Podcasts about Identity

Welcome back to Barn Talk, where what happens at the barn doesn't always stay in the barn. Today's episode is a somber one, as Tork and Sawyer come together to reflect on the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah. With heavy hearts, the hosts share their thoughts and prayers for Charlie's family and friends, acknowledging the deep impact of his loss on the country, especially among the younger generation.After a brief market update, Tork and Sawyer dive into a candid conversation about the repercussions of political violence, the dangerous state of public discourse, and the significance of free speech in America. They discuss Charlie Kirk's influence—as a thought leader who challenged the status quo and encouraged critical thinking among young people—and examine how his untimely death exposes deeper issues within our society.The hosts also touch on the reaction to Charlie's death, the dangers of losing healthy debate, and the importance of standing up for what you believe in, even in the face of adversity. Amidst all the turmoil, they find hope in the legacy that Charlie leaves behind: a reminder for all of us to build strong communities, seek truth, and never shy away from difficult conversations.Pour yourself a cup of coffee—or a glass of whiskey, as the guys do in honor of Charlie—and join us for this heartfelt and unfiltered episode of Barn Talk.Shop Farmer Grade

In a world that can leave us skeptical, stressed and overwhelmed - all of us can use some humor, a dose of wisdom and a reminder that God is at work in our lives. Jenny's guest, Marci Seither shares it's about learning to spot pivotal points when He's moving us and saying “yes” to HIM.  Marci Seither is a storyteller, radio & podcast host of “The Biscuit Club,” Editor for “Southern Christian Writer” and Author of four books and hundreds of articles for local papers as well as written for Guideposts, Light & Life, and been a guest on Focus On The Family. And a mom and grandmother!! Besides writing, she's a blogger, teaches workshops, she's a speaker, enjoys food photography, canning, and anything that involves using real butter!! Get connected with Marci at marciseither.com. and you can find more about her books and articles and see her video from her appearance on “Focus on the Family.” Her show “The Biscuit Club” airs Saturdays at 10:30 am and is on podcast. Two book-loving friends—having a cozy, front-porch-style talking about books, biscuits, and everything in between! Thanks to our Title Sponsor & Ministry Partner @Campbell Dental Care and @Denise King, Noble Realty. Crossroads With Jenny Bushkell 5pm-6pm 5pm - 6pm EST, Fri. & Sat. and 10 pm Sun. evening on JOY 620WRJZ. 620AM, 102.5FM, 99.5 Sevier County, streaming live at wrjz.com or download our JOY620 App! You can hear this on Podcast next week wherever you listen to your Podcasts.

Send us a textKatherine Leiva is 8 months pregnant with her first child, and navigating this journey has been difficult for her at times. While she's excited to be a mom, she has struggled with her body image, sexuality, and coping with a new identity. Some major topics discussed:not feeling beautiful or sexy pregnant & the struggles she has faced with her sexualitythe importance therapy has played in building her relationship with her fiancé and her babyhow to not lose yourself in pregnancythe way people tend to only ask about the wellbeing of the baby but not the motherwhy women should not have to work while pregnant

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how GOP messaging has shifted now that Charlie Kirk's killer has been identified as a 22-year-old white man from a Mormon family of Trump voters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Money anxiety isn't solved by more zeros. Learn why your nervous system still braces for collapse — and how identity-level recalibration creates lasting financial peace.Why do you still feel unsafe, even when the numbers say you should be fine?For high-capacity humans, money anxiety often outlives the circumstances that caused it. The nervous system stores financial fear the same way it stores trauma. Which means even after provision comes, your body may still brace as if collapse is inevitable.In this episode of The Recalibration, Julie Holly unpacks how money anxiety is more than financial — it's physiological. Through her own story of rebuilding after the 2008 crash, she shares how even seasons of abundance were haunted by fear, and why the nervous system carries old stories forward.You'll also hear about Suze Orman, the financial expert who openly admits that scarcity scripts lingered long after her success. Her story reveals what many overlook: provision doesn't bring peace if the body is still bracing.In this episode, you'll discover:Why money anxiety lingers, even in abundanceHow your nervous system tags financial fear as survivalWhy strategies like budgeting and visualization often fall flatHow ILR differs from trauma therapy: addressing identity so healing can lastA practical 3-step practice to begin rewiring your nervous system's relationship with moneyWhy alignment, not accumulation, creates lasting safetyToday's Micro Recalibration:“What story is my body carrying about money — and what new truth could my body learn to believe?”If money anxiety has been stealing your peace, this episode reminds you: you are not broken. You are human. And your nervous system can be rewired through identity-level recalibration — the tool that makes every other tool effective.If this episode gave you language you've been missing, please rate and review the show so more high-capacity humans can find it. Explore Identity-Level Recalibration→ Follow Julie Holly on LinkedIn for more recalibration insights → Schedule a conversation with Julie to see if The Recalibration is a fit for you → Download the Misalignment Audit → Subscribe to the weekly newsletter → Join the waitlist for the next Recalibration cohort This isn't therapy. This isn't coaching. This is identity recalibration — and it changes everything.

High-achieving and still 30% happy at work? In this Healthy Mind, Healthy Life episode, career coach and therapist Rachel Spekman unpacks why smart professionals stay in roles they secretly hate—status, salary, identity—and how to exit without chaos. We cover permission to want more, navigating identity shifts, handling judgment, and practical, income-safe pivots (including fractional work). Direct, actionable, SEO-friendly guidance for YouTube/Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn audiences who want purpose, alignment, and sustainable earnings—without burning their careers to the ground. Guest: Rachel Spekman. About the guest   Rachel Spekman is a career coach and licensed therapist specializing in identity transformations and vocational alignment. After 15 years in brand marketing, 10 years with startups, and 5 years as a therapist, she helps professionals move from soul-sucking roles into work that matches values, strengths, and desired income. Key takeaways Start with permission: ask, “Am I allowed to want something different?” Then imagine alternatives before acting. Define “achievement” for yourself—not for LinkedIn, bosses, or family. Success must map to your values. Expect value shifts: life events (loss, mental health, family) change what “fits.” A once-great job can become misaligned. Measure reality: honestly rate your work happiness out of 100. If you're at ~30%, plan a directional change. Aim for 80% satisfaction by moving 1–2% at a time; small, consistent improvements compound. Choose your problems: invest your “three Ts” (time, talent, treasure) where you want to solve challenges. Identity work matters: manage the ego when titles change; treat everyone with integrity—today's intern can be tomorrow's boss. Build safe bridges: don't jump without a plan. Most realignments take 6–12 months with clear milestones. Consider fractional work: package your expertise for multiple clients to increase autonomy and earnings. Realignment isn't always promotion; a “lateral” or even “demotion” can be a values-aligned win. Connect with the guest   Website: rachelspekman.com Coaching: MadeForMoreCoach.com Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM on PM - Send me a message on PodMatch DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik Disclaimer: This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the guest and do not reflect the views of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, brand, product, country, or profession mentioned. All third-party media used remain the property of their respective owners and are used under fair use for informational purposes. By watching, you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. Healthy Mind By Avik™️ is a global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Born during the pandemic, it's become a sanctuary for healing, growth, and mindful living. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty—storyteller, survivor, wellness advocate—this channel shares powerful podcasts and soul-nurturing conversations on:• Mental Health & Emotional Well-being• Mindfulness & Spiritual Growth• Holistic Healing & Conscious Living• Trauma Recovery & Self-Empowerment With over 4,400+ episodes and 168.4K+ global listeners, join us as we unite voices, break stigma, and build a world where every story matters.Subscribe and be part of this healing journey. ContactBrand: Healthy Mind By Avik™Email: join@healthymindbyavik.com | podcast@healthymindbyavik.comWebsite: www.healthymindbyavik.comBased in: India & USA Open to collaborations, guest appearances, coaching, and strategic partnerships. Let's connect to create a ripple effect of positivity. CHECK PODCAST SHOWS & BE A GUEST:Listen to our 17 Podcast Shows: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/healthymindbyavikBe a guest on our other shows: https://www.healthymindbyavik.com/beaguestVideo Testimonial: https://www.healthymindbyavik.com/testimonialsJoin Our Guest & Listener Community: https://nas.io/healthymindSubscribe To Newsletter: https://healthymindbyavik.substack.com/ OUR SERVICESBusiness Podcast Management - https://ourofferings.healthymindbyavik.com/corporatepodcasting/Individual Podcast Management - https://ourofferings.healthymindbyavik.com/Podcasting/Share Your Story With World - https://ourofferings.healthymindbyavik.com/shareyourstory STAY TUNED AND FOLLOW US!Medium - https://medium.com/@contentbyavikYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@healthymindbyavikInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/healthyminds.pod/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/podcast.healthymindLinkedIn Page - https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthymindbyavikLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/avikchakrabortypodcaster/Twitter - https://twitter.com/podhealthclubPinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/Avikpodhealth/ SHARE YOUR REVIEWShare your Google Review - https://www.podpage.com/bizblend/reviews/new/Share a video testimonial (featured on our website) - https://famewall.healthymindbyavik.com/ Because every story matters and yours could be the one that lights the way! #podmatch #healthymind #healthymindbyavik #wellness #HealthyMindByAvik #MentalHealthAwareness #comedypodcast #truecrimepodcast #historypodcast #startupspodcast #podcasthost #podcasttips #podcaststudio #podcastseries #podcastformentalhealth #podcastforentrepreneurs #podcastformoms #femalepodcasters #podcastcommunity #podcastgoals #podcastrecommendations #bestpodcast #podcastlovers #podcastersofinstagram #newpodcastalert #podcast #podcasting #podcastlife #podcasts #spotifypodcast #applepodcasts #podbean #podcastcommunity #podcastgoals #bestpodcast #podcastlovers #podcasthost #podcastseries #podcastforspeakers #StorytellingAsMedicine #PodcastLife #PersonalDevelopment #ConsciousLiving #GrowthMindset #MindfulnessMatters #VoicesOfUnity #InspirationDaily #podcast #podcasting #podcaster #podcastlife #podcastlove #podcastshow #podcastcommunity #newpodcast #podcastaddict #podcasthost #podcastepisode #podcastinglife #podrecommendation #wellnesspodcast #healthpodcast #mentalhealthpodcast #wellbeing #selfcare #mentalhealth #mindfulness #healthandwellness #wellnessjourney #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthawareness #healthandwellnesspodcast #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #viral #trending #tiktok #tiktokviral #explore #trendingvideo #youtube #motivation #inspiration #positivity #mindset #selflove #success

What do our genes really reveal about who we are? In this episode, Dr. Pierre Zalloua, geneticist and author of Ancestors, takes us deep into the DNA of the Levant. We explore how personal experience, history, and science intersect to shape identity. From Phoenician expansion to the Crusades, from consumer genetic testing to cultural memory, Dr. Zalloua shows how ancestry is far more complex and more unifying than we might think. We discuss surprising genetic signatures in the Levant, the dangers of oversimplifying identity, and the balance between biology and lived experience. Whether you're curious about your own heritage or the shared human story, this episode offers a profound look at how genetics can illuminate and complicate our understanding of ourselves. #Genetics #Identity #Lebanon #Heritage #Levant #HumanStory #Podcast

Every Saturday, we showcase a topic important to you by rounding up the greatest highlights and clips from Level 10 Contractor's ENTIRE podcast run.This week, we talk about Level 10 Contractor's Secret Sauce: Identity. You've been listening to Rich talk about Identity for a million years now on this podcast… And he's been talking about it for a lot longer than the podcast has been around, trust me! But how, exactly, do you determine what your identity points are… then execute on your identity? Glad you asked! On today's showcase we hit the ABC's of Level 10 Contractor Identity.

Have you ever dealt with the pain of rejection? Today, Joyce discusses how Jesus handled rejection and how knowing your worth in Christ can heal your heart and help you persevere.

Author Rick Patterson joins the podcast to discuss his book "Shame Unmasked: Disarming the Hidden Driver Behind Destructive Decisions." Through personal stories, Patterson explores systemic racial bias and how adopting four African-American children reshaped his understanding. The conversation delves into recognizing unconscious biases, addressing emotional triggers, and the complexities surrounding racial identity. As a pastor and corporate trainer, Patterson emphasizes the power of empathy and the importance of apologies in healing and understanding racial dynamics in America. Discover strategies to identify and confront hidden biases and the role of personal accountability.Rick shares invaluable insights into understanding and addressing systemic racial bias by unpacking the emotional triggers and entrenched preconceptions that perpetuate these biases. He emphasizes the importance of empathy and open conversations in bridging racial divides. The episode explores various dimensions of shame, particularly how it hinders genuine communication and perpetuates prejudice and bias on both sides of the racial divide. Rick's perspective as a white adoptive father of black children provides a unique and enriching angle on these critical topics. His call-to-action urges listeners to practice vulnerability through apologies, fostering a more understanding and inclusive society.Resources:Rick Patterson Connects: Rick Patterson's official website for more information and resources."Shame Unmasked: Disarming the Hidden Driver Behind Destructive Decisions" by Rick PattersonSponsors of this podcastMINT MobileGet this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at MINTMOBILE.com/TRANSFORM.ShopifySign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY.COM/transformTo advertise on our podcast, visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/TransformyourMindor email kriti@youngandprofiting.com See this video on The Transform Your Mind YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@MyhelpsUs/videosTo see a transcripts of this audio as well as links to all the advertisers on the show page https://myhelps.us/Follow Transform Your Mind on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/myrnamyoung/Follow Transform Your mind on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063738390977Please leave a rating and review on iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/transform-your-mind/id1144973094 https://podcast.feedspot.com/personal_development_podcasts/

Have you ever wondered how your last name connects to your cultural identity? In this episode, hosts John Viola and Patrick O'Boyle, alongside co-host Dr. Marcella Martin, dive into the deep ties between Italian heritage and personal identity. The conversation takes a powerful turn with guests Janice Cenzoprano and Ralph Colasanti from the Cooley's Anemia Foundation, who guide us through the genetic story of thalassemia. Together, we trace its Mediterranean roots, its links to malaria zones, and even its surprising historical connections to explorers like Marco Polo. Through a moving firsthand account, we hear what it was like to grow up with thalassemia in its early days of treatment — from demanding regimens to the life-changing arrival of oral chelators. Along the way, we highlight the often-unsung community heroes: organizations like Sons of Italy and UNICO, whose unwavering advocacy and support have been vital in this journey. We also revisit the grassroots philanthropy that helped pave the way for today's progress, celebrating figures like Joe Polari and Pat Acasella whose tireless efforts fueled awareness and research. Patient advocacy and breakthroughs in genetic therapy point toward a hopeful future, where advanced treatments could transform patient care. Join us for an episode rich with history, resilience, and community spirit — a testament to how cultural identity and collective action can shape both personal journeys and medical advancement.   THEIR SOCIALS Instagram: @cooleysanemia TikTok: tiktok.com/cooleysanemia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CooleysAnemiaFoundation X: @cooleysanemia Threads: @cooleysanemia LinkedIn: Cooley's Anemia Foundation   THEIR WEBSITE: Thalassmia.org NOTES FROM THE FOUNDATION: Our Thalassemia Care Walk Fundraiser is ongoing throughout the year. Check bit.ly/CAFCareWalk25 for upcoming walks in your city or simply to donate and help us find a universal cure for all patients. Care Walk T-shirts are available at bit.ly/CAFCareWalk25 with registration!

Pastor Dru Rodriguez reflects on the Transfiguration, highlighting how Jesus invited Peter, James, and John into intimate moments to witness His glory and reminding us that God reveals His power to ordinary people. He encourages reading the passage and asking Jesus to reveal His glory today.

Padres President of Baseball Operations and General Manager AJ Preller joined Ben & Woods on Friar Friday! Listen here as AJ talks about the upcoming postseason and how to balance resting guys vs playing for a higher seed, Randy Vasquez's great start last night, the team's offensive identity, and MUCH more!

 “Who Decided Austin's New Logo? The Fight to Reclaim Our City's Identity” 

In this episode of Crazy Wisdom, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Hannah Aline Taylor to explore themes of personal responsibility, freedom, and interdependence through her frameworks like the Village Principles, Distribution Consciousness, and the Empowerment Triangle. Their conversation moves through language and paradox, equanimity, desire and identity, forgiveness, leadership, money and debt, and the ways community and relationship serve as our deepest resources. Hannah shares stories from her life in Nevada City, her perspective on abundance and belonging, and her practice of love and curiosity as tools for living in alignment. You can learn more about her work at loving.university, on her website hannahalinetaylor.com, and in her book The Way of Devotion, available on Amazon.Check out this GPT we trained on the conversationTimestamps00:00 Stewart Alsop welcomes Hannah Aline Taylor, introducing Loving University, Nevada City, and the Village Principles.05:00 They talk about equanimity versus non-duality, emotional mastery, and curating experience through boundaries and high standards.10:00 The focus shifts to desire as “who do I want to be,” identity as abstraction, and relationships beyond monogamy or labels.15:00 Hannah introduces the Empowerment Triangle of anything, everything, nothing, reflecting on reality as it is and the role of perception.20:00 Discussion of Nevada City's healing energy, community respect, curiosity, and differences between East Coast judgment and West Coast freedom.25:00 Responsibility as true freedom, rebellion under tyranny, delicate ecosystems, and leadership inspired by the Dao De Jing.30:00 Love and entropy, conflict without enmity, curiosity as practice, and attention as the prerequisite for experience.35:00 Forgiveness, discernment, moral debts, economic debt, and reframing wealth consciousness through the “princess card.”40:00 Interdependence, community belonging, relationship as the real resource, and stewarding abundance in a disconnected world.45:00 Building, frontiers, wisdom of indigenous stewardship, the Amazon rainforest, and how knowledge without wisdom creates loss.50:00 Closing reflections on wholeness, abundance, scarcity, relationship technology, and prioritizing humanity in transition.Key InsightsHannah Taylor introduces the Village Principles as a framework for living in “distribution consciousness” rather than “acquisition consciousness.” Instead of chasing community, she emphasizes taking responsibility for one's own energy, time, and attention, which naturally draws people into authentic connection.A central theme is personal responsibility as the true meaning of freedom. For Hannah, freedom is inseparable from responsibility—when it's confused with rebellion against control, it remains tied to tyranny. Real freedom comes from holding high standards for one's life, curating experiences, and owning one's role in every situation.Desire is reframed from the shallow “what do I want” into the deeper question of “who do I want to be.” This shift moves attention away from consumer-driven longing toward identity, integrity, and presence, turning desire into a compass for embodied living rather than a cycle of lack.Language, abstraction, and identity are questioned as both necessary tools and limiting frames. Distinction is what fuels connection—without difference, there can be no relationship. Yet when we cling to abstractions like “monogamy” or “polyamory,” we obscure the uniqueness of each relationship in favor of labels.Hannah contrasts the disempowerment triangle of victim, perpetrator, and rescuer with her empowerment triangle of anything, everything, and nothing. This model shows reality as inherently whole—everything arises from nothing, anything is possible, and suffering begins when we believe something is wrong.The conversation ties money, credit, and debt to spiritual and moral frameworks. Hannah reframes debt not as a burden but as evidence of trust and abundance, describing her credit card as a “princess card” that affirms belonging and access. Wealth consciousness, she says, is about recognizing the resources already present.Interdependence emerges as the heart of her teaching. Relationship is the true resource, and abundance is squandered when lived independently. Stories of Nevada City, the Amazon rainforest, and even a friend's Wi-Fi outage illustrate how scarcity reveals the necessity of belonging, curiosity, and shared stewardship of both community and land.

 For episode 597 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Billy Luedtke, Founder of Intuition.Intuition is an open social information protocol that provides better information about the things people interact with online. Through empowering the creation and use of open information, Intuition helps applications and their users more reliably navigate our exponential world.Billy Luedtke has been building at the frontier of emerging tech for more than a decade, since Bitcoin in 2012 and Ethereum in March 2014. After launching EY's blockchain consulting practice, he spent over five years at ConsenSys shaping critical pieces of the Ethereum ecosystem. ⏳ Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction(1:16) Who is Billy Luedtke?(8:44) Mission of Intuition(12:10) AI use-cases & applications(18:03) Decentralizing identity & data(22:42) Incentivization through TRUST Token(26:00) Intuition use-cases(33:20) Intuition Roadmap(35:50) Intuition website, socials & community 

Dr. Ty Tengan is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa whose work emphasizes ethnic studies in relation to Hawaiian identity and masculinity, sovereignty, land, and militarism. His activism and work extends to running oral history field schools, cultural workshops, water rights and burial site protection. In this conversation, Melissa and Clay talk about Tenganʻs work in native Hawaiian repatriation, and the profound significance of ʻiwi kupuna burial practices perpetuating indigenous worldview. We discuss the “forced amnesia” of colonization and the re-learning and re-membering Hawaiian traditions and practices, especially those around Hawaiian masculinity.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Between Burning Man's storms, and Living Brave Live- the “Burning Man of business conferences”, I've been stretched, cracked open, and deeply transformed.In this episode, I'm taking you behind the curtain of what's been unfolding, the shifts I've had to embody, and the perspective that will change how you approach your money and your life.Tune in to learn  Behind the scenes of my last few weeks My biggest lessons from LBL A very surprising stat that will show you were you are on the wealth building adoption curve

Welcome back to another Faqs Project Podcast as we take time to speak with Mark Russell and Jok to talk about the fantastic Sci-Fi Anthology Vanishing Point. Mark and Jok collaborated on Issue 4 properly titled Proof of Life where a sentient robot is put on trial for acting more alive than usual and it begs the question "What defines being Alive?" This particular series deals with many themes: Mental Isolation and Lonliness, Survival being beyond a human condition and a function for all species, Capitalism beyond your own bounderies, and dreaming your last wishes through the one thing you found comfort in-Your favorite cartoon TV series. I ask Mark and Jok how characters that are somewhat flawed be forced into choices that lead them to peril and within each of these stories how they've been able to treat Identity.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-faqs-project-hosted-by-james-grandmaster-faqs-boyce/donations

Dad, who do you say you are? We live in a world that hands out labels like candy—your job, your personality type, your hobbies, your past. Some of those things matter, but not all of them belong in your identity bucket. In this episode, the second of a three part series on (you guessed it) IDENTITY, Kent and Lawson unpack the “I Am” statements of Jesus, explore what's true only of Him, what's true only of us, and what's true of us both.   From roles and skills to preferences and past experiences, we'll wrestle with what shapes us—and what we shouldn't let define us. Bottom line? Your identifiers don't define your identity; God does. You'll leave this episode with a clearer picture of your God-given identity, as well as some practical tools to help your kids sort through theirs.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------   Range Leather: Support the show and upgrade your fatherhood swag. Shop Range Leather and get 15% OFF with code MJ15 Grab some fresh beans! https://rangecoffee.com/   Fatherhood Guard – Connect with dads from over 20 states and at least 2 countries by joining the Fatherhood Guard. Grab your welcome hat at https://manhoodjourney.org/donate/fatherhood-guard/     Buy Kent's latest book: Don't Bench Yourself on Amazon   Read the new State Of Biblical Fatherhood report here: http://manhoodjourney.org/sobf Find tools to share the report here: https://manhoodjourney.org/sobf-tools   Have a topic you want us to touch on? Well, get in touch! Send us an email at: info@manhoodjourney.org   -------------------------------------------------------------------------   About our hosts: Kent Evans is the Executive Director and co-founder of Manhood Journey, a ministry that helps dads become disciple-makers. After a twenty-year career as a business leader, he embarked on biblical Fatherhood ministry projects. He's appeared on television, radio, web outlets and podcasts. He's spoken at parenting and men's events, and authored four books. The first, Wise Guys: Unlocking Hidden Wisdom from the Men Around You, was written to help men learn how to find mentors and wise counsel. The latest, Don't Bench Yourself: How to Stay in the Game Even When You Want to Quit, aims to help dads stay present in their roles as fathers and husbands even when they feel like giving up. Kent's life has been radically affected by godly mentors and his lovely wife, April. They have been married thirty years and have five sons and one daughter-in-law. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Lawson Brown is husband to his high school sweetheart, a father of two young adult daughters, has been a business leader since 1995, and is a former Marine. He served as a small group leader for teenage boys for many years, helped start the Christian media ministry City on a Hill Productions, then later Sanctuary – a new church in Kennesaw, GA – where he served as its leader for Men's Ministry. Lawson's journey of faith has always been centered in a grounding from his wife, Audrey, and supported throughout by many men whom he's found as brothers along the way. His family is nearing an empty nest phase and has recently relocated to the Florida Gulf Coast beaches area.  

Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller.   Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer.   Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps.   During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once.     About the Guest:   Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.    Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.   Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages.   His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.   Ways to connect with Matt:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.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 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it.   Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up?   Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it.   Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University   Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having   Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was   Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun.   Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go.   Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with.   Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right?   Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on?   Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those   Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think,   Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too?   Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun.   Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the   Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well.   Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with?   Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right?   Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI,   Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it,   Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for.   Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is.   Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right?   Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding,   Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals,   Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right,   Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did?   Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right?   Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts.   Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids?   Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people.   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway.   Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza   Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too.   Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time.   Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well.   Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun.   Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them.   Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah.   Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too   Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions.   Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes.   Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too,   Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides.   Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier,   Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose.   Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that.   Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really   Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book.   Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff,   Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince.   Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing.   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing,   Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping   Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you   Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back.   Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know,   Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that.   Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else.   Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you   Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way.   Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've   Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level,   Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in.   Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on.   Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make?   Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that.   Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all?   Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do.   Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while?   Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with.   Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that.   Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas   Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but   Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal?   Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process.   Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible.   Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I   Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that,   Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart.   Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived   Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting.   Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in   Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past,   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that,   Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre

What is the identity of this Chiefs team? full 601 Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:23:49 +0000 gCZZgiOCas4FyJlliwcFS96AKFNHOdFA nfl,kansas city chiefs,society & culture Cody & Gold nfl,kansas city chiefs,society & culture What is the identity of this Chiefs team? Hosts Cody Tapp & Alex Gold team up for 610 Sports Radio's newest mid-day show "Cody & Gold."  Two born & raised Kansas Citians, Cody & Gold have been through all the highs and lows as a KC sports fan and they know the passion Kansas City has for their sports teams."Cody & Gold" will be a show focused on smart, sports conversation with the best voices from KC and around the country. It will also feature our listeners with your calls, texts & tweets as we want you to be a part of the show, not just a listener.  Cody & Gold, weekdays 10a-2p on 610 Sports Radio.  2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=ht

This is a Self-Care Snippet from Worthy Mother Podcast. As mothers, we need to prioritize our own care. Within this few-minute long episode, you will hear how our past guests prioritize their own self-care and some tips on how you can do the same. Tune in to the full episode Co-Parenting, Identity, and Dating After Divorce with Jess Evans.Like what you hear? Make sure you are subscribed to Worthy Mother Podcast wherever you like to listen. For more motherhood content and support, connect with me on Instagram @honestlyemilyrose. Follow the podcast on Instagram @worthymotherpodcast.You are worthy, Mama.Send us a text

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Peter and Michael discuss a book that's light on facts and long on sentences.Where to find us: Our PatreonOur merch!Peter's newsletterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:Book Review: ‘Summer of Our Discontent,' by Thomas Chatterton WilliamsPolice shootings database 2015-2024From the archive, 22 March 1991: President Bush sickened by Rodney King caseBarack Obama Public ApprovalLetter To Christopher L. Eisgruber, President Princeton UniversityPolice give additional details in beating of machete-wielding man amid Dallas protestIn City After City, Police Mishandled Black Lives Matter ProtestsRIOTS IN LOS ANGELES: Challenger; Nation Needs Healing, Clinton SaysMedian household income by race and ethnicity U.S. 1967-2023Majority of college students support Israel/Gaza campus protests, 1 in 10 actually participate in themThomas Chatterton Williams on Race, Identity, and “Cancel Culture”Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Paul was recently invited to be a guest preacher last month. He is no longer on staff at a church and does not preach regularly, but it's one of his favorite things to do when he gets invited back into the puplit!In today's episode, Paul preaches on Galatians 2:20: The Danger of a Gap in Your Gospel.If you want to listen to 150 archived sermons from his days as a preaching pastor, you can find those on our dedicated Paul Tripp Sermon Podcast. Just search Paul Tripp Sermon Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts.

Believers Voice of Victory Video Broadcast for 09/11/2025. What do you do when the storms of life come? Watch Believer's Voice of Victory as Creflo Dollar explains how to overcome the storms of life with your identity in Christ. Discover how to choose your new identity in Christ, rather than fear and unforgiveness, and stay in a place of rest.

We read and respond to listener emails.Andrea Gibson substack referenced is HERE.You can google “JADE Al-Anon” to learn more about JADE (even from non-Al-Anon resources).The “Detachment Pamphlet” is HERE.Our website is HERE:  System Speak Podcast.You can submit an email to the podcast HERE.You can JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE.  Once you are in, you can use a non-Apple device or non-safari browser to join groups HERE. Once you are set up, then the website and app work on any device just fine.  We have peer support check-in groups, an art group, movie groups, social events, and classes.  Additional zoom groups are optional, but only available by joining the groups. Join us!Content Note: Content on this website and in the podcasts is assumed to be trauma and/or dissociative related due to the nature of what is being shared here in general.  Content descriptors are generally given in each episode.  Specific trigger warnings are not given due to research reporting this makes triggers worse.  Please use appropriate self-care and your own safety plan while exploring this website and during your listening experience.  Natural pauses due to dissociation have not been edited out of the podcast, and have been left for authenticity.  While some professional material may be referenced for educational purposes, Emma and her system are not your therapist nor offering professional advice.  Any informational material shared or referenced is simply part of our own learning process, and not guaranteed to be the latest research or best method for you.  Please contact your therapist or nearest emergency room in case of any emergency.  This website does not provide any medical, mental health, or social support services. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, host Avik Chakraborty sits down with entrepreneur, deep thinker, and spiritual seeker Trey Tijerina to explore how imagination can unlock the divine spark within us. Together they unpack unconscious programming, limiting beliefs, and the ways imagination can serve as both a tool for creation and for healing. Trey shares personal insights from fatherhood, entrepreneurship, and spiritual exploration—inviting us to dissolve old identifications and live in pure possibility rather than predictable limitations. This conversation challenges societal and mental systems while offering practical guidance on using imagination to manifest abundance, shift subconscious patterns, and find deeper alignment with love, freedom, and truth. About the Guest   Trey Tijerina is an entrepreneur with ventures across multiple industries, including three successful exits. Beyond business, Trey is a father and a spiritual explorer dedicated to helping people disrupt unconscious programming and access their inner power. His work bridges imagination, identity, and transformation, guiding individuals to live more freely and authentically. Key Takeaways   Most people live on unconscious programming passed down through generations—but we can disrupt and reframe it. Imagination isn't just daydreaming; when paired with feeling, it becomes a powerful tool for manifestation. Manifestation fails when thoughts of abundance clash with feelings of fear or lack—feeling is the true driver. Becoming a parent was Trey's personal disruption, reflecting back deeper truths about self and relationships. Money beliefs often stem from family programming, but we can choose to reprogram intentionally. True imagination aligns with unpredictability and pure possibility, not just probability and control. Dissolving identification with “I am” labels opens access to spiritual truth and freedom. Imagination can be a healing tool through revision—reframing past experiences to shift how we carry them forward. Time is an illusion; memory is imagination at work, allowing us to reshape the way we relate to the past. The universe responds not to what we want, but to who we are—our collective thoughts, beliefs, and energy. Connect with the Guest   Socials: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (@whypaytrey) Email: whypaytreymedia@gmail.com Trey offers one-on-one coaching for individuals seeking freedom from limitations, deeper self-identity, and more abundance in life. Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM on PM - Send me a message on PodMatch DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik Disclaimer   This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the guest and do not reflect the views of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, brand, product, country, or profession mentioned. All third-party media used remain the property of their respective owners and are used under fair use for informational purposes. By watching, you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. Healthy Mind By Avik™️ is a global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Born during the pandemic, it's become a sanctuary for healing, growth, and mindful living. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty, this channel shares powerful podcasts and soul-nurturing conversations on mental health, mindfulness, trauma recovery, holistic healing, and conscious living. Subscribe and be part of this healing journey. Contact

In this episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, host Sana sits down with Jack Sorenson to explore a sustainable approach to health and fitness called the Floor and Ceiling Method. Jack shares his personal journey from being a collegiate athlete to battling unhealthy habits, facing identity loss, and ultimately rebuilding his life through fitness, sobriety, and mindset shifts. Instead of chasing perfection or burning out, Jack's method helps people set realistic “floors” (minimum effort on hard days) and aspirational “ceilings” (maximum capacity without burnout) to stay consistent long-term. This episode uncovers how small, steady actions create a lifestyle that lasts, and why pivoting doesn't mean stopping—it means adapting for sustainability. If you've ever struggled with yo-yo dieting, unrealistic workout plans, or self-criticism for not being “perfect,” this conversation will show you how to reframe your health journey for real progress and balance. About the Guest   Jack Sorenson is a fitness coach, entrepreneur, and creator of the Floor and Ceiling Method. A former multi-sport athlete turned health strategist, Jack helps people “start and never stop” by combining practical fitness strategies with mindset tools. After overcoming addiction and weight struggles, he now empowers others to build sustainable habits that align with their lifestyle. Key Takeaways   The Floor and Ceiling Method ensures progress by setting non-negotiable minimums and achievable maximums. Consistency beats intensity—progress is built over years, not weeks. Perfection is unrealistic; sustainability comes from doing “less but longer.” Health is more than physical—it's mental and emotional resilience. Pivoting in your fitness routine is not failure—it's adapting for longevity. Identity shift is key: health must be part of who you are, not a temporary phase. Movement in any form—walking, weightlifting, pickleball, or mobility work—counts toward a healthy lifestyle. Sharing your story openly can be a powerful step toward healing and helping others.   Connect with the Guest   Instagram: @sorensonfit Email: jack@sorensonfitness.com Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM on PM - Send me a message on PodMatch DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik Disclaimer   This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the guest and do not reflect the views of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, brand, product, country, or profession mentioned. All third-party media used remain the property of their respective owners and are used under fair use for informational purposes. By watching, you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. About Healthy Mind By Avik™️   Healthy Mind By Avik™️ is a global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Born during the pandemic, it has grown into a sanctuary for healing, growth, and mindful living. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty, it features powerful podcasts and conversations around: • Mental Health & Emotional Well-being• Mindfulness & Spiritual Growth• Holistic Healing & Conscious Living• Trauma Recovery & Self-Empowerment With 4,400+ episodes and 168.4K+ listeners worldwide, join us to break stigma and build a world where every story matters.

In this episode I got to talk with Author and certified coach Ingrid Hu Dahl. Her new book, "Sun Shining on Morning Snow" is a testatment to the importance of preserving family history and finding ways to talk about the things that we tend to avoid talking about. After the death of her mother, Ingrid reflected on their relationship and how thier respective journeys of identity and self discovery was similar. Having her own struggle with both her cultural and sexual identity, Ingrid manages to weave her grief into a memoir that is about the ways our relationship to our parents and our past shape our future. We also talk about the importance of continuing to tell the stories that make us, and to keep the memories of our loved ones alive. Get the book at https://www.sunshiningonmorningsnow.com/buy Find out more about Ingrid and her coaching at https://www.ingridhudahl.com/ Follow ingrid on IG @sunshiningonmorningsnow

Guest Shayna Hodge (they/them) joins the show once more to round out our coverage on the Marielle Heller adaptation of Rachel Yoder's NIGHTBITCH. In episode 358, join Luke, James, and Shayna as they breakdown Amy Adam's stark portrayal, unpack the changes made to the husband's character, make a surprising “American Psycho” connection, hear about an out-of-pocket question asked to the film's creators, and finally all cast their vote on which one's better: the book or the movie! NOTE: We occasionally refer to the main character as “The Mother,” which is the name used for the protagonist in the novel, without explaining that context. Potentially confusing during our discussion of “the mother” in the movie (meaning Amy Adam's character's mother as seen in the flashbacks). Pickup NIGHTBITCH or any of the novels they've covered at the Ink to Film Bookshop! https://bookshop.org/shop/inktofilm Support Ink to Film on Patreon for bonus content, merch, and the ability to vote on upcoming projects! https://www.patreon.com/inktofilm Ink to Film's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky (@inktofilm) Home Base: inktofilm.com Patreon Familiar Faces video Shayna Hodge TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@batttykoda IG: https://www.instagram.com/batttykoda/ Luke Elliott Website: www.lukeelliottauthor.com Social Media: https://www.lukeelliottauthor.com/social Writing: https://www.lukeelliottauthor.com/publications James Bailey Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jamebail.bsky.social IG: https://www.instagram.com/jamebail/

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed by a big goal that you back away and settle for “safe”?Here's the truth: in order to succeed, you have to fail more. And you'll have problems either way—so why not live an awesome life? In this episode, Rachel & Greg break down the mindset and method they've used for 23+ years to make bold decisions, face fear, and move forward even when it's scary.You'll learn how to:Flip fear from a stop sign into a signal you're on the right pathUse the “exchange rate” test to decide if a dream is worth the priceShrink overwhelm with step-by-step moves (exposure in bite-sized reps)See how obstacles transform you into the person who can live your dreamAdopt the mantra: “I'll either find a way—or I'll make one.”Bottom line: your fears aren't facts. When you face them strategically, the “impossible” becomes doable—and your life expands.Key Takeaways✅ Overwhelm means growth is near, not that you should quit.✅ Problems are guaranteed; choose the ones that lead to an extraordinary life.✅ Exposure beats avoidance: tiny reps dissolve massive fears.✅ Decide by “exchange rate”: is the cost (work/problems) worth the outcome?✅ Identity shift: obstacles forge the person who can hold the life you want.Chapters00:00 Embracing the Sun: A Controversial Perspective01:09 The Catalyst for Extraordinary Living02:26 Overcoming Overwhelm: The Decision to Act04:17 Facing Challenges: The Path to Growth06:10 The Irony of Fear: Choosing a Boring Life08:39 Transforming Fear into Opportunity11:18 Breaking Through Barriers: The Edge of Comfort13:45 Processing Fear: A Journey of Growth15:29 The Power of Facing Fears20:41 The Importance of Awareness in Overcoming Fear24:05 Living Beyond Limits: The Flea AnalogyMemorable Quotes

Some people think being rich means owning a lot of things—when in reality, being “rich” often means a lot of things owning you. The signs of wealth are all around us: luxury cars, upscale neighborhoods, designer clothes, vacation homes. But do possessions really make people rich in a way that matters?It's hard to keep a Christ-centered perspective on wealth when our culture constantly pressures us to want more, buy more, and accumulate more. But this isn't a new problem. Jesus warned in Luke 12:15:“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”Money and possessions aren't inherently bad, but they often tempt us toward greed, selfishness, and discontent. We need money to live, but when money becomes the main thing, it becomes a dangerous master.When Possessions Begin to Possess YouJesus doesn't just warn against greed—He offers us the key to true life: don't make your existence all about “the abundance of possessions,” or your possessions will start to possess you. Proverbs 23:4–5 echoes this wisdom:“Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone…”Material things can never give your heart what it truly craves.In Luke 12, Jesus tells the story of a wealthy man who tears down his barns to build bigger ones, dreaming of a long, comfortable retirement. But before he can enjoy it, God says:“You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”Jesus concludes, “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”The man's tragedy wasn't just that his life ended suddenly—it was that he invested his soul in temporary abundance instead of eternal riches.Eternity Written on Our HeartsEcclesiastes 3:11 reminds us that God has “set eternity in the human heart.” Deep down, we long for meaning, purpose, and eternal life—not just more stuff. C. S. Lewis put it well:“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in': aim at Earth and you get neither.”True abundance is found in knowing God, walking with Him, and letting His love overflow into the way we love others.Jesus said in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” And in John 15:5, He promised, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.”The abundant life isn't about bigger barns or fuller closets—it's about abiding in Christ. When we do, our lives bear fruit that blesses others and glorifies God.Where Is Your Treasure?So ask yourself: What are you depending on to give your life meaning? Could some of those things be quietly taking God's place in your heart?Pray for the Lord to uproot those desires and refocus your attention on Him. Because true wealth isn't found in what you own—it's found in who owns you.That's why we created Rich Toward God—a 4-week study on the Parable of the Rich Fool. It unpacks what it means to live open-handed with your finances, showing how biblical wisdom doesn't just transform your bank account—it transforms your heart.You can order your copy—or place a bulk order for your group—by visiting FaithFi.com and clicking “Shop.”On Today's Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:I'm unsure how to handle requests for financial help from my husband's son and his family. They face ongoing money struggles and sometimes ask us for assistance, but I'm concerned that giving could be enabling poor decisions, like spending on things that don't reflect our values. How can we approach this situation with wisdom and biblical discernment?I already have a financial advisor and some investments in place, but I want to make sure my money is supporting companies that align with my faith. Is there a tool or resource that can help me evaluate whether my investments are consistent with biblical values?I have a will, and all my investments already list beneficiaries. My advisor says a trust isn't necessary, but my children believe it's the best way to avoid probate. Do I really need a trust? Also, since my husband passed away, should I update my will and the deed to my home?Resources Mentioned:Faithful Steward: FaithFi's New Quarterly Magazine (Become a FaithFi Partner)List of Faith-Based Investment FundsWise Women Managing Money: Expert Advice on Debt, Wealth, Budgeting, and More by Miriam Neff and Valerie Neff Hogan, J.D.Wisdom Over Wealth: 12 Lessons from Ecclesiastes on MoneyLook At The Sparrows: A 21-Day Devotional on Financial Fear and AnxietyRich Toward God: A Study on the Parable of the Rich FoolFind a Certified Kingdom Advisor (CKA) or Certified Christian Financial Counselor (CertCFC)FaithFi App Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on the Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. Visit our website at FaithFi.com where you can join the FaithFi Community and give as we expand our outreach.

✨ Enrollment for PUSH to 100 closes tonight at midnight! If you've been waiting, this is your moment. Join me and an incredible community for 100 days alcohol-free. The challenge starts tomorrow, September 12th, and enrollment closes tonight (9/11) at midnight. Don't do this alone. Join the PUSH to 100 here → https://nomorewasteddays.co/push-to-100/ What really happens when you go 100 days without alcohol? In today's shorty episode, I'm walking you through the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual changes that unfold during the first 100 days of alcohol-free living. This is more than just white-knuckling it through a few weeks. It's about experiencing a full transformation in body, mind, and spirit. We'll break it down in clear timelines: Days 1–10 → The shock and shift. Withdrawal, sleep disruption, cravings, and the importance of tools and mindset right from the start. Days 11–30 → New patterns emerge. Energy begins to stabilize, mood regulation improves, and skin clarity starts to show. Days 31–60 → Identity begins to shift. Confidence grows, relationships change, and new habits take root. Days 61–90 → True rewiring. Dopamine recalibrates, triggers become easier to manage, and emotional resilience builds. Days 91–100 → Transformation takes root. Sobriety feels natural, self-trust deepens, and life begins to expand in exciting new directions. 100 days is a milestone that changes everything. It's not the finish line. It's the launchpad for a whole new way of living. Resources & Links

Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.Follow along as Bree shares her passion for books, audiobooks, and bringing stories to life in these classic novel audiobooks. Busy schedule? Each episode is just one chapter, or bite of a classic novel, play or short story, which means you can fit in your reading goals while getting ready for work, bed, or on your commute.Follow, rate, and review Bite at a Time Books where we read you your favorite classics, one bite at a time. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.Check out our website, or join our Facebook Group!Get exclusive Behind the Scenes content on our YouTube!We are now part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network!If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story wherever you listen to podcasts.Follow us on all the socials: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - TikTokFollow Bree at: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

DallasCowboys.com insider Mickey Spagnola joins the show to break down the Cowboys' opening week loss to Philadelphia, the impact of trading away Micah Parsons, and how the defense adjusts moving forward. He shares insight on the pass rush rotation, the offensive line's first real test together, and what the Cowboys must clean up to bounce back against the Giants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Beyond Limits, Olivia sits down with Christina Galbato—entrepreneur, creator, and former CEO of an eight-figure online education company—to talk about what happens when success stops feeling like truth.Christina Galbato is an educator, podcast host, and creator with a cross-platform audience of over half a million. Through her content, programs, and podcast She's WELLthy, she helps women use their subconscious mind, nervous system, universal laws, and aligned strategy to build the life & business of their dreams. Her programs have been taken by over 20,000 students in nearly 100 countries.Christina is also the co-founder of The Connected Table, an exclusive dinner series bringing together female founders and entrepreneurs who value personal growth beyond just business.She has been featured in Bloomberg Business, CNN, Forbes, and New York Post, and has spoken at conferences like AdWorld and StartUp Grind.Key Takeaways

Before her family became a household name, Heidi D'Amelio was a stay-at-home mom in Connecticut, raising two daughters and living a ‘normal' life. Then, almost overnight, her daughter Charli went viral on TikTok… and everything changed.In this episode, Heidi reflects on life before the fame, how her family stayed grounded through the whirlwind, and the identity shifts that followed. She opens up about rediscovering who she is beyond “mom,” and what it looks like to carve out space for herself in this next chapter. This conversation is honest, inspiring, and a powerful reminder to embrace growth — to stay playful, stay curious, and never be limited by who you once thought you had to be.This episode is brought to you by: Nara Organics, a new one-of-a-kind baby formula, is the very first USDA organic certified whole milk formula that's made with no skim milk. Use code MORETHANMOMS10 for an extra 10% off their already discounted Starter Bundle for a limited time.Bedtime just got easier

Design isn't a straight road. It's more like a maze with moving walls. In this episode, strategist Jen Briselli shows us why learning, relationships, and hidden networks matter more than best practices when navigating complex organizations.How do you thrive as a designer when the org around you is unpredictable, political, and constantly changing?Most designers hit a wall at some point in their career: their skills are strong, but the system they're working in feels impossible to navigate. Best practices don't seem to work, processes break down, and “design maturity” feels like a buzzword no one can actually define.That's where Jen Briselli comes in. With a background in physics, teaching, and design strategy, Jen helps teams understand what complexity really means and why learning is the only way through it. In our conversation, she explains how complicated and complex are not the same thing, how informal networks drive influence more than org charts, and why the real work of design is creating the conditions for growth rather than forcing outcomes.If you've ever felt stuck in a low-maturity team, frustrated by org politics, or burned out by chasing “best practices,” this episode will reframe how you see your role. Thriving in complexity and ambiguity is not about having all the answers. Instead, it's about learning how to sense, adapt, and build the great relationships that make great software possible.Take a listen to learn how to stop fighting complexity and start working with it.Topics:• 02:41 – Understanding Complexity in Product Design• 04:06 – Jen Belli's Journey into Complexity Science• 04:41 – Exploring Complexity Science in Design• 11:55 – The Difference Between Complex and Complicated Systems• 16:56 – Navigating Complex Systems in UX Design• 30:56 – The Role of Learning in Complex Systems• 34:58 – Formal and Informal Networks in Organizations• 40:57 – Understanding the Metaphor of Soil, Seeds, and Sunlight• 41:54 – Exploring Design Maturity and Emergent Properties• 43:33 – Creating Conditions for Psychological Safety and Design Maturity• 44:46 – The Role of Affordances in Design Maturity• 45:06 – Nurturing Growth in Unpredictable Environments• 50:00 – Balancing Work and Mental Health• 54:18 – The Importance of Identity and Letting Go• 57:33 – Final Thoughts on Complexity and LearningHelpful Links:• Connect with Jen on LinkedIn• Learning is the Engine // Jen's Rosenfeld Talk• Jen's YouTube channel—Thanks for listening! We hope you dug today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! And if you really enjoyed today's episode, why don't you leave a five-star review? Or tell some friends! It will help us out a ton.If you haven't already, sign up for our email list. We won't spam you. Pinky swear.• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get a FREE audiobook AND support the show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out show transcripts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out our website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Stitcher⁠

In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, our hosts John Kaplan and John McMahon welcome back Mike Hayes, former Navy SEAL and current sales leader at Insight Partners. They discuss Mike's new book, Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose, and how its lessons apply to sales success and leadership. Mike emphasizes the importance of rooting your work in alignment with personal values and goals, which leads to not only greater outcomes and accomplishments but a sense of fulfillment. Mike also shares insights from his 20-year government career and his transition to the private sector as a sales leader. This episode is an essential listen for anyone seeking to align their personal values with their professional journey.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESBuy Mike's book, Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose:https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/mike-hayes/mission-driven/9780306836534/Support the 1162 Foundation's mission of helping Gold Star families:https://givebutter.com/1162foundationListen to the first podcast with Mike Hayes on Mission, Meaning and Impact from Navy SEALs to Sales:https://www.forcemanagement.com/mission-meaning-and-impact-with-mike-hayesConnect with Mike Hayes:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hayes-733688/Instagram: Mike Hayes (@thisis.mikehayes)X: @thisismikehayes (@thisismikehayes) on XWatch Force Management's Panel Discussion on Growth, Valuation and Execution: https://bit.ly/4p6kyGSRead the Guide on Winning Government Contracts: https://bit.ly/3UYAOvOEnjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:03:05] The 1162 Foundation and Supporting Gold Star Families[00:07:12] The "Who" vs. "What": A Core Lesson on Identity[00:11:48] The Challenge of Transitioning from a High-Profile Role[00:16:01] The Power of Honest Self-Reflection and Feedback[00:25:50] The Dan Hurley Story: Purpose Over Paycheck[00:33:14] The Three Circles: Aligning Energy, Skill, and Business Need[00:36:20] Adaptability and Developing a "Meta Plan"[00:43:03] Building Resilience and Finding Perspective in Hardship[00:48:19] The Importance of Being Intentional with Your Emotions[00:55:10] A Story of Competition and Humility in IraqHIGHLIGHT QUOTES[00:08:45] "We would always say, who do you want to be? Because the who is that deeper you... let's not connect self-esteem or success based on a what, in a title and a position."[00:41:01] "The acid test, I think for a life well lived is how many people who you've never met have you positively impacted."[00:44:17] "When you're having a hard day, the best thing to do is go find somebody who's having a harder day and go help him or her."[00:53:11] "No one is actually selling technology. What you're actually doing is selling trust."[00:54:15] "When 15 men are wrong, look in the mirror."

Working out is more than checking off a box. The real benefit shows up when movement becomes part of who you are, not just something you do a few times a week. BOOK A CALL WITH PERRY: http://talktoperry.com TEXT ME: (208) 400-5095 JOIN MY FREE COMMUNITY: http://upsidedownfit.com The Legacy Continues with Syona and Tony Horton: https://freedom2b.automaticceo.com/ RESOURCES Best Probiotic for Gut Health: https://bit.ly/probyo Best Focus & Memory Product: https://bit.ly/dryvefocus Daily Success Habits (Free Download): morningsuccesshabits.com Best Home Workouts – Power Nation: https://sharesyona.co/?url=perrytinsley WOW! You made it all the way down here. I'm seriously impressed! Most people stop scrolling way earlier. You officially rock, my friend.

SUMMARY: In this episode, Aaron sits down with Dr. Jim Bob Haggerton—entrepreneur, chiropractor, and leadership coach—to explore the realities of running businesses, facing setbacks, and redefining success. Dr. Haggerton shares his journey from building a thriving chiropractic practice, to experiencing a life-altering injury, to reinventing himself as a multi-business entrepreneur. Together, they discuss lessons in leadership, the dangers of over-dependence on yourself, the power of building a strong team, and how to align business with long-term vision and family priorities. This conversation offers wisdom for anyone navigating growth, identity, and the pursuit of freedom through entrepreneurship.   Minute by Minute: 00:00 - Introduction 03:42 – From Chiropractic to Entrepreneurship 05:00 – Spotting Gaps and Building Businesses 06:40 – Lessons from Chaos and Overwork 09:14 – The Accident That Changed Everything 11:00 – Why Teams and Diversification Matter 13:02 – Identity, Hustle, and the Grind Mindset 17:20 – Redefining the Win: Freedom Over Hustle 23:00 – Building Legacy Through Boundaries and Team 26:00 – Closing Thoughts and Where to Connect with Jim Bob

The combined creative economies of Western Europe, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are now valued at over $1 trillion - driven primarily by solo entrepreneurs and small teams. So why in these seemingly booming times do many creative entrepreneurs still feel like they are struggling? Today we explore the disconnect between this massive opportunity and the way most creative entrepreneurs are trying to build their businesses - and reveal the three key shifts that are making all the difference for those who are succeeding. You will discover you are more ready than you think...   Key Moments: [00:00] Challenging conventional wisdom about creative businesses [02:00] The incredible scale of the creative economy - UK and global figures [05:53] Why creative businesses still struggle despite market strength  [08:58] The three real reasons creative entrepreneurs get stuck [11:44] Why now is actually the perfect time for creative businesses  [17:33] What's working now - key shifts for success [17:50] First shift: Identity over tactics [19:33] Second shift: Building around your natural strengths [20:59] Third shift: Sustainable systems that support creativity  [23:45] Your place in the creative economy and next steps   Notable Quotes: "What's easy for you is often impossible for your clients - that's exactly why they need you." "The creative entrepreneurs who are succeeding aren't starting with marketing strategies or business plans. They're starting with a fundamental shift in how they see themselves."   Resources Mentioned: Read: This Week's Full Journal Post Link: The Base Notes Waitlist Pinterest Experiment Guide:  Follow Along with My Pinterest Experiment  Subscribe to our Weekly newsletter Website: www.philippacraddock.com Email: news@philippacraddock.com    Share Your Insights: How has your perspective on your creative business changed after hearing these market insights? I'd love to hear what resonated most with you - send me a DM on Instagram. I really do read and respond to every message, however old the episode - your insights often inspire future episodes.   Never Miss an Episode: Subscribe to my weekly newsletter for behind-the-scenes insights from each episode, plus exclusive resources and first access to new offerings. You'll get the deeper context that makes each episode even more valuable.  

In this episode of Faith in Healthcare, Dr. Steve Willing joins host Dr. Mike Chupp to explore the neuroscience behind what is often described as transgender identity. Drawing from his decades of experience in pediatric neuroradiology, as well as his work in apologetics and scholarship, Dr. Willing examines brain imaging research, neuroplasticity, and the impact of puberty blockers. He challenges healthcare professionals to seek truth in a field clouded by controversy, while reminding us to respond with courage, compassion, and conviction as followers of Christ.

At some point in life, every one of us faces a moment of reckoning, the quiet knock inside that tells us we've outgrown a role, a title, or even an identity we've carried for years. In this episode of The Inner Edge, Janet explores the courage it takes to let go of who you've been to step into the person you're becoming.Janet shares her own deeply personal story of moving from a successful corporate career into a new chapter as a creator, coach, and entrepreneur. Through her journey, she invites you to reflect on what parts of yourself you may have outgrown, and how to honor the roles that shaped you while making space for what's next.In this episode: Why outgrowing an identity doesn't mean rejecting your past How to recognize when restlessness signals growth, not just burnout The fears that keep us tethered to roles we've outgrown Practices to help you name and honor the identity you've moved past How listening to your inner whisper can guide your next chapter Why reinvention is an evolution, not a sudden leap The importance of gratitude for the roles and systems that shaped youAbout Janet Ioli:Janet Ioli is a globally recognized executive advisor, coach, and leadership expert with over 25 years of experience developing leaders in Fortune 100 companies and global organizations.She created The Inner Edge—a framework, a movement, and a message that flips leadership from mere success performance to presence; from ego to soul. Through her keynotes, podcast, and programs, Janet helps high-achievers find the one thing that changes everything: the mastery within.Her approach redefines leadership presence—not as polish or tactics, but as the inner steadiness people feel from you and the positive imprint you leave on individuals and organizations.Connect with Janet Ioli:Website: janetioli.comLinkedin: Janet IoliInstagram: @leadershipcoachjanetIf you want to become more grounded, confident, and aligned with your deeper values in just 21 days, check out Janet Ioli's book Less Ego, More Soul: A Modern Reinvention Guide for Women. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Select “Listen in Apple Podcasts,” then choose the “Ratings & Reviews” tab to share what you think. Produced by Ideablossoms

A Jacksonville Jaguars podcast. A little Xs and Os, a lot of vibes. Join our Discord Chat ► https://discord.gg/BJmXnbbUDonate $5/mo. to the cause of Dunn and Drew! It helps fight burnout! LOL ► Patreon.com/dunnanddrewMerch Store!! ► https://www.dunnanddrew.com/Join the Sports conversation in our Facebook Group ► https://www.facebook.com/groups/dunnanddrewHOW TO LISTEN TO DUNN AND DREW!!APPLE PODCASTS (Review and Rate us!) ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dunn-and-drew/id1241016673?mt=2SPOTIFY ► https://open.spotify.com/show/1oGGXrtfCE1iaYmlJwXQod?si=LBFhTE5pSrq6aPVg8VLIIg••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••­­­•••••••••••Keep up with us on social media!!TIK TOK: https://vm.tiktok.com/3KggT2/TWITTER: https://twitter.com/dunnanddrewINSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/dunnanddrewFACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/dunnanddrew/BUSINESS INQUIRIES: dunnanddrew@gmail.com••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••­­­•••••••••••Personal social media accountsTWITTER:DUNN: https://twitter.com/ericvdunnDREW: https://twitter.com/ndy_willisINSTAGRAM: DUNN: https://instagram.com/ericvdunn_DREW: https://instagram.com/ndywillis••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••­­­•••••••••••PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! DUNN AND DREW BABY!!

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, life just keeps happening to you and nothing seems to go as planned? That was me for years, fully living in the hot mess identity. Luggage would get lost, technology would fail, people would show up late, and somehow none of it was ever my fault. I believed the world dictated my day, my energy, and my results, and I spent more time reacting to circumstances than leading my life.   In this episode, I share thirteen specific shifts that helped me shed the hot mess identity and consistently show up as a reliable, resourceful, and prepared coach and business owner. This includes honoring my word no matter the circumstances, planning for other people's potential messiness, building buffer time into every part of my day, and stopping the habit of shaming myself or letting others shame me. By implementing these changes, I was able to move from chaos to calm, create space to execute at my best, and fully own my actions and results.   If you want to start making serious money as a coach, you need to check out 2k for 2k. Click here to join: https://staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k! 

In this episode, I'm breaking down how extremity becomes identity. When you live at the very edge of your craft, you stand apart from the dabblers who only do it halfway. I share how, back in my basketball days, players admired Kobe Bryant's extreme work ethic even though most couldn't match it. To make something part of your identity, you don't have to be the only one doing it, you just have to take it further than anyone else. I'll explain how to push to that level so your extreme becomes who you are. Show Notes:  [03:07]#1 Things you do at the extreme are how people come to define you.  [10:47]#2 Repetition at the edges forces recognition.  [17:54]#3  Extremity creates separation.  [25:28]Recap Next Steps: ---

Episode 4674: The Uniparty Has Destroyed The Identity Of America