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Nicholas Klingensmith says that he grew up a punk and not so nice kid. As he will describe, he was quite self centered, but it was all a façade. He will tell his story of finally realizing that he needed to change both his thinking and his concept of himself. Nick is a type one diabetic. He also is a 4-time cancer survivor and he has a number of herniated disks. He also is a recovering alcoholic. Nick finally realized he had to change after being thrown out of a Las Vegas hotel the night before he was to deliver sales speech. Nick was ejected because he was in, as he says, a “drunken haze”.   Today Nick is a successful author, a public speaker and a successful obstacle course racer and so much more. He also is a survivor of the October hurricane that struck near his home in Tampa Bay Florida.   We talk about all of this during this episode. Nicholas talks about resilience, controlling fear and even why he and his wife made the conscious decision not to evacuate their home as the hurricane approached. Nick offers many insights about how we all can learn to control fear and not only survive obstacles that are put in our way, but he will talk about how we can truly overcome them. As he will tell us, it is all about choice and making informed decisions.   This episode to me is especially poignant because so many of the things we discuss are illustrations of what is going on all around us. I think Nick's experiences and the stories he tells about them are the kinds of things to which we all can relate. I hope you like Nick's discussion and that you will let me know your thoughts.       About the Guest:   After being thrown out of a Las Vegas hotel in a drunken haze, jeopardizing his career and relationships, Nick Klingensmith had to make a change. A 4-time cancer survivor, type-1 diabetic, recovering alcoholic with herniated discs, nerve damage and sleep apnea, he defies it all when he finds Obstacle Course Racing. Refusing to accept his limitations, he's completed over 100 Spartan Races, 6 Major Marathons, several Ultras and scores of other obstacle and endurance events.   As someone who has walked the path of a sales professional, Nick is an expert in propelling other achievement-driven professionals and leaders to overcome fear and rejection and push past self-limiting doubts, by inspiring them to take purposeful action towards their goals. Nick is a raw and passionate storyteller who holds nothing back when revealing who he used to be and the person he is now.   A true testament to the power of resilience, with an unwavering belief in his purpose to overcome obstacles and inspire others to do the same, Nick delivers powerful and transformative speeches, drawing from personal experiences to illustrate the extraordinary potential of pushing through adversity. 1)    The power of perseverance: Pursuing personal growth and overcoming obstacles for success 2)    Pursuing Something Greater: Taking Risks, pushing boundaries and exploring your unlimited potential 3)    Living Inspired: Embracing Purpose, overcoming adversity, and finding belonging   Ways to connect with Nick:   Instagram: @stridemotivation https://www.instagram.com/stridemotivation/ TikTok: @stridemotivation https://www.tiktok.com/@stridemotivation?lang=en Twitter: @stridemotivatio https://twitter.com/stridemotivatio YouTube: @stridemotivation https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOiV2sNB3g4meufvBg3a9sA Threads: @stridemotivation LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nklingensmith/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069207242260 www.stridemotivation.com Email: nick@stridemotivation.com   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet unexpected. Boy. It's been a crazy time in the world in general, and for our guest, Nick Klingensmith, it's really been kind of unexpected. Nick lives down in the Tampa St Pete area, and we as he knows, and I know, just went through a week ago hurricanes down there, which tells you about when we're recording this. He lost power for a while, but Nick is a pretty resilient guy, and he's going to going to talk about some of that. He's a keynote speaker. He's an author. Does a lot of different kinds of things. He is a coach, conducts master classes, and some things happen along the way that caused him to get to be where he is today. So we're not going to give any of that away. I want Nick and and while I'm Nick to talk about it and you to hear it, so we'll leave it at that. Nick, thanks for being here, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Nick Klingenmith ** 02:20 Michael, thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm really excited to be here today,   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 and I'm glad I was out in Southern California. Actually, that's not totally true last week or when the hurricane hit. I was in Kansas City and so but I one of the people who spoke when I was there was an economist who lived down in Florida, and I don't know exactly where she lived, but she went out as soon as her talk was over to get back to Florida, because she felt that her home was right in the middle of everything. So gosh, what do you do?   Nick Klingenmith ** 02:53 I'll tell you. Man, with the hurricanes, the most dangerous thing you can do is the reactive decisions before the hurricane. And part of what I'm talking about is being right where we are, right just north of St Petersburg, just north of where ground zero was supposed to be, right up until the like the late hour. You know, there's a lot of factors you have to consider when you like what want to evacuate or not. You know, we have a senior dog. We can't we can only drive so far with him. We have a reactive dog. There's only so many places we can take him, and if you didn't leave early, you risk running out of gas on the side of the highway. So there comes a point where, you know, we decided it our house was as secure as a home can be, even for a direct hit, we're just going to ride it out. We buttoned down. We were as safe as we could be. But, you know, with people telling you, like, run, run, run, right? Like, well, I have a friend who evacuated to Sarasota, where the direct hit actually ended up being, you know, I mean, where was I going to go to? To Orlando. It was directly in the path of the storm. Where was I gonna go? To the mountains? Because clearly, that's not so safe after all, the 72 hours leading up to a hurricane where just everybody panics and, you know, I think honestly, and this is what we'll unpack here, what I've learned from what not just not what I've been through, because what I've been through didn't teach me anything. It was what I had to what I had to do to put it all in perspective, and didn't understand it, but all those lessons in resilience give you the ability to pause and make better decisions in the face of adversity well,   Michael Hingson ** 04:32 and that is absolutely true. You know, should you have evacuated well? You know, as you said, there are a lot of ways to go. And the question is, where could you really go? You'd have to leave really early to make sure you could evacuate far enough away. But then, as you said, you have a dog that that can't travel this far, and that becomes an issue. Just, you know,   Nick Klingenmith ** 04:56 I'm not Florida. Man, all right, right. I am. Out three and a half miles from the shore. Yeah, I am just beyond, like, the line of demarcation, but if I was on the other side of the bridge, there's no way I would have stayed. Yeah, you   Michael Hingson ** 05:12 know, well, you know, you can only do what you can do and decide what you can decide. But the real issue, as you point out, is being able to pause and analyze it. And one of the things that I love to tell people is I love information. For me, when September 11 happened, there were a couple of times I asked people like an FBI agent, what's going on, and they wouldn't tell me. And I understand why, intellectually, they wouldn't because they didn't want to cause panic. As we were coming out of the stairwell, none of us knew what happened. The hundreds of people on the stairs didn't know. Of course, people always say, well, you're blind. You didn't know. Well, that has nothing to do with it. The plane hit on the other side of the building, 18 floors above us, and you know, the reality is, we don't see through concrete, steel and rebar. So the bottom line is, none of us knew, and when I asked, he said, Well, just no time to tell you, but I'll take you where you need to go, me and other people who are with us. I wish he had told me, it would have changed some decisions I made, but I also understand why he didn't. He didn't know me. He didn't know whether I panic or go crazy or whatever, and and so he did what he did. And actually, I shouldn't say that I would change what I did and the direction that we went I might have. But the bottom line is, it's all about being able to pause and analyze, and you have to have the information to do it. And you clearly were in a position to have as much information as you could have and make the decision that you made.   Nick Klingenmith ** 06:48 You know, when you hear seals describe like certain engagements and these split seconds that go by, and just the decision making process and the the way that, you know, time slows down for that. I mean, that's what they train for. That's why they train through adversity, and that's, that's how I look at more adversity now. And it's not that I welcome it. Don't get me wrong, you know? I mean, who really wants bad things or uncomfortable things? You don't want them. But I like to say this because somebody had asked me once that, if I wasn't a diabetic, would I be a better athlete? And I said, No, if I wasn't a diabetic, I wouldn't be an athlete at all. I wouldn't have become one so. Well, why is that I have these tools? I've accepted that life is always going to keep coming, so I just don't need to panic anymore. I know I have the tools and ability to slow down and make that decision making tree to get through it.   Michael Hingson ** 07:46 Yeah, okay, and that makes sense, but it is this, we, what if everything in the world anyway, too many people, what if everything, well, what if you weren't a diabetic, would you have done? You know, we, we, we always have to see those questions coming at us. And it's unfortunate that all too often we What if so much that we create a lot of fear that we don't need to create, yeah, which you know, makes sense. Tell us a little about if you would. I love to start out this way, the early Nick growing up and all that, and kind of what, what started you to where you're going and where you are,   Nick Klingenmith ** 08:26 man, I was a little shit. There you go.   Michael Hingson ** 08:29 That's Thanks for being on the podcast. Nick, we just summarized. No, no, go ahead. I   Nick Klingenmith ** 08:35 was such a punk, not a bad not like a I didn't like to get in trouble, but I, I was a little punk, you know, from the time I was a little kid. And I think I realize now, you know, part of, part of what I've uncovered in my history here is that my my father left me, left my mom, not me at a very young age. I grew up on an island, all right, it wasn't an after school special. He moved down the road, but the problem was that my mom wasn't she was still active with drugs, and she simply just wasn't capable of actually like caring for me. And so I grew up not necessarily looking for other people's validation so much as trying to prove that I didn't need it. So, I mean, I had a, I like, I was, I had a side hustle when I was in the second grade, like, I was hustling kids playing cards out of the playground, like, I just kind of like to buck the rules. I liked, I liked the bad guy in the movies. You know, it was, that's who I related to. But that, that sort of grittiness, actually turned into something after a while, because as I continue to look at myself as more independent and having to do it on my own, I also started working at a young age. I went to a boarding school for high school because I wanted a better education. Something else. I sought out myself, financial aid. I sought out myself. I went to college back. At the University of Massachusetts, and I also paid for that. Paid my own way through summer jobs and well, the last 20 years. So that was all working for me as something for a very long time, I was active in life. I like to play sports. I played competitive beach volleyball for 20 years. I I like to I liked to socialize. I often find myself in relationships, and there just came a point, though, where that sort of me against a world attitude changed. It was something that was giving me fuel and armor for a long time, right when I found out is that it was actually more like the rally cry of the victim mindset that I had been developing.   Michael Hingson ** 10:45 So what happened that brought that realization and that change?   Nick Klingenmith ** 10:51 I needed to start having real things happen to me, such as the four times I've been diagnosed with cancer. I'm a type one diabetic. I just celebrated 10 years of recovery from alcoholism. I have seven herniated discs from two different rollover fatality car accidents, nerve damage in several areas, sleep apnea. I almost died from meningitis. All those things had happened, and all those things had only contributed, though, to the victim mindset. It wasn't until I became an obstacle course racer, until, actually, after my boss walks in my office and challenges me to do a Spartan Race. And this was at a time where I was on top of the world. At that point, I was two years sober. I was a VP of sales. I was doing really well in my career. I was in a new relationship with an amazing woman that's now my wife. And I had just decisively beaten cancer for the fourth time, and I was I was kind of stuck, and so when he challenged me to do this obstacle course race with him. I knew I needed a change, and I didn't know what it was, so I said yes to this event. And it was through that process that I began to defy everything that I had previously believed about myself. I had created such limiting beliefs. I had created this narrative again, me against the world. I'm the victim poor me, right? I was convinced that I couldn't run because of my diabetes. I couldn't adventure because of my sleep apnea. I'd always be a piece of crap because of my addiction. When I went out there and I did my first obstacle course race. So I'm out there in the woods, crawling under barbed wire, carrying heavy objects, climbing up ropes, swinging from things, just like a little kid out there in the world with no fear and no doubt. And it wasn't me against the world, it was me in the world. And I felt just liberated. And I realized that everything I had convinced myself before of that had been a lie, and I didn't know yet what I had just, you know, told you about the victim mindset. It was just that point, I realized I was capable. I had this blank slate in front of me, and so for the next six, seven months, I got into this world of endurance sports and obstacle course racing. And I was improving through better nutrition, better exercise, yoga, meditation. I was improving through mind, body and spirit in all aspects of my life. And that's when I was in a second car accident, and that's where I got several more of my herniated discs, and that's where I got nerve damage. And the same day that happened, my cat of 12 years died, and 10 days after that, the lady who hit me died. And even though all I was doing was sitting at a red light when that happened, I felt responsible, and I was home couple weeks later, just heartbroken and devastated. You know, the last six, seven months have been like a dream to me. I felt like I was becoming this better person in all aspects, and now I felt like it was being all taken away from me, and you want to give up. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever felt that way. I just didn't know what that meant. So I kept going to work. So I keep taking showers, I keep walking the dog, I keep meeting my responsibilities. And so I decided to put another race on the calendar, and when I was trying to train. I just I wasn't in it, and I was listening to this, like motivational compilation on YouTube, this guy's going back and forth about, are you a survivor? You are or victim? Are you a victim or survivor? And that's when I realized that even though I had already been progressing and I had just like found this new found lifestyle that I was still playing the victim. I was still saying, Woe is me, why me? Why me? And I? When I recognized it, that's when I realized that it's also a choice. You may not have chosen to be a victim, but you do choose to remain one, and I decided that that point that I will not be defined by my adversity, but rather. They're my triumph over it, and so it's been a decision. I have to only what. There's only one way I can tell that story, and it's a long version.   Michael Hingson ** 15:07 No, that's fine. You know, one of the things that that I realized during September 11, and it was partly because as tower two was falling and I was falling and I was running away from it, one of the things I said to myself was, God, I can't believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And I'm a guy who has a lot of faith and so on, and I don't tend to panic. But I said that, and then immediately I heard in my head of voice as clearly as you hear me now, that said, don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, who is my guide dog, and the rest will take care of itself. And I've adopted that mindset, which is really what you're saying. Focus on what you can control. There are things that happen to us that we didn't and wouldn't have any control over them happening. I've been well, I'm still yet to be convinced that we truly could have predicted September 11 as a country and stopped it. I don't think that we had the information, which says something about what a team dedicated to trying to create so much chaos and destruction was able to do because they functioned as a team. But the bottom line is that they did what they did. I don't think we could have stopped it, but what I do have control over is how I deal with what happened. I couldn't control what happened, but I can deal with what happened, and I think that's the important part of it, you know, I think   Nick Klingenmith ** 16:42 part of what you just it's not that you can do with it. I think the difference is you recognize it as yours to deal with. That's the first step. You know, too often we we refuse to recognize that we have an option, just because we don't like the options and dealing with it. We have to accept whatever happened happened. I have to accept that I'm a diabetic. I said this in a speech the other night. I said, like it's I'm not to blame that I'm I'm a diabetic, but when I take responsibility for being diabetic, I can be an ultra endurance athlete. Gotta accept our starting line, whatever, whatever that is. And, you know, there's a friend of mine, she's also a diabetic. She has a kind of a special something. I don't really understand diabetes thing, but, you know, she she, she struggles because she tries to control it, instead of just manage it, or instead of live with it. You know, they're basically kind of, now I'm going to mess this one up, but she doesn't focus on what she can control. She's so focused on what she can't. Mm, hmm. And that's what keeps   Michael Hingson ** 17:57 her stuck, yeah, and it happens so often, which is one of the things I talk about in my new book that we published in August of 2024 the book called Live like a guide dog, is that we What if everything to death. And the problem is well over 90% of what we what if about we don't have any control over. And that's the difference between us and dogs. Dogs don't do what ifs. And on September 11, when I was working with my fifth guy, dog, Roselle, nothing directly, really threatened her, and so as soon as we got home, she is ready to play. It was all over, and it's because she doesn't deal with it the way we have taught ourselves, or have been taught, to deal with things. And we What if everything so much that we create a lot more fear in our lives than we need to have, which is, which is so unfortunate, if we could learn to step back from that the   Nick Klingenmith ** 18:52 the speech I gave the other night told my story, as well as centered on a couple of themes that really would have resonated with that particular crowd, but one of them we talked a lot about, was fear was one that they kept kind of bouncing around after the fact. And I say that fear only exists in my imagination, and it's only power sources me, and it's that we suffer more from our own imaginations than we do reality. Sure, we create these things, but if we take just even a moment, and it's hard, even if you think, even if you think through logically, I don't think you can necessarily think through fear. And I'll, I'll speak to that in just a moment, but look back at all the times we were afraid. I found no monsters under the bed or in the closet. Like 90% of the things that I've been afraid of. Also, not only can I get out control, but they also haven't happened, right? Most of them will never manifest. You know, that said, the reason I think that you can't net even though you should be able to logically think through fear and understand that it probably doesn't exist, fear also hits on our emotions and stuff like that. So you. The I do believe that we can then move beyond fear, and therefore action is how we conquer fear.   Michael Hingson ** 20:07 Well, I think that, I guess I differ just a little bit. I think fear is a real thing in a sense, and partly it's a physical physiology, physiological reaction. I will never tell people not to be afraid, because I don't think that overall, we can do that. But what I tell people absolutely is you can learn to control fear and use it as a very powerful tool to help you. If you choose to do that, fear is is something that can cause you to focus, or if you don't learn to control it, it will overwhelm you, or, as I put it, blind you or paralyze you. But it is, it is there, and maybe the time will come when we can completely eliminate the concept. But mostly it's there, in part, because it's a physiological thing that we also encounter. But again, you mentioned the seals earlier, and they've learned to control fear. They're not going to tell you they're not afraid, but they're going to tell you that they can control it and use it to their advantage. Um,   Nick Klingenmith ** 21:12 we don't. We don't differ at all. By the way, the because I didn't fear itself isn't, isn't real. It's our fears are liars, those, most of the time, are the manifestations of the doubt. Fear, of course, is a real thing. Here's what I like to say, Okay, I'm with you, yeah, because I'm afraid of snakes and heights, yet I spend my weekends crawling around swamps and climbing up mountains. But it's not because I'm unafraid. It's I move beyond the fear. I do it anyway, and it I'm still afraid. I'm never going to handle a snake if I see one on the course, I'm going the other direction as fast as I can. It's just that I've, I have to find a way to not let it prevent me from living my life. And so I look for those things to you know, whatever I step into fear, I create. I make my world broader. But I don't know if you ever read the book, fear is fueled by Patrick Sweeney, great book, but he really talks a lot about the difference between fear and courage. Because or being fearless, you'd have to be a sociopath. Yeah, you'd have to have a complete disconnection from reality. And plus, like you said, Fear is very healthy. It is a good idea to fear the hot flame over the stove. It's a good idea to fear the Mack truck going down the highway if I want to go run into the street. Also, fear can be an indicator. You know, I when I was afraid for my job, I knew it's because I wasn't doing it. If I'm afraid for my home, it's because I'm not financially prepared. You know, if fear tells me what's important to me as well. So it's not always a bad thing, like, like we've been saying, though it's what you do with it or what you do about it. So   Michael Hingson ** 22:51 you wouldn't even want to pick up a garden snake or a king snake or anything. Oh, no way, huh?   Nick Klingenmith ** 22:57 I don't care if it had, like, tickets for Vegas and a cure for cancer in its mouth. Put that demon thing, that demon cord away.   Michael Hingson ** 23:07 Well, I have, I have played with some snakes, but I also recognize that they're, they're not like me, and you have to be cautious even among the most non poisonous snakes, and that is something that we have to deal with. But I guess I don't fear them. I'm probably more cautious around a black widow spider than a snake than my wife. There you go. Well. But the other part about snakes is, of course, not knowing necessarily, if I encounter snakes, what they are, I'm going to probably avoid them until I know a whole lot more from somebody else about them. And if I hear rattlers, I'm going to definitely deal with that accordingly and freeze or whatever. So   Nick Klingenmith ** 23:55 that's why my fears are rational, because you would be naturally afraid of the potential consequences of the snake, which is what we should be afraid of, right? If we're getting afraid of something, right? I'm afraid of the snake. I'm afraid it's of its sheer existence. My   Michael Hingson ** 24:10 My brother in law, when he was a kid, my wife used to tell this story, and her parents told the story, and they all passed now, but he came in one day, or came from somewhere, and he was holding a Black Widow and going, Yeah, that's really strange, but eventually he let it go, but he was just holding on to it and showing it to everybody. Fine. I don't think he would do that today, though. Yeah,   Nick Klingenmith ** 24:41 Mo, I feel like again, maybe logic and thinking prevents us from doing really silly things like that from time to time. Yeah, there   Michael Hingson ** 24:48 is that. On the other hand, I've never been a skier, and I'm not afraid of skiing, but I love to tease people and say I'm not going to go skiing, because I know what happened to Sonny Bono and I know. Those trees are out there waiting for me. And no matter where I am in relation to the trees, they're going to come out and get me. And in reality, I know intellectually that if somebody said, Come on, really ski. If I were up in an area where there was a ski resort and we had snow and all that sort of stuff, and there was a reasonably gentle ski slope, I would try it, but it's fun to tease people and say, heck no, I'm not going to go out there and let those trees get   Nick Klingenmith ** 25:28 me. I think what you just said is kind of important, because I look at it like hot sauce, all right. I when I was younger, I could eat the hot or the hot. Nowadays, not so much, but I still enjoy hot sauce, but if it gets too hot, I can't enjoy it at all. It will ruin the entire meal. I can't even eat it. And that's sort of where the fear comes in, or doing things that we're fearful of, because if you just throw me right into it, that's not going to be exhilarating, and that's not going to be something I'm going to come back from and want to come back from and want to do again and say, I conquered that. That's not going to expand my universe. That's going to send me crawling under the bed. So, yeah, if you don't like the ski, if you're afraid of the trees, the bunny slope is where you need to be. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 26:14 having having never skied, I would want to start out there anyway, but, um, but I know intellectually, I'm not really afraid of it. I've just never really been around skiing. Now, my wife was in a wheelchair her whole life, so we really never were up visiting her, her brother, my brother in law, or in any other area, when we were really around in a skiing environment, which is what it's really about i i would never avoid skiing, but it's just not the thing that is the most exciting thing for me to do. I've ice skated in my life, and I was out on an ice skating rink for a few hours, and at the very end, I fell and sprained my ankle. And I haven't really been ice skating since, but I am, but I I'm not afraid to go do it. It's just again. It's not something that that I've done, but I, I think life is an adventure, and I love to explore things. And you mentioned hot sauce, there used to be a show on Food Network with Bobby Flay, and I'm forgetting the other guy, who was, oh, I'm blanking out on his name, but it was called grilling and chilling. And he was from, he owned a restaurant down in in Philadelphia called Jack's Firehouse. And we ended up having to go there. Well, we'd end up going there. Didn't have to go there, but Karen, my wife, and I, went there. They have something there, which is made of the hottest peppers and so on that. You can imagine. It's called hot lava, and they bring you a bowl of it, and I touched my finger to it, and then just tasted my finger, and I went, I'm not going to eat that stuff. That's just too hot for me. But again, I can say safely that if I had to, because I didn't have any choice, I wouldn't be so afraid that I wouldn't do something like eat it if it had to be on something to make it edible or whatever. But I do think you're right. I think that fear is really all about what we do and how how we learn to control it, and that's the important part about it. And all too often, we just don't learn to do that. And so as you point out, well over 90% of the things that we fear never will come to pass, never have come to pass, and we're just the ones who are creating the environment that makes it so much scarier for us.   Nick Klingenmith ** 28:36 Plus, are we really afraid of the thing, or are we afraid of the consequences of the thing, yeah? You know, when you really take it all the way back down to the thing you're most afraid of, you may realize what you're most afraid of is a nuisance and not a catastrophe, right?   Michael Hingson ** 28:55 Yeah? And, and for me, um, I'll, I'll face consequences, and what I the only thing I want to as much as possible know is what the consequences are, and then I'll make a, what you would call a rational decision as to whether I want to do it. But I can take the basic fear out of the situation and turn it into making it somewhat analytical. And the result of that is that it becomes what we're talking about here, which is a choice, you   Nick Klingenmith ** 29:29 know, I'll take it back down in the beginning, because I'm sorry, did I cut you off just now? No, no, okay, you know the decisions that went into the storm, right? So we, I gave you the reasons as to why we were there, but why we decided to stay. But then there were other things to consider. Um, I mean, the house is, like, rated for whatever the wind the windows go 140 like it's a new roof, blah, blah, blah, like it's, it's about as safe as it can get, all right, we we weren't going to die. We weren't going to get flooded. We sandbagged. Everything we did, all this, whatever. So then the decision had to be like, if it is bad, we have to understand, if there's like, catastrophic damage to the area and something goes wrong, they're not going to be able to get to us. So we might be without days. You know, we know. We knew we would lose power. We might be without food, water and access to other human beings and communications for up to, like, a week. So we prepared for that. That said, right, we were as logically prepared as possible. When you're sitting in the middle of a cat four hurricane, I'm not going to tell you I wasn't scared. I mean, like you could look out the window and even the middle of, I mean, it was, it was late when it hit, I mean, trees that don't move were swaying hard back and forth, and you weren't totally unsure that one of them wasn't going to end up in your living room. So those were completely natural fears, even though I was as secure as it could logically be. It's a cat four hurricane, and it can do what it wants.   Michael Hingson ** 31:00 Did did you though, while that was happening and you were seeing all that, did the thought also flash in your mind? Yeah, but I did make the choice to stay here so I can deal with it, or I will deal with as best I can. I   Nick Klingenmith ** 31:13 was already prepared for, you know, in my mind I had, I mean, by the door, we had two doors that were accessible because we barricaded everything else up. And by each of them were, you know, shoes, towels, wet gear, things of case I needed to, case a tree came through and crushed and I had to do something I don't know, whatever, like, you know, the the car was in a position. If we had to bug out, we could bug out. If it, you know, we kept the lifted vehicle here, move the other one down the road. Preparations were about as made. But this is where obstacle course racing literally taught me the process to this. Because I love running Ultras, 50 Ks, you know, 70 obstacles up mountains, 10 to 12 hour days of just misery, because everything will go wrong. Everything will go wrong. Whatever your race plan is, things are going to go wrong. And so I've literally just been practicing tackling one unexpected obstacle at a time, and that's all it is. It's a mental process of right? You prepare for what you can and when things happen, you have to just pause and say, what is the obstacle? What is the challenge I'm facing? What is the outcome I need, and what needs to be done to achieve it? Go   Michael Hingson ** 32:29 deal with that obstacle, and then go to the next one. That's   Nick Klingenmith ** 32:33 That's it. I mean, if, if Windows got punctured out, and then we do this, if something else happened, then you begin to prioritize, protect the dogs. My wife is fully capable of taking care of herself and also doing things to protect the home. So we had our assignments, but instead, you know, because of that, she fell asleep in the middle of the worst of it, which is a good thing. The dogs were comfortable. Nothing bad happened. And I mean, we lost power. But whatever that happens.   Michael Hingson ** 33:01 I was in a sports car rally once, and I was the navigator, so the the course, the instructions were in braille, and I started to read it, and then, and I was reading to the driver, so that the driver followed directions, and I started to get a little bit ahead, and the driver said, no, no, no, don't do that. All I want to know is, what's our next job? And that struck a chord with me, because I I realized, Oh, he wants to focus on just the one thing which makes perfect sense. And that's been a and I was like, 13 at the time. That was a life lesson, though, that I that I really took to heart. Again. You can think about all sorts of things. You do need to make preparations, but when you're in the middle of something, ultimately, you've got to deal with it one step at a time. It's   Nick Klingenmith ** 33:57 It's like chess. You want to consider all your moves, but you only make one move at a time, and I'll tell you, this is something that is so idiot proof I hate that it's taken me 45 years to really get the hang of it, but there's been no better teacher for me in that than sobriety, because I truly learned one day at a time, living and as an entrepreneur and A new speaker and a new coach. This past 18 months, it's sometimes been hour at a time living because life continues to happen, but the way that I will solve most of my problems is with the new action. And so I and you can't just ignore things all the time, but I can say for one hour, I'm focused on this right now. And I literally will say out loud often, no, I'm doing this right now. I'm doing this right now. Even on my run, sometimes I'm like, nope, hey, I'm here right now.   Michael Hingson ** 34:51 Do you do things like, when you're running, listen to podcasts or anything like that, or do you just focus on the running? Neither I listen to music and day. Mean, okay, well, so you you do other things while you're running. Okay, why? I shouldn't have just said podcast. But rather, I pay   Nick Klingenmith ** 35:07 attention to because I run by heart rate. So it'll be like 10 minutes at this zone, 10 minutes at this zone, back and forth. So I have to pay attention. But I set my watch to heart rate. I don't even look at the pace and and so I have to monitor that loosely every, you know, just a little bit at my watch. Also, I will have to look at my diabetes, my blood sugar, every 10 minutes, 15 minutes or so. But beyond that, glucose monitor, yeah, I have it on my phone, yeah. So I'll do that. And then, other than that, I listen to music, and my playlist is very eclectic, but I, I will daydream of things, you know, this is where I set and just daydream of really big goals, or race goals or life goals, and just just fantasize like just, let's say it drift away into that. But running   Michael Hingson ** 35:59 gives you the opportunity to do that, which is what's so cool. I There are things that that I do that I call them sort of brainless activities, but I do them with the idea that while they're going on, I can be thinking about other things. I don't have to focus my full attention on them. And the result of that is that I do accomplish other things, or I set goals, or, as you say, daydreaming things happen because of that.   Nick Klingenmith ** 36:28 And for me, I learned a long time ago. Even though I can be a fierce competitor, I'll go back to my beach volleyball days. Let's say you and I met before the game. You were we're going to play against each other, and I liked you. We were casual with each other. Whatever I would play great. But let's say for some reason we didn't like each other, and then all of a sudden I was kind of pissed off. I would play terrible. I I don't play well, like that. I play well, and I'm loose having fun, yeah. And so since I run my heart rate, I am acutely aware of what a negative a negative thought does to your body, because I literally will turn my thoughts to something negative. And even though I am not making any more effort, I'm not running any faster, my heart rate is jumping six to eight beats a minute. Yeah, so that's also why I don't want to solve problems when I'm out there. You know, that's where I do want to drift away, because when I'm in my work day, right? I'm not daydreaming, I'm working. I'm focused on tasks and things that I can do with other people or places that are required to do during work time.   Michael Hingson ** 37:37 But it's great to have the opportunity to just let your mind go. And I think we need to do more of that. One of the things I also advocate a lot is that people should take time at night, when they're falling asleep or just before, and be introspective, think about what happened during the day, and do it in a in a constructive way. Never say, why did this fail? Why was I a failure here? But rather, what can I learn from this that didn't go as well as I expected? I've learned to not ever call myself my own worst critic anymore. I'm my own best teacher, and that's the way it should be, because first of all, it's a positive thing, and secondly, I am my own best teacher. No one could teach me anything. They can provide me with information, but I really have to teach myself and understand it and emotionally and intellectually deal with it. But I think it's it's so important to have that time just to let your mind go off and do things.   Nick Klingenmith ** 38:36 One of the worst things as people that we do is we start the day with yesterday, yeah. And one of the ways to prevent that, which takes practice, because we're used to it, is we also have to finish the day the day before. So like you're talking about, and this is part of my sobriety, too. It's take that daily inventory, and then I like to after doing sort of doing that exercise myself, I'll also say a nightly prayer, and then I'm going to meditate for at least five minutes, sometimes 30 to 45 probably five. And at that point I'm not trying to think about anything. And I go that that point is when I'm I'm listening or, right, you know, just trying to clear it out. But I think I remember a couple years ago, I was training for this race, and it was a big race, 50k mountain race, and I started to kind of have a panic moment of like, Oh, my God, I have to do all this training. What am I going to do? How am I going to prepare for this? I'm never going to do it in time. And so I asked myself, well, what's the most important thing I need to do right now to hit my goal? And the answer was, I needed to make sure I woke up to do my training in the morning, because that's the only other thing I can impact right I can't do anything about the next three months. So then I asked myself, well, if I need to make that happen, what is the most important thing that needs to happen right now for me to hit my goals? And this is when I was stretching and meditating at night. And I was like, well, I need a good night's sleep so I'll wake up and exercise. Okay, what's the most important thing I can do right now to make sure I have a good night's sleep? Go to sleep. Mountain came down to one breath. Yeah, I hear you. And that's it. I mean, it's I have it written on my whiteboard over here. It says, break things down to the stupid Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 40:26 and eventually get to sleep.   Nick Klingenmith ** 40:28 I mean, it's just the one, the baby steps that I can take. I remember, I was reading Miracle Morning at that same time, and I used to, because I was, I was struggling, and so I was using my meditations for visualization, and I was spending too much time there trying to create a future. And it wasn't giving me that relaxation, and it wasn't. It was actually stressing me out more, and I just needed to relax and just to focus on the single most controllable thing I could and just taking it, you know, take some pressure off myself, and that really was such a simple fix.   Michael Hingson ** 41:01 Yeah, I hear you, if I may, you've talked about being sober now for I think you said 10 years, yep, what? What led you to finally make that decision that you had to change and be sober.   Nick Klingenmith ** 41:17 My final drunk was very public. And by what I mean by that is I was supposed to be the speaker at my company's conference the next day in Vegas, and instead, I got thrown out of the hotel and trespassed in the middle of the night for trying to have sex with a hooker in a broom closet after apparently getting in a fight with somebody. Well, my girlfriend slept down the hall. I wasn't allowed back at the hotel. Told my boss, my lawyer, I lied to my girlfriend about whatever we were getting thrown out of. It took about five hours for us to get a new hotel, and when my head finally hit the pillow, I said out loud, I don't want to live this way anymore. But that was just the final moment. Because what led up to that was I was a very highly functional alcoholic, and I had been for only a number of years. To be honest, I had alcohol wasn't a big part of my life for a while, and then when it came back in, it came back in rapidly. And so really only a period about five or six years I became a highly functional alcoholic, and I mean highly my career flourished during this time, you know. And the thing is, I didn't I wasn't an everyday drinker. I didn't get drunk every time I drank, and bad things didn't happen every time I did, but more and more, my decisions were getting more selfish, my behavior was getting more destructive, and alcohol was just playing more of a bigger role in my life. So I it was when I got cancer the third time that gave me the excuse I needed to crawl deep into the bottle, because at that point it was already sort of critical mass. I wouldn't go anywhere unless I knew I was going to get drunk. Everything was selfish. I didn't know about it. I didn't think about it, and I was actually ready to quit because I didn't like the way other people would talk about me. So that sounds like a healthy reason, right? And so so I tried to quit on my own, and I spent a couple months just white knuckling it, and I tempted fate, and I went to every happy hour. I threw beer Olympics in my house. And I just, I think I wanted to prove that I could do both without, you know, be who I was, without being who I was. But what I also didn't realize at a time that alcohol wasn't the problem. Alcohol was just a symptom. Who I was was the problem. And so when I got cancer for the third time, they told me they couldn't operate. Um, spoiler alert, the tumor's still there. It's been there over 10 years, but that gave me an excuse to crawl deep into the bottle. And so for about a month, I mean, I just, I was drinking at that point, because who's going to mess with me, right? I have inoperable cancer. That was the excuse I needed, and it that's what really led me to take the gloves off, which led me to Vegas. So I tell you, this cancer saved my life, because I would have died for my drink and long before I would have died from the cancer. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 44:19 I hear you. Well, you've said that you recognize that you didn't overcome adversity. You survived it. What does what does that mean? And how do you overcome adversity?   Nick Klingenmith ** 44:29 I understand surviving it is when? How did I how do I say it for someone else? You know? It was because, as I'm standing there in the totality, here's the thing I told you, how I was growing up. You know, this sort of independent kid? Right child of neglect grows up to be independent, weird, right child with trust issues grows up to be self sufficient, cool, but at some time along the way, that just becomes resentment. It and fear, and it works against us, and that's what creates a little bit of the victim mindset, and so, and it's easy to get that way when bad things happen to us, we feel like it's unfair. I mean, it's just natural. Nobody's immediately like, oh, I guess it's just my turn. So I think living with all those things. But this is where, where part of it gets confusing is I survived something, and people would tell me how tough I was. I would all I did was not die from cancer. I didn't do surgery, I didn't prescribe treatment. All I did was not die. I didn't cure cancer for anyone else. So I survived it. I didn't overcome it. All I did was show up to a doctor's appointment like, I'm lucky that I got thyroid cancer and not prostrate cancer. That's it. So I didn't overcome anything. I'm a diabetic. I'm still diabetic. How did I overcome diabetes? By having it. No sir, I was surviving it. All I was doing was being diabetic, but the mindset of thinking that, man, maybe when am I going to get a break? All these things keep happening to me, happening to me. When you think that way, you're not overcoming any of it. You are just surviving it. And you know what? God bless you. Because I know it's hard for a lot people go through a lot, and it's sometimes hard to handle. To overcome it, though, we have to do something with it. That's how you overcome it. I'm a diabetic who helps other diabetics realize they can be ultra endurance athletes. I race with the words fuck cancer written across my chest. I'm currently fundraising for the American Cancer Society for men were pink. I do what I can to help other people who are hearing cancer. I have cancer for the first you have cancer for the first time. That's how I get back there. I try to help other alcoholics recover and get sober. I write books and share about my fears and things that other people can relate to in the hopes that they, too, can overcome those obstacles. And that's how I overcome it. Those things lose power over me now, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 47:08 and I think that last sentence is the real key to the whole thing. You're not giving them power. You're you're putting your power in your mindset elsewhere. You're not giving power to diabetes. Yeah, it's there. You're not giving power to drink. Since you become sober, have you ever taken a drink anymore? No, not at all. So you know you you took away the power, and you're putting the power into the mindset and all the things that you're expressing, which is so important, I think again, that's so much of what most of us tend not to learn, that a lot of the things that we deal with, we deal with because we give them the power, rather than moving forward and putting the power where it really needs to go.   Nick Klingenmith ** 48:04 It's we raise, we raise kids this way, man. And I mean, they're raising the moment to say it's not fair. Wait, everyone's supposed to get a turn, and that's not true. Well, everyone does get a turn, but they get it in a different way, and something I've come to appreciate, because here's here's something that if I wasn't a speaker, and if I had not written a book, I would never talk about cancer, because I feel like I'm sitting at the kitty table, and it'd be, quite frankly, like it's hard for me, like I had an easy road, considering cancer. I'm alive. I've had multiple surgeries, but I mean, God, compared to what so many people that I know have gone through and the people that we've lost, it took me a long time to be okay with the fact that I'm alive and to realize too that that's not something I need to apologize for, but especially if I'm gonna be a speaker and talk about having cancer, and in any way, let that, like me benefit from that, then I have to do something with that. That's what gives me the fuel. And I didn't know how to it was the first time that that I wrote f cancer across my chest. It was because a friend of mine had told me about their diagnosis and they were struggling with it, and I just, I didn't know how to help them, and I just, I just wanted to let them know they weren't alone. So literally, that morning, at five in the morning, I grabbed Sharpie and I wrote it on my chest, and I went out and I did the race, and I was expecting people, their kids around. I was a little iffy about using the F bomb, but I think cancer deserves all four letters, and everyone intended to agree with me that day, I was really surprised at just people tell me about their their loved ones they've lost, or the people struggling with it, or about their the people that have thrived. And I mean, I love hearing the survivor stories, because you don't hear enough of them, yeah, and it, what I've realized is you just. People know they're not alone. They just let it's like you're just letting people have told me about, like, their four year old niece while under the barbed wire crawl of a race. I mean, like, clearly, they they need to share. And so if that's if I help even just that little bit, then that's the role I get to play. And I say, get to play. And   Michael Hingson ** 50:19 I'm with you. I hear you. I talk about resilience, I talk about teamwork and trust. And, of course, tell my September 11 story. And I decided to start to do that. Well, first of all, it was my wife and I together. We decided that I should do that, because if we could help people move forward from September 11, and then, of course, later, from so many other things, teach people that blindness isn't the problem they think it is, and teach them about guide dogs and other things like that, then it makes life worthwhile. So I love to tell people today that what we decided was that selling life and philosophy was a whole lot more rewarding and satisfying than managing a computer hardware sales team and selling computer hardware, and it is   Nick Klingenmith ** 51:03 the other night. The conference I spoke at was a sales conference for a company in the logistics industry, but I've been in that industry for 20 years. I've spoken at least at a dozen conferences. However, all of them, except this one, were on sales or logistics, this one was on fear and overcoming adversity and finding purpose and finding purpose in your team and just thriving and leading the charge. And it was, it was such a different experience, and so much more fulfilling, yeah, in that 45 minutes than any of the time I'd ever spoken on another stage.   Michael Hingson ** 51:46 What do you think is your your greatest strength as a speaker? What do you really bring to speaking that makes you so successful at it?   Nick Klingenmith ** 51:56 I think that this will change over time as but I'm going to say right now, it's, it's simply my authenticity, and maybe not even that may not even change over time, but I'm very raw. I'm very vulnerable. I hold nothing back, and the thing I hear most about myself is that I'm relatable, and so I would say that would be be a differentiator, especially if you consider and this isn't a bad thing for someone who is far more known or professional or more of a brand name. It's not like they're not being raw and authentic, but it gets lost on their it gets lost on their audience over time, and you know, when they're more mainstream.   Michael Hingson ** 52:41 What do you think the the most powerful technique or tool is that you use that people do relate to in store, in in speaking,   Nick Klingenmith ** 52:53 I speak directly to them and share personal stories. Yeah, that's yeah. I mean, that's it. When I say I I should send you the link later, but I the talk I did the other night. I Maybe it's nervous energy, but I am just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But I'll tell you what, I made eye contact with every single person in that room, every other second throughout the thing I was I speak to them, and they are personal stories, then they're completely naked. There's nothing that I won't hold back because you know who I am now the obstacle course racing book, right? None of that matters if it's not, if I'm not completely honest about who I was, if I try to sell myself as having been someone else or something else, then I'm not going to help anybody. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 53:46 Well, and I find, as a speaker, that stories, and they have to be authentic, has to be you, but that stories make a difference. And I've, I've been in situations where a speaker's bureau hired me to go and deliver a speech, and I get there to find out that the speakers bureau was totally inaccurate and incorrect as to the kind of the organization that it was that I was going to speak to. And it taught me to learn that I have to customize every talk I give, and I need to be able to adjust, if you will, on the fly. Sometimes, in the case of one particular talk that I gave, it was a totally different kind of environment. What I was led to believe, fortunately, I could find stories to tell these people that showed that I related to them, and I got invited back to other parts of the organization later because of that. But I think that stories are the most important thing that we as speakers can bring, and they have to be true. They have to be authentic. Can't make it up. People can see through that. A mile away,   Nick Klingenmith ** 54:58 I feel like I have to tell the. Vegas story. It's the lowest moment of my life, and if it just it also just speaks to all of it in one incident. So it's kind of like it, but if the person who needs to hear it, you know, I, I don't want someone to just see who I am now and not relate   Michael Hingson ** 55:22 well, this podcast is all about unstoppable mindset. What are some ways to develop an unstoppable mindset? Do you think   Nick Klingenmith ** 55:28 for one we got to go through to get through it, we have to develop what we've been talking about, this sort of obstacle immunity, or at least this understanding that there's always going to be a next challenge. If we ever think that the mountain will be climbed. We can't be unstoppable. We simply have to accept that the purpose of life is to continue to climb. That's that's one thing, and how do we keep how do we keep doing that? Then achievement. I'm highly achievement driven. You can call it motivated, but I don't think so. I have to look for carrots. So whether it be personal, professional, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, some sort of development is also how we continue to develop that unstoppable mind. Because the only way to be on there's we can't be 100% unstoppable. We always have to continue to progress and to toughen up and to keep moving for it, one of the things though, that has to be ultimately critical. And people talk about this, but I don't know if they really spend enough time on it. Self belief is the gateway to an unstoppable mindset. You have to believe it before you can see it.   Michael Hingson ** 56:32 Yeah, I'm listening. I just agreed with you. Yeah,   Nick Klingenmith ** 56:36 no, I know I was I was cutting, I was stopping.   Michael Hingson ** 56:39 Yeah, I agree, though. I mean, you've you've got to believe it, and you have to believe it intellectually and in your heart, you have to believe it emotionally as well. It is, as I said, if, if you're not authentic, people will see through you a mile away, no matter what I when, when I started selling, I took a Dale Carnegie sales course, and one of the things that I learned in that course is that the best salespeople are teachers. They're counselors, they guide, but because they're teachers, they also adopt. If they're really successful, stories, they can tell you stories that you, whoever you are, can relate to. And so they've they've analyzed and they understand what you need, and they can tell you stories to show you why what they have will work, or the other side of it is won't work. And I've had that situation happen where I've been selling a product and went into a meeting and learned that clearly what we had didn't work, and it's a choice. Do you still try to push your product on them or not? And I think that that's the worst thing that you can do, is to push a product that's going to jeopardize any relationship you have. And I've told customers in the past, here's why my product won't do what you need. Here's what will. And the result of that has always been calls later that say we really appreciated what you had to say. We've got another opportunity, and you taught us what we need to know your product is perfect. We don't want to put it out to bid. Just tell us a price and we'll order it today. Order it   Nick Klingenmith ** 58:23 today. In the book I published a couple months ago, selling inspired, I actually talk about what I call being a bar stool sales person.   Nick Klingenmith ** 58:34 Just tell personal stories like pretend you're at the bar talking to the prospect, and convey those things, because people do want to buy from people these days, it's tricky, because they are heavily gravitated towards convenience, but so we have to change our approach on how we get to know them, or, more importantly, let them get to know us, especially if you're buying virtually, like a lot of people are These days, it's not the bar stool salesman has to, has to become a social app sales person, essentially. But people buy from people make it easy for them to get to know who you are. Connect on a different level. Because, I mean, I'm even part of a a Spartan group. Excuse me. There's about 15,000 of us in this Facebook community, and we are very strict about not promoting businesses and services and stuff like that. You know, this is supposed to be about obstacle course, racing, tips, tricks, positive vibes, whatever. But I recently suggested, and we just actually implemented something that we're calling it the the What is your profession? Because there's 15,000 people. Now I don't know the 15,000 but I'm actually close. I know several 100, and I'm actually close with several dozen. If any one of those people has a service that I need, I'd rather buy from them, sure. And if any one of them is like, Hey, I do this, and that they're getting the message from me, like you. Said, Hey, Michael, can you do this? Here's my email. Send it done? Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:08 yeah, it's still connectionalism, and no matter what, you've gotta be able to connect or you've gotta create an environment where people want to connect with you again, though, that has to be authentic. You can't just fake it. That'll never work. It's   Nick Klingenmith ** 1:00:27 actually, it's hard for a lot of people. Now, I've been lucky for a while because couple things, going back in time, I've actually just been highly passionate about sales. So as far as like social content, I'd post sales, stuff, whatever. But I say that I'm lucky because of my story. I mean that would be like, you say your story. And what I mean by that is we have something different to talk about. I don't have to talk about being a speaker. I talk about things that are helpful to other people, and it just makes it easier, like, easier to engage now with, like, one of the guys that I'm coaching, he has no earthly idea how to start building or putting out any sort of content. And I'm like, bro, what do you like? He's like, like, just and so he actually posted something about the NHL that night, and it got decent content and feedback. Because I was like, he's like, You know what LinkedIn is not for? I go Shut up if we were at a standing at the bar together, like having a at a networking event. I don't want your spec sheet from your company. Yeah, I want to know what you're interested in and get to know you. So tell me, let people get to know you. That's it. Because when they click on your profile, if they don't, if all they see is your business brand, they're like, Okay, great, moving on.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:34 Yeah, it is, it is. It is crazy. We you talked earlier about how we bring up kids, and we bring up children in such a strange way. They don't learn to overcome fea

Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:00:00] Welcome to the women of ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Culler Hume. And today we have a fantastic guest on our show. Nina Simons is co founder and chief relationship officer at Bioneers and leads it's every woman leadership program throughout her career, spanning the nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and. Philanthropic sectors. Nina has worked with nearly a thousand diverse women leaders across disciplines, race, class, age, and orientation to create conditions for mutual learning, trust, and leadership development. She co edited Moonrise, The Power of Women Leading from the Heart and authored Nature, Culture, and the Sacred. A Woman Listens for Leadership, which is the book we're going to talk about here today, was released as a second edition in 2022 with an accompanying discussion guide and embodied. Practice. Nina received the Goy Peace Award with her husband and partner, Kenny Ausubel for pioneering work to promote nature inspired innovations for restoring the earth and our [00:01:00] human community, which is pretty incredible. So thank you so much for being here, Nina.  Nina Simons: Thank you, Alyssa. It's great to be with you. Um,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: this is your beautiful book. You can see it behind her if you're watching the video. Um, it's beautiful. This artwork is fantastic. Um, and I, I'll just start by saying that, you know, I, I get reached out to by a lot of PR teams and different people wanting me to promote the material. And, I'm really picky, but yours is the first one that I, I read and I really loved and am deciding to share it because, um, I think what your, your message here is, is really incredible. It's really holistic. And I think it's something that we really need to talk about. So thank you so much for, for me, for writing this book and publishing it. And. Talking about being like a feminist as a white woman who's trying to, um, decolonize perspectives, understand privilege, um, and also, [00:02:00] um, someone who's been in that space for so long. You have a lot of wisdom to share and a lot of experience. And I, I'm just really grateful that you're putting that out in the world and being vulnerable. So thank  Nina Simons: you. Oh, it's my honor and privilege. I feel really grateful to get to do it. Thank you, Elisa. Okay,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: so, I, so this book is about women's leadership, um, and you talk about it from your own personal experiences and then in working with other, with other leaders in, In lots of different communities, um, can we start maybe talking about, uh, what Bioneers is and where that word comes from, because I was really intrigued by that. Nina Simons: Sure. Sure. Well, the word was coined by my husband and partner because it's a contraction of biological pioneers. Okay. And the idea behind it was he started looking to find really innovative and effective [00:03:00] approaches. To healing our relationships with ourselves, each other and the earth and what he found was that some of the great innovators out there, many of them were looking to nature to heal nature and so there were nature sourced solutions and that's where the word Bioneers came from. But. Bioneers started as an annual gathering. Um, we started it in 1990 and over the years it has grown and grown and evolved tremendously so that now there is an annual face to face in person conference of about a year. 2500 or 3000 people, but there is also an incredible wealth of media that we put out. So we produce a radio series that wins awards many years and, um, a great newsletter and a lot of what motivated Bioneers in the first place was the recognition. [00:04:00] That the mainstream media tends to carry the bad news, but not the good news of the world. That's being born. And especially in this time when there's so much destruction and violence and coming apart, we all need to remember to give some of our time and energy to the world. That's being born because it's incredibly uplifting and inspiring and full of role models. And, and, um, that's what Pioneers is. And, um, what else did you ask me? I think that was the main question. No,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: it, it was. Um, one of the things that you talk about in your book is the difference between a Bioneer and a Pioneer. And how as in the Bioneer space, you are looking to To create with the world instead of imagining it as a blank space that doesn't have, um, life already living and I don't know, I'm not articulating it very well. Your book says it so much more [00:05:00] beautifully, but, um, co creating in that world with indigenous people with local knowledge with local plants and flora and fauna and all of those things. You speak maybe a little bit. to that? And, and why is that a revolutionary concept to an American white person?  Nina Simons: Oh, that's a great question. Well, and it's interesting as you frame it, it very much parallels my exploration with leadership because, um, what I've realized as a woman with all the privileges that having white skin gifts me in this country, um, and a fierce determination to become a better uh, anti racist, a better white ally, um, and to learn deeply what it means to do that. Um, part of what I've learned is that we actually need to invest in our own humility, and I think that's parallel to what you were asking because, um, [00:06:00] you know, Western civilization Tends to have us think of nature as resources and in fact an indigenous worldview thinks of nature as relatives And imagine how differently you would relate knowing that the trees and the Soil and the mycelium and the, you know, all of the elements are your relatives, rather than just resources to be mined or extracted or used. Um, so it really is about, you know, for me, what I've come to understand from all these years of immersing myself in both the challenges we face and. This amazing fount of solutions has been that, um, that the solutions we need are largely already in form all around us. And that what we need to do is quiet [00:07:00] our egos and our tendency toward hubris to learn from the allies that surround us. And that actually includes, um, people of different backgrounds. People of different classes and ages and orientations that I think a lot of what we're facing right now is a need to transform our culture by shifting our culture within ourselves first so that we relate to difference as a virtue rather than as an obstacle to be overcome. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, I, I love that in your book, you talk about a shift in culture and cultural change from a me to a we, and I, I really, I think that's such a succinct, fantastic way to, to talk about that. Um, and so I want to talk now about. In your book, you talk about leadership and being labeled as a leader and kind of your initial, um, being repulsed by that title and kind of your [00:08:00] transformation through that. So I would love to, I'd love to dig into that and then how your position and privilege as a leader has allowed you to exercise that humility and grow and learn with other people with maybe less privilege. Um, so, so talk to us a little bit about. Um, that stigma of leadership and, and maybe in conjunction with ambition, because I think it's a very similar stigma when a woman is trying or is in that place. Nina Simons: I do too. And it's been interesting to think about in relation to your podcast and recognize that, you know, social scientists have long observed that in our culture, when we raise boys, we raise them to crow when they achieve something. Whereas when we raise girls, we tell them not to crow, we tell them to be silent, to hold it to themselves. And really the models of virtue that [00:09:00] boys and girls are raised with are very, very different. And what I found When I was first called a leader, um, I was about 40 years old and I, I really didn't like it. I knew I was supposed to be flattered, but really I felt like it painted a target on my back. It was not a title I had ever aspired to. And. I knew from Bioneers that the earth is calling us all to be leaders now. And so I had to figure out how to reconcile those two things. And as I started convening women leaders, they would all come together immediately disavowing that they ever thought of themselves as leaders. So I found that it was a bigger issue than just me. And I think, you know, it relates to the, what you were just citing of the transition from a me culture to a weak culture, because really, um, I've done two books [00:10:00] now exploring leadership and how we are all co inventing and co creating new models of leadership. And, you know, I did that First, by exploring all of the talks from all of the leaders I most admired at Bioneers, and then deconstructing them to find patterns of how were they similar, and how were they different than my mental model, and, uh, and what I found was that they were all motivated from the heart, not the head. They were motivated by an internal passion to serve or defend or protect something. And not by a title or a graduate degree, um, they were often people who stepped up to do something when they didn't even know exactly what they could do. And it wasn't until they were in it that it began to reveal. And, And they [00:11:00] were, they were also people who, whose concept of leadership was involved sharing authority and sharing power. And so, you know, increasingly, I came to appreciate the Gloria Steinem thing of leaders are those who lift each, who lift others up. No, and, and as I explored that, I realized how important it was to both have your own sense of dignity and self love, but to have that balanced with humility so that you can recognize the gifts and talents and those around you and generously support them without feeling Threatened by the zero sum game of patriarchy that if someone else is good at something it means you're not so uh So I mean this latest book is sort of the latest Evolution of my thinking about leadership. It also talks about a lot of the [00:12:00] data about Women throughout the world and how their leadership is affecting change And, and how much, um, the research is proving that when women lead, everything gets better, you know, and so I think of the old model of leadership as an I model because it was driven by ego and personal achievement, you know, and, and I think of the new model that we're all co creating as a we model. Yeah,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I love that. And that, I mean, it blends so well into my research on ambition, um, in terms of, you know, when we're looking at gender roles where men are socialized to be individualistic and to be competitive and to be climbing and, um, are expected to be in those leadership positions, but from that ego place and from that, um, Stamp of approval of a title or, uh, income or [00:13:00] education or whatever it is. And now women are, are exercising in these places, but we're showing up in new ways and we're showing up with different gifts and with different values and priorities. And then when we're given the title of leader, it doesn't sit right, or it feels wrong. Um, And I, and, or ambition, I ask people to be on the show and they're like, Oh, I'm not ambitious. I'm like, well, let's talk about it. Cause I think you might be. And I think that maybe what you're scared of is actually some of the values that people have linked with those words that, that don't fit. Um, yeah, I love, I, one of the things I love about your book is that you talk and cite so many different. Women and groups and, uh, people from all over the world and talk about how their collaborative community based relational practices and different values are really starting to change the world and how the power of the [00:14:00] grassroots movements across the world and how they are. Are changing our society. Um, how as a leader, uh, with a platform, um, I know you've done a lot of work to create leadership spaces, uh, that account for differences in, um, Class and race and lots of different perspectives and places like that. What was it like to start engaging in some of that work to try and make your spaces more equitable and accessible to people who have been systematically disenfranchised?  Nina Simons: Well, you know, there was a pivotal moment in my learning about that, Alyssa, when I read a book by a woman named Linda Tar Whalen called Women Lead the Way, and what she cites in that book is that until any minority Has reached at least 30 percent in a group, they [00:15:00] don't feel flanked enough to fully show up. And that was revelatory to me and my co facilitators. And at that moment, we agreed that we would set a minimum of 30 percent women of color in our trainings and that we would have a woman of color on our facilitation team. So that one third of the facilitation team was, was a person of color and everything shifted dramatically as soon as we did that. Um, You know, I think in a nutshell, it was in some ways scary to me to embark on that steep learning curve, but in other ways I felt really compelled to do it, and in retrospect, I feel really proud of myself that I embraced it so fully, and that in fact, I've reached a point in my life where I have Profound friendships and [00:16:00] relationships with women from all walks of life, and I feel like it's gifted me, you know, one of the things I think, Elisa, about this work is that people often talk about how hard it is, but they don't often talk about how rewarding it is. And I have found it to be some of the most rewarding work in my life. And it's gifted me some opportunities to experience in an embodied way what Dr. Martin Luther King called Beloved Community. And there's nothing like it, you know. It also helped me to understand Why the patriarchy has been so invested in socializing us to be in competition with each other rather than an alliance with each other. Because I think one of the most powerful things in the world is women in deep intentional alliance who can grow each other's leadership, [00:17:00] um, faster, better, deeper than anything else I've ever seen. So that's, that's some conditioning to get over. Yeah,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: absolutely. I know so many white feminist women of my generation are trying to, uh, be allies and do anti racism work, and there is so much, so much work left to be done. And then, you know, at some point, there comes a time when it's time to start actually enacting some of those things we're learning, and I, it's scary to move from a learning place to an action place, and then it's, I mean, Speaking for myself, like it's vulnerable to try and reach out and, and start that inclusive journey because it will most certainly involve some direct correction and education from the people around me. And, um, [00:18:00] I think what you're saying, it is a very vulnerable thing to, to learn something and then to try and change an organization and to, to make that big shift of who are we inviting and who are we putting in those positions of power and making those shifts. And I see it happening. And, you know, there are all kinds of companies with different quotas and they're trying to get certain rates of leadership in different areas. Um, it sounds like you did it. Fairly quickly and a steep learning curve, as you say, how did you, uh, so one of the phrases in your book is, uh, discomfort, resilience, learned, like that's part of that humility and letting go, um, allowing to be uncomfortable and to be educated and to continue to grow and listen to other people. What was that like? And, uh, you talk about. You know, getting feedback about cultural appropriation and, and [00:19:00] those types of things. Can you speak to that process and the humility or learning  Nina Simons: curve? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think one of the things that it requires is really coming face to face with having been raised by a culture that is deeply embedded in white supremacy. And so, you know, when you face that, when I face that in myself, it causes me to look at the stereotypes I carry, you know, my assumptions that someone may know less than me because they have a different background or a different color of skin. Um, and in fact, The more that the doing has taught me, I mean, I think studying and learning with other white people is really important and really necessary, but also, um, I think it's taught me a kind of [00:20:00] humility to understand that, you know, I'll give you an example. Um, early in my women's leadership work, I remember saying to a room of mixed women that I was raised in a home where anger was not expressed. And as a result, I didn't really know how to have a healthy relationship to anger and that I suspected that that might be true for many or most women. And I had an African American woman immediately push back and say, Not true in our culture. You know, I, I was raised to express my anger in a great and healthy and strong and quick way. And I thought, Wow, okay. Well, that's something I have to learn from you, you know, that's great. Um, so I think Let's see I think the other thing about it that I want to say and I I write about this in a longer essay in the book is that it's one thing to [00:21:00] learn about white supremacy and the racist history of our nation from your head. And it's another thing to feel it in your heart. And some of the hardest anti racism training experiences I've ever had has been witnessing other white people only respond from their heads. And they either get defensive or they have a rationale or, but But the truth is, um, we are living among people who are experiencing painful events due to the racism deeply embedded in our culture every single day, many, many times a day, and sometimes it's it involves fear for the life of their Children, you know, um, and. And so it requires really extending your empathy to somebody else's experience, and similarly, [00:22:00] as I've learned about Indigenous peoples and the horrors that we have inflicted on them, that this nation has, um, I find myself having tremendous amounts of empathy and compassion, and And then the trick is, how do you turn that into some sort of action? Because knowing about it, thinking about it, talking about it doesn't mean squat until you do something about it. And that means helping in whatever way you can. But it also means not falling into the trap of becoming a white savior. Instead, coming in a humble way to say, I want to be of service. How can I help? Tell me how I can help you because only they know what they need really. And, um, and put me to work, you know, I'll wash dishes. I'll take out the trash. Tell me what you need. Um, So, I mean, I guess that's the [00:23:00] best I can do in a generalized form. Yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: So I want to mention today too, we are recording this on Memorial Day in the United States. The day that we remember people have passed away, our ancestors and our loved ones. And For me, a part of this process has been coming to terms with, with my own family history and the complicity in the settler colonizer state and in the patriarchy and, um, a lot of the contradictions that are there, that it's really tempting to paint a really pretty picture of pioneers or pilgrims, or, you know, the settlers that built this cabin and worked so hard to settle this area. And it's, It's, it's so many complicated overlapping truths of also, um, genocide and rape and, um. And land theft. And death and destruction. Yeah. Yeah. Land theft and, and continual [00:24:00] occupation. Here I am. Yeah. In Utah. I have no ancestors from Utah. And I'm still here. Yeah. And, um. It's, it's a paradox and it's hard and it's uncomfortable. Um, and I have children. So part of my work is to teach them about all of that and try and model how to continue to exist and then what to do next. Um, because I think if I'm running away from it in my own family system and my own family culture, like I can't. I'm not going to do anything on a greater scale that's actually helpful, you know. Nina Simons: Yeah, I sure do. And we're surrounded by so many examples of people who, you know, there's a saying, uh, in the healing communities that hurt people, hurt people. Yes. Right. And, and so what you're facing, Alisa, is very much an opportunity to break the chain and [00:25:00] to, um, to really choose something different for yourself and your kids. And I applaud you for doing so. It's a big deal.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you. Yeah, it, it's hard. And it's vulnerable to, to put myself in positions to learn and to be corrected and to be told, um, that I have a limited perspective. But, but like you're saying, there's, it's not just all pain there. Like, there's so much beauty in learning. Uh, one of my. Favorite examples of this recently is, um, in the resistance to the Dakota access pipeline, uh, the Lakota people established a resistance movement and it was led by the indigenous people of the area. And there were lots of activists and other native people that came to help. And proportionately the, the local native people were a very small fraction at the end. Um, but everyone continued to function. under the guidance of that leadership and under that sovereignty. And I, it's such a [00:26:00] beautiful story that is just a fraction of what was going on there, but that, that sovereignty and that leadership and that respect that was able to function, I think for almost like 10 months in that space allowed for a much larger work to happen. And it's a beautiful example of how. Leadership and sovereignty is not, it doesn't have to be this dominating power, but it can be this community agreement to recognize leadership in these beautiful spaces and with indigenous values. And, um, it brings me so much hope. So I can, I can feel what you're saying about the resilience and the hope and the leadership and the learning that comes from engaging with these stories that also hold so much  Nina Simons: pain. Yeah. Well, and, and frankly, there is a, a fierce commitment to surviving and thriving in many Native communities. And [00:27:00] it's huge. You know, I, I recently heard a friend whose son was at Standing Rock, and she's a Native woman, and she said, I'm so grateful for what my son learned there because he learned that you don't ever put lives at risk without checking first with the life givers and the life bearers. So you go to the women first for their permission if you're going to consider something dangerous. And he, she said, I'm so grateful he learned that. You know, and it made so much sense to me. I thought, wow, what if before we went to war, you know, we had part of our constitution was a council of elder women. They would consult before going into war. It would change everything. Revolutionizing. Right?  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. And in your book, you talk about, uh, the Iroquois Confederacy and the, uh, [00:28:00] The  Nina Simons: Haudenosaunee. Thank  Alyssa Calder Hulme: you. Yes, I read it. It's, it's weird to say it out loud. I'm not used to that. Um, Haudenosaunee and how they have that council of women. Yeah. And that is, you know, that was the inspiration for a lot of the, um, the feminist movement in the United States.  Nina Simons: And the U. S.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Constitution. Yes. And I, I have, I have, um, Iroquois ancestry and I'm so proud of that piece and I, it's, it's a very small fraction, but I'm like, ah, I want to connect with that part of, part of my ancestry as well because, oh my goodness, we have so much to learn. I have so much to learn. Um. Okay, so many things that we could, that we could talk about here. Um,  Nina Simons: You know what? Can I jump in for a sec? Oh, please do. Please do. Okay. I was realizing as I was anticipating being with you today that I was thinking about my own relationship to ambition. Oh, yeah. And, and what I [00:29:00] realized was that I've never had ambition to be rich or a celebrity. I've never had that kind of ambition. The kind of ambition that I have had has been a promise to myself that before I die, I'm going to live out what my soul brought me here to bring. And that's a form of ambition, I realized, you know, and certainly, you know, I enjoy being well used. I enjoy feeling like I've contributed something that's really Helped move something, um, that I care about and I work with a number of women who are quite ambitious and I love that they're ambitious because, you know, they're, they're sort of natural born competitors and, and. Why shouldn't we all have that within ourselves? You know, a [00:30:00] desire to excel. So I think, you know, part of what I talk about in the book is this idea that I call full spectrum leadership, and by which I mean, having access to all of our human capacities at any given time. And if the feminine is the receptive and the masculine is the active, why shouldn't we have all of it? I mean, of course, as whole human beings, that's my aspiration.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, I thank you for, for bringing us back to that, uh, cause I, I do want to explore that more. Um, one of the things I'm cautious of is engaging in a binary of, um, and it's ironic because you know, the name of the podcast is. Women of ambition. And so I'm engaging in that in, in a division by calling out experiences of women. Um, so I am cautious of that, but as you're saying, being holistic [00:31:00] people, exploring all pieces of our identity, making sure that's in balance, you know, it's not just women reclaiming femininity, but it's also men reclaiming that part of their leadership as well. And having that holistic experience. Um, Can you maybe speak a little more specifically about the different ways that, uh, feminine leadership comes across? I know there are so many examples in your book.  Nina Simons: Sure. You know, there's There's a phrase from the late 60s feminist movement. I don't remember which number it is, but I can hardly keep track. Are we in the fourth  Alyssa Calder Hulme: right now? I think that's  Nina Simons: what we're in right now. But, um, you know, feminist scholars started writing about all our ways of knowing. And reclaiming all our ways of knowing. And that phrase really [00:32:00] resonates for me. Um, what I've realized as I've explored my own self and cultivating myself to, to full flourishing, which is how I think of it. Um, and I hope I'm continuing to cultivate myself until the day I die, right? So that, that involves taking risks, being vulnerable. Um, what I find is that I almost have practices to turn down the volume on my mental capacities and turn up the volume of the knowing of my heart, of my emotions, of my body's Knowing and intelligence, and also of my intuitive or spiritual understanding and relationship to the sacred, to my ancestors, to the invisible world, you know, scientists are proving all the time that, uh, the invisible world [00:33:00] actually exists, and that in fact, it may have a far greater influence on events than the part that's visible and palpable to our five senses. So, so what I've found is that as I'm growing toward my full flourishing, and I should say all this self cultivation has led me to a place, Elisa, where I'm feeling more, um. authentic, more fully integrated, more free and more trusting of all of the parts of myself than I ever have in my life before. And I want that for everyone. It's just so wonderful to feel. And I, I look back and I think, well, I kind of wish I'd learned it sooner, but I'm not sure I could have, you know, so it, we'll each take whatever time we take. Um, Okay, what did you ask me? Ah, okay. Feminine leadership. So, you [00:34:00] know, what it looks like to me is recognizing that our emotions exist for good reason. Whether we're in a female body or a male body, emotions are communications from nature about something that we need to pay attention to. And in fact, of course, as we all know, in our culture, Hollywood produces movies that they call chick flicks that are all about relationship and emotion and men don't think those movies are for them. But I personally believe that if we could institute publicly acceptable, safe venues for expressing both grief and anger, we could Dial down the amount of violence in our culture almost overnight. I think it's just huge. So, you know, one of my favorite examples was a woman [00:35:00] at one of our, uh, trainings who was a labor organizer. And she described sitting at a table with a room full of men and how she was so passionate about something that she was crying. And she didn't apologize. She was the leader in the room. She didn't apologize. She spoke through her tears. She said, I'm weeping because I care so damn much. And they all really got it. And I thought, wow, what an incredible role model. Um, you know, and, and part of what, uh, we did on those retreats was to unpack the conventional forms of leadership where leaders, think they know the answer to everything, right? And, and to juxtapose it with new models of leadership where it's safe and okay to say, I don't know, does anyone have a better idea? Or does anyone have experience with this who can help inform us? I think we're all [00:36:00] moving toward much more shared, egalitarian, team based models of leadership. And that the more comfortable we can get with that within ourselves. So that we can see it as a, as a accomplishment, not as a failure to be sharing power. Um, the quicker and better we're going to transform our world. Yeah, I,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I totally agree with you.  Nina Simons: That's beautiful. I mean, there's another thing that I would say too, is that, you know, Part of this all was ignited, uh, when I first saw a film online called The Burning Times, and I began to understand through that film and the research that I did, um, subsequent to that, that all of the systems of our society had transformed during this three to four hundred year period in European history that had correlatives all over the world. [00:37:00] And that everything associated with the feminine became devalued, and everything associated with the masculine became elevated. And, uh, and so for instance, you know, being embodied is a gift of the feminine. Um, literally we birth literally . Well, that's right. Exactly. Exactly. And how many men do you know who are comfortable in their own bodies? Yeah. You know? Um, so they can only feel anger. Well, how crazy is that? Yeah, right.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: They're very emotional. But it can only come through in one way. That's not healthy. .  Nina Simons: No, and especially not at a time when there's so much. Lost going on and so much pain and suffering. I mean, honestly, if you're not feeling grief, you're not paying attention. Um, because there is a lot of that going on and it's painful and real. Um, so, you [00:38:00] know, I think, I think that. Uh, freeing ourselves of the old conditioned mental models and then aspiring toward, you know, how can we embody our whole selves? How can our creative self become part of our leadership? How can our playful self become part of our leadership and how powerful that could be really to say, I don't know, what do you think? You know?  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I, I really appreciate that. Bye. Bye. humor can be one of those really transformational pieces. Um, I'm learning, I'm learning so much right now from, um, queer and trans people in terms of creation and joy and extravagance and flamboyance. Um, and, and same, especially with, uh, black feminist women, um, in their liberation movements and rest and healing and spirituality and wholeness and all [00:39:00] these textures of self that I. I might not even be aware of or might not even think about bringing forward in those places and, uh, we just, we need each other and, and as we're talking about these emotions and, and lack of touch with ourselves, um, you know, I think about the, the lack of our public ceremonies and, and morning processes and celebrations and these community experiences that we, um, That our people had long ago, or maybe we've lost in our current day. Um, and you talk a lot about the women that are bringing those kinds of ceremonies back and you talk about personal ceremonies. Um, can you speak maybe a little bit to that and how that. Works to integrate those parts of ourselves or or exercises them maybe I don't know. What do you think?  Nina Simons: Well, you know, I think what you're referring to. I refer to as [00:40:00] rituals and I Maybe 15 years ago or so. I was gifted to To experience a ceremony by a Peruvian teacher named Oscar Miro Quesada, and at the end of about an eight hour ceremony, he said, if you remember only one thing, remember this, consciousness creates matter, language creates reality. Ritual creates relationship and even though it was the wee hours of the morning, those words landed in me like, and I have used them to cultivate myself for now a long, long time and found them really helpful. And one of my favorite examples is just a really simple one where I realized one day that when I got out of the shower, I would look in the mirror. And I'd have all [00:41:00] these voices go off in my head about my hips being too wide, or my belly being too round, or my butt being, you know, all of those things, right? And I realized that each day I was doing violence to myself. And that I had to not only stop it, but replace it. And so I made up a ritual where I found a body oil that I really liked and, um, added essential oils to it until the scent really pleased me as a first thing in the morning kind of a thing. And so then I, you know, I held myself accountable for every day getting out of the shower and anointing my body with that oil. And while I did it. pouring love into my body and telling it what I was grateful for and what I appreciate about it and thanking it for all [00:42:00] the ways it supported me. And it, you know, it only took, takes two or three minutes a day. But what I found was that if I invent a ritual to strengthen some part of myself and hold myself really seriously accountable to doing it every day. Somewhere around six or eight weeks, I can feel a change in myself. And, um, so I find that really helpful, you know, and, um, similarly, I realized on our women's retreats that it made me nuts every time I heard somebody refer to a room full of women as guys. I was like, no, we are not guys. I'm a  Alyssa Calder Hulme: California girl. I am totally, I totally do that too. So I'm trying to change my language. It's hard. It's hard.  Nina Simons: Well, I'll tell you what helps. I love calling them guyas. I would be like, look, we're all Gaias, okay? Let's do [00:43:00] that.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I like that. Because then you can change it mid word when you realize it's happening. Nina Simons: Exactly. And how wonderful to be addressed as a planet. Yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: So is, have you, have you moved those rituals and things into? practices with other people. I can see that as being something that's really powerful in friendships or even in like a business setting or a collaboration space. What does that look  Nina Simons: like? Well, you know, a lot of what I talk about in the book is the power of women's circles. There are a lot of great authors who've written about this. Um, but the truth is you can do it. With one or two or five other women and, um, you know, there's a wonderful ritual that we do, we did in our retreats that we called compost and cauldron. Yes, I wanted to  Alyssa Calder Hulme: talk about that because I love the idea of compost rather than like throwing something away. So please. [00:44:00] Right.  Nina Simons: Okay. So basically the ritual is this. You observe each day. What do you want to let go of? What have you observed in yourself that you're ready to give back to the earth because it's no longer serving you? And it could be a self limiting idea. It could be. Uh, a habit that you have, you know, it could be anything, but it's something that you really want to ritually lay down to the earth and know that, like with compost, it becomes food for the earth. It's not waste, it's not trash, it just becomes food. And what you put in the cauldron is what you're cooking on for yourself. And so, you would go around the circle and each woman would say, I'm composting this. that I saw myself do when I compared myself to the woman who walked in the room. And I thought, Ooh, I have the wrong shoes. I'm not dressed right. I, I, I'm not nearly smart [00:45:00] enough compared to her, all those things. I'm composting that and I'm going to put in the cauldron how good I felt. When she appreciated my idea, right? I love that, yeah. I know. So, and what happens is that everyone in the circle benefits from it because we, you realize that these things that we have, so many of them are shared and so universal and it takes it out of the me and the individual and puts it more into the circle of we're all healing from this crazy culture that has given us a lot of conditioning. that doesn't serve our best interests, our best flourishing. And so when we do it together, it becomes more lighthearted. You know, we all can mirror each other. And I think the other thing that I found about working in circles with women is that often others can see us [00:46:00] much more clearly than we can see ourselves. And so it can be very helpful after you're working with somebody in a circle. That you know, or you know pretty well, and you can say to them, you know, when I do my own self assessment, what I notice is that, uh, A, B, and C are some of my strongest gifts or talents, but I don't know if you see me that way. How do you see me? What do you think are my strongest gifts or talents? And what do you think are my areas that I could be strengthening or, or, you know, where I should turn to another for help? Um. Because that's cultivation. That's an investment in each other's leadership. And it's so helpful.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I love that. It's that vulnerability and practice, that humility that we were talking about.  Nina Simons: Yes,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: exactly. Investing in and lifting each other up. Um, Yeah, I, I think that's just another, [00:47:00] another kind of ambition to, to practice that when it, when it might feel so, um, unnatural initially.  Nina Simons: Well, I think, I think like anything, you know, it's a muscle that when we practice, it becomes stronger. And I think also just to tie it back to our earlier conversation in relation to racial justice, you know, it's very important that we as white women don't go to women of color and say, teach me, what's it like to be a person of color or what do I need to learn? Because that's a kind of, um, uncompensated emotional labor that white people tend to lay on the backs of people of color. And so it's really important that we educate ourselves. Both about the history of slavery and colonialism and racism in this country, but also, um, about [00:48:00] our own relationships to our ancestors. So we're not going to them saying, you know, here, fill up my culture cup with your culture. No, we have to have our own. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So that, that was one of the other things that I was thinking about as you're discussing this, um, because I know a lot of. A lot of white presenting people have been very separated from their indigenous cultures and practices and rituals. And so a lot of us are, are seeking them out and we can, um, we can appropriate from other cultures in ways that we might not, in our ignorance, might not realize are damaging, um, and then, and learn and change, but then also in kind of, Trying to create our own rituals, even if we don't realize we're adopting something from another culture, um, but then we can be educated and learn and grow. I think that's kind of my fear in that way is that I will in learning something that's helpful to my spirit and to. Um, learning and growing, then learn that I have [00:49:00] adopted that without permission from another culture unknowingly, um, is that just, do I just need to keep being humble and, and learning? Nina Simons: Well,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: it happens so inadvertently, you know what I mean? And it's genuine. And then the impact is so painful to others. And so I'm just grappling  Nina Simons: with that. You know, one of the things that I've learned from my contact with indigenous peoples is protocols are really important. And what that means is you don't borrow from another culture without citing the source. And so, if you learn something in a book, cite the author. If you learn something from a teacher, ask their permission before you share it again. Because there is something about honoring others sovereignty that is so central. To the dignity of people trying to heal from all these centuries of oppression. And it's when we do things [00:50:00] without citing the source, without asking permission, without honoring where it came from, that's when it's really cooptation.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. Yeah. I thank you for that. I think part of my, my issue is I don't always realize that something comes from another culture. Yeah. And I guess at that point, all I can do is Ask for forgiveness and learn and adapt in the moment. Nina Simons: Ask for forgiveness if you hurt somebody. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Culture is a nebulous thing. And we learn from and with each other constantly. We are fundamentally social creatures. And, and culture is always evolving. So, you know, there is a way that that line is not nearly as as clearly drawn as some people would imagine. And so I think you just have to practice witnessing [00:51:00] yourself and being clear about your intentions. And, you know, one of the things I like to remind myself, Alisa, is that doing racial justice work as a white person means having both a thick skin and a thin skin at the same time. Yes, I agree. I love that because I want to open myself to really feel other people's experience and the truth of that and the pain of that. And at the same time, I want to have a thick enough skin that I recognize that when I make mistakes, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It means I have to. Pay attention and learn and apologize if it's appropriate, but it doesn't hurt me to make mistakes, really, you know, and, and so I think it's an art that we practice and get better at being thick skinned and thin skinned at the same time. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. And then, and then having you taking the privilege and the [00:52:00] position or whatever we have to actually go and act on that knowledge and, and help people. Cause we can't just learn something and crumple inward and not do anything about it and just feel guilt. Like that is not. That's not the point. And I also don't want to be, yeah. And I also don't want to be so scared of doing something wrong that I'm not engaging in reaching out and being vulnerable. So, I mean, it's a, it's a tricky balance, I think, but, um, you know, one of the things you talk about is. Engaging in community and in listening to one another and growing together and it's vulnerable, but that's I think that's part of that leaning into that feminine side that has been so undervalued for so long. Nina Simons: It's true. And I love that you mentioned earlier. That, um, you named rest as part of reclaiming the feminine and, you know, I have a teacher who taught me that spaciousness is where the feminine [00:53:00] flourishes. And I thought, huh, in this culture that is so focused on hyper productivity and, you know, how many of us have to do lists. that are way too long and don't give ourselves spaciousness, even for 10 minutes in the middle of the day to just chill and go quiet or sit, um, and be, be in spaciousness. I think that that's a vastly underrated, undervalued experience that, um, can help all of us who are ambitious and leaders and caring about flourishing into our best selves. Um, that's a practice that's worth cultivating and believing in because it also helps. Me to remember to value myself deeply, you know, not in a hallmark way not in a narcissistic way but in a like [00:54:00] I you know, this body is the instrument of my purpose my soul's purpose and Taking good care of it for the long haul is not selfish it's an act of leadership and one that I I hope we all do because we are living through an epidemic of burnout and um, that doesn't help anybody. It just perpetuates the, the dying system.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I agree. Um, you know, I have three daughters and I, and you're talking about leadership and self care and you know, every time they walk in on me taking a bath or laying down and reading a book. Or painting or something that feeds my soul. It's like, I'm not doing it for show, but they see me and they will take my lead on those types of things. And every time, you know, I burn myself out, it goes that way too. So yeah. Um, yeah, I, I'm remembering now the, some of the rituals that I've created for [00:55:00] myself where when I'm menstruating, I. I slow down and I build in time and space to take a special bath with a special candle and, um, you know, Epsom salts or some things. But, uh, it's, it's been interesting for me to use my own body rhythms to remember that the world is not built for me. Every day is not the same. I'm on a cycle, engaging with the moon, engaging with the stars and being like, yeah, every day is not the same. I'm not a man, I don't have those hormones. And, you know, taking that time to reconnect. with that feminine side that's cyclical and changing is, is really beautiful.  Nina Simons: It is. And it's a beautiful capacity that women have to connect with earth cycles that way, you know? Yeah. So cool. It was very powerful to me to learn. That in many Native American [00:56:00] cultures, the tradition of banning women from sweat lodges when they are on their moon time did not come about because of any belief that the women were dirty. Quite to the contrary, it came about because of the belief that women on their moon time have a more direct connection to the sacred. So there you have it. Yeah, I,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I have, I have indigenous friends that have been, um, leading and teaching me in some really beautiful ways. And they continue to emphasize that to me and talk about how in their society, women don't need the sweat lodge because they have their own ceremony. It's an excess. It's an extra, but the men. require it because they don't have that in their, in their biology. And, you know, I, it's such an interesting thing to learn about and I'm still just scratching the surface on that, but that's been part of my, my [00:57:00] coming back to self ritual, because then it does allow me to do all the many other. Outward things that I want to do, but yeah, you know, we have to have balance across all parts of ourself. Yep  Nina Simons: Yes, we do  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay, well we are gonna wrap up here, but thank you so much for for coming on and sharing these things just a Beautiful, gorgeous book. I can't wait for other people to read it and to share it even more. Um, is there anything in closing that you want to share with listeners, with ambitious women?  Nina Simons: Well, I would say, um, That it's worth checking out Bioneers because the role models there are amazing and the conversations are amazing. Um, the URL that's kind of great is bioneers. org slash NCS book because then you can download a free copy of [00:58:00] the introduction to the book. And. Um, if anyone does do that and does read the book, I would ask humbly that you put a review on Amazon because they count and they're hard to get. And I'm very honored to be offering this book to the world and to your listeners, Elisa, and, and thank you so much. What a treat to be with you.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, you're very welcome. Um, is Bioneers still, do you still do in person conferences?  Nina Simons: We do once a year, um, in the Bay Area in Berkeley, uh, in late, uh, March of next year. And we also have a great newsletter and radio series. And that's free to any station and, um, just a lot of great resources online. So it's very much worth, and I'll be teaching actually an online course in August on sacred activism. So if [00:59:00] that's of interest, then sign up for the Bioneers newsletter and you'll hear all about it.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay, good. Yeah. I, I really want to go to the March conference. Um, I'm going to be in grad school next year, so I'm not sure how busy I'm going to be, but. How great. Yeah. Well, and I, I'm trying to, I would love to, I'm in sociology and I'd really love to work with nonprofits and grassroots efforts and especially women, um, and gender equity and things like that. So it's all very, very close to home for me. It's very exciting.  Nina Simons: That's so  Alyssa Calder Hulme: great. Well, I love hearing about these resources. So thank you so much. Um, and yeah, we'll point people to your book and to your website and they'll get to check you out there. Thank you so much for being on the show, Nina.  Nina Simons: Thank you, Elisa.

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show. On this show, I interview Wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about wing foil equipment and technique. I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better, their background, how they got into water sports, what inspires them and how they live their best life. As a visual learner, I'm adding visual content that you can watch right here on YouTube, but you can also listen to these long form interviews on the go as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app. Today's interview is with none other than Armie Armstrong, the founder of Armstrong foils. It's amazing how he built a business in just a few years from a few prototypes to one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of foiling and a wing foiling equipment. We just got some of their new boards at our shop here in Honolulu. Really nice, Innovative features. And he talks about that in this interview also about growing up on a sailboat, learning how to walk basically on a sailboat, sailing around the world with his parents. So that's a really cool back story. I thought I also want to say a special thank you to our sponsors. This show is brought to you by people just like you, that support blue planet here in Honolulu. So next time you're shopping for new gear. Please check out blueplanetsurf.com. And I think you'll find that we have great quality, service and pricing, so you can't go wrong getting gear from blue planet. And of course also you're supporting content like this and making it possible. So thanks for everyone who supports their business. All right. Army Armstrong. Welcome to the blue planet show. Thanks so much for coming on. How are you doing today? Oh, awesome, man. Yeah, we're just about to go and test some prototype foil. As soon as this is finished, we're out on the water. So yeah, life is good. We were locked down and Zed for awhile recently, and it's all for a year and a half behind the rest of the world with the COVID thing. So we're going through it now. I don't know. It's crazy, but yeah, we were allowed back on the water. Yeah, a couple of months of that was pretty bad locked off the water. So now we're back into it. You weren't allowed to go even on the water at all during lockdown, you had to stay in your house. Basically. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore. And then even now, we're, I guess we're almost two and a half months into it, like a lot of businesses of open, so it's pretty hard for a lot of people. I'm just super lucky that that you guys in the states seem to be charging ahead and carrying on and Europe as well seem to be back to normal. So fingers crossed. We hit that way too. Yeah. Not really back to normal, but people are just tired of arranging their lives around COVID, and basically just like at some point you just have to learn to live with it. I guess that's the thing, but yeah, like last time we met was I guess like about three years ago, I think in Raglan maybe two years ago before the, before this whole thing. Yeah, that's right. When that was that your last international trip? Probably one, no, actually I went to New Zealand again, like a year later, which was in February, I think, February on 2009, 19. As the pandemic was already going on in China right before they stopped the travel international travel. So that was a good trip. But so now you're in Auckland. Yeah. Zeeland it's it's. Summer's just starting, you got nice weather over there. Yeah. It's just starting. And yeah, we're lucky we're at a lockdown and we're back in the water. And yeah, we're just getting through pretty exciting list of prototypes and, moving ahead, once they put in. Let's start in the beginning. Last time we talked to you, you mentioned, you just said that you grew up on a sailboat sailing around the world with your parents. So I don't want it to find out more about that. Can you tell us more about, how you grew up and how you got into water sports and, love for the ocean and all that kind of stuff. I was just really lucky that born into a sailing family. I think I was really lucky. Definitely had a lot of great adventures with my parents. I was conceived in Brazil, so my father was an architect in Brazil, and then they'd been planning, a sailing adventure with some friends of theirs who is also a Kiwi architect along with my father. And they went back well all back to the UK, made up there boredom. Fit it up. And I had two young families, so six kids total, three each side, and then the four adults. And they jumped on a 44 foot kitchen sound off around the world to the blue yonder. And so that was, I was six months old when we left the UK. And, we sat around for a couple of years, floating around the Pacific to learn, to walk on the boat and then, ended up in New Zealand after, pretty good salient venture. And then we were always sailing every, every chance my parents got to get out and about. And once we were in New Zealand. And yeah, just all of my childhood memories are, sailing places. So the trip that two year trip, you actually, do you remember much of that? When you, if you're six months old, you probably don't remember. I don't remember a lot, but I actually made a, I was when I was at school, I did a, like a many student DACO type thing on it, and there was lots of super eight footage and lots of slide slides and stuff. I put together a bit of a a story and interviewed everyone actually on video. So we've got that, which is pretty cool. So yeah, I remember it more through photos and stories. But it's interesting, like just learning to walk on the boat and that just being in the ocean for a lot of time, I know you can't, I have to get in the water weekly at least or else I just start going crazy. Yeah, that's that just is what it is. So that's interesting. Do you think that learning to walk on a boat helped you with having better balance or being used to being on, on, yeah, definitely for sailing and maybe for other sports too, because that just feeling the way the water's moving and being used to it. And I think that's the way with a lot of, the traditional navigators, they just grew up in that way of being on the water and fishing and stuff. And yeah, that's definitely something that I guess yeah, that they say that your brain gets pretty wide in the first, five to seven years. So I think all of those real early experiences, as I think with top surface, they get into that when they're really young, they have a, quite an advantage, I think. Yeah, for sure. That's interesting. So do you get seasick at all or you're never really got seasick. Yeah. That probably has something to do with the two that you're just used to. You said that I love it. I love, the rougher. It gets the more fun I love being out on the ocean, that's. Yeah. Cool. So what are your earliest memories of like being in the ocean or in the surf or like doing like kind of water, sports, like surfing or for me, it's really sailing. We did a little bit of playing around in the surf more body surfing, really. When I was young, we didn't really have surfboards. We used to just play in the surf, but we were more, more silent. We were off on styling and benches, that's, that was really, up until I went on my own adventures in my teens, I was just with my family. Going, sailing around New Zealand. And then later on in life, we did a lot of missions back out into the Pacific with dad and his friends, silent tool sorts of, interesting places. And then personally, for me, when I got right into whitewater kayaking, actually when I was in my teens, I was really influenced by a teacher at one of my schools who was a real whitewater, kayaking, fanatic. And yeah we try and really have, we didn't want what a slalom at team one, all of New Zealand titles for the whitewater slalom competitions, and got seriously into that trial and the New Zealand team. There were a couple of really good guys, so I never got into that team, but. Really dug it. And then we had ourselves off of waterfalls and in our late teens and early twenties and a couple of my good friends who have gone on to become, world-class kayakers. And then I got into, I got bitten by the wind surfing bug at university, so really transitioned, kayaking into wind surfing. And I was lucky enough to go wind surfing and Raglan. Cause I was at uni at Waikato doing a science degree and Ragland's, a short drive. And so yeah, we used to Skype off lectures when it was windy and go wind surfing. And that was great. And had a good friend near James court. Who's won an NZ, its best windsurfers. And he was at uni with me doing a science degree as well. And so we used to yeah. Spend a lot of time out in Raglan when surfing. That was really where I got into the wave side of things more than through surf. And this was like in the 1990s or around what time? 1990s. Yes. So I guess late, late eighties, I really got into windsurfing. And then at uni, 1990 to 95, we were probably windsurfing as much as uni scraped through my degree. So much time on the water. Yeah, that sounds very similar to my, my background too. I got into wind surfing and that's how I ended up being, coming to Hawaii and going to the city here and stuff. But and then what happened next? Like how did you transition from wind surfing to the other water sports that you do now? Yeah. So when say a thing and then got right into sup rotted the early days on a sale, we were on a sailing trip actually to tie. W we did a whole big Pacific mission and about 2005 or 2006 I'm with my parents, with my dad at the time. And we were meeting up with some friends of hers who had been doing a big multi-year circumnavigation of the globe. And we caught up with those guys in Tahiti. And we were, while we were inside Hadia, big south swell came or Southwest swell, and we went, okay let's go down and have a look at Chapo. And we had peddled out, not obviously known Adelaide, but he was peddling out on this giant. Must've been 11 plus foot sat gun before anyone else was even really doing it and caught a couple of waves at Chopra, and we were sitting in the channel watching I'm too scared to try and go surf it for sure. And yeah, I was just like, that is epic. That's just, he just peddled out from the beach. Like everyone else came out on boats. A couple of guys pedaled out from the beach, there are a couple of the local stations, but most guys were on boats and I just was super cool. He took his last wave and over the reef and paddled in and I'm dislike. Ah, that's, we've got to get into that. So it came back, there's no deer around and we just grabbed some old Wednesday and made some got, cause I was into kayaking. So it just fit with my kayaking history. So we just made a couple of pedals, started peddling around on them and we didn't really know what we were doing. And we caught a few waves here and there and was just, we're just having great fun paddling around on these things. And From there actually really took off as a sport. And then I got right into it and there was some events in Hawaii. The battle of the pedal Waikiki actually was was on. And I was like, okay, we're gonna go and have a go at this. And yeah, I had a blast like that. And it was yeah, for that one, I think they only had that one time, the Waikiki battle of the power. It only happened once, maybe a couple of times, maybe twice. Yeah. It was pretty cool. A lot of local prize our member battling car around that one, but he was only about 13. That was the last chance I got to battle with him after he was just killed everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I still remember a race where I beat Connor Baxter, but that was, I think he was like 12 or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So then sup really got me to Hawaii and then spent, I made a mission from about 2011. I think that was the battle of the pedal in 2011 Waikiki. I could be wrong, but check those dates and then. Yeah. Every year, since then just spent New Zealand new. Zealand's a fantastic place. Winter is a pretty long though. So yeah. Had a mission to try and get out of  for the winters for a couple of months in Hawaii, if I could, or, Samar or Fiji Corso is fantastic from New Zealand, much, much easier to get to, but I guess Hawaii is, the epicenter of the surf world. And there's a good reason for that. The conditions are amazing. The people are amazing and you just learn much faster with any of those, with any activity, really, if you're around the best in the world, you just learn faster, so it was just a learning experience for me and got right into it. And then through all that time, I got right into kite surfing as well. So the Wednesday thing transitioned into the kite surfing and yeah, so cutting and subbing. I was just doing that as much as I could. Funding it in any way possible. I was still working a bit in the film industry doing underwater photography in New Zealand and then doing odd jobs for cash when I was out and about. So that was your main income was photography and doing, yeah. So through that I'd done a bunch of paperwork with some various organizations, film schools and stuff, and ended up working in the New Zealand film industry, doing underwater camera work. And that was great fun because it suited me, we were in the water again and filming, but it still New Zealand film industry is really up and down and especially something as specific as water shooting, it's not really consistent work. So it was good. I managed to get lots of time to go off and do my through my passion, really, which. Yeah, get in the water paddling or cutting. Cool. Yeah, I remember you came by the sh our shop on ward avenue. I dunno, maybe six years ago or five or six years ago. And you had your first, or one of your first foil prototypes of the Armstrong full and you were showing it to me and stuff like that. But I think that was like, before you even started production on them or anything, you can't, that was actually the first batch out of the first production mold. Just, it was like a production sample and we were just getting ready. So yeah, we had bicycle. You were one of the fist people, actually we went to say and say, Hey, we got some spoils. You guys are gonna need bees. I was pretty impressed by the, like the whole design and stuff, like how the fuselage goes through the mass and stuff. It's pretty unique. At that time, I don't think anybody had anything similar. And then, but so you got into foiling through kiting, is that right? Or yeah, so we go into foiling through kiting basically quite foil racing and kite foiling has been around a little bit longer than some of the others cottage. The cottage took it up a little bit earlier. I think, really falling has been around for ages with initially with Mike Murphy and then rush Randall and lit and Dave Kalama and pick your brain are in a Robbie nation. All that crew, really took it on and Hawaii. Totally. To try and deal with the wind bump and all of that sort of cool history. And the Cod is took it on, a little bit, later, but earlier than, most of the other recent uptake anyway. And so we were doing a lot of cutting and cut for them was just the normal thing to do. And we just jumped on that and we were breaking everything we did. Funnily enough, late again, to knock and Reagan for the ultimate water man event. And I was actually doing some camera work on that for a promo that they did with led towing in, out on the points in Ragland. I was living in Ragland at the time and Daniel Kyoko, who then went on to win the first ultimate water man. He was driving the jet ski. I was on the back filming with late. And I think Terry Chung came down correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure. And he was telling with lead at some yeah. At Raglan and I would get. Really long wipes, like a couple of minutes long maybe. And we were like, okay we were cutting following at the time when we all like, actually, this is these guys. I know these guys have been doing it for a long time, but that was the first time we'd seen proper foiling and proper waves life. And it just blew all of us away. We were just like, wow, that's that looks like too much fun. We're going to have to do that. And so we got out on our kite foils and pretty much broke all of them doing that. So we were like, okay, that's that D is not, it's not going to work. So we're going to have to stop making R and D and that was it. Yeah. I think I remember seeing I'm going to, I'm going to screen share this video that I remember watching Yeah. So there was some, a bunch of helicopter footage. That's right. This was a promo for the ultimate water man and this, the water shots. So that one, and then there's a couple of other water shots later on. I shot them on the back of the ski with Daniel. So that's obviously the heli shot. And then there's one where led, comes past a man. That's actually a heli shot too, but then you can see on the jet ski. Yeah. That's me and Daniel. And that's one of our shots there. That's pretty epic. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, obviously a good Diane rags. It was no one out surfing. It was a bit too lumpy, this outsides. So yeah, lad was the first person to really get involved in, outsides properly, foiling rags. And for him, obviously this isn't necessarily massive surf, but it's still a pretty solid day. He's charging us to turn our member. He was like, so close to putting the foil out there. I know, in front of the lip, I've led sleds, a unique individual, as we all know. So trust him to really, open up our thoughts processes. So yeah, we were jumping in the water, filming the stuff, and this was the promo for the ultimate water man. Yeah. And his masses is that the stainless steel mask? This one's, I'm pretty sure it's an alloy rig. Very basically probably a Mike Murphy Tiba and with GTN, with. I dunno, lead would have built with someone in Hawaii, I don't know the full story of a rig. Except that yeah, we were just like, ah that's too much fun. We're going to have to, we're going to have to get into it. And then we did, we got onto it after that and broke everything we had. And so then we were like, okay, we just have to start making stuff. So you actually started with Cohen foiling out or cutting. And then we saw that and then we started towing because it just was like, mind-blowingly fun looking. We didn't realize at the time how hard it was. So we just got thrashed and broke all that kite gear. And out in the city, first of all, we started rebuilding the kite gear cause we broke it all and named, we were like, hang on a minute. The stuff we are, we've rebuilt some wings, we rebuilt some fuselages and some masks and we sit actually we've made it stiffer with made it stronger. It feels better to run. Let's actually make a whole of whole foil set. And then we're really lucky in New Zealand. We've got a lot of really smart boat designers and boat builders. And I had some connections in that area too. And so we just started making our own rigs and pretty much I hand-built our first foil wings, just with some templates that we made up a little bit like making a big fan, really. We just, hand-making a fin, we made some templates, we made some foil sections. We mapped it out on some paper and we translated that on some blocks of wood, we stuck all that together. And then we laminated it and tried it and went, okay, that worked and we wanted to make it a bit different. So we tried a different foil section, took the grind to it a few times until we had something that we thought actually worked pretty well. And then we scan that and then did some cat on it and that became our first. So that was the process. And in terms of the system development I was really interested through, spending a lot of time on the boat, on fittings that didn't didn't corrode. And titanium as a real top end material for not having galvanic corrosion, especially with cabin and it's light and strong, and it's just a, a really nice material and the ocean, because once the part is made, it doesn't really change. So I was really interested in using that technology and that led us down various rabbit holes to, and we ended up yeah. And basically you're the sister from the very beginning, you add that the design was the titanium shrouded with carbon fiber and in a mold or, and then so basically the basic design of your fuselage and the mass fitting and stuff, hasn't really changed. It's still the same as the original foil. You told me that. And that was where we spent a lot of time. We got some pretty good design advice at the time on some of the dimensions. The reason for the Hicks inside the round. We wanted round because I really think round on the fuselage is pretty important for not changing the flow when the fuselage goes through different angles. So the flow doesn't change, to the, around the fuselage, to the back wing. If you got a small square or rectangular fuselage, when you put it on an angle, it changes the flow around that saw. I was really interested in that. And if you look at the. Fish and bottom brackets on boats and keel bulbs and everything. Nothing squid, no one's making anything square fish. There's no square fish, really. So I was like, okay, let's go round. And then to fit inside around a hex as a really good shape, because you can put the two together and you get a similar thickness around the outside of it, which means when you do your layouts, you can wrap the fiber right around that. Which is, what we do in our molds. So the fibers come all the way down from the top of the mast wrap around the bottom bracket and then go back up, which is pretty tricky layout to do. But that's the key point to giving it that feeling and unlocking, locking in the feeling into the mask, which is yeah. What we've spent quite a lot of time developing that layup and we're happy with it and Hey, this. It's always a balance. You can make something stiffer, but then you're going to lose it, lose some fields. So there's that balance. And it depends a little bit on the conditions. If you're really going out in big waves, then yet there is something in a stiffer setup. And I think like you say, lead may well be using stainless or solid LOE master or something for the really big waves, but we're not really trying to make gear at this point for people to toe in it Mazur. And it's epic. Those guys have done it. They're BYOD mix level for sure. But what we're trying to do. Gifts make something that has a real nice surf feeling when you're doing a tune on a head highway, that's really the goal. And then obviously Wingdings come along and whinging it is, to me, it's like going back to windsurfing. It's awesome. It was a beautiful blend of windsurfing and cutting to me winging puts the two together and this way, and it brings foiling really to anyone that's the beauty of whinging because you're, you've got the balance with the wing, which is a lot like the windsurf rig, but you don't have the mask. So it's lighter and easier to handle. You don't have that pool issue. You haven't got the strings like the cot and it allows you to have that balance point on the foil. So really with winging, in decent when anyone can foil and that's where I think the future, isn't a, Hey, I'm not alone in that one. Yeah, for sure. And this is a wing filing show but and like for me when wing filing started, I was doing more standup foiling or, prone, foiling and stand up racing and stuff like that. But ever since I started wink, filing, that's almost all I do now. So how is it for you? Like how much time do you spend on a wing foil board versus other sports? Yeah. We still cut for the little bit because coding's a really good way to test gear because you're independent. You can go pretty fast and you can like quickly change gear and go back out and feel it wonderings pretty good tasting gear as well. And then we tow, I do quite a lot of towing into down one. Cause I think riding bumps down wind on bigger foil, especially when you're fishing with bigger foils is a great way to see how they turn. I'm really interested in foils trying to make foils that turn really. That combination of pump efficiency and turning so pull it towing into bumps down wind and yeah. We used to paddle and we still do pedal on a little bit on the really windy days with the SA. We don't have conditions in New Zealand really where you can chip in and ride the coast down one like an like in Hawaii which is awesome to see that some of the top surfers doing that as a cross training thing, I really influenced by Kyle I'd say, but yeah, the down wind for them, we do a little bit of that. But for testing gear really towing, you can't beat the amount of time you get on the foil, and so for me, the problem is with making gear and my past. Robbie who really drummed the send to me at the, after our first machine, we were accountable over the place, making all sorts of different things. You've got to just change one thing at a time, which, whether that be a tail angle a tail section, whatever it is, you have to keep everything else. The same, the board, the mass position, the front wing, the fuselage link, every other element you need to keep the same so that otherwise you don't really know what your progression is or what's happening. And so we keep a note of each rig we've tried and then change one thing at a time. And then you actually have an idea of what you've done and what is affecting things. And then you can make progress and it's, it does two things. I, it means you can't just dump to some whole mix level immediately. It's a progression. And the other thing is it takes quite a lot of time on the water, through that even coming into like most of my winging sessions, I'll even choose the location. Based on how easy it is to come in to change something out and go back out again. And sometimes they'll go positions just for fun, but oftentimes if there's a boat ramp nearby or, an easy place to come in and out, I'll choose that spot because then I can come, run with the tail at a certain angle, change it half a degree, go back out for half an hour, come back and change it. Half a degree, you go back out and, get that balance and feeling and hopefully make some progress. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I totally agree with that one changing one thing at a time. That's the way to do it, but I guess for the last two months, I always hard for you to test anything if you couldn't. We had, I think it was seven weeks of being allowed on the water. And yeah, really frustrating. But luckily Rob was out of the country. He was, he went to hood river and stuff. So he was doing basically a foil testing at that time. And we've got some great team riders now, too. So there's a lot of feedback now coming from team riders. That's, it's almost too much sometimes. It's great really though. There's a lot of Intel coming in, but the hottest thing with team rod is us asking him to change just one thing at a time. Cause they never do some are better than others, but everyone's got great opinions and that's really starting to feed into, what we're developing and how we're developing it. The new four geometry boards. Was really a passion project for me, but we got a lot of input from our team writers that really helped with that whole development process. Yeah, it's been really fun. I actually wanted to ask you. You went from being like a traveling videographer or, like on a shoestring budget to having like an international brand that's like worldwide and a lot of growth, obviously. And, as a business owner I know to grow, like that takes a lot of money and capital and good people and stuff like that. So can you talk a little bit about that process? Like how did you do it? How did you pull that off and how were you able to, finance it and how did you do that? Yeah, it's a pretty, it's a pretty long, interesting story. I guess really when it started happening, I got really lucky with, Rob Woodell coming on, he's a super smart guy. And I was getting into foiling at the same time with me and really saw a future in what we were doing. And he was, my initial kind of partner. And then we brought in Andrew McGregor and Bryce Rhodes who are, super keen surfers and, SOP athletes and also successful business people. So they really bought some key business knowledge to it. And through those early days I ended up doing some work for some surfboard factories in Asia. At the end of the sub game, I ended up going to Asia and helping doing some quality control. And also from my boat find did a bit of boat-building, on the side as well. Obviously I'd always been involved with my grandfather, built boats, been involved with that when you're dealing with boats, there's always something to do. And so there's always maintenance with boats, some kind of sanding or laminating or painting or whatever it may be. And so through that background and building a bunch of sat boards and stuff like that, I ended up going and working in a factory. And at the time I tried to sit up actually a sub-brand and I went to the last Pacific paddle games with the range of boards actually. But they were, I was probably behind the curve on that one, but what I did do through that process was ended up working in in some surfboard factories, helping them improve their cabin layout techniques. So yeah, I spent a bunch of time in Asia, in surfboard factories over a period of three years. And so when I put my friends together who were backing the full project with, my contacts with the surfboard factories, that's really where we were at grew from. So I was just lucky right place, right time. And we got into it at the right time. I think that video you play with lead was instrumental timing it, put us. We got right into it a little bit early. And I changed my focus from sup completely to foiling and that's just all we were trying to make. And yet to be honest, our first few foil boards were pretty wild and it was just an experimental, time. And we, they worked. But yeah, for sure they needed to be improved, but that was, the process that everyone was in at the time. And I was just lucky that we met, we got to make some, and we got to make some foils and we got them out on the market at a time when it was just taking off. And so from there we grew it and I'm just really lucky with a lot of people that we met along the way. Yeah. Nice. And then and then Rob widow basically helped you with, I interviewed him as well for that ozone interview, but it's able to help you finance it, or, how it's I know any girl fast, it's always, the money goes out faster than it comes in, right? Yeah. It's quite funny how much it costs to just keep the ball rolling. It's definitely a learning experience for me, but yeah. So Rob obviously invested at the early days Andrew and Bryce, who I've mentioned, they invested and yeah, we got the thing rolling. Started getting the product out there and started getting a bit of traction because there weren't a lot of good options that were easy. We've really, it's lucky not being a super product. I'm okay. But I'm Mo I'm very far from a pro, so I want to make stuff that's easy to ride. That's really been one of my focuses. And so that was, that fitted the market at the time. Cause everyone was learning and that, that was a good Bush and saw then scaling it up. That's the biggest issue. Like you say, that does cost a lot of money. So scaling up to distribution and we made some stuff in New Zealand and it was really hard to just shipping out of New Zealand is a real killer. The logistics from here are really is really tricky. And I had these contexts in the circle factories up there. And while I was up there, I actually met a really interesting guy on a beach in China, Austin, Kirk, who is a American guy. That's spent a lot of time doing business in Asia. And he had some friends who were, really top business guys and the cell phone pots industry. And we were at the time trying to scale up to meet the global demand that was taking off. And it's really tricky to understand those economics, these economies, those economies of scale, global distribution. It's a complicated game if you haven't got that system or process in place. And yeah, we basically spent a lot of time working with those guys to improve our manufacturing. And that really is where we got ourselves to the next level and we ended up effectively partnering with those guys on the supply chain side. So the manufacturing we had much better control of the materials we were using. The. The delivery schedules and the quality control. And so that was, that's been instrumental. It was I guess there's no one thing it's a whole lot of things all coming together and, I just feel really lucky that it came together at the time that it did and where we're able to stay afloat. Yeah, no, it's really impressive how quickly you grew the business, and to become one of the leading brands. Yeah. I don't know. I might hope maybe we're a leading brand. I hope we are. We definitely try hard to, do what we say we're doing and we're making the gear as best we can. We do spend a lot of money on materials. It's slightly crazy. I had a Aussie businessmen recently who we're, who has some distribution and all Aussie. He was like, you guys are crazy. You need to spend less money on your gear and, you'd have a bit of business case, but. To me, I dunno, where we're just sticking true to our original design theory. And we wanted to make gear with materials that were as good as we could afford to make it with. And yeah, we're, that's where we're not really compromising. So it's it's always a juggle and business. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But that's what Rob, Rob bill was saying that too, if you're really into the sport you're not that concerned about the price. It's more like you want to have the best equipment you can have. It's not. Yeah. That's your main concern is the quality of the equipment more than the cost or the price of it. Yeah. And there's definitely something that comes with Different materials. There's a fail. There's the way it lasts. There's the way it performs. There's a whole bunch of things. And so for us, whether it's boards, foils, client wings, any of it we're trying to use the best materials we can. And, it's a really interesting process. Especially when you scale up just, and in the current market to getting hold of materials. As that's where we got really lucky with our supply chain partners, because even just managing to maintain supply in the current global economy is really interesting. But challenging thing to do. And to be honest, if it was just me, yeah, it'd be, it wouldn't be working. So I've got really good partners and that's on the business. Yeah, that's the key to it is having the right people doing the right job. I guess there's a real psychology in life. And I try to, there's some inspir, inspiring character, I think will Smith, he's a great actor, but an interesting character. He talks a lot about, you've got to employ the people who are really talented at the things that. And that's what you need to do for the universe. You, your, you do what you're good at, and you employ people who are good at doing the things they are good at. And in the long run, it all works out better because people are doing, their passion and what they're good at. And yet you've got to spread everything out when you do that, but that's just, I think that's, to me how things work and that's how we've made it work anyway. Yeah. So what would you say is your job description that Armstrong foil is now? My job is basically I'm the lead product development. And then Rob basically is my main like advisor. He's pretty smart guy and he's been making products in this sort of game. I need to talk to Rob, from the hang-gliding days. A lot of wind design knowledge there. And then apart from. I've got, I'm the passion engine, where, trying to hit us in the right direction. And then we're filling out our team on all the other fronts logistically because that's, my forte is not global logistics at all, and it's still a challenge, but it's been really interesting. And I get involved, we have, open meetings and process on that, but we're, to be honest, we're finding our way to a certain extent as well, but we do have, Andrew's really in charge of the sales and business admin side of it. And then we've got a great inside account management sales team who are really on top of immediate communications, and that it's yeah. Having a global. Network means you've got to be on top of communications, 24 7. And at the time differences and stuff that it's hard to communicate with everybody live. Yeah, that's right. So you've got to, you gotta be able to have a T it's about the whole thing is it's a team. It's a team process and it's, yeah, it's really fun to be a paddle. Cool. So let's talk a little bit about your the equipment. When you went back to your website, your, so we just got a shipment at our shop of your new boards. So can you tell us a little bit about these new winks up boards? Yeah. So the forge geometry wing sat range I'd spend. A lot of time hanging out with the America's cup sailors. And obviously the America's cup was on in New Zealand last year. And I was just looking at how those guys set up their geometry of the boats. And, they put the, their main foils in the middle of the boat at the center of gravity. And I'm like those guys are pretty smart, guys. Why do they do that? Like, why is the foil in the center of gravity of the book? And there are a lot of reasons for that for basically efficiency of lifting and not labor ridging things up. And so we played with it a lot and we decided an actual fact. We want to give people the option of putting the foil a lot for the Ford and the board, because then you can have a board that feels like a much smaller board to ride, but it has more waterline length to get you up. And. Because we also want to ride, smaller, and smaller foils because they're faster and more responsive. And so if you move the foil further and the board and your body further on the board, you've got the feeling of a smaller board, but you got the water line length to get you going. And in the water line, link out the back end, we got rid of the the cutaway on the back of the board because we just want to maximize the board waterline linked to get you up and going as, as early as possible. So everything about the house shape was about getting up and going with the laced energy so that people could ride effectively a smaller board and a smaller failing board. Then we, we did a bunch of other things. We might've really deep cockpit, which does come from a lot from this. Rice board design. There's a drain, which is also the handle both sides. And the reason we recessed the cockpit is that it's got quite a nice feeling. There is a slight convicts in the middle, and then it goes up to the, the rails and the closer you are to the foil, the more responsive everything is. The board thickness is just like adding a longer mask effectively to your foil. So dropping that recess means it brings you closer to the foil and has a really nice, more direct feel to the foil. But then you need some volume somewhere. So we have these, high sided rails. That's just about it. And then we got a pretty decent nose kick nose kicked Mike, Murphy's doing some work with us on the white foil market and all of those skis from the sit down guys, they all have massive nose rocker, right? And those guys are landing jumps all the time. And it's just way more forgiving if you've got a bit more nose rocker and a slightly wider nose, which is why we went to the chisel nose so that it's more forgiving for, plannings. And then the final thing really with the shaping elements is that wider nose allows you to really straighten all the lines on the boards. So the rails and the Chinese are really straight and we just felt that help with the board accelerating off the water surface. So what size board do you ride? Mostly? I'm lucky. I have three boards and my vans depends on the day. If the wind's light I'll ride the 88 liter, I'm 90 kgs. So I'll read the 88 liter as my light when board and I can trot around on that pretty much in no wind I'm with the five and a half or a six and a half and get going at the slightest gas cause you're already standing and we do get a lot of shifty light, wind days, especially in the summer here. So that's great for testing the bigger gear. And then obviously if I'm stopping, I'll use a bigger body as a hundred liter board, if I'm stepping. So I'm Mani kgs. I'm not, I used to be better at stopping. I used to be able to sit pedal assist was the same volume as my weight, but now I go up 10, 10 liters. So I ride them on a nine liter board when I'm, if I'm stopping. Yeah, sorry. That's what it's going to be four boards, but the sup doesn't isn't in the van a lot, these days, mostly it's the wind kit. Then for the NFL, if you want a lot, when boat that you can stop. Yeah. You need to go a few liters over your weight, probably. And then my all rounders, the 50 liter, the 50 or the 60, I really liked the 60 as well, but I'm using the 50 at the moment because I've got my stats pretty doll on that. I need about 12 minutes. I can get going on the 50 liters here to have that photo there. That's the 50 liter. That was a lot. That was a classic station actually on Malik. Yeah, we had a really fun, it was the Mo a lot Brightwell not the main waver Elia, cause the surface we sell over there, but the surface are all like go away. And so we're like, yeah. Okay. We're back to the break wall. And we probably would've got munched anyways, but we read off for when they're right. Yeah. Straight off shore. Yeah. It was super fun station. And that's the beauty with winging. You can ride off shore like offshore sessions. I've had such great officers say you have to be a little bit careful that you, Alicia is really well set up and you got a good board leash, a good kite leash. But if there's some good waves you can really off shore sessions are so fun with winging and that's something that we never did with kiting. And even when surfing Dade off shore is tricky about what the wing you can just fully deep power it and ride straight up when. But you're getting back to the board choices set in the 50 liters, my old round at the moment I need 12 knots or more. And then if it's proper windy, I like the 34 liter four, five. And that's because it's really nice to jump. It's just, smaller and more nimble in the air. But you need proper winds. So if it's 18 knots plus, and really good wind, then I'll ride the four or five. Okay, cool. Talk a little bit about the handle. This is pretty unique that I think you're the only ones making a handle that goes all the way through the board. Yeah. So no idea what that was. Yes. So having a handled top and bottom was obviously a good thing and. To save, right? Like traditional handles are, they definitely add white to a board and we had this really deep recess and I'd played with a lot of rice sups with Vince and the cockpit. And I actually had my race. I should dig out the photo for you. At some point, I made a rice up for the 2018 Molokai to Oahu, which was the first foil downwind, the vent on the Molokai. And that one had a really deep cockpit and it had Vince as well. And so I, one of the veins and the deep cockpit board, and then it just came together. We make the water drain a handle. So that goes all the way through. So you got your handle top and bottom and. For the cockpit and obviously the cockpit joins out the back as well, but you just want to make sure that the water completely clear. So if you've got such a big cock, but it makes sense to have an event. So the handle on the bottom is a little bit further back than on the deck. Is that correct? Yeah, it's on an angle. So the handles on an angle the reason for that is to help with water evacuation and also reduce the drag on the, so the I maybe it's pretty minor, but at the, on the bottom, because the handles on an angle, it's not a square surface hitting the water. It's actually an angled surface at the back of the handle. So whether that makes any difference, I don't know. It's a pretty tiny detail. You ever get water splashing up out of the board when you're like on the surface of it's funny, even landing really big jumps. If you get a video shot of it. Yeah. When you bouncing the board off, the water comes through there, but you don't notice that I've never, I've landed pretty big jumps on that board and I've never noticed the water splashing up and hitting me in the face. Interesting. So let's talk a little bit about your the wing. Oh, I guess the wing surf and then I guess these are for winging and surfing then. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So the smaller boards are more assist shape. There's something you can paddle in, or like I was saying a wing the 34 and, as smaller team riders cache Breezhaler and Tatiana grant now when, you know the 4 0 27 liter board Skyrim or w SIF pedals in the four. Oh. And he's a pretty big guy, but he's a great surfer and he can obviously serve the 27 liter board. I don't see for board that low volume. So if I'm paddling in I'll actually use the 14 I'm at 39 liters. Cause I'm not a great SIF Wheeler. I'm not a great surfer. I never really grew up surfing, so I need all the help I can get. And the four has got way more paddle, but yeah, that those photos that'll be the four of Mateo and Tatiana are on there. Yeah, so they've got a foot strap option, so you can wing him with straps. But they're also really good for SIF falling on towed air and yeah, they're basically a good all around board. Nice. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Thanks for that. little rundown on your boards. And then let's talk about your the foils. I guess you just released a new foil, actually. Let me, wait, let me pull that up for you have two new foils that are just got released recently. So you want to tell us a little bit about these two new designs? Yeah, so we're just expanding the highest big foil range is actually going to be, six foils in that range. Pretty exciting too, to fill out the range and we've done it step by step because every saw, different sizes actually need a slightly different detail. And some of those details are pretty important. Geometric or aerodynamic twist is got to be adjusted per size. And so that's a pretty big tuning element. And like we got back to, changing one thing at a time. It takes quite a long time to, to tune in those changes. And so you have to make one, try it a few times, compare it to the other one, go backwards and forth, and then, adjusted again and, trying to get something that has that, the ultimate pump and glide, and you can turn like those are the. The big elements. And so we're really stoked with the way out. Our bigger foils will tend, we can, you can get on a wave and you can actually, throw them around. And ultimately the ha range is is a high performance wing range, but then rippers like Mateo and stuff like he's on the 7 25 and that photo that you're the white gods, smaller guys waking that be doing crazy things on those, because they're just so much faster and you can pump from miles and that sort of stuff. So that the there ultimately, or the range, it's a pretty similar feeling to the size. And it depends on your body size a lot. So that's why we've got the range. Obviously, once you get down to the smaller foils that we will be releasing very soon, the 5 25 and the massive one, the 1525. That's all about expanding the range for the different size of riders. So the 5 25, it's going to be more caught foil really but the 7 25 smaller rippers and mine, 25 average size rippers, 1125 larger grippers in the 1325. And the 1525 are like your light wind performance foils or, bigger rappers who want to, get out there and pump around or down window, whatever. So when you downwind a foil, which for the use, which I'm mostly on the 1125 and 90 kgs, but I'm okay at keeping it up to speed. I find the 9 25 is too small for me actually. But if you're a lighter guy, 1125 is going to be too big. But that's, if you're talking. Good guys who have got some pretty good skill. If you're in really small bumps though, then I are using right now, I'm using the 1325. If it's small and I'm telling him, downwind but if it's windy enough to peddle up on a set, then I can run the 1125. Cause that's on the go when it's howling. So yeah, down one thing down, one thing, an interesting, it has a question for you. How do you see down winning? Cause it's an interesting one for me. Like I got into it, like we were down winning the Nepali 2017 under the Nepali rice downwind on a foil. And then the year later was the  2016. I went to the goal. Before anyone had even tried to do a Dauman rice on a foreign car was down winning obviously. And in Maui and stuff, I went, I did the Gorge dam and pedal challenge on the foil, came about mid fleet. Cause the first half was all good. And in the second half around the island, I lost the foil and paddled a 10 foot board with the foil on it, pretty slowly. But yeah. Where do you see downwind falling? I don't know. It's epic fun and I still do it towing in, I don't do a lot of it paddling anymore and I, you do see some of the good guys chipping in and doing down windows in Hawaii, but I don't know where you see downwind and going. For me personally, I really got into for a while, like we were launching us by Portlock China walls and then just going to either Kahala or to, to all the way to Waikiki on know, stand up foiling and kinda, we're getting it, but then the wings came out and then we just it was like so much easier to use a wing and, that's how we started winning is just going on downwinders instead of a paddle, you take the wing, and then it's just easier to get up on the foil and easy to stay on the foil. And yeah, so I actually stopped doing the downwinders. A lot of guys here on Oahu, do the downwind, like the chipping in the app from also lot of guys go from just like the, from diamond head to Waikiki or whatever, where if you fall in, then you just have to paddle in and catch another way of, You don't go too far out, out of this falls and that, yeah, and they just like tiny surf foil boards and really making it look fun. But I haven't really gotten into that myself and this, it just seems like a lot of work if you fall in especially if, if you do a longer run and you start at China walls, if you fall in and you got like a two hour pallets again to get back. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. I think some guys are doing that. I don't know. Hey, it's great training if you're a pro athlete. Yeah. So now it's an issue. It'll be interesting to see how it develops. I think what about the downwind suck foiling? Are you seeing a lot of guys doing that still or is that type it off a bit? So I, I think same thing and there's this less people doing it since the advent of wind foiling. And or even that many people doing it to start with, just cause it's so challenging, but I think with the foils getting more efficient. It being easier to get up on foil at I think, maybe it will change and I, I should get back into too, but I just, yeah, when it's windy, I need to get into it too, after too much lockdown, too much locked down cake. But what I'm excited about is this wing foiling and riding waves on the wing photo board too, and dislike doing those long carving turns and stuff like to me, that's super fun and jumping. Yeah. And I guess that's the thing with winging, it's taken over because like you say, it's so easy to get in and out and you just get so much foil time. It's maximum bang for buck and yeah, it has it's 80%, 80% of what I do now is on a wink for sure. And it's just the user-friendliness of wings. Kiting, I've cutting, always has required, a lot of beach space to set up and cuttings is still a great sport in the right conditions. Like howling onshore Cotting is still if it, but I don't know, you just can get out with the wing and it's so user-friendly in locations where you just can't go, with traditional cutting or even windsurfing gear and date off shores, and it's got more bottoming than windsurfing. Wednesday. A thing is great when it's also howling, but in lighter wind, you can get going with the foil and the wing and really be tapping into waves that no one's writing. Yeah, that's true. Like we can foil wing file and much lighter conditions. Our, wind surfers could go out to, but they're not barely moving. They, it takes them forever to get back out, to catch the next. Yeah, I know we were just like flying back and forth. So let's talk a little bit about the wings I'm like your wing development and stuff like that. So can you talk a little bit about what, what the view on and the changes you made to the V2 and so on? Yeah, sure. So basically V1 I just wanted maximum power out of the wing. And so we really went for lodge, diameter, leading edge, and a really deep section which does give you a lot of bottom end power. And that rigidity that you get from the larger diameter tubes really helps with, the bottom in juice of the wing. And to me, I really liked, driving the 10 50 to eight 50, the nine to five, and now the 700. With the Lang. And so you need that bottom in juice to get going on a smaller board out of the hole. So that's really what informed the main shape parameters of the wing, which really is large tubes. And then we've got a tight leech, really tight leech, which means we have to keep that lodge diamond are going quite close to the tips because that gives that sail, that real grunt, that real low and grunty feeling. And there's two sides to that. One is just that simple, low in grant to get you out of the hole on the smaller boredom foil. But it also means you can ride a half size or even a size down from most other wings. I ride the four or five when most people are riding a five or a five and a half, or even a six sometimes, and the five hour, five and a half hours as a guarantee, when it makes like a six or a six and a half, most of the guys bought it has a slightly more compact span for that size because it's got the really deep profile. So there's a plus and minus with every design choice you make. But that deep profile really gives them a lot of bottom end. And that's the, I guess the biggest thing that people don't quite realize with our wings is that you need to ride, at least half a meter down on what you think. So if you're thinking of five let's at four and a half, if you're thinking six sets are five and a half really. And the three and a half, we use that quite a lot, down to 18 knots. And that's, it's more really the grunt of a, for. Yeah. So now the thing we did is we extended our range. We've got the two and a half and the six and a half, and the vetoes we improved the handles the profile is not quite as deep. So we changed the profile is not quite as deep as the V1, so it has a bit more top end. And it, it floats a bit, bit more nicely and we've beefed up all the reinforcements basically on the V2. It's is it the beef that beliefs you've got a photo on the screen right now there we've got an extra butter webbing that ties right back to the Strat because I was in the surf and rip the leading edge out of a couple of wings. I'm getting wrangled in the surf. High of reality is if you get red dot on the SIF, something right. That's just life. Trying to try to beef up these things, the handles are all way grunts here and stiffer on the vatos. Yeah. That's, those are the main things. Yeah. If I can make a comment, like for this seam right here underneath the handle, I had a little cut on my finger and they kept scratching. Like when I got back winded or like pumping or whatever, I would always get scratched by the seam, this kind of a sharp scene right there. So maybe you should move that somewhere else. Yeah, no, we could for another gram, what I've found with those, because they are handles are rigid and they're off the wing. I find I don't hit the straw with my hand. And that's, the ha we spent a lot of time, those handles, I spent a ton of time on those handles. And yeah, there are some other, wind guys out there doing a very similar handle. Now I say pulled a pot, what we were doing and did a similar thing because that stiffer handle with a slightly bigger ice To me, it puts your hand and we've got, so the front hand Zillow, they tell that you might not realize a front handles have a bigger rock and the rear handles have a slightly smaller act and that's to help give the wing a little bit more angle of attack and your hands. So you're not, it balances out your arm links. You don't have to pull them with your back arms so much. And I found that didn't that put my hands off the stress, so they weren't heading the stress, but yeah, for sure. Some sames, if you're, if you hit your fingers on a same, then yet it might graze your fingers. Yeah. But one thing that, like you mentioned that your, their frame is really stiff. So that's something I really like about the ailing is that it's one of the things I really don't like about some wings that Ben right in the middle, right here with a strut connects to the leading edge when it's not enough right there. It just tends to like, when you get, when you hit it gusta the whole wing. Yeah, there's two things there. What you can see with that picture. You've got up right now. There, there isn't a ton of dihedral in the middle and that's because our whole wing is designed through actually, when it loads up at you get a bit more dihedral in there naturally, and all of the panels are all Kat and shaped so that when it's loaded, the airframe is really good. And what you'll find is a lot of wings when they load up, they fold in the middle and you get a lot of crises in the canopy. So our canopy is all set up so that when it's loaded in it, it takes basically, around about 80 kgs of load, pulling someone out of the water. That's when the canopy is actually set to its perfect shape. And that's where you get that real pole and drive. When it's, when you've got to go. With some load in it when it's completely unloaded yet, doesn't, it doesn't necessarily have that same perfect shape. So it is, it's a balance and that's, we're really trying to, but two things, I'm money kgs and I like a lot of grunt out of the whole to get going. And I like to jump, so I want something when you jump, when you pull on it, when you're coming down from a jump, but it really holds you and you can land your jumps. A lot of other wins. I find don't have a lot of pop and when you're coming down, they just banned and you haven't got anything. You just crash into the water. Pretty hard. So yeah, a hundred percent agree with that. Yeah. I find that too, trying to get some, trying to get some grunt into it. And it is a beauty with the inflatable that you can go, large diameter and a lot of that was informed from big, big cut design. So yeah, that's, we're really trying to get going in, on smaller boards with smaller fours, but also I like going out and strong winds. So I really like how are, the three and a half in the four and a half and the two and a half as well when it's hailing perform when it's really windy, because the thing just feels they really come alive. Our wings when it's, when you've got good wind. And, th there may be some lighter wings out there that are bitter and really light when conditions, but I prefer to have some juice when it's windy. Okay. Cool. We were going pretty long now, but I did want to ask you this question that I always ask everyone is especially during the pandemic, like you were shut down, you said for the last two months and couldn't get on the water. So when you're having a rough day, what do you do to stay positive or keep your mind in the right place, which is a tricky one. If I'm not getting in the water, I do go slightly crazy. Luckily I've got an awesome lady at the moment and a young Nipper who's three. So that definitely keeps me engaged. So yeah, it's, I guess it's family time now, I've, I've grown up. I've definitely had some times early on where I was, a little bit, more crazy and probably. As a typical, New Zealand there we used to drink too much for sure. But not nowadays, I'm all full out. We don't, I don't drink at all. And where yeah, family time, really for me, is it, and yet going for nice hike outside somewhere until the top of a ma among the top of the mountain. That's that's a great thing to do with the family and we'll go to the beach for sunset have a picnic on the beach somewhere. That's great as well. We could still do that during the lock down, at least as he said to stay away from everyone else, but you could go on the beach and you can go, yeah, you can go to the beach as long as it was within something like a 5k radius of where you lived something like that. If you didn't live near a beach within their bad life, it's funny. Cause you're in Hawaii. It was the opposite during our set down in the beach. You were not allowed to go on the beach, but you were allowed to go across the beach to go into the water and you're allowed to go in the water. Which I guess makes sense, but I guess it's cause cause our governor is a surfer too, so probably that's why he has to go in the water still. We got it. We've got to get out prime minister, wind foiling guy, that mission for the summit. Yeah I don't know how the, all the rules work. There's some pretty conflicting ones and it's different everywhere. I dunno everyone has their own take on it. I dunno. Any answers that's for sure. Yeah. So yeah. So you mentioned you totally stopped drinking alcohol no more. You're like totally. Yep. That's right. That's right. Actually, Kenny mark had got me inspired. He's an inspirational water man on Hawaii and we were there in 2018, I think with Brian Finch on wahoo doing a bit of a photo-shoot when we released the CF 1200 and. We were there loud. Can you, Micah was trying to foils and he's just such an inspirational character. He's a top go for brighter, but more than that, he's just the top legendary all around water man. Really? And yeah, he was telling me how he's, he's really, I think he was 20 something plus years just totally. Sobering and on it. And he's such an inspiration. I don't know quite how old he is. He wears his age very well, but he's you wait, he was, I don't know how old, but quite a bit older than me and ripping white hat or, and I'm like, okay, yep. Time to get real. So that was kinda, that was co-op I'm really thankful to him for some inspiration there. For sure. So would you say that foiling is like an addiction a little bit like, like a drug or definitely but a good addiction because it gets you outside. It's healthy. It's good for fitness. Mon will be great for your bank balance, but Hey, you can't take that stuff with you. And it is for using and really, it's just such a beautiful sensation flying across the water and it is addicting, but it's addicting for all the right. Okay. Yep, exactly. Do you, like when you get up in the morning, do you have a certain routine, certain things that you do or at the moment? Yeah, changing nappies or getting them ready for the day. And then usually, unfortunately these days it's checking a bunch of emails. It takes a couple of hours which isn't great. And then I usually try and throw some stretches in there in between, and then you look at the wind and try and get out through some testing or it depends what's going on some days it can be just sitting on the computer all day long these days, which isn't ideal, but that's the reality. Yeah. Yeah. Luckily today though, there's some brains. Brand new one. Oh yeah. So that's exciting. So you can go on the water right from your backyard there, huh? Yeah. I Maybe, I don't know if the internet will stay on, I'll drag this thing over here and have a look. See if you can see. Yeah, so then beautiful. Yep. And this is Auckland you're in Oakland, and Oakland city. So yeah. Super lucky. This was a property actually. My parents bought in the 70, so yeah. Pretty lucky to be able to hang out here and yeah, we had to get out, go sailing, go winging or go sailing as well. Yeah. Yeah. We still do a little bit of sailing out of here. I'm going to try and round that my grandfather built. That's just more out of. And yeah, we can't complain. Life is definitely good. When we're allowed to get on the water, it's hot. We don't get locked down again. I think we're going to be okay now, but I don't know it's yeah. Who knows? I'm not going to predict anything on that. Like for me, sometimes I have a really good session and everything like clicks and everything's working perfectly well. And then another time I'll just get frustrated and I keep falling in, or I just make stupid mistakes and stuff like that. And it's just not, it doesn't, I don't get into that zone. So is, does that happen to you and do you have any tricks for changing from, like going from not being in the zone to getting into that where everything. Yeah. I Some days you just have a bad buyer them day, but generally I find I try and do a, like a, I do a li

In the latest edition of the PokerNews Podcast, Sarah Herring, Chad Holloway and Jeff Platt recap the 2020 World Series of Poker online bracelet event series on WSOP.com, including Ian Steinman claiming the WSOP.com Player of the Series. They then welcome guest longtime grinder Nick Guagenti, who finally captured his first bracelet after taking down Event #29: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack for $305,433. Other topics covered include Phil Hellmuth vs Antonio Esfandiari in High Stakes Duel, Kristin Bicknell capturing her third bracelet, Gavin Cochrane winning the WPT 8-Max Championship, and an update on the Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk feud. Time Stamps *Time|Topic* 06:30 | Phil Hellmuth vs Antonio Esfandiari in High Stakes Duel 08:45 | ICYMI Phil Hellmuth Interview 09:30 | Ian Steinman wins WSOP.com Player of the Series 15:15 | WSOP bracelet winner Nick Guagenti Joins show 17:15 I Maybe the toughest FT of the WSOP.com Online Series? 20:50 | The benefit of anonymity 22:20 | Huge Hands 24:30 | You are going to lose, how to handle wins 27:30 | Coming Close so many times 31:30 | The pain most people don’t realize about poker 34:10 | Event #30 Seniors Event 38:00 | Event #31 Championships 42:00 | What is BestPokerCoaching.com and why is it different? 46:00 | Is GTO profitable for the average person? 51:10 | Coaching for Profits? 54:00 | How Does it Work? 58:00 | Where 98% of Mistakes are made 01:03:00 | How do we know it works? 01:09:00 | Coaches or players or both? 01:13:15 | Masterclasses & costs 01:18:30 | Sponsor: GG Poker 01:19:35 | Colossus & PLOssus 01:36:30 | News from the rest of the GG side of Online Bracelets 01:21:04 | 10K Short Deck 01:21:40 | Kristen Bicknell Wins 3rd Bracelet 01:24:13 | A look at 2020 WSOP Events 45-50 01:29:00| Update on Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk 01:35:00 | Sponsor: Run It Once 01:36:00 | Gavin Cochrane wins WPT 8-Max Championship

Do you ever feel like you can’t think about anything besides food? “Should I or shouldn’t I?” “Maybe just a little?” “I can make up for it tomorrow”, etc. Do you sometimes wonder what your internal mental life might be like if you could get rid of this constant food-focus? SCROLL DOWN AND HIT PLAY […] The post Obliterating Food Obsession appeared first on The Never Binge Again Blog.

Sweaty palms... thoughts swirling around in my head. I really liked the person. I think I said too much. But, they seemed nice. I mean, I would know if they weren't safe. Wouldn't I? Maybe this is similar to the conversations in your head, and maybe not. But we all know that it's really easy to get too comfortable online and start saying and doing things that we shouldn't do. All of us need a reminder sometimes of the real dangers that are out there online, and the importance of staying safe. This episode is all about 5 things you should NEVER do on social media. The world is moving at a furious pace these days and it's so easy to fall for tricks and lies online. I'm going to remind you again of those important tips that will keep you safe in the online world. I know that someone in your life has probably already given you a few tips for how to stay safe online. But, even adults sometimes make unwise decisions on social media. We all can fall into the trap of doing things that we know we shouldn't do. So we all need reminders- so listen up as I give you my best tips for staying safe!More Resources- http://ronicacormier.comConnect On Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/ronicacormier82/My Parent Support Group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/parenthang/

This long overdue episode was record back in the summer.  Andrew and Mal talk about the nature of magic, initiation, religious practice and more. They talk a lot about how to know if you are on the right track and the pitfalls of walking a magical path. The upsides and pitfalls of gnosis. How to become a bishop by chance and much more.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. To find more out about Mal check out Lux-Umbria or hang with him on Facebook here.  Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Transcription ANDREW: [00:00:02] Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am joined today by Mal Strangefellow. And I've been following Mal online for quite a while. And recently, he's gotten into starting a church. And [00:00:17] a lot of the dialogue around that has been very fascinating to me. So I thought that inviting him on to talk about some of these things would be really entertaining because I think there's so many fascinating questions about legitimacy, legacy, [00:00:32] lineage, and all sorts of stuff that people are or ought to be thinking about as they're going about in various traditions right now, and at the birth of something new, seems like a great place to revisit those conversations. So, for people who [00:00:47] might not know you, Mal, give us, give us the introduction. Who are you? What are you about? MAL: [laughing] Oh, wow, um, you know, and I don't mean this to sound, sound like I'm bragging. It's mostly just because [00:01:02] I'm getting older and my memory is lagging, but when you, when you've done, I don't want to say so much, but when you've done enough, at some point, it starts to become difficult to figure out how to answer that question. [00:01:17] [laughing] ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: I got my start in esoterica during the mid-80s. I'm solidly in that, you know, Boomer cusp/early Gen X region. [00:01:34] Went into, went into the army right out of high school, and after that, got it into my head that I wanted to be a Buddhist monk.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And ended up doing [00:01:49] that for a number of years. I was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, a novice and, and fully ordained getsu and gelong. After a few years, or early 90s, wanted to go and get a college degree, [00:02:04] went to the University of Oregon--go Ducks!--and you know, discovered that it's a lot harder to be a celibate monk in a university than it is in a monastery! ANDREW: [laughing] Uh huh. [00:02:19]  MAL: Go figure! ANDREW: I imagine. MAL: And ended up returning my vows, and, at that point, just kind of wandered back and forth among a number of different things, sort of exploring [00:02:35] alternate routes of spirituality, continuing to practice magic. Of course, the Internet was really just sort of starting to become popular at this time. You know, we were moving beyond the [00:02:50] text-based, green screen kind of stuff and actually getting a graphical interface to the Internet discussion boards. Alt magic, of course, was going like gangbusters. This is just at the cusp of the, the [00:03:05] infamous Golden Dawn Wars of the early, early to mid-90s, and ended up getting involved with the Golden Dawn. Was--actually, my neophyte initiation in the Golden Dawn was done [00:03:20] with Israel Regardie's handmade tools, and I believe a mutual friend of ours, Poke Runyan, was the keryx for that and gave me his flu.  ANDREW: [chuckles] MAL: So.  ANDREW: That's a magical blessing, indeed.  MAL: [00:03:35] Right? And kind of . . . There was some floundering, I would say towards the late 90s. Got involved in the Temple of Set, stayed there long enough to [00:03:50] be recognized to the third degree, their priesthood, at which, and this, I bring this up because it encompasses sort of a pivotal event for me. James Grabe was [00:04:05] also a member of the temple and a member of the OTO, and at the time, when I actually met him in person, there, he was on the outs with the current leadership. I [00:04:20] mean, he has made, I don't know if I'm saying that right, I've never done any OTO stuff. So. That guy. And I don't know what there was, so I don't know if they were, I think there was some sort of lawsuit or some-- Anyway, they were pissed [00:04:35] off. We were at a conclave, which is an annual temple gathering, and we were in the hotel bar, and just sort of chatting, and you know, I was a second degree adept at the time, and so I was star struck at his degree and [00:04:50] his history. And we were just talking and he was mostly talking. And he had mentioned that he had apostolic succession as a bishop, and one of the things, among other things, that the current leadership wanted from him was consecration [00:05:06] as a bishop for their EGC.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: And he was basically just inviting them to peruse the fine example of the back of his middle finger on that. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, he said, "You know what, basically, [00:05:21] I'll consecrate, you know, anybody else, anybody but them. Right? Hell, you want to be consecrated?" and I was like, "Um, yeah, okay." He's like, "All right, cool." So we actually made a plan for the next night. He [00:05:36] had a suite in the hotel and I showed up and we went through deacon priest and I was consecrated a bishop that night. And it was like, "Here you go. Now, you're a bishop." I was like, "Well, awesome. Thank you." This is [00:05:51] 1998-99-ish and, which, oddly enough feels like, you know, maybe five or ten years ago for me, but . . .  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: Yeah, I was like, you know, "So what do I do with this?" It was like fuck, [00:06:06] I don't care. Can I say fuck? I can say fuck, right?  ANDREW: You can say fuck. It's fine. Go ahead. MAL: All right, cool. Fuck, yeah. [laughing] He was like, "I don't care," you know, "here's some stuff," and I got like loose leaf print outs, you know, some ideas that he had had [00:06:21] about sort of a Johannite spirituality and you know, I got, you know, an old Xeroxed copy of his succession, apostolic succession, and stuff like that, and I just sort of filed it away and did nothing with it. [00:06:36]  ANDREW: Mm.  MAL: Until I resigned, after I resigned from the temple as a priest. It was, you know, interpersonal political stuff. ANDREW: Isn't it always, right? MAL: Right, you know, it's, there was a group that was up-and-coming [00:06:51] in the temple. They have since been, been purged out, but I was not in that group, and ended up just resigning rather than dealing with all of the, the people bullshit that comes with that, and [00:07:06] in trying to figure out, all right, what the hell do I want to do now? Said, you know, well, I've got these kind of things to fall back on. I wonder if I could do this? And so I pulled out all of James's stuff and decided [00:07:21] you know what, fuck it. I'm, I'm a start a church!  And that's how the Apostolic Johannite church was founded, [laughs] and I ended up posting on a couple of message boards online at the time: "Hey, are [00:07:36] you interested in an esoteric organization and an esoteric church?" And got a couple of hits. One of the very first ones was, of course, the current patriarch of the AJC, and you know, the rest there is history. [00:07:51] I ran the AJC for a couple of years, and at that time, kind of felt like I had some unfinished stuff that I wanted to do elsewhere. Plus, [00:08:06] I feel like, at least for me at that time, it took a different personality to run things than it did to start them, and I didn't know that I had the personality to keep that [00:08:21] thing going, and I feel justified in making this statement, you know, in hindsight 20/20, but just in looking at how well they've done, you know, since I, since I handed it over to Sean McCann, their current patriarch, you know, I think [00:08:36] it's the, like the largest, fastest growing international gnostic church on the planet right now, some crazy crap like that.  ANDREW: So. Let me ask you a question.  MAL: Yeah, yeah! ANDREW: Cause you've talked about so many things here and I want to . . . MAL:  I know, I'm sorry.  ANDREW: No. No, it's [00:08:51] why I had you on, I want to have these conversations and I love hearing you chat. What, what kind of personality does it take to run these things? Because you know, I've, you know, I've been in my share of, you know, I was in the OTO [00:09:06] in several different groups that all imploded or exploded. And I was in the Aurum Solace for a bunch of time, and change of leadership and it, you know, my local group was excommunicated. And you know, I [00:09:21] was in the AA for a while and there are various, you know, things with that, that just left me, you know, with nowhere to go. What is it, you know, and I've seen my share of that in the, in the Lukumi traditions as well, you know, different places. [00:09:36] What does it take to run a thing like that well? Because I feel like there's, you know, what I've seen is, there's, like, if there's a strong personality and they can kind of hold it together with their personality, [00:09:51] that works until it doesn't, until they leave or retire or whatever. What actually does work? What makes sense when it comes to sort of bigger organizations around that kind of stuff? MAL: You know, I think you [00:10:06] kind of hit on it with the, the big personality, not in that that's the answer. But in that, that's not the answer.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: I think a strong personality, a willingness to get shit [00:10:21] done, to say, you know, what, screw it, we're going this way. We're doing it. Like that's the kind of personality you need to start something, to really get it going, to gather people in, to inspire other people, but to keep it going, [00:10:37] I think you need somebody a lot more conciliatory.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, somebody, somebody who is open to, willing to, desirous of working with other people and incorporating them into the, [00:10:52] the, the living, you know, the daily life of the organization, a strong personality. You know, again, I think it's absolutely necessary to get a thing started. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: [00:11:07] You know, there's just so much inertia there, at the beginning of anything that you need to build up a certain amount of momentum to, you know, to, to overcome initial obstacles and you know, nothing kills [00:11:22] momentum faster than a committee meeting.  ANDREW: [laughing] Especially if not much is already happening. Right?  MAL: Right. Right! You know? So you need that strong personality, but after you reach a certain point, I think that strong personality [00:11:37] becomes detrimental, you know? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And if you don't have it within you to drop that and become more conciliatory, then you're just kind of a, you know, you're kind of a bully, you, you end up with, you know, strong personality clashes [00:11:52] with other people who, you know, who might be able to come in and do amazing things. Yeah, I think of . . . Okay. So, a perfect example of this going back to where I was and where Sean McCann was at the beginning of the AJC when I handed things over to [00:12:07] him . . . You know, he was, he'd only been a bishop for like a year.  ANDREW: Okay.  MAL: You know, I'd consecrated him and, to be fair, I had even gone, like right after his consecration, [00:12:22] I went on vacation!  ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: Like six months! [laughing] And I was like, you know what, I just need a break from all of this. I'm tired. You run things. Call me if you need to, but I'm out for a while. So, you know, really, even that first six months, he [00:12:37] was kind of running things. Because of his age, and because of his natural temperament at the time, you know, sort of, you know, not really sure of himself, [00:12:52] not wanting to make a mistake. MAL: Okay. So the current primate of North America for the AJC, Mar Thoma, was a bishop with [00:14:07] another organization who came into the AJC. We had become friends while I was still there, but he officially joined the AJC after I left, and he is a very strong personality. But he's also [00:14:22] been, you know, has been just an amazing asset for the church and, you know, in looking back, I don't know, like, would I have given him the same opportunity? You know, when you've got those, the [00:14:37] two alpha dogs clashing, right? The, you know, the two strong personalities, would, would the same results have come about? And I'm not so sure that it would have, you know? I think by me stepping out and by Sean coming in [00:14:52] and having that, that natural conciliatory manner and welcoming him in, [coughs] excuse me, as a, another leader. I think that was a huge part of their success. And so, what does it take to run [00:15:07] an organization? I think it takes the ability to find, to find that in yourself, to realize that, you know, you know, it's not all about me.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: If I care about this, if it's going to run, I need to, I need to be conciliatory. [00:15:22] Does that make sense? ANDREW: Yeah, I think so, for sure. MAL: Oh good, cool. ANDREW: Because you know, yeah, a lot of people just . . . A lot of what I've seen is, it gets to a point where people are just like, look, it's my way or the highway, and then you know, and then you just [00:15:37] have, you know, whatever, right? Like, like the thing around the apostolic succession, where they're like, will you please give this to us? And be like, absolutely never, you know, like you just end up in these things where it's so stuck that there's no, there's no movement possible, right? You know? MAL: Right, right. ANDREW: [00:15:52] Mm-hmm.  MAL: Yeah, and you know, when you lay down something, like it's my way or the highway, you end up with a ton of fantastic people choosing the highway. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: And, and you're left with, you know, just the, the sycophants, [00:16:07] and what happens to your, the organization, then? I mean, you mentioned your experiences in the Aurum Solis, and I remember, you know, when Leon proclaimed it an all Christian organization [00:16:22] when he was still, you know, Grandmaster. And, you know, it was that, this is it, it's my way or the highway. This is what we're proclaiming.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: A bunch of people chose the highway! [laughing] You know, and then he kind of pulled back from that a little bit and then [00:16:37] somebody else took over and then [garbled right before 16:43] Anyway. Yeah, I think that that's a perfect example of what you were talking about. When you have leadership like that, [00:16:52] things tend not to grow organically and even if they do survive that personality, that type of personality, they don't survive the end of that personality. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure.  MAL: When that person dies or, you know, [00:17:07] converts to evangelical Christianity, and says, you know unicorns are bad or whatever. [laughing] ANDREW: Sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You know? I also think it's, it's interesting how . . . I wonder how, [00:17:22] contrary to what people might think, that that sort of more conciliatory aspect actually works to sustain the teachings versus dissipate them? MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Because what I see where there, where there's no [00:17:37] or nominal flexibility, is then there's these sort of backlashes and waves that come back and forth, right? You know, the new group comes in and you know, they're, they're all, they're all into witchcraft, and that's it. And if you're a Christian, you're [00:17:52] out, right? In response to the Christians who are like, "Well we're Christian," you know. And especially in a group like the Aurum Solis that, at least sort of in its heyday was so founded on research, you know . . . I mean, I think that, you know, what's, what are you losing, [00:18:07] you know, by these massive sways, right? So, yeah. MAL: Right, right. You know and also you get, you know, you get buy-in from everybody when, you know, regardless of the kind of organization, right? Whether it's a business or a teaching [00:18:22] order or a church or . . . You get buy-in with conciliatory leadership. You know, people feel like they have ownership, you know, they have a stake in it, and so they care about it. Whereas if it's just: here it is, [00:18:37] it's my way or the highway and then you know, well, okay, it's your way. It's never my way at that point, no matter where I am in the organization. If I'm not on top, it's never my way. It's always, I'm doing their way and you know, we as people, we [00:18:52] tend to like our way . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Well, and especially more magically inclined people. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I think there's, there's a tendency towards ego, you know, not necessarily in a bad sense, but just ego, that [00:19:07] doesn't really, if it's not addressed in some capacity, you know? So, how did, how did you find the transition of, how did you sort of manage that transition from Tibetan Buddhist practice, which [00:19:22] is pretty, you know, which is very structured, you know, to, to kind of your other practices, which sound like there are through lines, but they weren't as rigid? If that's fair. [00:19:37]  MAL: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. [lost words--exception?] about that. Yeah, you know, actually, I think it was . . . Being on sort of those diametric poles was beneficial to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, as structured and rigid as [00:19:52] Tibetan monastic life was, the Temple of Set, on the other hand, and I think why, why I enjoyed and sort of embraced what they were doing so much was because there's so much [00:20:07] more open, right? You know, you show up and one of their, their primary tenets from The Book of Coming Forth by Night is, you know, "the text of another is an affront to the self." You know, so, every, initiatory degrees, you know, [00:20:22] okay, it's time for you to be recognized as a second-degree adept. They don't confer initiations. They recognize after you've achieved something, and then they say, okay, well now, go write that initiation ritual, you know, go [00:20:37] do it. Go create it, you know, come up with your own, you know, have it, have it . . . You know, don't, don't just pull crap out of your ass, you know. There, there's, there's a very scholastic aspect to them. I think when I, when I [00:20:52] joined, I got a binder that was like, and I'm holding up my fingers. Nobody can see them. [laughing] It's like an inch and a half to two inches thick and the vast bulk of that was a reading list. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, so, and part of recognition [00:21:07] is, their recognition process is, go out and read these books. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Go out and study this material. Go find more and then come back and tell us what you think about it, you know. You know, so there's this, this, this scholarship and then this production [00:21:22] and it's really, you know, and I don't want to give the impression that it's this loosey-goosey kind of thing. But it, it is very different from the structure that I experienced in Tibetan Buddhism. Right?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And [00:21:37] I think I tried to incorporate some of that in in my later work and it's still something in my own personal practice and when I'm working with students, it's still something that even down to, you know, giving them offhand a reading [00:21:52] list. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And saying, you know, pick, pick six books, or pick three books, or whatever. Read them all from different categories, and then come back and let's talk about how, you know, what [00:22:07] material from this book on this topic and this book from this incredibly different topic. How do they play together? ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And what do you get from reading both of those back-to-back that you wouldn't have gotten from reading either one separately, [00:22:22] right? In isolation. What, what new comes out of that? And I think that's sort of been, that came out of that experience, of strict rigid practice with, with Tibetan Buddhism and then the [00:22:37] more open, but, but scholastically-informed Setianism, like, like this kind of was born out of that, and I think that has been, regardless of what I've done since, sort [00:22:52] of my, my entire method of, approach for things.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: Does that make sense? I really feel like I'm just rambling on . . .  ANDREW: No, no, not at all. It totally makes sense. MAL: Okay cool.  ANDREW: I mean, for me I kind of went in the opposite direction. You know, I was doing ceremonial [00:23:07] stuff, you know, throwing some chaos magic, and you know, all that kind of . . . different things and then I'm, as I moved into Lukumi, and you know, the Orisha tradition that I got initiated in, it's, [00:23:22] there are just ways that things are done, you know. MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And so it's been a move away from, from that kind of structure and a stepping into that structure, and what I see is that so many people struggle with that axis. MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? Like, you know, [00:23:37] for people to accept that there is a way that things are done, or, you know, in light of a tradition, the way that things are done, and that that part isn't [00:23:52] subject to conversation so much is very difficult for a lot of people, you know? MAL: But it's also a really important experience, I think. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, I went from the founding of the AJC into East Asian esoteric [00:24:07] Buddhism, tendai [spelling?], and from their Korean Zen, you know, Seon Buddhism, and those are both, I mean, you don't get more rigid than the Japanese. ANDREW: Right.  MAL: And, but there's a purpose for that. You know, they, [00:24:23] there's this idea that when you take all of these people together and you force them to do this sort of thing, this sort of way, we kind of polish our rough edges off. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, and if everybody was just allowed to go off and do their own thing, [00:24:38] you would never find your rough edges, you know, and so in practicing tendai [spelling?] Buddhism and then in going through, you know, the Zen Buddhist koan curriculum, that was, it was very rigid, there's a way [00:24:53] you do it. There's even an entire different language almost for going through koans that if you don't, if you don't know it and if you don't do it, you're not going to pass. You're not going to advance. You know, it's almost [00:25:08] like learning that language, which is both, you know, poetic and performative. You know, there's a physical aspect to it. But learning that language is what allows your brain to operate [00:25:23] in the way that it needs to operate in order to get the insight that you need to get.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, there's no book that you could read that, that, that, you know, could tell you that. There's a story out of Daido Loori's [00:25:38] place, Zen Mountain Monastery, back when he was still alive. They had a book with all the answers to the koans in it, and somebody stole it. And one of the head monks was like, you know, ran up to Daido Roshi and was like, "Hey, you know, somebody stole the book. What are [00:25:53] we gonna do? What if they publish it?" And Loori Roshi was like, yeah, don't worry about it.  ANDREW: Mm-Hmm.  MAL: The answers aren't in the book. It doesn't matter what was written down. The answers aren't in the book.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: The answers are what we see in front of us. It's like, you know, I live here in Cincinnati. [00:26:08] And, if you read a ton of books about Cincinnati, but had never been here, and then tried to pass it off, you know, in talking to somebody that was born and raised here, they'd know pretty quickly you're full of shit. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know? [00:26:23] Whereas if you've both, you know, if you've been there, if you've visited there, if you're talking about "oh, man, you know, did they finish the construction over on . . ." or you know, all of that sort of stuff that just, you know, then they're like, "oh, yeah, yeah, you've been there." So I think . . . [00:26:39] There's definitely value to "this is the way things are done" for a lot of traditional things, just because, if you don't do it that way, you don't get the experience or have the effect that it's supposed [00:26:54] to provide, you know?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure. Well, it's why, you know, my experience of memorizing tables of correspondences when I was doing ceremonial stuff, you know? MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW: I mean, on the one hand, it's like, well, why memorize [00:27:09] it, there are books, but on the other hand, it's, it preloads your cognition with a framework that stuff that wants to work within that framework can then work straight through . . .  MAL: Absolutely. ANDREW: As opposed [00:27:24] to, you know, having to attempt to bridge that gap without that extra framework there, you know? MAL: Yeah. Absolutely. ANDREW: It's possible, anybody can have a vision of, you know, take your pick, and that might be authentic and whatever, but It's [00:27:39] a lot rarer and it's really atypical, as opposed to sort of the, you know, that that more you've done the work, [lost words at 27:48? sounds like "you're fed up"?] and now they're going to show you a thing in this way.  MAL: Absolutely. Well, and you know, putting on my clinical [00:27:54] psych hat, in the middle of all of this I also went on and got various graduate degrees in psychology. We know that the thoughts that we think change the physical structure of our brains.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and so, memorizing [00:28:09] tables of correspondences, it's not just putting information in your head so that you can have it at quick recall. It's literally making a physical change to your brain. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Is that physical change necessary? Is that, [00:28:24] you know, an integral component to the experience that you're trying to have? I-- Maybe not, but maybe it is, and if that's the case, if it's not just about being able to have something on immediate recall, in which case, you know, why don't [00:28:39] I just load, preload 777 on my phone?  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And then if I, if I need to know a correspondence, I'll pick it up. But you know, if it's not just about having that piece of information, but if it's about the change that it's affecting in your brain that is allowing [00:28:54] you to maybe perceive or experience, you know, something, then, you know, by not doing it, you're either never going to get there, or, like you said, it's going to be really damn rare that you get the experience that, you know, that [00:29:09] you're hoping for. ANDREW: Yeah. I think the, the, you know, the real answer is, the magic is in many, many parts of it, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And not just in the quote unquote secret word that activates the ritual or what, right? [00:29:24] MAL: [laughing] Exactly! ANDREW: It's got so many parts of it that that are not, they're not necessarily glamorous. They're almost never talked about overtly in books or in other contexts, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I almost never see anybody talk about [00:29:39] that when I read a book about magic. It's like "yeah," and then you just like, do this thing and it'll happen. It's like, oh, maybe, maybe so.  MAL: [laughing] Yeah. Sure. It's just the magic word. You just say the word, the word.  ANDREW: Well, the bird is the word, right? That's where we'll go with that? MAL: [laughing] [00:29:56] Yeah. Well, I was going to say, Aidan Wachter recently made a post that I think brilliantly comes to this point and it was a . . . Oh, how did [00:30:11] it go? [sighs] See, I brought it up. Now I should at least be able to remember it, but it was along the lines of you know, the vast majority of success comes from mastering the basics.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Not from some advanced, you know, rarefied thing, you know, [00:30:26] and he was coming from it from both an esoteric and a physical, you know, point of view. And I thought it was brilliant when I saw that. ANDREW: Yeah. I remember that post. He was basically sort of saying like, you know, sure, some super custom tailored [00:30:41] fancy technique might get you this extra increase, because--it was coming from a fitness training point of view, the article that he linked to--but the reality is, you know, showing up four days a week and you know doing the basic things, [00:30:56] that's going to get you almost everything and the other stuff is, you know, especially over the arc of time, right? So.  MAL: Right. And that applies to so much of what we do, right? Just showing up and doing the basic stuff. And . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. [00:31:13]  MAL: Oh crap, there was, where was I going to go? There was . . . ? Eh, never mind. It'll come back to me if . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Let me ask you this question, then. So . . .  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: We've popped out this term a couple times here and there: gnostic.  MAL: Okay. ANDREW: What is, [00:31:28] what does that mean to you? What does that mean? You know, like I hear it a lot. I've seen it a lot. You know, I mean, you know, Crowley talked about it a bunch, you know different people talk about it, you know, there's the knights cathars and you know, all that stuff or whatever. [00:31:43] But what does it mean to you? What does it actually . . . What's the relevance of it at this point in time? MAL: Sure. Well, so first off a caveat, I . . . Technically, I don't even really identify myself as gnostic any more, [00:31:59] which, I suppose is actually kind of peak gnosticism, itself. ANDREW: We live in a post gnostic era? MAL: Right. And I'm glad when you asked, you asked, you know, "What does gnosticism mean to you?" Because it is [00:32:14] a . . . I mean it's . . . We apply it retroactively to a lot of ideas, right? None of the ancient texts, like none of the Gnostic Gospels say, "And I am now writing this Gnostic Gospel."  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Or, you know . . . [00:32:30] Gnosis, for me, the way, the way I learned it, the way I taught it, and the way I experienced it, gnosis is knowledge as opposed to [00:32:45] information. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And specifically, it's that, it's that noetic apprehension that comes after the sort of die neue [spelling?]. [00:33:00] After the intellectual information gathering and crunching and . . . It's an apprehended knowing, you know, in the spiritual sense. More mundanely, it's just knowing [00:33:15] right? It's eating peanut butter rather than having somebody read off the ingredient list of peanut butter to you. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The experience of it.  MAL: Yeah, you can never tell somebody else what peanut butter tastes like. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: You can taste it then and then from then on you will forever and always [00:33:30] know what peanut butter tastes like. And that is, you know, exponentially different from knowing what goes into it. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And, and so, in a spiritual and in a magical sense, then, gnosis is [00:33:45] that experience, just like we were talking about, that experience that comes from doing certain things.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and, and it's specifically that experience that can only come from doing certain [00:34:00] things as opposed to just reading about them. Whether that's a, you know, an in esoterica or spiritual, religious, and, and oftentimes those are blended. You know, you can read about an experience [00:34:15] of the divine. Or you can have it. I think one of the most underappreciated esoteric texts out there is by St. John Chrysostom, in defense of the hesacasts. So hesacasts, heretic [00:34:30] Orthodox, not heretic but almost, near heretic Orthodox sect, who practiced hesachasm, this, this mystical combination of the Jesus prayer kind of a yoga position and breathing [00:34:45] technique that they said would allow you to experience the energies of the divine.  ANDREW: Hmm.  MAL: In fact, you know, advanced practitioners of this were said to literally physically glow, like they would just glow in the dark. And this got [00:35:00] a lot of bishops' panties in a twist and John Chrysostom wrote this brilliant defense of them, basically laying out theologically why this, this theosis, this knowing of [00:35:15] God is not heretical. You know, they're not saying they can know God, because you can't wrap a finite mind around an infinite thing, but you can experience, right? Can you hear that humming right now?  ANDREW: [00:35:30] No, from your side? No.  MAL: Yeah, so, my mic, I'm going to flick it real quick. [thump] I fixed it. Sorry, I've got a loose connector there. ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: But, you can experience it. You can have an experience of it and he likened it to a number of different things. [00:35:45] One of them was, you know, sitting in a ray of sunshine: you know it, you can experience it. It's not all of it. Nobody's saying it is. But that, that's gnosis to me, [00:36:00] that experience.  ANDREW: So, let's, I'm gonna ask you a really unfair question. Okay? MAL: Okay. Sure.  ANDREW: So, how do people determine what is different [00:36:15] between an authentic gnosis with something, with a spirit, with god, with wherever, and a more [00:36:30] psychological, or, you know, even intellectualized engagement with it, you know? Because there's so many people who have experiences of different things, and you know, going back to your, your Zen stuff [00:36:45] and to your Tibetan stuff. There are very clear things that are markers, right? For what's an authentic experience, you know, and I even remember when I was in the Aurum Solis, I came to my teacher and I was like, I had this, I had this experience [00:37:00] with one of the archangels, and they showed up in this way. And he's like, "Great," and then he pulls out a piece of paper and shows like, pulls out a book from his notes about it and shows me what I saw. He's like, that's, that's [00:37:15] because you're, you've moved beyond your own cognitive stuff being in the way of that connection.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? So, how do people know that, though? How do people even begin to work with that if this is a new idea for [00:37:30] them? MAL: You know, it's, the easiest way is having a teacher, right? ANDREW: Sure. MAL: There's the famous story of Gampopa and Milarepa, his, the yogi Milarepa, who was Gampopa's meditation [00:37:45] teacher and at that time, you know, the Tibetans generally don't meditate in groups. They don't do silent meditation. They get the instruction. They go away, they practice, then they come back. And Gampopa came to his, Milarepa after some time practicing, [00:38:00] and he's like, "I don't know what's going on, but I'm beset by devils constantly. This is what . . ." And Milarepa was like, "Just chill out, keep doing the practice, that that'll all go away." A few months later, Gampopa comes back again, and he was like, "Teacher, you're, you're so right. It's amazing. [00:38:15] All the devils were chased off. Now. I'm visited constantly by angels and dakinis and it's just wonderful and it's bliss." And Milarepa was like, "Uh huh, that's cool. Just keep practicing, that will go away."  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, having that that teacher that can that can guide you . . . [00:38:30] You know, in Buddhism, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, emptiness, shunyata, big deal, and having an experience of emptiness is a big deal. Like this is [00:38:45] one of the major mileposts and the literature is just scattered with warnings about, you know, don't intellectualize this, don't intellectualize this, because [00:39:00] when you do, when you get an idea in your head of what that experience is, you reify it and then you're stuck, right? You're stuck with that idea. And you think "Oh, I have had this experience and therefore . . ." You know, and without [00:39:15] sort of that external verification by somebody else who's been there, right? Without talking about Cincinnati with somebody who's also been there, you know and confirm: Yes. Absolutely. I know exactly the street corner you're talking about, or you know, whatever, you can easily [00:39:30] be led astray.  How, how does somebody working on their own do this? Well, that's tough, you know, at that point, I think you have to, [00:39:45] I think initially approach, you know, unverified personal gnosis, UPG, with skepticism. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, I think that has to be the default when you're on your own, no matter how amazingly lifelike and 3D [00:40:00] this apparition was, or like, initially approach it with some degree of skepticism, keeping in your mind, well, this could just be wishful thinking or this could be, you know, whatever, [00:40:15] and then give it time, right? If it was a teaching, if it was a practice, if it . . . Does it bear out? ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Are there, are there, are there are external things that coincide with it? If you . . . You know, you're given a vision of this, you know, amazing new practice [00:40:30] and then the very next day somebody randomly starts talking to you about, you know, a symbol which is exactly like the linchpin for that practice or, you know, you know, somebody brings you something that you [00:40:45] specifically need in order to . . . You know, you look for confirmation still from outside, even if it's not from a specific like teacher in a lineage of a thing . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You're still looking for that external confirmation. [00:41:00] And it may not be for years and years and years that all of a sudden something happens and then it clicks and you're like, oh my God, I had that dream, you know, three years ago about this and then here is this . . . [00:41:15] Holy crap. This is a, you know, okay, then you go with it. But no, if otherwise, if somebody shows up and just says, "hey, you're the chosen one," or you know, you're yet another incarnation of Alistair, or you know, whatever, [00:41:30] you know, maybe keep that in your back pocket. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think that that time will tell, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Time will tell. We'll see if this holds the test of time, for sure. MAL: Right, you know, and you can have, I think, amazing personal experiences that are meaningful [00:41:45] to you.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: That you never say anything to anyone about or do anything with. And that's okay.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: They don't have to be huge revelations. Or they don't have to be, you know, even if it was something that was just the product of your own mind, [00:42:01] maybe it's useful to you. But again, yeah, I think that in order to tell the difference between genuine, a genuine experience of gnosis, like that, yeah, it's external confirmation. ANDREW: And so, [00:42:16] that brings back sort of one of the other questions that I wanted to check in about: what role does lineage play, for you, in all of these things? I mean, I know in my Lukumi lineage, you know, lineage is everything. You know? I mean [00:42:31] you are, you are, in that, in my tradition, you are initiated into the lineage. MAL: Right. ANDREW: You know, lineage becomes your family, and, and that changes so many different dynamics because of it. You know, it's not just like, it's not just [00:42:46] about the information that was passed from person to person, but it's actually the license to practice certain things, the requirement to practice them in a certain way in accordance with lineage, and a connection to all of those spirits who carried that [00:43:01] lineage forward, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: So it's a, it's a very living dynamic thing. What role does lineage play for you? And, and what do you see as its sort of values and challenges? You know?  MAL: Wow. [00:43:17] I'm going to cheat and refer back to something that I wrote a while ago. ANDREW: Which is always welcome.  MAL: Okay, cool. I tend to think in terms of three different kinds of lineage for any organization.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Physical lineage, [00:43:33] practice lineage, and, you know, ultimate or primordial lineage, right? Which, so, and what do I mean by these? The physical lineage is just the people, the stuff, right? The boots on the ground, the people doing the thing, the [00:43:48] buildings, the, you know, the institution. The practice lineage is the stuff they tell you to do. Right? These are the, these are the teachings that ideally have been, you know, tried, [00:44:03] tested, passed on, initiatory aspects of initiatory power, right? That are meant to facilitate things. Obeah or apostolic succession. These are all conferrals of a power [00:44:18] meant to facilitate something. Sorry. I'm going to thump the mic here again. ANDREW: I think you might be picking up on the, someone's running a shop vac or something downstairs. I'm also hearing that in the background.  MAL: [00:44:33] Then I'll trust it's on your end and not mine.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: So, yeah, the practice lineage there. And then the primordial lineage is what you're ultimately connecting to via these three things, [00:44:48] right? So, the physical lineage exists primarily to transmit to the people it brings in. The practice lineage, which then facilitates connection to the [00:45:03] primordial lineage. And, you know, the first two exist ultimately . . . They function only to the point that they do those things, right? If at any point a physical institution loses its connection [00:45:18] to the primordial lineage, they're dead. Right? It's just a, it's a fossil. It's a club. It's a, it's, you know, it's cosplay or whatever. If the practices [00:45:34] no longer facilitate connecting you to that primordial lineage, then they're not doing their thing, right? They don't work anymore.  But then once that connection to the primordial lineage is made, at that [00:45:49] point, new practice lineages and new physical lineages can be instituted. Without that connection, they can't be. You know, this is, this is one of those things that, like in Buddhism, people, [00:46:04] there's this idea from people outside of it. For example, tons of sutra is attributed to the Buddha, but he, you know, we know historically he didn't say these things. The Buddha didn't write that. The Lotus Sutra isn't taught by the . . . But no, technically, yeah, he did, because [00:46:19] within . . . You know, the game rules of Buddhism state [chuckling] that there is only one Enlightenment, right? Buddha means awakened. Once you have had that experience, right, once you're connected [00:46:34] to that primordial lineage, there's no difference between you and Siddhartha Gautama, right? So, if you have legitimately had that experience within the game rules, you can write something today and [00:46:49] say this is a text by the Buddha.  ANDREW: Mmm. MAL: And that's, you know, 100% legit. There are institutions [00:47:06] where I think you can bypass some of this, but I find them to be so phenomenally rare. Right? The person that just [00:47:21] stumbles upon either a practice lineage that works to connect them to a primordial lineage, or, or, you know . . . Okay, a big example of this, you know, with what I'm doing now, apostolic [00:47:36] succession is a huge thing. Right? There is a conferral of authority and power with that, without which, none of the other sacraments will be there. Period. Full stop. Yet, [00:47:51] within broader Christianity, very few people question the legitimacy of Paul as an apostle. Because in the middle of his, you know, previous [00:48:06] life as a, and I don't know if you can hear the air quotes I put around that, [chuckles] as a, you know, assassin for hire, he had this vision, on, was it, the [00:48:21] the road to Emmaus? [He means Damascus. The road to Emmaus is where Jesus appeared after his resurrection.] I think. Anyway, he had this vision of Christ and he converted and now he's an apostle.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And I think most, most people in the broader Christian world: "Okay, we'll accept that." You won't find any apostolic lineages, [00:48:36] I believe, tracing themselves back to Paul. I'd be surprised if you did, but you know, nobody lists him as an apostle with an asterisk by his name, kind of thing. ANDREW: Right. MAL: But you also then don't hear about this happening [00:48:51] all the damn time.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, nobody spontaneously . . . Well, damn it, okay. The gnostic revival in France in the 19th century, [laughing] Jules Doinel. Yeah. Okay, he claimed it. But then, even [00:49:06] he went on to get actual apostolic succession. So. You know, I think it's rare. It's more rare than people think.  ANDREW: I think there's a big difference between a connection to spirit, [00:49:23] you know, and even a spirit that might have, you know, like, you know, I mean, I'm certainly not the reincarnation of Crowley, but perhaps, perhaps I could connect to his spirit in a way, and his, his Spirit could act as [00:49:38] a guide and an animating force in my work, you know?  MAL: Absolutely, yeah. ANDREW: I'm not saying that that happens per se, but, but that could happen. And that is not uncommon, you know. MAL: Right. ANDREW: [00:49:53] Like there, there are lots of things you know, where . . . MAL: But, when those things do happen . . .  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: But when that does happen, there's a lot that preceded that.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Right? It doesn't, it doesn't happen to, you know, the random grocery [00:50:08] store clerk who has, you know, never even picked up a copy of book four, or you know, whatever. Right? ANDREW: For sure. And, but that experience is also not necessarily the same as the experience of the [00:50:23] connection to that primordial, you know, energy or the current even though if I was connecting to Crowley, I'm connecting to you know, the prophet of Thelema, that doesn't mean that I'm actually connected [00:50:38] to that step behind that, you know? MAL: Right. Right. ANDREW: And I think that . . . I think that's also an interesting distinction, you know, and that's where lineage and traditional initiation facilitate that.  MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, because you may connect to that current, possibly, as you [00:50:53] say, there are examples, but I think there's a big difference between connecting to a spirit that engages your work and guides you and something sort of one step further beyond that into that lineage, that [00:51:08] deeper force, you know? MAL: Right. And, and access to one aspect of a lineage also doesn't necessarily confer access to another aspect of lineage. So, for, you know, I have [00:51:23] apostolic succession via the episcopi vagantes, you know, right, the wandering bishops. And we may trace our lineage, you know, even up into, you know popes in Rome, but that doesn't make me [00:51:38] a Roman Catholic bishop. Right, that's the physical institution, and even though I might have access to both primordial or, you know, both practice and primordial lineage there, that grants me absolutely no standing whatsoever in the physical, you [00:51:54] know, lineage kind of thing, which is something I think a lot of people tend to forget, especially in the independent sacramental movement. They tend to not get that these things are [00:52:09] . . . They're disparate. They're separate. They're discrete things. Yes. Generally they're connected and hopefully, you know, if you get involved in one, it is, but yeah, if you stumble across it, if you just happen to meet up with some guy in [00:52:24] a, you know, hotel bar in Ontario and get, this sounds so bad now that I'm saying it out loud, get invited back up to his hotel room to get consecrated as a bishop one night . . . [laughing] Great. [00:52:39] You know, that doesn't mean, you know, you can show up at the Vatican and be like, you know, where's my room?  ANDREW: Like, yeah, that dude. He initiated 50 people that week. Come on!  MAL: [laughing] Right? [00:52:54] Yeah. So. It's, you know, lineage is, lineage is important. And, you know, I'm sure you could make the case that even though I'm breaking it down into three different things that you could say, well, they're really all the different aspects of the same thing, [00:53:09] and you could probably break it down even, you know, you could break it into four different aspects or two or whatever. But you know, in general, I think, for those three reasons at least, lineage is important, especially [00:53:24] in religious, spiritual, and, and esoteric bodies wherein the point is connection with something higher, with that primordial aspect. If, you know, if the point is just [00:53:39] education, then, you know, lineage is, you know, by-the-book kind of. Like the modern grimoire revival. There's no living lineage, you know, Solomonic lineage that's [00:53:54] passing this kind of thing . . . No, it's: you find the book, you, as best you can, decipher what the hell they're talking about.  ANDREW: Uh-huh.  MAL: You do it as best you can and you hope like hell you have an experience similar to what they said you're going to have. And that's [00:54:09] kind of it. The book, at that point, is the lineage until, you know, you make that connection. The book then is the practice lineage. There is no physical institution, you know, physical aspect of it. And then, you know, hopefully you do the practice until [00:54:24] you get that that connection that then continues in your work. You know, I think a physical institution could happen, but it's not necessary. So I guess even in that [00:54:39] sense, there is a lineage or just accessing it through the information that's passed on through both having the right book, having the, the brains to figure out what the hell it's saying, and then having the guts to follow through and do what it's saying. [00:54:54]  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean I tend to look at some of that stuff as more, more technological, right?  MAL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: Like, I mean more in that second realm of the practice.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Than the lineage, because I think [00:55:09] that you can, to some extent, plug some of that into whatever lineage you, you might have access to, right? Or whatever sort of primordial elements you would have access to, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: When I was very interested in those kinds of things, [00:55:25] you know, I was, I was not interested in the Golden Dawn. I was very interested in Thelema. And, so I would just go through and swap out all the words, you know, the words that weren't Thelemic for words that were Thelemic and do work in that direction, [00:55:40] and then use that, that sort of connection to that primordial juice and that piece of it to you know, you know, call up whomever and be like, hey, listen, by the power of Babylon you're going to do this, or whatever . . . MAL: [laughing] ANDREW: You know, and, and [00:55:55] I think that's possible, because it's, it becomes, the grimoire stuff can be more technological maybe than sort of lineage-based necessarily.  MAL In general, I tend to think tech is tech. [00:56:10] But you know, then again there are lineages where, without having the appropriate lineage, it doesn't matter what knowledge or information you have, it's not gonna work, or it's not going to work the way you want it to. You know, when you look at, [00:56:25] you know, Tibetan Buddhist magic, or just Tibetan Buddhist practice, you know, if, if you're, if you don't have the empowerment of a particular deity, the practice is at best ineffectual [00:56:40] and at worst dangerous, because you're in effect, you know, trying to contact these, these powerful personalities and they don't know who the hell you are.  ANDREW: Right. MAL: Right? It would be, it [00:56:55] would be like showing up at, I don't know, pick a, pick a powerful, a famous powerful person who could be dangerous to you. I immediately, I don't want to make this political, I immediately think Trump. [laughing] [00:57:10] Not that you can, anybody, I don't, you know what? I'm not even going to go there. Um, but yeah, you pick a person with temporal power. All right, prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. He seems like a really nice guy. [00:57:25] Right? I mean everybody in Canada seems so super nice to us here in the hinterlands, but I bet as nice as he is, if I went to Canada, and I saw him on the street, if I came running up to [00:57:40] him at full tilt saying, hey Justin, let me . . . You know, trying to get . . . I'm thinking there's some people that would tackle me to the ground.  ANDREW: Exactly. Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, you know, the empowerment, that connection to that lineage at that point is the facilitation of that contact, right? It's somebody [00:57:55] coming in who has that connection, somebody who's saying, hey, you know what? Let me introduce you to my good friend, Mr. Trudeau. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And then, once they facilitated the introduction and we've shared a couple of drinks or whatever, at that point, you know, I can then, you know, wave from him [00:58:10] from across the street and maybe he'll remember me and then we bump into each other, you know, that sort of thing.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And, and I'm absolutely convinced that Tibetan Buddhism can't be the only place where something like that is, is [00:58:25] required, where if you don't have the hook-up, if you don't have the official connection to that lineage through the prescribed means, you know, best of luck to you.  ANDREW: Yeah, yeah. Something might happen, but who's [00:58:40] to say what it is and yeah, how it's going to go.  MAL: Yeah. And whether or not you wanted it! [chuckling] ANDREW: Exactly, exactly, for sure. So, we've been, we've been chatting for a long time, because this has been really lovely, and I want to ask you one more question before we wrap it up though. [00:58:55]  MAL: Sure. ANDREW: Because there's one other thing we haven't gotten to, which I was delightfully enjoying on your Facebook, which is these various statements of gnostic belief, [00:59:10] you know, or the sort of, you know, where you're discussing how you believe in, you know, this, the fallen angel, and the energy that comes with that, and how you believe in Christ in this way, and how you believe [00:59:25] in, you know what I mean? If we think about the apostles' creed, we have a very clear example of a statement in that direction, but you know, all sorts of traditions have their own. But your seemingly contradictory, [00:59:41] from some people's perspective, ideas about the nature of the universe, really both sort of tickled my fancy . . . MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW:  And, [laughing] if that's, if that's not a weird thing to say and reflected [00:59:56] a bunch of my own kind of contradictory or apparently contradictory notions about it. So I'm curious what, what you were looking to do as you were expressing that and sort of what kinds of beliefs you have around, [01:00:11] you know, the nature of the universe in that kind of construct.  MAL: In general, I have a very dim view of belief. [laughing] I think they're very dangerous things, people ought to stop having them. ANDREW: Uh-huh. MAL: [01:00:27] And when I post that . . . I think one of the worst things that ever happened to the world was--and this is ironic, I think, coming from me--is Christianity and its emphasis on creeds. You know, Christianity was weird for any number of things, when it arrived on the [01:00:42] scene, but one of the things that it was most weird for was that it was a creedal religion. It was, you know, it pivoted around what people believe as opposed to what people did. It wasn't performative. And, you know, this idea of having right belief [01:00:57] then is something that came into play and, you know, I think history has shown us what a dangerous thing requiring right belief can be. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: And then determining that. When I post [01:01:12] shit like that, and I feel absolutely justified in calling it that, a lot of times it's just to kind of work out for myself what's been bouncing around in my head, what's going on at the time, [01:01:27] and also looking for a little bit of that sort of external verification, right? If everybody responded with a what are you on? or did you not sleep last night? or is that . . . You know, then I know, okay, this is maybe a little bit out there, but then when I get responses [01:01:42] like, you know, that really tickled my fancy, or you know, that's a sign that, okay, you know, maybe, maybe I might have figured a little bit of something out, or maybe I might have glimpsed a little bit of something here. And I think [01:01:57] having creeds that don't fit together nicely works together well for me. And by creed, you know, having beliefs that are paradoxical, that, that aren't, you know, that are sometimes juxtaposed [01:02:12] against each other, is beneficial. I mean, it goes back to, I think what I was talking about with my own sort of practice, where you know, you take these two disparate things, you take these two different books, two diametrically opposed . . . See what comes out of it. [01:02:27] See what, see what you make from it. And I think a lot of times, the thing that makes something paradoxical is really just a limitation of our language. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, [01:02:43] I get a lot of, I think I get the most push back, for example, with the Church of Light and Shadow, which is, you know, my newest endeavor, because I talk about the morning star and people [01:02:58] are like, well, okay, you seem to be implying that this is both Jesus and Lucifer, which is it? And I'm kind of like well, yeah, you know, we have this tradition that Lucifer is the Fallen Angel. However, [01:03:14] there's only one figure in the Bible who ever identified themselves as the Morning Star.  ANDREW: Mmm.  MAL: That's Christ in the Book of Revelation. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, and the more I sat with that and their specific [01:03:29] roles and functions, especially the. you know, not, not the, not the Satan of you know, the HaSatan or you know of, the opposer of . . . ANDREW: Or Anton LaVey.  MAL: Right. Yeah, but this . . . [01:03:44] more the Lucifer of Milton and Dante, and, you know, the very popular romantic Promethean myth of Lucifer that we have today. That is very much a Christ figure [01:03:59] when you look at the role that Christ played. Right? Christ did not show up and be like, "You know, what? All right, everybody just do what the temple priests say, and follow . . ." You know, he was very much an ego-driven [01:04:16] individual. I mean, we can consider the gospels as spurious as we would like as far as whether or not this figure, Jesus, actually said these things. But the [01:04:31] one thing that you know, like when you get to, like the Jesus scholars, that came together and try to figure out well, what's most likely that he said? One of the things that they had pinpointed as most likely coming from Jesus, based on what we know of the context, and what got passed . . . [01:04:47] His doing away with the old law and saying, "A new law I give to you," right? "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love your neighbor as yourself." [01:05:03]  And what people gloss over here is, it's not saying, love your neighbor, which by that he means that everybody, right, love everybody else. He's not saying love them more than yourself. He's not saying debase yourself before . . . He's saying love them [01:05:19] as yourself. And if you don't love yourself a great deal, you're gonna be shitty at loving anybody else.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, how Luciferian is that? You know, he . . . [01:05:34] And so looking at these two figures in that way, looking at them both as, as light bringers . . . You know, in fact, it was really, it was not until I looked at [01:05:50] the gospels and teaching of, teachings of Jesus from a Luciferian perspective, that they really started to make sense to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Does that make sense?  ANDREW: It does. It does, for sure.  MAL: And so, I think there's, [01:06:05] there's, there's definitely something there, and this, this perspective is not new. I did not make this up. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: This idea of having a, you know, a sacramental Christian Church practicing [01:06:20] folk magic is also not new, you know, magic and Christianity have been tied together for as long as they're . . .  ANDREW: Catholics everywhere. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think I commented recently on Facebook that you know, if you're not ready to accept that Christianity [01:06:35] is a weird necromantic cult, then you're not ready to study church history.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: But when looking around for this, you know, for something that really embodied and [01:06:50] embraced that, I couldn't find it. There's nothing, you know, like there's, there's, there's nothing out there. There are Catholic witches that are, you know, going to mass, and you know, practicing in private or in secret, [01:07:05] and there are Christian witches, but there's no organization that's embracing both of these things. And the more I kept looking for this, and the more I kept posting, you know, both things like, you know what? I believe this and I believe this and the more [01:07:20] feedback I kept getting from people saying, you know, yeah. Yeah, me too! Where's that from? This ought to be a thing! ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, I'm a firm believer that we have enough independent apostolic [01:07:35] Christian churches running around. I don't know how familiar you are with the independent sacramental movement, but in general, you know, you end up with jurisdictions of one, somebody belongs to a church long enough to get consecrated a bishop. [01:07:50] And then they're out of there so they can go do things the right way. ANDREW: They had a great experience while they were in Vegas from somebody they met in the bar.  MAL: [chuckling] Right? Next thing, you know, then they're off.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, I get in trouble, I get [01:08:05] people in the independent sacramental movement angry with me when I tell them, you know, look, if it's really about the mission, like you say it is, you would stop what you're doing, find a larger church that's actually already doing this, and doing it a lot better because they've got the bodies [01:08:20] and the resources, and you'd join them, you're doing this just for the title. And so I was, I was loathe to start yet another church. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know.  ANDREW: Well, and I think just before [01:08:35] you move past that point, too . . . MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And I think there's also value in doing a thing like becoming a bishop for yourself.  MAL: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That's great too. ANDREW: You know, I mean, many many Orisha practitioners become priests for their own [01:08:50] well-being, you know, and that's fantastic, but be clear about that, and then go from there, you know.  MAL: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, I went for years ordaining people and limiting their faculties. [01:09:05] So, when you're ordained a priest, you receive faculties or permissions from the bishop that tells you what you can and can't do, basically. And I would ordain esoteric practitioners who just [01:09:20] wanted that, that plug into apostolic succession for their own spiritual and magical practice. And I would, you know, I would tell them well, okay, great, but without any sort of pastoral education, I'm not going to license you [01:09:35] to do any sort of pastoral work. [laughs] You don't get to go start a church, you can say mass in your home privately, that sort of thing, that's fine. Just go be a private priest. And it took a lot to move me away from that [01:09:50] and, and decide, okay, you know what? I think I am. I think there's enough momentum around this to do something about it, to found it. I'm a firm believer in, if you have an idea for something great, and nobody else has done or is [01:10:05] doing it, maybe that's a sign it's supposed to be you. And after poking around and getting enough encouragement, I decided all right, screw it, we're going to do it. But if we're going to do it, this is how it's going to happen.  ANDREW: You'

This week, we look at what God has to say about knowing and being known. As God teaches us, we will find encouragement, peace, and a deeper answer to the question we are asking during this “Identity Theft” series: “Who am I?” Maybe you have a friend who is asking the same question. Share this message with them. Or better yet, listen to it together!

This Week I'm talking to MY PEOPLE-- the Caretakers. I myself was a helper and care taker since about 12 years old. I Maybe you are the care-taking type, and maybe you know a caretaker. Either way, this episode is for YOU! I talk about 5 ways I commonly see caretakers show up in the world. With the best of intentions, we can unconsciously rob ourselves and the other person of a vibrant opportunity by care taking them. I explain why taking care of someone in this way, while well intentioned, is actually harmful to yourself and the other.

This week Bon and Josh break down some common language that they hear and discuss what people are actually saying. Do you ever say should or could instead of can? Or we instead of I? Maybe you love to use the word busy, if so then this episode is for you

Do you ever feel that spark of passion inside of yourself where you feel that there is something you’re here in this world to do, to create, and to give, or somehow that you’re here to affect change for some part of this population that is in turmoil and suffering in pain? Do you feel that passion inside your heart? What happens with so many of us is we feel that passion and then we say, “But who am I to effect this change? Who am I to bring this into the world?” When obstacles get in the way, we then say, “Maybe this is just from myself. I’m being full of myself here. Let me just go back to being small because again, who am I?” Maybe the question should be, “Who am I to block that flow of manifestation for moving into this realm?” It’s a lot easier when we align and say yes. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Self-Care for the Soul Community today: www.joyfullylivingwellness.com Self-Care for the Soul Facebook Self-Care for the Soul Twitter Self-Care for the Soul YouTube

Podcast time! We've got Evan, Matt, Josh, and Dylan on the show this week and they're going to try and entertain you folks! Come join the HUGE Crew as they chat about managing your finances, crippling addiction, dinosaurs, and Bigfoot. Just kidding! ...or am I? Maybe you should listen and find out for yourself! As always keep sending questions in to hoppedupeast@gmail.com, we love them! Beer featured this week: Oland Export Ale and Garrison's Irish Red.