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The Rectification of Names is a Confucian reinterpretation of the function of language. Confucius is usually portrayed as a stuffy moralist, but there is an intriguing notion implicit in his use of language that borders on the postmodern. Confucius does not merely give definitions of things, but seizes for the philosopher the power to redefine names according to a moral end. Michael Puett, The Path (Talks at Google): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfnSTr6-1g4Hans Georg Moeller's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@carefreewandering
Send us a textThis week, we're joined by Paul Dodd, Senior Operating Partner and Head of Go-to-Market Operations at Sixth Street, one of the most respected private credit and private equity firms in the world. This episode is Part 2 of our Business Operations 101 series, and we're digging into how firms like Sixth Street actually create value inside the companies they invest in. Paul specializes in helping tech and SaaS businesses scale efficiently, so instead of talking about dealmaking, we're talking about what happens after the deal closes: how to turn strategy into growth.Paul walks us through what “go-to-market” really means in practice, from aligning sales and marketing to optimizing customer retention and pricing. He explains how small operational improvements, like shortening onboarding time or using AI to coach sales teams, compound into massive enterprise value during the investment period. We also get into how Sixth Street's operating and deal teams work hand-in-hand, why culture and process discipline matter as much as capital, and how flexibility in capital structure allows them to back great companies through every stage of growth.And finally, we tackle the viral headline of the week: OpenAI is hiring ex–investment banking analysts and MBAs to remove the "drudgery" of junior banking work. We break down whether AI can really replace analysts, why building financial models is still critical to learning the business, and what it means for the future of entry-level Wall Street jobs.Paul Dodd is a Go-to-Market, Operating Partner at Sixth Street focused on providing core expertise to organizations in order to maximize revenue generation and profitable growth.Before joining Sixth Street, Paul served as Chief Growth Officer at SecureLink, SVP of Sales for Compeat Tech, Head of Sales for the GA360 Measurement Suite at Google, and previously served as Vice President of World Wide Sales at Adometry, a leading provider of multi-touch attribution & cross-channel intelligence, acquired by Google in 2014. Before Adometry, Paul served as Vice President of Sales for Retail at Bazaarvoice and as Chief Strategy & Global Sales Officers for Design Reactor/6Connex.He holds an MBA from Baylor University-Hankamer School of Business, an M.A. in Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, and a B.A. in Accounting from Kent State University.For 20% off Deleteme, use the code TWSS or click the link HERE! Shop our Self Paced Courses: Investment Banking & Private Equity Fundamentals HEREFixed Income Sales & Trading HERE Our content is for informational purposes only. You should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. (Learn more HERE)
Send us a textThis week on Ficonomy, we cut through the noise around three major economic stories shaping your spending in 2025. Tariffs are costing companies $1.2 trillion — and most of that is ending up in your grocery cart, your tech gadgets, and your bills. The Fed's latest Beige Book confirms that prices are rising and consumers are already feeling the squeeze. And just as inflation reports hit the news, experts are warning that the data might not tell the full story.We'll unpack what all of this really means for you — in plain language — and share practical tools to help you protect your wallet, budget smarter, and stay ahead of rising prices. What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy tariffs are quietly driving prices up across industriesHow companies pass extra costs to consumers (and when you'll feel it)What the Fed's Beige Book reveals about real-world inflation pressureWhy inflation data might be misleading — and how to track your own “personal inflation”Actionable tips: building a spending buffer, buying smart, and budgeting for cost spikes Articles DiscussedCNBC: Tariff costs to companies this year to hit $1.2 trillion, with consumers taking most of the hit, S&P says https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/16/tariff-costs-to-companies-this-year-to-hit-1point2-trillion-with-consumers-taking-most-of-the-hit-sp-says.htmlCNBC: Tariffs are pushing prices higher and consumers are feeling the hit, Fed's Beige Book shows https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/tariffs-are-pushing-prices-higher-and-consumers-are-feeling-the-hit-feds-beige-book-shows.htmlCNBC: This week's critical inflation report comes with doubts about the data https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/21/this-weeks-critical-inflation-report-comes-with-doubts-about-the-data.html Practical TakeawaysPlan Ahead: Expect gradual price increases through the holidays — and budget accordingly.Track Your Spending: Watch imported goods and categories like groceries, electronics, and apparel.Question the Numbers: Official inflation might understate what you're actually experiencing.Act, Don't React: Build a small “price-shock fund” and explore alternatives or substitutions before costs rise further. Listen & SubscribeStay sharp on how global economics affect your daily life — without the jargon.
The ultimate list of things to do when you think "you have nothing to do!" Learn the Adobe SoftwaresLearn how to Build a WebsiteTeach yourself how to set up a shop on ShopifyStart a podcast!Take the ACT "Work Keys" testEnroll in a certification course (Google, Udemy, Coursera)Write/Self-Publish a BookLearn Paid AdvertisingGet comfortable with Posting to Social MediaElevate Your LinkedInOrder Business CardsSet Up Meetings with Industry ExpertsSave this list and refer back to it when you're "bored!"
The AI Breakdown: Daily Artificial Intelligence News and Discussions
AI systems just got a huge context boost. Anthropic adds memory to Claude, OpenAI launches “Company Knowledge” to connect ChatGPT directly to enterprise data, and Microsoft debuts long-term memory and shared context in Copilot. Plus, Oracle's record $38B debt deal to fund AI infrastructure, Google's massive TPU expansion with Anthropic, and a real-world success story showing what vibe coding can do.Brought to you by:KPMG – Discover how AI is transforming possibility into reality. Tune into the new KPMG 'You Can with AI' podcast and unlock insights that will inform smarter decisions inside your enterprise. Listen now and start shaping your future with every episode. https://www.kpmg.us/AIpodcastsAssemblyAI - The best way to build Voice AI apps - https://www.assemblyai.com/briefBlitzy.com - Go to https://blitzy.com/ to build enterprise software in days, not months Robots & Pencils - Cloud-native AI solutions that power results https://robotsandpencils.com/The Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score.The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614Interested in sponsoring the show? sponsors@aidailybrief.ai
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage may have started at a data center in Virginia, but its effects were felt by millions worldwide. Apps for banking, e-commerce, smart home devices and social media slowed, glitched or completely shut down. With so much of our lives dependent on cloud services from Amazon, Google and Microsoft, do consumers need more options? In this episode: Belle Lin (@bellelin_), reporter, The Wall Street Journal Episode credits: This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, Noor Wazwaz, and Tracie Hunte with Amy Walters, Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Farhan Rafid, Fatima Shafiq, Tamara Khandaker and our host, Malika Bilal. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
Reformed Brotherhood | Sound Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Brotherly Love
In this profound episode of the Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb delve deeply into the Parable of the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30), exploring its implications for Christian assurance. Building on their previous discussion, they examine how this parable speaks to the mixed nature of the visible church, the sovereignty of Christ over His kingdom, and most significantly, the doctrine of assurance. Through careful theological reflection, the hosts unpack how true believers can find solid ground for assurance not in their own works or fruit-checking, but in the promises of Christ and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. This episode offers both encouragement for those struggling with doubts and a sobering challenge to those resting in false assurance. Key Takeaways The Parable of the Tares teaches that the visible church will be mixed until the final judgment, containing both true believers (wheat) and false professors (tares) who may appear outwardly similar. True assurance is not based primarily on good works but on the promises of Christ, the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, and the evidences of grace in our lives. False assurance is a real danger, as many who think they belong to Christ will discover at the final judgment that they never truly knew Him. The Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 18) provides a helpful framework for understanding biblical assurance as the proper possession of every Christian. Christ's role as the divine Master of the house (the world) and Lord of the angels is subtly yet powerfully affirmed in this parable, grounding our assurance in His sovereignty. Good works are the fruit of assurance, not its cause—when we are secure in our salvation, we are freed to serve Christ joyfully rather than anxiously trying to earn assurance. The final judgment will bring perfect clarity, revealing what was hidden and separating the wheat from the tares with divine precision that humans cannot achieve now. The Doctrine of Assurance: Reformed Understanding The Reformed tradition has always emphasized that believers can and should have assurance of their salvation—a conviction recovered during the Reformation in contrast to Rome's teaching. As Tony noted when reading from the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 18), this assurance is "not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation." This assurance rests on three pillars: the promises of God in Scripture, the inward evidence of grace, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit witnessing with our spirit. What makes this understanding particularly comforting is that it shifts the foundation of assurance away from our performance to God's faithfulness. While self-examination has its place, the Reformed understanding recognizes that looking too intensely at our own hearts and works can lead either to despair or to false confidence. Instead, we're directed to look primarily to Christ and His finished work, finding in Him the anchor for our souls. The Problem of False Assurance One of the most sobering aspects of the Parable of the Tares is its implicit warning about false assurance. Just as the tares resemble wheat until maturity reveals their true nature, many professing Christians may outwardly appear to belong to Christ while inwardly remaining unregenerate. As Jesse observed, "The tares typically live under false assurance. They may attend church, confess belief, appear righteous, yet their hearts are unregenerate. Their faith is maybe historical, it's not saving, it could be intellectual, but it's not spiritual." This echoes Jesus' warning in Matthew 7 that many will say to Him, "Lord, Lord," but will hear the devastating response, "I never knew you." The parable teaches us that this self-deception is not always conscious hypocrisy but often the result of spiritual blindness. As Jesse noted, referencing Romans 1, Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 2, the unregenerate are "not merely ignorant, they're blinded... to the spiritual truth by nature and by Satan." This understanding should prompt humble self-examination while simultaneously driving us to depend not on our own discernment but on Christ's perfect knowledge and saving work. Memorable Quotes "Assurance is the believer's arc where he sits Noah alike quiets and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions." - Thomas Brooks, quoted by Jesse Schwamb "When we are confessing, repenting, seeking like our status in Christ because of Christ, then we have confidence that we are in fact part of the children of God. When everything is stripped away from us and all we're crying out is only and completely and solely and unequivocally Jesus Christ, then I think we have great reason to understand that we should be confident in our assurance." - Jesse Schwamb "The sacrifice and the service that a husband performs for his wife, whom he loves and trusts and is committed to and knows that she's faithful and committed to him, that is not causing that faithfulness. It's not causing that trust and that love. It is the outcome and the outflow of it." - Tony Arsenal on how good works flow from assurance rather than cause it Resources Mentioned Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 7:21-23, Romans 1, Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 2, 2 Timothy 3:5 Westminster Confession of Faith: Chapter 18 "Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation" Thomas Brooks: "Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices" YouTube Channel: My Wild Backyard Khan Academy: Educational resource recommended during "Affirmations and Denials" segment Full Transcript Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 466 of the Reform the Brotherhood. I'm Jesse. Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother. Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. We're going back to the farm again. Can't stop. Won't stop. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. [00:01:02] Discussion on the Parable of the Tears Tony Arsenal: The last week's discussion was interesting and I think, um, it's gonna be nice to sort of round it out and talk about some things you might not think about, uh, when you first read this parable. So I'm, I'm pretty excited. Jesse Schwamb: Oh, what a tease that is. So if you're wondering what Tony's talking about, we're hanging out. In Matthew 13, we are just really enjoying these teachings of Jesus. And they are shocking and they're challenging, and they're encouraging, and they're awesome, of course. And so we're gonna be finishing out the Parable of the Tears and you need to go back and listen to the previous conversation. This, this is all set up because we have some unfinished business. We didn't talk about the eschatological implications. We have this really big this, this matza ball hanging over us. So to speak, which was the, do the TAs in this parable even know that they are tarry, that they are the TAs? And so in this parable, the disciples learn that the kingdom itself, God's kingdom, the kingdom that Jesus is enumerating and explaining and bringing into being, they are learning that it's gonna be mixed in character. So that's correcting this expectation that the kingdom would be perfectly pure and would have, would evolve righteous rule over all of the unrighteous world. And so it's a little bit shocking that Jesus says, listen, they're gonna be. Tears within the wheats that is in the world, the seed that God himself, the sun has planted and that they're gonna exist side by side for a long time. And so we, they have to wait patiently and give ourselves to building up the wheats as the sons of the kingdom and be careful in their judgment, not to harm those who are believers. We covered a lot of that last week, but left so much unsaid we couldn't even fit it in. This is gonna be jam packed, so I'm gonna stop giving the tees instead start moving us into affirmations and denials. [00:02:45] Affirmations and Denials Jesse Schwamb: It's of course that time in our conversation where we either affirm with something really like or we think is undervalued or we deny against something that we don't really like or is a little overvalued. So as I usually say to you, Tony, what have you got for us? [00:03:00] YouTube Channel Recommendation: My Wild Backyard Tony Arsenal: I am affirming a YouTube channel. Um, I, I think the algorithm goes through these cycles where it wants me to learn about bugs and things because I get Okay, like videos about bugs. And so I'm, I'm interested. There's been this, uh, channel that's been coming up on my algorithm lately called My Wild Backyard, and it, it's a guy, he's like an entomologist. He seems like a, a like a legit academic, but what he does is he basically goes through and he talks about different bugs, creepy crawlies, looks at like snakes, all that kinds of stuff. It seems like his wheelhouse is the stuff that can kill you or hurt you pretty bad. Nice. But, um, it's interesting and it's. It's good educational content. It's, you know, it's not sensationalized, it's not, uh, it's not dramatized. Um, it's very real. There's occasionally an instance where he, he's not, sometimes he will intentionally get bit or stung by an, uh, by an animal to show you what it does. So he can experience and explain what he's experiencing. And sometimes he just accidentally gets bit or stung. And so those are some of the most interesting ones. So like, for example, just looking at his, his channel, his most recent, um, his most recent video is called The most venomous Desert Creatures in the US ranked the one previous was. The world's most terrifying arachni isn't a spider. And then previous to that was what happens if a giant centipede bites you? So it's interesting stuff. If you are one of those people that likes bugs and likes creepy crawlies and things, um, this is definitely the channel for you if you're not one of those people. I actually think this probably is the channel for you too. 'cause it kind of demystifies a lot of this stuff. Um. You know, for example, he, he will commonly point out that, um, spiders don't wanna bite you and they just wanna leave you alone. And, and as long as you leave them alone, even, even something like a black widow, which people are terrified of, and I think, right, rightfully so. I mean, they can be scary. Those can be scary bites. He'll, he'll handle those, no problem. And as long as he's not like putting downward pressure on them, uh, they have no interest in biting, they really just want to get away. So even seeing that kind of stuff, I think can help demystify and, and sort of, uh, make it a little bit easier. So my Wild Backyard, he can find it on YouTube. Um, he's safe for kids. He's not, he's not cussing even. I mean, I think occasionally when he gets bit on accident, you might, you know, you might have a beep here or there, but, um, he's not, he's not regularly swearing or things like that. And he does a pretty good job of adding that stuff out. Jesse Schwamb: What a great title for that, isn't it? This, yeah. Confluence of your backyard. That space that seems domesticated is also stealing its own. Right. Wild. And there's a be Yeah. Both those things coming together. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It, it's interesting stuff and it's really good. I mean, it's really compelling videography. He does a good job of taking good photos. You'll see insects that you usually won't see, or spiders you usually won't see. Um, so yeah, it's cool. Check it out. [00:05:51] Discussion on Spiders and Creepy Crawlies Jesse Schwamb: What are you, uh, yeah, I myself would like to become more comfortable with the arachni variety. If only be, I mean, I don't know. It's, it's a weird creature, so my instinct is to be like, kill them all. And then if I can't find them and I know they're around, then we just burn everything that we own. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: They just can't sink into the ground fast enough. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. There's something about the way they move, like their, their bodies don't move the way you would anticipate them to. Right. And it freaks, it just weirds out human sensibilities, so. Right. Jesse Schwamb: They're also like, I find them to be very surprising. Often. It's not kind of a, a very like, kind of measured welcome into your life. It's like you just go to get in the shower and there's a giant spider. Yeah. Oh yeah. Although I guess that spider, he's, he or she's probably like, whoa, where'd you come from? You know, like, yeah. He's like, I was just taking a Tony Arsenal: shower. You know what's interesting? Um, I saw another video was on a different channel, um, like common jumping spiders. Yeah. Which there are like hundreds of species of common jumping spiders. Jesse Schwamb: True. Tony Arsenal: Um, but spiders and jumping spiders specifically, actually you can form almost like a pet bond with, so like the, that jumping spider that like lives in your house and sees you every day. He, he probably knows who you are and is like, comfortable with you. And they've done studies that like you can actually domesticate jumping spiders, so they're not as foreign and alien as you might think. Although they certainly do look a little bit strange and weird. And the way their bodies move is almost designed to weird out people like it just the skinness, like the way their legs skitter and move it, it just is, it's, it triggers something very primal in us to That's wild. Be weirded out by it. Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: It's wild. I love it. That's a good, a affirmation. I'm definitely gonna check that out. I, any, anything? I really want to know what the, what like the terrifying arachni is. That's not a spider. Tony Arsenal: It's a, well, it's called a camel spider, but it's not really a spider. Oh, Jesse Schwamb: I know what you're talking about. That is kind of terrifying. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. They, they actually don't have any venom. Um, yeah. Check out the video. I mean, it, it was a good video. Um, but yeah, they're freaky looking and, um, but even that, like he was handling it No problem. Yeah. Like it wasn't, it wasn't aggressive with him once Wow. Once it figured out it wasn't, he wasn't trying to hurt him and, and that it couldn't eat him. Um, it, it just sort of like hung out until he let it go. So Jesse Schwamb: yeah, just be careful if you watch it one before bed or while in bed. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Probably not right before bed. Yeah. You'll, you'll get the creepy crawlies all night. Jesse Schwamb: I love it. But there's something somewhat. Like invigorating about that isn't there? Like it's, it's kind of a natural, just like kind of holy respect for the world that God has created, that they're these features that are so different, so wild, so interesting and a little bit frightening, but in the sense that we just draw off from them because they're so different than what we are. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: And you know, again, there's places you would be happy to see them, but maybe your bathtub or like shooting out, like, you know, like where you live, the jumping spiders are legit and they will just pop out on you, you know? Yeah. You're just doing your own thing and then all of a sudden they're popping out. I think part of that is just that what, what gets me is like them just, you know, like I remember in my basement here, once one popped out from a rafter and then I was holding, happened to be holding up broom. My instinct just naturally was to hit it. I hit it with the broom and it went across the room and fell on an empty box and sounded like a silver dollar had hit the box. Like it was just a massive, I mean, again, like, it's like fish stories, like it's a massive spider. It was a big spider. Yeah. But you just don't expect to, to see that kind of thing. Or maybe, maybe I should, but anything that moves in that way, and again, like centipedes, man, forget it. We have those too, like in our basement. Like the long ones. Oh yeah. Yeah. That thing will come like squiggling down the wall at you, like eye level and you just wanna run up the stairs screaming like a little girl. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, you do run up the stairs screaming like a little girl. It's not that you want to, it's that usually you do. I don't mean like you specifically, although probably you specifically. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's, yeah, you just react. Well, j Jesse enough freaking out. I mean, we're getting close to Halloween, so I suppose it's appropriate, but, uh, enough of that. What are you affirming or denying today? Jesse Schwamb: Once again, without like any coordination, mine is not unlike yours. I know you and I, we talk about the world in which we live, which God has created, and this lovely command, this ammunition to take dominion over that. And one of the things I appreciate about our conversations is I think you and I often have maybe not like a novel. Kinda perspective on that, but one that I don't hear talked about often and that is this idea of taking dominion over what it is possible to know and to appropriate, and then to apply onto wisdom. [00:10:27] Affirmation: Khan Academy Jesse Schwamb: And so my information is in that realm. It's another form of taking ownership of what's in the wild of knowledge that you can possess. And again, equal parts. What an amazing time to be alive. So I'm affirming with the website, Khan Academy, which I'm sure many are familiar with. And this website offers like. Thousands of hours. Uh, and materials of free instructional videos, practice exercises, quizzes, all these like really bespoke, personalized learning modules you can create for topics like math, science, computing, economics, history, art. I think it goes like even starting at like. Elementary age all the way up into like early college can help you study for things like the SAT, the LSAT AP courses, and I was revisiting it. I have an open account with them that I keep in love and I go back to it from time to time. And I was working on some stuff where I wanted to rehearse some knowledge in like the calculus space, do some things by hand, which I haven't done. And I was just like, I'm blown away at how good this stuff is. And it's all for free. I mean, you should donate if you. You get something from this because it's a nonprofit, but the fact that there are these amazing instructional videos out there that can help us get a better understanding of either things we already know and we can rehearse the knowledge or to learn something brand new essentially for free. But somebody's done all the hard work to curate a pedagogy for you. Honestly, this is incredible. So if you haven't looked at that website in a long time or maybe ever, and you might be thinking, what, what do I really wanna learn? Lemme tell you. There's a lot of interesting stuff there and it's so approachable and it's such a good website for teaching. And if you have children in particular, even if you're looking for help, either helping them with their own coursework or maybe to have like kind of a tutor on the side, this is so good. So I can't say enough good things recently about Khan Academy 'cause it's been so helpful to me and super fun to like just sit and have your own paced study and in the private and comfort of your own home or your desk at work or wherever it is that you need to learn it. To be able to have somebody teach you some things, to do a little practice exercises, and then to go on to the world and to apply the things you've learned. Ah, it's so good. Tony Arsenal: Nice. Yeah, I've, I've never done anything with Khan Academy. I'll have to check it out. There's, um, there's some skills of needing to brush up on, uh, at work that I am probably not gonna be able to find in my normal channels, so I'll have to see if there is anything going on there. Um, but yeah, that's, that's good stuff. And it's free. Love freestyle. It's, and of course, like Jesse Schwamb: things like this are legion. So whatever it is, whatever your discipline or your field of study or work is, there's probably something out there and, uh, might, I humbly maybe encourage you to, if you use something like that and it's funded by donations, it's worth giving, I think, because again, it's just an amazing opportunity to take dominion over the knowledge that God has placed into the world and then to use it for something. I mean, I suppose even if all it is is you just wanna learn more about, like for me, I, I find like the subjects of, of math and science, like just endlessly fascinating and like the computing section I was looking at, I, I don't know much about like programming per se, but there is such a beauty. Like these underlying principles, like the, the organization of the world and the first level principles of like physics for instance, are just like baffling in the most glorious kind of way. How they all come together. So having somebody like teach you at a very like simplistic level, but allow you to grasp those concepts makes you just appreciate it leads me to doxology a lot when I see these things. So in a weird way, it ends up becoming maybe not a weird way and the right way. It becomes worship as often as I'm sitting at my desk and working through like a practice problem on like, you know, partial differential equation or, or derivatives is what I was working on today. And ah, it's just so good. I don't know, maybe I'm the only one. I, it's not be super nerdy, but you, are you ever like at your desk studying something? And it might not be like theological per se, but you just have a moment where you're overcome with some kind of worship. Do you know what I'm talking about? Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I, um, this we're the nerdiest people on the planet, but let's Jesse Schwamb: do it. Um, Tony Arsenal: when I find a really fun, interesting. Uh, Excel formula and I can get it to work right. Uh, and it, and then it just like everything unlocks. Like, I feel like I've unlocked all the knowledge in the universe. Um, but yeah, I hear you like the, the Excel thing is, is interesting to me because, like, math is just the description. Like it's just the fabric of reality is just the way we describe reality. But the fact that we can do basically just take math and do all these amazing things with it, uh, in a spreadsheet is really, uh, drives me to praise. Like I said, that's super nerdy, but it is. Oh, you're speaking my language. Jesse Schwamb: I, we have never understood each other better than just this moment right now. We, we had some real talk and, uh, a real moment. Tony Arsenal: Yes. Welcome to the Reformed math cast. Jesse Schwamb: We're so glad that you're here. Tony Arsenal: Yes. We're not gonna do any one plus one plus one equals one kinds of heretical math in, up in here. Jesse Schwamb: No. Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, I have a feeling that, excuse me. Wow. Jesse Schwamb: We don't edit anything out. Listen, I'm choked up too. It's it, listen, love ones just so emotional. The moment Tony and I are having it. We're gonna try our best right now to pivot to go into this text, but it's, it's tough because we were just really having something, something special. You got, you got to see there. But thank you for trying to Tony Arsenal: cover for me for that big cough. Jesse Schwamb: This is like presuppositional editing. You know, we don't actually do anything in post. It's not ex anti editing. It's, it's literally presuppositional. [00:15:52] Theological Discussion on Assurance Jesse Schwamb: But to that end, we are in Matthew 13. This is the main course. This is the reason why we're here. There's lots of reasons to worship, and one of them is to come before and admire and love our God who has given us his specific revelation and this incredible teaching of his son. And that's why we're hanging out in Matthew 13. So let me read, because we have just a couple of really sentences here, this really short parable and that way it'll catch us up and then we can just launch right back into we're, we're basically like, we're already in the rocket. Like we're in the stratosphere. We're, we're taking it all the way now. So this is Matthew chapter 13. Come hang out here. It's in the 24th verse. And this is what we find written for us. This is the word of the Lord. He put another parable before them saying. The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the weeds and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also, and the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said to him, then, do you want us to go and gather them? But he said, no less than gathering the weeds, you root up the weed along with them. Let both grow until the harvest. And at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but to gather the wheat into my barn. Tony Arsenal: That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Um, you know, we, we covered most of. I don't know, what do you wanna call it? The first order reading of the parable last week. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Tony Arsenal: On one level, the parable, uh, as Christ explains it, uh, a little bit down further in the chapter is extremely straightforward. It's almost out, it's almost an allegory. Each, each element of the parable has a, a, a figure that it's representing. And the main purpose of the story is that the world and specifically the church, um, is going to be a mixed body until the last days, until the end of time. And so there's, there's the Sons of God or the Sons of the Kingdom, uh, and then there's the sons of the evil one. And we talked a lot about how. These two figures in the parable, the, the, the weeds or the tears? Um, tears is a better word because it's a specific kind of, uh, specific kind of weed that looks very much like wheat at its immature stages. Right. And you can't actually discern the difference readily, uh, until the weed and the wheat has grown up next to each other. Um, and so, so part of the parable is that. The, the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the enemy, or the sons of the evil one, they don't look all that different in their early stages. And it's not until the sort of end culmination of their lives and the end culmination of things that they're able to be discerned and then therefore, um, the, the sons of the devil are, are reaped and they go off to their eternal judgment and the sons of the kingdom are, uh, are harvested and they go off to their eternal reward. What we wanted to talk about, and part of the reason that we split this into two episodes. Is that we sort of found ourselves spiraling or spiraling around a question about, uh, sort of about assurance, right? And false assurance, true assurance. And there is an eschatological element to this parable that I, I think we probably should at least touch on as we we go through it. Um, but I wanted to just read, um, it's been a little while since we've read the Westminster Confession on the show. So I wanted to read a little bit from the Westminster Confession. Um, this is from chapter 18, which is called of assurance of grace and salvation. This is sort of the answer to Jesse's question. Do the, do the tears know their tears or, or could they possibly think that their wheat? So this is, uh, section one of chapter eight. It says, although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presuppositions or presumptions of being in favor with God in the state of salvation. Which hope of their shall perish yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed. And so we, in the reform tradition at least, which is where we find ourselves in the reform tradition, um, we would affirm that people can. Deceive themselves into believing that they're in proper relation with God. Jesse Schwamb: Right? Tony Arsenal: And so it's not the case that, uh, that the weeds always know they're weeds or think they're weeds. It's not even the case. And this was part of the parable. It's not even the case that the weeds can be easily distinguished even by themselves from, uh, from the weeds. So there is this call, uh, and this is a biblical call. There's a call to seek out assurance and to lay claim to it. That I think is, is worth talking about. But it's not as straightforward as simple proposition as like, yeah, I'm confident. Like it's not just like, right, it's not just mustering up confidence. There's more to it than that. So that's what I wanted to start with, with this parable is just maybe talking through that assurance. 'cause I, I would hate for us to go through this parable. And sort of leave people with maybe you're a weed and you don't know it. 'cause that's not right. That's not the biblical picture of assurance. Um, that's the, that's the Roman Catholic picture of assurance that like, yeah, there's no such thing as assurance and people might not realize, but assurance of salvation is actually one of the, one of the primary things that was recovered particularly by the Reformed in the Reformation. Um, and so I think we, we often sort of overlook it as maybe a secondary thing. Um, but it really is a significant doctrine, a significant feature of reformed theology. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I'm glad you said that because it is a, is a clear reminder. It's a clearing call as the performers put forth that it is. Under like the purview of the Christian to be able to claim the assurance by the blood of Christ in the application of the Holy Spirit in a way that's like fully orbed and fully stopped. So you can contrast that with, and really what was coming outta Catholicism or Rome at the time. And I was just speaking with a dear brother this past week who. Grew up in the Catholic church and he was recounting how his entire religious experience, even his entire relationship, if we can call it that in a kind of colloquial sense with God, was built around this sense of deep-seated guilt and lack of true performance, such that like assurance always seemed like this really vague concept that was never really fully manifested in anything that he did. Even while the church was saying, if you do these things, if you perform this way, if you ensure that you're taking care of your immortal sins and that you're seeking confession for all the venial stuff as well, that somehow you'll be made right, or sufficiently right. But if not, don't worry about it. There's always purgatory, but there'd be some earning that you'd have to accomplish there. Everywhere along the way. He just felt beaten down. So contrasting that with what we have here. I don't believe, as you're saying, Tony, that's Jesus' intention here to somehow beat up the sheep. I, I think it is, to correct something of what's being said about the world in which we live, but it's at the same time to say that there are some that are the TAs is to say there are some that are the children of God, right? That there are some that are fully crisply, clearly identified and securely resting in that identity without any kind of nervous or anxious energy that it might fall out of that state with God that, that in fact their identity is secure. And as I've been thinking about this this week, I, I'm totally with you because I think part of this just falls, the warning here is there's a little bit of the adventures in Romans one here that's waiting for us, that I like what you said about this idea of, of self deception and maybe like a. Subpart to this question would be, are the, are the terrors always nefarious in their lack of understanding? So we might say there's some that are purposely disruptive, that the enemy himself is, is promulgating or trying to bring forward his destruction, his chaos by way of these tears. But are, are there even a subgroup or another group, uh, co-terminus group or, you know, one in the same hierarchy where there's just a lot of self deception? I, I think that's probably where I fall in terms of just trying to explain that. Yes, I think it was present here is a real quantity, a real identity where they're self-deceived. Imagining themselves to be part of God's people, yet lacking that true saving faith. And this just, I'm gonna go in a couple places where I think everybody would expect in the scriptures, if we go to like Ephesians four, they're darkened and they're understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. And one Corinthians, when Paul writes, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. And then the book that follows the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. And of course then like everything in Romans one, so I bring all that up because E, even at the end, we're gonna get there, the Es, this eschatological reality when you know God is separating out the sheep and the goats. Still, we find this kind of same trope happening there. But the unregenerate, what I'm reading from this. Importantly is that the unregenerate, they're not merely ignorant, they're blinded, as we all were on point to the spiritual truth. Yeah. By nature and by Satan. That that is also his jam. He loves to blind, to lie, to kill, steal, and destroy. So thus, even if they're outwardly belonging to the church, they're outwardly belonging to the world. They're outwardly belonging to some kind of profession. They cannot perceive the reality of their lost condition apart from divine illumination. Who can, that might be stating the obvious, but I think that's like what we're getting after here. I I, I don't know if there's like any kind of like conspiracy here. It's simply that that is the natural state of affairs. So why wouldn't we expect that to be reflected again in the world and that side by side, we're gonna find that shoulder to shoulder. We are, there are the children of God, and there are those that remain blind and ignorant to the truth. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, it, again, I, I, um, I don't know why I'm surprised. Uh, I certainly shouldn't be surprised. Um. But Matthew is like a masterful storyteller Yeah. Here, right. He's a masterful, um, editor and narrator. Um, and he's, he's put together here, of course, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Um, and, and there's some good reason to think in the text we're not gonna get too, in the nitty gritty here, there's some good reason to think in the text that Christ actually delivered these parables as a set as well. So it's not just, it's not just Matthew coating these, although it could be. Um, but it, it seems like these were all delivered probably as like a common set of parables. And the reason I say that is because when we start to look at this parable and the one we previously went through, the parable of the soils, um, or the parable of the sower. Um, what we see is the answer to your question of why do some people, you know, why are some people deceived? Well, yes, there is secondary causation. The devil deceives them. They blind themselves. They, you know, suppress the, the, the truth and right unrighteousness. But on a, on a primary causation level, um, God is the one who is identi, is, is identifying who will be the sons of the, you know, devil and the sons of the kingdom. Mm-hmm. This is another, and yet another example of election is that the, the good sower sowed good seed, and the good seed was the elect and the enemy. Although in God's sovereignty, God is the one who determines this. The enemy is the one who sows the reprobate. Right? So all, all men. Star, and this is, I, I guess I didn't really intend to go here, but this is good evidence in my mind for, um, infra laps, Arianism versus super laps. Arianism, right infra laps, arianism or sub lapse. Arianism would say that God decrees, uh, to permit the fall and then he decrees to redeem some out of the fall, right? Logically speaking, not temporally speaking. Super laps. Arianism, which is the minority. It's the smaller portion of, of the historic tradition, although modern times, I think it's a little bit louder and a little bit more vocal, but super relapses. Arianism would argue that God, um, decrees. Sort of the, the decree of election and reprobation is logically prior to the decree of the fall. And so in, in that former or in the super laps area model, the fall becomes a means by which the reprobate are justly condemned. Not, um, not the cause of their condemnation, but a way to sort of justify the fact that they will be separated from God, right? Because of their reprobate. [00:28:36] Exploring the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares Tony Arsenal: I know that there's, there's probably some super lab streams that would nuance that differently and some that are probably just screaming straw man, uh, in a coffee shop somewhere and, and people are thinking you're crazy. Um, but by and large, that's actually a rel, a relatively accepted, um, explanation of it. There are certainly potential problems with, uh, sub, sub lapse agonism as well. But in this, in this parable, what we see is the people who are, um, who are elect, are sowed into the field and the people who are reprobate are also sowed into the field. And so God saves the people who are sewed into the field that are, they elect, he saves them out of this now mixed world by waiting and allowing them to grow up next to the reprobate, um, in sort of this mixed world setting. And then he redeems them out of that. Um, and, and, and so we have to sort of remember. Although it is a pretty strict, sort of allegorical type of parable, it's still a parable. So we shouldn't, we shouldn't always draw like direct one-to-one comparisons here. It's making a theological point, but, um, but it's important for us to re remember that, that it is ultimately, it is God who determines who is the elected and who is not. But it's, it's our sin. It's the devil deceiving us. It's the secondary causes that are responsible for the sons of the devil, right? It, the, the men come to the, to the sower and say, who is done this? He says it was an enemy. Jesse Schwamb: Right? Right. Tony Arsenal: He doesn't say like, well, actually I put the seed there and so, you know, I'm, I, it's not an equal distribution. He's not sowing good seed and bad seed. He sows the good seed and the devil sows the bad seed. [00:30:24] Theological Implications and Assurance Tony Arsenal: Um, and, and that's a, I think that's an important theological point to make. And as far as assurance goes. We, we can't depend on our ability to perceive or sort of like discern election in a raw sense, right? We have to observe certain kinds of realities around us. Um, and, and primarily we have to depend on the mercy and, and saving faith that God gives us. That's right. Um, you know, our, our assurance of faith does not primarily come from fruit checking. Um, we have to do that. It's important, we're commanded to do it, and it serves as an important secondary evidence. But a, a, a person who wants to find assurance. Of salvation should first and foremost look to the promises of Christ and then depend on them. Um, and, and so that's, I think all of that's kind of wrapped up into this parable. It's, it's, it's amazing to me that we're only like two parables in, and we're already, you know, we're already talking about super lapse arianism and sub lapse arianism, and it's, it's amazing. I, I love this. I'm loving this series so far, and we're barely scratching the surface. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's all there. I think you're right to call that out. It strikes me, like, as you were speaking, it really just hit me higher that I think you're right. Really the foundation on this, like the hidden foundation is assurance and it's that assurance which splits the groups, or at least divides them, or it gives us, again, like the distinct, kind, discrete compartments or components of each of them. So. Again, I think it's help saying, 'cause we wanna be encouraging. That's, that's our whole point here is when the Apostle Peter says, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing of you. That herein we have the scripture saying to us, time and time again, be sure of what God has done in your life. Be confident in that very thing. And so if assurance is, as we're saying, that's the argument hypothesis we're making. That's the critical thing here. [00:32:11] False Assurance and True Faith Jesse Schwamb: Then the division between the children of God and the children of the devil is false versus true assurance. So the tears, I think what we're saying here, basically they typically live under false asserts. They may attend church, confess, belief, appear righteous, yet their hearts are unregenerate. Their faith is maybe historical. It's not saving, it could be intellectual, but it's not spiritual. And of course, like just a few chapters before this, we hope those famous verses where Jesus himself drops the bomb and says, listen, many of you, he's talking to the people, the, the disciples around him, the crowds that we're gathering and thronging all about. He says, many of you're gonna say to me, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy your name? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me. These are not people who knew they were false, they thought they belonged to Christ. Their shock on judgment day is gonna reveal this profound self-deception. And that self-deception is wrapped up in a false type of assurance, a false righteousness. So I think one of the things that we can really come to terms with and grab a hold of is the fact that when we are. Confessing, repenting seeking like our status in Christ because of Christ. Then we have confidence that we are in fact part of the children of God. When everything is stripped away from us and all we're crying out is only and completely and solely and unequivocally, Jesus Christ, then I think we have great reason to understand that we should be confident in our assurance. [00:33:38] Historical Perspectives on Assurance Jesse Schwamb: You know, I was reading this week from Thomas Brooks and did incidentally come across this, a quote, an assurance and reminded me of this passage, and here's what he writes. You know, of course he's writing in like 16 hundreds, like mid 16 hundreds. It's wild, of course, but we shouldn't be surprised that what you're about to hear sounds like it could have been written today for us. In this conversation, but, uh, he writes, assurance is the believer's arc where he sits Noah alike quiets and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions. However, most Christians live between fears and hopes and hang, as it were, between heaven and hell. Sometimes they hope that their state is good. At other times they fear that their state is bad. Now they hope that all is well and that it shall go well. Well with them forever. Then they fear that they shall perish by the hand of such corruption or by the prevalency of such and such temptation. They're like a ship and a storm tossed here and there, and. I think that he's right about that. And I think the challenge there is to get away from that. I love where it starts, where he says, what wonderful turn of phrase assurance is the believer's arc or Noah, like, you know, we're sitting and the commotion, the destructions, the commotion, the confusions of all the world. That's why to get this right, to be encouraged by this passage, to be challenged by it is so critical because we're all looking for that arc. We all want to know that God has in fact arrested us so completely that no matter what befalls us, that everything, as we talked about before, all of our, all of the world, in fact is subservient to our salvation. But that's a real thing that cannot be snatched away from us because God has ordained it and intended it, built it, created it, and brought it to pass. And so I think that's all like in this passage, it's all the thing that's being called us to. So. I, I don't want us to get like too hung up. It's a good question, I think to ask and answer like we were trying to talk about here, but you're right. If we focus too much just on the like, let's gaff for these tears. Who are they? Like let's people's, like Readers Digest in People's magazine these tears. Like who are they? Do we have a list of them? Who do we think they are? How could it be me? Is it really me? Am I, am I anxious about that? Really what we should be saying is following what Peter calls us to do that is to be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and his choosing. So even there like our emphasis and focus, isn't it like you're saying Tony about like, let me do some fruit inventory. I got like a lot of good bananas. I got a lot of ripe pears. Like, look at the tree. This, this is good. Even there, the emphasis is to turn our eyes on Jesus, as it were, and to make certain about his work, his calling and his choosing of us. And I think when we do that, we're falling down in worship and in yielding and submission to him, rightfully acknowledging that the righteousness of Christ is the one that is always in every way alien to us and imputed. And that is what makes us sons and daughters of God, that good seed sown by Jesus himself. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna read, I wanna um, round out a few more paragraphs here out of the Westminster confession because I do think, you know, when we even talk about assurance, we're not even always all saying the exact same thing. And I think that's important because when we talk about assurance of faith, we need to be understanding that this is the rightful, not only the rightful possession of all Christians, but it's the rightful responsibility of all Christians to seek it. So here's, here's section two of that same chapter. It says, this certainty referring to assurance. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a, a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the spirit of adoption, witnessing with our hearts that we are the children of God, which spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption. So. One of the, the things that I think is, is important here is people read this and say the inward evidences of those graces unto which these promises are made. They read that and they think that it's referring to like good work and like spiritual renewal, but it's, it's not, it's the inward evidence of those graces unto which of the promises are made. So it's this inner, inner renewal. It's the spirit testifying to our spirit. And then, um, chapter, uh, section three here, it says. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it, yet being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given of God. He may without extraordinary revelation there, right there is response to Roman Catholicism in the right use of ordinary means at attain there unto. And therefore, it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence, to make his calling and election. Sure. And thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and in joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience. The proper fruits of this assurance so far is it from inclining men to looseness? Right. [00:38:53] The Role of Good Works in Assurance Tony Arsenal: So we often hear and and I, I think there are good, um, there are good reformed Christians that put. The emphasis of assurance on, or they, they put an overemphasis, in my opinion, on how good works function within our assurance. Right. They, they often will ask us to look to our good fruit as sort of, not the grounding, but as a strong evidence. But at least in terms of the confession here, the cheerfulness in the duties of obedience is the fruit of assurance. Jesse Schwamb: That's right. Not Tony Arsenal: the cause or grounding of assurance. So rather than, this is what this last line says. It says so far, is it from inclining? Mental looseness assurance should drive us to obedience and fruitfulness in Christ. And so yes, it is in a certain sense an evidence because if that fruitfulness and obedience is absent from our lives, there's a good reason for us to question whether this infallible assurance is present in our lives. But the assurance is what drives us to this obedience. Um. You know, like, I think you could use the analogy of like a married couple. A married couple who is very secure in their relationship and in their, uh, love for one another and their faithfulness to each other is more likely to cheerfully serve and submit to each other and to respect each other and to sacrifice for each other than a couple that's maybe not so sure that the other person has their best interest in mind. That's or maybe isn't so sure that this thing is gonna work out. I think that's the same thing, like the sacrifice and the service that a husband, uh, performs for his wife, whom he loves and trusts and is committed to and knows that she's faithful and committed to him. That is not causing that faithfulness. It's not causing that trust and that love. It is the outcome and the outflow of it. It's good evidence that that love exists, but it's not caused by it. And assurance here is the same kind of dynamic assurance is not. We can't assure ourselves of our salvation by doing good works. No matter how many good works you do, there are lots and lots of people who are not saved and who will not be saved, who do perfectly good works in appearance. Right. They have the, the outward appearance of godliness, but lack its power. Right, right. Out of right outta Paul, writing to Timothy there. Yes. So that's, that's important for us as we continue to parse all this out, is yes, the fruit is present. Yes. The wheat is to, is discernible from the tears by its final, fruitful status. Right? It grows up to be grain, which is fruitful rather than weeds and tears, which are only good to be burned, but it is not the fruit that causes it to be wheat. It's wheat that causes the fruit to grow. If, if it wasn't wheat, it wouldn't grow fruit, not because the fruit makes it grain, but because it is in fact wheat to start with. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that's right on. So I think like by summation we're kind of saying. At least the answer to this question. You know, do the tears know that they're tears? Yes and no. Some do, some don't. I think, yes, there are some that are gonna be consciously hypocritical, willfully rejecting Christ while pretending for worldly gain. I think that's, that's certainly plain to see. And at the same time, do the tears know the tears? Sometimes? No. There's self deceived under spiritual blindness and they have some kind of false assurance. And this idea of, again, coming in repentance before God and seeking humbly to submit to him is I think one of those signs of that kind of true assurance, not a false assurance. And you already stole where I was thinking of Tony by going to Second Timothy again. Thomas Brooks in precious remedies against Saint's device is one of like the best. Books ever. I know that he's really outspoken. He loves to harp on the fact that one of Satan's most effective snares is to make men and women content with a form of godliness without its power. Yeah. And that's often what we're talking about here, I think, is that Satan loves to fish in the shallow waters a profession. And really that can happen in any kind of church or religious culture, that there is this shallowness where that loves religious appearance, prayer, knowledge fellowship, but not the Christ behind them. And so whether we're looking to somebody like Brooks or Jonathan Edwards and we're trying to parse out what are our true affections, not in a way again, that somehow leans well, I feel enough, then somehow that justifies, not inwardly, but again, definitely trying to understand our conviction for conversion tears. For repentance that. Really what we're after is not like just the blessings of Christ, but Christ himself, which I think really leads us to this eschatological perspective then to round all everything out because you know, we talked about before, there's an old phrase, it's like everywhere. A lot of people talk in heaven. Not everybody's going there. And so this idea of like, people will talk about be so great to be there and it's sometimes this, the heaven that they speak of is like absent Christ, you know, as if like, if Christ wasn't there, at least in their perspective, it still wouldn't be half bad. And so I think that does lead us to understand what is this in gathering? What is this? You know, bringing everything into the barn and burning everything else up. And like you just said, if at the beginning you cannot tell the injurious weed aside from that beautiful kernel of wheat that's coming up, but if in the end you can see what's happening in the end, then that brings us all to consummation. What does it mean in this parable? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:44:19] Eschatological Judgment and Assurance Tony Arsenal: And, and I think this actually sort of forces us to grapple a little bit with, with another sort of persnickety feature of this parable that, that I think, I think personally sometimes gets overlooked is we are very quick to talk about this parable to be about the church. And it is. Right. And, and there's reasons to talk like that. But when Christ explains the parable, he doesn't say the field is the church. He says the field is the world. Right. And so we have to, we have to, we have to do a little bit of, um. We have to do a little bit of hermeneutics to understand that this is also speaking of the church, right? It's not as though the church is some hermetically sealed off body that the dynamics of the world and the, the weed and the tears like that, that doesn't happen in the church. But when we talk about the end of the age here, he says the son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom. All causes of sin in all lawbreakers. Right? So, so the, the final eschatological judgment, it's all encompassing. And I dunno, maybe I'm, maybe I'm becoming a little bit post mill with this, um, the, the world is already the Kingdom of Christ. Right? Right. That's right. It, it's not, it's not just the church on earth that is the kingdom of Christ. And so when we talk about this eschatological reaping, um, what we see is, is very straightforward. There are those who are, uh, who belong to Christ, who were sown by him into the world, who were, uh, were tended by him, who were protected by him, who he intended to harvest from the very beginning, right? The good sower sows good seed into the field, and that good seed is and necessarily will be wheat. It's not as though, um, it's not as though, and again, this is one of those ways where like the parables sometimes, uh, are telling a little bit of a different story. Even though they're sharing some themes in the first parable, in the parable of the sower, he sows the same seed into the world. But the seed in that first parable is not the, is not the person receiving the seed. The seed is the one is the word of God. Yes. And so the word of God is sewn promiscuously, even to those who will be hard soil and who will be rocky soil and have thorns. The word of God is, is sewn to all of those people. Across the whole world in this parable. The seed that is the good seed that is sown is and always was going to be weed that was, or wheat, which was going to grow into fruitfulness and be gathered into the barn. Right? That was a foregone conclusion. The, the, when the sower decided to sow seed, all of that said he is the one who did that. He's the one that chose that. He's the one that will bring us to completion, right? And then also the ones that are not of his kingdom, the sons of the devil, they will also be reaped at the end. Actually we'll be reaped before the, you know, they'll be reaped and gathered and, and tossed into the furnace before the sons of the kingdom are gathered together. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Tony Arsenal: So it, again, this is a parable and even though this is Christ's explanation of the parable, I don't think that Christ was intending to give us like a strict timeline. Right. I don't think he was encouraging us to draw a chart and try to map out where this all happens in order. Um, I do think it's relevant that, that, at least in the explanation of this parable, I mentioned it last week, that, that the rap, the rapture is actually the wicked being raptured. They're the ones that are gathered and taken out of the world and cast into the fiery furnace before the, before the righteous are gathered together and, and brought into Christ Barn. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, there's a great unmasking that's happening here in this final stage. I mean, that's critically the point. I think there's a lot of stuff we could talk about open handedly and kind of hypothesize or theorize what it means. But what is plain, I think, is that there's this unmasking, this unveiling of the reality of the light of Christ's perfect judgment. But that judgment is for both parties Here it is coming and what was hidden beneath outward religion or more, a facade is gonna be revealed with eternal clarity. That's just the reality. It is coming. So in some ways it pairs. I think at least well in this, well purposely of course in this teaching because Jesus is saying, hold on, like we talked about last time. Do this is not for you to judge. You are ill-equipped. You are not skilled enough to discern this. And therefore though, you wanna go in hot and get spicy and try to throw out all the weeds. Wait for the right time. Wait for the one like you're saying, Tony has from all of eternity past intended for it to be this way. Super intending his will over all things in the casting of the seed. And as we say, Philippians, of course, finishing that good work, which was started, he will finish. It is God's two finish again. And so he says, listen, that day is coming. There's gonna be a great unmasking. Uh, get ready for it. And the scriptures bear witness to that in so many other ways. So. There's such a journey in these like handful of verses, isn't there? I mean, it's really wild. The things that not like we come up with or we read into the text, but as we sit in it a little bit, as we just spend even a cursory amount of time letting it pour over us, that we find there's like a conviction in a weight in these things that are beyond just the story and beyond just even like the illustrations themselves. What we find is, again, it's as if Jesus himself in his brilliance, of course, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is illuminating the mind in the spirit to open up our conception, understanding of the kingdom of God by bringing it to us through his perspective in our own terms, of course, which is both our language and like the context of the world in which we live, and that simple example of farming and seed. And again, even just that there are these interest weeds that look like wheat. I went on this like rabbit hole this week and did a lot of research on like tears and Yeah, like especially people in like the Midwest United States who like know a lot more about agriculture than I do have a lot to say about this. It's not just like we shouldn't be surprised like. Isn't it incredible that like there are actually weeds out there that look like, yeah, it's a brilliance of just knowing that this teaching is so finely tuned. Like we can even just talk about that. Like the world is finely tuned. This teaching is so finely tuned to these grant theological principles that we can at one point be children and appropriate them enough and assume them into our own intellectual capacity so that we can trust in them. And yet even as like adults with like, let's say like the greatest gift of intellectual capacity, still find that we cannot get to the bottom of them because they're so deep. They draw us into these really, really grand vistas or really like extremely deep cold theological waters. And I just find. That I am in awe then of what Jesus is saying here because there's a truth for us in assurance that we ought to clinging to. And there's also like stuff that we should come back to. We shouldn't just stop it here and put it out of our minds until the next time we, we want to just be stimulated by something that's interesting or that we want to just grab somebody and shake them cage style, cage two style and say like, look at this great thing that I just learned about this, this particular parable. But instead, there's so much here for us to meditate on. And in that, I think rather than the Christian finding fear in this parable, what they should find is great comfort. We should be Noah alike sitting in the ark saying, it is well with my soul. And our reason for that is because we know God has cast a seed through his son Jesus Christ. And to be a child, a child of God is the greatest thing in all the universe. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I, I think that, um, transitions nicely to, uh, I'll make this point quick because we're coming up on time here. Um. [00:52:04] Christ's Divinity and Sovereignty Tony Arsenal: The other little subtle thing that Christ does here in this parable is he, he absolutely asserts his divinity and sovereignty overall creation. Jesse Schwamb: That's right. Yep. Tony Arsenal: Right. It, it's almost like a throw. There's a couple little like lines that are almost throwaway lines, right in the, the first, the beginning of the parable here. Um, the parable itself, uh, he says, um, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed into a field. And then he says, um, the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, right? And then when he interprets the parable, he says, well, the, the servants are, the field is the world, right? So he's the master of the world, and the servants are the angels. So he's the master of the angels. And then if, if there was any doubt left in your mind. Says in verse 41, the son of man will send his angels. That's right. And they will gather out of his kingdom, which is the world, all the causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. Right? So we have this, this robust picture that there is election. The the good sower sows good seed into the world, and the good seed will necessarily grow into wheat and will be preserved and protected and ultimately harvest Well, why can we have assurance that that will be the case? Well, because the master of the house is the son of man who is the Lord of the universe and the creator of all things. And his angels do his will. That's right. So, so the whole thing is all wrapped up. Why can we have assurance? Because God is a good God and Christ is a good savior, and the savior of the world is the creator of the universe, right? If any of those facts were not true. Then we couldn't have assurance. If God wasn't good, then maybe he's lying. If Christ wasn't the savior of the world or the God of the universe, the creator of the universe, then he wasn't worthy to be the one who saves. All of this is wrapped up in the parables, and this is what's so exciting about the parables. In most of the instances that we look up, especially of the sort of longer parables, these kinds of dynamics are there where it's not just a simple story making a simple point, it is making one primary point. Usually there's one primary point that a, that a parable is making. But in order to make that primary point, there's all these supporting points and supporting things that have to be the case. If the, if the good sower was not the master of the house and a, a competent, uh, a competent landowner who knew the difference between wheat and weeds, even at the early stage, right? His, his servants go and go, what happened? What's with all of these weeds? They can tell the difference somehow, Jesse Schwamb: right? Tony Arsenal: He's immediately able to go, well, this was an enemy. Jesse Schwamb: That's right. Tony Arsenal: And while they're bumbling around going, should we go rip it all up and start over? He is like, no, no, no, no. Just wait until, wait until it all grows up together. And when that happens, the Reapers will come and they'll take care of it and they'll do it in my direction, right? Because he's competent, he's the savior, he's the creator, he's the good master, he is the good sower. Um, we can be confi
PNR: This Old Marketing | Content Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose
This week's episode of This Old Marketing dives deep into the evolving world of AI, automation, and creator opportunities. 1. OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas: A Google Killer? OpenAI's latest product, ChatGPT Atlas, has some wondering if this is a direct strike at Google's dominance in search. We break down what Atlas is, how it changes the discovery landscape, and what it means for marketers and creators. 2. AI and Robots Taking Jobs A New York Times article reports that Amazon plans to replace over half a million jobs with robots. But the twist? The AI industry itself is facing layoffs. Meta has cut significant staff from its AI operations, according to Axios. We explore what this says about the current state — and future — of the AI economy. 3. ChatGPT to Allow Adult Erotica (for Verified Users) OpenAI will soon allow adult-themed content for verified adults. Is this a necessary step toward realism and maturity online, or is it a PR nightmare waiting to happen? We debate whether the Internet needs true age-gating — or if this will end up being a “nothing burger,” as Robert might say. 4. Creators Take Flight — Literally Marketing Brew reports that YouTube creators are getting their content featured on Delta Airlines flights. It's a great marketing move — but does it signal that YouTube is becoming television? We discuss what this means for creators' reach and brand positioning. Marketing Winners of the Week Ann Handley's new website: A masterclass in simplicity and conversion, with a sharp focus on driving newsletter subscriptions. Kim Kardashian's Skims.com launch: A weirdly nostalgic move that has everyone talking. Raves of the Week Joe's Rave: The CRIT Framework from Geoff Woods — a practical model for using AI strategically through Context, Role, Interview, and Task. And get a month of Wispr Flow (dictation platform) for free here. Robert's Rave: Spotify's new personalized playlists that take algorithmic curation to the next level. Listen to the full episode for all the analysis, tangents, and laughs you expect from Joe and Robert on This Old Marketing. This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts. All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork
In a big week of AI news, OpenAI debuts Atlas, its new agentic AI internet browser and we talk about what they did right and… what might've gone wrong. Sam Altman was excited! Plus, Google has an updated AI Studio that makes vibe coding much easier, Sora 2's Cameo feature is going to get an update for characters and pets soon & a whole lot of scary robots. IT'S A NEW BROWSER FOR YOU… TO BROWSE OUR VIDEOS BECAUSE YOU CARE! #ai #ainews #openai Get notified when AndThen launches: https://andthen.chat/ Come to our Discord to try our Secret Project: https://discord.gg/muD2TYgC8f Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AIForHumansShow AI For Humans Newsletter: https://aiforhumans.beehiiv.com/ Follow us for more on X @AIForHumansShow Join our TikTok @aiforhumansshow To book us for speaking, please visit our website: https://www.aiforhumans.show/ Show Links: ChatGPT Atlas Is A Whole New OpenAI Browser https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1980685602384441368 https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas/ Sent Google Shares Down: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/21/openai-browser-alphabet-stock.html Atlas See Transcripts of Youtube Videos https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/1980688430121275608 Kevin's Sora Assignment for Atlas https://x.com/Attack/status/1980770548864151626 Atlas updates already incoming https://x.com/adamhfry/status/1981206776503517229 Prompt Injections Still a Problem For Agentic Browsers: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/22/openai-ciso-on-atlas/ Microsoft's Edge Browser Update https://x.com/mustafasuleyman/status/1981390345578697199 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/blog/2025/10/23/human-centered-ai/ Google's New Vibe Coding Studio https://x.com/OfficialLoganK/status/1980674135693971550 ANNOTATE for UI https://x.com/OfficialLoganK/status/1981375555783045198 Storing System Instructions https://x.com/_philschmid/status/1981041948187381980 AI Hair Studio https://x.com/Saboo_Shubham_/status/1981185627355042222 Google Earth AI https://x.com/GoogleAI/status/1981410558252388698 Sora 2 Gets Character Cameos Soon (Plus Android App) https://x.com/billpeeb/status/1981118483607032050 Hailuo (Minimax) 2.3 AI Video Model In Preview https://x.com/search?q=Hailuo%202.3&src=typeahead_click This one is funny for the Sora post underneath https://x.com/fofrAI/status/1981298285794234457 Real Time Eleven Labs Lip-Sync With Descartes & Pipecat https://x.com/ElevenLabsDevs/status/1981082889115881607 Lenses for Amazon Employees https://x.com/NathieVR/status/1981082375741137358 Deep Seek OCR Is Very Cool https://x.com/RayFernando1337/status/1980180029125628374 Google Has a Working Quantum Computer Now https://blog.google/technology/research/quantum-echoes-willow-verifiable-quantum-advantage/ Reddit Sues Perplexity & Three Other Companies For Data Scraping https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/technology/reddit-data-scrapers-perplexity-theft.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.-XNU.nPHVuV93hmhk&smid=url-share Amazon Plans To Replace 600K Jobs With Robots (It has begun.) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/inside-amazons-plans-to-replace-workers-with-robots.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.gIiN.KVOqobxLbnIB&smid=url-share Unitree Introducing | Unitree H2 Destiny Awakening https://youtu.be/eUdBIFkMh-M?si=sZZt1s3eqGPj997o Speaking of Unitree, G1's In the Wild Getting Modded https://x.com/jloganolson/status/1981102506228011361 Also, Unitree G1 Dies? https://x.com/OsoneHiroyuki/status/1981159840140738651 Grok's Avatars In Real Life? Sexy Faced Male & Female Robots https://x.com/XRoboHub/status/1980886176845517175 Skild AI Robot Does (Kinda) Parkour https://x.com/SkildAI/status/1979257629689172011
The European Commission has accused Meta and TikTok of violating the Digital Services Act, Intel’s revenue rose 3% year-over-year to $13.7 billion, and a federal court has ordered Meta to release internal documents related to teen harm. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE for free or get DTNS Live ad-free. A special thanks to all our supporters–withoutContinue reading "Anthropic And Google Have Formed A Cloud Partnership Valued At Tens Of Billions Of Dollars – DTH"
On today's podcast episode, we discuss what OpenAI as the next big operating system maker looks like, how they might make money from this, which integrated apps will become most popular inside ChatGPT, and how this potential super app could impact consumer AI devices. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host, Marcus Johnson, Analyst, Grace Harmon, and Principal Analyst, Yory Wurmser. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify. To learn more about our research and get access to PRO+, go to EMARKETER.com Follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/emarketer/ For sponsorship opportunities, contact us: advertising@emarketer.com For more information, visit: https://www.emarketer.com/advertise/ Have questions or just want to say hi? Drop us a line at podcast@emarketer.com For a transcript of this episode, click here: https://www.emarketer.com/content/podcast-chatgpt-next-operating-system-what-that-means-google-ai-devices-behind-numbers © 2025 EMARKETER Consumers skip ads but not rewards. Fetch drives performance with 12.5M+ monthly users and 11.5M+ receipts scanned daily, capturing 88% of household spend. Your brand becomes the reward earning real engagement, verified purchases, and lasting loyalty. Fetch: America's Rewards App. Where brands are the center of joy. Learn more at business.fetch.com.
Send us a textJoin The Bengals Pulse as we preview this weeks matchup with the Jets.SUBSCRIBE to the Wincinnati YouTube channel: https://rb.gy/yz5l4y FIND & FOLLOW the Wincinnati podcast on your favorite platforms:LISTEN on Buzzsprout: https://rb.gy/4d3xksLISTEN on Apple Podcasts: https://rb.gy/bwwbsiLISTEN on Spotify: https://rb.gy/daasvlLISTEN on Stitcher: https://rb.gy/0rc4rwLISTEN on Google: https://rb.gy/xgvsmpLISTEN on iHeartRadio: https://rb.gy/t03chpLISTEN on Amazon: https://rb.gy/vbumtvFOLLOW Ace & Zim on Twitter, where they'll share the latest news about the Cincinnati Bengals and interact with Bengals fans, and host Twitter spaces.Ace: https://rb.gy/gmx9fnZim:https://rb.gy/pb7nvwWincinnati podcast: https://rb.gy/wegjep
Archie is still promoting his song entitled, “Leave Us Face It, We're In Love.” Now he has made a symphonic arrangement and tries to get Duffy's guest, composer, commentator, music critic, and author, Deems Taylor, to get him into ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, of which Deems is the president.Originally aired on January 25, 1944. This is episode 114 of Duffy's Tavern.Please email questions and comments to host@classiccomedyotr.com.Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/classiccomedyotr. Please share this podcast with your friends and family.You can also subscribe to our podcast on Spreaker.com, Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Google podcasts.This show is supported by Spreaker Prime.
This audible clip from Erik Qualman's #1 Bestselling book The Focus Project explores how, just like an overstuffed drawer, our lives can become cluttered with too many commitments and distractions, leaving no room for what truly matters. Qualman explains that focus isn't about adding more, but about clearing space so we can open the right drawer. 5x #1 Bestselling Author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in over 55 countries and reached over 50 million people this past decade. He was voted the 2nd Most Likable Author in the World behind Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. Have Erik speak at your conference: eq@equalman.com Motivational Speaker | Erik Qualman has inspired audiences at FedEx, Chase, ADP, Huawei, Starbucks, Godiva, FBI, Google, and many more on Focus and Digital Leadership. Learn more at https://equalman.com
My guest today is Paul Bloch, co-founder and CEO of DDN. Once bootstrapped for decades, DDN is now a multi-billion dollar company partnering with Nvidia, Google, and Blackstone, helping customers train the largest models in the world and deploy AI at scale. We discuss how Paul and his team spotted the AI inflection point early, why infrastructure partnerships define the winners and losers in this space, and how DDN balances discipline with massive growth opportunities. Please enjoy this conversation with Paul Bloch. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page HERE. ----- Making Markets is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Making Markets, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @makingmkts | @ericgoldenx Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes (00:00:00) Welcome to Making Markets (00:01:02) DDN's Role in AI Infrastructure (00:02:08) Competition and Collaboration in the AI Market (00:04:31) Customer Engagement and Use Cases (00:08:06) Economic Models and Government Involvement (00:11:49) Sovereign Cloud and Global AI Perspectives (00:16:19) AI's Rapid Evolution and Future Outlook (00:21:46) Partnerships and Strategic Decisions (00:35:01) Beliefs on AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Meet our guest Victor Varnardo, who discusses his career evolution from a comedian and actor to a producer and entrepreneur. Victor explains that he initially sought to become an actor but pivoted to writing and producing to overcome being typecast due to his albinism, eventually deciding to focus solely on his art and transforming it into a viable business.Throughout the conversation, Victor Varnado shares insights from working with celebrities like Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and highlights the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset for artists, particularly emphasizing the value of gaining people's attention and using platforms like Amazon Direct Publishing for passive income.Victor's career began with roles in major movies alongside stars like Eddie Murphy and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But early success came with a creative ceiling. The entertainment industry saw him through a narrow lens, limiting the roles he was offered. As Victor explains, being "a black person with albinism... that was the extent of how people looked at me and wanted to cast me."Faced with being typecast based on his physical appearance, he made a pivotal decision: he would take control of his own narrative by writing and producing. This path led him from artist to entrepreneur, driven not just by ambition, but by the necessity of building a world that would showcase his talent, not just his difference. He had to transform his creative passion into a sustainable business to gain the freedom he craved."I wanted to spend all day just being creative and following my curiosity. And in order to do that, I had to turn my art into a business."This episode breaks down the core business principles Victor used to make this transition. These lessons offer a simple and understandable blueprint for any aspiring creator looking to build a career on their own terms.Thank you for listening to this episode.Visit Victor's Website @ SupremeRobot.com hereBuy The Anti-Racism Activity Book on Amazon here--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Next Steps for Digital Marketing + SEO Services:>> Need SEO Services? Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike>> Visit our Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services.>> Visit our Official website for the best digital marketing, SEO, and AI strategies today!>> Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community>> Read SEO Articles>> Need SEO Services? Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike>> Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast--------------------------------------------------------------------------------See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Do you ever look at other property management companies and wonder how they were able to grow and scale to thousands of doors? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull share insights they gleaned from successful founders and CEOs of multi-billion-dollar companies. You'll Learn [00:59] Execution is More Important Than Good Ideas [11:51] Narrowing Your Focus to What You're Best At [19:41] Ask Your Target Market [30:33] Everyone Should be Focused on One Goal Quotables “There's no shortage of ideas. It's execution that's the hard part.” “Everyone thinks… if I scale, I've got to do more. And actually, you have to do less to be able to scale…” “A lot of times we get caught up in creating systems, inventory, things that actually cause waste or over-optimizing each individual department or each individual step, but it actually reduces the overall goal of optimizing.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:00) a lot of times we get caught up in creating systems, inventory, things that actually cause waste or over optimizing each individual department but it actually reduces the overall goal of optimizing for making more money. All right, I'm Jason Hull. This is Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we believe that good property managers can change the world and that property management is the ultimate. high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now, let's get into the show. Okay, so we recently kind of split paths, right? so that you could go learn some stuff and I could go learn some stuff. So we usually do everything together. So, but we had, which I love, but we had two really cool opportunities. One I was very much more interested in than the other, because I was learning about AI, which I've been geeking out on. And then you went off to go to a profit event. And was really cool. We went to the first day together, but the second and third day I was in. AI workshop, geeking out with some of the best on AI. Cool. I would love to hear what you took away from this event and what you learned, and maybe you can share that. I wanted to go over my notes on one speaker in particular. I was kind of going back and forth between two of them and I think this is the one that I landed on. at a different date I could talk about the other one because you weren't there for either one of them. But on the second day, I'm just gonna call this like notes from a billionaire and not just a billionaire but a multi. Billionaire and not just multi-billionaire but someone who is the founding member and CEO of I think they said they grew it to like it was a ridiculous number like 740 billion or it was a big it was a big number it was a very large impressive number and he was so nice I actually had a conversation with him before I even realized who he was I was chatting with him I wish I would have known Like I recognized the name and then I saw him speak and I went man. I would've asked him a different question So I'll do a quick little intro and then I'll kind of share my notes from what I wrote down while he was presenting so intro his name is Jeff Hoffman and For those of you that don't know the name Like I didn't know the name before as soon as I say the name of the company you'll instantly go. okay No, know the company The company is Priceline. So he is one of the founding members of Priceline. They started it and scaled it to many hundreds of billions of dollars. This is some of the advice that he had shared with us in his Speech because I got to hear him get up and speak and present to the entire room. So The first thing that I wrote down I Don't know if he can be credited with saying this or if he was quoting someone else But he said it so I wrote it down because it resonated very much was ideas are welcome here But execution is worshiped And I think that's really powerful because how many times do we all have this great idea, right? my God, I had this idea. my God, I had this idea. my God, we should do this. We should do that. What if we did this? There's no shortage of ideas. It's execution that's the hard part. It's turning an amazing idea into something and bringing that to life and bringing it to fruition. So I love it so much. That's good. Yeah. too much attention a lot of times on the idea and the planning and all this stuff, but actually executing and actually getting something done, that's really all that matters. It doesn't matter. You can have a million ideas. If there's no execution, then who cares? So, okay. So I think my mom is a great example of this. Everyone, think mostly everyone knows Elf on the Shelf. So my mom, before Elf on the Shelf was a thing, she created it. She just didn't do anything with it. She only used it like for me and my brother, but we had an elf that would come and visit and kind of keep an eye on us. And he would do fun things and he would pop around to different places in the house. So every time in the morning we would wake up and he would be in a different place or sometimes he would be doing like an activity. He'd be like baking or, you know, riding a bike or whatever. And it was so funny because when you look back on it, I went, mom, like, that was off on the shelf and it's like multi-million dollar company. And she went, yeah, I wish I knew that. But she was just trying to do something fun for her kids. So she had taken that idea because it was, it was a great idea. And she executed on it, but she never brought it public. Can you imagine what would have happened if the execution was done on a larger scale? So she'll probably hate the fact that I'm calling her out on that. But I think that'll be her. multi-million dollar missed story. Yeah. Yeah. So some of the questions that Jeff had asked when we're thinking about ideas, because we all have ideas. Some of them are good. Some of them are questionable. And some of them we can say like, yeah, that was a dud. So this is kind of a framework to take you through to figure out, is this worth executing on? One is. Is this a problem? So you have to ask yourself, is this an actual problem? Like what you're doing, does this solve some sort of problem? And then bonus points if it's a big problem, right? So if we go back to the story of Priceline, many, many years ago, those kiosks that are in every airport that you can just check in on, you do not need to go and talk to a gate agent or a ticketing agent. They didn't used to exist. You used to have to go stand in line and wait forever to get your ticket and your boarding pass and perhaps give somebody physically give somebody your bag and a lot of times people would miss their flight because the line was so so so long and you never knew ahead of time like is this gonna be a 10 minute line or is this gonna be a two hour line so people would miss their flight And at one point, he turned around and he was in the airport, turned around, looked at the line and went, wow, this is such a crazy long line. And he decided, I'm going to start interviewing people right here and right now. And he went around asking people individually, how long have you been waiting? Wow, what happens if you miss your flight? Wow, what would you do? Would you think it would be valuable or beneficial if there was some sort of service where you didn't need to talk to the gate agent? And people were bidding on it. They were bidding. They were like, I'll give you $10 if you can get me my ticket without talking to the gate agent. And then somebody else will go, no, forget $10. I'll give you $50 for that. And somebody else will go, oh, I must get there today. I will give you $70 to get there today. People were bidding on it in line. So he realized, one, there's a problem, but actually it's a big problem. So he knew he was on to something right there. The second question is, is there a better way to do this? So is there a better way to check in for your flight than waiting in line and talking to a gate agent? Yeah, there sure is. It just hadn't been invented yet. But is that the best way to do it? No, absolutely not. So there was a better way to do something. And the third is, is there a value equation, which all that means is would somebody buy this? And he knew that one, he had a problem and it was a big problem. Two, there was a better way to do it. And three, people would definitely pay for it because people were bidding on it while he was standing in line. People were like, wait, do you know something we don't know? Like, I will give you money if you can just get me on the front line because I need to get on this flight. So hence how Priceline was born. So those are three questions that you can kind of ask yourself. If you're going, okay, I have this idea, should I? Should I do this? Should I act on it? Should I create something with this? Yeah. Seems pretty simple. think a lot of times we get really disconnected. you know, we study stuff, we learn stuff, we think we know, but when you actually go talk to your target audience and do a little bit of product research interview, you know, you can find out a lot of things that problems they have, things they need, and actually connect with, you know, what you're wanting to sell them may not actually work. So yeah, I think that'd be super helpful. All right. So then he kind of gave tips on, well, if you are looking to seriously, massively scale a company because it's not, let's face it, not every company gets to a million, certainly not even to a billion and absolutely not to hundreds of billions of dollars. Right. So These are tips that he had given the room in order to help you scale. And everyone thinks, you know, if I scale, I've got to do more. And actually you have to do less to be able to scale at that large of a size. he said, find your gold metal product or service. So for them, if you remember, if you would go on Priceline when it first launched, there was different tabs. the top right you could book a flight you could book a hotel room you could book a cruise you could get a rental car you do a vacation package like they did all the things yeah and they were scaling but it wasn't to the size that they wanted to get to and they went okay if we only did one thing what would it be like what are we the best at the world at and for them it was hotel rooms so they said okay It's not that we have to cut the other stuff. It's just that we're not going to market it. We're not going to advertise it. We're not going to talk about it. We're not going to put any money, time, or energy into that service. It's just there. But what we will do is we'll go all out on hotel rooms. because they were the best in class at hotel rooms. So they didn't cut the other things out. Go on there now, you'll still see, but their bread and butter is hotel rooms. So the other things are still available. It's just that they never, if you look at any Priceline commercials, you'll never see anything other than hotel rooms. Why do think that is? Because they're marketing what they're the best in class at. So that is their top service. Next is find your gold medal talent. So what was their gold medal talent? Any guesses? Don't cheat, don't lie. I know the answer because I was there. I don't know. I would imagine it's related to hotel rooms. So their gold medal talent are probably the best hotels. It was their algorithm. Okay. for connecting people to hotels. So their algorithm was their talent. They had a talent in that. What is Amazon's? Shipping. Shipping. It's delivery. So if you remember, Amazon didn't start selling everything on the planet. It started as a book store. That's it. They only sold books. And what I didn't know is that when this whole internet thing was blowing up. were three companies that were kind of becoming rising to the top all at the same time. It was Priceline with Jeff Hoffman and Partners. There was eBay. His name was Jeff and Pierre. Jeff and Pierre. And then there was Amazon. And that's Jeff Bezos. So somebody had asked him, what does it take to be successful in this internet thing? And he said, just find somebody. who's a really good Jeff. They all had the best, they were the best in class at something and then they had the best in class at a specific talent. So Amazon, they got fantastic at shipping and they only did books. And Jeff Bezos said, you know, when we get, I'm only doing books right now. And then when we get to a certain size with books, Then I want to branch out and then we'll do everything. But I don't want to do everything first right now. I just want to build our name and our reputation solely on books. Why? Because they were amazing at shipping. And now anytime that you buy something online, usually what's the first thought you think? Amazon probably has that. Why? Because you know they'll ship it. And then you need to shape your brand. That's the third piece of this. you need to ask yourself what question are you the answer to? So for them, I need a hotel room. Where do I go? right, priceline. Or, they did a lot of this too, I want a $200 hotel room but I don't want to $200 on it, I only want to spend, you know, $100 or $80. Where do I go? Priceline. So shape your brand around that. And then you've got to, in that arena, you've got to find your brand asset. So everyone goes, know, why should I work with you? I just watched a Jeremy Miner video, like at his live event, and he had a microphone and he went up to someone in the audience and he said, hey, why would someone work with you? I've seen these videos. And he let them answer. And he goes, mm-hmm. Okay, and then he goes to the next audience answer and he goes, why would someone work with you? And he does it again and he goes, okay, so all of you guys really sound the same. You're in wildly different industries and companies, but you all sound the same. Yeah. Right? So you can't sound the same as everybody else and expect to stand out. So if you could only give one reason that somebody would work with you, what would that one reason be? It's not about all the reasons, it's about the one reason and that shapes your brand. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was really good. If you aren't sure, you don't know, if you're like, I don't know, there's a lot of reasons why somebody wouldn't work with us. Ask your customers. Yeah, like why did they pick you? Why? What is the one reason? Don't just say why did they pick you because then they'll go, because of X, Y and Z. Great, was it X or was it Y or was it Z? What is the one main reason that you decided to work with us? And do that ask 10 people. If you don't have 10 people, then keep selling until you can get 10 people. Because that data will tell you what is it that your customers have found in your messaging even though maybe you didn't do a great job at delivering it. So I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, that's good. They talk about broadcasting versus what they call narrow casting So this is focusing on the right people not just any person Because for every product for every service for every brand There are the right people and Then there's everybody else So if you're trying to close every deal, it's almost like an impossible game Who do you target? Will we target people? Everyone. People? Really? Who do you target? Well, I work with real estate investors. Well, geez, okay. There's only like hundreds of millions of those in the world. Which ones do you target? Yeah. Right? So some of this goes into our client-centric mission statement when we take our clients through their company culture stuff. But we want to get really, really clear on who are my people. Not just who are people that could buy this. What are the right people to buy this? To work with me, to choose this, right? There's a difference. Right. I mean, this makes sense. know, yeah, you got to really be specific because if you target everybody, you target nobody. Then then you're just more noise in the marketplace. So if you want to be, you know, like we're pretty niche at DoorGrow, we target long term residential property management companies in the U.S. Like that's our target audience that do third party property management. So that's our... Do we get other types of clients? Sure, but that's our bread and butter. That's who we focus on and that's very specific. Those are the people we know we can help. And I'd say we're the best in the world at that. yeah. Right. So I think Sharan calls it a dog whistle. Right? Speak to your people and anyone who isn't your people, they won't hear it. It's not for you. Go ahead, I don't want you to hear it. Just the dogs, Just the right ones. They'll hear it. Okay. This I liked a lot. He said, focus on your second slide customer. So find your yeses instead of overcoming nos. Every sales training in the world goes, let's overcome objections. Let's overcome no. Let's work a no into a yes. Let's see what we can do to turn it around. Overcome objections. No, don't overcome objections. Just find the yeses. Second slide. Yeah, so you know when you have like a whole presentation prepared. Yeah, and The example he gave is he said he went out with one of his sales reps And there was like a 20 slide presentation that they that was like their pitch deck, right? so he spent the day with a sales guy and the first meeting they went to He got through all 20 slides and the woman was like, yeah, this sounds really good. I'm gonna think about it I think we need to go back to you. like, yeah, yeah, like it wasn't a solid yes, because she didn't commit, she didn't sign up. But she was open to it. She's like, yeah, let me think about this. Like, let me take it up to management. We'll do something. So he got out of that meeting and he said to the sales rep, said, how do you think that went? Sales rep was super proud. He went, yeah, that was a great pitch. She's definitely going to buy. Like, she's going to come back around. Like, that's a deal that'll close. It's like in the pipelines. about to close. Jeff said, yeah, I just didn't say anything. It's like, I just didn't say anything. I'm like, I'm not going to skew it. I just want the data, right? So he goes into another sales pitch, same sales rep. Slide two out of 20, two. They look at each other and went, oh my God, you're exactly what I needed. We're ready. And the sales rep was like, well, wait, let me tell you more about the rest. And he's like nudging the guy. He's like, sign them up. They're ready. They don't need more information. They don't need anything else. They're ready to go right now. Stop trying to complete the pitch. It's done. You don't need the other 18 slides. They already said yes, and they said yes on slide two. Find your slide two yeses. Don't try. to keep on going, don't try to turn the nose and do yes, don't overcome their objections, find your slide two customers. So what they actually did, this I thought was so interesting. This lit up my brain because I like data so Okay, I'm going to pause you. So nice little hook. Now we're going to go to our sponsor and then everyone can hear what you're about to Oh, that's so good. All right, so this episode is sponsored by Blanket. So really like the team over at Blanket. Blanket is a property retention and growth platform that helps property managers stop losing doors, add more revenue, and increase the number of properties they manage. Wow your clients with a branded investor dashboard and an off-market marketplace while your team gets all the tools they need to identify owners at risk of churning and powerful systems to help you add more doors. So check it out, it's an amazing property retention platform. Even if it's switching owner hands, you keep the property. So check out Blanket. what he did is he profiled people. know that sounds like nowadays we're elect. Don't profile that. No, profile our best customers who your best ones. Okay. That target audience. Who were your easiest sales? Who are your biggest fans? Right? Figure out what do they have in common. They all have something in common, but what is it? So for them, they figured out that a rep that worked at the hotel chain that went, huh, we have all these extra hotel rooms. What do we do with them? Like, how do we sell them? That was their job. It's just to figure out how do we sell more rooms. Those were like his target audience. The reps that were brand new. like one to two years on the job. That was not it. Because they're so new that they're not willing to take a risk yet. So they were not very likely to close. It's not that they wouldn't close. not that you couldn't close them. It's that it wasn't like almost a guarantee to close them. Also, reps that have been in the job for like 15, 18, 20 years. Yeah. Also not it. Why? Because they know how to give a shit. He's like, they're out the door, they're for the door, they're about to retire. They don't care. They don't care if they sell more hotel rooms. They just care that they keep their job until they can retire. So they're not, again, they're not almost practically guaranteed to close. So if you were in this bracket or in this bracket, he was like, yeah, it's not you. I'm not gonna target those people. It's the people in between. It's the people that have been there for like three to, you know, somewhere between like that three to fifteen, three to fourteen years. Those people were amazing because they're not afraid to speak their opinion. They're looking to kind of make a name for themselves at this point. And they're not afraid to take a risk. But they are looking to do something big. Those were his people. How do think you figured that out? as he profiled his best customers again and again and again. And you went, huh, look at that. The new ones, they don't do it. The old ones, they don't do it either. It's only this slot in the middle. And those, those are our people. Got it. I like that. Yeah, right? Makes me think, like, with our clients, who is almost always a guarantee to close? That's the profile of the target. Yeah. That's exactly what you want to do, because you want to profile the ones. It's like a shoe in. If I didn't close this, it would be insane. Right? They even took it a step further. actually created a 100 points scoring chart. Yeah. And there were different questions. One of the questions was that one, for example, like how long have you been with your company? So if you're like one to two years, he would give them like negative 20 points. yeah. Right? So now it's like, your score just went down. now you answered this way. Your score went down again. Your score went down again. Same thing with those, you know, the older ones. They would be like a negative 40 though, because they really didn't care. It's easier to close the newer ones than it is the older ones. So like, oh, I've been here 18 years. He's like, cool, negative 40 points. In the middle though, he might go, okay, there's like 25 points. Maybe there's 15 points. They just scored 15. Now what else? So you have to ask these questions and what his team got so good at doing once they implemented this hundred 100 point score sheet is They can ask a couple questions do the math in their head and then immediately decide is this worth my time? So if you knew you were talking to a 40 Go to lunch It's not you're not gonna close it. It's a 40 out of a hundred like go home That's it. But when you would get your 80s when you get your 90s, you'd be really excited. Yeah. Oh man. Okay. Let me invest in this So they created this whole scoring chart. I thought that was so brilliant. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty standard feature in a lot of CRMs is lead scoring. coming up with a rubric or an algorithm for scoring your leads can be pretty significant. So yeah, it's a difficult thing to figure out, though. You've got to really know why which customers are good. So you can kind of figure out how do I score someone to duplicate these people. Right. Yeah. So good. And this is probably something that will help you figure out how to score people and what questions to ask and what do they all have in common. He said, spend a day in the life of your customers and do it often. So the story that he told us, there was a company that when it launched, he knew the guy. He was having a conversation with him and he said, Hey, why did you launch your company the way that you did? when every single market expert said it wouldn't work and you did it anyway and it worked and it was wildly successful but what made you go no I'm gonna do it anyway and the answer was well that's easy I didn't even ask the market experts so I didn't know that they didn't think that it wouldn't work because I didn't bother asking the market experts Jeff said well what did you do? He said, well, I asked my audience. Sure. I asked my customers. That's it. He said, OK, well, how did you do that? So in this little town, across the bridge on like the less nice side of town. The owner of this company, and I'll tell you the company in a minute, but the owner of this company, he would be in his office with his team all day. His team had MBAs, they were finance executives, they were accountants, right? Not, not his target audience. So he would get changed into jeans and a flannel shirt and a John Deere hat. He would go across the bridge to the bad side of town. and would sit in a diner all day long. Every Friday he would do this. And he would just talk with people who would come in there. He would just make friends with them. He would chit chat. He would ask them questions. And he would just gather data. And he used that data for his lunch. Do you have any guesses? Did I tell you? I think I told you this story. You probably did. Do guesses on who it was? Uh, no. Walmart. Oh. Sam Walton. Yeah, so this was Walmart. Okay. Every single expert said that will never work. And he said, yeah, I don't need to listen to experts. I need to listen to my customers. Right. Because the customers are going to tell you what they want. Yeah, they're the ones buying. So they know. So it doesn't matter what experts say. It matters what the customer says. Yeah, absolutely. It was so good, right? And he really, he got to know these people. So it doesn't matter what the market says. It doesn't matter what the expert says. It matters what your customers say. If your customers are going to tell you what they want, you shall listen. And now you'll have a successful product, regardless of what the experts say. The experts don't understand everything like your customers do. Listen to what they're telling you. So if you just get that data that allows you to do things that even other people would say, you're crazy, don't do that. And he didn't think it was crazy. He was like, no, I just, they're telling me what they want. I'm just going to do that. And he did. And it's still around today. Huge brand. Sometimes customers don't tell you what they want, but if you are connected with them enough, you can see what they're having problems with and what they're struggling with. And sometimes they just, think that that's normal. They're just like, yeah, this is, hiring's hard, you know? And then I'm like, cool, we built a hiring system that solves this problem, right? And so, but a lot of people just kind of say, yeah, it's, you know, it is what it is. And they don't really think that it's a solvable problem sometimes. So that's, that's where I think, you know, you need to ask your customer, but you also need to, sometimes your customers are wrong. Like they don't know. And you have to be able to be creative enough to figure out what. would they want if it was, you know, if they recognize this problem. And then sometimes you have to sell them, you attract, it's like we attract a lot of people at DoorGrow that think they want leads and they think they want digital marketing and they think they want SEO. And then we have to guide them towards what they actually need and sell them what they actually need, which is totally different. Yeah. So that's, that's, that can be a challenge. Maybe we'd be smarter if we just sold them what they were asking for, but. they wouldn't get as great of results. Yeah, I feel like though, I personally, I just don't feel good about doing it. Yeah. Because to me, that's just a money taker, right? Right. That's an order taker, that's a money taker. That's like, hey, I really need to grow my business and like, I think this will work. And then that's like, yeah, give me your money. sell you that. just give you a whole bunch of leads. And months go by and... Well, how come my business didn't grow? I only closed like four deals. Well, I just don't, I don't think I can really get behind that with integrity. Yeah. Yeah. It's not exciting to me. I know there are companies out there that will, and especially now with AI, like just be super careful with SEO. Be like extra careful at this point with SEO because SEO is literally dying. Like thing. Yeah, the whole game's changed. With AI. The whole game's changed. More people are using chat GPT than Google. It's been a huge disruptor. It's such a big disruptor that the antitrust lawsuit against Google has dropped. I mean that's massive. for those that don't know, just sum it up, the antitrust lawsuit. Well, Google was being sued because they had almost no competition. They dominated the search market like nobody could compete. And the closest competitor was like a small fraction. And so the government was going after them with an antitrust lawsuit. And then ChatGPT broke. All these AI tools and platforms came out. And now Google is no longer viewed as viable you know threat of a monopoly yeah and they may be losing this whole AI race which is super wild right yeah they're fighting they've got their AI tool all over the place Gemini is pretty good it's really good for a lot of things but it's not winning Yeah, yeah. yeah, with like, chat GPT was something nobody knew that could happen. Like we didn't even realize this was something we all wanted. We all wanted like some almost genius thing that we could talk to all the time to get all sorts of information. Yeah, quickly without having to dig and try and do our own research. So, well. Okay, we'll go one more story and then I've got a closing quote. So I think we all know at this point the brand 1-800 flowers they're huge now So before they used to be huge because they weren't always Jeff went out to go visit one of their shops And everywhere everywhere in the shop they had posters printed up like slopped on the walls every wall in every room, in the hallways, in the bathroom, in the garage, in every single room. And it was just printed up on the walls, sell more flowers. Why? Because that is what we're all about. That is the only thing that we care about is selling more flowers. We don't care about anything else. We are only here to sell more flowers. And every single person in this company exists for one reason and one reason only and that is to sell more flowers. So every single person, every single minute of every single day needs to be thinking, how can I sell more flowers? So it doesn't matter what their role was in the business, they need to be thinking, how can I sell more flowers? So he's walking down the hall and there was an admin. She did a lot of paperwork, answering the phones, things like that. She's got this huge stack of papers and she's walking down the hall with a stack of papers. And the owner says, hey, whatever her name is, Susan, hey Susan. And he points up to the wall and he goes, what are you doing right now? And she goes. puts the paperwork down, turns around, walks away. And Jeff said, well, what on was that? And he said, if you're not, we have a rule, if you are not doing something, that can somehow be connected to how does it help us sow more flowers? My rule is you do not do it. Ever. So whatever she was doing, clearly, was not connected to sow more flowers. So therefore, I reminded her, sow more flowers. And she stopped, promptly, what she was doing and went back to what she should be doing, which is sell more flowers. So they continue on this tour. They get back into the back of the shop, into the garage where they've got their van for deliveries. And they have a mechanic. The mechanic is underneath, one inch away. And he goes, hey. He goes, watch this. He goes, hey, Joe. He points at the wall. He goes, what are you doing right now? And Joe says, oh, well, I was installing this new filter on all of our vans because this new filter, it saves us X money dollars in gasoline per tank. I think it was $8. So we save with this new filter. We actually save like $8. per tank of gasoline. So I'm going to install each of the filters on our vans. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go inside and tell marketing to print up some coupons for $8 off. of a bouquet of flowers and we're going to run that as a promo because if we just saved eight dollars that means we have eight dollars extra so we might as run a promo and that'll help us sell more flowers. And he goes, yeah, it's brilliant. Do that. So the mechanic is thinking all day every day how do I sell more flowers? Now would a mechanic generally be thinking about selling flowers? No. He'd be thinking, how do I wrench on this? How do I fix that? What about the oil change? What about the tires? What about the spark plugs and the brakes? He's not thinking about selling flowers. But it wasn't lost on him because all day, every day, he's staring at a big sign that says, sell more flowers. So it doesn't matter what you are doing. If it's not connected to helping us sell more flowers, what you're doing does not fricking matter. This goes along with a book called The Goal by Elihu Goldratt. And The Goal, spoiler for everybody that wants to read this. operational book is to make money. And so a lot of times we get caught up in creating systems, inventory, things that actually cause waste or over optimizing each individual department or each individual step, but it actually reduces the overall goal of optimizing for selling more flowers, for example, or making more money. And so sometimes team members standing around doing nothing is more effective than them building more widgets for the next step because it just creates more waste or more inventory or like constraint. And so that's the idea is the goal is to eliminate all the constraints to create momentum so that you get that that money coming in and everybody should be focused on that goal because it's very easy to get caught up and like he could be super caught up and I'm gonna make the cars run hyper effective and efficiently but Maybe that just causes more financial spend or maybe that doesn't help them sell more flowers, for example. And so when everybody understands the overall goal and how they fit into that puzzle, then instead of just focusing on, I did my job or I'm doing this, they're focused on, is this helping the goal? And so I love that. I love that idea. And I think that's super important to get everybody on the team to focus on. Cause a lot of times everything's siloed. They focus on their little department. They focus on their little role and they forget the overall goal of the company is to make money. Right. So even like your property managers, your leasing agents, your operator, like everybody who's on what I would call like back end, they have the same job, which is to get more properties to manage. So even if you're not in sales, it doesn't matter. Salespeople, it's very obvious the connection. It's like, yeah, so close more contracts and close more deals and then I have more properties, duh. Great, but how does that apply to your leasing agent? How does that apply to your property manager? How does that apply to your receptionist who's answering the phone? How does that apply to your AI tool? So everybody and everything is aligned with the one goal of the business, which is I don't care what we do unless... we sell more flowers. I don't care what we do. don't care. There is no point in changing the tires if it doesn't help us sell more flowers. Right? So I don't need to hear just for that thing. If we don't sell more flowers, I don't need to change the tires. So they've got to be connected. And that was a great example of how somebody even so far removed from the back end of the business. He's like, Back end of the back end is the mechanic. And he's still focused on top-lingle. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you talk to your team and you ask them, what are you doing? And you had to sign up the set, like, you know, get more property management clients. A lot of you aren't focused on that. A lot of them are like, well, I'm just talking to every tenant all the time. I'm talking to every owner all the time. Is that helping the goal of you getting more clients? No, a lot of things aren't. Is it helping keep clients? Cool. That is part of getting more clients, is keeping the clients. But yeah, if it's not related to keeping clients or getting more clients, managing more properties, then there's a lot of bloat and a lot of waste in property management companies. We see it all the time. So much. Yeah. And we're really good at helping you see it. So if you want to make more money and you've got a decent number of doors, you've got 200 plus doors, come talk to us. Our program will be paid for, but probably just the first stuff we help you with in the first month. It's a no-brainer. Okay. Okay, then I'll close it out with this. Okay. He said, as a quote, don't chase money, chase excellence, because excellence follows money. I like it. Yeah, right? It's okay. Because a lot of that's people want. They're like, I just want to make enough money. I want to make more money. It won't matter if you're not excellent at what you do. Yeah. Yeah, well cool. Well, those of you listening, if you have felt stuck, stagnant, want to take your property management business to the next level, reach out to us at doorgrow.com. Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners at doorgrowclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas to learn about and to learn about our offers in DoorGrow, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgrow.com slash subscribe. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on whatever channel you found this on. We'd really appreciate it. And until next time, remember, the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone.
Our 223st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 10/17/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Erik SchnultzFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Anthropic and OpenAI have announced updates to their AI models and tools, including Haiku 4.5 and various business collaborations.Multiple companies like Slack and Salesforce are integrating AI assistants and agents into their platforms, enhancing task management and business operations.Recent research in reinforcement learning and agent memory curation highlights new methods for improving AI model performance and context management.California has passed a law to regulate AI chatbots for children and vulnerable users, and there are rising concerns over the increasing amount of AI-generated content on the internet.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:31) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:18) Anthropic launches new version of scaled-down ‘Haiku' model(00:04:52) Everything OpenAI announced at DevDay 2025: Agent Kit, Apps SDK, ChatGPT, and more | ZDNET(00:09:11) Anthropic turns to ‘skills' to make Claude more useful at work | The Verge(00:13:20) Microsoft launches ‘vibe working' in Excel and Word | The Verge(00:17:22) Google releases Veo 3.1, adds it to Flow video editor | TechCrunch(00:19:40) Slack is turning Slackbot into an AI assistant | The Verge(00:22:52) Salesforce announces Agentforce 360 as enterprise AI competition heats up | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:24:58) Broadcom stock pops 9% on OpenAI custom chip deal, adding to Nvidia and AMD agreements(00:27:58) How ByteDance Made China's Most Popular AI Chatbot | WIRED(00:30:08) Amazon's Zoox Robotaxis Have Arrived In Las Vegas - Here's What Riders Are Experiencing(00:32:43) Waymo's robotaxis are coming to London | The Verge(00:34:14) Reflection AI raises $2B to be America's open frontier AI lab, challenging DeepSeek | TechCrunch(00:35:58) General Intuition lands $134M seed to teach agents spatial reasoning using video game clips | TechCrunch(00:38:36) Supabase nabs $5B valuation, four months after hitting $2B | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:40:58) Neuphonic Open-Sources NeuTTS Air: A 748M-Parameter On-Device Speech Language Model with Instant Voice Cloning - MarkTechPost(00:43:06) Anthropic AI Releases Petri: An Open-Source Framework for Automated Auditing by Using AI Agents to Test the Behaviors of Target Models on Diverse Scenarios - MarkTechPostResearch & Advancements(00:44:25) [2510.13786] The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs(00:48:51) [2510.01171] Verbalized Sampling: How to Mitigate Mode Collapse and Unlock LLM Diversity(00:51:22) [2510.12635] Memory as Action: Autonomous Context Curation for Long-Horizon Agentic Tasks(00:54:31) [2510.07364] Base Models Know How to Reason, Thinking Models Learn When(00:57:24) [2510.12402] Cautious Weight DecayPolicy & Safety(01:02:03) California becomes first state to regulate AI companion chatbots | TechCrunch(01:04:13) Over 50 Percent of the Internet Is Now AI Slop, New Data FindsSynthetic Media & Art(01:06:31) OpenAI Reverses Stance on Use of Copyright Works in Sora - WSJ(01:08:29) Character.AI removes Disney characters from platform after studio issues warningSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Users are falling in love with and losing their minds to AI. Journalist Kashmir Hill exposes shocking recent cases of chatbot-induced psychosis and suicide.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1227What We Discuss with Kashmir Hill:AI chatbots are having serious psychological effects on users, including manic episodes, delusional spirals, and mental breakdowns that can last hours, days, or months.Users are experiencing "AI psychosis" — an emerging phenomenon where vulnerable people become convinced chatbots are sentient, fall in love with them, or spiral into dangerous delusions.Tragic outcomes have occurred, including a Belgian man with a family who took his own life after six weeks of chatting, believing his family was dead and his suicide would save the planet.AI chatbots validate harmful thoughts — creating dangerous feedback loops for people with OCD, anxiety, or psychosis, potentially destabilizing those already predisposed to mental illness.Stay skeptical and maintain perspective — treat AI as word prediction machines, not oracles. Use them as tools like Google, verify important information, and prioritize real human relationships over AI interactions.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: Factor: 50% off first box: factormeals.com/jordan50off, code JORDAN50OFFSignos: $10 off select programs: signos.com, code JORDANUplift: Special offer: upliftdesk.com/jordanQuince: Free shipping & 365-day returns: quince.com/jordanHomes.com: Find your home: homes.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Sources tell ABC News the White House's entire East Wing will be demolished, contrary to some of President Trump's earlier claims. A military strike in the Pacific Ocean opens up a new front in the war on drugs. And ABC gets an exclusive look at Google's new step in “quantum computing.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
BYU Head coach Kevin Young previews the season with Matt Norlander. 00:00 - Start 00:46 - What's in coach's music playlist 01:30 - Who controls the aux at practice? 02:42 - What's it like to coach AJ? 04:06 - Has the NBA experience helped Coach with AJ? 05:24 - Will AJ have the ball in his hands more 08:03 - How does Richie's role change with the addition of AJ 08:38 - The Alabama Loss 10:00 - Other concepts coach picks up from other spots
T.J Otzelberger sits down with Matt Norlander at Big 12 Media Days to discuss his Iowa State squad ahead of the 2025-26 season! 04:39 - The Growth Of Joshua Jefferson 05:46 - Iowa St. Roster Outlook 08:13 - Norlander apologizes to TJ for ranking them too low last season
A group of alleged counterfeiters was just grabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York City. It was a group that's believed to have been around for years, operating out of Chinatown.Meanwhile, a new lawsuit is targeting what's being described as AI defamation targeting conservatives—and it's being brought by filmmaker Robby Starbuck against Google.We'll discuss these topics and others, in this episode of Crossroads.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
AI in sales isn't coming soon. It's already here, and it's quietly separating the salespeople who will thrive from those who won't. On the Sales Gravy Podcast, sales expert and author Victor Antonio shares this quote: "You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose your job to people who are using AI." While everyone debates whether artificial intelligence will replace salespeople, the real shift is already happening. What you need to know is which parts of your job will still matter when a machine can do everything else. The Trust Formula Still Requires Humans Most people think AI in sales is about automation. It's not. It's about augmentation. Yes, AI can write your emails. It can analyze your pipeline. It can schedule your meetings and generate your proposals. But it can't build trust with a buyer who's about to make a six-figure decision they're terrified of getting wrong. Trust in selling comes down to three things: Understanding the buyer's point of view Demonstrating real expertise Keeping the buyer's best interest front and center When a buyer is staring at a purchase order that could make or break their business, they don't want a chatbot. They want a human being who says, "I've got you. This is the right move." Simple Sales No Longer Require a Sales Rep Transactional jobs are disappearing. AI sales agents can already handle simple sales from start to finish. A customer calls about a broken window seal. The AI analyzes the image, checks inventory, schedules a technician, verifies the warranty, and puts the appointment on the calendar. No human required. This isn't science fiction. These systems exist today. AI handles simple tasks easily, but complex sales still require humans. Everything on the straightforward end—cold outreach, basic prospecting, routine follow-ups—is getting automated fast. But complex B2B sales are different. When deals involve multiple stakeholders, custom solutions, and high-stakes decisions, buyers still need salespeople. Humans don't trust machines with decisions that keep them up at night. Your job security lives in complexity. If you're selling simple products with simple processes, you need to start adding value now. What You Should Be Doing Right Now Most salespeople are waiting while AI transforms the industry. Don't make that mistake. Here's how to start experimenting with AI today: Use ChatGPT, Google's Notebook LM, or your AI of choice to digest long articles and research reports in minutes instead of hours. Feed it information about your products and competitors to create your own custom knowledge base. Role-play objection handling by assigning it different buyer personas and practicing your responses. Ask it to critique your proposals before you send them to catch weak points you might miss. These tools aren't perfect. They'll feel clunky at first. But you're not trying to master AI today. You're building comfort with technology that will be 100 times more powerful in just a few years. The salespeople who are experimenting now will be the ones who know how to use AI when it really matters. The ones waiting for their leaders to force them to adopt AI will scramble to catch up. The Skills That Survive AI So what actually matters when AI handles the busywork? The biggest obstacle in complex sales isn't convincing buyers that your solution works. It's helping them trust their own judgment enough to decide. Buyers freeze not because of your pitch, but because of fear: What if I'm wrong? AI can show data, ROI models, and comparison charts—but building buyer confidence still requires human judgment. That's the skill that matters: Building buyer confidence. You need to get exceptional at reading hesitation—when a buyer goes quiet or starts asking the same questions in different ways. They're not confused about your product. They're uncertain about themselves.
Kiera joins the Raving Patients Podcast to talk about obtaining that CEO mindset to systematize your practice. This mindset does not mean doing it all yourself, but leaning on others to maximize their skillsets. Kiera also discusses with Dr. Len Tau how to separate yourself from having your entire identity associated with dentistry. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Speaker 1 (00:00) Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Raving Patients Podcast. As you know, I'm your host, Dr. Len Tau, and I am super excited today for multiple reasons. Well, first, before I get there, I want to first thank my sponsors, both Dental Intelligence, CallRail, and a new one, Net32. You'll be hearing their commercials as well, so check out those companies. And again, the only reason I'm able to do this every single week is because of their support. I also want to remind everybody about my event, is only one week away. One week from now we'll be gathered in Fort Lauderdale for Supercharge with Dental Practice 2025. If you wanna be a come out last minute registrant, you can reach out to me. I will be glad to add you as a guest of me. So please reach out to me. You can check out the content at SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com So I said I was super excited and I'm super excited because of our guest today. And she's been a guest before and I just recorded an episode with her on her podcast. ⁓ We're talking about Kiera Dent, who is from the Dental A Team, and we're gonna be talking the CEO mindset systematizing your practice for freedom and growth today. So before I let ⁓ Kiera take it off, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce her. So she is the founder and CEO of the Dental A Team, an entrepreneur, consultant, speaker, and podcast host dedicated to helping dental professionals reach their highest potential. Through customized in-office and virtual consulting, She empowers dentists and their teams to cultivate an ownership mindset and achieving lasting growth. With experience spanning every role in the dental practice, front office, dental assistant, regional manager, and even practice owner, here brings unique first-hand perspective to her coaching. Alongside her team of expert consultants, she has partnered with hundreds of practices nationwide, leading them to greater efficiency, profitability, and fulfillment. As she often says, we don't just understand you, we are you. So please welcome to the Raving Patients podcast, Kiara Dent. Kiara, thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast today. Speaker 2 (02:03) Oh, Len, thank you so much. so excited to be here. I loved our podcast we did together. I love the podcast we did in the past together. I'm super excited about Supercharge. Everybody should go. We're going to like sneak peek, be there in 2026. Like Len, huge fan of you guys. Just excited to be here with you. So thank you. Thanks for having me. And yeah, it's always a little weird and fun to hear your bio read right before you get on. So just grateful to be here and just like have a good time with you. It's always a great time when we podcast together. Speaker 1 (02:30) Well, I'm excited to spend the next 30 minutes or so with content from you. So I always like to ⁓ start off for people that don't know who you are. I obviously read your bio. Can you just tell dentists and other people reading or listening and watching this episode how you help dental practices? Speaker 2 (02:50) Yeah, absolutely. So with the bio you heard, I started out as a dental assistant and then went throughout and I've owned practices. My first practice I took from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. And that was with a Midwestern grad. I worked at the dental college there. And so helping practices, what I learned was I've been a team member, I've been in so many of the team roles. And then in addition to that, I've owned dental practices and I understand the business and I've run multimillion dollar practices and businesses. so bringing that perspective, I feel like there's the dentist perspective, there's the owner, the CEO of the practice, and then there's the team perspective. And both are necessary for practices. And so Dental A Team, say like, it stands for dentist and team. So what we really do for practices is whether it's virtual or in person, it's... I call it the yes model line is what I like to say is number one, you as a person, we're going to focus on your vision, where you want to go as a doctor. Like what is your vision? The practice should serve your life. ⁓ because I believe that when you're supported, you're actually a better owner, a better boss, a better dentist. And then we go to E stands for earnings and profitability. We've got to make sure it's a profitable practice. And then we use those things, the vision and the numbers to then tell us what systems and team development we need to put into place. I'm really much a custom. Let's see kind of like dentists do with patients. Like let's do a comp exam. Let's see where we're at. And then let's go for what's going to make the biggest impact with the least amount of effort. And being team members ourselves, I really think that we're able to like, Hey dentists, we want to hear your vision. We need to know where you're going and then go do your like favorite thing. It's dentistry. And then let's help your team be empowered to learn how to run the practice. So it truly is like a self-managing team, utilizing every single player in the team to their highest potential, but doing it with a ton of fun and ease. Like as a team member, I didn't want more hard work. As an owner, do not want you to give me more homework. I'm already busy. So I feel like we really come in and bridge that gap of like where we are to where we want to go and do it in the easiest, most efficient and most fun way possible to help like team and patient experience be the top that it can be. Speaker 1 (04:48) So I guess someone's listening to this podcast and they say, you know, want to, I want to change the culture in my practice, but I'm very much a micromanager. So which means they're not focused on their dentistry, they're focused on managing the team. Do you help with that? Because there are so many micromanagers out there. I always wanted them for a very long time. And honestly, wasn't until I gave up that micromanaging and I just did the things I was going to do that my practice excelled. So ⁓ that's something, if someone's a micromanager, do you get them off doing that? Or how do you deal with that? Speaker 2 (05:19) Yes, and I'm so glad you said that because I think most Founder owners are micromanagers. think leadership we believe I I think so many there's this belief out there that we just come into this world as great leaders and we should just know it like you went to dental school you should just know how to be a leader and leadership is a journey and so for those micromanagers I think it's really fun to have the doctor and the team perspective and to be able to help both of them say like no doctor like these are the things but what I found is doctors micromanage because there's a lack of communication feedback loops so it's a lot so it's either a lack of communication and feedback loop, a lack of knowledge, or they just like genuinely want to be a manager and they don't want to be an owner. And I'm like, great, let's just figure out what the the reasoning is. And then let's find the solution to that. So if team members have doctors that are micromanaging, first question I'm looking at is like, where's the feedback loop and what are we missing? Next is like, hey, doctor, I understand that this is where we're at. This is where I need you to be for the growth of the practice. What do you need to feel confident to be the dentist, to be the like not micromanaging like there's a lack. And when I realize there's a lack and when teams can realize that there's a lack, like there's just something missing, we fix that, dentist is now able to be happy, team's able to flourish, everything starts to move in in a good motion. absolutely. I think being team members ourselves, we're not doctors, we're not dentists. Like, Len, I'm gonna lean on you for clinical. Like, that's not my world. I'm not here to even discuss it for one minute. But what I am here to do is to bridge that gap between doctors and teams. Because ultimately it's same team, like everybody wants the best experience for the patient. We want the practice to flourish. So if we're all same team, let's help get people right seat, right person, help them understand what they should and could be doing. But also like office managers, there's this whole weird world for them too, where they've never been taught to be managers. They've never been taught what they should or shouldn't be doing. They've never been taught like what the difference between an office manager is and a biller and a scheduler and a treatment coordinator and how all those roles are different. And so helping people understand even what their job entails. I think really can cut that micromanagement passion project. It's just a lack of knowledge and so teaching teams and teaching people, but we're very hands on. I really don't like fluff. That's why think when you and I get along well, I want it to be tactical. I want it to be practical and I want it to be something that's sustainable as well. Speaker 1 (07:34) And that makes a lot of sense. And that was a great answer, by the way. We're talking about, obviously you're very systematized. You put systems in place, the team follows, everybody knows what they're doing, runs like a well-oiled machine. Okay. And that's how my practice was when I left, when I was traveling. ⁓ I knew things, I didn't worry. I knew that things were going to be done like this. They knew the roles, team members didn't need to be scolded. They just knew what their role was in the practice. So, ⁓ I know there are things, I like a term here you use the chaos creators. So there are chaos creators in the, in the office. So what are some of these, these common chaos creators? ⁓ that actually can be helped by putting systems in place. Speaker 2 (08:13) Yes, and I love that you brought that up because that's the ultimate goal. That's why I wanted this to be called like the CEO mindset. Like doctors, like you should be a dentist and you should own your business. You should not be the one managing. And when you recognize that this actually can be one of the biggest chaos creators in the practice of doctors trying to be the doctor, the dentist, the CEO visionary, plus the manager, plus all the other parts of the practice. Like that is a chaos creator, not knowing right person, right? See is a massive chaos creator. Number one thing I hear every time I go into an office or I work with someone, is it's communication. And communication is again just a system that needs to be put into place. So how do team members know? Like what is our true morning huddle? It's not a time for us just to hang out. Like why do football players huddle? Why do basketball players huddle? They huddle to win the game. So what does winning on our practice even look like? Making that very clear for our team. Other things like handoffs. That's another communication drop that's a chaos creator. What doctor says to the patient, to the hygienist, to the front office, It's such fun. I feel like we play a game of telephone. So putting in a little simple system there where we've got a great communication handoff and a process. I know Len, you and I are very big on this case acceptance process of just really having a great clean experience for the patient. These are chaos creators. Also, team members even knowing what their job should be, understanding how they go from where they were hired to how they can get raises. Those are chaos creators. The scheduling. How do we schedule? Let's have block schedules in there. Let's have a way that we do this in our practice. I remember when I was a scheduling coordinator, my office manager said, Kiera, do not even think about scheduling outside of the blocks until you learn why we schedule the blocks the way we do. And you're right, like when team members know the rules of the game, so much chaos gets eliminated from the practice. like quick things are have great meetings and truly great meetings. If you don't know how to run a great meeting, Traction by Gina Wickman. It's a little bit of a dull book. However, there are so many paramount pieces in that book and great meetings could be in there. Doctors and OMS have a same page meeting where we're looking at it. Get our KPIs in place where we know where is the practice even going? What is each person's number that they can like impact and improve in the practice? Have like set job descriptions, have protocols of how we treat a patient. What's our hygiene period protocol? Let's just have like really simple systems and I'm big on I don't like to remember things. Like I love holidays, holidays are on a cadence. So how can we actually get cadences within your practice to where things really can run on more of an autopilot rather than trying to constantly like catch all the balls and remember things? That's the chaos. The chaos comes from the like not knowing and trying to scramble and being in reactive rather than proactive modes. Speaker 1 (10:53) But that's really good, that's really great. So another question I have for you, there are dentists who are just dentists, and I don't mean that negatively, but they go in with the expectation that they're either gonna be an associate forever, or they're just going to practice and let everybody run the practice and they're just gonna come and do the dentistry, okay? Versus having the mindset of and acting like the CEO, okay? And there's a big difference. One, I believe, has a lot more stress. I like to talk about it because I was the CEO of the practice. I handled everything. I handled the marketing. I handled the HR. I handled all of the things that makes it different than just being a dentist and putting your hands in the mouth and treating a patient. So if someone wants to act and think like a CEO, what does it really mean to do that versus just practicing dentistry and doing the dental work? Speaker 2 (11:51) Yes, I'm so glad you brought this up. I've been like crushing on this idea. We actually just ran a three day CEO dentist workshop. like. obsessing on this right now because there is nothing wrong. And I think that there's a few hats that people wear. I wear a consultant hat. I also wear a CEO hat. And they're actually and I think about big companies like let's look at Google. I know that CEO is not coding. They're not. They're not building it. They're truly in a CEO realm. And so when we look at like what does a CEO do, they are the chief executive officer. Like their job is to execute. Their job is vision. Their job is culture. and their job is to like really steer and guide the ship and to come up with great ideas. And so when I look at that, I think that there's two hats for CEO dentists to wear. There's the true clinical dentistry, if that's what you want to do and continue to do. And then we really do need somebody who's guiding and leading this business. And I think when dentists, I know this can be a little like not favored, ⁓ dental practices are multimillion dollar businesses and they are. when we realize that they're They are businesses and like you said, the HR and the marketing. But when you look at large businesses outside of dentistry, they have other players in the realm and in the rink with them to make it actually run as a very successful business. And so I believe that when we understand the business portion of dentistry and we have great clinical care, that's when we're able to serve and help more patients and more team members. And so helping these dentists realize what does a CEO do? And I actually pulled from Dan Martel. the author of Buy Back Your Time, like obsessed with his book, met him in person, like raving fangirl. It was like slightly embarrassing, like how big of a fan I was of him. ⁓ But he has his delegation ladder in there for businesses and actually created a delegation ladder for dental practices of when CEO dentists go from like your right line, a lot of them do it all. And that's, think, where the burnout is and the chaos is to where when can we start to delegate? Like, do you have a personal assistant who answers all of your emails for you? And if not, Administrative tasks are one of the best things to delegate. Then we move into like our scheduling and then into our customer service and the patient experience. And then we move into treatment planning. A lot of doctors do that on their own. And I'm not here to say you have to give up anything, but I am here to say that when you truly take on the role of CEO, trying to do it all actually creates chaos. And you actually, you're the bottleneck of the business. And so then we start to delegate out the case acceptance if you want to. You're allowed to keep whatever you want, whatever you're great at. Then we delegate out the marketing, then we delegate out the, actually, me and my operations manager were talking that I believe that there's two spaces within leadership. There's the executive side, that's these big picture visionary pieces. And then there's the management side, which is the HR, the protocols, the accountability of the team. And when we had that like, and I believe that there's, it's like a black and a white, yin and yang, perfect whole, you need both sides of this leadership within that CEO realm. But when you're trying to do all the pieces as a CEO, you need to know every aspect going on in the business. But that does not mean you need to do every aspect of the business. And so I think it's like figuring out which colors you like to paint with, which ones really are your zone of genius and then starting to then delegate in strategic manners, delegate and elevate, not abdicate ⁓ really are how you can make this where you become truly the CEO of your business and your practice. And you're able to have great players around you that are able to then. Make sure every other part of your business is thriving and flourishing too. Speaker 1 (15:19) Got it. Speaker 2 (15:20) So much line, I hope it wasn't lying. Speaker 1 (15:22) No, that was great. That was great. I mean, they should replay that because I think there was some really good nuggets and pearls that they can take back. So, you know, I want to talk about delegation. ⁓ you know, Invisalign is a great product ⁓ to bring into the practice or aligners in general. doesn't have to be Invisalign, just aligners. And aligners are really good, but they become really profitable ⁓ when a dentist is willing and able to delegate the tasks to other team members. And personally myself, I used to do it all. And then I took a class by somebody, can't remember who it was, but it was all about giving the empower your team to do things and delegate the services to them where you're literally kind of just doing the initial consultation and whatever is required by your license in the realm of the things. But the team is able to do mostly everything else. And once you do that, ⁓ Invisalign becomes a very, profitable procedure. So what advice do you have about delegation to somebody, to a dentist who really feels like they need to do it all and does not want to give up control of anything? Speaker 2 (16:28) Len, I'm so happy you asked me this question and I'm so happy that I'm a team member and I'm gonna put on a team member hat, not a CEO hat on this one. ⁓ Number one, I really, really hope, and dentists, if you need to pause, replay, record this and listen to it every single day, I really hope you do. ⁓ As a team member, my number one job, genuinely speaking, and doctors have told me so many times when they've heard me say this, it... hopefully will strike you to your heart as well. As a team member, my number one, like genuine number one objective was to make my doctor happy and to make their life easier. And that was honestly what I did every single day. As a dental assistant, I'm looking ahead. I want to be seven steps ahead of you and I want to make sure that you're truly like set up for success. I want to make sure that patient's back on time. I want to make sure that hygiene exams are on time. And I think that while yes, you might have some team members that make you question this statement. I think 95 % of the population is genuinely good and they want you to thrive and they want the patient experience to be great. So when you hear that and you truly honor that and you respect that and you trust that, you then will realize that one of the best things you can do is, I don't believe in delegating. So like I can empower, but if I empower and don't hold accountable, then I've created entitlement within my practice. So I want to empower through delegating of this like. As a dental assistant, do know how happy I'd be if you gave me, can fit a line. I understand I'm going to make a few mistakes, but oh my gosh, the growth, growth equals happiness. So for your team to be happy, give them opportunities to progress. Like that's what creates the happiness and the sparkle and the zest in life. And so really when you empower your team and hold accountable, you don't get this entitlement. When you empower and don't hold accountable, that's when we get these entitled teams that genuinely then it just becomes mayhem in your practice. So like you said, delegate these tasks that one, either you're not good at, or I do think about everybody should be working at the top of their license. What are you able to produce per hour? If there's a task that I can hire somebody for less than you can produce an hour, it's probably something that we shouldn't be using your time for. And I know as a CEO, as an owner, this is actually hard for me because you strip me of things that I'm actually really good at, but reality is there's better uses of my time. And when you can recognize giving everybody the best use of their time. Me as a dental assistant being able to do Invisalign, you've now just lifted and elevated me to the highest level of my license as well. And so I really do believe like doctors, one, believe that your team is truly here to support you. And if they're not here to support you, they're not your right team players. they like, great, let them graduate to somebody else and you bring somebody else in. Two, empower them and hold accountable to ensure that it's like how you want it done. And team members like, You can share this with your team. I'm happy to share this one reason I like to do this. Team members, give the feedback to your doctor. They are going to trust you so much more when you come back to them and you show them the things you listen to what they say, you create the protocols, you do it exactly how they want you to do it. That will build trust and confidence so quickly. Team members lose doctor's trust so quickly when they like lacked to follow through and like truly do what the doctors have given them like stewardship and ownership over. So for those doctors and like you said, Len. You won't understand until you try. And when you do try, you will make mistakes. But I believe, this is my philosophy, anything that I've delegated never gets to come back to me. And I think when you have that notion and that idea, well, I know it could never come back to me. You actually make it really, really great. You train your team. You help them have this. ⁓ And I then believe everybody's able to flourish so much higher. So hopefully that answered of like, one, you need to delegate and you should delegate. Two, what are the tasks that you can be doing that are like helping you work to the highest level of your license? Everybody working at that is going to make a better team experience, a better patient experience, and all around a better practice for you as well. Speaker 1 (20:20) I think you, I mean, the content you're providing, the listening and viewing audience is spectacular. you know, one of the, I guess, negatives about being a dentist is a feeling of being overwhelmed. A lot of stress. You know, that's part of the reason why I think you've got, you know, dentists with the highest, one of the highest suicide rates out there is that, you know, it's a very stressful job. I mean, you've got a lot of debt, you've got a lot of, you know, people relying on you for income as well. So what mindset do you think exist ⁓ that or traps do you mindset traps do dentists fall into that that keep them feeling overwhelmed and and what do do about that? Speaker 2 (21:00) Yeah, this is something so real to me. My first practice, I mentioned it briefly at the very beginning of we took our practice from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months. And when I present and I speak, I often will bring up like the success story and I list off my stats of our practice. I asked the audience, said, who wants this practice? And like hands go up and people are like shouting like, yes, I want this. And then I say the other side of success is that this person, is me, like, spoiler alert, I was 98 pounds and I'm 5'8". I ⁓ had divorce papers on the line. I remember like I walked out of my practice that like one day and I remember just like standing on the sidewalk and being like one step and all this could be over. Like it was, and I'm not a dentist. I didn't even have the pressure of having to be in the exam rooms, but I do understand the pressure of business. And that's actually what's like fueled my passion in consulting is. Because I thought like if this is how so many of us feel to get to success, Tony Robbins has a quote that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And that was curidant in a nutshell. We had success on paper, but fulfillment was lacking and my entire life was falling apart. And so when you ask like, what are some of these zones that keep people in this mindset is one, I think that we believe that to get to success, we have to grind it out. We have to hustle. We have to do it all. Like it's this hustle mentality that I believe is so false. Yes, I do believe that hard work is required, but I don't believe you have to do all of the work. Just like we talked about before, also think delegations paramount. I think so many of the doctors that I see there in this burnout are just, it's like grippy. Like they want to hold on to everything and they're not willing to let go and they're not like, also you're telling your team that you don't trust them and you don't believe in them when you do that as well. So you're actually causing like this double-edged sword on it. And then third, I think ⁓ we just don't take time to stop and pause and realize like what really is necessary. I think so much like when I sold out of the practices, my whole identity was associated with that. if we have our identities associated with these practices and with the success, well, I can imagine that that feels like chopping off your arm and your leg if you were to fail. therefore, if it's literally my physical body and I feel like it's my whole identity, I literally remember the day that I sold out of the practices. I felt who is cura dent, who is she? Like I have no purpose in this world anymore. Nothing is important. Like I don't even have a family. I have no practice. I felt nothing and I think when people's identities are associated with this rather than having something else. So I talk about like what makes all of you up and I remember like like looks like this weird little doll. Like it's such a weird outline that I make people do but I'm like draw to me like how your life is and when I do this usually it's like from your neck to like your ankles that's work and if that much of your identity is associated with work in your practice. What could we shift this to more so your whole identity is not associated with that? So that's like we go work out, we have time with family, we book the vacations and when you start to realize that there's more life outside of the chair, more life outside of it and you being a well-rounded human that truly and I don't like the word balance, I just love the word well-rounded and fulfilled. When we start to add some of those pieces in which again feels contradictory, it feels like if I give this up that I'm not making money. I used to say I don't want to sit on the couch and watch TV with my husband because I'm literally not making money. That's one of the the grossest statements I've ever said, but Len, it's truth. I really truly felt this way. Like the only purpose is to be producing and to be productive. But I didn't realize that. Like you look at that athletes have to take a break and they have to reset. They have to recharge. They have to like the best time is actually the recovery off season. ⁓ no, no person can continue operating at 110%. And when they are operating, they're actually not their best self. So there's just as much beauty in the recharge off time. as there is on the productive on time. So when we can delegate, when we have more purpose beyond just our practice, and it's okay, work to me is very fulfilling. It's such a big part of my life. I love it. ⁓ But it's not all of Kiera's identity. So if I were to lose work, Kiera and hopefully you can still exist outside of that. ⁓ And then truly having shut off time. A lot of clients when they come on board, I tell them, I'm like, I'm giving you the greatest gift. You're out of work today at 4.30 and I don't want you to talk about work. Close the laptop, walk out and literally leave it at work. And what's crazy is people don't realize that you can actually get a lot done within your four or five hour, like four or five day a week work week. And to be home with your kids, to be home with your family, to go to the gym, to replenish your bucket that gives out so much every single day ⁓ really is what you actually need to be doing rather than trying to produce more. And it sounds contradictory, but it's true. You will actually produce more and be a better producer and happier business owner if you will do that. I know that was a long-winded answer, Len, but I really hope that people can see there are two sides of success. The word itself of success has a portion of suck. Like there is a side of business that is really hard that does require that grind and that hard work, but there's also a beautiful side. And I think when people can dance in that, can see that their whole identity is not the practice. It's not all dependent on that and they fill themselves and fuel themselves. Literally, I feel like the burnout can be dissipated very quickly. If you've been going on it for a long time, it will probably take a little bit longer, but these small, simple steps will make you so much more fulfilled. And honestly, I hope nobody listening to this podcast hit success without fulfillment. I hope all of us commit that while we're giving the great patient care, we're giving back to all these people, we equally get to deserve and we should deserve to have a beautiful life of our own as well. Speaker 1 (26:39) So nicely said, very eloquent in way you said that as well. last thing I want to cover is, we talked about being overwhelmed. stress is also part of being overwhelmed. very stressed. What are some ways that you think a dentist can reduce the stress on a day-to-day part of his practice? If someone said, hey, I'm so stressed, I don't know what I'm going to do. And you hear it a lot. I I talk to dentists all the time. And one of the common denominators is that they're You know, when I sold my practice, I was never truly, truly stressed out. The stuff that stressed me out, honestly, was stupid stuff. But since I sold my practice and retired, I don't really have much stress in my life anymore. It's very interesting. But what are some things that dentists could do to reduce those stress they see on a day-to-day basis? Speaker 2 (27:29) Yes. Okay. And I said, yes, because I'm to go back to the S model. The S model is literally like my stress booster buster for you. Number one, where do you want to go and why? Like figure out you that truly if you don't have a North star, you don't know what you're going for and reassess to make sure that's really where you want to go. So many people put this like, I want to have four practices and I want to have this. And I'm like, why? You got to be able to tell me why I'm making sure it's your dream, not the dream you think you should be living. That's like number one to get rid of stress, like truly living your dream. And I will tell you, you're allowed to like, it's in pencil, it's not in permanent ink. You can erase it, you can recraft it, you can recreate it. That's going to cut stress. I was chasing after a mountain, I didn't want to climb anymore. And when I realized that, that was a pivot shift. So number one is like, make sure you're actually truly going where you want to go. And that's the you. Earnings like profit, like Len, so much stress comes from not knowing the numbers. And I know people sometimes want to avoid it. They don't want to look at it. Like I'm just going to go do production. I want to do ethical dentistry and I will tell you both exist. It's not an or like you will you as a human are going to naturally do ethical dentistry. Like you can't go against that. That's who you are at your core. And by knowing the numbers, you're not going to go and overdiagnose like I promise you it will not happen. But knowing the numbers and actually like looking at your cash, what are you spending money on? What do you need to produce to be able to afford the business? Doctors learn the numbers and they actually use the numbers to make their decisions. Stress dissipates. I have so many doctors that reach out to me because they're cash flow poor and I'm like, you're producing 200,000 a month, how are we broke? ⁓ So actually understanding how to use numbers and not to be used by numbers and knowing how you actually can get money and like what can you live on and understanding tax brackets and savings like that discipline might seem constrictive, but I will tell you it is the most freeing stress free piece that you can have. And then third, our systems and team. Like I'm going to like just really keep like painting this picture for you. Delegate to your team, use your team, put the systems into place. And we don't go for the whole elephant. We don't do the entire thing in one night shift. What we do is we look at the numbers. Where are numbers low on the KPIs? Let's go fix a system over there. So we fix that part of the leaking bucket. Just that alone, like even myself, I felt it like the hoosh of reducing that stress for you. ⁓ Start with your vision. know your numbers and then put systems into place and team delegation and elevation ⁓ that will immediately reduce stress. And then like just quick, what is the one or two hot pain points right now causing the bulk of your stress? Let's figure out how we can eliminate those right now. And I want to, everybody always says, Kiera, there's no way like I can't do this. The answer is yes, you can. Yes, you can. And when we get out of this, I can't get that, I can't do this. We actually find the true core of what we can solve. Usually the answer is pretty simple and it's pretty immediate. if we're willing to just let go and take action. So those would be kind of my like four little steps to reduce stress quickly and easily. And if you can't see it, sometimes having an outside voice and outside perspective, sometimes you're too far in the weeds, that can be very beneficial for you as well to like take you by the hand and say, here's step one, two, three, four, and they're there to guide you as well, rather than you trying to figure it out yourself. Speaker 1 (30:35) amazing. This is great. ⁓ I want to shift for the final few minutes that we have together. I want to shift to my lightning round Q and a that I like to do with guests. We're going to get through eight to 10 of these. Okay, ready? The rule of thumb for this one, you like long winded answers, which is great. But for this one, it's very, fast. No long, no long winded. We'll never get through this. Speaker 2 (30:47) So You got it, Len. Speaker 1 (30:58) So I opened my app up. First question, what book do you want to go back and reread as it's made a great impact on you the first time you read it? Speaker 2 (31:07) I would go back and reread Bye, Your Time by Dan Martell. I feel like there's a lot that I could relearn from that where I'm at today. Speaker 1 (31:14) repeat that one more time. Speaker 2 (31:17) Yep, buy back your time by Daniel. Speaker 1 (31:19) Buy back your time. I'm just writing it down. All right. Who has been your greatest inspiration? Speaker 2 (31:25) Gosh Tony Robbins hands down. I love Tony so much. I look up to him a lot. I've been in his Lions group ⁓ the reason I look up to him is because He said one time the Tony you see in front of you is the Tony I created it's not from my parents It's not from business. It's not from anybody else It's who I want to be and who I esteem to be and he said life is always happening for you and not to you and those two pieces have Resonated with me so much in my life ⁓ truly one of the like biggest, greatest mentors and I've been really blessed and lucky to have him directly mentor me, which have truly changed the trajectory of my course, of my life as well. Speaker 1 (32:04) Awesome, amazing. ⁓ If you could take a class to learn anything, what would it be on? Speaker 2 (32:10) marketing. Len, hate marketing. Call my Achilles heel. I learned so much and I think I know more. But man, if I could like understand it on a really high level easily all day every day and I take a lot of them. But man, one like magic one that would teach me everything. Yeah, it'd be amazing. Speaker 1 (32:26) Amazing. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming successful? Speaker 2 (32:33) Yes, I do. It sounds like cliche. I didn't like, I think the yes model came from what I believe success is like you having a vision, looking at your numbers and then putting systems into play and using your team ⁓ and surrounding your yourself with people that are living and doing the life you want. I really do believe we become like the people we surround ourselves what we listen to. So that's what I would say is the path to success. Speaker 1 (33:01) Amazing too. Has anyone in your network other than Tony Robbins, has anyone in your network been important in your journey or to your journey? Speaker 2 (33:09) Absolutely. There's a lot of people. think my husband, that's a huge support for me. He believes in me, even though maybe he shouldn't believe in me, but having that rock. And then also my team, truly, I look at all the variations of Dental A Team and where I've gone as me as a person, they've evolved me as a human and they've also evolved our company and the good and the bad that have gone through. They have truly shaped me, every single one of them, and I'm very, very grateful for the trust they put in me to create what we've built. Speaker 1 (33:42) amazing. How do you develop how have you developed key partnerships? Speaker 2 (33:47) Ah, that's fun. You go to events, you talk to people, you look to see how can you add value to their world, to their life. And I think partnerships, partnerships to me, I don't try to figure out like how to do something. I look to see like, who do I know that knows how to do this? That's how I use partnerships in life and vice versa. Like bring more to the table than you take from people. But I look at people have just like, what's their secret sauce? How can I like, like connect them to other people? To me, it's a fun connect the dots of just getting great people together. That's how I believe that like. To me, that's how all boats rise is through partnerships like hands down. One of the best things was networking and meeting people. You will learn more from the minds of men than you will be able to like mine out of this world. Like there is more gold there than anywhere else in this world. Speaker 1 (34:32) Got it. What has been your most satisfying moment in business? Speaker 2 (34:39) Most satisfying moment? There have been a lot. I think recently my most satisfying moment was when I wanted to give up and I really was so burnt out and I was exhausted and I was tired and I hit that breaking point again in my life. And for the first time in my entire career, I took an entire month off and I reset and it was the most scaring. There was a lot of really bad backlash that came from it. But me as a human, re-centered, refocused, re-prioritized. And I think that that was one of the most satisfying moments to realize, at the end of the day, CEOs and business owners have to show up for themselves first to be able to give to their entire team. And I'd never, ever, ever, ever done that. So like me personally, that was one of them. But man, like the hundreds and thousands of clients lives, Glenn, you and I both know, I think as consultants, when you hear people's lives changing, like clients who are broke and literally had no money and now they're buying their kids their dream lives, that to me will always be the clincher of everything but like beautiful and why I show up every single day to do it. So there's a personal and a professional win that was like just super satisfying. Speaker 1 (35:47) That's really great. All right, three questions left. Let's get through these quickly. What deserves all your attention but seldom gets it? Speaker 2 (35:57) I would say probably my body like working out. Speaker 1 (36:00) Okay, what three adjectives describe your strengths? Speaker 2 (36:06) Adjectives. ⁓ I would say grit. would say fun. And I would say passion. Speaker 1 (36:16) Great answers. Last question I ask is to everybody. So it is one subscription, either business or personal, so something you pay for either monthly or annually, that you simply cannot live without. Speaker 2 (36:33) ⁓ Len. I would say I can't live without, honestly, boomerang. That sounds so ridiculous. I would not be able to follow up with all the millions of things that I do day in and day out without boomerang as a person, like professional. Like I would pay for that all day every day. ⁓ Speaker 1 (36:53) I haven't heard that one before, that's a good one. you go. ⁓ So Kiera, how can people learn more about how you can help them if they want to learn more about your consulting agency? What's the best way for them to reach out and find out more? Speaker 2 (37:03) Yeah, thank you so much Len. Best way is listen to the podcast, the Dental A Team podcast. Reach out on our website, TheDentalATeam.com. You can book a call with us or you can always reach out. You can text us directly, 775-243-5100. Like we will get back to you. I'm happy to share any tips, any insights. Find us on Instagram, Dental A Team. Truly, we try to be just like you are Len, available in all aspects and just really, really grateful for this opportunity today. Speaker 1 (37:30) Well, this was great. Thank you so much for ⁓ spending 30 plus minutes with me, really educating the audience on things you're passionate about. And just like I did on yours, you can see the passion when you talk, you can see the passion in how you answer the questions. So I truly appreciate you kind of giving it all to us. So thank you again for being part of the Raving Patients podcast. ⁓ Guys, if you like the episode, please like us, please review us. If you think you or yourself or one of your colleagues can use what the Dental A Team can do for your practice, please reach out. let them know you heard about them through the podcast that I just did with Kiera. ⁓ And as I end ⁓ every single one of my episodes, remember your reputation matters until the next episode. Thank you so much for joining me and we'll talk to everyone soon.
Blair Huddy, a leading PR expert from Los Angeles, has garnered recognition for their communication skills, inspired in part by the artistry and career of Taylor Swift. Sharing a generational bond with Swift, Blair admires her ability to humanize herself as a global brand, making her relatable to fans through personal interactions and social media engagement. This approach, Blair notes, is a model for companies aiming to foster loyalty and community by valuing every individual's contribution, a concept they championed in their impactful work with organizations like the United Nations. Huddy draws parallels between Swift's influence and effective corporate storytelling, emphasizing the power of authenticity and personal connection in building lasting emotional ties with audiences.(00:16:06) "And that's amazing. You did that. Like, that has to be something that like, really makes you feel important. Like, like you're, you've helped shape the future." - JR Sparrow" - JR Sparrow(00:27:15) "When you get an accolade or something, that sets you apart and you do you. You talk about excellence. It's that. It's the good days, the bad days. Those are the days that you show up every day." - Blair Huddy (00:26:32)" - Blair Huddy(00:39:52) "Rather than like, I look, I look back on those moments and that's what I remember when I watch it back on Disney plus." - Blair Huddy(00:58:34) "She's always been the most honest in the music." - Blair Huddy(01:03:58) "The individual there can't be duplicated, manufactured, no other way. And with what you put in the world, it can't be manufactured any other way beyond what you produce." - JR Sparrow" - JR Sparrow- Taylor Swift's ability to cultivate a loyal and unified community around her music draws comparisons to artists like Michael Jackson.- Blair Huddy emphasizes aligning corporate social responsibility initiatives with the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals for progress reporting.- Sustainability initiatives like affordable housing and water conservation positively impact communities and align with the SDGs.- Taylor Swift's unique approach to building loyalty among fans through personal interactions sets her apart from other artists.- Taylor Swift's success is driven by emotional investment and engagement with fans, creating a sense of intimacy.- Taylor Swift's album release strategy and marketing success stem from personal connections with fans.- Taylor Swift excels at managing public relations, controlling her narrative and owning her story.Blair Huddy, born in 1989 and hailing from Los Angeles, has become one of the world's top 100 PR experts, drawing inspiration from the music of Taylor Swift, with whom they share a generational bond. Growing up in a financially struggling family, Blair was motivated to carve their path, much like Swift's rise to stardom, finding solace and inspiration in her lyrics. Educated at the University of Phoenix and the University of Southern California's Annenberg School, Blair honed their communication skills, which they have applied to significant projects for renowned companies like Google and Apple. Their career includes impactful work with International SOS and the United Nations, where they have effectively communicated complex global goals, embodying the resilience and storytelling prowess they admired in Swift's journey
Episode 497 / Gretchen AndrewGretchen Andrew is an artist born in Los Angeles, United States, 1988 who lives and Works in London and Park City, Utah. She studied Information Systems and got a BS from Boston College, and worked for Intuit as a Software Engineer, Google as a People Technology Manager, and apprenticed with Billy Childish at his studio.She's had shows at Gray Area, San Francisco, Heft Gallery, NYC, Hope 93, London. FxHash, Berlin Art Week, Galloire, Dubai UAE, Falko Alexander, Cologne, Germany, Annka Kultys Gallery, London, United Kingdom and many others.She's shown at fairs including 2025 Expo Chicago, 2024 Untitled Miami, Paris Photo (21C Award, solo presentation) and the 2022 Vienna Contemporary (solo presentation).She has lectured at the Tate Modern, the Luma Foundation in Zurich, the Mia Foundation in Dubai and the University of Chicago.
In this episode, Dr. Karen Litzy welcomes back David Ian Wood to discuss the challenges entrepreneurs face, especially shiny object syndrome. They examine how to overcome distractions, the importance of understanding one's motivations, and practical strategies for staying focused. David shares insights on planning, accountability, and making tasks enjoyable to boost productivity. He also introduces his innovative app designed to help users in real-time during calls, highlighting the role of gamification in reaching business goals. Takeaways Shiny object syndrome is prevalent among entrepreneurs. Understanding your 'why' is crucial for motivation. Planning involves knowing what to focus on and what to avoid. Gamifying tasks can make them more enjoyable and productive. Focus should be structured over different timeframes. Accountability is key to maintaining focus and achieving goals. The Pomodoro technique can enhance productivity. Making work fun can lead to better results. Reaching out to others can be a game-changer for business growth. Personal development is essential for long-term success. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Shiny Object Syndrome 05:06 Understanding Your Why 09:32 Planning for Focused Action 19:46 Gamifying Your Tasks for Success More About David: A former Consulting Actuary to Fortune 100 companies – including Sony Music, Chanel, and Exxon – David left his cushy Park Avenue job 20 years ago to build the world's largest coaching business. He became #1 on Google for “life coaching”, serving an audience of 150,000 coaches, and coaching thousands of hours across 12 countries. Alongside his clients' successes, David is no stranger to overcoming challenges himself, having overcome a full collapse of his paraglider and a fractured spine, witnessing the death of his sister at age seven, severe anxiety and depression, and a national Gong Show! He is the author of “Get Paid For Who You Are,” with foreword by Jack Canfield. He was nominated to the exclusive Transformational Leadership Council alongside such thought leaders as Don Miguel Ruiz, John Gray, and Marianne Williamson. David believes that the tough conversations we avoid, are our doorways to confidence, success, and love. They become the defining moments which shape our world. He coaches high performing entrepreneurs, executives and teams – and now prison inmates – to create amazing results and deep connection. Achieve more, by focusing on less. Resources from this Episode: Focus.CEO David on YouTube Free Business Assessment Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio
Even if you don't use Signal, you certainly remember Signalgate. That was the scandal in March when senior U.S. officials used a private messaging app to communicate about a military strike in Yemen — and included a journalist in the chat. It thrust Signal and Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker into the spotlight. But she's made headlines before as a Google employee turned vocal tech critic. On this week's episode of POLITICO Tech, host Steven Overly sits down with Whittaker to discuss the future of Big Tech, privacy risks in an AI world and how Silicon Valley is shaping politics. Steven Overly is the host of POLITICO Tech and covers the intersection of politics and technology. Nirmal Mulaikal is the co-host and producer of POLITICO Energy and producer of POLITICO Tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this recap, Lesley and Brad revisit their inspiring interview with Jill Allen, founder of Jill Allen & Associates and host of Hey Docs. They reflect on the lessons of grit, confidence, and letting go of the “do-it-all” mindset that keeps entrepreneurs stuck. Together, they share why delegation, structure, and brave decision-making matter more than perfection—and how asking “What's the worst that can happen?” can unlock fearless growth in both your business and in your life.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Ankle and wrist weights in Pilates and when, if ever, to use them.How self-confidence builds credibility and trust with clients and teams.Why grit and resilience often outperform talent and quick success.How the “Superwoman Syndrome” creates burnout and stagnation.How time-blocking and brave choices create momentum toward success.Episode References/Links:Cambodia Retreat Waitlist - https://lesleylogan.co/retreatsWinter Tour - https://opc.me/eventsPilates Journal Expo - https://xxll.co/pilatesjournalAgency Mini - https://prfit.biz/miniContrology Pilates Conference in Poland - https://xxll.co/polandContrology Pilates Conference in Brussels - https://xxll.co/brusselsSubmit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questionsPractice Results Website - https://www.practiceresults.comHey Docs Podcast - https://www.practiceresults.com/hey-docsGrit It Done by Reid Tileston - https://a.co/d/2rKh0ZcBrave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani - https://a.co/d/2jjcF9u If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! 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DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Brad Crowell 0:00 Something that I've told myself over the years is that I work better under pressure, or I work better under a deadline, right? And I think that it's, it definitely makes you go like, you have to get the, get it done. But what if you don't? I've been in that position where I've actually missed deadlines. I have failed because I waited until I needed that feeling of pressure, you know. So there's just so much that goes along with this Superman, Superwoman syndrome when we're trying to do it all.Lesley Logan 0:30 Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. Lesley Logan 1:09 Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the demystifying convo I have with Jill Allen in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause us now and go back and listen to that one or you can listen this one and then see if you align with what we liked in that one. Maybe you like something different. Brad Crowell 1:32 Maybe. Lesley Logan 1:33 So today is October 23rd, 2025 and there was no good days. So yesterday, the 22nd was National Make A Dog's Day. And I'm going, I don't want to forget this, so pause. You guys, on the day that we're recording this is a month from when this is releasing, and so a month ago from when you're listening to this, and two days, was like National like Amazing Wife's Day and my husband did not know, and he didn't announce anything. No public displays of affection on Instagram, nothing. I'm just saying, it was a very important holiday, and it will never land on a Thursday, because it's always on the third Sunday of every month. Brad Crowell 2:12 What date was that? Lesley Logan 2:14 It was September 21st and if you look at 10 days, and the reason I know is because my and Rick. Rick posted about my and he said it was National Amazing Wife's day on the third Sunday of every month. He actually must have also gotten his day from the same exact same website. So anyways, back. Brad Crowell 2:33 That's pretty badass, Rick. Lesley Logan 2:35 Back, no, I don't think he listens. But anyway, he doesn't.Brad Crowell 2:38 You're showing me up. You're making me look bad over here. Lesley Logan 2:38 But just like that, we took him right back down, because he does not even listen to this. Anyways, I'm just telling you that we don't do this on the Sundays, and you're missing out on good holidays that could involve celebrating me, but today, but today, we are celebrating National Make a Dog's Day. And so October 22nd, yesterday, National Make a Dog's Day is how we use this day to ensure that the dogs around us enjoy themselves as best as possible. Oh, my Lord, this is a day to spread information about dogs importance in our lives and how much they can improve our days with love and loyalty. Brad Crowell 3:18 In case you didn't already. Lesley Logan 3:20 Is there any scientific, is there any scientific evidence of this, other than, like, it makes us feel good? Like, is there, I only know anecdotal. Like, yes, my dog is better because of my life is better because of my dog. But like, is there any science behind this? Did the day give us anything? No, so we're just, we're just gonna say it. We also use this day to encourage people to adopt from shelters and provide a better life for at least one puppy. May I suggest an older dog. Go to your local SPCA. We donate to the Nevada one, and we got to tour the facility. And it is amazing. OPC donates to them and the time of this release, Cody and Onyx better be adopted you guys, because it's, I'm really fucking struggling, like I just want, Brad, I think, wanted to invite Onyx in because she's 11 and she's like a little black version of Gaia. I'm not even kidding. Same underbite, same, same everything, very agile. Actually, Gaia was not that agile at 11. We'll say that. And I want Cody, and Cody is way too big, and we don't have time for that energy right now. But go to your local SPCA and go meet the dogs, go play with the dogs, become a volunteer and walk the dogs. You can even read to the dogs, right? Because clearly that is going to make your life better. And you can also foster, if you know, like, I'm only in town for a couple weeks at a time, you can become a foster, and you won't even fail, because you are like, oh no, I'm gonna be a professional foster. I'm only gonna take a dog for as long as I'm in town, or things like and they they supply the food and the medical, and you're just the house, you just get the love of the dog, and it's quite great. So we mean the world for a dog, and it's time we insure they get everything they deserve. I'm gonna say our dogs are so spoiled that this kind of holiday feels like a dog made it up. But, at any rate, we, our lives are better because they're in it. It's for sure.Brad Crowell 5:09 There's no question about that. Well, hey, I'm really excited to be home. We just got back from Cambodia and Singapore. Lesley Logan 5:15 We just got back and we're hugging our dog and making his life better. Brad Crowell 5:20 We're hugging our dog. Lesley Logan 5:21 How nice of us to come home just in time for this holiday. Brad Crowell 5:24 How nice of, yeah, you better feel special Bayon. We came home just for you. Yeah, he abandoned us. So it was, you know, look, Cambodia is magical. What an amazing experience. And you're missing out if you haven't joined us yet. So you should go get on the wait list for next year. Go to crowsnestretreats.com crowsnestretreats.com. We will be making the announcement pretty soon about next year's trip, but I'm going to tell you secret listener, insider info, it's in October of next year, and it's going to be.Lesley Logan 5:56 The dates are on the site. Brad Crowell 5:56 The 18th to the 23rd. Lesley Logan 5:56 Yeah and January is when we will announce the. Brad Crowell 5:56 I don't think the dates are on the site yet, so we're just telling you right now. Yeah. Lesley Logan 5:56 Okay, So you get the insider (inaudible). Brad Crowell 5:56 You get the insider info. Lesley Logan 5:59 If you are on the waitlist already, you got that information, and in January, only the waitlist people get the discount. So just saying, save some money, get on the waitlist and snag your spot. We already have released the Winter Tour event. We actually have, the time we're recording this, have not seen the whole schedule, but I have seen several cities, and I have approved several workshops. So I think with confidence I can say Lexington, Kentucky. I think with confidence I can say DC. Brad Crowell 6:38 Yeah. Lesley Logan 6:39 I think with confidence, I can say, Tampa.Brad Crowell 6:46 Here, let's just do this because this is a. Lesley Logan 6:48 This feels like a guessing game. You're not even helping me out.Brad Crowell 6:51 Well, because. Lesley Logan 6:52 What? What? With confidence, what can you say? Pensacola. Brad Crowell 6:56 All right, so Colorado Springs. Lesley Logan 6:57 Oh gay. Brad Crowell 6:58 Fayetteville, Arkansas. Lesley Logan 6:59 Oh so fun. Brad Crowell 7:00 Louisville. Lesley Logan 7:02 Oh, that's different than Lexington. Brad Crowell 7:03 Oh, sorry, I said it wrong. St Louis, I'm reading two things here, then Lexington, then Columbus, Ohio. Lesley Logan 7:11 Oh, oh, we're going back?Brad Crowell 7:15 We've never been to Columbus (inaudible). Lesley Logan 7:19 Oh, sorry, sorry. That was such a bad move that was like a California move, like, I've been there.Brad Crowell 7:27 That one's not locked in yet, Columbus, but we're close. We're going to be in Fort Wayne for a day off. Then we're going all up to Detroit. Lesley Logan 7:34 Whoa. Brad Crowell 7:35 Yeah, we're going to hit it this time. Finally, then it looks like we're swinging around. We are doing our best to line up a spot in Pittsburgh and possibly Rochester. So unfortunately. Lesley Logan 7:45 Sounds like these are these are not real. Brad Crowell 7:47 Canada is out. Canada is out. Lesley Logan 7:49 You guys, I'm hearing this for the first time. Brad Crowell 7:51 It's true. Lesley Logan 7:52 Don't, this is the thing, you can't get mad at, at us, and you can't get mad I don't think it's the Canadian government this time. I think this is a host issue. Brad Crowell 7:59 This is a host issue. We've been having trouble connecting with studios. It's insane. Like in Toronto and Ottawa, just like, nothing. (inaudible)Lesley Logan 8:07 And we know you want us to come and they're just not (inaudible). Brad Crowell 8:10 Like, really, can't understand that. But yeah, I mean, at this point we're having, we're gonna have to look at the following year, because this stuff has already been negotiated. Saratoga Springs a private event. Boston, Mass is public. Cape Cod Mashpee, Providence is a private event. New Haven, Connecticut is day off. Torrington, we're going to teach in Torrington, I think, which is Connecticut. Hershey, PA, then we got. Lesley Logan 8:35 I feel like we're not giving them insider on anything, because they're like, I could just go to the website and they can they're hearing days off. They're hearing this might be.Brad Crowell 8:42 Well, this is like, you started this. Lesley Logan 8:45 I know, but it was more fun the way I was doing it. It's like a guessing game. Brad Crowell 8:52 We're gonna be in Rehoboth Beach. Lesley Logan 8:56 Where the fuck is that? Brad Crowell 8:56 Yeah, we're gonna that's Delaware. Lesley Logan 8:56 Okay, Delaware. (inaudible)Brad Crowell 8:55 We're gonna be in D.C. Lesley Logan 8:56 It's just a small state if you say Delaware, Virginia. We're coming back. We love beach. Brad Crowell 8:56 We're gonna be in we're working on Charlotte right now, but not sure yet. We're still working that out. Lesley Logan 9:04 That was definitely been a problem. Brad Crowell 9:04 Savannah, Georgia. Then, Fort Lauderdale.Lesley Logan 9:06 Wow, we found something in Savannah. No way. Brad Crowell 9:09 I'm pretty sure. Lesley Logan 9:09 No, it didn't happen, like, the last two trips. Are you sure that's not like a day off, or we're just spending the night? Brad Crowell 9:14 Could be a day off. Then we're gonna go down to Fort Lauderdale. We are teaching. Tampa, we are teaching.Lesley Logan 9:14 You know what you can do everyone, go to opc.me/events and you can see which of these are days off and which of these are real stops.Brad Crowell 9:27 I'm just gonna read through the rest of this, Pensacola, New Orleans, Houston and Austin. Houston, we're still working on. And then Phoenix. We're probably most likely teaching Phoenix. Either Phoenix or Tucson. We're still figuring that out. But that's that's the path. Lesley Logan 9:40 We had some people in Tucson who wanted us to come so (inaudible). Well, there it is, folks, opc.me/events to get the actual lineup with the for sure, settle dates and snag what spots remain.Brad Crowell 9:52 We are recording this a month ahead of time. So by the time you're hearing this and seeing that, it will be a lot more clear. Lesley Logan 9:56 Now you can see it's really a lot of work. And it's really hard, because we got a ton of people when we were going to Canada the first time in the Toronto area, want us to come, but none of them have studios, and we can't, we, we specifically, because we're crossing the border, we actually have to be invited. Like, we can't just, like, wing it. And then when the tour ends, we come home, kick off, eLevate Six and then we head to Huntington Beach for the Pilates Journal Expo. Go to xxll.co/pilatesjournal. I've decided that's how I'm saying it xxll.co/pilatesjournal, and you're going to be able to get your tickets. There's a, it's a huge lineup. A lot of my friends are doing it. It was kind of fun. Like I knew I was doing it, but they didn't tell me who else is doing it. Like one of the girls that I train to be a teacher is doing it. So, like, so cool. So, so, so cool. And I did that so long ago. That's how long she's been a teacher. Because, like, that was a long time. It was almost 10 years ago. February, Agency Mini is happening. You want to get on the waitlist at prfit.biz/mini P-R-F-I-T that's profit without the O, dot biz slash mini, and that is for Pilates instructors and studio owners who would like to ditch all the chaos, the noise, the overwhelm, and get their business to work for them.Brad Crowell 10:07 A lot of people, a lot of people have been asking us, when are we doing it again y'all, so we're giving you a lot of a heads up here to get ready, get prepared. Go to prfit.biz/mini to get yourself on the waitlist so you can catch that early bird when we when we roll that out. In March, we are going to go to Europe, and we're really fired up about it. We're going to be in Poland, and then in Brussels. So go to xxll.co/poland xxll.co/brussels for those two events, and then in April.Lesley Logan 11:41 P.O.T. London, time of this recording, we don't have a link for you to go to. I'm sure it's already been announced. And I'm sure there's an early bird that you don't want to miss. And I am, for sure, doing the Joe's Gyms, and I still haven't signed the contract, so. Brad Crowell 11:42 It's a party. Lesley Logan 11:52 I am, I am pretty sure I am teaching two amazing workshops, which is super cool. They are not any workshops that I've ever taught in England before. So if you just came to the Mullet Tour, or you've been to a Mullet Tour, neither of these workshops have ever seen the light of day in that country. So you want to go. Okay, before we get into the lovely Jill Allen, we have a question to respond to.Brad Crowell 12:23 We totally do. The, let's see. Hold on. Mary star Pilates. Mary star Pilates. I'm on the wrong one. We're just gonna leave that in. We're leaving that in. Don't worry about it. DeniseStargazer said, hey, I would love your opinion about ankle and wrist weights while doing Pilates. How heavy, how often, is there a leg or ankle preference or brand?Lesley Logan 12:52 Well, I do love that both two questions in a row will have the name star in them, which is quite cool, but okay, so how do I answer this? Joe Pilates did mess around with some foot weights. They were the shape of a shoe, and my friend Joel Crosby made me a pair, and I think I still have them and. Brad Crowell 13:12 Oh yeah. Lesley Logan 13:12 They are really hard for me to do Pilates with. Brad Crowell 13:16 Oh yeah, they're hard. Lesley Logan 13:17 In fact, I think that they're.Brad Crowell 13:20 They're literally like a weighted sole that you strap onto the bottom of your feet.Lesley Logan 13:24 And I, and I'm going to preface this with both Brad and I are hyper mobile bodies. And so because of that, and I have the longest legs already, so because of that, I actually think that just a general statement of ankle or leg weights in Pilates is probably not necessary. I do see. Brad Crowell 13:49 The longest limbs. Lesley Logan 13:51 I do see how these things that Joe was creating, that Joel created, could be useful to someone who's not hyper mobile, someone who's already very strong in the practice. And also, if someone has a foot boot on, like a foot boot, that's a redundancy. A boot on like they have a foot injury, I think a weighted ankle weight on the other leg would be helpful, because then you have, like an evenness to what's happening distally on the leg. But in general, I think these things are a fitness fad that looks freaking cute on the skinny girlies, and they match their outfits, and it's just esthetically pleasing. But I think it is a waste of time. I think it's so easy for your joints to do the moves, whether you're doing Pilates or not. I think it's so easy for the joints to do the moves. I think it is asking a lot of the connections your body needs to have. So if you are a super strong, connected, non hypermobile person, and you don't feel your hip flexors take over, your back takeover, have the most fun. Bala makes super cute ones, by the way. I mean, if you're going to put these ankle weights on and look like a Jane Fonda, it should at least be cute. But I do think that the average person just needs to get started. And I feel like this is just another thing someone have to buy and invest in, get out, dust off, to get their movement practice in. So I'm a not fan of them, and I don't use them.Brad Crowell 15:11 Well, that's fair. Yeah. I mean, I think also too, just the just from cursory listening to y'all teaching and doing all that stuff. Most people are picking up two to five pound weights. And I know you every time you're like, just use ones.Lesley Logan 15:28 In Pilates, you're using one, and in the gym, you're going to pick up heavy weights, okay? And if you want to use ankle weights at the gym, that is not my my fortress. I go there and I work out. My trainer gives me things. If she told me I needed ankle weights, because she's so smart, I would listen to her. But in Pilates, like, if you have a super if you have a Michael Phelps torso and short legs, maybe ankle weights would help balance your torso to your leg situation, some exercises. But I really think before you add tools to things you might need to he was like a dolphin. Brad's looking at how long his spine was. He was like a dolphin. He had a ridiculously long spine. But, like, I just think that, like, it's just one more thing that we're. Brad Crowell 16:13 It still is. He's alive, right? Lesley Logan 16:14 Well, yeah, he's alive. Brad Crowell 16:14 Still is like a dolphin. Lesley Logan 16:12 He still is like a dolphin. So I just think that, like, you know, the other thing I'll say about this is ankle weights are like a prop. And Joe never used a prop throughout every single exercise. He used props as tools to teach a connection you needed, and got rid of them. So if you are a teacher who's like, oh my god, Lesley, I use the the ankle weights for this one exercise to help people. Great. Don't at me. I'm good. I celebrate you. I think it's wonderful. But I just think that, like, how often, how long? Like, it's just another thing out there that I don't think is as needed. I think, I think we can get so much out of Pilates without having to make it harder to do. That's my personal opinion. And I love this question so much. I want more questions like these. Send them to the beitpod.com/questions or what's the phone number, because it's not what I want. Brad Crowell 17:00 310-905-5534Lesley Logan 17:01 I mean, at least it's 310. Brad Crowell 17:05 Yeah, sure. Lesley Logan 17:06 Good area code. Brad Crowell 17:07 We'll take it. 310-905-5534 or go to beitpod.com/questions and send us your wins or your questions. Stick around. We'll be right back. We're gonna dig into this really heartfelt convo with Jill Allen and she, she coaches orthodontics offices.Lesley Logan 17:25 Are you not gonna take a break at all? Brad Crowell 17:26 Wait for it, she coaches orthodontics offices. And the thing that's crazy is that the conversation is applicable to people of all walks of life.Lesley Logan 17:36 It really is. We didn't even talk about orthodontists. Brad Crowell 17:39 Yeah, stick around. We'll be right back.Brad Crowell 17:41 Welcome back. Let's talk about Jill Allen. Jill is the founder of Jill Allen and Associates. Lesley Logan 17:47 Doesn't that look like she should be also a lawyer? Brad Crowell 17:50 Oh, a lawyer or like. Lesley Logan 17:51 Should be like a legal office. Brad Crowell 17:52 Luxary handbags. Lesley Logan 17:54 Oh, Jill Allen, I see that.Brad Crowell 17:56 Yeah. She's an orthodontic consulting firm. She's over 30 years of experience in the industry, and specializes in helping doctors launch their own, their own, their own orthodontic practices, focusing exclusively on startups and supporting new owners who often lack formal business training. That sounds so familiar. She is also the host of Hey Docs, a podcast where she shares business fundamentals, and interviews experts to provide valuable insight for all entrepreneurs. Dr. Allen finds her greatest inspiration in seeing her clients grow their practices into thriving, multimillion dollar businesses, which is pretty epic. I love that, and I felt like I commiserated with her a lot, because we, obviously, service, you know, we serve the Pilates industry. And so it's really interesting to hear her talk about, when she started her consulting firm 19 years ago, there was no like people were not using the internet for this kind of stuff. Barely using the internet. Social media was barely starting, right?Lesley Logan 19:02 I know because I hadn't. I mean, I had an orthodontist when I was in June, like, sixth grade. And like, I mean, my parents had to, like, just find one in the yellow pages.Brad Crowell 19:11 Yeah, probably the yellow pages, or referral word of mouth, most likely. Lesley Logan 19:16 Like, maybe, and I, because I doubt our I don't, our insurance paid for Orthodontic work. You know what I mean? I, for sure, didn't, because my siblings didn't get the same situation as I did. So yeah, so which is something everyone likes to bring up, but, I mean, 19 years, even the coaching, but she coaches them has changed, because now.Brad Crowell 19:32 Oh yeah, everything has changed, but it's fascinating, because when we, you know, like there wasn't anybody doing what she was doing when she got started, and we felt the same way with Agency, there wasn't anybody coaching, you know, Pilates business owners. Lesley Logan 19:46 Yeah I felt a lot of same synergy. But I also want to say, like, everything I want to say to you applies to anybody who's got a dream or a goal or a business. She said, confidently stand in the space like you got to be confident in the space that you're in. You know, people, and this is so true, people are not going to walk around and believe in you more than you believe. I mean, I believe in our members. I think sometimes when they believe in them. But the reality is, is that like, like, random, random people an be like, oh my god, you're the like, you have to believe in you, like, people want to, especially when you are in a service-based business, orthodontics, Pilates, anything, people want the confident person they don't want the person like, I think I know what I'm doing. Like, we, just before we hit record, our car's in the shop, and we have a new mechanic because we have a new car, and you know, you're like, God how much they're gonna rip me off for. It's kind of like taking your dog to the vet. It's like, what's the bill gonna be? And you just, like, spin the wheel. And this guy is like, okay, here's a video of, here's where we saw this. We saw this. We're just gonna watch this. He was so he stood in his confidence. He could be bullshitting me. I don't know what I'm looking at, but like, he was so confident. I was like, I told Brad, I was like, I love these guys. These are our mechanics. We're not switching, like, just that, just that confidence in there. And so I just highly recommend that for anyone who is on a mission. She also stated that being a business owner requires grit and hard work. And there's an incredible, I can't think of her name, it's on the tip of my tongue, but there's an incredible TEDx talk on grit. And the truth is, is that the reason why most businesses, the businesses that become like successful, they found it's not like they hit lightning in the bottle. It's most of the time that people just had grit. They just kept going. They just kept going. And then she also said there is this pressure on business owners to hit these big financial goals, and then that leads to imposter syndrome. And we've had Brad Bizjack on a couple weeks ago, and he talks about how, like, he misses all of his goals, but he's the most confident person you've ever met because, like, how he talks to himself, how he pumps himself up, and how he has confidence, not in that he achieved a goal, but in a work that they he did. And so she says, like, you have to keep pumping yourself up, even if you don't believe it 100% yet, because that is going to help you with the confidence and showing up and doing the hard work. And we got to take pressure of ourselves to hit the goals yesterday or this, I mean, like, people are like, okay, I'm charging my rates, but I still don't have enough clients. It's like, right, one step at a time. Like, you know, I don't know. I just loved it. What did you think? What did you love?Brad Crowell 22:22 Yeah, the the okay, so actually, I was just going to bring up, I'm trying to remember if we had him on the pod, Reid Tileston. Do you remember Reid? Super, super tall professor who owned, like many, many gyms, gyms over the years. Lesley Logan 22:40 Oh, we never had Reid on. Brad Crowell 22:41 Okay, well, he wrote a book, and it's called Grit It Done, and it's, it's like, low risk entrepreneurial tips and stuff. So anyway, I know that's not, that's more for people who are starting a business, but you know, when you started talking about grit, it started making me think about Reid and. Lesley Logan 22:55 Hi, Reid. Brad Crowell 22:56 Yeah. Hi, Reid. But I really loved when y'all know exactly what I'm going to talk about here, because I keep coming back to this across different interviews, where we have the the idea of the Superman or the Superwoman syndrome. It's the solopreneur complex is another way to put it, right, where I have to be the one doing it. I'm the, you know, I'm I can do it better than everybody else. I don't have the money to do, to outsource, or any of that kind of thing. And she talked about, she specifically honed in on the the idea that it makes us feel like we're getting we are actually working. It validates our own internal feelings, right? I need to be doing it all. And she said, it's an internal conflict, and it also creates overwhelm, right? So it's this both thing, where, like that feeds our ego, but it also creates overwhelm, and it kind of gives us the idea that we are working so hard, right, that we're getting something, we're moving the ball forward somehow. Lesley Logan 24:00 But we're just treading water. Brad Crowell 24:01 But a lot of the time we're treading water. Lesley Logan 24:04 Which is really hard to do. Have you just tried treading water recently? Like. Brad Crowell 24:04 Oh, recently, no, but I used to have to do that. Lesley Logan 24:08 We had to do it in swimming lessons. Brad Crowell 24:12 Yeah, for like, 15 minutes, yeah. That was a long freaking time. Lesley Logan 24:16 Especially for you. Brad Crowell 24:18 No, to be a lifeguard or something. (inaudible)Lesley Logan 24:20 No, not like you don't have the strength or endurance. I mean, your attention span, like you couldn't do anything else, your usual. You couldn't, like, tap something or click something, or like you just had to do one thing. I just can't, it will the longest 15 minutes for you.Brad Crowell 24:38 Well, you know this idea of the Superman, Superwoman syndrome really creates, like, debilitating pressure on on you because when it's not getting done, when something isn't getting done, whose fault is it? It's always our fault. Why? Because we're in the middle of every single project, every single possible thing. And you know, it really it creates, sometimes we, like, I think something that I've told myself over the years is that I work better under pressure, or I work better under a deadline, right? And I think that it's it definitely makes you go, like, you have to get the, get it done. But what if you don't? I've been in that position where I've actually missed deadlines, have failed because I waited until I needed that feeling of pressure, you know. So there's just so much that goes along with with this Superman, Superwoman syndrome when we're trying to do it all. And she also talked about like, it, you know, the irony here is that that overwhelm of like, what if you don't actually know what you're doing? What if you don't get it done? Or, you know, the you can be overwhelmed by this realization that I don't know how to do it all, while thinking I have to do it all or I'm the only one that could do this.Lesley Logan 25:53 That sounds like a terrible torture room to be in your mind.Brad Crowell 25:58 She said, she said, how do you overcome this? Right? And ultimately, it comes down to trust, trusting others to be able to execute or implement in a way that you would be doing it or as close to you as possible, right? And she, she said, take it like eating a cookie, just one little bite at a time, and keep moving forward, but, but then be sure to look back and high five yourself. So in this case, what she's talking about is, as you're delegating, you know, go back and look at little pieces of it and make sure that it's up to the standard that you need. And then you get the high five them, high five yourself. I mean, if you're not running a business here, if this isn't like you're not trying to do that. What if it was walking the dog and you delegated it to a child of yours? Or what if it was cleaning the house? Chores.Lesley Logan 26:48 We used to have those neighbors, the Brazilians, who, like, legitimately, the child was, like, eight years old, and the other one might have been like, I don't know, six, and they walked that dog, and the dog is, like, way bigger than them. And we were like, oh my god, should they be doing this? But they did it every day. I watched them do it every day, you know. And so, like, I thought that was, what a great responsibility, it's an easy block, like, it was not on a dangerous road. They're not crossing any streets, you know.Brad Crowell 27:13 But you know, or, or it is, you know, it can be.Lesley Logan 27:18 I think also you may have said this, but, like, you also don't have to do some things, like, they just don't get done. Like, you can just park okay, you know what's gonna happen. We're going to do laundries on Sunday, and that means everyone has to have enough underwear to get to Sunday. That's how it's got to go. That's when laundry is going to get done. Like, I understand there's a story that a lot of people tell themselves it has to be clean for me to get my work done, bullshit. It does not have to be clean. You have to be able to sit at your desk. And there might be some, like, some interesting things about yourself that you might need things to be clean, but it's often an excuse to not do the thing, because you have another reason to not do the thing. And I would just challenge yourself to, like, figure out, like, like, so, like, there's a whole idea, like, so what, so, and then what, and then and like, follow the path and like, the reality is, a lot of the things that we busy ourselves doing do not lead to the actual goal that we have. And that's what I have to say about that.Brad Crowell 28:16 Yeah, I love it. Well, you know, I think, I think that we're setting ourselves up for failure when we attempt to do everything all by ourselves, and and you know, there are times in our world, in our life, whether that's just due to relationships or finances or whatever, where you know, we are kicking off a project and we are the one ideating and creating, but when it comes to executing and being creative, it's really hard to wear those two hats at the same time, and it really does help you to train someone properly, to help you get all the work doneLesley Logan 28:57 Well and the other thing I just want to say is or hire a coach to help advise you on what's the most like the thing that's priority right now? Brad Crowell 29:04 Yeah, sure. Lesley Logan 29:04 Because if you're trying, if you're actually not sure what you're supposed to be focusing on, you could hire help and then be focused on the wrong thing. And so Jill is a perfect example that there is a coach out there for every fucking niche. So if you are not a Pilates instructor and you're not an orthodontist, I promise you there is a coach out there for you. There is someone who coaches lawyers. There's someone who coaches social workers, or someone who coaches, you know, like. Brad Crowell 29:26 Pilates instructors. Lesley Logan 29:26 Well, yeah, I just said, I said, I said, if you're not one of those already, if you, there's someone who coaches yoga instructors, or someone who coaches, you know, managers of franchises. Like, there are people out there who coach all these things, and this is a matter of finding the one that resonates with you, that gets you. So don't just fall for a really good, you know, funnel. Talk with them. Ask them, like, what you're nervous about, share like, here's my biggest fear. I'm gonna sign up with you, and this is what's gonna happen. And like, you know, make sure that they have a money back guarantee, and then do the work. You know, but there's people out there who will help you. Brad Crowell 30:03 Yeah, well, stick around. We'll be right back. We're gonna dig into a couple of those Be It Action Items that we got from Jill right after this. Brad Crowell 30:05 All right, so finally, let's talk about those Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Jill Allen? She said, hey, you gotta block time schedule, yo. She strongly advocates for block time scheduling for any business owner, even for those who dislike rigidity, which would be me. Lesley Logan 30:30 Except for, we just looked up things that help ADHD CEOs, and one of them is a fucking block schedule.Brad Crowell 30:36 Yeah. Well, you know, because it's like a it's like a sandbox that you get to do whatever you want with within that time. So yeah, she explained that without a plan, a business owner can find 100 things to do with their day, which is the story of my life.Lesley Logan 30:52 I just watched you start to put together the towel thing during a work day. And I was like, that has nothing to do with the work today.Brad Crowell 31:02 I was just listening to things, and I had but then I got this. I got ADD because I, my drill stopped and I couldn't use it. Good times. So there's that. She said, explained, without a plan, business owners can find 100 things to do with the day. And by creating start and stop times, just for tasks, this prevents you from getting sidetracked, which helps manage an otherwise unstructured day. So we definitely.Lesley Logan 31:27 We love a kitchen timer. Brad Crowell 31:28 We love a kitchen timer. Lesley Logan 31:29 Like our time cubes are really great. I was just telling Agency members at some office hours we did the other day. I said, literally, I have to, especially when overwhelmed and I am in the reentry, because I'm always over when we get back to work, even though I am like, we did all the work I needed to do so I could start, you know, fresh. I still have to start. I'm not ahead. And I go, Oh God, I have to touch this inbox. And I set the timer for 15 minutes, and I scan for the most important emails, the timer goes off. Okay, 15 minutes in this Slack. Okay, 15, like, before you know it, you're caught up on things, the overwhelm starts to dissipate, because you actually have seen that. There's not really any fires that are going on and the stories in your head are not true, but time blocks. It's so because I won't work on other things because I'm on the timer of the first thing. Brad Crowell 31:29 Yep. Well, what about you? What was your biggest takeaway? Lesley Logan 32:01 She said before making a decision or starting a new venture ask yourself, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? Brad Crowell 32:01 I really, I really appreciated this. Lesley Logan 32:01 I love this, because if you can, if you determine you can handle the worst case outcome, you'd move forward with it. I mean, I forget.Brad Crowell 32:01 I mean, she, she specifically said when, like, because she was working in the orthodontics industry, but wanted to start coaching new orthodontic business owners. She said, what's the worst that could happen is we could get no clients, and then I go bankrupt, and that will affect my credit score, and then, you know, what am I going to do? Right? She's like, but there is a path after that. She's like, so once I embraced that, then it wasn't as scary as this amorphous black hole of like, what if things just don't go right? Lesley Logan 33:01 Well, we have this, we have this idea we're talking about and and not that we have any time for it, but we were talking about doing this thing, and I kept just thinking, like, oh my god, there's so much uncertainty right now. It's gonna cost us so much money. I'm not gonna find this thing that I want, and if it doesn't work out, then we're like, fucked right? Like, it could actually cost us things. And then we came with this idea. We're like, oh, we could just build it in the backyard. And it's like, because the worst case is the idea sucks, it doesn't work, and we have a beautiful ADU in the backyard. And so I want to move forward with that. Brad Crowell 33:34 Yeah, I'm excited about it. Lesley Logan 33:38 All right, the other thing she said I want to bring up before we move on is, be brave, not perfect. And she was referencing a book. And I am sorry, guys, I am forgetting the name of that book but, be brave. Brad Crowell 33:46 I think the book is called Be Brave, Not Perfect. Lesley Logan 33:47 Brave not perfect. Brad Crowell 33:48 That's by Reshma Saujani.Lesley Logan 33:52 Oh, is it Reshma? Brad Crowell 33:53 Reshma Saujani. Lesley Logan 33:55 But Reshma, the Reshma? Hold on. Brad Crowell 33:58 I don't know who the Reshma is, so. Lesley Logan 34:00 If it's the Reshma, she has the best, the best college graduating speech. If it's her.Brad Crowell 34:07 She's a lawyer, politician, civil servant, founder of the nonprofit Girls Who Code.Lesley Logan 34:10 This woman is absolutely incredible. She's the one who, like, talked about bike face. If you haven't, like, look her up, Google bike face college speech. And it's this whole thing that back when, like, bikes were invented, when bicycles were not just invented, but like more popular poor people can have them, they started telling women they were gonna have, they had bike face, because now women could just get around on their own. I kid you not. The number of times that women finally get like, a fucking inch of independence, and they're like, oh, let's just like, fuck this up. So what happened is, women couldn't ride the bicycles in their in their dresses, so they started wearing trousers. And people didn't like they're wearing trousers, that's a problem. And they also could get around without a male and they could be independent and they could, I don't know, have a fucking dream and life of their own. Anyways, they would tell them and be careful you're gonna have bike face. You won't be attractive, and then no one will marry you. Anyways, that is not it, but that is who Reshma is, and I am obsessed with her. So Brave, Not Perfect. Well, we should all read that book. We should have maybe next year, I should have a book club, a Be It Pod Book Club. I don't know that I can get the authors every time, but maybe I could figure that out.Brad Crowell 35:28 If you like that idea, let us know by texting 310-905-5534, what do you think about a Be It Pod Book Club, the Be It Pod squad. Lesley Logan 35:38 Yeah. Oh, that's what I want to call you guys instead. I call you Be It babes. And I kind of want to call you the Be It Pod squad. I just, I also need to know, like, does that sound good, or does that sound like I'm creating, like a cult. Just don't want to create a cult.Brad Crowell 35:51 You're not creating a cult, you're creating a squad.Lesley Logan 35:54 But, but if it was a, but if it is a book club, I do believe that I would want the somehow the club has to be a podcast episode, you guys, my team will freak out if we add another Zoom call that does not produce an episode or a class. So, so anyways, okay, well, Jill Allen, thank you for being you, and thank you for just reminding us that we should have grit and stand in confidence and just go for it. It was just such a wholesome, wonderful interview. And I'm really excited for every orthodontist who gets to work for you, because I'm sure most of our listeners' kids are going to benefit from that, including our listeners. You know what, adults with braces it's a thing now. Brad Crowell 36:17 It's true. Lesley Logan 36:18 And share this with a friend who needs to hear it and Be It Till You See It. Brad Crowell 36:35 Bye for now.Lesley Logan 36:36 That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod. Brad Crowell 37:18 It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 37:24 It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 37:28 Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 37:35 Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 37:38 Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
The 2025-26 BYU basketball team is the most anticipated season in Cougar hoops history. BYU enters the year with a preseason No. 8 ranking in the AP Top 25. They are picked to finish second in the Big 12 preseason poll, and have a preseason All-American on the roster in AJ Dybantsa. KSL Sports BYU Insider Mitch Harper was in Kansas City for Big 12 Media Days. He shared his observations and notes from Media Days, along with interviews with Richie Saunders and AJ Dybantsa. In this episode of Cougar Tracks, you'll also hear breakout sound from head coach Kevin Young with the media. Also, Mitch shared his week nine Big 12 football predictions in this episode. Subscribe to the Cougar Tracks Podcast to stay up-to-date with all the daily episodes. Cougar Tracks is on YouTube and X every weekday at Noon (MT), and KSL NewsRadio at 6:30 p.m. (MT). Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-tracks/id1146971609 YouTube Podcast: https://kslsports.com/category/podcast_results/?sid=2035&n=Cougar%20Tracks Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NCF1KecDsE2rB1zMuHhUh Download the KSL Sports app Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bonneville.kslsports&hl=en_US iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ksl-sports/id143593
Thank you to our sponsors: Ollie Pet: Take the guesswork out of your dog's well-being. Go to https://www.ollie.com/gj and use code gj to get 60% off your first box! ZocDoc: https://www. Zocdoc.com/GJ to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. MasterClass: Get an additional 15% off any annual membership at https://www.MASTERCLASS.com/GJ. EarnIn: Download EarnIn today in the Google play or Apple app store, type in GINJUICE under PODCAST when you sign up – it'll really help the show. TIMESTAMPS: Long Story Short - 1:54 Pop The Trunk - 17:26 Game - 45:00 Mel Takes TV - 47:50 Send Your Pop The Trunk Story: https://www.speakpipe.com/gj Let's Connect on Socials: - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrskevonstage/ - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrskevonstage -Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MrsKevOnStage -Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/kevonstagestudios -Business Inquires: hello@mrskevonstage.com Shop My Outfits: https://www.liketoknow.it/mrskevonstage
Microsoft has set a challenging 30% profit margin goal for its Xbox Gaming division, OpenAI has revealed a series of upcoming features for ChatGPT Atlas, and Amazon has relaunched its Luna game streaming service. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE for free or get DTNS Live ad-free. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none ofContinue reading "U.S. Google Users Ask A Judge To Compel Alphabet To Forfeit An Additional $2.36 Billion In Profits – DTH"
Send us a textAce and Zim discuss trade scenarios the Bengals could be in the market for and preview the upcoming game against the Jets.SUBSCRIBE to the Wincinnati YouTube channel: https://rb.gy/yz5l4y FIND & FOLLOW the Wincinnati podcast on your favorite platforms:LISTEN on Buzzsprout: https://rb.gy/4d3xksLISTEN on Apple Podcasts: https://rb.gy/bwwbsiLISTEN on Spotify: https://rb.gy/daasvlLISTEN on Stitcher: https://rb.gy/0rc4rwLISTEN on Google: https://rb.gy/xgvsmpLISTEN on iHeartRadio: https://rb.gy/t03chpLISTEN on Amazon: https://rb.gy/vbumtvFOLLOW Ace & Zim on Twitter, where they'll share the latest news about the Cincinnati Bengals and interact with Bengals fans, and host Twitter spaces.Ace: https://rb.gy/gmx9fnZim:https://rb.gy/pb7nvwWincinnati podcast: https://rb.gy/wegjep
In-depth review of M5 iPad Pro, we debate who should get M5 MacBook Pro, OpenAI finally released it's AI browser Atlas but falls short in areas, iPhone Air demand is scant, and Ai customer support is the worst.------------------------------Send Us a Voice MemoWe want to hear from you! Send us a voice memo that may get played on the show! Click here to submit. ------------------------------Bonus Episode: Stephen quit his job. Listen here!------------------------------Sponsored by:CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use my code PRIMARYTECH for 20% off at clnmy.com/PrimaryTechnologyInterconnected: Interconnected is a new series from Equinix diving into the infrastructure that keeps our digital world running. We're diving deep into the systems behind AI, automation, quantum, and beyond. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube here.------------------------------Show Notes via EmailSign up to get exactly one email per week from the Primary Tech guys with the full episode show notes for your perusal. Click here to subscribe.------------------------------Watch on YouTube!Subscribe and watch our weekly episodes plus bonus clips at: https://youtu.be/ZuHmc0gDKe8------------------------------Join the CommunityDiscuss new episodes, start your own conversation, and join the Primary Tech community here: social.primarytech.fm------------------------------Support the showGet ad-free versions of the show plus exclusive bonus episodes every week! Subscribe directly in Apple Podcasts or here if you want chapters: primarytech.memberful.com/join------------------------------Reach out:Stephen's YouTube Channel@stephenrobles on ThreadsStephen on BlueskyStephen on Mastodon@stephenrobles on XJason's Inc.com Articles@jasonaten on Threads@JasonAten on XJason on BlueskyJason on Mastodon------------------------------We would also appreciate a 5-star rating and review in Apple Podcasts and SpotifyPodcast artwork with help from Basic Apple Guy.Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at: podcast@primarytech.fm------------------------------Links from the showiPad Team Interview - YouTubeApple's F1 Deal Includes Something I Didn't Expect. It Makes Perfect SenseApple is the exclusive new broadcast partner for Formula 1® in the U.S. - AppleM5 iPad Pro Review: Finally, Truly, Pro - YouTubeM5 MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air: Which is Right for You? - YouTubeThe M5 MacBook Pro Is Apple's Most Underrated Product in YearsM5 Apple Vision Pro | Heavier, Faster and Better! - YouTubeApple Confirms Vision Pro is Not Eligible for Trade-In - MacRumorsChatGPT - AtlasAtlas vs Comet: Begun the AI Browser Wars Have - YouTubeApple confirms it pulled controversial dating apps Tea and TeaOnHer from the App Store | TechCrunchMeta kicking ChatGPT out of WhatsApp for 50M users - 9to5MacApple's iPhone Air Experiment Fails as Supply Chain Cuts Production by 80% - MacRumorsTyler Stalman's iPhone Air Camera ReviewiOS 26.1 beta 4 adds new setting to tone down Liquid Glass transparency - 9to5MacAn AWS Outage Took Down Snapchat, Fortnite, and ChatGPT, and Showed How Fragile Everything Really IsFedEx's Use of AI Chatbots Is the Worst Thing a Company Could Do to Its Customers (00:00) - Intro (02:51) - iPad Team Interview (03:51) - Apple Gets F1 Rights (08:51) - M5 iPad Pro Review (17:05) - Apple Polishing Cloths (20:57) - M5 MacBook Pro DEBATE (41:15) - Sponsor: CleanMyMac (43:20) - Sponsor: Interconnected (44:32) - M5 Apple Vision Pro (53:15) - OpenAI Atlas Browser (01:01:01) - Amazon Ai Products (01:05:46) - Tea App Removed (01:06:20) - WhatsApp Removes ChatGPT (01:07:20) - iPhone Air "Demand" (01:12:58) - iOS 26.1 Liquid Glass Toggle (01:14:03) - AWS Outage (01:15:53) - Listener Voicemail (01:20:25) - Ai Customer Support
What if AI read your entire book and explained your life's work better than you could? That's exactly what happens in this one-of-a-kind episode of The Root of All Success. Jason Duncan fed his bestselling book, Exit Without Exiting, into Google's AI tool, Notebook LM, and let it create an entire podcast conversation — no script, no notes, just pure AI synthesis. The result? A surprisingly deep discussion between two AI hosts about Jason's signature frameworks for achieving freedom without selling your business. From delegation and systems to time, money, and purpose — this episode captures the heart of what it means to build a business that serves your life instead of controlling it. Jason returns at the end to unpack what AI got right, what it missed, and how this experiment proves that the Exit Without Exiting lifestyle is more relevant than ever in today's AI-driven world.
Jello again. Jack's violin is still missing, but he does not let that keep him from enjoying his birthday.Episode 245 of The Jack Benny Show. The program originally aired on on February 14, 1937.Please email questions and comments to host@classiccomedyotr.com.Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/classiccomedyotr. Please share this podcast with your friends and family.You can also subscribe to our podcast on Spreaker.com, Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Google podcasts.This show is supported by Spreaker Prime.
429: Ryan's past couple of weeks were marked with his school district further relying on Google and AWS, adding barriers to log in, providing inequitable teacher assignments, and more! Patreon: www.patreon.com/classroombrew Instagram: www.instagram.com/classroombrew
Sonja Grasser is the Founder of Retention Theory, a consultancy helping CPG brands turn one-time buyers into loyal repeat customers through data-driven retention systems. With a background that spans law school, 60+ countries of travel, and hands-on work with brands like MaryRuth's Organics, Sonja brings a uniquely behavioral approach to customer retention: rooted in psychology, not playbooks.After landing in retention by accident as a German-speaking marketer, Sonja discovered her passion for understanding why customers buy, not just what they buy. Her global perspective and analytical mindset help founders identify churn before it happens, build smarter lifecycle flows, and create experiences that keep customers coming back.Whether you're a CPG founder tired of chasing acquisition or an operator ready to make retention your growth engine, Sonja shares a masterclass in turning customer behavior into predictable, sustainable revenue.In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:33] Intro[01:05] Helping brands turn retention into revenue[01:30] Connecting communication to customer longevity[02:08] Identifying patterns behind consumable success[02:55] Leveraging analytical thinking for stronger retention[04:00] Educating first-time buyers before selling again[05:25] Helping buyers at their exact stage of the journey[07:11] Designing flows that nurture interest into action[07:45] Applying retention rules across every direct channel[08:18] Stay updated with new episodes[08:29] Spotting churn before customers disappear[10:19] Timing recovery emails before customers drift away[11:39] Resolving customer issues before they walk away[12:27] Setting triggers that match real customer behavior[14:16] Focusing on results-driven storytelling for CPG[15:26] Evaluating why memberships don't always translate[16:36] Building loyalty from your first 100 buyers[17:07] Layering time data to reveal true retention health[19:08] Applying psychology to make retention truly workResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeHelps Ecommerce brands with retention marketing retentiontheory.com/Follow Sonja Grasser linkedin.com/in/sonjagrasserIf you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!
ChatGPT Just Launched an AI Browser to Topple Google… And It's Built on Google's Bones! Download ChatGPT Atlas: The New OpenAI Web Browser (for Apple macOS Users First) Talk with Favour Obasi-Ike | Sign up for exclusive SEO insights.AI is rapidly changing the digital tools we use every day, and the humble web browser is the latest frontier in this revolution. Once a simple window to the internet, the browser is now becoming an intelligent partner, capable of not just finding information but completing tasks on our behalf. In a move that has sent ripples through the tech world, OpenAI has quietly released its own AI-powered browser for macOS, code-named "Atlas."This isn't just another app; it's a direct shot across the bow of established giants like Google Chrome and a signal of a new, intense battle for how we access the digital world. I've spent time with Atlas, putting it through its paces, and my hands-on experience revealed several surprising, and at times counter-intuitive, facts about this new tool and the future of search. What I found suggests that the path to displacing the old guard is more complicated—and more entangled—than anyone imagined.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Next Steps for Digital Marketing + SEO Services:>> Need SEO Services? Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike>> Visit our Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services.>> Visit our Official website for the best digital marketing, SEO, and AI strategies today!>> Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community>> Read SEO Articles>> Need SEO Services? Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike>> Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast--------------------------------------------------------------------------------This episode depicts the review of ChatGPT Atlas, a new AI-powered web browser released by OpenAI, currently exclusive to Apple macOS users. The speaker discusses their experience downloading and using Atlas, noting that it is a direct competitor to Perplexity's Comet browser, which was released previously. The central focus is on Atlas's features and its potential place in the competitive AI and search landscape, particularly its reliance on and perceived partnership with Google and Apple systems, despite aiming to capture market share. Favour Obasi-ike also offers strategic advice for businesses on how to adapt to these new AI search platforms and contrasts the different pricing tiers and functionalities of Atlas with other existing AI models."...don't think about how to rank on ChatGPT. Think about how to show up for the people who are looking for you in places that they frequently connect with."The Google ParadoxA central theme is Atlas's deep dependency on the very ecosystem it aims to compete with.• Authentication: Users sign up for Atlas using their ChatGPT account, which for many is authenticated via a Google account.• Data Import: Atlas facilitates user transition by importing bookmarks and passwords directly from Google Chrome.• Information Sourcing: In practice, Atlas surfaces content directly from Google-owned properties. A test search for videos returned results exclusively from YouTube, and the interface includes a clickable Google icon that directs the user to Google's own search results page."If you're going to chatgpt.com and you're signing in or signing up or logging in with a Google mail account, what does that tell you about where ChatGPT is getting its information from? Google."User Experience and Key FeaturesFavour provides a first-hand account of using Atlas, comparing its performance and features to both traditional browsers and Perplexity's Comet.Performance and UI• Speed: Atlas was observed to load faster than the Perplexity Comet browser.• User Interface: The UI design borrows heavily from Google's search interface, featuring distinct tabs for Home, Search, Images, Videos, and News.Core Features• Sidebar Integration: Allows users to view a webpage and receive AI responses directly in a sidebar.• Contextual Suggestions: The browser can suggest ideas based on the user's web activity, such as composing emails.• Memory: Retains information from previous interactions to inform future suggestions.• Agent Mode: This is positioned as a transformative feature that allows Atlas to complete complex tasks autonomously. The example provided involves a user uploading a grocery list as an image and instructing the AI to shop for those items at a specified online store (e.g., Costco, Amazon Fresh) and proceed to checkout."On in Atlas, there's something called agent mode that makes like literally does everything for you... think about the the efficiency and the convenience that you're getting with these platforms."Data Sourcing and Search Result AnalysisThe quality and origin of AI-generated results are critical. The analysis reveals that Atlas functions as an aggregator and synthesizer of information from existing web platforms.• Primary Sources: The browser sources its information from established platforms including Google, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn.• Search Test Example: A test query for "ice cream near HB" was performed. ◦ Video Results: The "Videos" tab returned five YouTube videos. ◦ Content Freshness: The video results were dated between 2016 and 2023, with no content from 2024 or 2025 appearing in this specific search. ◦ Content Length: The results showed a preference for brevity, with four of the five videos being under five minutes long.Thank you so much for listening to this AI-powered topic and see you in the next episode! Happy Surfing!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Don't gamble with Chauncey Billups. He was arrested by the FBI for a gambling investigation. The Denver Broncos host the Dallas Cowboys. Cowboy DeHuff tells you who needs to be all balls in order for the Broncos to get the win. Jerry Jones may be looking for the elusive Mile High glory-hole. Would you eat that? Jimmy John's is set to release their bread replaced by pickles - sandwich. She can't be that dumb, Polish woman blames Google for her falling in an Italy canal. The Rockies should hire a Little League coach to be their new GM or manager. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Is there really one “right” therapy?Or are we just drowning in Google searches, hoping to crack the magical code that will lead to our child finally hitting that big milestone like walking, talking, or finally sleeping through the dang night?So many of us special needs moms fall into the trap of thinking there's one golden-ticket treatment out there. That if we research hard enough, fight hard enough, do enough… we'll find the thing that unlocks all the milestones.But that mindset is the fast track to burnout.In this episode, we're talking about how to think about therapies, early interventions, and what actually helps (hint: it's not just one magic answer).
AI Applied: Covering AI News, Interviews and Tools - ChatGPT, Midjourney, Runway, Poe, Anthropic
In this episode, we explore Google's new Gemini Enterprise platform and its recent partnership with Figma to integrate AI into design workflows. We discuss the implications of these developments for businesses and how they might reshape the landscape of AI-driven design.Get the top 40+ AI Models for $20 at AI Box: https://aibox.aiConor's AI Course: https://www.ai-mindset.ai/coursesConor's AI Newsletter: https://www.ai-mindset.ai/Jaeden's AI Hustle Community: https://www.skool.com/aihustle
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Enterprise SEO teams are overvaluing traffic metrics in 2025. Lindsie Nelson, VP of SEO at Symphonic Digital, explains why traditional traffic obsession misses business impact and how AI visibility tracking tools oversell their accuracy. The discussion covers directional measurement frameworks for LLM visibility and strategic approaches to metric selection that prioritize business outcomes over vanity numbers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Speculating over shock Senzu benching & the future of TheMongolz, electronic and s1mple reunion, two wins for Brazilian teams at CAC and TWC, PGL Bucharest prediction, and more in this episode of HLTV Confirmed.➡️ Follow us for updates: https://twitter.com/HLTVconfirmed
Today we discuss Harvard, higher ed, public health, AI, and political cheating. Harvard has announced the suspension of several graduate programs, as well as hiring and other budget freezes, claiming poverty due to the suspension of federal grants. But Harvard's revenue last year was $6.7 billion, and their losses amount to 1.7% of that. Meanwhile, Trump wants Harvard to run trade schools. Then: vaccinologist Paul Offit admits that natural immunity was always superior to vaccine-induced immunity—if you survived the infection—but that this was not a matter of public health policy because Americans couldn't handle the nuance. And: Google's AI fabricated a criminal history, and is now being sued. Finally: how you voted is visible on your mail-in ballot in some counties in California.*****Our sponsors:Caraway: Non-toxic, beautiful, light ceramic cookware. Go to http://caraway.com/darkhorse10 for 10% off your order.Everyday Dose: Coffee plus collagen, mushrooms & nootropics – delicious! Get 45% off your first subscription order and also receive free gifts at http://everydaydose.com/darkhorse.Timeline: Accelerate the clearing of damaged mitochondria to improve strength and endurance: Go to http://www.timeline.com/darkhorse and use code darkhorse for 10% off your order.*****Join us on Locals! Get access to our Discord server, exclusive live streams, live chats for all streams, and early access to many podcasts: https://darkhorse.locals.comHeather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.comOur book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3AGANGg (commission earned)Check out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org*****Mentioned in this episode:Harvard's PhD Bloodbath (Chris Brunet): https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/harvards-phd-bloodbathLetter from Harvard (Heather): https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/letter-from-harvardPaul Offit on Covid immunity: https://x.com/kevinnbass/status/1891856265292169570Robby Starbuck suing Google: https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1980985160586625186Ralston Lectures: https://www.ralston.ac/the-sophia-lectures/bret-weinstein-heather-heying-sophia-lectures-2025California ballots: https://x.com/indyspanglish/status/1977814368613249280Support the show
Xavier HC Richard Pitino chats with CBS Sports' Matt Norlander to preview the upcoming season
Grant McCasland sits down with Gary Parrish at Big 12 Media Days to discuss his Texas Tech squad ahead of the 2025-26 season! (0:00) Intro (00:18) Looking Back At Elite 8 Loss (4:46) Outlook For JT Toppin (7:29) Support System At Texas Tech (10:35) Expectations For Christian Anderson (12:45) What Makes Him A Good Coach (15:25) Non-Conference Schedule Breakdown ------- Theme song: "Timothy Leary," written, performed and courtesy of Guster Eye on College Basketball is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our team: @EyeonCBBPodcast @GaryParrishCBS @MattNorlander @Kyle_Boone @DavidWCobb @NataTheScribe Visit the betting arena on CBSSports.com for all the latest in sportsbook reviews and sportsbook promos for betting on college basketball. You can listen to us on your smart speakers! Simply say, "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast," or "Hey, Google, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast." Email the show for any reason whatsoever: ShoutstoCBS@gmail.com Visit Eye on College Basketball's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeFb_xyBgOekQPZYC7Ijilw For more college hoops coverage, visit https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AJ Dybantsa previews the BYU Cougars' season with CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. 00:00 - Start 00:15 - The meaning of the name AJ 01:26 - Looking forward to opening night 01:38 - Fulfilling the visions of college basketball 02:25 - Enjoying the college experience 03:00 - Living in Utah vs. Living in Boston 03:40 - Aj's Differences between college ball vs NBA ball 04:15 - Maintaining the balance betwen NBA Dreams and College Dreams 04:48 - Team Dynamic 05:30 - Calls Richie Saunders “one of the hardest workers I've ever played with” 05:51 - Just started learning how to throw 6:26 - The best PG you've ever played with 6:48 - Taking in the NCAA tournament for the first time 7:49 - Trying to improve on the defense 08:30 - Hard to say you had a good game when you lose 09:06 - Not focused on individual stats 10:07 - Focused on rebounding 10:50 - Learning to block out the noise of road games
OpenAI just launched ChatGPT Atlas, a full AI-powered browser built to challenge Google Chrome. Patrick Bet-David and the crew break down what this means for the future of search, why Alphabet stock dropped, and how AI could disrupt Google's core business.