Podcasts about JFS

Dana Toppel is CEO of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, one of the region's most established human services organizations. Founded more than 100 years ago, JFS continues to be rooted in Jewish values while serving people across San Diego County, including older adults, immigrants, families, Holocaust survivors, and neighbors facing housing, food, and other basic needs. Dana has held multiple leadership roles at JFS since 2009 and brings more than two decades of direct service, clinical, and nonprofit leadership experience.This Episode: What does it take to meet urgent needs today while building a stronger safety net for tomorrow? In this episode, Dana and Grant explore how Jewish Family Service is responding to this moment in San Diego. Dana shares how JFS serves more than 60,000 people each year, with a focus on helping people access safe and stable housing, culturally competent food, and the wraparound support they need to move toward greater stability and dignity. The conversation also explores what it means to lead with both compassion and discipline. She and Grant discuss why nonprofits need to focus on what they do best, partner more deeply, reduce duplication, and look further upstream so the region can address challenges before they become emergencies. Dana reminds us that hope is active. It comes from staying close to people's stories, building relationships across differences, and continuing to show up for the work, even when outside forces push back. Key Moments: [2:52] How Jewish Family Service serves the broader San Diego community [8:32] What courage looks like for a humanitarian service organization [17:21] Dana's path from social worker to COO to CEO [26:29] How the nonprofit sector can reduce duplication and work further upstream [44:18] Why hope matters when working toward a different future  Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Jewish Family Service of San Diego – Providing housing, food, immigration support, older adult services, and other human services across San Diego County Safe Parking Program – JFS's program supporting people and families living in their vehicles as they work toward stable housing Nonprofits Create Bold, Replicable Solution to Housing Crisis – An op-ed from Dana Toppel, Prebys CFIO Gil Gil Alvarado, and partners on a new collaborative model for affordable housing in San Diego Take Action: Learn About JFS – Explore how Jewish Family Service supports people across San Diego County through housing, food, immigration services, older adult support, and more. Support Basic Needs – Look for ways to help neighbors access stable housing, nutritious food, and trusted services. Think Upstream – Support approaches that prevent crises before they deepen, including stronger partnerships, reduced duplication, and early intervention. Stay Connected to People's Stories – Volunteer, listen, and spend time with organizations serving the community directly. Seeing the work up close can change how we understand what is possible.  Credits:This is a production of the Prebys FoundationHosted by Grant OliphantCo-Hosted by Crystal PageProduced by Adam Greenfield, Tess Karesky, Edgar Ontiveros Medina, and Crystal PageEngineered by Adam GreenfieldProduction Coordination by Tess KareskyVideo Production by Edgar Ontiveros MedinaThe Stop & Talk Theme song was created by San Diego's own Mr. Lyrical Groove.Download episodes at your favorite podcatcher or visit us at StopAndTalkPod​cast​.comSpecial thanks to the Prebys Foundation TeamIf you like this show, and we hope you do, the best way to support this show is to share, subscribe

Junk Food Supper #118 VIDEO REVIEW of The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)Here's something new we're trying - a video version of the movie review from our latest episode. It's also available on our YouTube. If you enjoy it, let us know and maybe go subscribe to the YouTube for more fun stuff. CHECK IT OUT NOW! - MP4 Download Link, or preview below (select 4k for best experience)

Early bird discounts for the San Francisco World's Fair, the biggest AIE gathering of the year, end today - prices will go up by ~$500 tonight so do please lock in ASAP!From near-universal AI tool adoption inside Shopify to internal systems for ML experimentation, auto-research, customer simulation, and ultra-low-latency search, Mikhail Parakhin joins us for a deep dive into what it actually looks like when a 20-year-old, $200B software company goes all-in on AI. We cover why Shopify has become much more vocal about its internal stack, what changed after the December model-quality inflection, and why the real bottleneck in AI coding is no longer generation, but review, CI/CD, and deployment stability.We also go inside Tangle, Tangent, SimGym, which are three major AI initiatives that Shopify is doing to make experimentation reproducible, optimization automatic, customer behavior simulatable, and search and catalog intelligence faster and cheaper at scale. Along the way, Mikhail explains UCP, Liquid AI, and why token budgets are directionally right but often measured badly, why AI-written code can still increase bugs in production, what makes Shopify's customer simulation defensible, and what he learned from the Sydney era at Bing.We discuss:* Mikhail's path from running a major Microsoft business unit spanning Windows, Edge, Bing, and ads to becoming CTO of Shopify* Why Shopify is talking more publicly about AI now, and why staying at the frontier has become necessary for the company* Shopify's internal AI adoption curve, the December inflection, and why CLI-style tools are rising faster than traditional IDE-based tools* Why Jensen Huang is directionally right on token budgets, but raw token count is still the wrong way to evaluate engineering output* Why the real unlock is not more agents in parallel, but better critique loops, stronger models, and spending more on review than generation* Why AI coding can still lead to more bugs in production even if models write cleaner code on average than humans* Why Shopify built its own PR review flow, and why Mikhail thinks most off-the-shelf review tools miss the point* How PR volume, test failures, and deployment rollback are becoming the real bottlenecks in the agent era* Why Git, pull requests, and CI/CD may need a new metaphor once code is written at machine speed* What Tangle is, and how Shopify uses it to make ML and data workflows reproducible, collaborative, and production-ready from the start* Why Tangle is different from Airflow, and why content-addressed caching creates network effects across teams* What Tangent is, and how Shopify is using auto-research loops to optimize search, themes, prompt compression, storage, and more* Why Tangent is becoming a democratizing tool for PMs and domain experts, not just ML engineers* Why AutoML finally feels real in the LLM era, and where auto-research still falls short today* Why Tangle, Tangent, and SimGym become much more powerful when combined into one system* What SimGym is, why simulated customers only work if you have real historical behavior, and why Shopify's data gives it a moat* How SimGym evolved from comparing A/B variants to telling merchants what to change on a single live storefront to raise conversions* Why customer simulation is so expensive, from multimodal models to browser farms to serving and distillation costs* How Shopify models merchant and buyer trajectories, runs counterfactuals, and thinks about interventions like discounts, campaigns, and notifications* Why category-level behavior is so different across commerce, and why ideas like Chinese Restaurant Processes are showing up again in practice* Shopify's new UCP and catalog work, including runtime product search, bulk lookups, and identity linking* Why Shopify is using Liquid AI, and why Mikhail sees it as the first genuinely competitive non-transformer architecture he has used in practice* Where Liquid already works inside Shopify today, from low-latency query understanding to large-scale catalog and Sidekick Pulse workloads* Whether Liquid could become frontier-scale with enough compute, and why Shopify remains pragmatic and merit-based about model choice* Who Shopify is hiring right now across ML, data science, and distributed databases* The Sydney story at Bing, why its personality was not an accident, and what Mikhail learned from deliberately shaping AI character early onMikhail Parakhin* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikhail-parakhin/* X: https://x.com/MParakhinTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction: Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft, and Shopify00:01:16 Why Shopify Is Talking More About AI00:02:29 Internal AI Adoption at Shopify and the December Inflection00:06:54 Token Budgets, Jensen Huang, and Why Usage Metrics Can Mislead00:10:55 Why Shopify Built Its Own AI PR Review System00:12:38 AI Coding, More Bugs, and the Real Deployment Bottleneck00:14:11 Why Git, PRs, and CI/CD May Need to Change for Agents00:18:24 Tangle: Shopify's Reproducible ML and Data Workflow Engine00:21:19 Why Tangle Is Different from Airflow00:26:14 Tangent: Auto Research for Optimization and Experimentation00:30:07 How Tangent Democratizes Experimentation Beyond ML Engineers00:33:06 The Limits of Auto Research00:36:36 Why Tangle, Tangent, and SimGym Compound Together00:37:20 SimGym: Simulating Customers with Shopify's Historical Data00:42:47 The Infra Behind SimGym00:46:00 Why SimGym Gets Better with Real Customer History00:47:30 Counterfactuals, HSTU, and Modeling Merchant Trajectories00:51:55 CRPs, Clustering, and Category-Level Customer Behavior00:53:30 UCP, Shopify Catalog, and Identity Linking00:55:07 Liquid AI: Why Shopify Uses Non-Transformer Models00:59:13 Real Shopify Use Cases for Liquid01:03:00 Can Liquid Scale into a Frontier Model?01:09:49 Hiring at Shopify: ML, Data Science, and Databases01:10:43 Sydney at Bing: Personality Shaping and AI Character01:13:32 Closing ThoughtsTranscript[00:00:00] swyx: Okay. We're here in the studio, a remote studio, with Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Shopify. Welcome.[00:00:08] Mikhail Parakhin: Thank you. Welcome.[00:00:10] swyx: I don't even know if I should introduce you as CTO of Shopify. I feel like you have many identities. Uh, you led sort of the, the Bing ML team, I guess, uh, uh, or ads team. I, I don't know, I don't know, uh, you know, it's, uh, people va-variously refer you as like CEO or, or, uh, I don't know what that, that, that said previous role at Microsoft was.[00:00:29] Mikhail Parakhin: Uh, that was... Yeah, my previous role w- at Microsoft was the-- I actually was the CEO of one of Microsoft's business units, which included, as I, you know, as we discussed, all the things that people like to laugh about, uh, including Windows and Edge and Bing and ads and everything.[00:00:47] swyx: Yeah, yeah. What a, what a, what a wild time.You've obviously, uh, done a lot since you landed at Shopify. Uh, one of the reasons I reached out was because you started promoting more sort of internal tooling, uh, primarily Tangle, but also a lot of people have seen and adopted Tobi's QMD, uh, and obviously, I think, uh, Shopify has always been sort of leading in terms of, uh, engineering.I think more-- it's just more recent that you guys have been more vocal about your sort of AI adoption. Is that, is that true?[00:01:16] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, I think AI tools in general are fairly recent development, uh, and we've-- Shopify, you know, at this stage of its development, we're developing AI in-in-house and other, uh, building tools that use AI and, you know, interfacing with the wider AI community, uh, you know, are on the sort of the, uh, runaway trajectory.So it just did by sort of natural byproduct. We, we talk about it more also. We just, uh, just even yesterday, Andrej Karpathy was famous in tweeting about, oh, are there some, uh, ways, uh, that, that you can organize your agents to store the data and then, uh, look up the data so that you don't have to research or, or lose context every- Yestime. And a little bit tongue in cheek, I tweeted that, “Hey, we've, we've done it much earlier, and we even have different approaches, Tobi and I.” Tobi, of course, is a big fan of QMD, and I'm more of a SQL, SQLite fan. But, uh, yeah, very similar things that we've already done here. The point is, yeah, we're very dynamic, you know, explosively growing company, and we have to be at the forefront of AI adoption, obviously.[00:02:29] swyx: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you, your team kindly prepared some slides actually that we were gonna bring up on to, uh, the screen. I think I can, I can screen share, and then we can kind of go through some of the shocking stats that maybe, maybe put some numbers to what exactly is going on. So here we have, uh- An internal AI tool adoption chart.What are we looking at here? What ?[00:02:54] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, this is very interesting statistics. Uh, this is number of daily active workers, you know, think of, uh, DAO, basically the active users of-[00:03:05] swyx: Yeah ...[00:03:05] Mikhail Parakhin: AI tool as a percentage of all the people in the company, right? And then- Yeah ... different AI tools. And, uh, you could see two things here is that one is the green is total.Uh, green is just total. So you could see that it approaches really % by now. It's hard not to do your job now without interacting deeply, at least with one tool. You could see another interesting thing is just as many people commented in December was the phase transition when suddenly models gotten good enough that, that everything took off and started growing.Uh, it, it was many people noticed that the thing is that small improvements accumulated into this big change in Sep- December roughly timeframe.[00:03:52] swyx: Yeah.[00:03:52] Mikhail Parakhin: The other thing I would claim you could see is that, uh, CLI-based tools and tools that don't require you to look at the code becoming more popular, and you could see, yeah, various versions of, uh, Cloud Code and Codex and Pi and internal development tools taking off.Uh, exactly, yeah, uh, and blue is our River, just internal agent for coding, where tools, uh, that require IDEs such as, uh, GitHub, Copilot or Cursor, they're not exactly shrinking, but they're not growing as fast. Like, uh, red, red line is, is the IDE kind of tools. So you could see that they're, they're not experiencing as, as fast of a growth.[00:04:37] swyx: As I understand it, basically, every employee has their choice, right? Of choose whatever tool you use, and then you're just kind of doing a, a daily sur-survey or something.[00:04:47] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. And, uh, we- Yeah ... the, the push is to get your job done, you can use any tool, and we effectively fund unlimited tokens for everybody.Uh, we, we do, we do try to control the models that, uh, people use, but from the bottom, not from top. Like we basically say, “Hey, please don't use anything less than Opus four point six.”[00:05:09] swyx: Oh .[00:05:10] Mikhail Parakhin: Some people, some people end up using GPT five point four extra high. Some people use Opus four point six. Um, uh, you know, uh, there are some, uh, there are plus and minuses in going for full one million context window versus not.But, uh, we try to discourage people from using anything less than that.[00:05:28] swyx: Yeah, yeah. Got it, got it. Uh, I mean, uh, that's, you know... The, the next chart here, it really kind of shows the expansion and the sort of December twenty twenty-five inflection, right? That, uh, people are using a lot of tokens. I think it's also really interesting that no one was kind of abusing it in twenty twenty-five.Like it was- Had comparatively, uh, to this year, there was almost no growth. I mean, it's still like, you know, probably, probably gave fifty percent.[00:05:56] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. This is just a different scale. It's still exponential- Yeah, yeah ...growth at just a different- ...rate of expansion. Uh, there was inflection point, and Sean, I would claim the, the super interesting part here is that you could see that the distribution becoming more and more skewed.Yes. The top percentiles grow faster. So that means- Yeah ...the people in the top ten percentile, they, their consumption grows faster than seventy-five and so forth. So, uh, the distribution skews more and more towards the highest users, which is... I don't know what it tells me. It's like it feels not ideal, to be honest.Or maybe it's okay. We'll see.[00:06:36] swyx: Why does it feel not ideal? Is, is it because of, um, quantity over quality, or what's the concern?[00:06:42] Mikhail Parakhin: Because take it to the limit. That means, you know, if, if this rate of separation continued- Ah, yes ...a year, there will be one person consuming all the tokens. So it's just, it's kinda strange.[00:06:54] swyx: Yeah, I mean, um, uh, I, I think internal like teaching and all that, uh, will, will help sort of distribute things more widely. But in, in the early days, of course, the people who are sort of more AI-pilled will obviously find more ways to use it than the people who are less AI-pilled. Maybe let's, let's call it that.I'll just, I'll just kinda quickly, uh, pause from the, the... You know, we will go back to the rest of the slides, but I just wanna, um, review, you know, there are a lot of CTOs of, of large companies like yourself where they're all considering some kind of token budget, right? Like I think it's something, something that Jensen Huang has been talking about, where like if your 200K engineer is not using 100K of tokens every year, like they're, they're underutilizing coding agents.Of course, Jensen Huang would say that, but like it seems a very quantity over quality approach and like some, some people are basically saying like, well, is this comparable to judging engineer quality by lines of code, right? Which we also know is like kind of flawed, but better than nothing. So I, I don't know if you have like a sort of management take here on, on how to view this kind of, uh, metrics.[00:08:02] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, I mean, you're, you're baiting me. I, I like... This is my favorite topic. Uh, if you let me, I'll probably talk for two hours on just this. I have a lot of things to say. Like I do think Jensen gotten a lot of bad press saying, “Oh, of course you're, you know, this, uh, the- ...the cake seller says you don't need enough cakes.”You know? Like, of course. Uh, but, uh, I actually, uh, think that's undeserved. I think he, he's actually right. Uh, I do think- He,[00:08:33] swyx: he's directionally correct.[00:08:35] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Yeah. He's directionally correct for sure. Uh-[00:08:37] swyx: Who knows what the right number is? Yeah.[00:08:39] Mikhail Parakhin: The thing that I do Uh, want to say, and this is something that we learned through trial and error and very important is like two things.One is that it's not about just consuming tokens. Uh, you can consume tokens and, and in fact, the anti-pattern is running multiple agents, too many agents in parallel that don't communicate with each other. That's almost useless, uh, compared to just fewer agents and burns tokens very efficiently. Uh, setting up the right critique loop, especially with the high quality models, where one agent does something, the other one, ideally with a different model, critiques it, uh, suggests ways to improve it, the agent redoes it with this critique and, and so it takes much longer.So people don't like it because latency goes up. You know, they, they have to wait until this debate is happening. But, uh, the quality of the code is much higher. And another thing, just since you mentioned like, look, uh, uh, yeah, the overall budget is just like, uh, lines of codes. Lines of codes are exploding for everybody right now, or partially because AI is really mover balls, but partially just because AI can write a lot more code, you know, doesn't get tired.And so you have to have to have a very strong narrow waist during PR review. Otherwise, just the number of bugs will go through the roof. It's, uh, it's this unexpected consequence of the just volume trumping everything. I would claim by now good model writes code on average with fewer bugs than, than the average human.But since they write so much more of it, like more of it will make it into production. So you have to- You still[00:10:26] swyx: have[00:10:26] Mikhail Parakhin: more bugs. Yeah. Have to have a very rigorous PR reviews, also automated of course. But, uh, yeah, that to spend a lot budget there. Like this, this for me, for me, actually, the important metric is the ratio of budget spent during code generation versus, uh, spent, uh, expensive tokens like GPT, uh, five point four Pro or, uh, uh, Deep Think from Gemini, you know, checking on PR reviews.[00:10:55] swyx: Yeah, totally. Uh, I noticed in your chart you didn't have any review tools. Do you just use like, like let's say a Claude code to review tools? Or do you have another set of review tools like the Greptiles, the Code Rabbits, uh, Devin Reviews has a review tool. I don't know if you've had those specialist review tools.[00:11:13] Mikhail Parakhin: You are a little bit jumping on my store tool right now because the graphs I was only showing public tools. Uh, uh, the-- I haven't found a good PR review tool that, that does what I think should be done. And, uh, partially my, my thinking is because it's so... It just goes against both what people feel like emotionally they prefer and, uh, some of the, uh, you know, frankly Even business models that, that the companies run.At peer review tool, uh, time, you want to run the largest models. That means, I don't know, Codex or, or, uh, Cloud Code is not gonna cut it. You need to have pro-level models if you really want to, uh, stand the tide of bots from going into production. And you need us to spend a lot of time, the models taking turns, but you don't want, like, a big swarm of, uh, of, uh, agents.So in fact, you end up in a different dual-dualistic world where you generate not that many tokens. You, in fact, generate few tokens, but it takes f-a long time because these are expensive models taking turns rather than many, many agents trying to do many things in parallel. So that's, that's why I feel like I haven't found good tools, so we are using our own for peer review for now.[00:12:33] swyx: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, I think a lot of companies are building their own, uh, especially to their needs, right?[00:12:38] Mikhail Parakhin: Mm-hmm.[00:12:38] swyx: Um, I, uh, you also have a chart here going back to the slides on, uh, PR merge growth, where we're now at thirty percent, uh, month on month rather than ten percent. Uh, and also the, the estimated complexity is going up.You know, this is productivity, right? ‘Cause y- presumably there's more stuff going into the code base and more, more features getting worked on. I'm curious about the backlog, right? Like the, the, the-- I actually don't mind a pro-level model taking an hour or two hours to review my PR, because I've dealt with humans who take a week to review my PR, right?And I keep pinging them on Slack, “Hey, hey, review my PR.” So, you know, I think there's some trade-off here where, like, it still doesn't make sense.[00:13:18] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. That, that's exactly m-my point. Uh, that on one hand, you can tolerate longer latencies at, uh, PR. On the other hand, like right now, the real problem is not in spending time waiting for PR.It's real problem is since there's so much more code than- Yeah ... uh, probability of at least some tests failing going up, and then you, like, keep de-failing, then you have to find the offending PR, evict it, retest it without that PR, and so deployment cycle becomes much longer. Uh, so it actually, in terms of the overall time to deploy, it's total time savings if you spend more time on a longer model, like thinking for an hour, because then, then you, you don't have to spend all that time during testing and rolling, you know, rolling back the deployment.[00:14:03] swyx: Yeah, totally. That's still worth it. You know, you don't look at the individual, look at the aggregate, and look at the, the, the change in the aggregate system.[00:14:11] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:14:11] swyx: I'm kind of curious if, like, there's this PR mentality and, like, c-- the, the, the CICD paradigm will be changed eventually. Some people are like, obviously a lot of people want new GitHub, but I even wonder if, like, Git is the problem, right?Like, is that the bottleneck? Is the concept of a PR a bottleneck? Do you guys use stack diffs? I don't know if, uh, that's a, like, a merge queue stack diff type of thing.[00:14:34] Mikhail Parakhin: We, we use, we use Stacks, we u- we use Graphite. We worked with, uh, Graphite a lot. Uh, so we use Stack, uh, PRs. I think, uh, like that's clearly the overall CICD in general, and the interaction with the code repository right now is the, clearly the sort of the, the main issue and the bottleneck for us, uh, and highest top of mind.I would say we probably need a different metaphor or different whole design of how to process it in new agentic world. I haven't seen anything dramatically better yet. I, I think everybody right now is just trying to keep their head above the water ‘cause, ‘cause there, there's so many PRs and then everybody's CICD pipelines start creaking, the, the times are increasing, the number of bugs slipping by increasing, and you have to, have to clap on down.And so we are a little bit in this situation when we need to first stabilize that story and then start thinking, hey, what, what it could be a completely different and new world, which I haven't... I know some people working on it. I haven't seen something, like anything super compelling yet, but clearly the old thing were designed for humans will need to be morphed into something new.[00:15:53] swyx: One of the thing that I, I think about is kind of like the merge conflict is basically a global mutex on the whole system, right? And in, in hu- in human organizations, we do have something like that. It's the company standup. But like, other than that, it's like it's actually fitting for us to be somewhat decentralized, somewhat plugged into one stream of information source, but somewhat lossy.Like it's okay, you know, that, that not every delivery is like atomic consistency. Like we're not dealing with a database sometimes.[00:16:27] Mikhail Parakhin: This is a very good point, uh, because since humans don't write code too fast, you know that global mutex is not too bad. Once you-[00:16:36] swyx: Yes ...[00:16:37] Mikhail Parakhin: start writing code at the speed of machine, it becomes the, you know, the bottleneck.Then what do you do? Maybe, and I can't believe I'm saying this because I, I'm long-- lifelong opponent of, uh, microservices, and I always thought that was, like, a really bad idea. And now that you're saying it, like, maybe in new guys like microservices will make a comeback, you know, because then you, you can ship things independently in tiny things and, and the managing all that complexity automatically will be much easier.I don't know. Like, we'll s-- we'll have to see.[00:17:10] swyx: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what the Microsoft or, or Shopify thing is, but I, I read this paper from Google where they have a monorepo that deploys into microservices, right? And then, uh, the other concept that I think about a lot is the Chaos Monkey concept from, from Netflix.Being able to create, like, this robust system where, um, uh, you know, you, you have the service discovery, you have the, uh, the independent, independent microservices discovery and, and, uh, you know, probably going to be a fair amount of duplication. That's how an organic system sort of scales, uh, that, that you have that...I don't know how you call it. Slack? Robustness? Depend-- uh, d-duplication. I, I, I forget the-- I, I'm-- And this-- those-- these are not exactly the terms- Hmm ... I'm looking for, but I c-can't really think of the words. Okay. I was gonna go into Tangent and Tangle. Uh, so, uh, we, we sort of discussed the overall stats that, uh, Shopify has.Uh, but, you know, I, I think some, some pretty cool stuff that you guys are working on is your ML experimentation, uh, and your, your sort of auto tr-research training pipeline. Presumably you're much closer to this one because it's, it's a sort of personal hobby of yours. How, how would you explain them in, together?I thought we have a slide that, like, uh, has the s- the system diagram.[00:18:24] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Tangle first and then Tangent as a-[00:18:27] swyx: Yeah ...[00:18:28] Mikhail Parakhin: as a thing on top of Tangle. And, uh, Tangle is the third generation, I claim, of, uh, systems of, uh, running any data processing, but a bit with a skew for ML experiments, but not necessarily. Any sort of data processing tasks where you need to iterate, share, and you have scale so that you want maximum efficiency.You know how, like, normally you would work, you would-- Imagine you're a data scientist or an ML practitioner, you would get Jupiter notebooks or, or maybe you would get, uh, you know, Pyth- your Python scripts, and you would manage the data, and you produce those TSV files, and you put them in some JFS or something.Then you would notice that, oh, it has this, uh, weird missing values. You go and write another script that, uh, goes and replaces them with, uh-[00:19:20] swyx: Ah ...[00:19:21] Mikhail Parakhin: dash S. And then, then you, then you run some, some, uh, “Oh, I need to filter bots.” And so you run some light GBM model that, uh, removes the bots. And then, then you like-- And then you, you kind of like get into shape, and then you start experimenting, and you run multiple experiments, and then you're like, “Oh my God,” like, “this experiment is worse.”You undo, and you cannot get to previous result. And like, “Ah, what did I do?” Like that. Again, then, then you finally like get everything working. Then you like start throwing it over the fence to production. You, you replicate it, those things don't work, and then sometimes you like don't notice that you forgot some feature naming and the, the features don't match.But then, like imagine you, you did everything, and then six months later you're like, have to repeat it because now there's more data, or you wanted to do another pass, and you're like, “What, what did I do?” Or like, or like, “This script crashes now,” or the, “the path has changed.” And then, then you're trying to, like you spend another month just doing ar- digital archeology on your own, you know, history, right?Now multiply that by many, many teams. Now imagine you got an intern that you wanna ramp up. Now you have to show that intern, “Oh, you know, look, here's the folder, there's the scripts, you know, ask your cloud agent to do, and then, uh, to, to figure it out.” And then cloud agent does something, and then you're, “Ah, yeah, right, right, it was the wrong folder.I forgot to tell you, I actually have this other thing I forgot myself.” And, and that's, that's the, like, the daily life we all, uh, all know it, uh, if, if you're a data scientist, machine practitioner, ma- machine learning practitioner or, uh, or even like any data managing, uh, person.[00:21:00] swyx: Yeah. So I, I used to do this, uh, f- uh, on the quant finance side, uh, in, in my hedge fund.So we did this before Airflow, and then, uh, obviously Airflow came along and, uh, then more recently Dagster, uh, I would say is like, in my mind, what I would use for that shape of problem, uh, where you had to materialize assets and create a pipeline.[00:21:19] Mikhail Parakhin: And that's, that's very good segue because... So Airflow is great, but Airflow is more about you, you have something and you wanna repeatedly run it in production on schedule.It's less about you as a team developing things and being able to share, and you grabbing the standard pipeline and saying, “Hey, I wanna change this tiny little component in the huge sea of data processing, and I don't wanna-- I wanna run ten experiments on this, and I wanna do hyperparameter optimization.”All that is very hard to do with Airflow. It's very easy to do with Tango. Tango is m- more about, it's everything about group of people Running experiments, it might be agents too nowadays. Uh, running experiments cheaply, collaborating, sharing results. Uh, you don't need to understand fully. You, you grab-- you clone somebody else's experiment or somebody else's pipeline, uh, run, uh, change small piece, run it, be, like, get it to production state, and then ship in one click.So then the... You don't have to port it into any other system to, to run in production. You can just run the same experiment. It's, it's fully production ready. And, and it's, uh, it has lots of... Again, as I said, it's third generation system. The original one was, I would claim there was Ether and then, uh, at least in my career, Ether was the first, first, uh, that pioneered this type of approach.And then there was, uh, Nirvana, which, uh, uh, at Yandex, which did kind of sec-second take on this. And now this one aggregates the, the learnings from all of those and, and Airflow as well to, to get to the state where you try it, it, it feels kind of magical. Uh, ‘cause now everything is based on content, uh, hashes.So even if the version changed, but if the output didn't change, nothing is being rerun. It's very efficient. If you... Multiple people start experiment that needs the same sort of data preprocessing, it's not repeated multiple times. It's automatically done only once. If you start ten experiments that all require, you know, some, some data preparation first as the first step, and you don't have to coordinate for that.Like, you don't have to know that other people are starting it. You now, it's very easy compos-, uh, composability, any language you can u- uh, you wanna use, and it's very visual. So you can see immediately, you can edit it easily, you can assemble small things with just even mouse clicks if you want to, and, uh, share, clone.And everybody knows also it's fully kind of static in the sense that we rerun it second time, it will exactly have the same results. Like, you will never have to do digital archeology. So full versioning and everything is also there.[00:24:06] swyx: Uh, so, so people can, uh... It's open source. Go to the GitHub repo and, and, uh, check it out.Uh, and it is also a really good, uh, blog post about it. I think all these is, like, really appealing. The, the, the, the thing that I think sells me the most about it is that, um, sort of development to production transition, right? Which I think, um, a lot of people haven't really solved that, uh, strictly, right?Like, we develop really, really well in, in Python notebooks, but then, you know, that's obviously not a sort of production ready process. I think that, like, any way in which that is solved, I think is, is very appealing. Then the other thing that you mentioned, which also raised my eyebrows, was content-based caching, which you mentioned is, is, um, you know, is ve-very much, uh, um, a sort of efficiency measure about, uh, you know, just like recalculation only on, on sort of content addressing Which I think makes sense.Uh, it surprised me that the savings could be this much, but maybe I just haven't worked at your scale where there's so much duplication, uh, that people just rerun because they change a single ID upstream.[00:25:10] Mikhail Parakhin: It does, yeah. But it's not only you rerun. The, the main savings are coming from the fact that you ran it, you got your job done, and you moved on.Then- Yeah ... somebody else in some department you don't know existed runs the same task, but on a newer version.[00:25:27] swyx: Yeah.[00:25:27] Mikhail Parakhin: Like right now, you can't, in, in most of the organizations, you can't even find out about it so that you can't even measure that you're spending that time twice, right? Here- Yeah ... if everybody's on Tango, that's detected automatically and detected that the output is the same.And then for that person, all it looks like is like experiment just suddenly moved, jumped forward, right? Uh, uh- Yeah ... so that's because, because the, there's network effect of multiple people helping each other.[00:25:51] swyx: Yeah. This is one of those things where it's designed to be a platform from the beginning rather than an individual developer's tool from the beginning, right?And, and everything's gonna streams down from there. That is the sort of Tango, uh, orchestrator, and it's, it manages jobs. We've seen a few versions of this, and this is obviously, uh, uh, the sort of, uh, unique approaches that you guys have, have, uh, figured out. And then there's Tangent.[00:26:14] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. And Tangent is basically an automatic auto research loop that can help and kind of do your work for you.Uh- ... you know, uh, effectively, effectively, Andrej Karpathy recently popularized it with auto research. Yes. Remember he said like he was, uh, speed running this, uh... Yeah, uh, you know the story. The, here we're basically bringing the same capability into Tango so that, uh, the, uh, Tangent can analyze it. It's just an agent that can run multiple experiments, figure out what can be changed, and keep on rerunning it, keep on modifying until, uh, maximizing some goal, some loss function, whatever you need to, to achieve.And in general, I would say if you're not using auto research-like approach in whatever you do, like literally whatever you do, then you're missing out. We saw at Shopify that taking like a wildfire, anything where you can put measurements can be done dramatically better. Our-[00:27:19] swyx: Mm-hmm ...[00:27:20] Mikhail Parakhin: uh, speed of, uh, templatization HTML, uh, completely new UX tem- uh, templatization of, uh, reducing latency for liquid themes.Uh, we-- Our, uh, search, uh, recently we moved from It's hard even, uh, quote from eight hundred QPS to forty-two hundred QPS with the same quality just by pure optimizations and not a research loop that kept running and changing code in our index serve on the same number of machines, just increasing the throughput.We, we managed to improve the quality of gisting and machine learning process. Uh, you know, gisting is the prompt compression technique that[00:27:59] swyx: allows for[00:28:00] Mikhail Parakhin: lower latency and, and lower and, uh, actually higher quality slightly. So like literally whatever different walks of life, and it doesn't have to be AI related.Uh, we, we had a reduction in, uh, storage because the agents would go and find data sets that clearly are derivative, uh, and then you don't need to store things twice. You know, we, we, we found somewhat embarrassingly that it was one of the largest tables was hashing random IDs into another random ID, and we literally- Oofput only one. So it was translating, yeah, two random IDs hashed[00:28:36] swyx: into[00:28:37] Mikhail Parakhin: each. So, so[00:28:37] swyx: it has access to the code as well, so it can, it can check the, like what, what the hell is it doing?[00:28:42] Mikhail Parakhin: So there, there cou- it could be run in two levels. You, uh, you know, at the superficial level, it could just use ex-existing components and, uh, reshuffle them.Uh, you know, like you can grab- Yeah ... uh, XGBoost, and you can grab some, some Py- PyTorch module, and then can grab some, you know, grab another tools and, and combine them. At a deeper level, since Tangle is all sort of CLI based underneath you, every, every component is a wrapped really CLI, uh, call and a YAML file, it can analyze code and create new components and, and, uh, keep on iterating as well.So, so you can, you can both have quick modifications of existing t- uh, pipelines with the, with components that are already there pre-baked, or you can create new components, uh, and-[00:29:29] swyx: Yeah ...[00:29:29] Mikhail Parakhin: keep iterating on those. So auto research is, again, this is probably the, the thing I was excited the most in the last two months happening, and we see it taking like, like totally like a wildfire.Just, uh, everybody, every day, every... well, every day, every minute, I would, uh, have somebody Slack message saying, “Oh, look how much better I made it.” And, uh, it's all throughout the research.[00:29:53] swyx: Is this democratized in some way in, in the sense that like is it your ML, uh, engineers and researchers doing this, or is it your regular PMs and software engineers also have the ability to auto-- to use Tangent?[00:30:07] Mikhail Parakhin: This is an awesome question. Like, Tango in general and Tangent in particular are extremely democratizing. Like they- Yeah ... they are the main tools for- ‘Cause I don't[00:30:15] swyx: need the details.[00:30:16] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Exactly. Initially used by ML and AI engineers, but then literally, as you said, PMs are like the highest user right now is one of PMs on our org, uh, Sartak and he was, he was number one by, by usage of, of this ‘cause they're just, uh, energetic and knowledgeable, and now it, it unlocks a lot of capability where you don't have to co-change code manually.[00:30:39] swyx: I mean, I mean, because it kind of cuts out the ML, ML engineer from the process because the, the, the PMs have the domain knowledge and the ability to think about, uh, from first principles about, okay, what, what results do I want? And they can-- they even have the access to the data that, that needs to go in.So it's like in some ways, like this is the magic black box that we've always wanted for, for training and, and for, uh, I guess, uh, uh, hill climbing, whatever.[00:31:04] Mikhail Parakhin: It's basically cloud code for your AI development- ... uh, situation, right? Like now, now you don't have to know exactly how algorithms work. You can just, uh, bring your domain knowledge and expertise and product knowledge and iterate within Tangent until you've gotten the results that you need.[00:31:21] swyx: In my previous roles, every time that someone has pitched AutoML, you know, I've always been like, “Uh, this is not, this is not gonna work. It's, you know, it's, it's always gonna be a flop.” Somehow it's working now. I mean, presumably the answer is now we have LLMs and it's good enough, right? It's, it's an emergent property that we can do auto research, but like, it doesn't feel that satisfying that how come we didn't do this before, right?Like we just did like parameter search and like, I don't know. That's maybe that's it.[00:31:48] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Bayesian optimization and hyperparameter optimization was, was the one that, or facet of AutoML that was used very actively, which incidentally also built into, uh, Tango. But, you know, I know Patrice Simard very well, and, uh, he was such a, uh, such a proponent of AutoML, and he put, like literally spent careers trying to democratize it.Without LLMs, it just turned out to be very hard. Like it, you, you would have flexibility within certain narrow domain, but it was hard to wider scale, and now with LLMs suddenly it's like magic wand, and so suddenly everybody- ... is an AutoML expert.[00:32:28] swyx: Yeah, I, I think it's multiple things, right? Like I'm, I'm just gonna bring up the, the, the chart again, right?Like LLMs can do the monitoring very well. That is the very potentially unbounded, super unstructured. It can do the analysis very well, it can do the... Uh, and basically it is much more intelligence poured into every single step. Uh, there's maybe nothing structurally changed about AutoML, but this is just m-more intelligent and more unstructured.[00:32:53] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:32:54] swyx: Any flaws that you've run into? Like everyone is like drinking the Kool-Aid, oh my God, time savings, uh, you know, performance improvements. Like what, what, uh, issues have you have, uh, come up?[00:33:06] Mikhail Parakhin: This is really cool. It's not a solution to all the world's problems for sure. The limitations are usually the ones I-- And this is where we get into a bit of a subjective territory.Uh, I can only share what I've, I've seen so far, and I'm sure the situation, uh, is changing, and, you know, maybe after I say it, like many people will reach out and say, “Hey, what about this?” And you don't know that, and then, then we'll be probably right. But what I've seen is auto research is very good at doing kind of obvious things that you don't have bandwidth to do or you didn't notice or maybe you're not aware of like the-- some standard practices.It is not good at doing something completely out of distribution, something that, you know, you have to think for, for multiple days, uh, and, and do something like none of this. So, so it's, uh, I, uh, set an experiment once, uh, on, on my sort of, uh, hobby thing, and I let it run for, uh, ended up, uh, several weeks run, uh, you know, it's like full production kind of scale, so it, you know, slow runs and, and it ex-- it performed in the end, uh, over four hundred experiments, and only one was successful.I'm like, “Okay, that's, that's good.” But-[00:34:18] swyx: But it saved time.[00:34:19] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, I saved time. Like it, it was the, that thing. Yeah, if I, if I were doing four hundred experiments myself, my betting average, as I said, would have been much higher, I'm sure. But also, first of all, it would take me like three years to do four hundred experiments.And, uh, I didn't have to do them. Like the machines were just, uh, the price of electricity did that. So, and I got one improvement, uh, that in, uh, my, my-- Honestly, when I was starting that experiment, my thinking was to go and show that, “Hey, Andre, maybe you just don't know how to optimize.” And I was super smart because in, in my pro-problem, it was optimized for many years, and it was like fully improved.Uh, and I didn't expect it, you know, auto research to find anything at all. Yet it did. So instead of making fun of Andre, I ended up, uh, a big, big supporter. Yeah, that's exactly the tweet. Yes.[00:35:10] swyx: You and Toby really, really go back and forth on-online a lot, which is really funny. Uh, think of it as, as an eval for the optimalness of the code it's running on.Uh, it's almost like it reminds me of like a Kolmogorov complexity thing, but, uh, I guess it's-- there's some optimal thing that you're trying to sort of reduce down to, I guess. Um, and so, so you, you, you know, you should congratulate yourself that you had, uh, you know, uh, ninety-nine percent, uh, optimality.[00:35:36] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly, yeah. I think Andre really deserves a lot of credit for popularizing this approach. This is, uh, this is incredibly, I think, powerful and cool and You know, the, uh, even him, him just mentioning it led to a lot of gains in a lot of places in the industry, so we should be thankful.[00:35:56] swyx: Yeah. I think he also has a just...I don't know what it is. Like, um, you know, it, it is a simple self-contained project that people can take and apply to other things, which is, is, is one thing, but also just the name. Just like somehow no one, no one managed to call their thing auto research. It's just naming things is very important. I think that that is mostly, uh, our coverage of Tango and, and, uh, Tangents.I think obviously, you know, there's a lot of, uh, ML infra at, at Shopify that people can, uh, dive into. We're about to go into SimGym, but before I do that, any, any other sort of broader comments around this whole effort? Like where is it, where is it leading to?[00:36:36] Mikhail Parakhin: As a segue to SimGym, like all those things start composing strongly.And, uh, you could see a huge unlock when you can look at each one of the tools and, and you see, oh, they're extremely useful. Uh, Tango is useful by itself. Auto Research is useful by itself. SimGym is useful by itself. If you combine all three, you create like synergetic effect. I think that's why we wanted to even, uh, cover them today is because this is something that if you go back even, you know, five years ago, would've been unthinkable.Uh, replicating that, uh, would, would be either incredibly costly or impossible, right? With probably thousands of people are required.[00:37:20] swyx: Well, we have serverless human, uh, serverless intelligence, right? Like, uh, so yes, you do have thousands of hu-- of, of intelligences, not just, not humans. And that's, that's close enough, right?Even if they're not AGI, they're, they're close enough to do the, the task that you need them to do. And, and, you know, that's, there's plenty for, for a lot of routine work, knowledge work. Okay, let's get into SimGym. Um, this is one of those things I, I was surprised to see actually it's apparently your, uh, one of your most popular launches, and I think something that, uh, I think Sim AI, I think Yunjun Park, who did the Smallville thing, there's a very small cottage industry of people trying to do like the simulate customer thing.I think a lot of people maybe don't super trust this yet because they're like, well, obviously they would just do what you prompt them to do, right? But maybe just think, uh, tell us about the sort of inspiration or origin story.[00:38:10] Mikhail Parakhin: That's exactly actually the thing I wanted to cover, because if you don't have the historical data, all you can do is prompt a-agents in a vacuum, and they will do exactly what you prompt them to do.In fact, when I first proposed it, and this is a bit of, um, my brainchild initially, if I, I can boast, even Toby said like, “But wouldn't they, they just repeat what, what you tell them?” And, uh, but I'm like, “Yes, except Shopify has decades of history of how people made changes and what there is, uh, there, what it resulted in terms of sales.”So now what we can do is we can-- we have this... It's not, it's a noisy data. There's a small, usually websites, uh, you know, like things, things are never in isolation. It's almost never AB experiment. It's always AA experiment when there's has two meanings, but basically, you know, in different time you run two different things.But if you aggregate in general, uh, like everything together, and you apply, uh, denoising and collaborative filtering like approach, you can extract a very clear signal. And then you can optimize your agents. And that's why it took so long. It took almost a year of that optimization of just us sitting and fiddling, and, and we had this internal goals of correlation of hitting-- internal goal was to hit zero point seven correlation with, uh, add to cart events, for example.Like that, that if we run real AB test experiment, that it should, it should go and, and rep-uh, replicate, uh, same sort of success that, that humans had or lack thereof. And it, it took forever, and I don't think that's easily replicatable because, uh, like who else would have that data? You have to have this historic, you know, decades, uh, worth of data.And now, now the, like the other thing you need is in-infrastructure and the scale, right? Because, uh, w- again, what we found, uh, stat sig results, you need to run a lot of simulations, a lot of agents, and, and it's-- Those are expensive things. Like you're, you're making actions in the browser because you want a real friction.You want to, to be able to get the image like of what humans will see because you wanna, uh, detect effects like, “Hey, if I make my images larger, will I have more sales or l- uh, fewer sales?” And like usually people's intuition here, by the way, is that I increase my images, I will have more because they look nicer.You know, designers all look sparse and big images. Like usually your sales tank, right? But, but, uh, you know, from HTML, all the characters look the same only the, the size tag looks different, right? So it's very hard. So you have to take visual information, you have to run this in simulated browser environment on the big farm and, and of course, you have to have, uh, like very, very expensive model, good model with multi-model model.So all this it's-- is what's taken so long and, uh, to share my personal fail a little bit there, Sean, is like, you know, we always had this bias to-- for like large company bias. You know, we always, uh, whenever you-- we do, we're like, “Hey, we'll run an experiment,” right? We make, make a change, and we will run an experiment and then, uh, see, uh, see which one's better or like, “No, this is worse,” and most of them are worse, so you discard it and keep iterating, hill climbing.And we're like, “Oh, like smaller merchants, they cannot get stat sig results. They cannot really run experiments simply because, you know, in a week there would be not enough data for them.” So we thought from this perspective. What we didn't realize is that most people don't have A and B, they just have one thing, and they need suggestions of What A and B should be.So, uh, we first build this, hey, we run simulation on two separate teams and, and, uh, say, “Hey, which one is better?” We then morphed it into, and very recently just released it, when you have just your site, your theme, we run over it and we say, “Hey, here's what predicted values of, of, uh, uh, conversions are, and here's how we think you should modify it to increase your conversions.”And then circling back to what you started with, the proof is in the pudding. Like, if we are not correlating with reality, like, people will not be using it. And, uh, thankfully, we see literally every day more users than the previous day. So, so right now, uh, right now- It's working. Yeah. I'm-- Right now my problem is how to pay for it all because the so our major thing is how to optimize the LLMs, do distillation, how to run the headless browsers, uh, and handful browsers, uh, uh, cheaper so that we can accommodate the increase in traffic.[00:42:47] swyx: Yeah. I, I understand that you, uh, you published a lot of technical detail at GTC, so I was just gonna bring it up a little bit. I think s- was this in, in con-conjunction with some kind of GTC presentation? Or something like that, right?[00:42:59] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, we, yeah, we, we did it in several place, but yeah, we had the engineering- Yeahblog, uh, as well. Yeah.[00:43:05] swyx: Yeah. So you're running, uh, GPT OSS. Uh,[00:43:08] Mikhail Parakhin: the, this is an older version. You know, now we run multimodal model. But yeah- Yeah ... GPT OSS, we still run GPT OSS as well for[00:43:15] swyx: And then you have the VMs, and you also have browser-based. I really like this one where it you said, “It violates almost every assumption that standard LLM serving is designed for.”And then you had like, basically orders of magnitude differences between everything.[00:43:29] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. Which is, which, uh, which was, you know, a bit of a challenge to implement, like when, like even simple things. Uh, be- since it violates all the assumptions, for example, multi-instance GPUs, like MIGs don't work as well.But we needed, uh, to get MIG to work because, ‘cause otherwise it's way too expensive. And so we had to deal with the, yeah, with, uh, lots of infrastructure and, and, uh, work with, uh, uh, Fireworks and CentML, uh, you know, to help with optimizations and browser-based, as you mentioned. Yeah, like, takes a village.[00:44:04] swyx: Okay. So there's a lot of like, I guess, experimentation in the infrastructure so far, and you've published more or less what you have here. I guess I'm, I'm less familiar with CentML. I, I don't do, uh, that much work in this, this part of the stack. But why was it the sort of preferred instance platform?[00:44:22] Mikhail Parakhin: There are really three probably top companies. There used to be, uh, uh- Three top companies, uh, at least I was aware of that did, uh, LM optimization. You know, together Fireworks and Santa ML, not necessarily in that order. Santa ML recently got acquired by NVIDIA. Uh, what they did is if you have a model and you want to optimize it to a specific prof-- uh, profile of usage, uh, they would go and do it.And, uh, we work with, with those companies, uh, this was work particularly in with Santa ML and NVIDIA to get them the best possible results out of it. And, and sometimes you, you have to retune depending on, like sometimes you want the maximum throughput, sometimes you want minimal latency, sometimes you want like the cheapest, right?And, yeah, or some combination. And so yeah, these are people who would come and help you.[00:45:14] swyx: I see. I see. Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with these people for the LLM, you know, autoregressive stack. But the other interesting category of these optimizers is also the diffusion people, whereas like Fel and, you know, uh, Pruna recently has come up a lot as well, which I think is like really underappreciated, uh, at least by myself, because I, I thought, oh, all the workload would be LLMs, but actually there's a lot of diffusion as well.[00:45:38] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:45:38] swyx: There's a lot here, so I, I, I... it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's hard to cover. But I, I do think like people underappreciate the importance of customer simulation, basically. I think this is something that I'm candidly still getting to terms with. Uh, you know, uh, you also-- your team also like prepared this, like, really nice diagram.Uh, I, I assume this is AI generated.[00:46:00] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, it looks-[00:46:01] swyx: Maybe it's not.[00:46:01] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, it looks, uh, Gemini-ish. Yeah, but, uh, uh, honestly, I, I don't know where, where the hell they generated. It looks, look, uh, looks like it's, uh, Google. But the interesting part, John, that, that, uh, we haven't covered, but I, I wanted to mention is if your store had previous customers, rather than it's a new store, you're like new merchant just launching things, it helps tremendously in just correlation and forecast.Yeah, we take your previous, uh, customer's behavior, and we create agents that replicate those specific distribution of, of customers that you get, and then we a- we apply those to your changes, and then that, that raised raw, you know, the re-- uh, just correlation with the add to cart events or to-- with conversion or whatever it, it, it may be, uh, quite dramatically.So, uh, replicating humans in general seems like an interesting, cool challenge.[00:46:58] swyx: As a shareholder, I think this is the-- like if people are Shopify shareholders, they should really deeply understand this because this is basically the moat. The, the more you use Shopify, the more it will just automatically improve, right?Like you're, you're doing the job for them.[00:47:13] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, that's what we started with. Like, uh- ... uh, otherwise, if you're just a startup, I wouldn't do it if, uh, you know, if it was my startup because Without the data, it, yeah, as, as you said, it's, it's exactly the case that, uh, whatever you say in prompt, that's, that's what the agents will be doing.[00:47:30] swyx: The statistician in me wants to like really satisfy the sort of, um, statistical intuition, I guess. Um, to me it's kind of, uh, the, the word that comes to mind is, um, ergodicity. Uh, so let's say a, a customer takes this path, customer takes this path, customer takes this path, right? Um, the... In my mind, the way I explain it is like, okay, here, here's the ninety-five percentile, here's the five percentile, and here's the median, right?Um, but to me, what SimGym is potentially doing is that it can, uh, modify... It can sort of model the sort of in-between sort of journeys as well, that, that maybe are dependent on the previous states. This may be like a very RL-type conclusion where like basically the summary statistics, if you only did naive AB testing, you only have the, the statistics at, at, at a certain point, and you only judge based on the sort of overall summary statistics.But here you can actually model trajectories. Does that make sense? Or-[00:48:31] Mikhail Parakhin: That makes total sense because like, well, that, that makes even more sense that maybe even you realize bec- because-[00:48:38] swyx: Okay. Please,[00:48:38] Mikhail Parakhin: please. Yes ... we do-- Yeah. The, so internally, uh, we have this system, we talked about it briefly once at NeurIPS.We have a huge HSTU-based system that models the whole companies, uh, and their possible paths. And like- Yeah ... what you are, what you are showing, like actually at any point of time, you can either model the user's behavior or you mo- can also think about, uh, the whole merchant as a company, as the entity that acts in the world.You can model that as well. And then you can do, can do counterfactuals. In your graph, like in your blue graph, uh, if you're... Imagine in the center there, uh, somewhere in the middle, you would have an intervention. I give that person a coupon, or I don't know, I send a personal thank you card, or give a discount in some- somewhere.And then you can, uh, then you can do forward rollouts from that counterfactual. So what would have happened with that intervention or without the intervention? And you can even ch- change where that intervention, uh, in time can happen, right? Like some- where, where in this journey. So we, we do this at the Shopify scale for our merchants, and then if we notice that something that they can be fixing, like there's a strong counterfactual, like we have Shopify policy, they basically get a notification like, “Hey, we think your...something is wrong with your-” I don't know, Canadian sales. Like, uh, it looks like it's misconfigured. Here's what you need to do. Or do you think like, uh, you have to set up this campaign with these parameters? And we do that at the buyer level to literally offer discounts or cashback or, or things to buyers.So this is-- I'm getting very excited. Like this is my sort of area of, uh, interest, I guess, and, and hobby. But being able to m-model something complex as human beings or companies and model counterfactuals on it, where you can have interventions in the future and optimize when to make intervention, what kind inter-- uh, what kind of intervention to make.It's such an unlock that previously was completely impossible. Like the-- it was, it was always dreamed of, but never... Like how would you even simulate it without LLMs or HTUs? I think very, very exciting times.[00:50:59] swyx: I just wanted to, uh, to maybe illustrate this. I, I'm not the best illustrator, but I, I am a conceptual statistics guy.And y-you know, you cannot just do this. Like this is a dimensionality AB test doesn't do, right? Like, uh, because it doesn't have the, the, the change over time, uh, stochastic nature, uh, and it doesn't have the sort of contextual like... Here's all the context to this point. Um, okay, cool. Um, that's SimGym.You're, you're gonna burn a lot of tokens on this thing. But you're, you're one of the, the only scale platforms in the world that can, uh, that can do this across a huge variety of workloads, right? I'm even curious on a sort of human, uh, research level of like, well, do, does retail behave d-differently from like clothing sales?D-does that behave differently from electronic sales? I, I don't know. I don't know what else you guys... The Kardashian shoppers, do they differ from like people who buy, uh, I don't know, cars and, uh, whatever.[00:51:55] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, very different, and different sensitivities and different modes of, uh, shopping and, and different levels of what's important.Now, to-totally, you can do aggregations at, uh, at a store level. You can do aggregations at a different, uh, category level. I don't know if, uh, you know, for our statisticians among us, I couldn't believe, but we-- recently we're looking at it, and we had to bring back, uh, CRPs, you know, Chinese restaurant process.It's a, like, way of aggregating and, like, naturally grow clustering. So across... Specifically to answer questions that, uh, like you were just posing on how, how if, if buyers behave different categories. And I'm like, “I haven't seen CRP since two thousand and one.” It's[00:52:37] swyx: so What? It's so- What is... No, I haven't, I haven't seen this.No. This is not in my training. Uh,[00:52:44] Mikhail Parakhin: but, but yeah, it, uh, uh, it actually, like the, the-- there was a very popular kind of theory, popular neurips HTML circles in early two thousands, uh, kind of nice. And now, now it has practical applications, uh- Yeah ... that we were resurrecting.[00:53:03] swyx: Yeah, amazing. Uh, I, I can see, I can see how this is like a, uh, a fun job for you where you get to apply all these things.Um, yeah, yeah, so super cool. Super cool. So, okay, so, so anyone who, who knows what CRPs are and has always wanted to use them at work, uh, they should, they should definitely join Shopify. Okay, so w-we have a lot and but I, I'm, I'm being mindful of the time. I, I do wanted to, to sort of cover some other things.Um, I-I'll give you a choice, UCP or Liquid?[00:53:30] Mikhail Parakhin: Liquid. I think, I think on UCP, you know, like UCP is very important for us and, and it just we are-- UCP, we have a structured, uh, discussions, and you can read about them, and we have, uh, blog posts, and we have a big release this week, in fact, like with our catalog.Oh,[00:53:46] swyx: okay.[00:53:46] Mikhail Parakhin: Uh, yeah,[00:53:46] swyx: but- Le-I mean, we, we can, we can discuss the, the, the release briefly because we'll release this after the-- after it's already announced so whatever. There's a catalog that you guys are doing?[00:53:55] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. So we are, we are- Okay ... we are bringing in capabilities of a whole, uh, Shopify catalog.Basically, you now you can search for products, you can do lookups by specific ID, you can do bulk lookups when you need to bring m-multiple products. You don't need to know in ad-in advance what you're trying to show or to sell or check out. Like, you can now, you can now have this decided at, at runtime, and this big area for investment for us for both non-personalized and personalized searches, trying to provide basically a win-window into whole universe of products that are being sold everywhere in the world.And Shopify is really not exactly, but almost like a super set of any-anything being sold. Now we are bringing it into UCP and, uh, and, uh, identity linking is another big thing for us, uh, so that you, you can use, uh, like Google or whatever, whatever identity you have, uh, they're minimizing friction.[00:54:56] swyx: Yeah. So[00:54:57] Mikhail Parakhin: yeah, big release for us.But Liquid AI of course we never talk about, and the problem might be more, more aligned with what we d-discussed previously on this chat.[00:55:07] swyx: Sure. The main thing that everyone understands about Liquid is that it is inspired by Worm, and I still don't know why. I'm curious on your explanation. I think you, you, uh, you can make things very approachable.And also I think like what is the potential of like the, the level of efficiency that you get out of Liquid?[00:55:23] Mikhail Parakhin: You- we all familiar with transformer architectures. And, uh, for the longest time, there was a competing architecture, it's called the state space models. So, so Sams, uh, you know, Chris, Chris Reyes, one of the pioneers and, and lots of startups, uh, trying to make those realities.They have, uh, significant benefits being main being, uh, being much faster and, uh, lower footprint and not quadratic in length, you know, sort of, uh, linear in, in, uh, in your context length. But with state space models- They never quite made it. Like they're used-- They have, uh, certain niches when they thrive, their hybrid architectures are useful, but they never quite made it.And liquid neural networks are, you can think of them as a next step, like, uh, sort of, uh, state-space model square. It's non-transformer architecture that's more complicated than sta-state space and really difficult to code if you-- if I'm being honest. But it's, um, very efficient. It's, uh, subline-- sub, uh, quadratic in, in length of your context.Uh, it's very compact way to represent things, and that's a liquid AI company. They... Their goal is to productize it, and very often you have this need, uh, when you need to have long context and small model, and you want to have low latency. Like in general, it's basically on par with transformers, and if you do hybrids with transformers, it's, it's even better.That's why we at Shopify, when we tried multiple and we constantly try multiple models, multiple companies, we found that for small, particularly with low latency applications, when you have low latency and/or if you need longer context lengths, liquid was the best. And so we still use the whole zoo and always like obviously test and use everything, uh, every open source model and, you know, it feels l

Unannounced Live Gospel Tangents recently surprised viewers with an unannounced live stream including a JFS book giveaway. This is a "late night edition" that offers a whirlwind update on my extensive travels, upcoming interviews, and even some "breaking news" from the Temple Lot Church. Despite a busy travel schedule and a significant backlog of videos to edit, I managed to connect, give away a JFS book, and share exciting previews of what's to come! https://youtu.be/Jw_a2PA5jAU Recent Travels and Adventures I've been to several significant sites related to the Latter Day Saint movement: Community of Christ Conference in Independence, Missouri: This "super fun trip" included reactions to Stassi Cramm being ordained the new prophet in the Community of Christ. While there, I also visited the Temple Lot Church, meeting a "Kiwi" (New Zealander) who hinted at a possible interview. I also updated my tour with video, experimenting with cell phone cameras, promising many unpublished videos from Independence. Mormon History Association: Following Independence, he attended the Mormon History Association, where I toured several LDS churches, including a "really old" one in Ogden and Joseph Soderberg's church, known for President Hinckley's testimony story. Strangites in Wisconsin: Instead of Houston, I visited the Strangites in Wisconsin, staying with former guest Bill Shepard. He also hung out with David Boice and Gary Weber, who gave me a tour of the Hill of Promise, which the Strangites consider akin to the Hill Cumorah. ◦ The Voree Plates and the Hill of Promise: Gary Weber explained that the Hill of Promise is where James Strang found the Voree record. An angel reportedly told Strang where the record was buried beneath a tree, and respected townsmen witnessed its excavation. The record, encased in stone, crumbled upon exposure to air but was translated by Strang, telling the story of the "people of Raja Ramor". It described a great war, similar to the Hill Cumorah narrative, and a pictorial representation of priesthood structure mirroring that under Joseph Smith and James Strang. ◦ Prophetic Significance: The Hill of Promise is also sacred because Strang's revelations state that Daniel from the Bible will appear there someday to teach the saints and announce Christ's soon approaching second coming. ◦ Beaver Island Plans: David Boice & I visited Burlington (originally called Voree by Strang), where we saw several Strangite sites, including a plaque for a never-built temple. I'm planning a trip to Beaver Island, which was James Strang's later settlement where he was crowned king and assassinated. Gary Weber noted that there's "not a lot to see" on Beaver Island, mostly dirt roads, but a ferry or plane can take visitors there. Calgary/Cardston, Alberta, Canada: I flew to Calgary for my son's wedding and visited Cardston, Alberta, home to the first international temple for the LDS church. I received a book on Raymond, Alberta, a town settled by Raymond Knight (son of Newell Knight) and noted for being "practically Utah up in Canada" due to its 80% Mormon population. Cardston is compared to Manti due to its remote location and pioneer feel, with concerns about preserving its murals during an upcoming refurbishment when a new temple in Lethbridge opens. Beyond church history, I also enjoyed a Brewers-Cardinals baseball game with my friend Walter Reade. Upcoming Interviews and Content Viewers have much to look forward to from Gospel Tangents: John Turner Interview and Book Giveaway: John Turner's book, "Joseph Smith The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet," was released on Amazon. I've already conducted an interview with Turner, and part one was released. An autographed copy of this book was given away in a contest. Strangite Interviews: Interviews with Gary Weber and potentially other Strangite figures, including a man named Trevor, are in the pipeline.

Have you ever wondered what a CEO actually does in a company?Join Jason Hopper & guest host Cathy Barker for a discussion on all things chief executive officer related at JFS!You'll learn what Cathy does here, CEO interviewing style, and funny story of when Jason interviewed with Cathy!

Hello again fighty friends!April 5 I was had the opportunity to go commentate in our National capital for the Capital Punishment promotion which is organized by retired (maybe...) professional fighter and now coach, Mr. Ben Pride of Westside Muay Thai in Ottawa, Ontario. I have known Ben ever since June, 2014 when he fought a former fighter of mine on Journey Fight Series (shout out to team Smandych! we miss JFS!!!) in an 8-man tournament, and I have been following Ben ever since! We have a chat about his event - Capital Punishment and what his motivation is to host a fight event, of course we talk about some of the key match ups that went down including the main event for the Muay Thai Canada national title. I ask Ben where and when he found Muay Thai, Ben tells us about some of his adventures in Thailand, why Westside Muay Thai has such a reputation for clinch fighters and - IS BEN LOOKING AT COMING BACK FOR ANOTHER TILT?! - you'll have to listen to the podcast I guess!!!of course I hit Ben with a top 3 question and he cheated with his 1 shout out allowed! haha.ANOTHER example of "knowing" someone for a longtime, but really connecting through the podcast and finding out more about the people driving the Canadian Muay Thai scene forward for all of us. MAN, I am grateful for this lil hobby of mine - SHOUT OUT TO YOU BEN!

Dagens avsnitt gästas av inga mindre än JFs ordförande och utbsek - Arvid och Mathias. Det pratas om allting mellan himmel och jord. Självfallet ställs frågan vad det innebär att vara ordförande och utbsek och vad dessa herrar gör om dagarna, men viktigare än så pratas det om universitetets egna vin, om det finns en större fisk och Ebbas fattigdom.

  Schlocktober is over! But the horrors continue! (depending on how much you like Billy Barty) This week! Parker and Sean are off to see the Wizard! Either that, or they're just wearing their ruby slippers for no reason at all. But one thing's for sure: they're reviewing the weird-ass Chevy Chase / Carrie Fisher comedy "Under the Rainbow" from 1981! And they're also catching up on the official JFS movie rankings. So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus exchanging digits like the kids in Strange Darling do, celebrating small victories, the worst election results in our lifetime, a quick run down of some recent releases (The Fall Guy, Twisters, The Substance, Anora and maybe more!), the hottest spot for plaster cranks in Sin City (we're talking dongs), do we need to all calm down about Bruce Campbell (just a little)?, Parker defends puke movies (and also heaps mild praise on a Journey to the Center of the Earth movie), walking simulations explored, a drop requested (and delivered), sneezes, blank stares, gleeks and so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here Got a movie suggestion for the show, or better yet an opinion on next week's movies? Drop us a line at JFDPodcast@gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail: 347-746-JUNK (5865). Add it to your telephone now! JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Also, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll visit Culver City for your love and support. With picks like these, you GOTTA #DonloydNow and listen in!

2024 NAIJA PARTY TIME MIX VOLUME 2 PLAYLIST|REPOST | SHARE 1. Wizkid - Kese (Dance) 2. BNXN & Rema - Fi Kan We Kan 3. Kvng Vinci ft. Zerrydl - HAUSAPIANO Remix 4. Zerrydl - Back To Back 5. Burna Boy - Higher (Amapiano Edit) 6. Asake & Travis Scott - Active 7. Davido & YG Marley - Awuke 8. Kizz Daniel ft. Adekunle Gold - Pano Tona 9. Jaivah, Babyboy AV & Falz - Kautaka (feat. Poco Lee, JFS music, King Tone SA, DJ Neptune & Marioo) [Remix] 10. Smur Lee ft. ODUMODUBLVCK & Shallipopi - JUJU 11. Olamide - Morowore 12. Ayra Starr, Anitta, Coco Jones - Woman Commando 13. Asake & Central Cee - Wave 14. Ayo Maff - Are you there? 15. Asake - Remeber 16. Umu Obiligbo - Fake Life 17. Phyno - Trouble Maker 18. DJ OBI ft. Ayanfe & Bien - Take Me Away 19. KCee - Feel Am (feat. Didi B) 20. Ruger & Bnxn - Poe 21. Asake ft. Stormzy - Suru 22. Young Jonn - Bahamas 23. Wizkid, Wande Coal - My Car Vs Ololufe 24. Jesse Jagz - Peace Be Unto You VS Wetin Dey 25. Rema - Yayo 26. Kashcoming - How Low Remix Vs Yayo 27. Pheelz - Majo 28. Rema - Azaman 29. Asake Vs Wizkid - Uhh Yeah Vs Show You the Money 30. Asake - Uhh Yeahh 31. Asake - Ligali 32. DJ Yk Mule - Oblee 33. Dj Yk Mule -Oblee (Remix) 34. DJ CORA- Groovy Rhythm 35. Asake - Fuji Vibe 36. Shallipopi ft. Olamide - Order 37. Rema - Ozeba ******** Follow me for more Updates www.djdeemoney.com ******** Thank you for the support and the tips: Paypal: www.paypal.me/djdeemoney Cashapp: www.cash.app/$djdeemoney Follow me on Instagram -@djdeemoney

Der heutige Fokus liegt vor allem auf internationalen Themen nach dieser spannenden Woche: Die US-Präsidentschaftswahlen mit dem Comeback von Donald Trump, der Zerfall der Ampel-Koalition in Deutschland und Romans Besuch des LYMEC-Kongresses in seiner Rolle als International Officer der JFS. Korrektur: Jouni Ovaska ist nicht EU-Parlamentarier. Er sitzt im finnischen Parlament und ist dort Sprecher für EU-Angelegenheiten in seiner Fraktion.Vielen Dank für dein Interesse an Freisinnig diskutiert. Bewerte uns hoch und abonniere uns, um keine Folge zu verpassen!

Coming off the road The JFS had a relatively quiet week behind the mic. Cosmically I did connect with and his story is one of the most compelling I have heard in 2,000+ interviews.Born in Iran left as a very young baby A moved from Norway to Canada to the US. Right before his 16th birthday his parents took him back to Iran for a “vacation.” After the government lost their papers his family wound up spending the next couple of decades in the country. At that time A was obsessed with listening to music and skateboarding. Music was outlawed in Iran at that time so A was relegated to acquiring cassettes of Metallica on the black market and showing off his skate moves to culturally starved people. There were no drum kits available commercially in Iran because music was forbidden so A took a 13 hour drive to Tehran to find instrument stores. When he did a gentlemen opened a sliding wall and dozens of antiquated kits - from before the revolution - reveled themselves. The only problem was they cost 3x as much as a car so A returned to his hometown and with that help of a friend built his own kit.What followed were gigs in wedding bands and shedding in his room being careful not too play too loud so as to alert the neighbors.In dealing with family strife his father taught him to pray. A managed to create his own version of allegiance to god and never fell into the doctrinaire pit of conformity and group think. Instead he held true to the principles of his faith while incorporating the mystical side of Islam known as Sufism. He also began to read the philosophical works of cats like Maurice Maeterlinck as well as Cabalistic texts which broadened his ability to alter states of consciousness while praying and receiving messages that only became clear in their meaning as he got older.A now lives in Sacramento and is a decorated teacher, player and international inspiration. His story is one of perseverance, getting knocked down and starting from scratch. He and his friends created improvisational musical games w/o having any formal training and over time his ears became bigger to contain all music. Suffice it to say we still have at least one more installment to do but I highly recommend listening to this interview. If nothing else to gain some perspective on how we are all connected by the universal vibration and through that frequency we are all one.

In this engaging episode of Sweet on Leadership, host Tim Sweet sits down with Julie Freedman Smith, a seasoned parenting expert, for a thought-provoking conversation on parenting and leadership. Julie shares important insights on how parents can support their children in finding their own paths while balancing guidance and empathy. They discuss the importance of understanding the unique perspectives of children and how parents can embrace courage and flexibility while parenting. Julie and Tim explore the idea that children operate on a different "currency" than adults, valuing friendship and good feelings over time and achievement. They emphasize the necessity of reassessing parental expectations and focusing on short-term progress rather than long-term outcomes. Additionally, they draw parallels between parenting and leadership, discussing how adults can avoid limiting themselves to specific roles or activities based on early career choices or societal expectations. This episode is packed with practical advice and is a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their parenting skills and leadership qualities, fostering growth, adaptability, and genuine fulfillment in both personal and professional realms.About Julie Freedman SmithJulie Freedman Smith is the founder of JFS Parent Education and co-founder of Parent Mentor Now. With over two decades of experience guiding parents across North America, she is dedicated to transforming family dynamics by fostering safe, respectful communication that builds lasting connections. As an author, podcast host, parenting expert, and mother of two, Julie understands the thrilling yet challenging journey of raising children in today's complex world.Her empathetic and practical approach empowers parents to support their children's growth and development while maintaining a positive family dynamic. Through practical strategies and open communication, she helps parents navigate the stresses and joys of parenting, ensuring both they and their children thrive. Julie's mission is to equip parents with the tools they need to create harmonious and resilient family environments, enabling them to handle the ups and downs of parenting with confidence and grace.Resources discussed in this episode:Yerba Mate: www.nosellama.caVitamix: www.vitamix.caMarshall Goldsmith: marshallgoldsmith.com--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Julie Freedman Smith | Parent Mentor Now: Website: parentmentornow.comEmail: julie@juliefreedmansmith.comLinkedin: Julie Freedman Smith--Transcript:Julie 00:01So, I was just talking to a family this week about a child who's playing one level up. So, he's the youngest kid on the game. He's being picked on all the time and then he's taking that and he's picking on everybody else in his class because that's what it looks like. And so we can just take a step back, sit in the discomfort, this means I might not know the entire path for my child. And can I just be here? Can I be with this child right now with what they need from me right now, and see where we get to next? Tim 00:34Do you rely on others to set a vision and then give them what they need so that they can achieve something they never would be able to do on their own? Whether or not you formally lead a team. If this sounds like you, then you, my friend, are the definition of a leader. And this show is all about bringing you new insights from real people that you've never been exposed to. So, you can grow and increase your impact on the world and feel more fulfilled while you're doing it. Tim 01:01I'm Tim Sweet. And I'm glad you could join us for episode 34. Tim 01:08Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Joining me once again, this will be your seventh visit? Seventh visit is, Julie Freedman Smith. Together, we form some sort of a superhero duo, yet to be named. We've been talking off-camera about things that are going on in our lives, we decided to hit record. And today we're going to take you into a subject that I think both of us seem to be orbiting. Now and again. It really came out for me as being important that I saw some of my clients pigeonholing themselves. And really, you know, we're dealing with the fact that they've always thought they needed to be something. I was telling you about this and you see a similar thing can happen with parents and children. But before we get into all that, let's introduce Julie and Julie other than being a great friend who gives me wonderful chocolates, on occasion. Why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you do? Julie 02:08Sure. Hi, everybody. My name is Julie Freedman Smith and I have a company called JFS Parent Education. People asked me, What does JFS stand for? It stands for Julie Freedman Smith, which seems to go over their head. But that's okay. My website is Parent Mentor now, and really, I'm about helping parents to create the family harmony that you've always wanted, without having to change who you are. And so, I've been friends with Tim for ages. In fact, Tim, I wanted to congratulate you, because I think this is podcast numbers 30, or like 34–Tim 02:4234. Julie 02:43We're a year in, eh? Tim 02:45Yeah, but if we take away the very first four, which was a four-part special that you and I did about casting off some of the things that are no longer helpful in our life bridge after COVID Sitting right around episode 30. So this is in many ways, this is our 30th episode. But technically, Episode 34. Julie 3:03That's pretty great. And a year of this talking to so many different people, I loved listening to your guests and learning these tiny little smidgens from each of them. So, congratulations. Tim 03:14Well, I appreciate that. I mean, it has been something to try to maintain that consistency and that cadence of every two weeks we're putting out an episode. But it really has been a chance to learn from all of these really interesting people. And again, the format of the show is to look for inspiration for people who find themselves in leadership positions and leadership situations and really wanting to bring their best selves to work, whether that's working for others, or, you know, managing a business, or leading on a sports team, or any of those things. What can we learn from one another, and there's so much wisdom out there that will never be published in a book, so many great stories that just can't make it anywhere else. And so when I meet great and interesting people, I want to bring them onto the show and just really open my community up to them, and so it's been exciting. Today, though, we're going to be talking about this issue of pigeonholing who we are and what we can do. And maybe by way of a little bit of a background here, of late, say in the last six months, it's been happening my entire career, or at least as long as I've been running a coaching company, that when I'm helping leaders and owners get fluency over how they want to work and how to make their work more meaningful and more fun because I'm a big believer that anybody can move their job into areas that are more rewarding so that you spend a lot of time at work that you're doing things that really fit, really feel like an expression of you and what you're passionate about. But increasingly, when we're doing that exploration, or at least it's been more noticeable to me of late. We run into these shoulds. Throughout these 30 episodes, you've heard me talk a lot about shoulding all over yourself. But when people have actually chosen vocations because of what they should be, rather than what they are, and this can work for some people who properly identify, but for others, they may be, you know, a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years into a career, all the while doing something that while they may be good at it, it really doesn't speak to them, it is purely a job. And so, understanding why that happened led us to an interesting place. And often that was they received feedback very early on, about who they should be, and why they should be that thing. And it made sense, the math made sense back then. And so, you know, when I brought this up to you, it was as a dad, also saying, hey, what happens when we become the person shoulding all of our kids? But rather than me go down that path, do you see that happening with parents and children? Has that been your experience? Okay, so take us in. Julie 06:10All the time. So, my sense of this is, for many people, parenting is the most important job that they will do, or certainly way up there in the things that they are doing. And also the thing at which they are least educated. So, they don't have a clue what they're doing. And they want to do a fantastic job right away. And so whenever we're in this situation, when we find an answer, or when we find what we think is an answer, we glom on to it, we hold on to it. And one of the ways we do that is figuring out our kids. So, when our kids are little, you know, we're just trying to figure them out. And suddenly our child takes to something, they take to an activity, and it's an activity that they love. And they might love it because we're clapping for them to do it, they might love it because who they were at that moment that they did it, it was fun and cool. And we go ah they love that, they love hockey, or they're going to be a dancer, or this is my little reader or whatever it is. And so we start to define the child by their action. And so, typically, when our kids are young, they actually think we know what we're talking about. And so if we, as parents are saying, you're a hockey player, you love hockey, and we get in there, and we put them into hockey. And we get on the board of the Hockey Association, and we coach and we are the team mom, and we are the manager, and we are all these things and the whole family's identity is around this particular activity. The child as they go along might not like that activity anymore. And yet, it's kind of what's expected of them and so they do it. So, I see that a lot. And I often see it where a parent will come to me and say this, my child wants to quit this, but this is their thing. They were gonna go to college on a scholarship, we've poured so much money into this. And so just this idea of, okay, so there's a corner in the pathway, how do we help to turn that corner? And do we even give our kids the opportunity to tell us like, some kids even too scared to say that they're not involved in it? So, that's one way that I see this happening. And it's completely with the best of intentions. This idea of I figured this piece out, I'm gonna ride with this particular thing and it might be around education, academics, sports, arts, it could be around a lot of different areas. So, that's one of the ways that I see it play out. Tim 08:43And I mean, you and I've had this conversation in a bunch of different areas. I mean, listeners will know that my three kids are all dancers. We're a dance family. And this is one of those areas that I remember early on. I think you and I had a conversation years ago, years and years ago, like, really early on in our relationship, this would have been 2015, or somewhere in there, 2016. And you had said something along the lines of, if the child is a dancer, and when they're asked what they are, I'm a dancer, what do you do, I dance and the as is our society when people say what do you do? You don't say well I walk a dog three times a week and I hike in the mountains and I love to bake bread you say I'm you know, massage therapist, I'm whatever. You know, that you had said to me? If the child's when asked says what do you do? I'm a dancer or I'm a hockey player or I'm going you know, I'm a competitive swimmer or I'm in debate club. Yeah, or whatever that is. If that falls away because of a situation, because of injury or because they don't make the grade or whatnot. And that's all they have, is that identity. It's what they do, is who they are, not who they are and they happen to do some stuff. They're lost, lost. And I remember seeing this in small scale when my daughter was injured, and it threw her off her dance career for two years, and in many ways, not a bad thing, because she had to consider what else she was. Although it was, she was in grade 10. And it was quite traumatic. Because suddenly that was who she was. That's how she filled her days. My youngest son walked away from it at 11. Still want to dance? He's like, no way. So, he's figuring out his world, his oyster, my middle boy, though, is planning on being a professional dancer. Luckily, he seems to be interested in many things, although all in the arts. So, we'll see, you know, but I do remember you saying that to me early on.Julie 10:49I was wise back then.  Tim 10:51You are wise now. Wisenhiemer, but it was, you know, it was meaningful, then. And we have children that can be influenced in this way. Well, we know we have a situation in North America overprescribing kids when it comes to extracurricular activities, and we tend to focus them into one. And it's always about the drive for excellence. Julie 11:14Right. We are also children, even as adults, right? Like, Tim 11:17Yeah, that was where I was going to go. Julie 11:18Like, we're still doing that. it was. Tim 11:19Yeah, that's right. And so for certain personality types, nothing can be done by half. So, if you're going to do it, it's how do I not just experience something, but I've got to turn it into this like major hobby, it can't be that I can just enjoy, this my latest thing, I can't just enjoy drinking Yerba Mate. No Se Llama, Canmore, Alberta, support them, they're really nice people. But I've got to know everything about it. I've got to, like, educate myself. And I've got to be, you know what I mean? It just can't be simple. It's got to be full on, you know, what are the health benefits? What are the cautions? And what's the right temperature to drink it at? And what's the tradition? And, you know, just can't be, you want to drink some stuff, that's going to be a little different. Nope. You know, so. Okay, so we have that as children. And then, as you say, we have that in ourselves this drive, to do it. So, talk to me a little bit about the pivotal moments, when that can really be formed. When in a person's experience, do we start to really listen to these things? Can the voices from the outside, I'm sure they're always important, but are there moments that are more profound than others, or timing, that's sponge-like? Julie 12:34As kids, we're very dependent on everything we're being fed, from our parents, literally and figuratively. And then often in that, you know, adolescent place we might push away, so we might actively go against whatever the prescribed thing is. I think also another time where that happens, you and I haven't talked about this, but is this, as we're moving into adulthood, the initial part of being an adult is role-playing being an adult. So, I'm going to get X, Y and Z certification, I'm going to buy adult-looking clothes, I'm going to get married, or I'm going to move into an apartment or I'm gonna buy a house or, I mean, who's buying a house nowadays? But there are those kinds of play-acting, what adults do and–Tim 13:26What you call swim to the center of the pool, right? In a sense, they're pushing off us in they're trying some things out. Julie 13:26Yeah, and we're all doing those things. And we tend to do that until somewhere around age 30 something, where we suddenly go, I'm doing all these adult things, I still do not feel like an adult, I'm not even sure that what I'm doing is something I like, but I'm not sure how to get out of it. Or am I going to look stupid for getting out of it? Or you know, and that is another time where we kind of take that left turn of like, oh, it could be different? And if this is what adulting is really about, how do I do it in a way that makes sense for me? Instead of playing the role of adults, how am I going to be an adult, that's really true to myself? So, I think there's some kind of a pivot point in that mid-30s that comes along, as well. Tim 14:20I remember, in my experience, it was almost like a, you start to focus on something a little bit more, and you have to cast off certain hobbies, you have to cast off, even in some cases, friends and certain social groups. And it's like, I have to pick my lane in a way, I guess is how it–Julie 14:37or I want to also, there is this element of I want to do this, like, I want to spend time doing what I really want to be doing if I can, or maybe the question is, how do I spend time doing more of what I really want to be doing? I have these obligations, I've got to meet those things. I've got to meet the needs. I've got to earn the money that I need and, you know, fulfill these obligations and how do I carve that piece of my life that's really fulfilling. Tim 15:04That's a very interesting point. Because I remember as a boy transition, when I stopped playing with toys, in a sense, like sort of gave up the toys, and I was more interested in sports and girls and music and things like this. And then that happened again, going into university is like another ratchet on the maturity spectrum, I'll use mature lightly. And then you know, you make certain life choices, and it's, and you kind of have to throw your lot in with a certain path. And around 30, there's another one where, as you say, where it's kind of like, you hit that 30 mark, and you kind of, you know you're through your 20s, you know, that it's serious now like you're… I actually remember when we had our first child, I remember the very moment after she was born and I've had this conversation with a lot of fathers, where it's just like a weight is on and suddenly it's no longer about you. You are very clearly the protector, the whatever that is, I don't know what the I'm not saying it's a cultural role, though it might be but I think it's actually genetic, where we're like, these are my responsibility now and it's like a totally different role. And you thought you knew what it was all the way up to the moment you held that child. And then you're like, Oh, I get it now. And you kind of it's scary. And it's like, this is what responsibility feels like, kind of thing. On that note, when you go through all of those, I've noticed, especially around the 30s, maybe in the 25s as well, when I'm working with my clients, younger clients, some made a decision, and others went through it more passively. The decision happened to them, in a sense, they went with the flow for good or for bad, whereas others were kind of like a mid-midlife crisis. I don't know, but it was very active. Julie 16:58They were steered into their role. Yep. Tim 17:01So, when that happens, we have some people that approach this with a high degree of risk and adventure. And, um, you use the term discomfort at times and others that do not. So, can we talk a little bit about that role of when we face these milestones of what would you say, further defining our identity? There's this element of are you passive? Or are you highly active? And what does that look like? We're dealing with two things here. One is the adults impression they leave on the child. Later on in life, there's our own questioning of ourself and our path. And perhaps let's go back to the first one and say, when we are helping to form or involved in the forming of a young mind, we can either be passive, or we can be highly active. What would trigger a person to be highly active versus passive? What do you see in parents that allows them to be really relaxed and just kind of go with the flow? And what might happen where a parent needs to intervene or feels they have to steer heavily? Julie 18:11Part of it is temperament. I don't think it's as easy as well, if you just turned left at the third corner, you would be this kind of a person. And if you kept going, then you became this kind of person. I don't think that's what it is. I do think there's an element of control. I'm very anxious to make sure that my kid is on the right path. I am going to do everything I can to keep them as safe as possible and keep them on this path. So, certainly–Tim 18:35Because it's my job, my responsibility. Julie 18:38Yeah, exactly. Which, of course, is impossible. Absolutely impossible. But there is that feeling. So, for some people, that's how they hang on. Some people are like I don't know what to do, so I'm not going to do anything. There's an element of, you know, moderation and all things including moderation. So, the ways that I would say that you can safeguard against doing that pigeonholing is creating some kind of opportunity for conversation and discussion around like, it's the next year to sign your kids up for the thing that they've been doing for the last year. Often towards the end of the year, kids are getting tired of something. And so we're like, do you want to keep doing this? And they're like, no, I don't. And I don't think quitting something when you're having a lousy time at it, is the best time to quit something. I think leaving something when you've had a good time, but you're done with it is more helpful if you have the opportunity to do that. Sometimes we don't have that opportunity, but just checking in and saying, do we want to keep doing this this year? Or do you want to do something different? And so for a lot of parents, I talked to a lot of parents who are like very clear that they want to have one kind of active hobby for their child and one kind of artistic hobby for their child. And so in order to do that they have to choose something but they don't necessarily have to choose the same thing every year. Now we have a lot of sports and music, things where you're in it, if you leave, you're sacrificing the place you have. And you might not get back into that same level. And so there's a lot of pressure. But the thing is, if the kid doesn't want to be there, if they don't like it anymore, then maybe that's okay. Like, maybe it's okay to step away from that thing. And every time we make a choice or a decision, there are consequences that happen, as a result of that. And again, part of our job as parents is to help our kids realise that they have the ability to make choices, and they have to live with the consequences. So, just creating these opportunities, having conversations, instead of just assuming that the child wants to keep going in this. And sometimes it's more than assuming it's like, well, we're in I've already said I'm going to be on the board for next year. So, we're kind of all in this, we just gotta keep going. And the child kind of gets pulled along. Tim 20:58And even then, that's interesting because I've been there, I've been there where I've, I've made a commitment to a studio or whatnot. But really, just because I've made a commitment that can be undone, you know, but all of that boils back to, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for me to have to now back out of a commitment that I made, it's uncomfortable for me to have to consider, what if my child doesn't find the next thing, or is quitting or is letting his team down? Julie 21:29Letting the team down? Like, this is not about leaving halfway through the year, although that can happen sometimes, too. But this is about before we sign up again. Right? But you're right, there is the what if there's a sitting in the discomfort of if you're not a hockey player, what are you? If you don't play classical guitar, what do you do? Who are you? Tim 21:49We had our youngest in a rowing club, and he was young, two years younger than they usually let in. But he was big, and he was able to row and he did quite well. He also got picked on. So, we were halfway through the season, when they were just starting to get into looking at competition. And all the, I can't remember what they were called but anyway, the big regattas and everything, and we pulled him. We were just like, you know what, maybe in two years, but for right now, this is not, the juice is not worth the squeeze on this particular one. Julie 22:16No, definitely not. That's another issue as well, which is, but my child shows skill, my child showed talent, they're gonna move him up to the next team, they're gonna move her into the next level. Great. But there's a lot of other consequences that come from that that being picked on is one of those things. I was just talking to a family this week about a child who's playing one level up. So, he's the youngest kid on the game. He's being picked on all the time. And then he's taking that and he's picking on everybody else in his class because that's what it looks like. And so yeah, we can just take a step back, I guess, is part of it, take a step back, sit in the discomfort. This means I might not know the entire path for my child. And can I just be here? Can I be with this child right now with what they need from me right now? And see where we get to next? Tim 23:09And then there's the flip side of this. And now let's get back to the professional. Where i remember 24, I had a run three years of being very well known. Like, well, at least, I was a known chef locally, like I was at the top restaurant in the city at the time. I could have gone with that. I had the opportunity to go to Spain, or Australia, or Japan. And we decided not to and part of that for me was when I really broke it down. I didn't enjoy it. Am I creative and artistic? Yeah, I am. Was I a great cook? I was. Did I get awards? Sure I did. Did I like it? Nope. I didn't, just because you're good at something doesn't mean, that is what you have to do. There were elements of that lifestyle that I really didn't like, I respect other people for being in it. But it wasn't for me. And then I went back to school and got a business degree. And I think that's part of why I do what I do. I know the difference between being happy with what you are in and what you're not. If we flip this on the other side, when we're sitting with ourselves, not our children, and we put ourselves back into that place of how did I get here? And what was the math I did and really have to put in its place the attention we have with who we should be or who our parents were or what we were afforded and how they invested in us. Right? It's hard to undo. But once you undo it can be very, very clear, in that moment where you can really embrace and say, You know what, I really love what I do, or now that I look at it this way, I'm not entirely crazy about what I do. You know, I'm not getting a lot of joy from this. So, what can I do to raise that level of joy, or for this to feel like it's a better fit? Julie 25:04And sometimes there are a lot more responsibilities at that point, right? Because you still need to be earning the money to support yourself, or to pay your rent, or to support your family or whatever it is. Tim 25:16All right, so we have, we have these opportunities where we can sit and take these moments to really explore where we are, where our child is, if we were to step back and really state what do we think our expectation is on all of this, where are we may be layering that in, come to terms with what we're afraid of for the child or what, you know, what we really want to land, we can get things to a much more rational position, where we are not emotionalizing everything and layering on so much pressure on ourselves or on the child, that we're causing them to take a lane. Julie 25:57Yup, and just bring it back to like here, this amount of time, instead of thinking about how this is going to impact their university and what kind of person they're going to become in their 40s. What's happening in the next three months, six months? How do we move forward in that amount of time? Tim 26:15It's really interesting that you say that, because when we, when as I go through, and I talk to my kids, they have such a different time scale. It couldn't even be down to the fact that I don't feel like I have any friends at this place that I'm at. Or I have a friend and that's why I want to be in it. And their currency is something that's so different than ours, it's not in time and achievement. It's in friendship, it's in good feelings. They're operating on a different currency, rather than, oh well do this so that you can win the next Nobel Peace Prize, or whatnot. Let's shift from the parenting perspective to one that we'll all have, which is, how did we get where we are? And those might not have been little moments, depending on how we were raised. They could have been big blowouts. They could have been unspoken rules. They could have been all sorts of things. But I guess taking that moment for ourselves, where we let ourselves step back and look at the roots of why we have a certain expectation on ourselves. And maybe can we get it down to that, you know, it's almost like, understand the design behind our life that led us here because it wasn't by accident. I mean, this is one thing. It's so funny when I when I work with people, they're never broken. In that sense, when we talk about career, the career is perfectly where it's supposed to be based on everything that's happened up to that point. It's led us here, right? And in here we are. So, what's your thinking about serving that child inside, in a sense, now talking to the adult? Who's having to consider, you know? Julie 27:58So, I think there is value in going backwards and looking in the rearview mirror and asking how we got here and why we're here. And I think we can get so caught up in all of that, that it's just another form of distracting us from the what do we do now? So, for me a question that I prefer to why I don't like it as a parenting question. And I don't really like it as a question in general, why am I stuck in a job I don't like? Why don't have, why? I like the question, how? How do I take a small step towards where I want to be? Because, as we just talked about, there could be a lot of reasons to stay in this job or to tolerate where you are right now. Because your education has led you to that point. And different education would be expensive. And there are people counting on you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying you should stay there forever. I don't believe in that. And the thing is, if anybody was to take a look at your life career, life timeline and my life timeline, you and I have had so many different jobs in so many different ways. We're very privileged to have that freedom to choose and to ride the waves that came along. That being said, there's nothing to stop us from moving one degree towards that thing we might want to do. It doesn't have to be our career. It could be something we're doing once a month, it could be something we're doing every Saturday morning, it could just be some slight curve in the path that's going to help us to feel better about how we're spending our lives. It's feeding us to be able to continue to do the other stuff. Tim 29:40Using that analogy. I'm going to layer preemptively into that idea of what we want to do. That is a great question to be asking. Because if we're going to angle towards this idea of true north, is that our true north, or is it a true north that was– is it the true north we would choose, right? And coming to terms with what we want is a really big step because you could be layering in all of these supposed to be's, on to that, what do I want to do? And it could be going all the way back to where we started, which was, well, I'm a dancer, and therefore what I want has to involve dance. What if it doesn't? What if it is something? So getting right down to that, what do I really want? And is that different than the story I've always told myself? Julie 30:34Yes, and what don't I want? Tim 30:36And what don't I want. Julie 30:37Sometimes it's easier to figure out what you want, when you can be like, I don't know what I want. But I know that I don't want to be doing this. There's one part of this that I don't want.Tim 30:49I'll put a link, I shared an article recently that I wrote in 2015 called “What Leaders Can Learn from My Blender.” And I have a blender, which I'm in love with, I love my blender, I love my salad spinner. I don't know why they're just two implements that I just dig, shout out Vitamix. Vitamix can clean itself in seconds. If you do it right away. If you don't, it's like some sort of industrial adhesive and you're in there with a brush and a chisel if you're unlucky, or whatever. The point is, in cheffing, we used to say clean as you go. And so that idea of not just saying what we want, but what we don't want. What are we going to let ourselves, what are we no longer going to pursue or be? That's going to be a big part of managing the energy it's going to take towards where we need to go. And coming really to terms with cleaning as we go and say, and it's back to that example you said, when we're 30, we're kind of in this new lane of saying while we're doing this, we're gonna cast off some things. It might be that rejuvenation, again, we might be in this season of literally turning the leaf and like a palm tree shedding its fronds and putting up new shoots, right? We have to go again. And that little cycle of reinvention it's is great. But what true north are we using to decide what these new leaves are going to look like in which way we're going to how many coconuts we're going to be hanging at the end? Julie 32:22I don't know that you necessarily can know that. I think it's okay to not know that.Tim 32:25But can we get closer to a yes? Julie 32:27Yes, it's pointing the ship slightly closer. I was listening to an interview with Sally Field this morning. And she was talking about, and I hope I can paraphrase this correctly. When we're little, and we're going through hardships or fears, we might knit ourselves a sweater to keep us warm and safe. And we keep wearing that same sweater, even when we're much older than we were in the sweaters too. I'm now taking her analogy and I'm switching it a little bit. But you know, we're wearing that tiny sweater of I should do this, I need to be this person which fit us then but it really doesn't fit us now. And it's cramping our style. And part of it is, take the sweater off. You can figure out what sweater you want to put on next. But take that one off, notice those things. Notice those thoughts that you're telling yourself, notice those stories that you were telling yourself that got you here and served you very well to here. And now, how are you going to start knitting the new sweater to keep you safe in this new way of being you? And part of that is you know, like can I be a little bit more uncomfortable? Because I'm older now and I can handle a little more discomfort? And then, you know, how can we just slightly try something different? It doesn't have to be all or none. We don't have to know exactly where we're going. Because who knows where they're going? I knew exactly where I was going as a child, right up until the time that I didn't get into med school. And then I didn't have a clue where I was going. So, like even if we think we know exactly where we're going. We don't. Tim 34:01That recognition that “what got you here won't get you there,” was what Marshall Goldsmith always said, right? What got you here is not going to get you there. Because all it's, where you've arrived is now you're on this new cliff face, you're sitting. You're sitting in this in this place where you can see what's possible. But the climb at this point is not going to be what the next thing looks like. You can take certain tools, you can learn certain steps, you can apply certain skills, derisk things perhaps. But if you keep doing it the way that you're doing it, you will not, it won't amount in change. Because you're just that's what got you here, not what gets you there. So, I think that that's– Julie 34:42I think we got here. Tim 34:44I think we got here. A couple of couple of parting thoughts, which I think is good. And I think, you know, that willingness to put ourselves into that. That state of vulnerability and discomfort is really important. Which raises I guess what I would say, a thought that's really coming out for me right now. And I think for me personally, it's going to even help me with my clients, it'll help me with my kids. You bring this up when you're 50, and you're talking to other 50-year-olds about how they're feeling about life, my mental age is 26. I don't know why it just is 26. And we went, we're at dance competition this weekend, and I was going around the table with other parents and said, What's your mental age and people were like, 32, 37, 26, 23. Everybody could tell me who they are in their head. For whatever reason. I don't know why that is. But it's, you know, at a certain point, you look in the mirror, and you're surprised to see this face. Julie 35:37Absolutely. Or this hair colour, right? We were talking about that? The silver quality of both of our pictures. Tim 35:46Yeah, silver chin, the understanding that when we're making these leaps, we have to give up comfort, we have to say we're now at a point where we're making a change. And we're at this precipice. When we think of this now, in the parent-child context, the child is the one that's got to live with the consequence. They're on the edge, they're on the, they're ready to make the shift. When the parent or the mentor or whatever comes in, the All-Knowing, all-seeing, been there, done that, do it my way, mentor whatever, comes in over the top and speaks with such certainty. And such absolute, when in reality, our ass does not have to cash these checks. Do you know what I mean? Like we're about to make a decision that this child is going to have to live with maybe into their 30s, 40s, 50s. And I'm just saying to speak with it with such certainty. I would much rather take a moment and say, Wait a minute, picture your child as being in this uncomfortable, uncertain place. Stop for a moment and realise that you're not the only one feeling uncomfortable here. They're putting it up, they're putting up their chips to be risked, in a sense, it's not just us taking the risk. Maybe that's obvious to others. It's sure it's not obvious to me. It hasn't been as I've gone through this. Julie 37:20Right? And I also think we, you know, we walk a delicate line, because depending on the age of your child, like you're not going to let your two-year-old decide, like, yeah, we have to keep them safe. And we need to meet them where they are. And love them for who they are not what they do, and take them the next step or two down the road. And here's the thing, I mean, we were talking off-camera about this. Every one of these things that's recruiting your child to be a thing is a business. They want your money, and they're trying to get you to sign up. So, that you feel stuck there. Or so you don't miss out. Tim 38:02Oh, you're talking about the extracurricular stuff. Sure. Julie 38:05Yeah, all of the choirs and the hockeys and the dances and all the things. Tim 38:09They got an angle. Julie 38:10Yes, they have an angle. And quite frankly, your money will be just as good to them two months down the road, most of these things. So, if you say I have to sign up now because if I don't, you're not gonna let my kid in, there's a good chance that two or three months down the road, you could come in and say, you know what, we made the wrong decision. And we really want to be part of this, we realise what we're missing. And in all likelihood, they're going to take your money. They work for you.  Tim 38:44Sure. And then there's the, you know, I want my child to be successful. And so I want them to go into a certain vocation, and they've always gotten been good at math. So, therefore, they must be an engineer, or something. It's their life. They've got to deal with those consequences. So, I guess what I would say is, as a coach, I want to see my clients love their work, you know, not struggle, like all of those things that are just generally what I want for my clients. And I think as parents, sometimes we are willing to offer advice. But as a coach, I know that I'm not there to see that through. I can be with them, but they're doing the work. It's their lift. It's their choice. Julie 39:30And we kind of want to see people struggle. Tim 39:32We do. Julie 39:33With no struggle, there's no growth. Tim 39:35100%, what I mean is that I think can sometimes be clouded as a parent, where we don't necessarily know what we're signing the child up for. And a few words spoken from our own baggage of what we should be or whatnot or living vicariously through them or making it about not letting our parents down or not letting, whatever, can program that child in a way that we don't even realise, right? Or may take choice away from them that we don't even realise? And it's not about I mean, I'm not saying everybody should be living a bohemian lifestyle where we're just like, hey, let it rip. Julie 40:14Well, we're gonna do this in so many ways. Part of it is, I guess the hope is that we're conscious of some of the times that we're doing it. Because we're, I mean, none of us as parents are going to come out of this without making mistakes. Just as no parent, no parent ever does, right? Like, we're gonna mess up our child in some way. So, just getting clear about what we're doing and the direction that we're taking. Some people are gonna listen to us and say, Yeah, screw you. I'm going to still push my child to do this. Great–Tim 40:42Because it's more important.Julie 40:43Make a conscious choice. Yeah. Tim 40:45Yep. Okay, I'm going to do two things here at the end, I'm going to ask if you could leave our listeners with any parting thought or have a wish for them, what would it be? What would you hope for anybody that's stuck with us this far? Julie 41:03Well, I think it would be my favourite value, or virtue or whatever, which is courage. Courage, courage, courage to sit in the hard stuff to notice the emotions that you're having to not, you know, roll it away, or eat it away, or drink it away? Just to sit in that discomfort and just check in? What are my emotions actually telling me? Yeah. Tim 41:27And how many of those are my super imposing perhaps? Or– Julie 41:31Yeah, just like, what is what am I trying to figure out? Tim 41:32Where are they coming from? Yeah, I love that. Julie 41:36And how do I move forward? So, I wish for everyone courage, it's my favourite value. I think it's super powerful. What about you? Tim 41:43So, what do I wish? I hope that, particularly when people are thinking about their own career space, that if they feel that something's not on, if they feel like something's not a fit, to stop and listen to that feeling. It doesn't mean you have to stop the train. You don't have to slam the brakes on. But pay attention to that feeling. And try to articulate it and try to write it down and really discover what's at the basis of that. What is actually bothering us? Because if we don't get down to that, if we're not fluent in the thing that's bothering us, and why, then that can come out in all sorts of negative ways. Whereas, if we can get fluent in it, and understand where it was from, as you say, we can then design for the future, right? We can make a choice, we can understand how that what's influencing that tight knot. And I think then the second part of that is, spare a little thought for understanding when you were having all these moments of discovery and potentially insecurities or whatnot. Kids feel this stuff, too. I make a point at the dance studio, even when kids are eight. I try to talk to them, like human beings, which I still have a responsibility to be an adult, I get that. But what I'm asking what they're doing, I want to talk to them and listen to them as if they're maybe not fully formed. But their thinking, feeling beings with their own view on the world. Because if I hear it through my adult years, I'm not listening. I'm taking my position and processing through it, which has to happen on some level. But the flip side is trying to see what's, get down on your knees and see what the world looks like, from their perspective. And I just think we listen with a fuller heart, or with a more open heart when we do that. Julie 43:41And courage is also comes from the heart, curl kurage. It's feeling scared and doing it anyway and finding the strength to do it anyway, that comes from love. So yes, the heart is a big part of this whole thing. Tim 43:53So, we've got one more piece of business. But before we get to that, I want to ask you, if people want to reach out to you, where can they find you? Julie 44:00Probably the easiest place to connect with me is at my website, parentmentornow.com. You can send me an email through there, you can check out all of my services, you can book a free call with me. All of those things are easy. You can find my book there. Everything's there. So, parentmentornow.com. Tim 44:20The last piece of business, we are episode 34. Our previous episode was Brent Yogge, who is a section chief with the FBI in technology and counterterrorism and things like this. Excellent. Excellent, excellent, but the tradition of late is to ask every guest to drop a question on the guest after them. So, Brent's question. I'm going to try to paraphrase this a little bit. When you think about individuals, he was talking about individual contributors. But in this case, it could be anybody that's contributing say, to a family or to a, in a job or on the choir or anything that you're involved in. But especially those that are looking out for others in your vocation that could be parents potentially? How do you inspire them to really adopt the mindset and perspective that they are leaders, that they are influencing others, that they are in that position of power? And then how do you encourage them to be just leaders? Or the leaders they want to be? That's his question. And I think it's how do you inspire them to really embrace that idea of leadership? And even if they're not managers, we're not just talking about managers, we're talking about people that are influencing something other than themselves outside of themselves? How do you inspire them to really take that on? If that works in your context? And then once they have that, how do you encourage them to embrace and fully actualize that? So, first of all, to be it, and then to make it there, to see it through? Julie 46:10Okay, so thanks for not warning me about this beforehand.Tim 46:12 No, it's fine.Julie 46:15So, I work very hard at living the life that I speak about. So, I model the life that I encourage for others. And one of those things is I empathise with people and see them for their path that they're walking, not my path that I'm walking. So, I am, I hope that what I do is I check in with them, see them, help them to know that they are not alone in the struggle that they're having. Because more often than not, I've met somebody who feels exactly the same way as they have, they are feeling. And sometimes we feel like we're the only one going through this. And so it's really hard to find the courage to step forward, when we feel like we're not alone, maybe we feel a little less shameful, we can climb out of that shame and step forward. So, just connecting with people seeing them for who they are and building community around them. And then helping them to find, you know, comes back to that how, helping them to find that one step that they can take that feels safe for them to take, that's going to move them out of where they're stuck one little bit, so that they can feel good about that and believe that they can change and then help them to make the next step. Tim 47:42That it's not this overnight success, everything everywhere all at once. Julie 47:47I think that's how I do it. Tim 47:48I don't know, I would say that that is exactly how you do it, having been on the receiving end of that. So, I think and I think that was a perfect answer, and this is why I love this show. Because it's like this is where we have knowledge coming from you. That, as far as I'm concerned is directly applicable into the life of somebody who's trying to mentor other leaders or bring up their staff, or anything like that. All right, yeah. One last question. Julie 48:11What's my question? Tim 48:12What's your question for the next person to put them on the hot seat? Understanding they may not be parents or they may not be whatnot. Let er' rip? What would you be curious about? Julie 48:24How did they find the courage to do the hard things? Tim 48:32Julie Freedman Smith, so many hugs coming your way. Julie 48:35And right back to you, my friend. Tim 48:37Okay, I can't wait till we can do this again. Thanks very much for joining us.Julie 48:39Thank you, so much fun. Tim 48:46Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter, you can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership, please give us positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word too, by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening. And be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.

Searching for a job is hard work! It can lead to worry about bills, rent, or cost of food. With loss of cash flow, should you invest money into your job search? Join Jason Hopper & special guest JFS financial coach Sherae Harding-Griffin when they tackle the topic of spending money to be successful in your job search. You'll learn the benefits of a paid search, how to budget for job search, and what are the best tools to invest in.

Your boys are back there's lots to discuss! We talk about "Civil War" and "Fallout," among other things. Then we recount the last 10 JFS movies and average our scores to make a canonical ranking. It's tradition! Which movie is our number 1? Only time will tell! After that, we review the 1989 Jim Wynorski classic "Return of Swamp Thing." Heather Locklear, Dick Durock and Monique Gabriel star in the campy sequel to the Wes Craven original. It's based on the DC comic and features a plant man who fights an evil scientist! A tale as old as time. All this and much more! Direct Donloyd

Watch Rabbi Rowe's responses to all sorts of interesting Judaism questions at this open Q & A with Rabbi Daniel Rowe as part of the NXT program of JFS 6th formers at Aish, on Tues 19th march 2024. ▬ Contents of this video  ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 0:00 - Intro - begins taking questions 0:48 - Charlie - 'Jewish view of abortion? Different opinions from different rabbis?' 0:58 - 'What's the biggest challenge facing today's teenagers?' 1:17 - Olivia - 'How can we see the good in God when there's so much bad in the world?' 2:20 - The Jewish view of abortion (answer 1) 8:12 - The Challenges facing teenagers today (answer 2) 12:32 - Connection with Purim (continuation) 17:30 - Bad things happening in the world (answer 3) 22:14 - Why does God allow painful things to happen? (continuation) 25:40 - The deeper meaning of the sin of Adam (continuation) 33:22 - Using pain to heal the world (continuation) 36:15 - The concept of Moshiach (answer 4) 37:18 - "Why hasn't the messianic era come yet" (follow up) 37:56 - Dillon - "Why doesn't Moshiach come now and make us better people?" (follow up) 38:49 - Yally - "If Torah was written down so long ago how does it stay relevant to us today?"  41:05 - James - "Why can't we make our own interpretations of the Torah? Why rely on rabbinic interpretation from millennia ago?" 43:12 - "If Judaism's view of God is true, why do so many people not believe in it? How do we relate to other faiths?" 46:38 - The role of non-Jews (continuation) 47:46 - "Why can't Jews follow the teachings of Jesus as well as the Torah?" 48:42 - "What about Jews for Jesus?" (continuation) 50:21 - "Can non-Jews keep the Torah?" (continuation) 52:10 - "I wish I wasn't Jewish" (continuation) 53:09 - Harry - "What is consciousness? And what things are actually conscious?" 57:34 - Outro Subscribe for more videos about Judaism, Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah. Rabbi Daniel Rowe is a popular Rabbi, philosopher and educator in the UK, who uses deep knowledge of Judaism, science and philosophy to captivate and educate audiences on a daily basis. Follow Rabbi Rowe on Social media for regular new uploads and updates: YouTube: https://youtube.com/@RabbiDanielRowe?si=dLtRunDWpW0GbOkx Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1qPQn7TIWdQ8Dxvy6RfjyD Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rabbi-daniel-rowe/id1721139516 Instagram: https://instagram.com/rabbidanielrowe?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/LHRiZdB5EL2VdNaA/? Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/cd5debfe-684c-411d-b0bc-223dcfa58a39/rabbi-daniel-rowe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabbi-daniel-rowe-23838711?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rabbi.daniel.rowe?_t=8i87VmPNE7V&_r=1 #jew #jewish #judaism #philosophy #torah

Join us for "OG Talk" a special episode of "The Toast" as we raise our glasses to the 2024 World Ag Expo! In this exclusive episode, we're thrilled to bring you live from The Ag Center booth at this year event. Our esteemed guests include John Yergat from JFS, Russel Harris representing The Almond Company, and Robert Huckaby from Westside Equipment. Together, we dive deep into their backgrounds, exploring the journeys that led them to their current positions. From humble beginnings to industry leaders, we uncover the secrets of their success and the challenges they overcame in starting their businesses. Gain valuable insights into navigating the agriculture industry in today's economy as we discuss the intricacies of growth and innovation.  Cheers to the 2024 World Ag Expo and the bright future of agriculture!

The boys are back this week! After an unfortunate series of events, they discuss Dexter, Japan, the JFD meet up, get some voice mails and so much more. Then Sean and Parker cope with their own senility while watching a collection of TV show intros. After that, they discuss the Denis Villeneuve film, "Blade Runner 2049." How does it stack up against the Ridley Scott original? Is Harrison Ford a good actor? What is Ryan Gosling doing? All these questions answered and more! direct donloyd here! If you want more JFS, go join the patreon or the discord channel!

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #92 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring Katie Hanley. It was great to talk with my wife's good #friend, Katie Hanley.  Katie is the CEO of Jewish Family Services of Greater Hartford.  We talked about: Nicole Feeney (minute 1) CEO of Jewish Family Services (JFS)  (minute 3) Mandell JCC  (minute 7) Max & Lily  (minute 10) Toy and Coat Drive (minute 13) The #18 (minute 15) 3 Keys (sponsored by West Hartford Lock) to being a CEO of JFS (minute 16) Was Katie a Disney Princess? (minute 20) WWF / WWE (minute 24) Katie's favorite restaurant, Bombay Olive (minute 26) Katie's four dinner guests: Conan O'Brien, Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan and her grandfather (minute 28) Wings from Luna Pizza (minute 33) Brigid and Brigette (minute 36)  Katie's favorite teacher (minute 40) French Cleaners (minute 43) Mister Rogers (minute 45) Steve Familglietti (minute 48) Steve on podcast #8 (minute 50) Steve was a Blindness Services Manager (minute 55) Panera Bread fundraiser for Steve on January 8th, his birthday (minute 1.02) Steve was a storm chaser (minute 1.06) Hot One -  Last dab with Da Bomb (minute 1.08) Gen Z slang (minute 1.10) Closing remarks (minute 1.16) Podcast links: Jewish Family Services: www.jfshartford.org Episode #8: Feeney Talks with Steve Familglietti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRZR1fVHsgc French Cleaners: www.thefrenchcleaner.com Podcast Sponsors:  Donut Crazy - www.donutcrazy.com The Fix IV - www.thefixivtherapy.com West Hartford Lock - www.westhartfordlock.com Keating Agency Insurance - www.keatingagency.com Goff Law Group - www.gofflawgroup.net Parkville Management - www.parkvillemanagement.com Luna Pizza - www.lunapizzawh.com/lunas-menuPeoplesBank - www.bankatpeoples.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/friendsoffeeney/support

  Take a Schlocktober road trip with the JFS boys this week as we head out on the highway in search of smoked meats and Halloween treats. Our month-long horror celebration continues with our review of Motel Hell from 1980! But first! We chat all about the Good/Bad/Weird hotels and motels in fictional fictions! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus another Kelly Slater surf ranch report (hooray!), rattling chains, a deep dive on the 559 area code, Halloween is ruined, the little guy is saved, scary sounds recorded onto a cassette tape in a boom box under Sean's hoodie at a very scary concert, airbnb thrillers, a nice place for a suicide, creaky doors, the forgotten Bridges Brother, shrieks, howls, yelps and so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here Got a movie suggestion for the show, or better yet an opinion on next week's movies? Drop us a line at JFDPodcast@gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail: 347-746-JUNK (5865). Add it to your telephone now! JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Also, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll bury ourselves up to our necks in fertilizer for your love and support. With picks like these, you GOTTA #DonloydNow and listen in!

  JFS co-host Parker Bowman *claims* to be a lover of Kathy Ireland, but does his love extend all the way back to her first film role, or extend all the way down to the center of the earth? We'll find out this week, as we test the limits of what could reasonably be called a Jules Verne film with 1988's Cannon Films adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth, Alien From L.A.! But first! We got two (count 'em) tasty segments up top! First, we run down the top ten movies of the summer and compare them to the predictions we made earlier in the year! Then, we chat about the most important day in baseball history: 1994's MTV Rock & Jock game! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus no Kelly Slater surf ranch report (sadly), late nite antics from the west coast boys, the thrilling and exciting results of the summer movie wager, christopher nolan's irksome hubris, robo shenji, moby, long-butted mascots, rocking and jocking in '94 (til infinity), anna nicole smith in the background showing her boobs from time to time, blurps, bleeps, bloops and so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here Got a movie suggestion for the show, or better yet an opinion on next week's movies? Drop us a line at JFDPodcast@gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail: 347-746-JUNK (5865). Add it to your telephone now! JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Also, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll fall into a bottomless pit, and survive, for your love and support. With picks like these, you GOTTA #DonloydNow and listen in!

Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando, 2100 Lee Road, has been giving food to those in need for 45 years. However, the organization has never given out as much food as it has in 2022. “The amount of food going out of our establishment is record-breaking for us,” JFS president Phil Flynn said. “May broke all our records. Then June broke May's record and I've just closed the books on July and July broke June's records. So we have a tremendous amount of food going out.” Flynn said the food insecurity in Central Florida was greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. “Prepandemic — go back to 2019 — we were averaging 22 clients a day,” Flynn said. “We then, during the pandemic, rose to 124 (clients) per day.” Flynn said JFS' food pantry is now seeing about 100 people a day — which the organization believes is the new normal. The majority of people being served by JFS are people who are working, but struggling to make ends meet. “I see the working poor,” Flynn said. “My facility, we do serve — if you're homeless, and you show up, we feed you. We give you the food to go. But, the vast majority of clients — over 95% of people coming in — they're working, right? So they're working two, three jobs, but they can't get to the end of the month.” Flynn said that it takes a lot to meet the growing demand JFS is experiencing. “We rely on a combination of tremendous amount of donor support. We are a nonprofit agency. We're raising money all the time and through government programs and government grants,” he said. However, Flynn added that the funds have not quite kept up with the demand for help. “They have enough for us to just do today's job and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” he said. JFS bases its mission on the Jewish principle of “tikkun olam,” which translates to “repairing the world.” “You show up at my front door, you're hungry, I feed you,” Flynn said. “You need help, I help you. Our job is to save the world.” Flynn added that there are no qualifications to receive assistance from JFS “You're hungry, we feed you. It's plain and simple. Yes, because we do take government grants, we do ask some questions. Do you live in Seminole County? Do you live in Orange County,” he said. “We take that information so we can report back to the government because they are interested in tracking.” Flynn described his work as humbling but added that he would not be upset if his job became obsolete. “If food insecurity went away, then you wouldn't need the food pantries,” he said. “Just take it away. We'll do something else.” In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Flynn talks about the other services offered by JFS to people in need. He also shares information on a new program aimed at helping survivors of the Holocaust. Those interested in donating to JFS can click here. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children's book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  JFS co-host Parker Bowman *claims* to be a lover of spelunking, but does his love extend all the way back to the golden age of Australian made-for-TV cartoon movie adaptations? We'll find out this week, as we test the limits of half-assed Hannah Barbera styles with 1977's Australian adaptation of A Journey to the Center of the Earth! But first! As is tradition long-established on Junk Food Supper, we tackle a topic of interest! And we fly to the moon by way of Las Vegas while we do it! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus no Kelly Slater surf ranch report (sadly), the weather update, can snake people be trusted?, the going price of gila monsters, neverending evangelion, Russian propagandists posing as Las Vegas lounge singers, the most perverted dining options in town, Parker's trip report, the ideal music to eat a cheeseburger by, unhoused scare tactics, swindling Robert Englund in Cincinnati, blurps, bleeps, bloops and "also" so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here Got a movie suggestion for the show, or better yet an opinion on next week's movies? Drop us a line at JFDPodcast@gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail: 347-746-JUNK (5865). Add it to your telephone now! JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Also, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll wrestle our way out of two pages stuck together in an old book, for your love and support. With picks like these, you GOTTA #DonloydNow and listen in!

In episodes 47 and 48, I told you the story of 4-year-old Averylee Hobbs. Avery was not even a month old when her mother, Britney Roll Mayes, fractured Avery's skull and spent time in prison. After Britney was released, she was awarded visitation with Avery, who began returning to her paternal grandparents covered in bruises, burns, bite marks, and other inflicted injuries. Even though multiple family members reported the obvious abuse, Avery's caseworker and guardian ad litem took Britney's side and even convinced a judge to give Britney custody of her daughter. On July 29, 2016, Avery arrived at the hospital, unresponsive, and she died three days later.In this mega episode, you'll hear all of my previous coverage of Avery's case, including episodes 47, 48, and a snippet from a case update special I released in December of 2021. Then, you'll hear several more recent updates in Avery's case, including her mother's attempt to appeal, the ways her family has kept her memory alive, and the tireless advocacy Avery's grandma, Tammy Risen, continues to pursue in the name of her little Cupcake.This is the tragic, infuriating, preventable story of Averylee Hobbs.Tammy's petition: https://www.change.org/p/modernization-of-children-s-rights-under-the-care-of-child-protection-servicesD.E.A.R. Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1159854537727295Center for Judicial Excellence: https://centerforjudicialexcellence.org/“That Old Table” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJVbsT76mTw&ab_channel=TammyRisen This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/STLC, and get on your way to being your best self.Photos related to today's episode can be viewed on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sufferthelittlechildrenpodYou can also follow the podcast on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sufferthelittlechildrenpod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/sufferthelittlechildrenpodcast Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/STLCpodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@STLCpod My Linktree is available here: https://linktr.ee/stlcpod Visit the podcast's web page at https://www.sufferthelittlechildrenpod.com. Please help make the show my full-time gig to keep the weekly episodes coming! By supporting me on Patreon, you'll also access rewards, including a shout-out by name on the podcast and exclusive gifts. Pledges of $5 or more per month access ad-free versions of my regular Wednesday episodes (starting with episode #88). Pledges of $5 per month can listen to my weekly episodes ad free, while $10 or more per month access a small but growing collection of Patreon-exclusive bonus minisodes! Visit www.patreon.com/STLCpod. You can also support the podcast at www.ko-fi.com/STLCpod. This podcast is researched, written, hosted, edited, and produced by Laine.For more stories like this one, visit https://sufferthelittlechildrenblog.com.Music for this episode is licensed from https://audiojungle.net. Subscribe to Suffer the Little Children:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/suffer-the-little-children/id1499010711Google Podcasts: https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&apn=com.google.android.music&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/I5mx3lacxpdkhssmk2n22csf32u?t%3DSuffer_the_Little_Children%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/suffer-the-little-childrenSpreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/show/suffer-the-little-children Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/suffer-the-little-children/PC:61848?part=PC:61848&corr=podcast_organic_external_site&TID=Brand:POC:PC61848:podcast_organic_external_siteSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0w98Tpd3710BZ0u036T1KEiHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/77891101/ ...or on your favorite podcast listening platform.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4232884/advertisement

  JFS co-host Parker Bowman *claims* to be a lover of spelunking, but does his love extend all the way back to the golden age of the Spanish rip-offs of existing Hollywood Jules Verne adaptations? We'll find out this week, as we test the limits of rubbery dinosaurs with 1977's weird adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth, but from the guy who did Pieces, entitled Where Time Began! But first! As is tradition long-established on Junk Food Supper, we tackle a topic of interest! But this time it's a complete surprise as to what will happen! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus no Kelly Slater surf ranch report (sadly), we make some Frances Ha-Ha's about giggling Greta's Big Budget Barbie bonanza, we pass strict judgement on Chris Nolan's Oppenheimer (100% of both hosts having seen it), "other market factors", obscure adaptations of classic stories, classic porno adaptions of obscurities, what kinda Buffy's Parker's got under his bed, a dangerous place (culturally), blurps, bleeps, bloops and "also" so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here Got a movie suggestion for the show, or better yet an opinion on next week's movies? Drop us a line at JFDPodcast@gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail: 347-746-JUNK (5865). Add it to your telephone now! JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Also, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll wrestle a rubbery dinosaur for your love and support. With picks like these, you GOTTA #DonloydNow and listen in!

  JFS co-host Parker Bowman *claims* to be a lover of Clint Eastwood, but does his love extend all the way back to the golden age of the Spaghetti Western? We'll find out this week, as we test the limits of runtimes with 1966's three-hour long The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! But first! As is tradition long-established on Junk Food Supper, we tackle a topic of interest! Sean and Parker do their own "Good/Bad/Ugly" segment, all about westerns! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus no Kelly Slater surf ranch report (sadly), two grandpas bemoan fireworks (spoiler: we are the grandpas), the Dial of Destiny report, book-related chats, a voicemail from our good friend the dark prince of hell lord satan, rough and tumble productions, blurps, bleeps, bloops and "also" so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here

  JFS co-host Parker Bowman *claims* to be a lover of dance, but does his love extend all the way back to the dawn of sound pictures? We'll find out this week, as we test the limits of oldness with 1935's tap-dancing extravaganza Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers! But first! As is tradition long-established on Junk Food Supper, we tackle a topic of interest! Sean and Parker figure out what were the worst endings to non-bad things?! So #DonloydNow and enjoy this bite-sized Junk Food Supper. We got all this plus the Kelly Slater surf ranch report (again), the federal guidelines on Bowman's body sweat, a visit to the Asteroid City, a ticket-buying spree, Bowman's a DC's-man now, Kepi's sloppy water styles, wacky three's company vibes, pre-war bliss, blurps, bleeps, bloops and "also" so much more!! Direct Donloyd Here

Warning!! This is a JFS episode.....This week Jonathan and Michael discuss whether a non-Japanese can become a "Soke"..(it pains me to even write it...) Way of the Fist: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wayofthefist.2018/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wayofthefist.2018/ Way of the Fist is brought to you by co-host Michael Hagen, chief instructor at Apex Karate Performance. Michael trains in Shima-Ha Shorin Ryu and Yamanni Chinen Ryu bojutsu. Find Michael at: https://www.instagram.com/michaelhagenkarate/ and https://www.instagram.com/apexkarateperformance/ Co-host Jonathan Seavey is the owner and chief instructor of the Kokorozashi Dojo, in Virginia, USA. Jonathan is a Okinawa Goju Ryu and Matayoshi kobudo practitioner. Find Jonathan at: https://www.instagram.com/jseavey67/

Join Steve Wyss & Jonathan Fadugba for our special Swedish Allsvenskan Season Preview 2023. EVERY team is discussed in great detail. After a shock maiden crown last season all eyes will be on BK Häcken to see if they can defend the title. How will they get on? Can either of the Stockholm clubs lift the trophy this year, and how will Malmö bounce back after a dismal Allsvenskan campaign in 2022? There are two newly promoted teams this season with Brommapojkarna the bookies favourites to go down. Who is likely to struggle and who are JFs tips to go down? For a comprehensive season preview then look no further! Itinerary:- 00:00 Introductions 10:50BK Häcken 21:15 Malmö FF 32:35 Djurgården 39:50 AIK 48:05 Hammarby 57:20 Kalmar 1:07:25 Elfsborg 1:15:00 IFK Göteborg 1:26:08 Mjällby 1:34:00 Norrköping 1:43:10 Relegation baatle 1:44:05 Halmstad 1:48:50 Brommapojkarna 1:53:58 Varbergs 1:58:02 IFK Värnamo 2:03:15 IK Sirius 2:06:05 Degerfors 2:10:10 Closing thoughts

In this episode, Mike speaks with Jackie Gerrard, the owner of JFS facility services, about transitioning her cleaning business from residential to commercial. Jackie expresses her desire to make more money and Mike helps her clarify that her goal is to make $10,000 per month in profit. Mike cautions Jackie that switching from residential to commercial is not a guaranteed way to achieve her goal and urges her to focus on business principles rather than looking for a "magic pill." He advises Jackie to make her goal of $10,000 per month her north star and to evaluate all business decisions based on whether they will help her reach that goal. Love the idea, but find it overwhelming? Want to learn the next steps like, what to actually say on the call? Jump on a call with one of our coaches and learn strategies on how to grow your cleaning company and start loving your job every day! Book here

Deva Mahal is part of my generation. A generation that grew up better than their parents and had accessibility to see and hear and access more information then ever before. In some respects if your an artist from our generation, because of this access, you tend to emulate and try and sound like this guy or that, sing like him or her, get a nose job and sing about the shallow hipsters who are now using hair on their body to fill in their patchy beards. Deva, like myself, is trending towards the authentic individualism of pure music with her band Fredrick's Brown. When she gets up on stage, like her dad, she exudes the music from all her pours. She sings, plays percussion and tries to borrow from the soul/gospel acts that came before her while finding her own unique voice that creates identity. Identity in the digital age with a inflexible music industry leaves only one thing left. The Soul. The soul inside everyone who is seeking their true nature. Be it Jake Feinberg behind the mic or Deva Mahal performing in front of family, friends or 12,000 of her best friends. She exudes soul and is not so far in the forest. She can look at each individual tree and appreciate what came before her while challenging the conformist system that is the 21st Century. She likes to hang and play music in New Zealand, the home of Alan Broadbent and Stephanie Brown her bandmate in Fredericks Brown. Nobody knows what the future holds Gary Bartz but the shadow of doubt that creeps into everyone's mind is crushed by that persons desire to transcend and forever create. Deva Mahal welcome to the JFS.

A high-profile Linux kernel network flaw, we put JFS on a death watch, and break down the controversial Firefox update this week.

A high-profile Linux kernel network flaw, we put JFS on a death watch, and break down the controversial Firefox update this week.

A high-profile Linux kernel network flaw, we put JFS on a death watch, and break down the controversial Firefox update this week.

A high-profile Linux kernel network flaw, we put JFS on a death watch, and break down the controversial Firefox update this week.

They talk about the various programs for health and wellness that Jewish Family Services offer and how JFS is The post Inside The Senior Alliance: Jewish Family Services offers with Lynn Breur, Senior Director of Community Outreach and Wellness (Ep 23) appeared first on The Senior Alliance.

Hamilton County Job & Families Services announced Wednesday July 27th that they are not accepting new Emergency Rental Assistance Program applications (ERAP) due to funding issues. Those who have already submitted applications for the program reportedly will not be affected. JFS said it is still processing those applications and will Read More Shared by United Resource Connection July 27, 2022

To lose yourself or see yourself from the outside looking in. Not worried about being micromanaged, playing free and escaping whatever's going on in your life. How hard is that? It can be very unless you consistently surround yourself with people who never put themselves above the music. Learning to converse improvisationally and going off into space is not something every musician can contribute all the time. My guest is an example of a musician who does it most of the time. Ask Pharoah Sanders or the timeless Tisziji Munoz. What my guest has in common with these masters is that he feels completely at peace when he's playing. He might be churning out patterns of hyperbolic rhythms but he is in his yogic state. Even with the physical movements of the arms and the legs and the feat he is sleeping. He is at peace. Life is not always peaceful especially if your a professional artists. You have to know your instrument, hone your sound, be a leader and a teammate at the same time and find places to play that believe in the profession of music. That it's not a pay to play game, that music is to be felt and is not for pacification, that you need to burn and go beyond the atmosphere because we will be leaving this planet for other worlds. The Harmony of The Underworld, being friends with the Devil and realizing the Devil is just alright with me. Playing music of the soul is not for the faint of heart and my guess is still working on his individual growth. He is not content with being static. He knows if you don't swing the band and stay warm you might get frostbite in those cold Canadian Winters. Franklyn Kiermyer welcome to the JFS....

It's getting hot in Smith's studio and he claims that sitting on cold rice can help. Joe does a little fact-checking on a supposed JS quote. The guys also mistake where the “save Jesus only” quote is, but they figure it out eventually. The guys aren't sure whether the JS quote really came from him or not. Smith reminds the listener that if they disagree with him, they're probably disagreeing with God too. Smith recaps how he feels about re-reading Rough Stone Rolling. Joe watched the Netflix Kanye West documentary (Jeen-Yuhs, 2022). He liked the documentary, but he's still a little triggered by people who take their religion too seriously. The guys mention that one big difference between polyamory and LDS polygamy is consent. Smith reminisces about the JFS story where he's “true blue through and through”. The guys are still not happy about Rusty's flex to move away from Mormon as a nickname. The church continues to double-down on anti LGBTQIA policies while stating otherwise. Joe tells a story about his MTC companion who disapproved of missionaries building a snowman.  Smith reads a facetious tweet from a facetious twitter account about black people keeping their first estate. The guys try out what it's like to sing praises to God for eternity in the CK. It's been a long time since Joe has seen Mannequin (1987) and Smith has never seen it. Joe had to do some explaining after watching some Dave Chappelle standup with his son who identifies as gay. Smith reads a quote from Rusty about God's love not being unconditional which makes Joe angry. Smith eases the tension with a sacred hymn. The guys recap some HP characters including, Henry Porter, Horgrid, Dumbledorf, and Professor McGillicuddy. The God of the BOM is a God of conditional love. The guys decide they need more sh*t to talk about HBE. Both Joe and Smith were taught that poligamy will exist in the afterlife. It takes almost an hour before the guys start reading in this one. Sam has a conversation with Lehi about not wanting to have to hang out with Nephi after Lehi dies. Joe gets excited thinking about Nephi repenting of being such an a**hole to his brothers.  Smith teases everyone with some droop talk. He casts Zoram out of their presence. Joe thinks the BOM could use 80% more of some of the messages here. Is Nephi talking about building a Frankenstein? Why does the cadence change so much? Joseph Smith ROUGH STONE ROLLING By Richard Lyman Bushman https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/22031/joseph-smith-by-richard-lyman-bushman/ True Blue, Depending on Who's Telling the Tale: The Redacted Story of Joseph F. Smith and the Ruffians? https://juvenileinstructor.org/true-blue-depending-on-whos-telling-the-tale-the-redacted-story-of-joseph-f-smith-and-the-ruffians/  Russel M Nelson Divine Love  “divine love…cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional” https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2003/02/divine-love?lang=eng&adobe_mc_ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.churchofjesuschrist.org%2Fstudy%2Fensign%2F2003%2F02%2Fdivine-love%3Flang%3Deng&adobe_mc_sdid=SDID%3D5398AB9BA629B12E-5790299054E90DEA%7CMCORGID%3D66C5485451E56AAE0A490D45%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1652217199 Email us at joeandsmithpod@gmail.com Music Provided by Eric VanAusdal with permission from the artist. The Book of Mormon is publicly available at churchofjesuschrist.org    Remember who you are and what you stand for  

A master is someone who teaches, a master is someone who sacrifices and loves themselves. To master is knowing how to access your native gifts. As far as my guest is concerned that translates out to being one of the most in demand, highly respected, versatile bassists in the world. He was raised by his musical elders like Richard Davis who had been a guest twice on this show. The Pisces swimming upstream downstream always adapting, always churning, overcoming. Astrology aside my guest has played with The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin for the last 50 years. That was in between studying and watching Mingus dual with Dolphy in some mob run club. Lock the groove, play free, play a blues before the word funk even came into the lexicon. He's played and recorded with King Curtis, Jim Pepper, Duane and Gregg Allman, Eddie Harris, Gil Scott Heron, The Voices of East Harlem and Shirley Scott. A master gives back like Ali Akbar Kahn and Jerry Wexler and Dizzy Gillespie. Knowing their instrument, knowing their strengths like Chuck Rainey or Bernard Purdie or the late great Richard Tee.......my guest today is giving back on multiple levels including mixing live iconic music with youth baseball. Something only Jackie Robinson would have dreamed off.... Jerry Jemmott welcome to the JFS

JusticeforColombia.org took a delegation of Irish and British trade unionists and politicians to Colombia during the first round of elections on the 29th May 2022 , here we talk to delegates and JFS workers about the chances for real change in Colombia and the elections results.

All's fair when the colors are green and grey. You're not judged but included, you're seen for what you bring to the weigh room with DD and JD and Maz Madorsky...... My guest today was a perennial weight room activist. But he was a leader way before then as the son of a kosher butcher who could afford to send his three suns to camp under a Rhinecliff Moon. My guest was the eldest of the three brothers and the person who changed my outlook on Scatico for the last nine years of my career. The more I think about it it was my emergence into Jake Feinberg that was occurring only to be cultivated by my guest. He have me jobs within activities, he allowed me to get comfortable with my voice reenacting the Rocky soundtracks as Jack played the part of Carl Weathers. His even keeled temperament lent itself to a rag tag but fiercely individualistic division. He found a way to put a roof over all of our heads and turn us into the 1c posse. Where Shaun Locke would come and blow bubbles in your face @ 3 in the morning. We hoped he never would leave but our summer was his final summer. Leaving a group to carry the upper hill while he headed off to Cornell. His brothers flourished in different ways then he but again we connect with the lineage of life and blood. We are all different yet the same. We are all free yet entrapped in the idea that camp made us who we are today DP welcome to the JFS.....

My guest today on the JFS was the equivalent of a five tool player in baseball; meaning that he can throw, hit, catch, run, and hit for power. In the case of Ramon Banda it is spelled out in rhythms and instruments. Tex/Mex Polka, Cha Cha Cha, Mambo, Swing, Bossa, Psychadelic Rock, Organ/grinder, blues and Free Jazz. In terms of instruments it's the drum kit, timbales, fuzz electric guitar, and the bearded gourds. He has teamed up with his brother Tony to form one of the most formidable bands on the west coast. When he's not gigging with the family he holds down the beat with "The Skipper" Henry Franklin who refers to Ramon as an animal. He recently came off a multi-city, multi-state tour with B-3 legend Joey Defrancesco. Music is Life, Enjoy it. JF

Folks welcome to the JFS. My guest today is a first rate drummer who has enhanced countless studio and live musical sessions. He has gigged with jazz vocalists, played in both acoustic and electric settings and is not just a whiz on the kit but has a profound understanding of percussive instruments as well. He came up during a time when idioms were present but it was in conjunction with an adherence to developing his own unique sound. Individual sound interwoven within bossa rhythms or Afro Cuban rhythms or electronica or straight ahead bop and beyond. Still swinging in the big apple Bruce Ditmas welcome to the JFS.

Dateline New Haven: Funeral Director Jimmy Shure & JFS by WNHH Community Radio

Episode 31 is an opportunity to take a look at two organizations in Palm Beach County giving much needed services to some of our residents with special needs.   Our first guest is Sharon Alexnder. She serves as the CEO of Unicorn Children's Foundation in Boca Raton, Fla. It is a one of a kind organization that changes the lives of people living with developmental differences who are disconnected, isolated, and need support.    In 2015, Sharon founded and continues to lead the Special Needs Advisory Coalition of Palm Beach County, a collective impact project comprised of more than 600 individuals representing more than 160 organizations who are collaborating to create a more inclusive and supportive community.   Our second guest is Danielle Hartman. Hartman joined Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services (JFS) as President and CEO in March 2010.    Danielle is joined by Aliyah Longhurst, Director of the Toby and Leon Cooperman Therapy & Family Resource Center (a dividion of JFS). Aliyah comes to JFS with over 20 years of experience working within the mental and behavioral health field with children and families. Aliyah has spent the past 13 years working with children with special needs and their families in Palm Beach County.    Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services (JFS), through the Center for Families & Children offers a number of supports for families with special needs. Individual and Family Counseling; Support groups for parents, caregivers, siblings and grandparents; Psychiatric Services; Psychological Testing Services; Food & Financial Assistance; and Respite care training program for future special needs workers.    Unicorn Children's Foundation is dedicated to creating cradle to career pathways for kids and young adults with developmental differences and helping their families navigate the complex journey.    Our last guest is Dr Marlene Sotelo, Executive Director of Els for Autism®. Els is a game-changing resource, delivering and facilitating programs that are examples of what can be available to people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).   They are committed to better understanding the aspirations of people with autism spectrum disorder and helping them to fulfill their potential to lead positive, productive and rewarding lives. The Foundation provides high-quality information, intervention, education and support to local, state, national, and international families of diverse cultures. In addition they provide programs based on best practices and develop innovative interventions through investigative study and analysis.   If you or someone you know has a family member with special needs, this program will offer useful information on the services available.

JF Dubeau is back this week to chat with Travis about both of their first times watching Attack the Block (it was mere minutes fresh in JFs head), a 2011 Sci-Fi Monster movie set in an Estate Block of East London. It's also an early movie starring John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker. So, is the movie as good as they've heard? Or is it just another "Hoodie Horror" movie. Let's find out Thanks go out to Audie Norman (@OddlyNormalOne) for the album art. Outro music "In Pursuit" provided by Purple-Planet.net

In this episode of Mission CTRL, Ramon is joined by one of his colleagues, Jenny Smith, Founder and Owner of Bloomfield, CT - based Acuity Public Relations. Jenny is the consummate professional with an impressive and colorful career in Public Relations and Communications that has taken her from the heartland of America to Puerto Rico, California and beyond. In this episode, Jenny shares how she first discovered her gift for writing and communications and built a career that has culminated in her being at the helm of her own firm. Peralta Design recently collaborated with Jenny and Acuity in a large-scale rebrand and relaunch of Care at Home by JFS. A master storyteller, Jenny takes us back to 1984, when she first started creating successful marketing and public relations programs for private sector, government and not-for-profit clients.

In this episode, Adam and Joe have a conversation with Dr. Lonnie Rowell, who is one of the founding figures of the Action Research movement. He is a co-founder and president of the Social Publishers Foundation (socialpublishersfoundation.org), and a retired professor at the University of San Diego, School of Leadership and Education Sciences. He is also a co-founder and lead organizer in establishing the Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA). Starting with the lightning round, Joe and Adam ask Lonnie simple yet deep questions to explore the “what”, “who” and “how” of Action Research (2:23). To dig deeper into some of these concepts, Joe asks about the differences between the many of action research paradigms (7:34) to which Lonnie responds by discussing the tension between academic-based action research and community-based work, and how we situate knowledge democratization and knowledge production in these tensions. Later in the episode, Adam raises a significant question about how we acknowledge the tension between urban migration and communities disappearing- “…I have been seeing over the years that these communities are starting to disappear, and why is that? It's because of urban migration and it's because in the education system there's a message being shared that there is no value in being a farmer…they're not teaching Quechua; they're learning in Spanish and English…. And you're seeing these communities disappear.” (26:18) Adam's question brings us back to knowledge democratisation and the question of “who” is the holder of knowledge. The conversation does not end here. Tune in to know how our trio weaves their discussion to address this issue! Resources Check out the Social Publishers Foundation: socialpublishersfoundation.org And the Action Research Network of the Americas: arnawebsite.org References Rowell, L. & Call-Cummings, M. (2020). Knowledge Democracy, Action Research, the Internet and the Epistemic Crisis. Journal of Futures Studies, 24(4). https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202006_24(4).0007 Hong, E., & Rowell, L. (2019). Challenging knowledge monopoly in education in the U.S. through democratizing knowledge production and dissemination. Educational Action Research, 27(1), 125–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2018.1534694 Rowell, L. (2018). A brief update from across the big pond's troubled waters: Beliefs, science, politics, and action research. Educational Action Research, 26(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2017.1417773 Beck, C. (2017). Informal action research: The nature and contribution of everyday classroom inquiry. In the Palgrave international handbook of action research (pp. 37-48). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.  Boyer, E. L. (1996). The scholarship of engagement. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 49(7), 18-33.  Del Pino, M., & Ferrada, D. (2019). Construction of educational knowledge with the Mapuche community through dialogical-kishu kimkelay ta che research. Educational Action Research, 27(3), 414-434.  Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury publishing USA.  Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Temple University Press.  Neill, A. S. (1960). Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing.  Pine, G. J. (2008). Teacher action research: Building knowledge democracies. Sage.  Rappaport, J. (2020). Cowards Don't Make History: Orlando Fals Borda and the Origins of Participatory Action Research. Duke University Press.  **If you have your own questions about Action Research or want to share any feedback, contact us on Twitter @The_ARpod or write to us at ActionResearchPod@gmail.com.**    

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year, more families and individuals in the Coachella Valley are impacted by financial challenges and mental health matters. JFS of the Desert helps people regardless of religious beliefs with keeping a roof over their head and mental health services through tele-help in this crisis. Executive Director Kraig Johnson joins John McMullen to discuss the range of help that Jewish Family Service of the Desert offers people in need at all times.Website: www.JFSDesert.org

Jewish Family Service of the Desert has teamed up with DAP Health to serve Holocaust Survivors living in the Coachella Valley with COVID-19 vaccinations. Community Outreach Director for JFS Desert Julie Hirsh joins John McMullen to talk about this collaboration and about the mission and some other services provided by JFS.