an experiment and define my parameters and how I was going to control variables and say how I would interpret the data. could refute or confirm. SETI doesn't have that kind of situation. They don't know how to define success or failure even. Well, they can define success more or less, but they can't define failure and they can't say what the probability of success is. So it's not a normal scientific pursuit. So that's the critique of SETI from scientists, but I still think it's worth doing. ian (31:04.946) Right. ian (31:23.628) Yeah. rachael (31:24.842) You talked about, and I think you're probably right in terms of how much people will care in the long run or in their day-to-day life or, right? Okay, so we found some microbes from, you know, a thousand light years away. I don't, that didn't reduce my student loan at all. But like, didn't, thank you. It's nice, saw the headlines. It's now three years later. chris_impey (31:45.018) Right. rachael (31:54.441) But I've noticed that you did a lot of work with the Vatican and with monks, and I think that that's a different population that might respond to and other religious figures, but specifically those I'm asking you because those are the groups that you've worked with. They might respond a little bit differently to this existence. Could you speak a little bit ian (32:01.35) Yeah chris_impey (32:16.803) Right. rachael (32:23.726) in this idea of how it would change. chris_impey (32:25.658) Sure. And maybe preface it with just the cultural comment, with independent religion, that the other issue that will arise with, I mean, if microbial life is found elsewhere and astrobiology is a real field with the subject matter, finally, yeah, it's foundational for science. And of course, it terraforms biology because, you know, if you want to poke, if physicists want to poke at biologists who say, well, you just spent your whole life studying one form of biology, What about all the other forms? You don't have a general theory of biology like we have a standard model of particle physics because you've just been studying one thing like staring at your navel. Well, what about all that stuff out there? Okay, so so it'll be a big deal for biology for all of science but on the intelligent life or advanced life, the problem with what happens outside the scientific community is it's not a tabula rasa. It's not a blank slate. The popular culture, especially in the US ian (32:59.524) Hmm. ian (33:08.503) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (33:25.718) but almost everywhere now, is so primed for the fact that, A, it's already there and sure, and B, it's visited, and three, it's abducted some of our people, and four, it can make a list of all the conspiracy theories and wild ideas about alien life. And they're just so embedded in the popular culture that it's like that the fact of the existence of intelligent aliens has been amortized. It's sort of been, it's just already been built in. zack_jackson (33:39.8) Thank you. chris_impey (33:55.698) in to the culture. And so, you know, that would lead to a collective shrug. Well, sure, we knew that, you know, the government's been hiding this stuff from us for 70 years, since Roswell. So, you know, and now your astronomers are coming along and telling us, oh, it exists and you're all excited, really? Oh, come on, you know. So I think that's the larger cultural issue or problem or whatever, it's not a problem, it's just amusing to me. But as far as a religious reaction to this, and I'll say, zack_jackson (34:02.271) Hmm. rachael (34:04.421) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (34:05.05) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (34:12.722) Ha! chris_impey (34:25.698) the gate that I'm an agnostic, which my wife's a pretty hardcore atheist. And so she gives me a hard time about being agnostic. She thinks that's a kind of, it's a kind of wussy position to take. But I, and I argue with her, we argue vigorously about that one. I argue with her and I use the phrase that was attributed to Feynman. And I think he did say this in the biography of Richard Feynman, famous physicist. His biographer said, zack_jackson (34:43.45) Fantastic. chris_impey (34:55.738) Feynman believed in the primacy of doubt and that he held as a high scientific mark and doubt skepticism and doubt is a is a very high mark of a scientist. So I'm proud to wear that mantle of skepticism doubt of not being sure and being okay with not being sure. So I'm an agnostic but I do keep bad company and some of that bad company is Jesuits. Don't you know, don't don't go drinking with Jesuits. You'll you'll you'll end up in a rachael (34:59.461) Thank you. Bye. ian (35:13.024) Right. zack_jackson (35:14.092) Yeah. chris_impey (35:25.798) and a Rome gutter somewhere and they'll be they'll have got back home safely. With the Buddhists, the other group I hang out with, you don't have to worry about being drunk in a gutter because they really don't drink. They do bend the rules a bit, you know, I've seen them eat a lot of meat for people who are supposed to be vegans and vegetarians. But anyway, those are the two tribes that I've sort of affiliated myself with. And their reactions or perspectives on life in the universe is are quite different. They're interesting. Each the Buddhists that I've been with and I've read behind this of course and read some of their More you know the scholarly articles written about this It is completely unexceptional in their tradition to contemplate a universe filled with life That could be more advanced It could be human like or it could be more advanced or different from humans in also a vast universe with cycles of time and birth and and death of the universe and rebirth of other universes. So the Byzantine possibilities of life in the universe are pretty standard stuff for them and would not surprise them at all. They do get into more tricky issues when they come to define life itself, which biologists of course have trouble with, or sentience, which is also a tricky issue. But on the larger issue of the existence of life in the universe far beyond Earth, that's just non-controversial. zack_jackson (36:48.35) Hmm. chris_impey (36:55.898) to them and when I say that's what we anticipate and that's what scientists expect it's like okay sure and the Jesuits are in a different slightly different space they're of course in an unusual space as we know within the Catholic Church because they're you know they're the scholarly branch you know they're they're devoted to scholarship they from Gregory and the calendar reform they were liberated to measure ian (37:17.944) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (37:25.678) the heavens and then eventually that just segwayed smoothly into doing astronomy research. The Jesuits have been doing pretty straight up astronomical research since certainly the early 19th century, so quite a long time. And they have that sort of intellectual independence of being able to pursue those ideas. All the Jesuit astronomers I know, there are I think 11 or 12 in the Vatican Observatory and they all live the double life. They're all PhD astronomers. rachael (37:37.221) Thank you. chris_impey (37:55.798) with parishes. So it's not a problem. Whoever else, whoever elsewhere might think there's a conflict between science and religion, they don't see it. They don't feel it. And if you ask... Yeah. Yeah. ian (38:05.145) Mm-hmm. zack_jackson (38:06.03) No. And if anyone out there wants to hear more about that, they can listen to episode episode 113 with brother guy, the, uh, the director. Yeah. ian (38:10.246) We have an episode. chris_impey (38:13.821) Right. ian (38:15.343) Director of the Vatican Observatory. chris_impey (38:16.418) Sure, sure. So I've known guys since, well, since he was a grad student actually, and a long time. And yes, and so they, they're pursuing it from a scholarly direction. And for them, it's also uncontroversial that there would be life elsewhere. Now, what is the, you know, what does that do to God's creation when you imagine that Earth and humans are no longer the centerpiece of it? That's a more interesting question. zack_jackson (38:22.034) Wow. chris_impey (38:46.298) I've had debates about that. And I heard Jose Funes, who was the previous director of the Vatican Observatory and Argentinian astronomer, in a press conference actually in the Vatican City State when we had a conference on astrobiology. In response to a question about astrobiology, because that was what the conference was about, he gave a very interesting answer. He said he gave a parable of Christ in the flock of sheep and how there was the sheep that was lost. you know, you had to gather back to the rest of the flock. And he didn't complete the story, he just left it hanging there. And so you were left wondering, are we the lost sheep, you know, and the other, and all the intelligent aliens out there are the rest of the flock? And what's the message, you know? So he sort of almost muddied the waters with his little parable. But in the manner of how they view the universe, zack_jackson (39:27.914) Hmm. rachael (39:28.621) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (39:33.792) Hmm. chris_impey (39:46.398) the rules of physics. I used to teach a team graduate cosmology with Bill Staker, who is one of their tribe. Sadly, he died a few years ago. We teach cosmology and he's a relativist. He works on general relativity and the Big Bang and all that. And if I was just wanting to pull his leg at breakfast, we had breakfast before we taught us to organize ourselves. I could do one of two things. I could say, oh, Bill, physics, we got you with physics. is squeezed back to the first 10 to the minus 43 seconds. Got to the gaps, there it is, that's a little gap. And then physics owns the rest, you know. And then if I was really feeling frisky, I'd sort of, since he was a Catholic, I'd tease him about the three impossible things he has to believe every morning before breakfast. Virgin birth, resurrection, et cetera, you know. So I don't know how all those circles are squared truly because we've had, you know, I've had conversations. zack_jackson (40:22.572) Hmm. zack_jackson (40:26.32) Hehehehehe zack_jackson (40:35.05) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (40:46.798) But I know that it's not a conflict or a tension or even a problem to imagine life in the universe and even intelligent life. So for neither of those two very different religious tribes, does it seem to be an issue? ian (41:06.443) So can you talk more about, especially how you got involved? Cause I think that science for the monks and nuns program was really interesting. And, you know, one, how you got involved, but you know, reading your book Humble Before the Void was just very interesting to kind of see about your experience from there. And you told us before we started recording that you wrote that after your first time going and that you've been there eight or nine times now. What has all of this been like for you? How has it had an impact on your work and also your personal life? if yes and what ways. chris_impey (41:38.798) Yeah, it was a sort of profound, it's been a profound experience since 2008, I guess, so it's almost 15 years and eight trips. So the first time was one of those great things of you come across the transom professionally. Sometimes I got a call from a colleague that I didn't know that well, who he knew I had an education, a good reputation as an educator. And he just called me, he's a postdoc at Berkeley actually, an environmental science postdoc. He said, how'd you like to go and teach the Dalai Lama's monks cosmology? And it's not a question you ruminate over or look at your skit, look at, oh, I'll check my calendar. Let me get back to you. No, you just say yes, and then you make it happen. So I said yes, and then it happened. And I was savvy enough in hindsight to take my 17-year-old Paul with me on that trip. And he'd never been anywhere out, he'd been to Europe a couple of times, but he'd never been to Asia or anywhere exotic. zack_jackson (42:14.65) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha rachael (42:17.821) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha zack_jackson (42:23.05) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (42:38.738) if you like. And so that was a profound trip in that sense. It was a bonding with your 17-year-old and you know, we were a little more adventurous together than either of us might have been on our own. And so the context was that invitation. And then I learned that his holiness the Dalai Lama, who famously has said in his autobiography that if he hadn't been selected at age four to be the of compassion would have been an engineer. Fine, that's an interesting statement to make. But, and it meant that when he was a child in Eastern Tibet, in a pretty primitive village, you know, he would just infuriate his parents by taking apart their clocks and mechanical devices and never quite putting them together again. So he had this analytic and mechanical and engineering and scientific mindset even as a child. And then of course his future was cast into the role he had zack_jackson (43:11.134) Hmm. zack_jackson (43:25.992) Hmm. chris_impey (43:38.798) he took. But he's always had that strong interest in science. So he looked around 20 or so years ago and realized that the monastic tradition, his, the Gelug tradition, of course, or other traditions in Buddhism, was sort of outdated. You know, the monastic training was extremely rigorous. They take years and years of rhetoric and philosophy and theology and comparative religion and all sorts of things. But there's very little science, very little math. And in the schools, there's zack_jackson (43:39.972) Bye. chris_impey (44:08.718) very little science and very little math. And he just thought that was unacceptable. He said, my monks and nuns, the nun part actually did come later. And that was a good part of his work to make the level of playing field for monastic training to include nuns. But he just said, these my monastics cannot be prepared for life in the 21st century if they don't have science and math. And so in the manner that he does these things, he just looked around and waved his arm and said, make this happen, you know, and I've now zack_jackson (44:19.05) Thank you. Thank you. zack_jackson (44:30.035) Yeah. zack_jackson (44:37.45) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe chris_impey (44:38.798) heard from proximity to people in his orbit that his holiness, the Dalai Lama says a lot of things. He has great ideas. He's very activist. He's very visionary. And he says all sorts of things. And people scurry around and sometimes they just ignore him. Sometimes nothing happens. But this one, they decided to make it happen. And what happened was they looked around Dharamsala chris_impey (45:08.658) the blue, who was an educator and a scientist, a young scientist. And they just glommed on to him and they said, Hey, can you help us with this? Can you set something up? And so he set up the science for monks program, then science for monks and nuns. When the nuns came on board and I was one of the early people he called. And so the model was to bring three to four Western teachers in different subjects. The Dalai Lama's core interest. it doesn't mirror a bit his interests, which are evolutionary biology, neuroscience, physics, math, and then environmental sciences come on board too. So it's not every field of science. So these, we would come out as Western teachers and there'd be cohorts of monks and then monks and nuns, about 24 in a group. And we do three week intensive workshops and they're very intense, you know, we're in the classroom six, seven hours a day and then our evening sessions or observing zack_jackson (45:50.671) Hmm. chris_impey (46:08.658) telescopes. So it's kind of grueling actually, but it's inspiring as well. And eventually, the idea is that enough of the monks and nuns will be trained to be educators themselves, and you won't need to depend on Westerners to come out and do this. And they're not really there yet, but they could get there. I don't want them to get there, because then I won't get invited out. So it was a singular experience. And the book I wrote, of course, was fresh, zack_jackson (46:24.494) Hmm. chris_impey (46:38.738) I was really, I wrote it not long after the first trip. And to your question of did it affect me or change me? Well, yes, in many ways, some of which I probably haven't fully appreciated. I mean, first of all, it was a deep embedding in a culture, in a way that I'd never done. I was pretty experienced world traveler, but in that sort of slightly superficial way of someone who goes to Asia and tries to hang out and go to a bar in a local restaurant and see the sights, but you don't really get to know the people ian (47:05.228) Mm-hmm chris_impey (47:08.838) you're moving around. So being three weeks, sometimes four weeks, and then traveling with them afterwards or during, you know, really you get to learn the culture. You also see in these northern Indian towns, most of the workshops are in northern India, there's now in southern India, Bidtabhatta, Nepal for this too. They're mixing very well. India has a, you know, kind of black mark on it right now with its current government of sort of sectarian strife and Most recently with the Sikhs, but also obviously with Muslims But in those little northern Indian villages where there are sometimes 50 percent Buddhist 50 percent Hindus They really get on pretty well. I mean that they're just they're sort of under the radar the geopolitics or the What the Modi government is doing at the time so? It works pretty well, and it's nice to see that So I learned that I saw the culture up close. I would be part of their rituals and go, you know and ian (47:50.666) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (48:08.758) see everything they saw and listen to their prayers and talk to their scholars. And so it was a pretty deep embedding. And then as far as my own life, when I come back, rather than just view it as, you know, amazing experience, I got some beautiful photos. I had these great memories. Um, it did sort of make me reflect a little, uh, because of their, the ethos they had. And their ethos is, is of course very, um, very different from most of a Western ethos. It's a Buddhist are all about compassion and suffering, suffering and compassion. They do go together. They're almost bedfellows. So I got the message, I think very early on, when I was walking towards the lecture hall and it was at one of these Tibetan children villages and they're very poignant places. They're about 11 or maybe now 14 Tibetan children villages in the northern part of India. And that's where the refugees go. ian (48:46.008) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (49:09.158) that escaped. So almost all the monks in my early workshops left Tibet when they were teenagers even younger, brought across the ice fields by family members at great risk. Some didn't make it, others lost toes and fingers from frostbite. They had to go in the winter because the Chinese troops would intercept them and even even then did in the winter. So they were orphans, And they grow up and go to these Tibetan children villages, sort of orphanages, really. And so I was walking towards the lecture hall, which is situated in one of these villages. And there was a hard, scrabble, packed dirt soccer pitch. You know, it looked really uncomfortable for falling. I am enough of a Brit to have experienced playing football soccer on really nice grass, because England does have good grass, you know. And I was thinking, the first thing I thought, damn, I don't want to play football. rachael (50:04.321) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ian (50:04.525) Right. zack_jackson (50:05.412) Hmm chris_impey (50:08.918) on that field. That would be brutal. So there was this football field and there was a 10-foot wall behind it running the length of the football field, painted white, and on top of it in 10-foot high letters was a slogan of the school, others before self. And I was just thinking, I wonder how many American high schools would have that as their slogan. How would that go down with the, you know, social media, me generation, whatever. rachael (50:10.621) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ian (50:31.167) Right. rachael (50:31.321) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha zack_jackson (50:32.25) Hmm ian (50:34.845) Yeah. chris_impey (50:38.918) So that was one thing. And then a series of those little messages sort of sink in about how they do operate differently from us or me. And so one thing it made me reflect on when I went back home was I immediately embedded back in my academic life and hustling the next grant and writing the next paper and talking to my collaborators. And I just realized how really how intensely pressured. rachael (50:40.763) Wow. chris_impey (51:08.658) Darwinian that science, Western science system is, it's kind of, you know, it kind of grinds you down. I mean, I've been hustling for grants from funding agencies for 40 years and I kind of burned out on it, you know, it's hard. It doesn't get any easier because there's younger whippersnappers that are very smart and, you know, they're going to get your grant. So it definitely made me reflect on the sort of hyper competitive nature of some parts of zack_jackson (51:21.042) Hmm. ian (51:21.047) Mm-hmm. rachael (51:28.721) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (51:39.719) and just reflect on what is important. Is it important to know something, or to teach something, or to give something, or to what is important? And how does that work when you're a scientist and educator? And that's it. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. ian (51:56.043) Yeah. Well, it's just interesting reading the book and I told you before we're recording. I've not been on to finish it yet, but I look forward to finish it just because, you know, one, you know, as I've already said, you're a fantastic writer for the lay audience, the general public, which is not something, you know, I've, I've worked with many scientists as a science educator and many of the ones I've worked with have said they struggle with that. Right. So I always applaud that. Um, but then just the, the personal experiences you shared and. chris_impey (51:59.833) I'm ian (52:26.163) humble before the void was just very interesting to me, especially someone who I have embraced meditation and mindfulness over the past three or four years and gotten really into it. And so, you know, first when I, when you shared that book with us and saw that the Dalai Lama wrote, you know, the preface for it and everything, I just was immediately fascinated because I find him to be absolutely fascinating in his perspective on things. So chris_impey (52:47.298) Yeah, I mean, I was, I mean, I've been privileged to meet him a couple of times. And, uh, and it's always, uh, a singular experience. Uh, the first time was that first trip out actually. And, and it was in that same Tibetan children village. And that was, this was in the winter. I was a January is a very, um, very difficult time to be there. It's in the foothills of the Himalayas. Quite high up. Dharamsala has trivial factoid that a Brit will appreciate like me. Um, It has the world's highest cricket stadium. And so drum solo, there you go. Now you know, when you get asked that, now you know. So we were in this auditorium, this cold auditorium, very cold, and they'd given the Westerners blankets, put over their legs, and even a few little heaters around. But it was brutal. And he was going to give an opening address. And everyone was full of excitement and anticipation. It was probably 2,000 people. But it was a cold, it was an unadorned Spartan auditorium ian (53:20.331) Oh. zack_jackson (53:20.594) Hmm. Ha ha ha. ian (53:25.403) Exactly. zack_jackson (53:34.892) Hmm. chris_impey (53:47.498) on a below freezing day in the Himalayas. And along that football field outside, which is the way his little, he has the equivalent of a pokemobile, he has the DL mobile or whatever that he comes into a place with, that he was gonna come along the edge of the field. And I'd seen walking in that the school children were starting to assemble in a long row along the side of the football field along the place his vehicle would come. And we were waiting zack_jackson (54:01.775) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (54:17.258) He was late and it was so cold and it was quiet. People were murmuring, nothing was happening. And then suddenly we heard this sound, this wave of singing. So they were singing him in as his vehicle arrived. And I was like, wow, that was so cool. Just the sound of that. And then he came and he just radiates when he's in a room. And he's a little frail. He had trouble getting up the three steps onto the stage. But his grin is just... Oh, it's just... anyone who remelt the hardest heart. He's just so... and his comments are always, you know, they're always kind of offhand and insightful and, you know, he has a very interesting and sensibility. So that's been a remarkable thing. But the monks all had their own insights and I learned a lot from them. I mean, I was teaching them but I was learning a lot from them. And they gave me, you know, when you teach, well, the other thing I didn't say about the ian (55:12.667) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (55:17.418) experience there, which was also restorative for me, is, you know, I depend on my high tech gadgets and my PowerPoints and my whatever. And I was pretty much warned. I said, you're going to be pretty much off the grid. And it was almost like that. And there were a couple of workshops where, you know, if the cold water, if the water was hot, you were lucky. If the power stayed on all day in the classroom, you were lucky. There was hardly any equipment. We make these, these runs rachael (55:25.325) Hmm. chris_impey (55:47.278) These equipment runs down to the local bazaar, and we buy matchsticks and cloth and cardboard and foil and just super primitive ingredients to make experiments back in the classroom, rather than bring stuff out from the West. So you had to improvise, and it was good to do that. It was good to have to lecture and talk and use simple analogies and simple equipment. And so they informed me about that, too, because I wondered how they understood zack_jackson (56:02.75) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (56:17.278) these very abstract things of physics and cosmology. And I think the first striking little insight I had, because I was always reaching for a good analogy. And then, so I sort of turned the tab

Because episodes are bi-weekly, I dub this episodic adventure as:

Batman: Stained Heir, a compelling story told in the Batman universe after the events of — the once Robin – Jason Todd's time as Red Hood. @TheLegionofGeeks' Jason Ortega joins me this week to discuss running his (mainly) DC/Batman focused Instagram account, alongside writing his intriguing take on what a Batman tale could be.   The struggles between Bruce Wayne & Jason Todd, the internal struggles of who exactly Jason even is anymore, dealing with the happenings occurring in Gotham at the hands of The Executioner — where will this 6-episode audio drama take us? Find out, as we talk Legion Of Geeks, Warner Bros. Discovery, the creation of Batman: Stained Heir + an exclusive sneak peek at Ep. 2, & so much more. ▾ Cosplay Of The Week!: ▾   http://instagram.com/DaniDark0   _____________   ►

Welcome to Episode of 21 "Givin Them The Business" Podcast Powered by #AddVenturesMusic Topic: Exclusive Interview with #irvgotti On this episode of GTTB Podcast, with your host #Chris Gotti Lorenzo, the former VP of #MurderInc and Co-host Legendary Latin #Don Dinero sits down in the Cuban Connection Studio; to talk with Irv Gotti Lorenzo former President of Murder Inc sits down to discuss his deal to make $300 million. In this discussion with Chris Gotti and Don Dinero, Irv Gotti explains how he came up with his plan to make a multimillion-dollar deal. The real #business behind being an owner of your work. Knowing what it means to have #ownership of your #dreams, #visions, and #ideas. Finding the key to success and keeping it. All while doing what you love. In this episode the Lorenzo brothers Chris Gotti and Irv Gotti are finally sitting down together to give the true on "#How It Began..."(01:05s) Nick Chalmers childhood friend from Trinidad had the DJ equipment he used to practice on.... "DJ Irv...Irv ..irv....Irv" Club Nel, his first hit with #Mike Geronimo (03:23s) #Jamaica Park Garfield & Smitty ran the park.. (05:15s) #You gotta kill when you are out there You gotta kill... If you live life without a pressure situation you have never lived life" (06:03s) My first show at 15 years old in front of a Hollis crew ... Irv "I killed it..." Chris "they gave up after that,.." Irv "Run to the fire!) People respond pressure (08:38s)"I was a nothing ass nigga.... playing John Madden '93 in the barbershop $20 a game ($60-100 a day) I was good at nothing"... Irv (11:30s) "Papi gets fired...." this was a turning point in his life. He realized at 22 yrs. old that he needed and wanted to change things (14:05s) Mike Geronimo is in high school he has (16:04) #Dina Dog Studios Steve Kullough for using his studio, #Wah Dean and #DMX who bought me the beat machine it where I sampled Denise Williams "I just got to be free" (18:13s) Meeting #Funkflex for the first time asking him to play his hits, then go hit to the radio hotline and finally making to the hot #4 (21:01s) Then the phone starts ringing Steve Stout and other record executives will find you...."Make a Hot Record They Will Find You" Where to Find Us Irv Gotti Presents "Visionary Ideas" https://visionaryideas.com/about-15 Tales on BET https://www.bet.com/shows/tales Instagram: @visisonaryideas @irvgotti187 @murderincrecords Also available on Clash TV DOWNLOAD THE APP #Givin Them The Business Podcast Support Us on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2LliMN0iwut1ns9c95FCch Support Us on Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy83ZTE4MjZjL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Support Us on #Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/givin-them-the-business-w-chris-gotti-lorenzo-don-dinero/id1611243052 Support Us on #iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-givin-them-the-business-w-93673013/ For the independent Artist: Add Ventures Music www.addventuresmusic.com @addventuresmusic1 YouTube: @ADD VENTURES MUSIC Cuban Connection Clothing Brand: cubanconnection.com @cubanconnection Host Information Chris Gotti @chrisgotti187 Don Dinero @dinero187 YouTube: @Don Dinero Production Team @blackcoinent @shotbyishan YouTube: @ShotByIshan @shotbymy9 @kingdomcomemedia For Interviews and show information contact @dilutedeyz Marketing @dexdiamond @officialjayelmore @kingklenn --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/givinthemthebusiness-podcast/support

Intro  (0:00) This episode is about my journey for my new listeners.  I have shared a lot of other stories with others, but it is rare that I share my story often and my Ostomy journey.  What led me into having an Ostomy. What I have done over the years. Cancer and ending up in an Ostomy. My mindset and my growth.   How It Began (2:19) Back in September of 2015 I was working in direct sales, built a large business, and joined a company with Tyra Banks in her cosmetic line.  I wanted to be a part of her affiliate program.  Was selected as the first 200 people to start that company in the direct sales route she was taking.  I was busy all the time and building my team, but something didn't feel right.  I was 44 years old at the time and my periods started hurting and were very painful. Sweating a lot so I just assumed going through menopause.  Summer of 2015 I earned a trip to go meet Tyra in person, but couldn't go to meet Tyra not feeling good.  The doctor did an exam and immediately saw something. Thought it was just a cyst, but because of family history they thought I should just go and see an oncologist.  So I went to meet Tyra then came home for my doctor's appointments.    After The Trip (5:42) Doctors' appointments after I got back showed that I had something called Lynch Syndrome.  This leads to Colon Cancer, Uterine Cancer, and those types of cancers.  The oncologist said we can do a full hysterectomy and take everything out. Test it and make sure it's not cancerous.  Had surgery and a full hysterectomy. And everything there was clean with no signs of anything.  However, they didn't get the “blob” out. It was still there.  So far embedded into the pelvis floor that they could not reach it.  The colorectal surgeon said to leave it there while I heal from surgery. And then they can do some testing on it to see what is there.  Biopsies, CT scans, and samples were sent off to another hospital to be tested.  Looked like a soft tissue sarcoma. And wasn't sure the type of tumor it was.  2 months of its just cysts, no big deal.  2nd surgery date was January 15th  Between that kept going back and forth wondering if it was cancer.  And knowing what the outcome could be, I did not want to be in a bag.  I wanted to be able to beat it without having to remove everything.    Mindset Spirituality (10:20) Had too much living to do and things I wanted to do in life. Could not let this take me away from that life.  Meditated for years, and would just meditate to understand why I was going through this.  I sat with myself a lot to just listen and find my purpose as to why this was happening.  Ask the tumor why it was here, what was I to learn from it? Slow down, stop working so hard, spend more time with family.  The only way to save my life was to end up in a bag.  Had a few successful businesses, top 1% of direct sales.  Came with a lot of work.  Day and night  Had a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, stuff doesn't mean anything. Money is great but I needed to slow down.  I would meditate on my body being healthier, running health through my veins.  I prayed a lot. I am a spiritual person and I prayed so much.  I started reading the Bible and through those months and that year, I read the entire Bible. I tried to understand the words and I meditated on those words and passages.  Felt closer to God. There is something bigger out there and more than where we are today.  There is something more that we cannot see, but it is very close to us.  I could feel the energy around me at times.  I felt closer to God than I have in a while. Had a connection to Him right before surgery. I could feel Him touching my shoulder, and I felt a sense of peace and calmness run through my entire body.  I knew no matter what happened out of this, it was going to be okay.    After Surgery (17:40) Came out after a 9-hour surgery.  And immediately asked the doctor if we got that blob!  And I knew at that moment I was in an Ostomy bag.  I fought this so badly. I THOUGHT it was ugly, I thought it would ruin my life.  I got up walking and moving because I wanted to get to California to see Tyra again for the 2nd time.  Out of the hospital Tuesday and on a plane Saturday! I needed to do that. I believed there was something bigger out there and for us, I knew I had so much I needed to share.  My journey wasn't over.  Came back from California and shared my story, but I am not running as hard.  Moved to NYC for 3 years, and stopped working so hard in the direct sales.  Don't want to build a team right now, but still share products with a company I am in and I share what I love.  My journey isn't there anymore. It's here with you guys talking to you about my Ostomy and doing this podcast and bringing awareness to this lifesaving medical device. At 51 years old I just signed a contract with an acting and modeling agency. And this brings me to the point of our lives never over. Our journey and our lives are ever evolving.    Closing (22:00) There is a reason why we ended up in an ostomy and why we are in one.  Slow down your life? Or live bigger?  Someone you will inspire?  Whatever that is, there is a reason you are here and give us a second chance at life.  You are in this position for a purpose and you are making a difference whether you know it or not.  I thought it was important for me to share my cancer journey with you all!  “Regardless of whatever is going on, we are beautiful and it does not matter. So know that life doesn't have to be different. Yes, there are going to be struggles, yes, there's going to be things that you're going to have to overcome. But it's through that journey that you learn how strong you are and on the other side you are always so good!” What you believe is true and you can do anything you put your mind to. 

★ FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★SUBSCRIBE TO BRIAN'S VLOG CHANNEL ▶ http://bit.ly/2ybSYNZBrian's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/snakebytestv/★ FOLLOW THE REPTARIUM ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★ Website ▶ https://thereptarium.com/Book A Private Tour With Me, Noah, Jessica or Bruce ▶ https://thereptarium.com/products/private-toursSpecial Events ▶ https://bit.ly/2Cz7MKWFacebook ▶ https://www.facebook.com/thereptarium/ Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/thereptarium

★ FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★SUBSCRIBE TO BRIAN'S VLOG CHANNEL ▶ http://bit.ly/2ybSYNZBrian's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/snakebytestv/★ FOLLOW THE REPTARIUM ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★ Website ▶ https://thereptarium.com/Book A Private Tour With Me, Noah, Jessica or Bruce ▶ https://thereptarium.com/products/private-toursSpecial Events ▶ https://bit.ly/2Cz7MKWFacebook ▶ https://www.facebook.com/thereptarium/ Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/thereptarium

★ FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★SUBSCRIBE TO BRIAN'S VLOG CHANNEL ▶ http://bit.ly/2ybSYNZBrian's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/snakebytestv/★ FOLLOW THE REPTARIUM ON SOCIAL MEDIA ★ Website ▶ https://thereptarium.com/Book A Private Tour With Me, Noah, Jessica or Bruce ▶ https://thereptarium.com/products/private-toursSpecial Events ▶ https://bit.ly/2Cz7MKWFacebook ▶ https://www.facebook.com/thereptarium/ Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/thereptarium

Ever wonder what investors look for in up and coming entrepreneurs? In this episode we are talking with Matt Higgins! Matt Higgins is a noted serial entrepreneur and growth equity investor as co-founder and CEO of private investment firm RSE Ventures. He is also vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins, an Executive Fellow at the Harvard Business School, where he co-teaches the course “Moving Beyond Direct-to-Consumer,” and was a Guest Shark on ABC's four-time Emmy-Award-winning TV show Shark Tank seasons 10-11. Matt co founded New York City based RSE Ventures in 2012, amassing a multi-billion-dollar investment portfolio of leading brands across sports and entertainment, media and marketing, consumer and technology industries – including several of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies. RSE has successfully backed many challenger brands from inception, including RESY, an Open Table competitor that American Express acquired in 2019; the world's premier drone racing circuit, the Drone Racing League; and the International Champions Cup, the largest privately owned soccer tournament featuring Europe's top clubs. Higgins is also co-owner of VaynerMedia, founded by digital marketing expert Gary Vaynerchuk, and a partner in early-stage venture fund Vayner/RSE. In today's episode, we hear about Matt's childhood and journey to entrepreneurship. We'll also discuss Matt's work with NFTs and how he began RSE Ventures. We'll also hear Matt's thoughts on “The Great Resignation” during COVID, and what he looks for in entrepreneurs! If you want to level up your entrepreneurial skills, keep listening! Sponsored By: Charles Schwab - Learn more at Schwab.com/plan    Jordan Harbinger - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Shopify - Go to shopify.com/profiting for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. StoryWorth - Go to storyworth.com/yap and save $10 on your first purchase! Social Media: Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at Hala@YoungandProfiting.com Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on Clubhouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com Timestamps: 00:47- Matt's Childhood and How It Molded Him 08:39- Matt's First Job and How He Got There 11:19- The Importance of Quitting 16:46- How Mortality Has Shaped Matt 23:50- Matt's Journey to Entrepreneurship 27:42- The Future of NFTs and Matt's Work With Them 35:57- RSE Ventures and How It Began  44:27- How Matt Manages His Investments 50:08- When to Consider an Investor 54:47- What Matt Looks for in Entrepreneurs 01:03:51- Matt on The Great Resignation Post COVID 01:07:75- Matt's Take on Gen Z 01:11:12- Matt's Secret to Profiting in Life Mentioned In The Episode: Matt's LinkedIn: matt-higgins-rse

To download your own copy of all 20 ad-free episodes of the How It Began series, head to bradharris.com.  

INTERVIEW BEGINS AT: 23:50 There are times when a guest agrees to come on the show and we get nervous because, well...THEY ARE DR CHRISTOPHER IMPEY..Science Super Star, genius, professor, lecturer and Brian is going to be allowed to ask him questions....GASP Dr Impey, was good enough to join us, to discuss black holes, the cosmos, Brian's irrational fear of space and even took the time to answer some listener questions. Dr Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Associate Dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona., He's written over 50 popular articles on cosmology and astrobiology, two introductory textbooks, the popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes. He even wrote a novel called Shadow World, So kick back, enjoy and please rate and share the show..let's keep the audience growing. Thank you all And hey, check out our Merch Store for Shirts. Hoodies, Coffee Mugs, Stickers, Magnets and a whole host of other items https://www.teepublic.com/user/tahistory All of our episodes are listed as explicit due to language and some topics, such as historical crime, that may not be suitable for all listeners.-Opening and closing theme is Random Sanity by British composer DeeZee

In this episode, I go over all the podcasts I listen to regularly as well as others I have gotten value out of in the past. The following should be the master list of podcasts I mention: Free Man Beyond The Wall/ Unloose the Goose/ Grand Theft World/ Peace Revolution/ Corbett Report/ Media Monarchy/ Econtalk/ Bob Murphy Show/ Demography Unplugged/ The Grant Williams Podcast/ Tom Woods Show/ Paul Liberty Report/ Philosophize This/ No Agenda/ Last American Vagabond/ Torah Class/ Apologia Radio/ Libertarian Christian Podcast/ Anarcho Christian Podcast/ Dangerous History Podcast/ Unbelievable?/ How It Began; Context/ Wittenberg to Westphalia/ History of the Papacy/ Unchained; Unconfirmed/ Citizen Cosmos/ Epicenter/ Survival Podcast/ The World and Everything in It/ Marketplace/ The Weeds/ Left, Right, and Center/ Wall Street Unplugged/ Motley Fool/ Masters in Business/ Macro Voices/ We Study Billionaires/   - Website - http://www.ourfoundations.podbean.com/ - Email - ourfoundations@protonmail.com - Patreon page to support / donate - https://www.patreon.com/ourfoundations - Twitter - https://twitter.com/Foundationspc - Medium - https://medium.com/@OurFoundations - Bitcoin Address - 1AZFLCvmfXasChaaecgYMP3vtnUrnLJoY7 - Ethereum - 0x409D0F2766e208C1Ea97fF2429D38a3D9E3abd3a - Zcash - t1SZKfocBcghVMWVCsbSA9zAHr5fzsxi62H - Pivx - D7ziutb5gGNnJ5pXngwa3w9zJj2P1iNzUT - Nano - nano_16gh7igt8zb1cntbmq1hrnmnc9ea9qrj3zycscqywhak5dgtx1gwommekt7r - Music  - New Digital War by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com, Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com, Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) - Pied Piper by Shaolin Dub is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. - Jet Fueled Vixen Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License  - Hard Fragility by Bisou is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License 

Jim Jax & Comedian & Actor Keith Lyle Talk the Mafia In Vegas, How It Began, bad/good Celebrity Tippers. Keith's father in law worked for mafia business owners while running casinos for them. The in depth stories are fascinating. They discuss the origins of the Mafia in Las Vegas and the history of what it was before the rise of the "Strip". Keith brings up names of mafia kingpins of the day that were powerful figures.. The rise and fall of Bugsy Siegel & the changes that happened after he was murdered are also discussed in this episode. Who is Keith Lyle?:Keith is a veteran comic & headliner who has been in several commercials and TV shows, and films. His biggest role to date was in the blockbuster movie "The Hangover". Keith was honored to be selected as the feature act for headliner Don Barnhart. In the summer of 2012, Keith made his 1st trip overseas to entertain the troops in Kuwait. In 2013, he went to Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Jordan, Spain, Portugal and Greece on 2 separate trips in the "Don Barnhart All Star Comedy Tour" for Armed Forces Entertainment. He went overseas again in October 2014 & August of 2016._____________________________________________Please like & subscribe. We are very positive and supportive & love like-minded people. Our shows reach millions per week on our social media platforms. Please Follow Us on Social Media:Keith's Website: http://www.funnykeithlyle.com/Twitter:https://twitter.com/funnykeithlylehttps://twitter.com/JimJaxMediahttps://twitter.com/FlorenceCarmelahttps://twitter.com/_TheForumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/funnykeithlyle/https://www.instagram.com/jimjaxmedia/https://www.instagram.com/florence_carmela/Spreaker Podcast Site: -Jax Confidential: https://www.spreaker.com/show/jax-confidential-with-jim-jax-Main site for all of the sports & entertainment podcasts on the Jim Jax Media Network: https://www.spreaker.com/user/10814098_______________________________________

Katherine Cooligan is the Regional Managing Partner at Borden, Ladner, Gervais LLP. Katherine is a practicing lawyer who specializes in family law.  Katherine has faced many adversities in her personal and professional life and her ability to overcome is inspirational and has helped her reach her goals.    IN THIS INTERVIEW:   How It Began  Katherine found her passion for Family Law while working at her uncle’s law office during high school and during under grad program.  She was exposed to many areas of the law but felt most connected to family law because of the personal connection with her clients.  Overcoming Adversity to Stick to the Vision & Mission  One of Katherine’s most challenging experiences was the loss of her five-month-old son on the day she became Partner at Gowlings Law Firm. The experience profoundly changed her life and brought a depth of compassion and understanding that has translated to her passion to help families during times of crisis and need. When Katherine started her law career, leadership positions in law where predominantly filled by men. There has been a considerable shift towards balance in more recent years thanks to women like Katherine who has become part of a select group of female leaders and partners in law.  Operational Wisdom Your path to what you call success does not have to be a straight line, most often it is not. Katherine encourages others to expect delays, expect bumps in the road. make the adjustments necessary, ask for support and step back if necessary but do not step out.    Connect with Katherine at: blghttps://blg.com/en/Our-People/Cooligan-Katherine Tedx Talk: Tackling Fear and Unleashing your Full Potential  For more Speaking of Business Podcasts visit speakingofbusinessshow.com.  

Brad is back and we're talking about preparing food for a three-day-stretch of 12-hour shifts. We cover tips and tricks for food prep and preservation, how nurses show love with potlucks, and Brad's food-related side gig with Pampered Chef. Then we set up mics in Brad's kitchen and cook an easy freezer breakfast/brunch meal and let you listen in...sort of. You'll see. Don't miss it.And if you're interested in becoming a Pampered Chef consultant, hosting an online party, or purchasing some awesome kitchen swag, you can find Brad here:https://www.pamperedchef.com/pws/bmclaughlin1Tell him Nursing Uncensored sent you.nursinguncensored.com background music:How It Began by SIlent PartnerMirror Mirror by Diamond OrtizPrice Check by Freedom Trail StudioAll obtained through YouTube Audio Library

Black holes continue to astound scientists who have spent their careers studying them. These dark giants are the most extreme objects in the universe—ubiquitous, frighteningly enigmatic, and central to the makeup of our galaxy. To explore the scope of our current understanding of black holes, astronomer Chris Impey made his way to Town Hall with insight from his book Einstein’s Monsters—The Life and Times of Black Holes. He explored central questions at the cutting edge of astrophysics: what happens if you travel into a black hole―instant death or something weirder? How can we ever know anything for sure about black holes when they destroy information by their very nature? Impey blends a compelling history of black holes’ role in theoretical physics with a poignant account of the phenomena scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: stars swarming like bees around the center of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with visible stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in space-time. Join Impey and learn how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to the way we make sense of the universe and our place within it. Chris Impey is a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Beyond, How It Began, and How It Ends, and four other books, as well as two astronomy textbooks. Recorded live at The Museum of Flight by Town Hall Seattle on Thursday, November 15, 2018. 

Sorting out money between partners can be fraught, but it's a walk in the park compared to parents and siblings. We spend our formative years trying to secure the love and acceptance of the very people who we now have to say "no" to, which is why we are Money Enemy Number One. Your best chance at success is substituting emotions for numbers. If you are the person your family looks to for financial support (and you have no moral objections to helping out), the first number you should care about is what you can afford. This doesn't mean how much you have left over, but how much you are willing to give. You also have the option of paying directly for fixed expenses and letting them figure out the rest. Alternatively you can offer a cash amount, walk away and fight every urge in your body to give more if they run out. You don't have to say no to your family if you don't want to, but you are allowed to have boundaries. If all else fails, ask yourself what you would do if your kid made the same request. Devon's mom told him he'll have to take care of her his whole life. After paying off her debts, renovating her home and countless budget discussions, he's losing hope. I have had endless budget sit downs and fiscal meetings with my mother to try reign in her expenses, but after a few months the old habits come back. She's very good at convincing herself whatever she buys is absolutely necessary. I listened to your podcast about talking to your partner, but I find having a talk with my mother far more difficult and emotional. Her house is paid off (just levy, water, electricity, medical aid and living expenses are needed) but she spends over R10,000 on groceries on just her and my sister at home plus clothes and other non-essentials, plus having a domestic worker twice a week and a gardener for a small garden and a pack of 5 dogs which obviously need to be fed (I tried everything to stop her at just having 3 max). How would you suggest approaching this firmly enough that it actually does stick with her and leads her to actually taking action to cut expenses? In essence how do you get this message across to someone doing their utmost to stay dependent on others to avoid the responsibility of their own financial position. I feel like I have tried absolutely everything and have spent so much energy and effort that I am at my breaking point. Emile Market commentators will say they would only buy a stock at a particular price level. For example, stock A is expensive at R100 but fair value at R80. Is this merely a reflection of the rand value of the P/E at different levels i.e. R100=P/E of 20 and R80=P/E of 16? Subscribe to our RSS feed here. Subscribe or rate us in iTunes.   Wim Taxpayers get a R23k interest deduction. Wouldn't it be better to first max out this benefit, before going to TFSAs, because it's already tax free! What is TFSAs offer the best returns? Can I expect more than e.g. a 32 day notice deposit or a 24 month fixed deposit somewhere? As far as I remember, the TFSAs have a lot of red-tape w.r.t. what to invest in and how much risk these funds may take on. Will this not mean lower returns?   Marina's twin sister introduced her to the show. She has a question about ETFs. Stealthy mentioned that the smart beta indices try to outperform the market and rarely do so, and that is why he sticks with vanilla indices. She also read a Moneyweb article about the SPIVA report. Some are of the opinion that active funds rarely outperform the market but passive trackers can? What is your opinion on the matter? If active funds with competitive fees were to become available in the future, would you buy them? Lars Kroijer Investing Demystified series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXy71rkGuCjXLg9N8zowwUpXCYfBcMJFK Frank sent a link to a podcast called How It Began, where they discuss the stock market after episode 123. https://itunes.apple.com/za/podcast/how-it-began-a-history-of-the-modern-world/id1221558103?mt=2&i=1000389611474 Mpilo wants to know what listed property is. They also want to know what a mutual property fund is. Psychedelic Nerd wants to double-check that they understand CGT: If I invested R5,000,000 into the market, and now it is worth R10,000,000 . I decide to withdraw R400,000 (i.e. a 4% drawdown rate) to live on for the year. Half of this (R200,000) is capital gains. So, after the R40,000 CGT allowance, I am due to pay CGT on 40% of R160,000, which is R64,000. I have the 2018 income tax free allowance of R75,750, which leaves me with no taxable income! So I keep the full R400,000. In this scenario, the CGT mentioned here is the only income for the year. Does this scenario sound right to you or am I getting some steps wrong? (If this is correct, over time I guess it will change as the percentage of the annual drawdown that is capital gains will probably become higher.) They also want to know what I mean by “cash” savings and if it's a good idea to have an emergency fund in a money market account. Ivan made Kay a spreadsheet to calculate her tax liability in a year. Download the tax calculator here Kiril has a hella fancy car. He wants to know if he should speed up his repayments. I currently have an emergency fund, maxed out my TFSA for the year, contribute to a provident fund through work, and have zero debt except my fancy car. Whether owning a fancy car is a good idea is not part of this question. My designated installment is R7600, which I've upped to R8000. Should I increase this to R8600, and put in some sizeable lumps sums, eg. My tax refund? My interest rate is 10.5%, but Tito's jitters indicate this might rise in the coming year. Please, I'd really appreciate your advice. Promise wants to know who we prefer for TFSAs. Pierre If I sell out of a fund and incur a 360k capital gain which I will be taxed on, can I invest 360k straight into an RA and thus pay no CGT? No - but you can contribute 27.5% of your profit to your RA for the tax break. First point RISK = REWARD, pretty basic if you take more risk your return can be higher (or lower), take a small risk and you make a small return. Bonds have a very little risk so you get a small return BUT you are very sure you don't lose your investment. This is called the investment risk pyramid. Cash (no risk) Money on deposit in a bank which as a guarantee if a bank goes bust Bonds (low risk) 1)US treasury bonds 2)Developed markets 3)Emerging Markets Within each of these 3 sectors you get municipal and corporate debt too ETFs / Unit trust (medium risk) The more diversified the ETF/fund lower your risk should be, ie if you buy an ETF with only 30 shares and they are all banks it is less risky than buying one bank share but riskier than buying an ETF with 1200 shares in it across many sectors. Shares Within the share universe you get more and less "volatile" shares. Volatility means how a share price moves day to day around its average price over time in laymen terms. So a stock that is speculative like saying your Blue Label group moves in massive swings, something like a property stock which is run by a well managed reputable outfit which owns shopping centres and hard assets and receives their rental income from these properties every month will have a stable income and below volatility. Worst comes to worst the assets (buildings) are sold on their own and the shareholders in the stock can get their cash back. The assets are easy to value. Stocks are theoretically priced by their earnings, how much we are willing to pay for those earnings is called the price-earnings ratio, higher PE the more willing people are to pay for its earnings. Sometimes stock prices make very little sense. Example - Tesla, we all love Elon Musk, he is trying to change the world, he has very big ideas, he has shown potential BUT his company is not making that much money yet. People believe his dream and keep buying Tesla shares thus it has a very high PE. Very low earnings and high PE. Every sector has its own go to PE. Banks in SA generally below 12. Leverage / Speculative Funds/Small business/Bitcoin Risky stuff, could lose everything or double your money, need a lot of research and gut feel to know what's what. Not for the amateurs, no matter how good the tip was your buddy gave you or you ever heard at the gym. Ok so that how risk is priced in instruments next layer of risk is the country risk, it is generally expected that: US least risky (now) Developed markets (UK, Japan, Germany etc) Emerging markets (South Africa, Turkey, Russia etc) Junk Markets (Zim, Venezuela etc) Each of these countries has their own risk profile and within each you can buy a bond (least risky for that country) or you can buy a share (risky for that country) . If you buy a bond in say South Africa you might expect the same return as a medium risky share in a big developed market. Theoretically speaking, my idea to get the concept across. The risk is everything, the risk is priced in return, for a stock that return is measured in its earnings for a bond/cash in its return. So back to your story, why did my ETFs in SA do nothing but when the market fell I still fell along with it, should I have been hedged through my diversification? There are 2 parts to the answer. 1) Naspers makes up roughly a quarter of our Top40, Naspers is basically a company holding a share called Tencent, Tencent is basically the google plus facebook of China. It's gone up in a straight line for last 5 years. Dragging our TOP40 with it. If you take out Naspers/Tencent our markets has done sub9% maybe less... Why is that you might ask, unemployment, bad ANC policies, international investment firms selling South Africa as a brand, the land appropriation bill is a massive massive issue, firstly our banks are being sold off more intensely than I have ever seen in my 15 year career, you can get a big 4 bank stock now at a PE of 8 (side note at this rate it will be more tax efficient to buy a bank stock and get a better dividend yield on your money than the bank can offer you on the interest rate and the div yield is tax free!!). Banks own the bonds on the properties the ANC want to appropriate thus banks go to zero, the market has decided to rerate the risk on banks and the price went down, more risk bigger move in this case down.   Tech stocks have rerated after an incredible run the last few years, Tencent halved and with that the price of Naspers and thus the TOP40 or JSE and your ETFs. Buying the Top40 or DTOP is not a good diversification. I'll say that again, buying the TOP40 is not a good diversification. 2) The second part to the answer is more interesting, think of all the capital in the world flowing around like water freely. When there is a lot of capital it sloshes around the world, builds up at the riskiest places and even forms bubbles, think bitcoin. When is capital cheap? When interest rates are low, because anyone can borrow a lot and do with all that money what they want to. When was capital cheap, since the 08 crash, the Fed and other central banks took interest rates to ZERO percent, all that cash has been sloshing around the world and found new homes in the riskier assets and countries like you know who SOUTH AFRICA. For the last year or so the Fed has been slowly increasing its lending rate to try and normalize markets (or their market among things). The effect is like a giant sponge in America sucking up all the excess money they were out there in riskier assets. Starting at the riskiest and going down the pyramid to the least risky. So in our case, we are an emerging market check, we have are buyers of an ETF that's listed over equity check, we have bad economic policies check, there is talk of taking away peoples assets which banks have bonds overcheck. And there you are, your ETFs have rerated in risk to the new reality. I don't want to make you feel worse but that return you lose you have is in Rands, as we discussed above, a South African Rand bank account is riskier than a USA bank account, thus the rand is also being sold and more people are buying dollars. (if you can earn 3% risk-free in the US why buy an SA bank account and only make say 6% with all our inherent risk too). I have been a holder of 4 "hedge" funds over around 10 years. Over a decade plus they have been the standouts and I managed to get in quite early and trusted each of those outfits as I work in the industry and am well aware of what they do. That being said, you pay through your ears for this good return these guys get, there are also down times. I decided at the beginning of the year to start liquidating investments in these funds down to 25% and buying ETFs listed on the JSE but in foreign exchange and international markets. I like and have moved into Ashburton world bond index in USD, NASDAQ listed by Satrx, GLODIV dividend aristocrats international, SYG500 SP 500. All of these ETFs hedge me against any South African and Rand risk. My thinking is, I live in South Africa, I own my house in South Africa, I earn Rands in South Africa. South Africa is a tiny country on the tip of Africa, do you think if you approached someone in Japan or America and tell them you think it is a good diversification to buy TOP40 index ETF in a tiny country on the South tip of Africa. No ways! Buying SA listed ETFs like TOP40 ect is not being diversified, you are actually taking on a lot of risks, we now have the freedom and products to buy cheap, international ETFs on the JSE which gets you out of local currency, buy them and buy as many as you can. I wrote about how I plan to approach the maintenance to my new house in last week's newsletter. I said I'll probably under-budget. Dave had a great point about that. Your new project/s made me think of one of my favourite Project Management lecture points - don't stress the accuracy, stress the completeness.  If you budget R100 and it runs to R110 you are 10% out, but if you don't even put the item in the budget then you are in trouble. Quinton wants to run his ETF strategy past us. These are ETFs he's buying in addition to his RA and TFSA. I don't want to be to active as an investor, I'd like to select shares, then contribute monthly from now until retirement. He's looking at Satrix Top 40, Satrix S&P500 and the Ashburton Global 1200 My idea is to buy each monthly. I am a minimalist and like keeping things simple, but also don't want to invest in the wrong portfolios, or be too diversified. If you think this is a good strategy, would you invest equal amounts into each or spread it more offshore (E.g. Satrix S&P500 and Ashburton 1200 = say 80%) and Satrix top 40 = 20%? I have received dividends in my TFSA account now, and was thinking on using those dividends to apply the same logic. What are your thoughts on the Satrix Emerging Markets, Nasdaq 100, or MSCI World index. Should one be considering any of these?

Money is a form of trust.  Credit, not coins, has been the heart of financial innovation. Communities that have learned how to leverage credit most effectively and facilitate its transfer between parties most efficiently have sustained the most progress, from the Medician networks that funded the Renaissance to the cryptography companies that are developing the blockchain-based internet of value today. But, how did money evolve as a system of trust? To support How It Began, https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information, https://howitbegan.com.

Our submergence in the flow of time can make it difficult to comprehend how fundamental timekeeping technology has been to the evolution of our civilization. But, to wind up the mechanism of modernity, our mastery of clockwork was critical. Where did the authority of our clockwork come from?  How did the perfection of this mechanism become the guiding force of our age? I give you measuring time, and how it began. To support How It Began, https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information, https://howitbegan.com.

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement centered in northern Europe during the late 1600s and 1700s that is largely responsible for establishing our modern convictions concerning the virtues of representative government, religious toleration, and human rights.  It inaugurated the very idea that humanity could learn how to make the world a better a place, but why is its legacy so misunderstood?  To help support How It Began, go to https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information on this episode, go to https://howitbegan.com.

Some time back we came up with an idea called Catharsis. This is where we have someone come on that needs to get something off their chest. Up until now, we haven’t followed through with it because we didn’t have the right inspiration. Well we certainly do nowWe hope you enjoy this little piece of audio gold and our first installment of Catharsis. Thanks for listening. #UnderDogPods #PodFix PodFix Network https://www.podfixnetwork.com/ https://twitter.com/PodFix https://www.facebook.com/podfixnetwork/ UnderDog Podcast Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/UnderDogPods/ https://twitter.com/UnderDogPods GravityBeard https://www.patreon.com/gravitybeard contactthebeard@gmail.com https://twitter.com/thegravitybeard https://www.facebook.com/gravitybeard/  MUSIC: “Sophomore Makeout” and "How It Began" by Silent Partner (YouTube Audio Library)

We've all heard about how the printing press revolutionized book production. But, the real revolution was in how printed books, as opposed to handwritten ones, obliterated the intellectual barriers between us, leading to the Scientific Revolution, The Enlightenment, and beyond. Witness how the ancient trickle of handwritten knowledge was transformed into the flood of printed knowledge, as we discover the printed book, and how it began. To help support How It Began, go to https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information on this episode, go to https://howitbegan.com.

Connect with us! Find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/theofpodcast/ Email us at the theOFPodcast@gmail.com Special thanks Check out our beatmaster and theme song creator, Jesse Hufstetler. You can find listen to more of his work as Jetler and as Fortune Of Souls

The transition from the Stone Age to the age of metals marks the historical arrival of civilization.  But, how was it that people first learned to see stone not as a tool in itself but as a reservoir of better tools?  And how did we master that material revolution to forge cars & computers from sticks & stones? Discover the triumph of mastering metals, and how it began. To help support How It Began, go to https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information on this episode, go to https://howitbegan.com.

Historian Brad Harris reveals the correlations between the spread of coffee consumption and the rise of modern institutions. From science to security, insurance to stock exchanges, and all the way through to democratic liberation, coffee's arrival into Europe in the 1600s helped awaken Western Civilization from centuries of booze-induced slumber, catalyzing an entirely new age of progress that featured revolutionary change on practically every front. To help support the How It Began podcast, go to https://howitbegan.com/support. For more information on this episode, go to https://howitbegan.com.

Historian Brad Harris reveals what empowered us to wield cold.  While most of the achievements of technology seem based on our conquest of heat, the unsung technological hero of modernity is refrigeration. It’s on-demand cold is critical in preserving the unprecedented cornucopia of foods we eat. But refrigeration does so much more... How It Began is supported by CuriosityStream!  Check them out at curiositystream.com/howitbegan. For more information on this episode, visit howitbegan.com.

In this introduction to Season Two, historian Brad Harris challenges the growing cynicism toward the ideas of progress and modernity, recalling what The Enlightenment was all about. Music provided by Zack Hemsey, "Redemption," from the album, The Way, 2011. How It Began is supported by CuriosityStream.  Go to curiositystream.com and use the promo code "howitbegan" when you sign up for a membership to get your first month free! For more information on this episode, visit howitbegan.com.

In the Season One finale of How It Began, historian Brad Harris reveals the beautiful history of how life came to know its true origins through humanity's theory of evolution. Witness the courage and the brilliance of investigators, from modest coal miners to scientists like Darwin, as they challenged traditional beliefs in their quest to discover where all of the plants and animals came from. By Brad Harris, Historian of Science & Technology. For more information on this episode, including a select bibliography, visit howitbegan.com.

In this exciting introduction to the series, historian of science and technology Brad Harris gives an epic preview of what's to come as he shares his vision for the show. While there may be much in the modern world to inspire our condemnation, How It Began celebrates the good and the true in humanity's efforts through the ages. By Brad Harris, Historian of Science & Technology. For more information on How It Began, including select bibliographies for each episode, visit howitbegan.com. Intro music: "Nero" by Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix, licensed by Extreme Production Music USA.