Podcasts about john not

*sneezes* W-WEGMANS! Gazuntite. I'm not gonna lie, if I lived closer to this place I'd be there all the time. Whole Foods Trader Joe's Wegmans. Honestly? Ranked? Trader Joe's Wegmans Wegmans. lol. Whole Foods is a necessary evil. {Enter The Multiverse} No, I want the half Can't go all the way Enough is enough And a hand is a hand And a handout is ransom, Spare me the note Spare me the selfish suicide concepts Spare me the alter The coaxial The collar The caller— Whatever you call me Spare me the mantras Stop talking. Long throat violence, Oh, I onkybhope to know you (Or I don't) I only hope to notice m Oh long Johnson Quick sermons and a few soft passwords A couple ardvsrks on a long top showman A couple bad barks from the dog And work for the foreman Who are you after (Not god) Have been forgiven? Is fhat a question. I marked it as such And still j walked up The lock in the bathtub did honors Did honors Did run today Who are you for Not the office Not the John Not the forerunner Oe the forward Who are you, god talker? Who are you Was often the question asked And you want to do all you want Home alone The devil runs From behind her nothing soft Anymore Awkward And then unearthed I saw you were watched, stalking Also Pulled back on my reigns, the horse Does bit the bite down And then some soaked offer Was Half you are, where Wear the volume down Wear your art hard Or suffer, Gaga! GAGA WHERE ARE YOU? LADY GAGA I'M ON A HORSE target GAGA! LADY GAGA I'M ON A HORSE, I SAID. BUT WHERE?! NEAR ENOUGH THET YOU CAN HEAR ME, LIKE, OBVIOUSLY, BUT FAR ENOUGH AWAY THAT YOU CAN'T SEE ME ON A HORSE. ARE YOU COMING?! NEGATIVE. WELL— WHY NOT?! THE HORSE WONT MOVE! JUMP OFF THEN. IMPOSSIBLE. WHY IS JUMPING OFF A HORSE IMPOSSIBLE WHEN YOURE LADY GAGA ITS BECAUSE I'M LADY GAGA THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR MULTIPLE REASONS WHAT— JUMP OFF OF THE— NEGATIVE. THERE ARE MULTIPLE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THIS IMPOSSIBILITY. WHY ARE THEY YELLING. Omg shut up 2 bit horse jumper Target Target Stalker Stalker Obi wan kanobi! Sheeeeeeer forces! What is this? Bad cheerleaders. WHY ARE WE YELLING?! Oh. We're fighting. Oh, that makes sense, What kind of fighting. Sword— unh— FIGHTING. Oh, okay. Why is lady Gaga on a horse?! Cause she's just like that sometimes. *shrugs, but on a horse— obviously dressed elaborately enough that yes, jumping off of the horse would be practically LADY GAGA No, completely. —Completely impossible. I wanna watch you eat spicy hot wings. In a sweater. But I left handed magic to Can't- that Cancelled I hope it was cashmere Or Calvin Klein I'll retract, Meditate and then Redact that Maybe Fantasize Glamourize that for a lifetime Pull the knife out of my back, And then sample it. I wanna watch you eat hotwings. That's—- What I want. GAGA. PLEASE! LADY GAGA I'm sorry— he's not moving. THIS IS URGENT. LADY GAGA I know it's urgent. My lack of yelling does not negate that it isn't, but. BUT WHAT? *yawns* I'm getting sleepy. [LADY GAGA falls asleep atop the horse; only then does the horse begin to move, however— it appears as though GAGA is now completely unconscious. But those shoes. Egad. Bro. lol. Why is this? I'm… my writers blocks are not fun, practical, or progressive. They're just. [LADY GAGA fights and defeats an entire battle completely unconscious atop a horse.] Isn't technically the horse… fighting. No, and I'll explain to you why. Omgz *spoiler* [lady Gaga IS the horse] Why. What the fuck. Fuck these shapeshifters. Fuck everything right now. What the fuck did I just watch. WHAT DID I JUST SEEEEEEEEEE Dedede…fleetleum, fleetleflum… “Fleedleflum?” Ahem!? Dude, you are a villain. WHAT, BECAUSE I SAID “FLEETLEFLUM” *fleedleflum AHEM! I SETH MEYERS is revealed as the villain… Again. WHAT! WHY! I THOUGHT I WAS THE VILLAIN. you said you didn't want it! THEN I ADJUSTED. Well, too late. WHAT. Nice. Hehe. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! I WENT METHOD. A-for effort, I guess? WHATEVER A-FOR-EFFORT. I JUST COMMITTED A LOT OF EVIL SHIT For what FOR THEATRICAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. Well. “WELL?” Like what. Like— Tax Fraud. Ahem. Nice. [beat] Seth, you got the part. Yesssss! Booyah. Maybe you can take some method lessons and pointers from your friend here— Salt of the earth! — Mr. Evil tax fraud man. RYAN REYNOLDS *deflates* Later. Where are you going? I'm going to do Pilates. Because I'm rich. (Everyone just kind of nods in agreement.) L E G E N D S STEPHEN COLBERT runs at full speed down the street towards the house at which his formerly youthful self “recently” disappeared during a thunderstorm. Oh look. It's little Stevie! You recognize me?! OF COURSE I DO! You're the big hotshot anchorman on TV, but I remember… I don't have—time— Suddenly, he sees it— the radio tower which apparently transported him into this, a distant future, but also a remarkably odd parallel of reality which seems to have been sprung from his own timeline. Where is this going? We'll see. Apparently, I'm reanimated; Certain parts just don't work, I'm factory reset And radiated Aggrandized to carry out this task And then cease to be A zombie, if you will A corpse responding to light energy inside of me So when I leave, I'm not sleeping I'm decomposing Deteriorating I stay hydrated to keep my eyes involved In the light almost as if The illusion is existence— However, I know better It's simply a simulation I mutated against my better judgement Just for this focus Aspirations as if Aggressions could be achiviments At any rate A talking head Who are you? Done for now. Who are you! Done for now. Who are you? A far cry Dust in the wind, And I'm sure so for aure That the places I've been Are more often television location sequences Than not. Aha, who are you? The plot. Then who are I? A handsome damsel. Hark. But not to wake, I form again To dream of you And then Cease to be, My honor, So that may I call To wish a gasp upon a cantered breath, I scream to wake And then you, a glisten, Never to count time I waking, Them as sheep, And she who calls I— There, the canter, And there I wake to know I, Call I, My bare and lay truth So that There waking, calls I now The scream of shadow Mercy, yonder But not waiting, I cherish To bark. …. …. Wt— Now I could see how my energy was moving; I had to write as much as I could before my media update. Intentional brainwash. Suddenly, it all made me so nervous. Programming. Then again, It didn't matter, really, in the end. 6 hours. There was nothing more daunting Than the approaching courier for Whole Foods market And Instacart simultaneously because it meant Somehow, That I had an album coming out. Eagle eye, And to say the brown soul May go extinct Eagle eye Give me a bite of your Adam's Apple I want to taste you I want to know fortune Through the glory of love In the wonder of your arms I want to know nothing but Love in your eyes And in your mind, My heart MAYA RUDOLPH I feel weird. FRED … ARMISEN This is getting intense. That's probably it. AMY POEH—LER No. AMY PH— No. OF COURSE IT IS. ITS SUPPOSED TO BE. why are you yelling? IM NOT YELLING. I'M SPEAKING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. TINA FEY …there's a difference! RACHEL WITH A ‘T'? Maybe DRATCH YEAH there IS. Okay, where are we going with this? Shh. Not yet. I AM PRINCESS SHAMALAMADINGDONG. WHY? It's sketch comedy. Does it HAVE to have motive? You're right— but it at least has to have a plot. Meanwhile… SETH MEYERS'S wand has been stolen. Hey. Yes? There was..a… ??? There was a, like a— like a — ?? There was like, a number two pencil here. …there still is. No, like a very— like, a specific— There's— a bunch of them here. No— Just like always. No, it's. [Blank stares] N—nevermind. Wait— What's up. 1, 2, 3, 4– who am I forgetting? ARSENIO HALL Not yet, Arsenio; We're still on strike force 5! Where's Jimmy Kimmel! Meanwhile, in Jimmy Kimmel's lair. JIMMY KIMMEL (MWAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH) Uh. Wow. Yeah. Okay. For Shits and giggles— Oma goash. Waw. Yah. I knuh. Just waw. Uhh… Idk. The weird SNL sketches all apparently have their own time— AANG APPA, YIP YIP! APPA FUCK OFF— WOAH. OKAY. Yeah, not everything should be live action. Seconded. — lines…. Ahem. Waw. Srsly. However, this live action magic school bus. [SCHOOL BUS CARAPULTING TOWADS FIREY DEMISE WITH NO POSSIBLE RESOLVE IN SIGHT]. *doom* Wild. Why. Yoooooo. The world needed that. Anyway. JIMMY KIMMEL MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUILLERMO JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJAJA JIMMY KIMMEL MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUELLERMO Wait— —is that his name? Maybe. I might just be racist. Well, it's not Carlos. U MEANWHILE, ALSO, ON WISTERIA LANE GABBI CARLOS! GET BACK HERE! Damn. How are these people still at it? Apparently wer're in TV WORLD. Ahem. It's TV LAND. No, it's {Enter The Multiverse} AHEM. {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2019-2025 | THE COMPLEX COLLECTIVE. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -Ū. [REDACTED]

*sneezes* W-WEGMANS! Gazuntite. I'm not gonna lie, if I lived closer to this place I'd be there all the time. Whole Foods Trader Joe's Wegmans. Honestly? Ranked? Trader Joe's Wegmans Wegmans. lol. Whole Foods is a necessary evil. {Enter The Multiverse} No, I want the half Can't go all the way Enough is enough And a hand is a hand And a handout is ransom, Spare me the note Spare me the selfish suicide concepts Spare me the alter The coaxial The collar The caller— Whatever you call me Spare me the mantras Stop talking. Long throat violence, Oh, I onkybhope to know you (Or I don't) I only hope to notice m Oh long Johnson Quick sermons and a few soft passwords A couple ardvsrks on a long top showman A couple bad barks from the dog And work for the foreman Who are you after (Not god) Have been forgiven? Is fhat a question. I marked it as such And still j walked up The lock in the bathtub did honors Did honors Did run today Who are you for Not the office Not the John Not the forerunner Oe the forward Who are you, god talker? Who are you Was often the question asked And you want to do all you want Home alone The devil runs From behind her nothing soft Anymore Awkward And then unearthed I saw you were watched, stalking Also Pulled back on my reigns, the horse Does bit the bite down And then some soaked offer Was Half you are, where Wear the volume down Wear your art hard Or suffer, Gaga! GAGA WHERE ARE YOU? LADY GAGA I'M ON A HORSE target GAGA! LADY GAGA I'M ON A HORSE, I SAID. BUT WHERE?! NEAR ENOUGH THET YOU CAN HEAR ME, LIKE, OBVIOUSLY, BUT FAR ENOUGH AWAY THAT YOU CAN'T SEE ME ON A HORSE. ARE YOU COMING?! NEGATIVE. WELL— WHY NOT?! THE HORSE WONT MOVE! JUMP OFF THEN. IMPOSSIBLE. WHY IS JUMPING OFF A HORSE IMPOSSIBLE WHEN YOURE LADY GAGA ITS BECAUSE I'M LADY GAGA THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR MULTIPLE REASONS WHAT— JUMP OFF OF THE— NEGATIVE. THERE ARE MULTIPLE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THIS IMPOSSIBILITY. WHY ARE THEY YELLING. Omg shut up 2 bit horse jumper Target Target Stalker Stalker Obi wan kanobi! Sheeeeeeer forces! What is this? Bad cheerleaders. WHY ARE WE YELLING?! Oh. We're fighting. Oh, that makes sense, What kind of fighting. Sword— unh— FIGHTING. Oh, okay. Why is lady Gaga on a horse?! Cause she's just like that sometimes. *shrugs, but on a horse— obviously dressed elaborately enough that yes, jumping off of the horse would be practically LADY GAGA No, completely. —Completely impossible. I wanna watch you eat spicy hot wings. In a sweater. But I left handed magic to Can't- that Cancelled I hope it was cashmere Or Calvin Klein I'll retract, Meditate and then Redact that Maybe Fantasize Glamourize that for a lifetime Pull the knife out of my back, And then sample it. I wanna watch you eat hotwings. That's—- What I want. GAGA. PLEASE! LADY GAGA I'm sorry— he's not moving. THIS IS URGENT. LADY GAGA I know it's urgent. My lack of yelling does not negate that it isn't, but. BUT WHAT? *yawns* I'm getting sleepy. [LADY GAGA falls asleep atop the horse; only then does the horse begin to move, however— it appears as though GAGA is now completely unconscious. But those shoes. Egad. Bro. lol. Why is this? I'm… my writers blocks are not fun, practical, or progressive. They're just. [LADY GAGA fights and defeats an entire battle completely unconscious atop a horse.] Isn't technically the horse… fighting. No, and I'll explain to you why. Omgz *spoiler* [lady Gaga IS the horse] Why. What the fuck. Fuck these shapeshifters. Fuck everything right now. What the fuck did I just watch. WHAT DID I JUST SEEEEEEEEEE Dedede…fleetleum, fleetleflum… “Fleedleflum?” Ahem!? Dude, you are a villain. WHAT, BECAUSE I SAID “FLEETLEFLUM” *fleedleflum AHEM! I SETH MEYERS is revealed as the villain… Again. WHAT! WHY! I THOUGHT I WAS THE VILLAIN. you said you didn't want it! THEN I ADJUSTED. Well, too late. WHAT. Nice. Hehe. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! I WENT METHOD. A-for effort, I guess? WHATEVER A-FOR-EFFORT. I JUST COMMITTED A LOT OF EVIL SHIT For what FOR THEATRICAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. Well. “WELL?” Like what. Like— Tax Fraud. Ahem. Nice. [beat] Seth, you got the part. Yesssss! Booyah. Maybe you can take some method lessons and pointers from your friend here— Salt of the earth! — Mr. Evil tax fraud man. RYAN REYNOLDS *deflates* Later. Where are you going? I'm going to do Pilates. Because I'm rich. (Everyone just kind of nods in agreement.) L E G E N D S STEPHEN COLBERT runs at full speed down the street towards the house at which his formerly youthful self “recently” disappeared during a thunderstorm. Oh look. It's little Stevie! You recognize me?! OF COURSE I DO! You're the big hotshot anchorman on TV, but I remember… I don't have—time— Suddenly, he sees it— the radio tower which apparently transported him into this, a distant future, but also a remarkably odd parallel of reality which seems to have been sprung from his own timeline. Where is this going? We'll see. Apparently, I'm reanimated; Certain parts just don't work, I'm factory reset And radiated Aggrandized to carry out this task And then cease to be A zombie, if you will A corpse responding to light energy inside of me So when I leave, I'm not sleeping I'm decomposing Deteriorating I stay hydrated to keep my eyes involved In the light almost as if The illusion is existence— However, I know better It's simply a simulation I mutated against my better judgement Just for this focus Aspirations as if Aggressions could be achiviments At any rate A talking head Who are you? Done for now. Who are you! Done for now. Who are you? A far cry Dust in the wind, And I'm sure so for aure That the places I've been Are more often television location sequences Than not. Aha, who are you? The plot. Then who are I? A handsome damsel. Hark. But not to wake, I form again To dream of you And then Cease to be, My honor, So that may I call To wish a gasp upon a cantered breath, I scream to wake And then you, a glisten, Never to count time I waking, Them as sheep, And she who calls I— There, the canter, And there I wake to know I, Call I, My bare and lay truth So that There waking, calls I now The scream of shadow Mercy, yonder But not waiting, I cherish To bark. …. …. Wt— Now I could see how my energy was moving; I had to write as much as I could before my media update. Intentional brainwash. Suddenly, it all made me so nervous. Programming. Then again, It didn't matter, really, in the end. 6 hours. There was nothing more daunting Than the approaching courier for Whole Foods market And Instacart simultaneously because it meant Somehow, That I had an album coming out. Eagle eye, And to say the brown soul May go extinct Eagle eye Give me a bite of your Adam's Apple I want to taste you I want to know fortune Through the glory of love In the wonder of your arms I want to know nothing but Love in your eyes And in your mind, My heart MAYA RUDOLPH I feel weird. FRED … ARMISEN This is getting intense. That's probably it. AMY POEH—LER No. AMY PH— No. OF COURSE IT IS. ITS SUPPOSED TO BE. why are you yelling? IM NOT YELLING. I'M SPEAKING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. TINA FEY …there's a difference! RACHEL WITH A ‘T'? Maybe DRATCH YEAH there IS. Okay, where are we going with this? Shh. Not yet. I AM PRINCESS SHAMALAMADINGDONG. WHY? It's sketch comedy. Does it HAVE to have motive? You're right— but it at least has to have a plot. Meanwhile… SETH MEYERS'S wand has been stolen. Hey. Yes? There was..a… ??? There was a, like a— like a — ?? There was like, a number two pencil here. …there still is. No, like a very— like, a specific— There's— a bunch of them here. No— Just like always. No, it's. [Blank stares] N—nevermind. Wait— What's up. 1, 2, 3, 4– who am I forgetting? ARSENIO HALL Not yet, Arsenio; We're still on strike force 5! Where's Jimmy Kimmel! Meanwhile, in Jimmy Kimmel's lair. JIMMY KIMMEL (MWAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH) Uh. Wow. Yeah. Okay. For Shits and giggles— Oma goash. Waw. Yah. I knuh. Just waw. Uhh… Idk. The weird SNL sketches all apparently have their own time— AANG APPA, YIP YIP! APPA FUCK OFF— WOAH. OKAY. Yeah, not everything should be live action. Seconded. — lines…. Ahem. Waw. Srsly. However, this live action magic school bus. [SCHOOL BUS CARAPULTING TOWADS FIREY DEMISE WITH NO POSSIBLE RESOLVE IN SIGHT]. *doom* Wild. Why. Yoooooo. The world needed that. Anyway. JIMMY KIMMEL MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUILLERMO JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJAJA JIMMY KIMMEL MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUELLERMO Wait— —is that his name? Maybe. I might just be racist. Well, it's not Carlos. U MEANWHILE, ALSO, ON WISTERIA LANE GABBI CARLOS! GET BACK HERE! Damn. How are these people still at it? Apparently wer're in TV WORLD. Ahem. It's TV LAND. No, it's {Enter The Multiverse} AHEM. {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2019-2025 | THE COMPLEX COLLECTIVE. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -Ū. [REDACTED]

In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on Amy Shaver's incredible journey from owning her first Airbnb cabin nestled in the Tennessee wilderness to launching A Happy Host Rental Concierge. ✨ Get ready to be swept away by Amy's inspiring story as she shares the ups and downs of life…and how her little 1-bedroom cabin pulled her through some financially tough times.  We dive deep with Amy on the nitty-gritty on the evolution of her concierge business. And because running a short-term rental isn't all sunshine and rainbows (though the Smoky Mountain views come pretty close!), Amy shares her how she tackles situations when there's misalignment between what she offers and what a client expects.  So, whether you're a seasoned Airbnb pro or just dipping your toes into the short-term rental world, this episode is a must-listen! Amy's story will leave you inspired and ready to make your Airbnb a haven of happiness.  HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY POINTS: [02:43] Meet our guest, Amy Shaver  [03:26] How Amy got into the short-term rental space  [05:17] Her reflections on owning her first short-term rental cabin in the Smokies [12:19] Uncovering the transition from idea to launching a leading concierge service company: A Happy Host Rental Concierge [20:08] How did Amy convince her husband to co-found A Happy Host Rental Concierge? [23:31] The services they offer in the company [33:44] How she determined the pricing for their services [38:05] The Lightning Round   Golden Nuggets In the corporate world, you are replaceable. However, transitioning out of the corporate environment and working for yourself brings numerous benefits.  “You've got to delegate to elevate.” ~Stacey St. John  Not every client is the right fit for you. It's essential to vet the individuals you work with and to carefully consider whether you'll find fulfillment while working with them.                      Love the show? Subscribe, Rate, Review, Like, and Share!   Let's Connect! Follow Amy Shaver on; Website: https://www.ahappyhostgsm.com/ Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/AHappyHost/ Follow Stacey St. John on; Website: https://staceystjohn.com/ Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/groups/911671659592801?_rdc=1&_rdr Fire link: https://lnk.to/z4iJAlgs

Patricia: Hi, John. 帕特里夏: 你好，约翰。John: Hey. 约翰：你好。Patricia: Today we're talking about artificial intelligence or AI. Maybe getting into a little bit of robotics. 帕特里夏：今天我们谈论人工智能或人工智能。也许会接触一点机器人技术。 John: I like it. Patricia: Just wanted to know your take on how you think this will change our society. The advancements that have been made so far in AI and robotics. 帕特里夏：只是想知道您认为这将如何改变我们的社会。迄今为止人工智能和机器人技术取得的进步。 John: Well, I mean, already we've seen there's a huge push towards whether it's AI in think tanks or things of that nature to people just exploring the idea of AI in terms of writing their own books, poetry, art. AI that is painting. I think the possibilities are endless. We will see development and exploration into ideas and areas we've never even thought of. Think about the idea of an AI painter or sculptor. They can probably pull the knowledge of all the painters and artists of the world and come together to form some entirely new form of expressionism or something of that nature. The idea of AI in medicine. It can look at exploring different ways of doing things, things that humans have never thought of and because of the sheer speed at which computers can process and, for lack of a better word think, the potential for growth in this area I think is endless. 约翰：嗯，我的意思是，我们已经看到，无论是智库中的人工智能还是类似性质的事物，人们都在通过写自己的书籍、诗歌和艺术来探索人工智能的想法。正在绘画的人工智能。我认为可能性是无限的。我们将看到我们从未想过的想法和领域的发展和探索。想想人工智能画家或雕塑家的想法。他们或许可以汲取世界上所有画家和艺术家的知识，并聚集在一起形成某种全新的表现主义形式或类似性质的东西。人工智能在医学中的想法。它可以着眼于探索不同的做事方式，人类从未想过的事情，并且由于计算机处理的速度非常快，而且由于缺乏更好的词“思考”，我认为这个领域的增长潜力是无穷无尽的 。 Patricia: Overall do you think these things will improve or worsen our society? 帕特里夏：总的来说，你认为这些事情会改善还是恶化我们的社会？ John: Well, like anything, I think it has a potential to do both. If we're not careful, it could lead to the corruption of minds, the abuse of these advancements to either oppress people or subjugate them. With the proper minds at the helm, this could serve to benefit humanity. If we have AI taking care of things like surgeries, exploration into dangerous areas, humans no longer need to endanger themselves to engage in exploration. These AIs can do the exploration for us, and we can benefit from what they find. That's not to say that humans can't still be exploring and expose themselves to all these amazing new things, it just means that we can take out some of that crazy level of danger and reduce that down so that humans can spend their time exploring other past times, other leisure activities to improve their minds, their bodies, their souls, however you want to put it. 约翰：嗯，就像任何事情一样，我认为它有潜力做到这两点。如果我们不小心，可能会导致思想腐败，滥用这些进步来压迫或征服人们。如果有正确的思想来掌舵，这可以造福人类。如果我们有人工智能来处理诸如手术、危险区域探索之类的事情，人类就不再需要冒着危险去进行探索。这些人工智能可以为我们进行探索，我们可以从他们的发现中受益。这并不是说人类不能继续探索并将自己暴露在所有这些令人惊奇的新事物中，这只是意味着我们可以消除一些疯狂的危险水平并将其降低，以便人类可以花时间探索其他事物 过去，其他休闲活动可以改善他们的思想，他们的身体，他们的灵魂，无论你怎么说。Patricia: Interesting, very interesting ideas. If you could have AI or a robot to help you with something in your everyday life, what do you think you would want help with? What would you use a robot for? 帕特里夏：有趣、非常有趣的想法。如果人工智能或机器人可以帮助您处理日常生活中的某些事情，您认为您会在哪些方面需要帮助？你会用机器人做什么？ John: What activities, tasks? Basically would be like a personal assistant. I would have somebody to help me organize my day, my activities. Help me stay on tasks, stay focused, take care of cleaning. I love cooking so I would probably still want to engage in some of that myself, but there may be days where I'm busy, so an AI whether it's in robot form or something like that, to take care of those tasks for me so that I can be more productive in the other areas of my life that need it would be fantastic. 约翰：什么活动、任务？基本上就像一个私人助理。我需要有人帮助我安排我的一天和我的活动。帮助我专注于任务、保持专注、做好清洁工作。我喜欢烹饪，所以我可能仍然想自己参与一些烹饪，但有时我可能会很忙，所以人工智能，无论是机器人形式还是类似的形式，都会为我处理这些任务，所以 如果我能在生活中其他需要的领域变得更有生产力，那就太棒了。 Patricia: Yeah, I agree. I would love to have someone who could do chores around the house for me, like cleaning. Yeah, thanks for your ideas, John. It was awesome to talk to you. 帕特里夏：是的，我同意。我希望有人可以帮我做家务，比如打扫卫生。是的，谢谢你的想法，约翰。和你说话真是太棒了。 John: Not a problem. I look forward to it, the next, sorry. I look forward to the next time we talk. 约翰：没问题。期待下一个，抱歉。我期待我们下次谈话。

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with screenwriter and author Neal Marshall Stevens about his new book on horror, “A Sense of Dread (Getting Under The Skin of Horror Screenwriting).”LINKSA Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Neal's book at Michael Wiese Productions: https://mwp.com/product-author/neal-marshall-stevens/Neal on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0139605/Brian Forrest's Blog: https://toothpickings.medium.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastNeal Stevens Transcript JOHN: Neal, you have a really long and storied history in the horror cinema. Can you remember the very first horror movie that had an impact on you? NEAL: Well, actually, looking back, the first movie that scared the hell out of me wasn't a horror movie. It was actually a Disney movie called Johnny Tremaine. It was a kid's movie. And there was a scene in that movie, Johnny Tremaine was a kid during the Revolutionary War who knew Paul Revere, who, as you may remember, was a silversmith. And there's a scene in that movie, the British are coming and Paul Revere has got this urn of molten silver.It gets knocked onto a table. Johnny Tremaine trips and puts his hand face up into the molten silver and fries his hand. And I'm sure I know I, every kid in the audience goes like (sound effect.) But that's actually not the scariest part of the movie. Later on, surgeons are unwrapping his burnt hand, and they look down and they react in horror.His fingers have healed together, stuck together. We don't see it and they say, “Oh, we're going to have to cut his fingers apart,” which also happens off screen. And again, in our imagination, imagining no anesthesia back then, it's a revolutionary war. So, poor Johnny Tremaine has to have his healed together fingers cut apart. The memory of what that must be like has lasted. I must have been like five or six when I saw it. My parents dragged me to see Johnny Tremaine, it's a happy Disney movie. I'm 67 years old, so it's been over a half a century since I saw this movie and was appropriately traumatized by those images. So, Disney knew how to scare little kids. That's for sure. JOHN: He sure did. Wow. That's a horrible story. NEAL: Yeah. As for official horror movies that scared the hell out of me, again, we used to watch Phantasmic Features on the TV in Boston. I remember a movie called Teenagers from Outer Space. They weren't actually teenagers. They were all in their thirties. But anyway, these invaders had a skeleton ray that as they would aim it at someone, it would flash and you're instantly reduced literally to a skeleton. And they were, they didn't care who, so as soon as they come out of their spaceship, there's a barking dog—bzzzt!—and the dog falls down, reduced to bones. They didn't care. They would use it as a woman's climbing out of a swimming pool—bzzzt!—skeleton floating in the pool. The casualness with which completely innocent people are reduced to skeletons. Again, absolutely horrifying. Couldn't have been much older than nine or ten when I watched this movie. But the fact that human flesh has reduced the skeletons, but also the casual innocence of which people are reduced to flesh is stripped off their bones. It's terrifying to me. BRIAN: I wonder how you parlayed that early sense of, “Oh, I like horror movies” into, “I want to create horror as a genre. “ NEAL: Well, I was one of a whole generation of kids who got super eight cameras and made, you know, we made stop motion movies and made monster movies in their basements. Pursuant to that, I was writing scripts when I was 13 years old. I guess people now do it with phones. We didn't have cell phones back when I was a kid, but we had super eight cameras and then, you know, a little cartridge things that we'd slug in. And so, I made tons of those little stop motion movies down in my basement. BRIAN: Do you still have some of them? NEAL: I guess I may have them somewhere. I think I have an old creaky super eight projector somewhere. I don't think you can get a bulb for it anymore. BRIAN: I've got one up there. I wonder if it would work? NEAL: Yeah. That's the big question. I wonder if it would work? Heaven only knows. JOHN: But that's a great way to learn visual storytelling. NEAL: Yeah. When I ultimately went to NYU grad film and, and all the films that we shot the first year were all silent. First silent film then silent with sound effects, but you weren't allowed to use sync sound until you got to second year, if you made it that far. JOHN: Did you make it that far? NEAL: Yes, I did. I actually graduated. Back at NYU, it was a very rough program at the time. They cut the student enrollment in half going from first to second year. So it was, it was a rough program back then. JOHN: That's brutal. NEAL: Yeah. JOHN: So, you leave film school with something under your arm that you've shot. Where does that lead you? NEAL: It certainly didn't get me much in the way of employment at the time. I ended up going right back to NYU. I ran their equipment room of all things for something like six years. But during all those six years I was writing. They had like a computer that they used to turn out the schedules. And then when I weren't writing schedules, I was using that computer to write my screenplays using WordStar. If anyone remembers that old program. God, it was horrible, but it was free, because they had the equipment room. And eventually I sent some stuff to Laurel Entertainment, which is the company that did Tales From the Dark Side. And they had an open submission program. If you signed a release form, you could send them stuff. And I'd gone in and I'd met Tom Allen, who was their senior story editor. I had a screenplay and I went in and talked about it. He liked it. It wasn't for them, but then he invited me to submit ideas for their new series, their follow-up series to Tales from the Dark Side, which is a thing called Monsters. And I went in, and I pitched some ideas, and they bought one. And it turned out to be their premier episode of Monsters. And shortly after that, tragically, Tom Allen passed away. And the VP, Mitch Galen, invited me in and said, “Would you like to take over and be our senior story editor on Monstersand our other projects?” And meanwhile, you know, for the second part of that whole series, I was still working in the equipment room at NYU and also working as a senior story editor on Monsters and being their creative consultant and reading hundreds of scripts for Laurel Entertainment. And then eventually I quit the equipment room, and I went and I worked for them full time and wrote a bunch of episodes for Monsters. And I was a story editor on The Stand and The Langoliers— which wasn't so good—but on a bunch of other projects, it was just an enormous learning experience. And The Stand I think turned out really well. Other stuff, The Langoliers, did not work out really well. And a bunch of other projects that were not horror. BRIAN: Why do you think some things, especially, let's talk about Stephen King, why do you think some of those things adapted well and some didn't? NEAL: Well, The Langoliers was not, it wasn't that great. Wasn't that strong a project. And I think the idea, trying to make that and stretch that out into a mini-series. wasn't that strong. It wasn't that strong, the material wasn't really there. I think there are times when staying faithful to the material is the right approach. It certainly was the right approach with The Stand. Working with The Langoliers, you know, there were certainly elements of The Langoliers that were strong. And other stuff that was really just so-so. And I think if you'd had the willingness to step aside and do something different with it, it would probably have ended up—especially because they were expanding it into a mini-series—being just devoted to the original material, I think, ended up with a product that was really thin. Plus, we had hired a special effects company that the Langoliers themselves were just horrible. It was really substandard, honestly. So, it did not work out very well. BRIAN: I'm guessing with all these different projects you had to work on, you probably had to start dealing with types of horror and genres of horror that weren't in your comfort zone. Maybe not even what you wanted to do. What kind of learning curve was that for you? NEAL: You end up having to deal with a lot of different kinds of horror, especially with, you know, working in Monsters, where you just were turning stuff out tremendously fast. But also, I grew up with a certain kind of horror.I was never a huge fan of slasher stuff. I missed that whole era of horror. Certain kinds of movies appealed to me. That particular kind of transgressive material never really clicked. JOHN: Why do you think that is with you? NEAL: Because this simple act of repetitive bloodletting, for me, it always felt thin. I mean, it's not that I objected to explicit violence or explicit gore. I mean, I think that Dawn of the Deadunquestionably is one of the most brilliant horror movies ever made. And there certainly, George Romero didn't pull back from explicit violence. Or a movie like Hellraiser, the same deal. It's a question of how the filmmaker employs the use of graphic violence to elevate the material. What I've told people when you watch a movie like Dawn of the Dead, the first 10 or 15 minutes of that movie—which by the way, I saw when it virtually when it first came out and saw it in the theater—you had never seen anything like that opening scene in terms of graphic violence from being bitten and heads being blown off and all the rest. You were just put through the ringer, watching that opening. And after that opening, the movie was never that violent again. He never showed anything like that again.And you didn't have to, because you—having seen that opening scene, you were—you were so blown out of your seats. You said, “I'm watching a movie where anything could happen to anyone.” And that was a kind of really intelligent and that kind of thoughtful use of violence is what George Romero was always able to do. It was understanding how graphic images can affect the psychology of the viewer. JOHN: Do you think it's also that with Romero's films, they're actually about something, whereas a slasher film is really just about a body count, but with Romero, he always had another thing going. NEAL: Well, of course, I mean, no movie that isn't about anything is ever going to really, from my perspective, be worth watching. But I mean, even a movie like Hostel, which is exceptionally violent and harrowing, is certainly about something. And I think Eli Roth's movies, which get a really bad rap, are very much about something. He's got something to say with his depictions of violence and his images. Not necessarily to my taste. I certainly wouldn't say that he's not, he's making movies that are certainly about something. He's not a dumb filmmaker by any stretch of the imagination. JOHN: So, you work on Monsters, and then what happens? NEAL: I worked on Monsters. I worked there for around six years, and then they were acquired by a big studio, and they were shut down. And so, I was out of work. I'd known a woman named Debbie Dion from Full Moon. I figured, well, I'll give that a shot. I'll call her up and see, maybe I could write for a Full Moon. And so, I gave her a shot. I, you know, reintroduced myself and said, you know, “I'm looking to see if I could get some job, maybe writing features for Full Moon Entertainment, Charlie Band's company.” And they said, “Well, we pay around $3,000 for a feature.” And I said, “Well, I got paid more than that for writing an episode of Monsters. That doesn't seem like such a good deal.” And then my unemployment insurance ran out. BRIAN: Suddenly it's a very good deal. NEAL: Sounds like suddenly a very good deal. But, you know, I made it very clear that money buys one draft, and if you want to rewrite, you got to pay me again, because I knew what development was like, where they just expect draft after draft after draft, and I'd say, “I can't do that, that doesn't make any sense.” And also, having worked for Monsters, I had learned to write really fast. I could write a pass on a Monsters episode in two days, so I knew that I could write fast, because these were 80-page scripts. And so, I started writing for Full Moon, and over the course of like the next few years, I wrote something like... 50 or 60 features for Charlie Band. And a lot of them got made, because they're not wasting money on movies that don't get made. Tons of them got made. And in the midst of doing that, I was, you know, whenever I got a break writing a full movie, I would write spec scripts, you know, in the hopes I could sell something of my own that wasn't for $3,000. I didn't have an agent at that point. I didn't have a manager at that point. And so, I'm not really good making cold calls to people. It's not my thing. I just like to sit, write my scripts. I'd come home one day, and I saw my wife was on the phone having this long conversation with someone. When she was done, I said, “Well, who was that?” “Oh yeah. I called up to order something.” I said, “So she's really good at getting on the phone and talking to people and calling them.” And so, I convinced her to be my manager. So, she agreed. She changed, you know, she went out under her maiden name. She managed to get an option on a science fiction script that I'd written that, I mean, it was ultimately bought. It was never made. And then I decided, you know what? Horror is really my bread and butter writing for Charlie Band. But I don't really have a horror spec. And most of what was out those days in horror didn't really scare me that much. I should really write a script that would scare me. So, I wrote a script called Deader, which I thought had all the stuff in it that I thought was really scary. And Judy went out with that script, sent it to a bunch of people, sent it to some folks at Stan Winston's company, as they had a development deal. The producer that she talked to really liked it, asked if he could sort of slip it to some people. He did, he sent it to someone, a producer at Dimension, it's based in New York, and he really liked it. And they showed it to Bob Weinstein. Bob Weinstein called us on Sunday. Am I half awake? Talk to Judy. Because they didn't know that Judy was my wife. He said, “This is the best goddamn script I've read. I'm like three quarters away. Come in on Monday and we'll talk about it.” So, we came in on Monday and they bought the script. And of course, at that point, it sort of went all over town. And for a very short period of time, it was like the flavor of the month and everyone loved me. And I got myself an agent and got myself like three pictures. And as I was a really big, big to-do. From that, I also got 13 Ghosts. I had like a really big opinion of myself after, after that sale. JOHN: Has that been tempered since then? NEAL: I kind of got the opinion that like, wow, selling scripts is easy. People wanted to hire me because that script was super hot and was all over town. I learned subsequently there are flavors in writers, and I was like that flavor of the month. That fades and then you have to really do a lot more work to get things sold. That was a hard lesson to learn. But I've managed to keep working over the years. I've written many scripts, sold some, and it's been a decent career. BRIAN: I was just wondering, you were having all the success writing screenplays, when did you decide to make a jump to writing a book? NEAL: Over the last five or six years, I've been teaching. A woman that I knew from NYU, actually, Dorothy Rumpolsky had been instrumental in starting a screenwriting program at David Lynch Institute for Cinematic Studies. And she realized at one point that she had a number of students who wanted to work in a horror. She remembered me back from NYU many years ago. So, she got in touch with me and wanted to know if I was interested in mentoring those students. And I said, absolutely. I done some other online teaching at other places. And so, the way it works is, you fly out for an opening few days where you meet the students. And then you fly back to where you come from. They go back to where they come from. And it's all done remotely, the mentoring. And so, I've been doing that now for five or six years. And during that kind of get together, you meet a bunch of guest lecturers and other teachers, other mentors. And a number of those people had written books for Michael Wiese productions. And, in the course of chatting, they suggested, well, you, you know, “You have a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of horror and horror cinema. That might be a good book for Michael Wiese. Give them a call and see if you can come up with a pitch and an interesting take on it.” And so I did, and I called them and they responded. And so we were off to the races. JOHN: The book is really, maybe delightful is the wrong word, but it's a captivating book because as you read through it—you have outlined breaking down our different types of fears—you can immediately in your mind go, “Oh, that's what that movie was doing. Oh, that was that. That's what was happening there.” What was your research process like? NEAL: I think that the research kind of developed over the decades as I studied what made movies scary and what was working, not only in the movies that I was watching, but in the movies that I was writing. I mean, in the same way that when you work as a screenwriter, it becomes almost second nature to try to figure out what was working and what wasn't. Talking to fellow filmmakers and screenwriters, you have to say, “How many times do you watch a movie?” And a lot of times I will watch a movie 8, 10, 20 times. And there's a process that works when you watch a movie that many times, where you say “Certain things will work every time you watch a movie.”In the same way that you can watch a comedy and you can laugh every single time as certain things comes up. And other times, you start seeing the nuts and bolts and say, “Well, this is always working and here they're just connecting stuff.” And you start saying, “Ah, I get it. I see what they're doing. I see how they're taking this piece that works and this other piece that works and they couldn't quite, they kind of, they found some connective tissue to stick it together. I see exactly what they're doing.” And you start understanding—whether you're watching a comedy or you're watching a drama or you're watching a scary movie—they knew exactly how to make this thing scary. And this is how they're doing it. And they understood exactly how to make this thing scary. And it's like, ah, this is what they're using. Whether it is a spider crawling on someone, that's always going to work. Or, “Oh, I see, this is just a jump scare.” And the jump scare is, I understand, that's just, because a big bang, a loud noise, a hand reaching in from, that's just, that's always going to work. It's going to work no matter what. It's just a kind of placeholder scare, because they couldn't think of anything better. And there are movies where it's just jump scares. And you can always use a jump scare. You can sneak up on a cat and jab it and it'll jump. It's an instinctive response. And if a movie is just relying on jump scares, you know it's because they don't have anything better. They haven't got any deeper than just having the phone ring and they turn up the soundtrack. You can always get an audience to jump by putting a loud sound on the soundtrack. JOHN: Is there an example you can think of though, where there is a jump scare that you think is a genuinely good, effective jump scare? NEAL: I can think of a movie that has two really excellent jump scares. John Carpenter's The Thing. When the doctor's giving the electric shock to the guy's chest, and the chest opens and slams shut on his hand. Didn't expect it.That's a super great jump scare. It is perfectly integrated into that scene. Everyone jumps, but it's also a brilliant continuation of that scene. Second jump scare, when MacReady is testing everyone's blood. And saying, “We're going to do you next,” puts the needle in, and that thing jumps out of the Petri dish.Fantastic jump scare. We didn't see it coming. Everyone jumps. And it's again, it's perfectly integrated into that scene. So, two brilliant jump scares in what's already an incredibly brilliant movie. BRIAN: I remember watching the commentary on Jaws and Spielberg said he got greedy with his jump scares. He had the moment towards the end of the film, you remember that Jaws comes out of the water while it's being chummed. And he said he got this great reaction from the audience, and he wanted one more. And he went back, and he added in the scene earlier where the corpse face comes through the hole. And he said he never got the audience to react as well to the shark after he added in that corpse face coming through the hole of the ship. And I wondered, do you think there's a point of diminishing returns with jump scares in one movie? NEAL: I think there absolutely is. I mean—and I have no end of admiration for Jaws. I think it may be one of the most brilliant movies ever, and it certainly has stood the test of time. JOHN: So, we've each come armed with some movies here that I thought it would be fun to talk about them with you, so that you could sort of delve into the different types of fear that are outlined in the book and we'll just sort ofcheckerboard back and forth here. I'm going to start with one of my favorite sense of dread movies, and that's Don't Look Now, with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, directed by Nick Roeg which I saw way too young. First R rated movie I saw. I remember I knew that it was supposed to be really scary, and I went with my older brother, and we were standing in line and the seven o'clock show was letting out. And I said to my brother, “Well, it can't be that scary. They're not saying anything.” Not realizing that they had all been stunned into silence about the last five minutes of that movie. So, what are your thoughts on Don't Look Now and where does that fit? NEAL: When I talk about the sense of dread, which is what my book is about, it's the notion of those aspects of our lives that we think of as safe and secure and dependable and sacred being suddenly or unexpectedly penetrated by the unknown or the unnatural, the unexpected. And you have to say, well, what are the things that we depend on? We depend on our homes. We depend on our families. And so that relationship of parent and child, what violates that? And the loss of a child, loss is already wrenching. And so, this sense of parents having lost a child, but then this notion that, well, maybe not, maybe the child is still out there somewhere, is so deeply disturbing. And so this weird, this quest, this pursuit in them. And meanwhile, in the background, you have the sense of a killer, of killings going on. This really disturbing notion of the woman's half decayed body being pulled out of the water is just as an image is—and again, the notion of human body being reduced to mere flesh—it's deeply disturbing. And nakedness, coupled with decay, it's deeply disturbing. And all of this sort of happening in the background. We don't quite know how these pieces connect. The notion that the search for the child and the notion that there's a killer on the loose. We know, because the nature of cinematic storytelling is telling us that somehow these things are going to connect, because, I mean, in the real world, there are countless thousands of things drifting around that don't necessarily hook up. But we know that one thing is going to collide with another. And so, there's this growing sense of profound unease, because we know, somehow, this child in this Red Riding Hood cape is wandering around, it's like, is this the child? Is the child going to become embroiled in this? But what we don't, certainly don't expect is the ending that confronts us in the finale, which is so incredibly, the reversal is so terrifying and so hits us in the face of that sense of innocence—revealed in such a terrifying way—is the essence of dread. Where we expect to find innocence, we find a nightmare. JOHN: What's great about what Nick Roeg did there was—if you read Daphne du Maurier's short story—he basically shot the last paragraph of that short story. Cinematically, he figured out the way that she's laying out what's going on with Donald Sutherland's character at that moment. He figured out a way to make it cinematic. So, like you say, all the pieces suddenly fall into place in those last few seconds. And, like you said, we've been brought to this place, we had no idea that that's where it was going to turn. Neal, tell me about Enemy from Space, and what you like about that. NEAL: Enemy from Space is the second of the three Quatermass movie, adaptations of the serial. It's in the same vein as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and all these other movies about human beings who are being invaded and infested by alien forces. In this case, over the past few years—but in the context of the story—there have been rains of these tiny little meteorites. Anyone who finds them, they crack open and what's inside infests human beings. And you can find these tiny little burn marks, these V shaped marks on them. And the parasites take them over and make them into these kind of human slaves. And the premise is they serve this larger being, this kind of group entity, and they proceed to start building these atmosphere plants, with the goal ultimately to turn the earth into a colony for these beings that come from outer space. But the notion of these human beings, they have infiltrated our government, infiltrated our community, and they gradually take people over, scary enough. And they have built this enormous plant that looks, he says, this looks just like this proposed lunar base with these giant atmospheric domes. A group of people managed to infiltrate one of these bases and he looks inside, manages to get close enough to look inside one of these domes and inside are the parasites. When they're released, they grow together into this thing that looks like a giant blob. That's what it looks like outside of the human hosts. And a bunch of these guys are trapped inside of the atmosphere of plant. And they realize this thing, they can't survive outside the human body. They need methane to breathe, because that's what their home planet is like. “What we need to do is we need to pump oxygen into this dome to kill this thing. That'll destroy it.” And voices come over to say, “Look, this guy's crazy. There's nothing inside this dome. You send some representatives over, we'll show you anything you want.” And Quatermass says, “You're crazy if you go over there, you're going to be infected. You're going to be taken over.” But they managed to divide, they send the guys over and Quatermass is pleading with them, “Listen, they're going to get on this speaker. They're going to tell you that everything is fine, but you can't listen. Don't listen to them, whatever you say.” And then they hear this sound. This hideous sound of screaming coming down the pipes, the pipes that they've been sending oxygen down to the dome. They say, “What the hell is that? What's going on?” And then they look, they see the pressure has gone way up. There's something wrong. And the pipe is burst, the pipe that's sending oxygen to this dome. And they say, “What is it? What's happened?” And they look and something is dripping down through the pipe. And they say, “What is it?” It's blood. They took the guys that they sent, and they pushed them into the pipe. They say those pipes have been blocked with human pulp in order to keep the oxygen from coming into the dome. That is one of the most, again, all you see is just these drops of blood coming out of the cracked pipe, but that has resonated as one of the most terrifying moments from any movie that I saw, again, as a little kid. I've seen the movie recently and it's still incredibly terrifying. And again, the architecture of this web of pipes, the cold black and white architecture, is horrifyingly chilling. And the notion of human beings being reduced to mere flesh, being used as material for blocking a pipe. And the pipe's only like, it's like this big. So, you can imagine this person shoved into a pipe is hideous. JOHN: It is available on YouTube if anybody wants to watch it after that. Brian, do you want to ask about folk horror? BRIAN: Actually, I was going to jump ahead just because of what Neal was just talking about. I thought this would dovetail nicely into a question I had about a fear of contagion. And you can wrap body horror into this. Movies like The Thing or 28 Days Later, or probably The Quatermas Experiment as well. How does that fear of our own bodies being infected or watching another body change or be infected in unnatural ways? How does that—I don't want to use the word appeal—but how does that appeal to our sense of dread? NEAL: Well, I think you also have to run back to one of the most common— whether it's psychological or physiological—which is obsessive compulsive disorder. You say, well, what exactly is obsessive compulsive disorder? We have built in grooming behaviors, whether it's cleaning our hands, we clean our skin. That's wired into us. And when you turn the dial up too far, that turns into obsessive compulsive, obsessive hand cleaning or scratching, itching, hair pulling, all that stuff. It's wired in behavior, in the same way that dogs will scratch, we will scratch. And so, all of that, we react to it in the same way that if you see a spot of dirt on someone's forehead, it's almost impossible to “Clean that thing off. Get rid of that thing.” I mean, we're built in a certain way to respond to distortions, infections, invasions, in the same way that if someone's eye is cocked to one side, we react to it. Someone's face is distorted. We react to it negatively. We have to work not to respond to it. It may be a bug, but it may be a feature, because we are built to respond to a diseased or distorted members of our community. It's a survival trait. And so, in some ways, horror movies respond to that. Distorted human beings, Hunchback of Notre Dame or Igor or anyone else who are distorted, deformed, limbless creatures—Freaks—are employed in horror movies in a variety of different ways. BRIAN: And it's a very different thing from seeing an arm chopped off versus seeing an arm with three hands that are all operating. Both of them is something happening to your body that you might revolt towards, but it's a very different reaction though, right? NEAL: It is, but it's—in a sense—it's all variations of the same thing. There's a central human norm, and that which varies from the human norm beyond a certain point triggers a reaction that says, “That's not the way it's supposed to be.” And it's just, eyes are too close together, eyes are too far apart, eyes are too big, or there's an extra one. There's one missing. We recoil from it. We recoil from something that is too different, too far off the norm. And of course, in strictly social terms, you can say, but why, why should we? We shouldn't really respond in that way to others who are too different. But we do respond that way, and it comes with the programming in a very real degree. JOHN: How does that connect, then, to another movie on your list, The Island of Lost Souls, from 1932? NEAL: I think it's central to that list. The notion of the difference between that which is human and that which is animal. And Moreau, who experiments with making animals into human beings, but not really. And the sort of terrifying revelation when our hero and the woman—who we know to be an animal woman, but she looks fundamentally human—escape out into the woods and come across the animal person village. And the realization to what extent Moreau has been experimenting. It's not just tens or dozens. The animal people just come flooding out of the woods. And it's just hundreds. And the extent and the depth and the kind of nightmarish quality, they're all different. They're all horrible. And it's just like, what has Moreau been doing? He experiments with these animals, gets them to a certain state, and then he just discards them and moves on to something else. This utterly careless, sadistic god of this army of nightmares. And you sort of see when they do their, you know, “Are we not men?” And you just see row upon row upon row of these hideous nightmare faces. And you just say, “My God, what has this guy been doing for years? Just making these monsters.” JOHN: It's a classically creepy movie. I do want to ask you about the classic ghost story movie, The Haunting, and what that says about our fears. If you can, maybe tie that into Ghostwatch, because there's a similar sort of thing going on there. NEAL: They're both intriguing. They both are opening us up to this notion of unseen nightmare forces, especially the original Haunting, which shows us nothing. All you ever see: Doorknob turning. A face that may or may not be in the wall. This horribly loud banging on the door. A moment where someone thinks that her hand is being held, but there's no one there. It is simply this notion of a house that is born bad, but never really fully explained. Again, you have this idea of the world itself that should be well behaved, that should be governed by comprehensible natural laws. But there's something deeper and darker and incapable of truly being understood, nevermind being controlled. And if you just prod it a little bit too much, you're going to open it up to forces that are utterly destructive and utterly malevolent. And in both of these cases, you have this man of science and his team that are going to find out. “We're going to find out for sure whether there really are ghosts, whether there really is a supernatural, whether it really is life after death. We're going to nail this down for science.” Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. These are things that are, that are not meant to be explored, not meant to be examined. Go back. BRIAN: I'm reminded of Van Helsing's sign off on the original Dracula, where he said, “Just remember, there really are such things in this world.” NEAL: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the same thing is true in some ways on a much more terrifying scale with Ghostwatch, where it's just, it's this kind of, “It's all just fun and Halloween, we're going to explore this. It's the most haunted house in Britain.” And it's broadcasters whose faces everyone knew at the time, and they were playing themselves. Going to this haunted house where you had these poltergeist phenomena. And we're all going to, “We're going to do it live and call in with your own experiences about being haunted.” And it all just goes so horribly wrong. JOHN: Now, Neal, I just watched that for the first time this week. Heard about it for years. I had no idea that those were real broadcasters. I thought they were really good actors. But to someone in Britain watching that, those are faces they saw all the time? NEAL: Yeah. Those are real broadcasters. They had their own shows. They were real, the real deal. JOHN: Wow. I highly recommend renting it because—it'll test your patience a little tiny bit, because it is quite banal for quite a while, as they lead you into it. But now this new bit of information that these are all faces that that audience who saw it, quote unquote, live that night, it's as terrifying as I imagined the Orson Welles' War the Worlds would have been. Because it seems very real. NEAL: And apparently the way they did it, is that there was a number you could call in. And if you called in that number, they would tell you, it's like, “Don't worry, this is all just a show.” But so many people were calling in, they couldn't get through. BRIAN: This really is War of the Worlds. NEAL: So, they never were able to get to that message that would tell them, don't worry, it's all just a show. So apparently it panicked the nation, because part of the premise was at a certain point, the ghost that was haunting the house got into the show. And so, the studio itself became haunted. It was really spectacularly well done. JOHN: It is. It's great. Let's just sort of wrap up here real quick with Neal, if you have any advice for beginning screenwriter about how to best create a really powerful and effective horror screenplay, any little tips. NEAL: Well, first of all, and I touched on this before, jump scares don't work on the page. You need the loud bang. You need the hand reaching in from the side. You describe that and it doesn't work. So, you have to rely on creating that sense of dread. And while writing screenplays, you have to keep things tight. The concept, the idea—in the same way comedy screenplays have to be funny—scary screenplays have to be scary. It has to be scary on the page. If it's not scary on the page, you're not going to sell the screenplay. And that's the fundamental trick. You got to make it scary on the page. JOHN: Excellent advice. All right, let's just quickly, each one of us, tell our listeners a recent favorite horror film that you've seen in the last couple years.I'll start with you, Brian. BRIAN: Just last night, I saw Haunting in Venice. And it worked because I had seen the other Kenneth Branagh/Agatha Christie adaptations, and I was very familiar with, and you know, you already know generally that kind of detective whodunit story: it's going to be very, you know, using logic and rationality.And when they had this episode that was sort of a one off—sort of a departure from that usual way that mysteries are solved—it was very effective. I think if I'd seen it without having already watched a bunch of Agatha Christie adaptations, I would have said, “Oh, that's an okay Halloween movie.” But having seen those other ones, it was an excellent Halloween movie. JOHN: Excellent. That's on my list. The movie I would recommend, which really surprised me, my wife literally dragged me to it because it was a French film called Final Cut, which is a French remake of a Japanese film called One Cut of the Dead. At about the 30-minute mark, I was ready to walk out, and I thought, why are we watching this? And then they took us on a ride for the next hour that, it's a really good ride. It's called Final Cut. BRIAN: And this is not to be confused with the Robin Williams Final Cut from... ? JOHN: Not to be confused with that, no. Or if you can go back to the original and watch the Japanese version. But what's great about the French version is they are literally remaking the Japanese version, to the point where they've made all the characters have Japanese names. Which the French people struggle with enormously. It's a highly effective film. Neal, how about you? Take us home. NEAL: Okay. It's not a new movie, but I just saw it very recently. It is a Chilean stop motion animated film called The Wolf House. It describes the adventures of a young Chilean woman who escapes from a repressive German colony and ends up in this bizarre house in which she blends into the walls. She's escaped with two pigs who grow up with her in this house, but again, nothing, no way in which I describe it is going to convey to you how deeply disturbing and chilling this movie is. It really is quite indescribably bizarre and disturbing and just well worth your time to watch. It's not quite like any other movie I've ever seen.

“Behold, the Lamb of God!” John 1:19-34 Two introductions:               1. John: Not the Christ               2. Jesus: The Lamb of God   Two takeaways:               1. Look to Jesus!               2. Point to Jesus!

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with Dawn Brodey and Brian Forrest, talking about the various film versions of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.”Dawn gave me 4.5 films to revisit: The 1931 version of Frankenstein, Frankenweenie (the feature and the short), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Young Frankenstein.Meanwhile, Brian assigned me the original Nosferatu, the 1931 Dracula, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, Dracula in Istanbul and Bram Stoker's Dracula. LINKSDawn's podcast (HILF): http://dawnbrodey.com/ - showsBrian's Blog and Vlog, Toothpickings: https://toothpickings.medium.com/ A Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Frankenstein (1931) Trailer: https://youtu.be/BN8K-4osNb0Frankenweenie Trailer: https://youtu.be/29vIJQohUWEMary Shelley's Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/GFaY7r73BIsYoung Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/mOPTriLG5cUNosferatu (Complete Film): https://youtu.be/dCT1YUtNOA8Dracula (1931) Trailer: https://youtu.be/VoaMw91MC9kAbbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Trailer): https://youtu.be/j6l8auIACycHorror of Dracula (Trailer): https://youtu.be/ZTbY0BgIRMkBram Stoker's Dracula (Trailer): https://youtu.be/fgFPIh5mvNcDracula In Istanbul: https://youtu.be/G7tAWcm3EX0Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastDawn and Brian TRANSCRIPT John: [00:00:00] Before we dive into the assignment you gave me—which was to watch stuff I hadn't seen and also rewatch stuff I had seen to get a better idea of who's done a good job of adapting these books—let's just jump in and talk a little bit about your area of expertise and why you have it. So, I'm going to start with you, Brian. I was very surprised after working with you a while to find out that you had a whole vampire subset in your life. Brian: A problem, you can call it a problem. It's fine. John: Okay. What is the problem and where did it come from? Brian: I was just vaguely interested in vampires for a while. When I was in my screenwriting days, someone had encouraged me to do a feature length comedy about vampires, and that led me to do a lot of reading. And then I just kind of put it aside for a while. And then I was, I had just finished a documentary for Committee Films and they said, do you have any other pitches? And I thought, and I said, you know, there's still people who believe in vampires even today, that could be really interesting. And I put together a pitch package. Then, the guy in charge of development said, [00:01:00]this is what we need to be doing. And then it stalled out. Nothing ever happened with it. And I said, what the hell. I could do this on my own. I could fly around and interview these people. And I did, I spent a couple years interviewing academics and some writers. And along the way, I started finding all these very intriguing moments in the history of either vampire lore or fiction or even just people who consider themselves vampires today. And all these things would connect to each other. It was a lattice work of vampires going back hundreds of years. It didn't fit the documentary, unfortunately, but I found it way too interesting. And I said, I need some kind of outlet for this. And so I started writing about it on Tooth Pickings. And that eventually put me in touch with people who were more scholarly, and it opened up a lot more conversations. And now I can't get out. I'm trapped. John: Well, the first sign is recognizing there's a problem. [00:02:00] Okay. Now, Dawn, you had a different entryway into Frankenstein. Dawn: Yeah, well, I was a theater major and a history minor at the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers. And, this was in the late nineties, early two thousands, when there were still a lot of jobs for people who had degrees and things like this. Or at least there was a theory that this was a reasonable thing to get educated in. And then I graduated in 2001, which was months after 9/11, when all those jobs went away. And so, I had this education so specific and what was I gonna do? And gratefully the Twin Cities is a great place for finding that kind of stuff. And one of my very first jobs out of college was at the Bakkan museum. So, the Bakkan museum was founded by Earl Bakkan, who is the inventor of the battery-operated pacemaker. And he has always, since childhood, been obsessed with the Frankenstein movie that came out in 1931. And he attributes [00:03:00]his great scientific invention and many others to a science fiction in general. And to the spark of the idea that comes from sources like this. So, when he opened the museum, he insisted that there'd be a grand Frankenstein exhibit. And that means going back to the book, and that meant going back to the author, Mary Shelley, who wrote the novel Frankenstein, she started writing it when she was 16.And so, I was hired because—boom, look at me—my degree is suddenly colliding, right? So, I was hired by the Bakkan museum to create a one-woman show about the life of Mary Shelley, where I would play Mary Shelley and would perform it within the museum and elsewhere. And through the course of that research, I read the novel for the second time, but then I read it for my third, fourth, fifth onwards and upwards. Because the show was about 45 minutes long, I referenced, you know, the novel, the books, the popular culture, the science behind it. And the deep dive just never stopped. And so long after I was required to do the research and the show was done and up, I just kept reading. [00:04:00] And it gave me the opportunity to meet experts in this field and the peripheral field, as I would sort of travel with this show and be an ambassador for the museum and stuff like that. And, yeah, it still curls my toes. John: All right, so with that background. I'm going to just be honest right here and say, I've read Dracula once, I've read Frankenstein once. So that's where I'm coming from, and both a while ago. I remember Frankenstein was a little tougher to get through. Dracula had a bit more of an adventure feel to it, but something I don't think has really been captured particularly well in all the movies. But they both have lasted and lasted and lasted.Why do you think those books are still, those ideas are still as popular today? Dawn: I will say that I think Frankenstein, it depends on what you mean by the idea. Because on the surface, just the idea of bringing the dead to life, is, I mean, the Walking Dead franchise is right now one of the most popular franchises. I mean, I think we are really pivot on this idea. And I remember saying to a friend once that the part in [00:05:00]Revelation where the dead rise is like the only part of the Bible that I don't question. It's like, oh, the dead will get up. You know, we always just seem to be real sure that at some damned point, they're getting up. And so I think that that is part of why that it sticks in our brains. But then the story around Frankenstein—especially as it was written in 1818—has so many universal and timeless themes, like ambition and what is right and wrong. And the question that Jurassic Park posed in 1995 and continues to—1993 around there—and continues to pose, which is: just because science is capable of doing something, should it do something? And how do we define progress? Surely the very idea of being able to beat death and not die seems to be kind of the ultimate goal. And here is someone saying, okay, so let's just say, yeah. We beat death and everyone goes, oh shit, that'd be terrible. [00:06:00] You know? And then also, I always love the idea of the creature, the monster, Frankenstein's creature himself, who has a lot of characteristics with which people have identified throughout history. Some people say, for example, that Mary Shelley's whole purpose for writing Frankenstein was a question of: didn't God do this to us, make us these ugly creatures that are imperfect and bumbling around and horrifying? And then once he realized that we weren't perfect, he fled from us in fear or fled. He just keeps going and every generation has a new media that tells the story a little bit better, a little bit different, and yeah, there we are. John: I will say that for me, the most memorable part of the book was the section where the monster is the narrator and is learning. And I think with the exception of Kenneth Branagh's film, it it's something that isn't really touched on that much. There's a little bit in Bride of Frankenstein, of him going around and learning stuff. But the sort of moral questions that he [00:07:00] raises as he's learning—what it is to be human—are very interesting in the book. And I wish they were in more of the movies, but they're not. So, Brian on Dracula, again, we have dead coming to life. Why do we love that so much? Brian: Well, it's one of the questions that made me want to make a film about it myself: why has the vampire been so fascinating for hundreds of years? Why does it keep coming back? You know, it ebbs and flows in popularity, but it never leaves. And it keeps seeming to have Renaissance after Renaissance. Dracula specifically, I think one of the interesting things about that novel is how many different lenses you can look at it through and not be wrong.People have looked at it through the lens of, is this thing an imperialist story? Is it an anti-imperialist story? Is it a feminist story? Is it an anti-feminist story? And you can find support for any of those views reading Dracula. And I think that some of it might be accidental; there's times where Dracula is catching up to whatever the cultural zeitgeist [00:08:00] is right now. And we look at Dracula and we say, oh, he was thinking about this back then. Or maybe Bram Stoker was just very confused and he had a lot of different ideas. John: All right, let's explore that a little deeper. You each gave me an assignment of some movies to watch or to re-watch that you felt were worth talking about, in relation to your subject of Frankenstein or Dracula. I'm going to start with Frankenweenie, just because I had not seen it. And in going through it, I was reminded—of course, as one would be—of watching Frankenweenie, I was reminded of Love, Actually. Because I came to the realization after years of Love, Actually being around that it—Love, Actually—is not a romantic comedy. It is all romantic comedies, all put into one movie. And Frankenweenie is all horror films. Condensed, beautifully and cleverly into one very tasty souffle. [Frankenweenie Soundbite] John: I stopped at a certain point making note of the references to other horror films. Just because there are so many of them. But the idea that it references everything from Bride of Frankenstein to Gremlins. They do a rat transformation that's right out of American Werewolf in London. The fact that they have a science teacher played by Martin Landau doing the voice he did as Bela [00:10:00] Lugosi in Ed Wood. I mean, it's a really good story that they just layered and layered and layered and layered. What was it about that movie that so captivated you? Dawn: Well, so much of what you just said. And also it seems to me the epitome of the accessibility of the story of Frankenstein. The idea that if anyone can think of any moment in which if I could bring someone back to life. But what I love about it too, is that the novel Frankenstein that is not Victor Frankenstein's motivation. It generally tends to be the motivation of almost every character, including the Kenneth Branagh character--at some point, he, when Elizabeth dies, his wife dies for the second time, he says, yes, I'm going to try to bring her back. But it is so not the motivation of the scientist in the book. It is just ambition. He just wants to do something no one else has done. And lots of people die around him and he really never, ever says to himself at any point in the novel, I wish I could bring them back, I'm going to bring them back. That's never, that's never part of it. He just wants to be impressive. And so, I love [00:11:00] that it starts with that pure motivation of wanting to bring the dead to life; just wanting to bring your dog back, so that it's so accessible for everyone watching it. Who wouldn't wanna try this? But then, even in that scene with the teacher, when he shows the frog. And he's demonstrating that if you touch a dead frog with electricity, its legs shoot up, which give the kid the first idea of bringing his dog back. Which is like a deep cut in, in the sense that that's nothing -- Mary Shelley herself and her friends were watching experiments exactly like that before she wrote the book: galvanism and animal magnetism were these really popular public demonstrations happening in London and elsewhere where they would do just that. But because electricity itself was so new, I mean, it blew people's hair back you know, that these dead frogs were flopping around. It was the craziest thing. And a lot of them were thinking to themselves, surely it is only a matter of time before we can, we're gonna have our dead walking around all the time. So, it was so circulating and so forward. [00:12:00] So it's not just movie references and it's not just Frankenstein references. That movie really includes source deep source references for how Frankenstein came to be. And I just love it. John: Which brings me to Frankenstein, the 1931 version, in which Colin Clive has a similar point of view to what you were talking about from the book. He just wants, you know, he wants to be God. [Frankenstein soundbite] John: What I was most impressed with about that movie or a couple things was: it starts, it's like, boom. We're in it. First scene. There there's no preamble. There's no going to college. There's no talking about it, right? It's like, they're starting in the middle of act two. And I think a lot of what we think of when it comes to Frankenstein comes from that movie, [00:13:00] that the stuff that James Whale and his cinematographer came up with and the way they made things look, and that's sort of what people think of when they think of Frankenstein. Now, as you look back on that movie, what are your thoughts on the, what we'll call the original Frankenstein? Dawn: Yeah. Well, I love it. You'll find with me and Frankenstein that I'm not a purist. Like I love everything. Like I have no boundaries. I think this is great. One of the things that 1931 movie did was answer—because it had to, anytime you take a novel and make it a movie, you take a literary medium and make it a visual medium, there's obviously going to be things that you just have to interpret that the author left for you to make for yourself individual. And in this instance, that individual is the cinematographer. So, we're gonna get their take on this. And one of the real ambiguous things that Mary Shelley leaves for you in the novel is the spark of life. What is the spark of life? She does not in any [00:14:00]detail describe lightning or static or any of the recognizable or, or future developments of how electricity would've been. Brian: I was shocked when I first read that book and saw how little space was devoted to that, that lab scene. It's blink of an eye and it's over. Dawn: “I gathered the instruments of life around me that I may infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my.” Period. I just, what I love is what I love about film in general is that they went, oh, spark being all right, girl, it's a dark and stormy night and you know, and there's chains and there's bubblers and there's a thing. And the sky opens. I mean, God bless you, like way to just take that thought. Make it vivid, make it, build a set, make us believe it. And it's so, so pervasive that in Frankenweinie, you know, which of course is about Frankensein. [00:15:00] Like that is one that they do: he's got the white robe that ties in the back and the gloves. And in Young Frankenstein, it's the, you know, that lab scene. And so I love that. And the other thing that they had to do was describe the look of the creature, make the creature—Frankenstein's monster himself—look so like something. Because she, similarly in the novel, says that he is taller than a regular man, has dark hair and yellow watery eyes. That's all we know about what the Frankenstein looks like. And so, in 1931, Boris Karloff with the bolts. And it's black and white, remember, we don't think his skin is green. That he turned green at some point is kind of exciting, but of course he was just gray, but just dead flesh, you know, rotten, dead walking flesh is what's frightening. And, I just thought that the movie did that so well, John: I think the makeup was kind of a green/gray, and that when color photos came out of it, that's why someone went, oh, [00:16:00] it's green, but it wasn't green. Brian: I thought I saw a museum piece of, you know, an actual makeup bit that Jack Pierce did and I thought it was greenish. Dawn: Yeah. Greenish/gray. I think, yeah, the rots, just kind of trying to capture the sort of rotten flesh. Brian: It's just like the bride's hair was red. Dawn: That's right. That's right. My day job here in Los Angeles is as a street improviser at Universal Studios, Hollywood. And two of their most treasured characters of course are Frankenstein and Dracula. So, while most people might separate them, John, they are usually arm and arm where I work every day. And the bride has recently come back to the theme park as a walking character, and they gave her red hair. We don't mess around. John: That's excellent. But you mentioned Dracula, let's jump into the 1931 Dracula. There's a connection point between the two that I want to mention, which is the amazing Dwight Frye, who is Fritz, I believe in Frankenstein. And I'm not the first one to mention his naturalistic [00:17:00] acting kind of putting him above everybody else in that movie. Famously, when he's running up the stairs, stopping to pull his socks up at one point. He's just really, really good in that. And then you see him in Dracula as the, essentially the Harker character. I think he was called Harker -- Brian: Yeah. Well, he's Renfield in Dracula. They merged those two characters. I thought it was a smart move for a first attempt at the film. Yeah. And Dwight Frye, he's in a lot of other Universal horrors, too. Dwight Frye often doesn't get the credit. He somehow was not the leading man he should have been. John: I don't know why that is. He turns up again as an assistant in Bride of Frankenstein. He's a towns person in Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. And then he tragically died on a bus ride to an auto parts job that he took because he wasn't getting any acting work, which was too bad. A really, really good actor. Brian: There is another intersection besides the fact that they were both produced by Junior. Lugosi was put into the [00:18:00] short, the trial film they shot for Frankenstein. I can't call it a short film, because it was never intended for release. But they shot a cinematic test reel and they had Lugosi play the monster, but he was under a sheet the whole time. I think he may have been able to pull the sheet off. It's a lost film. We don't know for sure. We just have kind of the recollections of a few crew people. John: I've never heard of that. I would love to see that. Brian: I would too. I think a lot of people would really love to see it, but it was as much a kind of a testing ground for Lugosi— whether they wanted him to be the monster—as it was for some of the techniques, the things they wanted to try in the film. And what I understand is the producer saw the test reel and they said, yes, we love this look, this is the look we want you to give us. And then it's whatever version of Lugosi not getting that part you want to believe: whether Lugosi turned it down or the producers didn't like him or something. But he ended up not taking that part. John: But he is of course always known as Dracula. So, what are your thoughts on their adaptation? Which [00:19:00]again is not the first adaptation but is the kind of first official? Brian: Yeah. The first to bear the name Dracula, although, well, I'll back up a second. Because some releases of Nosferatu called it Dracula. He would be named as Dracula in the subtitles, you know, because that's an easy thing to do in silent film, you can just swap that out however you want to. But yes, it's the first authorized official film adaptation. John: Well, let's back up to Nosferatu, just for a second. Am I wrong in remembering that the Bram Stoker estate—Mrs. Stoker—sued Nosferatu and asked that all prints be destroyed? And they were except one print remained somewhere? Brian: Close. That is the popular story that she sued Prana Films. She won the lawsuit. All films were set to be destroyed. Now there's a guy named Locke Heiss and a few others who've been doing some research on this. And they will tell you that there's no proof that a single print was ever destroyed. It's a more fun story to say that, you know, this one was snuck away and now we have the film. But there was no real enforcement mechanism for having all the theaters [00:20:00]destroy the film. Who was going to go around and check and see if they actually destroyed this film or not? Nobody, right? So maybe some people destroyed it. Maybe Prana Films destroyed their remaining copies. But the exhibitors kept all of theirs and there's different versions and different cuts that have been found. So, we know that some of these reels went out in different formats or with different subtitles or even different edits. And some of them have made their way back to us. John: There's some really iconic striking imagery in that movie. That haunts me still. Brian: What I always tell people is see the film with a good live accompaniment, because that still makes it hold up as a scary film. If you see a good orchestra playing something really intense when Orlok comes through that door. It feels scary. You can feel yourself being teleported back to 1922 and being one of those audience people seeing that and being struck by it. John: What do you think it would be like to have [00:21:00] seen that or Dawn to have seen the original Frankenstein? I can't really imagine, given all that we've seen in our lives. If you put yourself back into 1931, and Boris Karloff walks backwards into the lab. I would just love to know what that felt like the first time. Dawn: You know, what is so great is I was fortunate enough to know Earl Bakkan who saw the movie in the theater in Columbia Heights, Minnesota when he was 10 years old.And he went, he had to sneak in. People would run outta this, out of the theater, screaming. I mean, when they would do the close up of Frankenstein's Monster's face, you know, women would faint. And of course that was publicized and much circulated, but it was also true. People were freaking out. And for Earl Bakkan—this young kid—the fear was overwhelming, as you said. And also in this theater, I was lucky enough, I did my show in that theater for Earl and his friends on his 81st birthday. So, I got to hear a [00:22:00] lot of these stories. And they played the organ in the front of the curtain. Brian: Is this the Heights theater? Dawn: Yes, the Heights. Brian: Oh, that's an amazing space. Dawn: So, they played the organ in there and it was like, oh my God. And it was so overwhelming. So, I'm glad you asked that question because I was really fortunate to have a moment to be able to sort of immerse myself in that question: What would it have been like to be in this theater? And it was moving and it was scary, man. And yeah, to your point, Brian, the music and the score. I mean, it was overwhelming. Also, I think there's something that we still benefit from today, which is when people tell you going in this might be way too much for you, this might scare you to death. So just be super, super careful. And your heart's already, you know… John: And it does have that warning right at the beginning. Dawn: Yeah. Versus now when people sit you down, they're like, I'm not gonna be scared by this black and white movie from 1931. And then you find yourself shuffling out of the bathroom at top speed in the middle of the night. And you're like, well, look at that. It got me. Brian: That reminds me, there [00:23:00] was a deleted scene from the 1931 Dracula that was a holdover from the stage play. Van Helsing comes out and he breaks the fourth wall and he speaks directly to the audience. And he says something to the effect of—I'm very much paraphrasing—about how we hope you haven't been too frightened by what you've seen tonight, but just remember these things are real. And then black out. And they cut that because they were afraid that they were really going to freak out their audience. Dawn: It's like a war of the world's thing, man. It's oh, that's so great. I love that. [Dracula Soundbite] John: So, Brian, what is your assessment of the 1931 version? As a movie itself and as an adaptation of Stoker's work? Brian: The things they had to do to try to adapt it to film, which they borrowed a lot of that from the stage play. They used the stage play as their guide point, and I think they made the best choices they could have been expected to make. You know, there's a lot of things that get lost and that's unfortunate, but I think they did a decent job. I don't find the 1931 version scary. I like Bela Lugosi. I think he's a great Dracula. I think he set the standard. With the possible [00:25:00]exception of the scene where the brides are stalking Harker slash Renfield, I don't think the imagery is particularly frightening. The Spanish version, I think does a little bit better job. And you know the story with the Spanish version and the English version? Dawn: We actually talk about it on the back lot tour of Universal Studios. Because they shot on the same sets in some cases. Brian: Yeah. My understanding is that Dracula shot during the day, Spanish Dracula would shoot at night. So, they got to benefit maybe a little bit by seeing, okay, how is this gonna be shot? How did Todd Browning do it? Okay. We're gonna do it a little bit differently. It's a little bit of a cheat to say they move the camera. They do move the camera a lot more in the Spanish version, but the performances are a little bit different. I'm going to, I can't get her name out. The actress who plays the ingenue in the Spanish Dracula, I'm not going to try it, but you can see her kind of getting more and more crazed as time goes on and her head is more infected by Dracula. You see these push-ins that you don't see in the English version. There's blocking [00:26:00] that's different. I put together a short course where I was just talking about how they blocked the staircases scene. The welcome to my house, the walking through spider web. And how it's blocked very differently in the two versions. And what does that say? What are these two directors communicating differently to us? In one, Harker slash Renfield is next to Dracula. In one, he's trailing behind him. In one, we cut away from the spider web before he goes through. And in the other one, we see him wrestle with it. That's not really what you asked, John. Sorry, I got off on a tear there. John: I agree with you on all points on the differences between the two films. Although I do think that all the Transylvania stuff in the English version is terrific: With the coach and the brides. The Spanish version, the biggest problem I have is that their Dracula looks ridiculous. Brian: He's not Bela Lugosi. You're right. John: He looks like Steve Carell doing Dracula and there is no moment, literally no moment [00:27:00] where he is scary, whereas Lugosi is able to pull that off. Brian: There's a lot of people who have observed that the Spanish Dracula would be a superior film were it not for Bela Lugosi being such an amazing Dracula in the English version. John: He really, really nailed it. Brian: And since he learned his lines phonetically, he could have done the Spanish Dracula. Just write it out for him phonetically, because he didn't speak English very well. John: If we could just go back, you know, cause a lot of things in history we could change, but if we could just be at that meeting and go, Hey, why not have Bela do it? Okay. So then let's jump ahead, still in Dracula form, to Horror of Dracula. From 1958. With Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. [Soundbite from Horror of Dracula] Brian: For some people, Lee is the ultimate Dracula, and I think that's a generational thing. I think he's great. He's got the stage presence and I love Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. I don't like the film as a whole. It feels like I'm watching a play with a camera set back. It doesn't work for me the way it works for other people. That is personal taste. Don't come after me. John: It does, however, have one of the greatest, ‘Hey, we're gonna kill Dracula' scenes ever, with Peter Cushing running down the table and jumping up and pulling down the drapes and the sun. Brian: Oh, right. Interesting. Because in Dracula, the book, the sun is not deadly, remotely really. But that's [00:29:00]the influence of Nosferatu being pasted onto the Dracula cannon, that the sunlight is deadly to Dracula. Dawn: I remember having this fight very enthusiastically in the nineties when Bram Stoker's/Winona Ryder's Dracula came out and I was already sort of a literary nerd. And they were like, hey, they have a scene with him walking around during the day. And I was like, yeah, nerds. That's right. That's cuz vampires can walk around during the day.I was very already, like, you don't know anything, go back to history. Brian: And there's a seventies version where he's out on a cloudy day, but he is not hurt either. There suggestions in the book that he's more powerful at night. Dawn: He's a creature of the night. I always understood he had to wear sunglasses. He was sort of like a wolf. Like they show him as a wolf during the day; it can happen, but it's not great. Brian: I like the way they did it in the Gary Oldman version. He's suited up. He's got the sunglasses on. There's not a whole lot of skin exposed. But he's not [00:30:00] going to turn into smoke. John: Well, okay. Let's talk about that version and Kenneth Branagh's version of Frankenstein. Dawn: Ug. John: I'm not going to spoil anything here, when I say it doesn't sound like Dawn cared it. Dawn: You open this, you opened this can of worms. John, sit down for a second. Listen. He calls it: Mary Shelly's fucking Frankenstein. I inserted the fucking. I'm sorry, I wasn't supposed to say that. He calls it. He calls it. How dare you, Kenneth, Brannagh, call this Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. So that was A-number one. But I went into it all excited: It's Kenneth Brannagh. Love him. He calls it Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and he starts with the ship captain out at sea, just like the book. And so I pull up my little, you know, security blanket and I'm like, oh, Kenneth Brannagh, do this to me, buddy. Do it to me buddy. Show me Mary Shelley Frankenstein as a movie. [00:31:00] And then he just fucks it up, John. And he doesn't actually do that at all. It's a total lie. He screws up every monologue. He makes up motivations and then heightens them. And it's dad. The acting is capital B, capital A, capital D across the board. Everybody sucks in this movie. It looks bad. The direction is bad, and it has nothing to do. He tries to bring Elizabeth back to life. This is a huge departure from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Brannagh, that's all I have to say for now. John: All right, I was fooled by the fact that he started at, at the north pole. Dawn: That's because he's tricking us, John. That's because it's the whole movie is a lie. John: Okay with that same mindset, what do we think of Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola? Dawn: I love that one. Brian: I'm afraid that I don't have, I can't match Dawn's intensity in either respect. Um, except I thought Robert DeNiro [00:32:00] was really good in Frankenstein. Dawn: But that's no, he's not. you're wrong. Your opinion is valid and wrong. Yeah, I'm kidding for listeners who don't know me. I am, I am kidding. Of course. Everybody's opinion is valid except for that one. Yeah. The movie, everything about that movie is bad. John: He is, I think, miscast. Dawn: And Helen Bonan Carter is one of the finest actresses of not just our generation, but of all time. And she sucks in this movie. John: Right. So. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Brian: Bram Stoker's Dracula. [Soundbite: Bram Stoker's Dracula] Brian: Also produced by Branagh. And I assume that is the connection, why they both start with the author's name. I always call it Coppola's Dracula because it gets too confusing to make that distinction. I thought it was a decent movie, but it didn't feel like Dracula. It felt like someone who had heard of Dracula and wrote a good script based on what they had heard. So many divergences that bothered me, although I think it's aged better than it felt the first time. I remember seeing it when it first came out in the nineties and not thinking much of it. And I think audiences agreed with me and it seems like it's been kinder, that audiences have been kinder to it as it's gotten older. John: Okay. Dawn, you love it. Dawn: I loved it. I loved it. It, you know what though? That was one of [00:34:00] those movies that unlike, unlike Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I can't look at with like an adult critical eye because I, what year did it come out? Was it like 90, 92? I'm like middle school getting into high school and like Winona Ryder was everything. Vampires are everything. I mean, Gary Oldman is the, is a great actor and it's so sexy, very sexy. The sex is Primo. And so I remember loving it, very moving. I don't remember comparing it as certainly not as viciously to the novel because I read Dracula after I had seen the movie. And so there's always that inherent casting where Nina is always going to be Winona Ryder. But I do remember really loving the Gothic convention of the letter and that the movie did seem to utilize and to great effect how letter writing can build suspense and give us different perspectives in a, in a unique cinematic way. Brian: [00:35:00] The two or three biggest stakes that film puts in the ground are not to be found in the book. So there's no love story in the book. There's no Vlad in the book. John: Can I interject there? Isn't that basically, didn't they just rip that off of Dark Shadows, The idea of my long lost love is reincarnated in this woman. I must connect with her. Brian: That is a good question, John. I'm glad you asked that because I call it the doppelganger love interest. Right? We first see that, the first time I know of it happening, I'm sure there's an earlier precedent, is in The Mummy, but then Dark Shadows does it. But that's not where Stoker, I mean, that's not where Coppola and a screenwriter claimed to have gotten the idea. They claimed to have gotten it from Dan Curtis's Dracula in 74. John: Dan Curtis, who produced Dark Shadows, with Barnabas Collins, falling in love with his reincarnated love. Brian: But Dan Curtis's Dracula comes out two years after Blacula. That has a reincarnated love interest. John: Not only does the Blaclua [00:36:00] have a reincarnated love interest, but if I'm remembering movie correctly at the end, when she says I don't want to go with you. He goes, okay. And he's ready to go home. It's like, sorry to bother you. Brian: No, uh, in Blacula, he commits suicide John: Oh, that's it? Yeah. He walks out into the sun. Brian: He goes home in a different way. John: Yes. He's one of my favorite Draculas, the very stately William Marshall. Brian: Yeah, absolutely. That is a favorite of mine. John: Anyway, you were saying stakes in the ground from Coppola's Dracula. Brian: Well, the, the love story, the equating Dracula with Vlad the Impaler. And I felt like they did Lucy really bad in that movie. They had her turn into a wanton harlot, which is not in keeping with the book. Some things are okay, but they really said these are the building blocks of our story and that bugged me. But Anthony Hopkins I liked, so, all right. Dawn: Alright, but see, this [00:37:00] the itch that still that still makes me wanna scratch though: why say Bram Stoker's Dracula? Why say Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? I mean, because I think you heard the venom, obviously. If they took Mary Shelley's name off that thing, you can make Frankenweenie. And I will love, like, I love Frankenweenie. Do your Frankenstein homage all day, all the time. But when you call, when you say it's Bram Stoker's, I think that this is what has been frustrating historians like me and getting high school students Ds in English class ever since. Because it just creates the false perception that you've basically read the book. Right. Or that you, if you know the thing you know the book and it's just a cheap ploy. And I don't like it. Brian: I think, somebody correct me on this, that there, there had been a plan to do a reboot of the Universal monster franchise, and these two movies were supposed to be the reboot of it. [00:38:00] And then they would've then done HG Wells' Invisible Man. John: The Mummy killed it. They've tried to reboot it several times. And that was the first attempt. Brian: Yeah, I've heard that called the dark universe. They were trying to do their own MCU. Dawn: Yeah. Well, at Universal Studios, there is of course in, in LA, in general, there's the property wars, you know? What what's, who has what? And sometimes those get really blurred. Like why does Universal Studios have Harry Potter? When we can see Warner Brothers from the top of our wall/ And that's obviously, you know, those things happen. But when it comes to like the IP or intellectual property, those original monsters are so valuable and they always are at Halloween. And then it's like, sort of, how can we capitalize on this? And yeah. And it's cross generational. Brian: All they really own right now is the look right? They own Jack Pierce's makeup job from Frankenstein. Dawn: But I think that that's exactly the point; [00:39:00] the delusion of what is it that you own if you own, you know, Frankenstein, whatever. But yes, there was definitely an interest to sort of revamp all of the original Universal Monsters they call them and it's the Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Invisible Man. John: It's everybody who shows up in Mad Monster Party. Dawn: Exactly. [Soundbite: Mad Monster Party] Dawn: But yeah, The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, was a tremendous flop. And I think that sort of took the wind out of everybody's sails. John: Let me ask you this, Dawn. If Mel Brooks had titled his movie, Mary Shelley's Young Frankenstein, instead of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, would you have a problem with that? Dawn: Yeah, no, but no, I would not have had a problem, because that would've been irony and juxtaposition. Not just a straight lie. John: So that brings us to some comedies. Young Frankenstein and Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, which I was very surprised and a little unnerved to [00:40:00] realize a few years back, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein was made a mere 10 years before I was born. And I had always assumed it was way back then. And it's like, no, it wasn't all that way back then. It was pretty, pretty recently. Brian: That happened to me when I realized that Woodstock was only six years before my birth. And it always seemed like ancient history. John: Is that the common thing, Madame Historian? That people kind of forget how recent things were? Dawn: Oh yeah. Remember Roe V. Wade. Sorry, too soon. Brian: We're recording this on that day. Dawn: Yeah, absolutely. I think that it happens to everybody so much faster than you think it's going to. I remember looking around in the nineties feeling, well, surely the seventies was ancient history, you know, because they had That Seventies Show, which debuted as like a period piece. I am still very young and hip and happening and [00:41:00] they are in production for That Nineties Show right now. And I said to my husband, That Nineties Show. I was like, Jesus, I guess that's 20 years because I was in the nineties they did That Seventies Show. And he goes, no baby that's 30 years. And I was like, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry, what? He goes, the nineties was 30 years ago. And I just had to sit down and put my bunion corrector back on because these feet are killing me. John: All right. Well, let's just talk about these two comedies and then there's a couple other things I wanna quickly hit on. What are our thoughts on, let's start with Young Frankenstein? [Soundbite: Young Frankenstein] Dawn: I told you I'm not an idealist and we're not a purist about Frankenstein, but I am an enthusiast. So that is why I told you to watch Kenneth Branagh's movie, even though I hate it so much. And that is also why I love Young Frankenstein, because I think that it is often what brings people into the story. For many, many people, it introduces them to the creature. They may know literally nothing about Frankenstein except for Young Frankenstein. And that's actually fine with me because I'm a comedian myself. And I believe that parody is high honor. And often when you parody and satirize something, especially when you do it well, it's because you went to the heart of it. Because you got right in there into the nuggets and the creases of it. And there is something about Young [00:43:00] Frankenstein as ridiculous as it is that has some of that wildness and the hilarity and The Putting on the Ritz. I did find out from my Universal Studios movie history stuff, that that scene was very nearly cut out. Mel Brooks did not like it. And he just didn't like that they were doing it. And of course it's the one, I feel like I'm not the only one who still has to make sure that my beverage is not only out of my esophagus, but like aside, when they start doing it. [Soundbite: Young Frankenstein] Brian: And I understand they were about to throw away the sets from the 1931 Frankenstein when Mel Brooks or his production designer came up and said, Stop stop. We want to use these and they were able to get the original sets or at least the set pieces. John: I believe what it [00:44:00] was, was they got Kenneth Strickfaden's original machines. Ken Strickfaden created all that stuff for the 1931 version and had been used on and off, you know, through all the Frankenstein films. And it was all sitting in his garage and the production designer, Dale Hennessy went out to look at it because they were thinking they had to recreate it. And he said, I think it still works. And they plugged them in and they all still worked. Brian: Oh, wow. Dawn: Oh man. It's alive. John: Those are the original machines. Dawn: I didn't know that. That's fantastic. John: At the time when I was a young kid, I was one of the few kids in my neighborhood who knew the name Kenneth Strickfaden, which opened doors for me. Let me tell you when people find out, oh, you know of the guy who designed and built all those? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I know all that. One of my favorite stories from Young Frankenstein is when they sold the script. I forget which studio had said yes. And as they were walking out of the meeting, Mel Brooks turned back and said, oh, by the way, it's gonna be in black and white, and kept going. And they followed him down the hall and said, no, it can't be in black and white. And he said, no, it's not gonna work unless it's in [00:45:00] black and white. And they said, well, we're not gonna do it. And they had a deal, they were ready to go. And he said, no, it's gonna stay black and white. And he called up Alan Ladd Jr. that night, who was a friend of his, and said, they won't do it. And he said, I'll do it. And so it ended up going, I think, to Fox, who was more than happy to, to spend the money on that. And even though Mel didn't like Putting on the Ritz, it's weird, because he has almost always had musical numbers in his films. Virtually every movie he's done, he's either written a song for it, or there's a song in it. So, it's weird to me. I've heard Gene Wilder on YouTube talk about no, no, he didn't want that scene at all, which is so odd because it seems so-- Brian: I never thought about that, but you're right. I'm going in my head through all the Mel Brooks films I can remember. And there is at least a short musical interlude in all of them that I can think of. John: But let's talk then about what's considered one of the best mixes of horror and comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein [00:46:00] [Soundbite: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein] Brian: As with comedies of that age, it, it starts off slow, but then it starts to get very funny as time goes on. And all the comedy is because of Abbot and Costello. They are the, [00:47:00] the chemistry they have on screen. I don't know how much of that was actually scripted and how much of it was just how they rolled with each other. But it works really well. Not much of the comedy is provided by the monsters or the supporting cast or even there's maybe a cute, a few sight gags. But wouldn't you say most of the comedy is just the dynamics between them? John: It is. The scary stuff is scary and it's balanced beautifully at the end where they're being chased through the castle. The monsters stayed pretty focused on being monsters and Abbot and Costello's reactions are what's funny. Dawn: If I may, as someone who has already admitted I haven't seen much of the movie, it's feels to me like it may be something like Shaun of the Dead, in the sense that you get genuinely scared if zombie movies scare, then you'll have that same adrenaline rush and the monsters stay scary. They don't have to get silly. Or be a part of the comedy for your two very opposing one's skinny, one's fat, you know, and the way that their friendship is both aligning and [00:48:00]coinciding is the humor. Brian: I believe there is one brief shot in there where you get to see Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman all in the same shot. And I think that might be the only time that ever happens in the Universal Franchise. During the lab scene, does that sound right John? John: I think you really only have Dracula and the Wolfman. I'll have to look it up because the monster is over on another table-- Brian: Isn't he underneath the blanket? John: Nope, that's Lou Costello, because it's his brain that they want. And so they're fighting over that table. And then just a little, I have nothing but stupid fun facts. There's a point in it, in that scene where the monster gets off the table and picks up someone and throws them through a window. And Glenn Strange, who was playing the monster at that point -- and who is one of my favorite portrayers of the monster, oddly enough -- had broken his ankle, I believe. And so Lon, Chaney, Jr. put the makeup on and did that one stunt for him, cuz he was there. Brian: He did that as Frankenstein's monster? John: Yes. Frankenstein. Brian: I didn't know that. Yes, I [00:49:00] did not know that. So he plays both of those roles in that movie? John: Yes. Let me just take a moment to defend Glenn Strange, who played the monster three times: House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In House of Frankenstein, he is following up the film before that, which was Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, in which, in this very convoluted universe, Lugosi is playing the monster, even though he didn't wanna do it in 31. Because his brain in Ghost of Frankenstein had been put into the Monster's body. So, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, it is Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster. It is Lon Chaney Jr., who had played the monster in Ghost of Frankenstein, now back to playing Larry Talbot. So, it is Wolfman versus Frankenstein. And the premise of the script was he's got Ygor's brain and it's not connecting properly. He's gone blind. They shot that. They had tons of dialogue between the two characters of Larry Talbot pre-wolfman, and the monster, Bela Lugosi. And the executives thought it sounded silly. So they went in and they cut [00:50:00] out all of Lugosi's dialogue out of the movie. So now you have a blind monster stumbling around with his arms in front of him, but he doesn't talk. And if you look at the movie, you can see where he's supposed to be talking and they cut away quickly. And it's really convoluted. Glenn Strange who then has to play the monster next, looks at that and goes well, all right, I guess I'm still blind. I guess I'm still stumbling around with my arms in front of him. Which is the image most people have of the Frankenstein monster, which was never done by Boris in his three turns as the monster. So with, in that regard, I just think Glenn Strange did a great job of picking up what had come before him and making it work moving forward. Anyway, a couple other ones I wanna just hit on very quickly. Brian asked me to watch Dracula in Istanbul. Under the circumstances, a fairly straightforward retelling of the Dracula story. I would recommend it--it is on YouTube--for a couple of reasons. One, I believe it's the first time that Dracula has actual canine teeth. Brian: Yes. John: Which is important. But the other is there's the scene where he's talking to Harker about, I want [00:51:00] you to write three letters. And I want you to post date the letters. It's so convoluted, because he goes into explaining how the Turkish post office system works in such a way that the letters aren't gonna get there. It's just this long scene of explaining why he needs to write these three letters, and poor Harker's doing his best to keep up with that. That was the only reason I recommend it. Brian: That movie is based on a book called Kazıklı Voyvoda, which means The Warrior Prince and it was written in, I wanna say the 1920s or thirties, I wanna say thirties. It's the first book to equate Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, which I've come back to a couple times now, but that's significant because it was a Turkish book and the Turks got that right away. They immediately saw the name Dracula like, oh, we know who we're talking about. We're talking about that a-hole. It was not until the seventies, both the [00:52:00] fifties and the seventies, that Western critics and scholars started to equate the two. And then later when other scholars said, no, there, there's not really a connection there, but it's a fun story. And it's part of cannon now, so we can all play around with it. John: But that wasn't what Bram Stoker was thinking of? Is that what you're saying? Brian: No. No, he, he wasn't, he wasn't making Dracula into Vlad the Impaler. He got the name from Vlad the Impaler surely, but not the deeds. He wasn't supposed to be Vlad the Impaler brought back to life. John: All right. I'm going to ask you both to do one final thing and then we'll wrap it up for today. Although I could talk to you about monsters all day long, and the fact that I'd forgotten Dawn, that you were back on the Universal lot makes this even more perfect. If listeners are going to watch one Dracula movie and one Frankenstein movie, what do you recommend? Dawn, you go first. Dawn: They're only watching one, then it's gotta be the 1931 Frankenstein, with Boris. Karloff, of course. I think it has captured [00:53:00] the story of Frankenstein that keeps one toe sort of beautifully over the novel and the kind of original source material that I am so in love with, but also keeps the other foot firmly in a great film tradition. It is genuinely spooky and it holds so much of the imagery of any of the subsequent movies that you're only watching one, so that's the one you get. But if you do watch any more, you've got this fantastic foundation for what is this story and who is this creature? John: Got it. And Brian, for Dracula? Brian: I was tossing around in my head here, whether to recommend Nosferatu or the 1931 Dracula. And I think I'm going to have to agree with Dawn and say the 1931 for both of them, because it would help a viewer who was new to the monsters, understand where we got the archetypes we have. Now, why, when you type an emoji into your phone for Vampire, you get someone with a tuxedo in the slick back hair or, I think, is there a Frankenstein emoji? Dawn: There is, and he's green with bolts in his neck. [00:54:00] Brian: Yeah, it would. It will help you understand why we have that image permanently implanted in our heads, even though maybe that's not the source material. We now understand the origins of it. Dawn: And if I may too, there's, there's something about having the lore as founded in these movies is necessary, frankly, to almost understand what happens later. I mean, I get very frustrated in 2022, if there is a movie about vampires that takes any time at all to explain to me what a vampire is, unless you're breaking the rules of the vampire. For example, you know, like in Twilight the vampire sparkles, like a diamond when it's out in the sunshine and is the hottest thing ever. That's really great to know. I didn't know that about vampires. That wasn't necessarily true before, you know, but you don't need to take a lot of time. In fact, when you do read Dracula, one of the things for me that I found very frustrating was the suspense of what is it with this guy? They were like: He said we couldn't bring [00:55:00] garlic and they take all this time. And you're kind of as a modern reader being like, cuz he is a fucking vampire. Move on. Like we know this, we got this one. It's shorthand Brian: That's one snide thing I could say about the book is that there are times where Dracula's powers seem to be whatever his powers need to be to make this next scene creepy and move on to the next chapter. John: He was making it up as he went along. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, Mark and the founders of Sensei Enterprises discuss cybersecurity options and support for solo and small law firms. Somebody's got to take care of you and that's just what they do. Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I am Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I am back from a trip into the home office in Missoula, and back in the satellite office here in Florida, and have with me two folks that I've just had the joy and pleasure of getting to know over the years, and the privilege to work with a few times over the years at various ABA events, and it's just been a lot of fun. MARK: Please help me in welcoming Sharon Nelson and John Simek. Sharon and John are President and Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, which is really the heart of the topic we're going to talk about today. Before we jump into some of the questions and things I'd like us to visit about Sharon and John, may I have each of you take a couple of minutes and share whatever you'd like to share about yourselves? What would help our listeners get to know you a bit better? SHARON NELSON: I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to John. What we do at Sensei Enterprise is managed information technology, managed cybersecurity services, and digital forensics. We have three branches, and that means we're running a fire station without a Dalmatian here, so there's always emergencies. It gets very difficult to keep all the balls in the air. We are also married with six children and 10 grandchildren. We're together all day and all night too. MARK: I love it. JOHN SIMEK: You didn't tell [inaudible 00:01:53], you're a lawyer though. SHARON: Oh well. JOHN: Do they care? SHARON: Maybe. John is the veteran technologist and I am the lawyer, and that's why we decided to work together when we started the company some 25 years ago, more than that now, just a little bit. John was the talent and I was the lawyer/marketer who could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, so that worked out really well for us both. JOHN: I'm not a lawyer, as you can probably tell. I'm an engineer by degree, and been involved in technology informally even before the internet. I remember that presidential candidate that was trying to create [inaudible 00:02:40]. Whatever, but back in the days of the modems and all that stuff. But I have a lot of technical certifications, formal training as well. I guess a lot of people think that I should be wearing a pocket protector and have a propeller head. But yeah, as Sharon said, I do the technology stuff, testifying expert as well, because of the forensics and all that. I just got done with a deposition a couple weeks ago that was really entertaining, at least to me, but not for the other attorney. SHARON: That's how it's always supposed to turn out. I forgot to say Mark, that I was the President of the Virginia State Bar a few years ago. That was [inaudible 00:03:25]. JOHN: That's how we ended up in Montana one year. SHARON: Yeah, that's how we ended up coming to see you folks out in Montana. MARK: Indeed. That's right. That was a good time. SHARON: It was a wonderful time. JOHN: I did go fishing when we were out there. MARK: There we go. Boy, there's no place better. You want to talk about some quiet country time on the river with a fly? A lot of fun. One of the things that I've never really visited with you guys about, I'm genuinely very interested. Sharon, you've talked, years ago, you've been a lawyer for quite some time. How did you make this jump? Was that always the plan to go into this Sensei Enterprise type business, the alternative practice, a non-traditional track if you will? How did this all come about? SHARON: Life is full of accidents. As I was a young [inaudible 00:04:22]. JOHN: We're experts at that. SHARON: Oh yeah. When my first child was born, her condition required me to stay home through several surgeries and several years. She's fine, but I ended up working from home as a lawyer. And then, later on after I had been a lawyer and been seriously involved in the Bar Association, I had this very nice man who taught technology to anyone at colleges, and he was helping me computerize my law practice back in the '80s. I was pretty wired up for a solo. But then, he got relocated because of his job, and I said, "What am I going to do without you?" And he said, "Well, I've got this friend down the street, and he's really brilliant, but he's a pain in the butt." And he said, "But I'll set up a lunch, and if you can stand him, then he could do a better job even than me." SHARON: I met him for lunch, I could stand him, and so, we started out with him helping me with my law practice technology. Ultimately, he had always wanted his own company, and he just looked at me one day and said, "You know, I could be the talent of a company, and you're a lawyer, and you can sell anybody anything, so why don't we hook up and form a company?" And that's how we got started. MARK: Wow. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Oh my. Can you tell me a little bit about the types of services? You can a little highlight or overview, but can we dig in a little bit in terms of the types of services that you offer? I'm also interested, how would you describe your typical client? I know that you do a lot of work I think with businesses that are not just... You're not limiting your services in other words to law firms. Is what you have to offer, would it be useful, beneficial to solo small firm lawyers around the country? SHARON: We actually are devoted to solo small firm lawyers, not that they are an exclusive client roster. We have a client that has over a thousand people. JOHN: Not a legal entity. SHARON: No, not a legal entity. But in any event, we do all sizes. But we have a special feeling in our hearts for the needs of the solo small, because most companies are not interested in them. They don't really want them, because they can't get much of a profit out of them. JOHN: They might have some minimum. Unless you've got 10 bodies or more, they're not interested to even talk to you. SHARON: And so, somebody has got to take care of these people, so we really specialize in finding cost-effective things that they can use to do what they need to do. That's been something that we've been celebrated for, is that we do take care of solo and smalls along with the bigger firms. It's been a mix, Mark, and I really feel strongly about that because I was a solo myself, and I know how hard it was to get competent help and to get things that you could afford. And now that cybersecurity is so important, it's really critical that the solo and small firms have people to guide them in a way that's budget-friendly, because this stuff can be really expensive. MARK: Yeah, I'm well aware. What types of services can you help? If I'm just a solo stuck here in Florida, or Montana, or Iowa, what can you do for me? JOHN: Basically, we do an assessment, an initial assessment, come in there to see what you've got going, and is it appropriate? Should we forklift some things? Are you in the Cloud even? Because today, it's so much more affordable and flexible to be in the Cloud. SHARON: And secure, more secure. JOHN: Maybe you should be considering that. We do have some clients that are remote, up in Massachusetts as well as down the coast, and we can do a lot of things remotely. Sometimes though, you do have to have boots on the ground, and some folks might have a local person if they need hands-on to something. But generally no, we can get equipment, we can figure it, we can ship it, do all that. But essentially, get you in a position where you're a heck of a lot more secure with your technology. SHARON: And you're getting good recommendations from us about what [inaudible 00:09:08]. JOHN: Stability, backup. SHARON: Practice management systems, document management. We can help them work with the companies who have appropriate pricing for solo and small. That's really our niche, is to be able to do that for those people. The solo and smalls are really neglected. JOHN: But it really is a unique thing though, because there's not a template. You can't go to the green drawer and pull out a system for a solo. SHARON: No. I mean, they all have different needs. JOHN: They've got different needs, different things that are important to them, different types of practice, their workflows are different. We really do try to, as Sharon said, customize and make sure that they do have a cost-effective solution. The other advantage I think we have is that we know a lot about the law, and a lot about what lawyers' responsibilities are, and what their- SHARON: And what's ethical. And what's ethical has changed, Mark. In today's world, you have to take reasonable measures to protect client data and confidential data. These days, we have gotten to the point where one reasonable measure is having two-factor authentication, because it's almost always free. It comes with Office 365, which so many solo smalls use. You just have to turn it on. That's where of course the problem comes. JOHN: That's got to be really hard. SHARON: It's the convenience factor, though. They want to get right in. They don't want to have to get a text on their phone, or push a button on their phone. JOHN: Type a code. SHARON: Type a code, and whatever it is. There's all kinds of two-factor authentication obviously, and you have to help them get past the I don't want the extra step to, I have to have the extra step, because ethics demands this of me, because multifactor authentication stops almost 100% of credential-based account attacks. You don't get us that much better than that. JOHN: Especially not when it's free. SHARON: Yes, especially when it's free to do. You just have to put up with one little annoying thing that you have to do. JOHN: You can trust devices too, so it's not every time. You don't have to do this 30 days, or whatever it is, whatever the period of time is. A lot of folks I don't think realize that. They think when they hear this, they go, "No, I'm not going to do this every darn time I connect." You don't have to. SHARON: You said, tell a story. Here's a story. We've been able to successfully convince most of our law firm clients that they must ethically do this. There were several who protested, and they dragged their feet, and they dragged their feet, and then one of them got hit by ransomware. That's what happens when you don't take some advice. First thing they said was, "Okay, we got hit. We were attacked. I guess you were right about that 2FA thing, so could you come back and fix that for us now?" MARK: Hard lesson learned, but boy is it a good lesson once they understand it. I'm hearing you can do lots of advising and guidance on terms of how to become secure, taking into consideration regulations we're subject to, the ethical rules, et cetera. I just had somebody call me up yesterday about, they were talking about some other things, and a side question came out. It's a solo setting up her own firm, and she's interested, are there services and people out there that can help monitor the systems to give you a heads up? Her question was, how do I know if I'm breached? Can you help them answer that, or help them deal with that risk? SHARON: You have today an ethical obligation to monitor for a breach. That's pretty much been established. Now that you know you have to monitor, that's one reason why we are a managed service provider, because we have all sorts of alarms, and alerts, and we check things like backups to make sure everything is going the way it should. JOHN: There's a lot of automation. SHARON: There's a lot of automation. The thing is, when something goes wrong, we'll get a notice, so the lawyer is protected by having the managed services and the alerts that will go to their provider. That way, they know right away, they can usually fix it right away, or if the power is out or something like that, they have to wait until power comes back obviously. But that's why you want someone watching over all of this for you, because the average lawyer has no idea what any of these alerts mean. These things go off, and they're clueless. You want that in the hands of a professional, and it's not very expensive to get it. And so, this idea of endpoint detection and response, this is another thing that we would say is reasonably required in order for you to monitor for those breaches. JOHN: It's not just monitoring, it's also- SHARON: React. JOHN: Yeah, it reacts to it. Artificial intelligence is a part of what the tool uses, in conjunction with human beings in a security operation center. If you get a ransomware attack as an example, or there's some rogue process that comes and starts and the system sees that, wait a minute, this is outside of baseline operation, and it can even automatically take the device off the wire, off the network. But they have, at least the solutions that we're implementing for our clients, it has a rollback capability. If it's got a problem, and you say, "Shoot, you know what? Let's go back to 30 minutes ago," and put your system back into a state before this happened, and we've got that ability. SHARON: It's really kind of magic to lawyers. As much as we try to explain it, and John did in fairly simple terms, they really don't get it. They just get that the magic works. MARK: Right. That's okay. They don't need to get it. If they have somebody like you behind the scenes taking care of it, they just need to make sure these kinds of things are in play or in place. May I also assume that if I have, I do stupid on my laptop, and I get hit with something that we talk about ransomware as a classic example, are you also offering services to help me address and deal with these kinds of breaches? SHARON: Absolutely. That's what you do. JOHN: I do want to point out though Mark, all the technology and things that we do do, you cannot fix a human being. MARK: Right. Oh boy. SHARON: Who clicks on a phishing email or a phishing text? JOHN: Sharon talked about a story. We had a story from... What's today? Thursday. I think it was either Friday, or it was no longer than a week ago. We've got all these things in place, the software, [inaudible 00:16:33], whatever, and yet we've got a lawyer that gets this message, and then he actually initiates a phone call- SHARON: To the bad guys. JOHN: To the bad guys, and then is carrying on this conversation, and under his own ID, he's opening up his machine to this caller, and I'm going, "I can't stop that." SHARON: They finally asked him to enter some bank information- JOHN: And he got suspicious. SHARON: Then he finally got suspicious and severed the connection. JOHN: He called us and we said, "Whoa, hold on." SHARON: But that kind of thing happens a whole lot. People do stupid stuff, and of course now everybody is on their phone a lot, and so the phishing via text has become a big deal. They call that smishing. People will fall for that. They'll get something that says, "You just made a purchase for $500, and if you didn't make this purchase, you've got to do this, or call there." JOHN: Click here or whatever. SHARON: Whatever. Don't click. Don't call. People are not thinking. MARK: I'm hearing we have full service, which I'm not surprised, but I just want to underscore all of this. John, you raised a very, very good point. I'm often writing and lecturing about some similar things. Regardless of what IT does, we still have to deal with the reality of the human factor. You can't patch that. You can't. We have to do some training here. Is that something you guys do as well? Are there any training resources available for solo small firms? SHARON: The best training resource I know of is somebody who is not in your own company, in your own law firm. It's somebody from the outside who carries a bigger bat and has a reputation. That's why we started out long ago doing cybersecurity awareness training for law firm employees, and we do it remotely, which of course people have gotten used to that now. We have a PowerPoint, and we talk through the PowerPoint. We only charge $500 for an hour. Trust me, they can't absorb more than one hour, because this stuff is complicated, and they have to pay attention. An hour is about right. You might want to do it more than once a year. You might want to do it twice a year. At $500, most law firms can afford that, even the solos and the small firms, because it's a whole firm price. We're there for an hour, and we answer questions as we go along, but we can show them the phishing emails and all the stuff. We talk about social engineering, and all the stupid stuff they do, like sharing and reusing passwords. JOHN: The latest attacks. SHARON: The latest attacks. We [inaudible 00:19:30] the latest information. Nonetheless, people forget. The stat that's most interesting to me, Mark, is that over 80% of successful attacks involve a human in some way or another. MARK: Right. Good stuff. One of the reasons I really was excited about visiting with the two of you again, is to try to find or create awareness about resources that are out there, because there are so many places where there is, if you will, nothing locally. When you talk about this preventative educational piece, just as an example, at $500 a pop, I sit here and say, as a risk guy, two or three times a year? That's chump change, and absolutely essential to do in my mind, when I compare the potential loss of time, worry, money, data, all kinds of things, if somebody just does something stupid and clicks on the wrong thing, and we get hit with ransomware, and it's all gone, locked up. JOHN: I think the other requirements you're going to have Mark too though, and what we're seeing a lot of, is that the cyberinsurance carriers are now in their renewals and in their applications, they want to know, are you getting training for your employees? SHARON: That's one of the questions, and they don't want to hear no, or they might charge you more, or they might offer you less coverage. We've seen it all. Cyberinsurance is driving the solo and small firms crazy. MARK: Here's one as a side comment following up on that, please folks, if you're filling out these applications, don't lie. If you say you're doing something, and a policy is issued based on those representations, it's just the same as malpractice insurance or anything else. If it turns out you aren't having these trainings and you don't do these other things that you say you are doing or have in place, that's going to jeopardize coverage. Just a little side note there, be very careful and honest about answering this. I don't want to keep you too much longer, and I really, really appreciate you taking some time today. Could we close maybe with some thoughts about what are the top two or three things that you think lawyers in this space need to be concerned about, focused on perhaps, and/or a tip or two to address these kinds of things? Just a quick wrap. SHARON: Are you talking about cybersecurity in particular, Mark? MARK: Yes. JOHN: I think Sharon has talked about the things that certainly are really high on my list, and that's the multifactor authentication, the EDR systems, endpoint detection response. SHARON: And an incident response plan, which only 36% of attorneys have an incident response plan, and it is so critical, because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That's an old chestnut of a line, but it's really true. You have got to have a plan, and you probably need somebody to consult with you a little bit, because there's no absolute template out there that fits everybody. You can start with one, but you really need to have somebody who knows what they're doing help you out with developing a plan. It's not all that hard, it's just that people don't do it. And then, if they do do it, then they leave it to molder, and of course nothing stays the same in this world, especially cybersecurity. In a year, if you haven't looked at it and done anything with it, some portion of it is probably quite obsolete. JOHN: But I think the critical foundation for that whole thing, before you even get down to saying, how am I going to respond, what does my IRP look like, is inventorying your assets and your data. If you don't know you have it, you can't protect it. MARK: That is an excellent point. Yes. That's absolutely an excellent point. I appreciate your time here. Before we wrap it up, I do want to give you a moment to share. If any of our listeners have a need and desire to reach out to you to discuss the kinds of things that you can help them out with, how can they get a hold of you guys? SHARON: Our phone number is 703-359-0700, and our website is senseient.com, or of course you could search Sensei Enterprises. We have all different kinds of folks in the office, and we'll funnel you to the right people. Very happy to do that, and always happy to have a no-cost consult if people have some questions they'd like to ask. We do a lot of that at the beginning, and then it turns out that they do in fact have a need, which is harmonious for us both. But if it doesn't work out, at least we've tried to help. And so, we would encourage that, Mark. I hope that's helpful. MARK: Yes, it is very much so. To those of you listening, I hope you found something of value out of today's podcast. My intent again today, I just am trying to find solutions. I get so many calls of, who do I turn to? This is a rough space at times, and lawyers just feel left out and unsure who to reach to. I assure you, these two and the business they have, these are good folk, and it's a great business. I would not hesitate reaching out at any time. John, Sharon, thank you very much for joining me today. John, good fishing, and hope you guys take care of those grandkids and kids. Boy, that's a busy, crazy life, but I'm sure it's exciting. That's just awesome. I'll let you get back to it, guys. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye, all. SHARON: Thank you very much. JOHN: Bye-bye. MARK: Bye-bye.

“Doubting Thomas: But doing a risk tolerance for someone is hard, yes? John: Not at all. Doubting Thomas: How so? John: Cause I can name that tune in only two questions.” Credits: These podcasts are productions of Little Red Hen Industries. Learn about financial education & personal financial management in this episode with John Brandy on the Simple Success podcast. Learn more about Simple Success with John Brandy using our all-in-one access link here Visit the Simple Success with John Brandy website today! We have websites for both podcasts & there's a Listen Notes site for even more personal ideas. Send us a video, audio or text message, but of course you'll have to head to the show notes to get links. Simple Success Web: https://www.simplesuccesswithjohnbrandy.com/ A Choice Voice Web: https://www.achoicevoice.com/ iOS Simple Success: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-success-with-john-brandy/id1549566678 Droid Simple Success: https://podcasts.google.com/search/simple%20success%20with%20john%20brandy iOS A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-choice-voice-with-john-brandy/id1560026051 Droid A Choice Voice: https://podcasts.google.com/search/a%20choice%20voice%20with%20john%20brandy Support: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/support Voice Msgs: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message https://anchor.fm/achoicevoice/message ListenNotes (Podcast Playlists & Stuff): https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/john-brandys-podcast-playlist-GxK2g7uwZDU/podcasts/ AI Voices & Other Stuff @ Online Tone Generator & @ Amazon Polly Finally, you can find us on Podmatch, where we consider guests & guesting on other pods. Podmatch Host https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true Podmatch Guest https://podmatch.com/guestdetailpreview/1611285111512x890580376127176400?return=true And really finally, our music and sound effects come from freesound.org --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/simplesuccess/support

Welcome to July 13th, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate almost everyone's favorite veggie and their rightful place in history.  Fries are pretty much everyone's favorite vegetable, but depending on where you live they may be called something else. The recipe for French fried potatoes first appeared in an English cookbook in 1856, but some believe the name became popular during World War I. When American soldiers discovered the fried potatoes served in French speaking Belgium, the nickname took hold. Legend has it that potatoes were first fried in Belgium in 1690 during a particularly cold winter. When the river froze and people couldn't get to their supply of fish they cooked up potato slivers instead. And today no one would argue with making fries a meal. On National French Fry Day serve them with chili or cheese, ketchup or mayo or dare to go bare with some crave worthy seasoned fries. Anna: I can't stand the suspense. Marlo are you moving Fry Day to Friday, should we even be celebrating fries today?! John, what's the count on that petition? John: Not sure, but enough people have done their civic duty and voted so now it's truly up to Marlo. Anna: There's still time to visit frydaytoFriday.com to sign up and get a coupon for free fries. They're not closing it out till later today. Anna: How does this not make sense to you Marlo? Think of all the happy, hard working people who will be celebrating for years to come with another reason to say TGI Fryday! This is a historical moment. I hope you do the right thing. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is being brought to you by Forecast located in Homewood Alabama. Forecast is a hair salon on a mission to shape a movement in the beauty industry focusing on education, fashion and creativity. Forecast strives to train stylists with the latest in education to provide their guests with the latest trends. Follow them on instagram @forecastsalon or find them online at https://www.forecastsalon.com/ Energetically…. tuning into your Spirit can help you bring this magic forward.  Know what your seeds of intention are!  Set your focus yet remain open to the signs around you.  Be grounded yet flexible so that you can tap into the imaginal realm.  Anything is possible!  Radiant your light! Knowing  your energy … your truth … your voice.. your Spirit is so valuable at this time. And that's where the RITES come in to help you move through all this stuff! Rites being Reiki.. intuition.. tarot.. eft and stones and crystals. Energy Focus for the Week – live on Sunday nights on Instagram and FB. We talk about what's going on, we align our energy, set intentions  for the week and I  pull the Tarot cards for guidance. Join us or catch the replay! As we move through these comic transitions, now is the time to clean up your energy with an energy clearing session.  Schedule one now... in person or online. When you work with the energy body, it helps to release the old patterns and all that old stuff… especially from winter.  Empowered Spirit Private Mentoring Program. Schedule a Spiritual Upgrade Breakthrough call with me and let's talk about how my programs can help you. My guest, John T. Long is the Author of the #1 New Release in Substance Abuse Category: The Book of John (Not the One in the Bible)  Author of The Rainbow-A Journey to Unconditional Love He is a licensed practicing attorney, counselor, and personal life coach who has helped thousands of people.  He was born in Birmingham, Alabama and has a B.A. from the University of Alabama.  At thirty-five, while working full time as a claims adjuster, he decided to go to law school at night and graduated from Jones School of Law in Montgomery.  He is twice widowed and has two boys and two grandchildren.  FB. Books Instagram Books   In this episode we talk about: Following that path that really isn't yours Addiction Kept going and going and going … until one day… Recovery - People don't not really understand addiction No power The Self Finding a higher power and trusting that higher power 12 steps Continued process of meditation and prayer and how it help. Spirituality helps you to go within and tap into your own innate wisdom.  Must experience  it and do it. Can't just talk about it. Allowing a higher power… something greater than yourself.. doesn't matter what you call it to guide you. Let go and allow. Dark Night of the Soul - in order to surrender - come out stronger - connecting to higher self. God is like a mirror broken into a 1000 pieces… we are all part of it. Soul family Soul contracts Come in with a contract beings in a 3d body Souls here to learn Profound experience to understand unconditional love What it takes to be fully awake. Spirit guides Learned by experience and trust Purpose to learn unconditional love and spread it to the world. Finding the lesson underneath. Enlightenment. Revelations Beyond the survival rate of recovery - soaring It's all energy Material stuff fades away Finding the ability to be with one's self How are you going to love others if you can't love yourself first? You are worthy Born in sin - get over it You are a Great spiritual being Training will help you to gain your power.. you won't be giving it away. Be who you really are… an unconditional Spirit.    Period. Connect with something greater than you.. source.. creator ... the light...God … however you choose to understand this. Go within. Don't be afraid to feel the darkness… the light will shine again. Trust. With the intention of unconditional love, everything is possible. There are many recovery centers around.  Find one that does help you to go within so that you can reclaim your Spirit to help you on your path. Reach out to John for his books. And if you need help setting up your spiritual practice,  reach out to me.  I can help you to do that. Schedule a Spiritual Upgrade Breakthrough call with me and let's get your started tapping into your inner guidance. If you liked this episode, please be sure to share this podcast with someone else that might need to hear this message right now.  And leave me a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to schedule a Spiritual Upgrade Breakthrough call with me. My Reiki schedule has been posted starting with a one day (in person) self care Reiki Day of Bliss! Thanks again for listening. To your Spirit, Terri PS…..Get the Energy Mastery App Follow Terri on Instagram Find her on LinkedIn Episode Credits: Sound Engineer: Laarni Andreshttps://www.facebook.com/laarni.andres.7

INTRODUCTION: About John Follis / "LEAVING GOD” John Follis is the award-winning writer/director of the documentary "LEAVING GOD” (2017).  Winner of a Hollywood International Documentary Film award the film explores a major cultural shift happening in America -- a shift away from religion and God. Paralleling this trend it also shares John's fascinating personal story. Described as “Compelling” by the BBC, "LEAVING GOD” has been seen by over 36,000 people from 98 countries via Vimeo, YouTube, and TopDocumentaryFilms.com.     Before becoming a filmmaker John was an award-winning Madison Ave ad man who actually helped sell God. His 16-year ad campaign for New York's Marble Church received national attention via The New York Times, USAToday and TIME magazine. That story is included in the film.    INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      A Documentary About People Leaving God·      Preachers Coming Out!!!·      Separation Of Church and State·      Radical Republicans·      The Ways Churches Hurt People·      Why Religious Persecution of People Is Wrong·      The Differences Between God And The Church·      Tribalism Defined·      The Importance Of Obtaining Discernment·      Catholic Shade  CONNECT WITH JOHN: Website & Film: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/leaving-god/YouTube: https://bit.ly/3IvRjH0Facebook:   https://bit.ly/357oAuAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfollis/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnFollisLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfollis/  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook:   https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonEmail: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello? Hello. Hello. Are you beautiful people out there in the world? I am so fucking happy and excited to have you with me again. One more week today, I'm talking with a man by the name of John Follas. His man is an award winning creative director, writer, and filmmaker. Now he didn't made a documentary called leaving God.And in this film, he's talking about the ways church has hurt people in this mass Exodus of people away from Christianity and religion. [00:01:00] It's not very often. Did I hear people's story about the ways that, that they were hurt by the church? Like how I was? So this was a particularly close to home.So in this show, we're going to talk about preaches coming out and we're not talking about coming out gay honey. They coming out another way and talking about why religious persecution of people is wrong and the differences between God and the church. Take a listen, baby. Hello, John. Hey, Davanon Mr. John. Fallas welcome to the sex drugs in Jesus podcast. How are you today? I am John: awesome. Awesome. Thanks for having me on your show. De'Vannon: Thank you for stopping by and thank you for creating the film you have. Today we're gonna be talking a lot about it and the things that are in it.The title of it is leaving God. And it's a free video's out there for all to see through your YouTube channel and [00:02:00] different things like that. I'll let you tell people exactly how to find it and everything. I was impressed with how, how personal you got in the documentary because usually whenever I watch a documentary.The, the emphasis it's like the lenses turn on whatever the subject matter is, or, or whoever the, the documentary is about. But you you, I think you tow the line well in between covering the subject matter and, and talking a lot about yourself and a lot about your personal life. And that transparency is something that I, I find to be like gold.I really, really love a good transparent person. And and so I appreciate that, that willingness to, to expose yourself like that, because, you know, that's what really connects people to the story. Right. Exactly. So tell us in your own words then about this film and why on earth would you make such a.[00:03:00]John: Well, I made it because it talks about one of the most major cultural shifts currently happening in America right now, which is more and more people leaving the church, leaving religion and leaving God. So that's why I made it. I thought that's a very, I I'm, I pay attention to pop culture. I, I, I paying a attention to what's half happening in society and because my personal story was part of that cultural shift that's happening in America.It definitely related to me on a personal level, as you just mentioned in the introduction. So I mean, this is something that I had been, I, I, you know, like you, I'm interested in the big themes of life, sex money not so much drugs. Jesus, God health. You know, all those, the big themes in life are the ones I wanted to know as much [00:04:00] as possible about because the more you know about these big themes, I think the more, the better happier life you will have, you know, the more things you can figure out.Right? So I've always been intrigued by the of God. And once I was old enough to begin thinking for myself, when I'd say probably high school and college, I started pursuing my curiosity about God and trying to learn as much about who God is and how I can, you know, if he, or she, or whatever it is, is really that powerful and can be so helpful in my life.I wanted to really, you know, see what it's about. So I could work it to my benefit. Right? So this documentary really part of it talks about what I just mentioned, but the, the main catalyst was again, [00:05:00] paying attention to current events and just continuing to see more articles about churches closing and more and more people walking away from the church and religion.And I think the tipping point Devana and for me was when I started doing some research about ministers and priests who were coming out. Right. I mean, I can't think of anything more taboo than coming out as a nonbeliever. If you're a priest or a minister. Religious, you know, someone in the clergy, nothing.I can't think of anything more taboo than that. So when I did re because I, I wasn't sure that there were people like that, but I started doing some research in 2017 just to see if I could find any stories about that. And that led me to something called the clergy project, which was a project dedicated specifically [00:06:00] to people like this.People in the clergy who had changed their minds about God and religion. And didn't have a place to go to kind of talk about it, get support. So the clergy project was started, I think in 2012 or something like that, specifically as a place for these people to go, to get, get Presa ministers, clergy, people, to kind of talk about their feelings, cuz they were in a lot of pain, right.It's almost, you know, it's like being L G B T or transgender. Right. And not having a place to go and talk about that. Right. You know, if you're, if you're in a society that is not supportive of who you are as a person and what you think and how you believe you're gonna be living a very isolated life with a lot of pain and feeling afraid to talk about these things are a big part [00:07:00] of who you are and what you, how you think.So. The clergy project was really intriguing to me. And that to me, was the tipping point. The idea of these priest ministers coming out, I thought would make an interesting documentary. I didn't think my story was that unique because there's just so many people who grew up religious and through circumstances over time, change their perspective on that.There's nothing really that unique about that. But when you start talking about clergy members who spent their career as, as a priest or minister or something like that, and then suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly, but for whatever reason to they no longer believe, I thought that was a very subject that deserved to be looked at.And I thought that would at least be the start of my documentary, where it went from there. I wasn't totally sure, but that was the, that was the tipping point for me to say I've gotta try making something [00:08:00] about this, cuz this is just too interesting.De'Vannon: Hmm. Yeah. So in the, in the video and that is a very interesting point. It, it seemed like it, it, the, the part about the clergy coming out was kind of sprinkled through it. And I seemed like it got a little bit more gritty about it towards the end. And I do have a lot of questions that I want to ask about the clergy, but before I get on that, I want to kind of kinda lay a bit of framework here.So, and I wanna read like, Like a, a quote from this, or from, from about the from about the film that I thought was interesting and says that the, the fastest growing religion in the United States seems to be no religion at all. [00:09:00] A 2016 study conducted by the public religion research Institute found that a quarter of the subject survey claim, no religious affiliate and this surprising figure increased substantially among the younger generation.Now in the video, it was showing like I think it was graphs or charts about how, how, how, how younger people like at each generation less and less, less and less seemed to have any sort of religious affiliation at all. And I thought that this was so interesting because like, I'm about to be 40 this year.And my boyfriend's 25. And so. And so, so all his friends are like in between like maybe 21 and 25, you know, somewhere around in that range. And when it comes to the matters of religion and stuff like that, all of them that I know of so far are the same way. They're just kind of like, we don't do religion, you know, we just don't have that.You know, it's not what they [00:10:00] do and stuff like that. And I thought about, you know, as to why this could be, you know, you know, what example do they have to really go of, you know, look at what look at what has become of the church, you know, with the, with the preachers leaving and what, how crazy religion looks on television?You know, you got all your evangelicals and all the Republican nonsense mixed into it, you know, why do you think that that so many young people specifically like young people are not interested in religion? I think it's because of the bad example that, that they have had to look at, but what do you think.John: Don't know. I think, you know, it doesn't really matter what I think. I think it's just, you know, I, what concerns me a little bit is when I talk about this film to people and tell them the title of it, they think that I'm anti God and that this film is about my opinion [00:11:00] and my bias against God. And that's not what the film is about.I mean, you watched it. This is a documentary and I, I approached it like an investigative journalist and then talking about what's happening. Starting with these priest ministers who are now leaving the church and then talking about the statistics of the general population and then weaving my personal story into it for, you know, the second half of the film.So I mean, I'm glad to give you my opinion, but my opinion doesn't really matter. I want people to come to their own, you know, come to their own conclusions. I'm no expert, I'm no theolo, you know, theologian it doesn't, you know, why people are leaving. Everyone's got their own reasons. I just, you know, I, I think that it doesn't the, the, I would guess that the younger people are leaving more and more are leaving religion in church is because it doesn't serve them in a, in [00:12:00] a way that it serve their parents.I mean, I can just tell you from my experience, I mean, the reason. I grew up religious is because my parents this was part of their tradition. It was just a thing to do on Sunday. You went to church and if you didn't, it was a sin. So there was, you know, some, some some of that fear of God and extend there to keep you, you know, going to church on, on Sunday. One of the things I point out in the film Devana and is one of the, the, the, the reasons, many people especially people of a certain age, younger people under, under 40 has been the internet because they have more access to information. If they're, if they wanna get, get the facts on stuff, they can, they can research it.So there was an interesting graph that I showed. In the film that that the, the shift away from religion began B about 30 years ago in the early to mid nineties. And it has increased significantly [00:13:00]since then for, you know, up, up until about the, the early nineties, it was about five to 7% of people who consider themselves nonreligious. But since since that time it's gone up significantly every year. And even since I made the film in 2016, it's gone up about 5%. When I made the film, I was using a, a pew research statistic from 2016 that said it was about 24% or 25%. And just two months ago, they came out with an update on that.It's now closer to 30%. So there is a parallel between people walking away from church, religion, and God, and use of the internet. So that may be a contributing factor. De'Vannon: Right? Well, I appreciate your, your insight on that. I love the sharing of insights and opinions, you know, because it's thought provoking, it'll still get people thinking, you know, and it'll still lead them to their own, [00:14:00] to their own conclusions, but sometimes people need that little nudge.And so, so speaking more on the preachers who came out, you know, it's so interesting whenever I hear the term coming out and using a reference, that's not G B T Q I a. And so But it still, it still echoes the same vulnerability and risk of exposure and fear that can mean coming out. And so yeah, on the video, you've got these preachers going on, television preachers who had, you know, were, had, you know, pretty high up and everything like that.Now they're no longer in these religions anymore because of various reasons. You know, and then there, and one of em, I just should say one of 'em was from Louisiana. One of the guys that I profiled Jerry, I can't remember his last name, but you may recall if you watch it recently. Devana and at the end of the film, I, I took some, some a clip from a New York times [00:15:00] documentary that followed this guy around for a while.John: And He had a really hard time. I mean, it's, it's hard enough coming out anywhere as a nonbeliever, but when you're in the deep south in a small town, Louisiana, I don't have to tell you what that's like. And his wife left him his congregation, you know, naturally turned on him. He was outta work.He had to leave the state eight. He basically, he, he was like a man without a country. And I don't know what he's doing now, but he really paid the price for coming out as a nonbeliever, which is why it's so courageous, I think to do it's like, you know, now I just watched a clip on tick to talk. Talking about the the Russian propaganda machine and they showed a clip of a Russian female newscaster, just, you know, like a robotically reading the script from Putin about what's going on and right behind her, there was a, a, a woman holding [00:16:00] up a, a sign saying this is all bullshit. They're you're telling you lies, just went up.It went viral. So it takes a lot of courage. I guess I'm making a parallel sometimes to stand up for what you believe, you know, you're gonna pay the price. So I, I, I, I can't tell you how much admiration and respect I have for people who are willing to come out for what they believe when it's not popular.De'Vannon: Right. And I found the interesting that when these preachers came out, it's like they turned. Into into like atheists. It's like the, the, cause a lot of the quotes you have towards the end of the film are like kind of like, you know, atheistic in nature. So I can kind of see how some of the people you were saying in the beginning, how some people might see that you might feel like you're Antigo.I kind of was thinking that too, by the end of the film, like I wonder if he's Antigo, like, I don't know. I'm gonna ask him about that. So where exactly [00:17:00] at your point in your life, do you stand on God? And then I want to get back to, to this vibe that I was getting from the preachers in the film. Okay. So I'm not John: Antigo. And just the quotes that you're referring to were from people like mark Twain mm-hmm and George Washington and people like that who made comments. That were very quotable that basically shared their opinion about God or church mm-hmm . So again, this is nothing about this film, this opinion, those were quotes from these people.And I think there's a lot of people in America that have a belief that this that our forefathers wrote the constitution based on a Christian perspective. And some of the quotes, I some of the people that I quote are from the founding fathers [00:18:00] kind of contradict that, that theory. So, and again, you can look up, you can research everything that I have in the movie. Is you is, is true. And you, you could, you could research it yourself, but I just thought it would be interesting to just share the perspective of some, some famous people who had perspectives on what I just talked about in the film about God and religion mm-hmm and, and church. So yeah, so I, I'm not Antigo, I don't really care what people believe as long as it doesn't mess with my life.You know what I'm saying? As long as they don't tell me that I've gotta, you know, I think the problem start, the problem I start having with, with religion is when it gets political, I, I really, you know, talking about our forefathers, anyone knows, who knows anything about the constitution knows that there's, there's a division between church and state John Adams, when he [00:19:00] wrote and, and Thomas Jefferson, when they constructed.The declaration of independence in the constitution were very clear about that. They wanted to make sure that unlike things in England and other countries, they didn't didn't want politics and, and religion to to cross pollinate. They wanted to have a definite separation between church and religion.They didn't wanna have any ministers telling people to be involved with people's rights as human beings and, and the things that they put in the, in the, the constitution. So what's happening is that, especially in the, in the Republican party they have crossed that line many times. I mean, I think religion has become a big part for many politicians, especially in the Republican party and the constitution and the declaration of independence [00:20:00] is very clear about keeping that separate De'Vannon: too true, too true.I say that all the time, but you know, here we are. So what, what, what interested me the else about the preachers in your film? It's like they went from being all about God and in the church and whenever whatever happened, it caused them to be done with that. Like, one of them was preaching like. Like kind of like, you don't need Donna.There is no, like you don't need, there is no divine power out there. You already have all, all the power that you need within you. So it's, it was like he abandoned all concepts of God all together and then he switched gears. And so, and it reminded me of how I felt when I got kicked out of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas, you know, for not being straight.And, and I, and I took a very negative reaction to that. And then I stopped associating with God and I never got to a point where I was like, he doesn't exist, but I stopped going to [00:21:00] church and everything like that because of the hurt that I received there. And so, which was, which was an immature to, for me to do, I shouldn't have done that.I should have, you know, I taken a more positive approach to that. Got some counseling, went to a gay affirming church and not let what happened at Lakewood cause me to stop, you know, my faith all together. Are John: you or at Lakewood? Is that Joel Stein, right? Oh, wow. Okay. De'Vannon: So and so and so I have a blog about that on my website and I go into detail and in my memoir, but you know, I wasn't, you know, I'm not straight.And I was, you know, singing the adult choir. I was teaching the kids ministry worship leading in the kids ministry. And I applied for a job there. They went look up, looked up my social media on MySpace page as a part of their application process, cuz the, the 2, 2, 2 or three years that I've volunteered there four or five, you know, at least what 1, 2, 4 days a week at the church, wasn't enough to vouch for my, my work ethic.[00:22:00] They needed to go ask my space as well. And so while, while they were looking, they saw that I was hanging out in S which is the gay district in Houston. And I had a really RA photo on my cover. So because of that, they fired me from all the aspects of ministry and everything like that. And so. And so that's John: how they, so what did they, did they give you a reason for that to van on when they fired you?Did they tell you, why did they say, you know, we don't like gay people. De'Vannon: She said that you can't be doing that hanging out there with them. Ah John: so did you ask her to be more,go there with them. I love that. De'Vannon: so it was on me because I shouldn't have lied on the application. When I filled out the application, the volunteer in the kids ministry, they had on their straight up, like, we don't want gay people were being around our children [00:23:00] and you know, the mind that I have now, really, they actually John: had that.Yes, that was on in, in writing. In writing. Yes. And this is Joel Olsteen's church saying we don't want, hold on a second.We don't the, we don't want gay people hanging around our children, correct. With Joel Olstein church. Okay. De'Vannon: And so, okay, John: go ahead. I wonder what he, I wonder what he would say if he was interviewed about that and confronted with that on their application. I wonder how he would answer that you should get him on your show. Davanonhe would make a great kiss for you. De'Vannon: I don't know what I would ever say if I was face to face with him, but, you know, I don't know how good it would go. I need to, I need to mature my war before that day comes. So, but I thought, John: I thought they're [00:24:00] supposed to love everyone. De'Vannon: You know, churches are not like that.You know, they are, they have an agenda. Every church has an agenda. Tell me about it. And you know, but for all, and it's not just. And that sort of stuff happens at all kinds of churches. The Hillsong church in Australia, which are very good friends with Lakewood church have the same policy. And they're very bold about it.They're like no gay people can be on staff or volunteer here. They said it countless times. They don't give a fuck. So, and but you know, the mind that I have now, if I ever come across that on an application or something, then I know that that's simply not the organization for me to be at, but I had just got out of the military serving during don't ask don't tell.And so I was conditioned to function in an environment where I couldn't fully be myself. So I just thought it was another Don as don't tell situation. I've had some PE, some legal friends of mine tell me that it's not legal for a church to do that. I didn't even know that it even much gotten to the realm of illegality.You know, I just was like, well, [00:25:00] I wanna volunteer. I'm not trying to like, fuck any children or anything like that. So. That's, you know, and especially with the litany of paperwork, you know, they do like full background checks and every damn thing on new social security numbers, you know, and everything just to volunteer.It's not like, it's not like I'm gonna give them all of that information on me, how to find me and everything to go in there and commit a crime. It's like the dumbest thing John: did you van, and I'm curious is because I don't know if it's legal or not, but I would wonder about that. Did you ever do any research on that or speak to any legal authorities to find out if that's De'Vannon: true?No. And even because by the time I got done with all of my nervous breakdown and everything that that helped to contribute to we're talking a good10 years after, so whatever statute of limitations, I was sure it would've been pass that, but it would never hurt to look into cuz I didn't, I think the person who I was talking to said it gets into the realm of like discrimination or something like that. [00:26:00] And so, which made sense when they said it, but I was so.Fucked up in my head whenever they fired me from volunteering that I, that I couldn't, I couldn't even much, I didn't think I was just like, okay, well fuck them. And so, but, but the preacher in the film reminded me of that because when he was talking about how he doesn't really believe in God anymore, we don't.And you know, it sounded to me like he was coming from like a place of pain and it sounded like he was still hurting from that. And it really reminded me of how I was back then. And I wonder, you know, in the future, once he's healed, you know, if all of that, if he would still be like, you know, anti, he was very more like, like anti guy.And he was saying like, there's nothing Toine, you know? And so, so I, I, so I wanna encourage people, you know, Not to conflate church and God, you know, those are two separate things, religion, and [00:27:00] God are two separate things. And the confusion that I had when I got kicked outta Lakewood was I didn't separate the two.And so when the church rejected me, I took that as though God had rejected me and I allowed that to it cause a rift where there should not have been a rift, you know? And I feel like, well, they're John: pretty, you have to admit, they're pretty connected. religion and God. Right. De'Vannon: Well, when I say religion, I mean denominations like denominations churches, the physical manifestation of what God is supposed to be, they are connected.But at the same time, it's like, they're not, it's like when two people are married, they're connected and they do become one in many ways. But at the same time, they're very much still individuals and, and everything that a preacher says is not. The divine voice of God. And every decision at a church makes is not the divine will of God.And so we gotta learn how to put them together when they are together, but how to separate them when they need to be separated. [00:28:00] Cuz they're not always in tandem. John: So divine and I'm gonna make a suggestion to you. I, I it sounds like you're not ready to have, have Joel Olstein as a guest on your show, but here's someone that you might, you might be open to because while you were talking about refr referencing that, that minister in my film, I just remembered the guy's name.And he is, he is the guy from Louisiana. His name is Jerry Dewitt, D E w I T T. So if he's written a couple of books he's had a podcast. So if you pop him into Google I think he will find him. Jerry that's J Jerry with a J E R R Y D E w I T T. And you could, you could invite him on your show and ask him these questions yourself.He might, you know, since you're a Louisiana boy and, and he is too he might, he might be to be on your guest mm-hmm [00:29:00] and, you know, talk to a homeboy De'Vannon: I'll reach out. You never know what could be. It would be great. Yeah. To talk to someone who used to be in clergy who left. Yeah. You know, I'm coming from a, from a volunteer perspective, he's coming from a, from aler clergy's per perspective.That could be pretty kick ass. Yeah. So, John: so, so like I said, I don't, you know, I, I, I kind of, I get off on a tangent there, but you know, as far as my feelings about. Being against God. Again, I, I don't this is a free country. People are free to be who they are and believe in what they want to, as long as it doesn't mess with my life.And the only way someone's belief in a particular religion or God would mess with my life is it's that starts getting involved with politics. For example, if I was a woman and I believed in abortion and I had some [00:30:00] co you know, ultra conservative or evangelical Congress, people who were trying to overturn Roe versus the, the, he weighed, then I would probably have a problem with that.Do you know what I'm saying De'Vannon: as do I, and you know, the crazy thing about it is the whole concept of what God is. It's subjective. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion about that. How to interpret scripture as subjective. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion about that. You know, there's, there's precedent in the Bible about why it's not a good idea to try to establish laws against people based on your personal beliefs.And that is, that is the main takeaway that I get from the convert version story of SA, because what did Saul do before he became Paul? He was a big person in the San Hedron. The San Hedron was a part of the religious people who governed, you know, over there in the middle east. He went to them, got permission to go and [00:31:00] persecute people who were not living according to his opinion of how they should.That's exactly what it was. I believe in this. They're not living how I think they should. So I'm gonna go make them do it. That was his whole point of going to Damascus and Jesus knocks him off his horse, the blinding light, the whole story. We know how it goes. And Jesus is like, yo dude, cut this shit out.This is not how I want you to go about it. And that's exactly what Republicans are doing when they say, Hey, we think those people over there should live a different way. Let's go make some laws to force 'em it's the same thing. But when they read through the Bible, they're not reading about it on how to improve themselves.They're reading. If they read it at all, you know, is about how to change other people. And when I was in seminary, before I left seminary, one of the reasons I left seminary was cuz one of the professors was just like, yeah, we want to control people in churches. And he said this as, just as just like the sky is [00:32:00] blue.And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? so, and John: he actually said he wants to control people. Yes. He was at the law, profess least he was on, at least he was honest about De'Vannon: it. At least he was honest, but I was, but it wasn't just him, but all the classmates were nodding in agreement. Like they didn't have a problem with what this man was saying.And so he was like, and he was coming from a Baptist background if I recall correctly. And, and I was just like, no, we would not be controlling people. it's not what this is about. But, but the Republican culture and everything like that is so much about control, which I believe stems from insecurities and fear within people cuz confident, happy.People don't go about the business of trying to make life miserable for other people. , you know, it's just not what we do. We're too busy being happy. so, right, right. John: And so, well, they think they're on a mission. This is what, what the problem I have with religion and ultra religious people is because [00:33:00] they feel like they're on a mission from God and they're doing in God's will it's the same motive behind the, do you know, have you heard of the crusades?Do you know what the crusades were about? Are you to history? Yes. Okay. Do you know, do you know what the crusades De'Vannon: are about? Yeah. That's getting into the church, like prosecuting people and I think like heritage fix, you know, and maybe John: like the crusades, the crusades were A mission done. I think they were done in the, in the 10 or 11 hundreds that were initiated by a couple of popes during that time period where they felt that they were on a mission from God to convert the people who were not Christians and sent all their troops kind of, kind of like what Putin is doing to Ukraine. These guys did to the middle east, they got all their, their armies and their weapons, and they went on a mission from God, their, on their, on their [00:34:00] shirts, the van, their would be these big red crosses. They, they that's how they identified themselves. These big, giant red crosses. They were, they were so Christian soldiers and they got these huge forces and they marched into the middle east.And they just started slaughtering people because it was easy for them to do because when you, when you look at people who don't think the way you do or look the way you do, it's easy to minimize them. Right. And it's easier to to do bad stuff to them because you think that they're less right? They're, they're, Heins, they're nonbelievers, so it's an easy excuse to kill them.And, and that's what the, the crusades were about. They were doing. They totally believe they were on a mission from God. And in God's name, just murdered. Tens of thousands of people. I mean, look it up. It's pretty, pretty scary. De'Vannon: Yeah. I do have [00:35:00] that I wrote a blog about that and I have a, a link and they called it like, I think like the inquisition and I think they labeled people as like heretics and I think there was like a, that's John: a different that's that's, that's similar, but different.Okay. Similar that is different than the crusades. Okay. But same idea. You know, going after people that don't think a certain way, that's, that's the, the common thread between the two. De'Vannon: That makes sense. But, but John: I, you know, I'm making a parallel, you mentioned the Republicans and again, the parallel that they believe that many of them are evangelical.And if I, if I'm, if I'm Understand it correctly is that the whole idea is that you've gotta basically convert everyone to think the way you do evangelize. That's the whole premise of E even I can't even say evangelism to, to, you know, go out and witness and change [00:36:00] people and convert people. And to your minister's point, control people, you know, that's not uncommon that he was evangelical.You said, and that's what he said to you. And that that's what many evangelicals believe they might not be. So honest about it. You know, Joel may not admit that that's what he is looking to do. That you've gotta be a certain way. You've gotta look a certain way. You've gotta have a certain sexuality.You've gotta conform to their version of the Bible. And if you don't off with your head, That, De'Vannon: that mentality seemed to kind of like prevail because when they fired me, they let me know that I wasn't the first one, they were like, we do this all the time. , you know, you know, the, they did offer, you should have John: been wearing a wire.You should have been wearing a wire. So you had that on, on, on all De'Vannon: audio. Well, you know, this is back like. Gosh, [00:37:00] and maybe like 2008, 2009. So the concept of everything being recorded and being so available, I think we may have just been converting from flip phones and shit, you know, and pages, you know, technology.Wasn't like, you know, everything, wasn't like, Ooh, I got you on camera. You know? Yeah, no, no, I'm John: just I and De'Vannon: facetious. But I've thought about that before, like how great it would be if I, if I could, if I would've had that recorded, you know, and stuff like that. But I had no idea that that's what they would've done.Cause I thought maybe I was gonna actually be getting hired or something, but instead, instead I got fired. Well you, when you saw, when you watched my doc, I I had a somewhat similar situation where I received a letter from the church saying don't come to Bible study anymore. Remember that part in the film.Right. Right. Because you cause you, you y'all had an interesting thing going on where you had a singles ministry at this church now we're in New York city and it was like the marble something collegiate marble [00:38:00] collegiate church. And the singles group was twenties and thirties. You were in your forties and they had a real strict thing about that.So they would, as you say, in the film, tap people on the shoulder in a way and tell them, Hey, you're too old. So stop coming here. And John: so what was, well, it wasn't, it wasn't let me just interrupt you. It wasn't real strict. Because we're talking about as an experience in the film or part in the film.I talk about experience. I had, where I was kind of dragged into a Bible study. I really wasn't interested in going, but someone dragged me into this thing. It was after the, the Sunday sermon and there were probably 40 people in there and there were quite a few people in there that were over 40. I looked around and I was not the, I was maybe 45, 46 at the time. So I I was reluctant to go because I thought it was strict. I thought, you know, you get carted at the door to make sure you're, you're under 40, which you know, is kind of silly when you think of a church, both about how inclusive they are [00:39:00] to restrict a Bible study to people of a certain age. I don't really understand the logic behind that, but I certainly was not the only one who was over 40. And, and even though that's the reason that they gave me in the letter that I shouldn't continue going the real reason is I suspect something that was quite different that I mentioned in the film. De'Vannon: Right? Because you challenged the the preacher, he asked the question. And then your, he asked if anyone had any questions during this Bible study and your question was something like, what is truth?Oh, no, your question was, is it true? Correct. And then he was silent. He really couldn't say much. And then you said something to kind of help him out of the rabbit hole that, that he found him. And then he said something like, truth is objective or like, what is truth? Right. John: Which was a pretty lame answer.As far as I was concerned. well, churches do, but, but it [00:40:00] was, it was shortly thereafter that I received a letter saying we really value you as person and don't come to Bible study anymore. You're too old. De'Vannon: Right, but in the video, you know, and that sucks that that happened to you. But in the video you said that, that, that, that did happen to other people.And then you observed that those people not only stopped going to the group, but they stopped going to the church as well. And I, I, and I, and that's a very, I thought that was very interesting point because sometimes when I tell people say I got kicked out of lake, it, they go that they tell you, you can't come back.And then I have to make it clear. When you kick a person out of one, part of a church, you kick them out of the whole church because it makes it very fucking awkward. When you try to go back there, it feels weird. It feels, I don't even have a word for it. It feels alien. Suddenly you just don't, it feels like a whole different world.When someone's told you that you, [00:41:00] for being who you are being the age or who you choose to love how old you are or whatever physical characteristic you have or something that. You really can't help. We don't want you here. John: well, it makes you feel like you're not fully accepted, De'Vannon: right? So you don't have to say bitch, leave the whole church and don't come back.You know, just telling someone to get out of any part of it, because a church is, is not supposed to be like that. You can't like everyone come on in, the doors are open, but we only want certain, certain of you in certain portions of the church, you know, that just doesn't work that way. Well, what John: I, what I, what I've discovered dev van en sounds like you've discovered it as well, is what churches say and what they do are often very different things.De'Vannon: This is true. And a big part of my ministry, my calling, whatever you want to refer to it as is to get people to a point where [00:42:00] they can. See, what, what is real and what is fake and understand, like you say, in your video, that just because someone's a preacher doesn't mean that they are right, or that they're gonna be right all the time.They're just human. And and so, so we gotta take these preachers and pastors off of these pedestals, we gotta take these churches off of these pedestals. Now, you know, a word came up called, try that somebody in your film said, and I thought that that was very interesting. And he said that our tribal instincts can override our rational thought of a writer.One once upon a time said, no, man is an island. Okay. Because we have this innate sense to, to congregate. Be it gangs to be it in a church. Be it. And the military, you know, this, this, this there's this group, you know, we need each other. And so we are always gonna find some kind of way. When I got kicked outta church, I replaced the church group with the, with the nightlife.And then I began to dive deeper into like the clubs and stuff like that. And that's ultimately how I became a [00:43:00] drug dealer. And I didn't know it then, but we're gonna always and seek out communities some kind of way, because that's just how we're designed. And then in the case of, and then we let our need for community override our rational.So we'll stay at the church and listen to the preacher and try to be involved. Even though we've seen things that we know don't make sense, you know, and we rationalize it a way.Which ain't good. You know, if we see something and it doesn't make sense, then that should be addressed. If if the priest are abusing the altar boys or different people, we can't just sweep it under the rug and rationalize it away and go, oh, I'll just stay right. John: Well, it's almost like being in a bad marriage, right?You're you're in a marriage and you get used to it. I, and the longer you're in it, the more you're willing to accept bad behavior because you're kind of used to it. And you kind of you rationalize that while there's a lot of good [00:44:00] in it. Because it's hard to walk away. I mean, a church for many people and certainly was with me was a very big part of my life.Mm-hmm so it's easy to rationalize. Well, it's not perfect. And no church, what church is perfect. Right? And it's, you know, it's a very, and listen, I don't fault people for thinking that way to each his own, you know, they're right. Nothing is totally perfect. The church that I went to in New York, wasn't perfect.But the reason I stayed involved with it as long as I did is be because of tribalism, I, I looked forward to seeing my friends every Sunday. Sometimes I would just skip the sermon and I'd go straight to the coffee hour, just so I could hang out with my friends. That was very, very, a big, important part of my life in New York city that I valued.But once I got over were 40 and was not so welcome in the, in the singles group, they really didn't have a singles group for I'm trying to think. Oh yeah, they [00:45:00] did have a singles group for people. Over 40 and everyone was 70. So I remember Dick dip dipping my toe in there when I was like 42. And the next youngest person to me was like 63.So I did not feel like trying to ingratiate myself to a new group with people were you know, 10, 15, 20 years older than me, especially when I'd been just part of a group for the past 15 years of people, many, many people just, you know, a couple of years younger than me. So I didn't really, I, I didn't like the fact that they had a hard cutoff at 40, you know, I, I, I just thought that didn't make a whole lot of sense.Like, what are they trying to tell you that if you're not married by the time you're 40, you're a loser, you know, which is kind of what they were saying. At least that's a message. That's how I interpreted. De'Vannon: In, in other churches, Lakewood and other churches too. Have, [00:46:00] you know, the, the groups divided by ages, I think just either have a singles fucking group or don't have one regardless of the age, because a 20 year old, a 20 year old may be attracted to a 60 year old.You know, the very concept of that is trying to act like is trying to force people into a certain age range. That's very presumptuous. John: Yeah. And, you know, listen, it, it it really hurt a lot of people. I mean, I was just a little perturbed by it, but there are a lot of women very attractive, smart career women in New York city, right.Who spend most of their twenties and thirties focusing on their career, which is very much the case of the kind of women you meet in New York city. So, you know, here they are Approaching 40. Right. And now suddenly they're thinking, gee I, I, I do I wanna have a family? Do I wanna switch gears here? I'm still single. But at least church is a big part of my life. And then having a, being, having them [00:47:00] get tapped on the shoulder saying us, sorry, you're out of this group. I mean, that was a pretty big deal for a lot of those women who were really, really hurt by the fact that they were no longer welcome.Welcome in this single group is hard enough for anyone to turn 40. You're gonna be turning 40, but especially at think in our society for women. I don't think, you know, our society is rarely friendly to women that you know, of a certain age, older women. So that's a pretty big birthday for many women.And on top of dealing with that on an emotional, psychological level to have your church saying sorry we, you really can't come to this group anymore group that they may have been a part of for 5, 10, 15 years, where all their friends were to get, you know, tapped outta that group. That makes no sense to me, especially coming from a church that on their website says how inclusive [00:48:00] they are and welcoming they are to everyone.De'Vannon: Yeah. And then it just, its a certain type of.That I just, it just can't be described because you think about the money that you've given to the church and the time you spent volunteering and stuff like that, it does feel like a marriage or some sort of relationship and to be dismissed from it, for any for, and unless you've done something bad against the church and like stolen their money or actually done something, then maybe they could say something, but they still shouldn't dismiss you.It feels like a bad breakup. And John: for me it means bad. It's bad business. I have to say, you know, from a business perspective, listen, every, every church is paying attention to their finances. Right? So the last thing you want to do is do something that's going to Get people to leave your church, especially when you're in your early forties, [00:49:00] in New York city, you're in your prime earning years.And this is what I mentioned in the film. Why would you wanna do something that upsets someone enough that they're gonna walk away from, from the church and stop giving their charitable contributions? I mean, the church, their lifeblood are, is charitable contributions. So, you know, loosen up a little bit with your, with your rules on Bible studies.You know, I mean, gimme a freaking break here and stop scaring people away or not scaring people away, but push people away with a stupid rule. Like, you know, an age thing. It just, it just made no sense to me. And when I brought that to the attention of the minister minister, who I knew was interested.In keeping people coming to the church because he hired me to do an ad campaign to attract more people. So I knew he was very concerned about attracting and keeping people to, to [00:50:00] the church. I didn't understand why he just kind of dismissed the fact that that people were leaving the church because they felt as you said, you kick 'em outta one group.They're not gonna feel welcome. If that's the main connection to the church, there's a good chance that they're gonna stop coming to that church. If they can't continue going to that group where all their friends are,De'Vannon: these are decisions that people make when they're not accustomed to being rejected or being told they can't come places.So, you know, people. You would hope to not to get that same sort of behavior from people who are, have been the victim of discrimination and all kinds of prejudice throughout life, but people who have always been accepted will never get why, why, why do they, why, why did they just leave? You know, we only kicked them outta one part.We don't see what the big is. That's right. That's right. So right. But you know, when I think about preachers like that, I hope and pray that they [00:51:00] didn't start out with cold hearts. You know, you know, my, my spiritual leader told me that, you know, a preacher is either gonna be really, really strong or really, really weak.And that, that, that there's no in between. And so it, to me, like maybe these preachers start out with the best of intentions, but in the process of time, as the congregation grows, as the money grows, you know, or something like that, maybe their, maybe their motives get corrupt, but, and they don't even realize that it's happening, cuz it happens so gradually. You know, maybe it is all at once, but there's not much we can do about that, but I want church people and people who still look up the preachers and listen at what they say to become, to have a greater level of scrutiny that they, than what they have now to actually judge what the preachers saying and not just accept that it's fact.And if some foolishness shows up, then the whole, their priest you're accountable, they don't get to get away with things and, you know, and, you know, and, and things matter like that. [00:52:00] Right. You a quote that you had in here, which stuck out in my nogging a concerning your, your marriage, you know, you, you know, you, your divorced man, and you talk about that.In the film. You said, if I had to pick a moment, when my attitude about God began to sour, this would be it you're talking about a woman that you had met in church. I think it may have been in the singles group that I'm not sure. Yeah, but like it, wasn't the singles group, you in church, everything's going great.All the boxes are checked, but a few weeks later there's trouble. You, you said you felt betrayed by her in, by God. John: So for your listeners I'll do a little ex explaining here in the film. I talk about a woman. I met at church in the singles group that I got married to. And the quote that Devana just referred to was [00:53:00] the quote that I said in the film that Happened the day I got married in the church that if there was a time that my attitude about church and God began to sour this would be it the day that I got married at the church.And the reason I said that, and as I share in the film is that despite the fact that I met this woman in church, and I thought the marriage was ordained by God. Our marriage went downhill immediately. I mean, immediately it was a crash and burn that could never have predicted, and I didn't understand it. It like, it was like my wife had become turned into a different person. Immediately after we got married, I didn't understand what was going on. It seemed pretty clear that even though she gave me an ultimatum, it's kind of ironic because I wasn't so [00:54:00] sure about getting married and it took her giving me an ultimatum to make the decision to get married. And, but once I made that decision, I was, I was committed. But my wife's attitude seemed not, seemed, definitely changed immediately after we got married. And I was blindsided by it and I couldn't in it because as I said, I thought this marriage and this relationship was ordained by God.So it really challenged. My beliefs in God, when the marriage started going downhill and we were in marriage counseling and I was impersonal, we were in personal counseling, but she got involved with another guy. And didn't seem that interested in getting back with me. So, so it didn't really matter how much I tried, if I'm with a partner who is not exhibiting behavior to support the idea of [00:55:00]being in a marriage anymore. And we went through, we were separated for almost three years, so I was not willing to give up on the marriage, even after I found out that she had been involved with another guy, I was willing to continue to work on the marriage and try to get it back on track. She did not seem to have that similar perspective.And so that kind of changed my attitude about things being ordained by God. And that's when I began questioning the whole idea of God and all that stuff. Why? But I thought our marriage was based on that. Why De'Vannon: did you think it was ordained by God? What did God did God tell you something that he speak to you in some way to make you believe?John: Well, first of all, I met the woman in church, so that's a good start, right? When you meet someone in church, you think, okay, maybe God has something to do with bringing us together because it is God's house, right? [00:56:00] That's what church is supposed to big God's De'Vannon: house. I'll say that that's an assumption that a lot of us make.And I used to be that way when I attended churches and I was in singles groups too. And that that's a pitfall. I wanna warn people right now, not to get into, as you walk through life with God and you gain spiritual understanding, don't go put God's mouth on things. You know, if he didn't speak, just cuz you're in church and you meet some woman or some dude or whatever.That don't mean automatically that you should run off and marry them as they say, not everyone in church is saved, you know, and not, not everything, not everything that happens under his roof is ordained by him. But see, we get caught up in our emotions and stuff like that. And then, and then, and the stuff the preachers are telling us, and then we, sometimes we wanna say that that's the voice of, of God when God didn't actually speak.And so, so basically you're saying y'all met in church. All the, the boxes are being checked. This looks like it would be of God, but God didn't necessarily speak to you personally. [00:57:00] Well, John: I thought I had a supernatural experience to Von. Okay. In addition to what I just said beyond the fact that we met in church and our relationship blossomed at church events and retreats that we attended together, but there was one experience that I, I was, I had convinced myself was a supernatural met that I received from God.And that was when we were sitting in church one Sunday morning. And as the minister was preaching about something to do with God's love and bringing people together, whatever he was talking about at the moment he was talking about God's love and loving people. I felt myself. Bathed in light and brightness.And the reason I felt that way is because there was a beam of light that was coming through one of the stain glass windows and was shining directly on me and my [00:58:00] girlfriend at the time. So it was a very, very directed beam of light that was just hitting the, the window at a certain way. That for at least maybe a minute or two was illuminating, the two of us.And I said, oh my God, this is the sign. Because I at the am, we had been going out for a while and I think she had been kind of hinting at getting married. And I, I still had some doubts about whether or not this was something I, I was ready to do. So when that experience happened to me, I thought it was a sign by a sign from God.De'Vannon: Do you still think it was? No. So if it wasn't a sign from God, do you think maybe you kinda like ma made it up or just, just, this is what you believe, what you were wrong. John: Listen, when you, when you're, when you're indoctrinated into religious thought, right. It's easier for [00:59:00] you to justify natural things as supernatural De'Vannon: Uhhuh.yeah, that does happen too. So we, so we wanna avoid that. We wanna gain discernment. We wanna always be praying for discernment so we can see the truth of things. And but you know, to me, like, You know, with her, you know, seeing the other guy she's actually having sex with him, she's become an adultist, you know, at this point, you know, you know, was she that, you know of, you said she was seeing the other guy, do you know she was sleeping with him?Yes. Cuz I asked her. Okay. And so that's according to G she and John: she, and she admitted it. De'Vannon: Oh, she was a bold bitch, you know? And according to Jesus' teachings, you know, the only reason that people can lawfully get divorces in the case of infidelity. So it's almost like God was giving you a way out through this, whether you wanted to take it, you know, or not, at least the door was [01:00:00] open to, to the divorce legally, this, this brings me to another issue I take with people who take issue with people, meaning like you're.Straight people, quote, unquote, your Republicans and everything like that. And these preachers who are on like their fifth marriage and shit who get divorced all the time, for reasons other than infidelity, but in the Bible, you know, Jesus said, if you get divorced for any reason, other than infidelity, then that's wrong.And this voice he's concerned that you're still married. Yet. We find in churches all across the land that people in, all these unions have been divorced, but it was not for infidelity. And somehow it's perfectly okay. And then they continue on preaching against gay people and women who won get, get, get abortions and everything like that.But they don't really preach too much about how you're supposed to stay married unless it's for infidelity. So that's one of my pet peeves that I have now. I don't go around judging people who were divorced for reasons other than infidelity. Cuz I don't care. [01:01:00] Cuz like you said, what, what they're doing and who they're fucking don't affect me.But since they wanna have problems with other people, you know, I bring it up because there's they're because they're hypocrites. Now you, during this time you went to go see a, a preacher, a priest or whatever, cuz he is, this is a Catholic church, right? Not a Catholic church. Okay. No, no. This is a preacher. And and he told you to stay married. He's like divorce is not the way, but then later on he would get like, I think two divorces or something like that.And I don't think he was removed from that post from being a preacher. And so how did that make? He was, John: he was the, he was the head minister of the church that I'd been going to for 15 years. De'Vannon: Okay. He was a head minister. He told you not to get divorced later on. He gets a divorce twice, twice. How did that, how did that make you feel?John: Well, what do you think?De'Vannon: I might have said some John: exploitation. The, the H I, you, I think you [01:02:00] said it earlier, it's the H word hypot. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I can't think of anything more hypocritical than someone telling you, you shouldn't get divorced and then they get divorced, not once, but twice.I mean, that's the definition of hypocritical and it extends De'Vannon: beyond that because he didn't get removed from that position. I mean, us, both of those wives cheated on him and he had the lawful way out, but yet they're removing people for being two years over the age limit. You know, in, in the singles John: group?Well, I wasn't removed just to be clear the van and I wasn't removed from church. I just got a letter saying, please don't come to this group anymore. De'Vannon: all right. That makes it so much more palatable. John: I wanna be clear. I don't wanna, I don't wanna unfairly you know, trust the church. I still have the letter by the way.So, De'Vannon: but people I've talked. I talked to [01:03:00] someone before who got divorced and they removed him from his volunteer positions in church. So it's very interesting, you know, but you know, those, those double standards get applied everywhere you go. When I was in the middle was the same way. Somebody who was like to say is their first year in the air force.If they got a DUI, they get kicked out. If they were got, if they were caught drinking underage. But if they, someone who had been in there 20 years did the same thing. They wouldn't be treated as harshly, you know, The standards, they just don't seem to apply when you get higher up in organizations. Mm-hmm so the last thing I wanna talk about before we wrap this up is a little bit about Catholicism.I love to throw, throw shade at the Catholic church because I don't, I, I really, I have, I have no disrespect for Catholic people. I just think that is one huge mind. Fuck. And I cannot understand [01:04:00] where they come up with all of these damn rules and shit that have nothing to do with the Bible. And I guess the popes made it up or someone who's supposed to be holy made it up.And then therefore it is believed by people, but the, the billions of people who make up the Catholic church and give the church it's power and things like that. And I just don't see what they're getting. In return. The Bible tells us not to pray to angels and to anyone, but God, and they're praying all these saints, there's all these dead people.There's all these robes and all this kneeling. When I, when I went one time and I was like, am I sucking Dick in the sanctuary today? Or what is going on? Why am on, on my knee? well, of my needs were half the John: service. Well, hopefully you weren't doing that in church, Savannah. It De'Vannon: would've made it worth it . If, if, if, while I was down there, one time someone had stuck something in my mouth.So I'm gonna quote you again. You had some interesting one [01:05:00] liners, John: if you have, well, there might have been a few priests that would be happy De'Vannon: to accommodate you. I think I would've been too old for them at the right age. I think I might have been in my twenties and you know, and then the right age of 21, you know, they seem much too old for them.And so, you know, you never know. So you sad in here. I don't know if you have any books, man, but if not, I think you should write one. Cause you have some interesting one-liners in their, in this film. So referring to Catholic sex, sex education, you said to get a basic sex education, you need to be taught by people who had sex, who actually had sex, who actually had sex.So you were talking about getting sex education from like these crazy ass looking nuns and stuff like that. So just tell us, as we begin to wrap up about your Catholic experience and what you think of the Catholic church. John: So in the film I talk about going to parochial school, junior high school which was [01:06:00]13, 14, 15 years old.And one of the required courses was weekly courses was a course in religion and they kind of cross pollinated religion and sex education with, I guess, you know, they could only hire so many teachers and I guess they couldn't have a dedicated teacher teaching sex education and a Catholic school.So the, the teacher was teaching religion integrated some what, what they considered sex education. I would say sex lack of education would be a better way to phrase it. And one of the things they I was told at the age of 13 was that I'm, I'm trying to remember cuz it was quite a while ago, but the clear message I got was that you really should not be having sexual thoughts in your head.And if you do or do it too much, or don't turn your brain off immediately, once that sex sexual [01:07:00] thought pops in your head, if you don't immediately shut that down, you're walking on thin, thin ice with Jesus and, and you, you don't wanna, you don't wanna sin in against Jesus now, do you? So that was kind of the message I got is that it would be a, a sin or could be a sin against Jesus.If you don't shut down really quickly, any sexual thought about you know, my case, naked women or naked girls that, that pop into your head, you, which is a pretty big mind fuck to tell a 13 year old kid. And I have to tell you when you're, whe

Droves of workers are retiring early or taking a break from work as they change career paths. It's become known as The Great Resignation. On this episode, we'll highlight some of the key takeaways of a recent Forbes article and explore a lot of the impacts on retirement planning from across different age groups in the wake of this massive workplace shift that's underway. Forbes Article: https://bit.ly/3JtbbeQ Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody, welcome in to the podcast. Thanks for tuning in to another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick, as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And we are going to discuss the Great Resignation on this podcast. And if you're not familiar with that, well, that's been all the mass exodus of people leaving work over the last three to four to five months. And we've got some interesting key takeaways here to talk a little bit about this. Droves of workers retiring early, or taking a break as they consider this career path, that's been called now the Great Resignation, and there's a Forbes article, we'll probably take a link and put that in the show notes as well. But guys, what's going on? How you doing Nick?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy, kind of getting rocking and rolling to start off the new year. So, you know, I think a month or two ago we had hoped that maybe it'd be a little less chaotic from the standpoint of the whole pandemic thing, but I think everybody's just kind of plugging away and recovering from the holidays.   Mark: Yeah, definitely. John, how you doing my friend?   John: I'm good. I'm good. Doing good.   Mark: Yeah. Nothing, nothing too crazy going on. Into the new year all right?   John: Yeah. Yeah, it was quiet. So just hung out with family locally here and in Tampa area. So it was just a nice little break and like Nick said kind of excited to be back to doing some work here and the holidays it's always nice, but at the same time, I'm kind of ready to get back at it.   Mark: Yeah, exactly. So have you guys heard this term, the Great Resignation, are you guys a little bit aware of this and what's your thoughts? We'll get into it here, some data here in just a second, but just have curious if you've heard it or not.   Nick: Yeah, I definitely have. I think it's interesting. I think depending upon who you talk to, their interpretation of it is a little bit different, but in my mind it's really, it's kind of, to kind of think about it from the perspective as almost like a real estate market, there's a buyer's market and there's a seller's market. And I think that really what's happened is not all, but many companies have been slow to kind of improve wages and pay and benefits and things like that and so this has kind of put things into kind of the worker's hands a little bit more and given them a little bit of leverage from the perspective of competitiveness from a company standpoint. And that obviously, that doesn't deal with the people that are in between or are waiting to kind of figure out what they want to do with their whole life, that sort of thing, but more specifically, the people changing jobs and how difficult it's been for employers to keep employees.   Mark: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely all over the map and John, we're going to talk a little bit about it from the different age groups, but for the most part, we're going to look at it as it affects retirees and pre-retirees, but have you seen some of this stuff? Are you familiar with it?   John: Not necessarily the term itself, but yeah, we've seen a lot of this with our own clients that are basically doing some job changes or just outright, just retiring early which I know we're going to get into. But yeah, we're seeing quite a bit of this. And then we see it when we're trying to personally and work wise trying to get service work done. It feels like-   Mark: Big time.   John: Feels like no one's working anymore. My local Dunkin' Donuts here, I can't go in to get a coffee because they don't have enough workers, so everything's drive through. But it just [crosstalk 00:03:23] seen across the board.   Mark: And that's part of it. Yeah. And that's part of it. So a lot of times, I think, when we think about this what's happened in the pandemic, we automatically go to the lower paying scale jobs, the fast food type jobs, and that's definitely a big piece, but for an example, 4.2 million people quit their job in October of 2021. So just a couple of months ago and there's been a lot of other people quitting. So there's been, I think somewhere now around six, six and a half million, I think over the last four to four and a half months. And it's not just the lower end stuff. And of course it's also unknown how long these people will stay out of work. Some of it could be retirees or pre-retirees that are just like, you know what, I'm not going back.   Mark: I'll use my brother as an example, he's 63 and he's like, as long as they keep me working from home, I'm going to stay. But the minute they tell me, I have to go back to the office. I think I'm going to pull the trigger and retire early, even though his plan calls for him to wait till 60, his full retirement age, which I think is 66 and seven months or something like that. So let's talk about it from that's kind of standpoint, guys.   Mark: I've got three takeaway categories here, or actually four. I'm going to kind of give you guys the headline and let you guys roll from there a little bit on this. Okay. So we'll dive into it, hit it however you'd like, not just the lower income scale, but also the upper end, or people just closer to retirement things that you might be seeing or hearing. So number one, if you are going to step away early, taking a break from Social Security, whether it's short term, long term or whatever, don't sell short that, the impact that, that can have to your long term benefits.   Nick: So, depending upon how long you are out of work, it's important to keep into consideration that when you're not earning an income, you're not building up your Social Security credits and so that's something that can impact you down the line. And I've actually had this come up a little bit lately where people don't quite grasp the impact, the positive impact of Social Security, or how much, or how important it is to their overall plan. So it is a big deal and you want to make sure you still have your 10 year minimum work history. It's important to remember that, really the benefit that you receive is a cumulative kind of record of your highest 35 years of income.   Mark: Right.   Nick: So every year that you have a higher year than a previous year, adjusted for inflation, that's going to knock out the other years and you really kind of help bump that benefit up.   Mark: Right. And if you're stepping away in your fifties because of this Great Resignation type of thing here, that's some prime earning years. So that's where I say you could be putting a big dent in that.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. And realistically it always does kind of go back to the whole plan concept of that we really try to harp on people about, is we have had some people retire early because we have had a bull market for the last 10 years and they've done a good job with saving and those sorts of things, but we kind of verified it through the planning, the whole retire really early on a whim or not really looking at it from an analytical standpoint can definitely be pretty, pretty dangerous.   Mark: Yeah, for sure. So you definitely want to make sure that if you are stepping away from Social Security, you're looking at what it could do to your long term strategy, six months, a year, retiring early, whatever the case might be. Just make sure you're strategizing that with your advisor.   Mark: John, talk to me a little bit about takeaway number two, the 401k isn't a rainy day fund, is kind of the category I had. Because over the last two years, and even the last six months, there's some pretty interesting stats about what people are doing with their 401ks.   John: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, during COVID 2020, there was some ability to actually access for 401k funds or retirement funds without any penalty.   Mark: Right.   John: And not even have to do a loan and that's gone away. So now, not that... Fortunately for our clients, and I think we do a great job educating them, we haven't really seen too much of this where clients are taking out 401k loans. But I have had conversations with some individuals that have done that. And it's just kind of like, "Hey, how much can I pull from my fund? I did this, what are the impacts of it?" So it's just important to fall back to the plan. And we do a... One of our biggest recommendation's to make sure that people have an emergency fund and whether it's three to six months or a year of emergency savings, because, as you know the pandemic hit in 2020 and no one saw that coming and you just don't know what's going to happen in the future. So it's important to have an emergency fund to help out in certain situations like this, so you avoid pulling from the 401k loan because you really want to let those assets grow for your retirement and not access it for rainy day funds- [crosstalk 00:08:10].   Mark: Kind of a stop gap.   John: .... on things like that.   Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's some negative impacts of doing that though, John? I think one of the things people get lost on is just the compounding of it over time, right?   John: Yeah. So you take out 40 grand out of it, basically, especially, let's say you did that in 2020, let's say you took out $40,000 there, you just lost the compounding over the next year and a half, two years of which has been really excellent in reality [crosstalk 00:08:33] with what the market's done. So not... You're just not losing that $40,000, you're losing what that $40,000 could have grown to, which is the importance of having, again, the rainy day fund, so you can let that money in there, let that money grow for you and earn and work for you.   Mark: Yeah.   John: And then nevermind then you're paying money back into it that are after tax dollar. So there's a lot that goes into it that you really need to evaluate it. Sometimes it's you have to because you have nothing else to pull from.   Mark: Right.   John: But it's always important to plan and make sure that you... This is the last resort.   Mark: I hear a lot of advisors say taking that loan against it is usually the later, like if it's kind of like the last in the line, if you really need it, okay, here's where we can go. But let's try not to. Just simply from a multitude of reasons, especially with the resignation, right? If you take a loan against your 401k and you leave the job, you have to pay that back. Correct?   John: Yeah. That's a great point that you bring up. Most companies will give you 30 days to pay it back. So example, you take out that $40,000 and all of a sudden it's, "Hey, we're downsizing," and you get a pink slip, and not only you got, now you all of a sudden you got to pay 40 grand back to your 401k within, a 30 day period, maybe 60 day period. And if you do not pay it back, you're going to be paying taxes and penalty on that, on those dollars.   Mark: Pretty stiff. Yeah.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Yeah. So that's another takeaway for that. And Nick, let's stick with the 401k for a minute for the next one. If you are in this kind of nomad thing where you're jumping out of one job, you're waiting a bit, maybe going into another, looking for a better option for yourself, seeing who's hiring, whatever the scenario is, take that 401k with you, right? Don't just leave it back behind at the old place.   Nick: Yeah. It can be, realistically the more accounts people have, the more places, the more often things are overlooked, not checked up on, not taken care of, so we definitely are fans of consolidating. Whether it's rolling it into the plan at your new employer or rolling it into an IRA where you can control the assets yourself or work with an advisor to manage them for you. Just like so many other things, it's one of the things that former or past employer 401k plans are oftentimes one of the most overlooked and non-adjusted things that we've seen people kind of not take care of.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: And then they lose a lot of long term money on it because of that.   Mark: Well, you got to think about the vested portion too. Right? So if it's, let's say you're 50 or something like that, and you're pondering this, make sure you under... that you're getting the fully vested part before you jump on. There are some people that could say, well, all right, maybe I'd better stick this out a little longer or whatever the case is.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. There are some people that... It's much more common for people to move from one employer to the next these days. Especially in certain industries where they can be almost more of a tech role or consultant role, things like that. And sometimes, because of that, their employer has put in a decent amount of money, so an employee's contributions are always vested, it's always their money, but they could have substantial employer matching that vests over three to five years. Or some other sorts of benefits, even if it's not exactly the 401k, but maybe there's a stock plan that has vesting. It's important to take those things into consideration because we've seen people leave tens of thousands of dollars on the table.   Mark: Right.   Nick: Not realizing that it was a factor they should have taken into consideration before they switched employers.   Mark: Yeah. Don't leave that behind. Right? So definitely take it with you, whether you're rolling it from the old one into the new one. And if you do it properly, it's not going to, it's not an issue, right, Nick? So if you've got it in the old one and you roll it to the new one, you just go through the proper channels and there's no taxable event and so on and so forth. Same thing if you move it to an IRA, correct?   Nick: Correct. Yeah. The goal is always to make sure that it's rollover, it's not taken as a lump sum distribution-   Mark: To yourself.   Nick: Yeah. So you always want to make sure that when the rollover happens, it gets paid directly to the new custodian. So it's not written out to you. It's written to the new custodian, whether that's a Fidelity or a Vanguard or whoever it may be, it's paid directly to them, the funds go over and that avoids there being any sort of tax liability or penalty if somebody's under the age of 59 and a half.   Mark: All right. So let's go to the fourth takeaway here, guys. I'll let you both kind of jump in and out on this. John, I'll start with you. It seems like this whole resignation thing is kind of tailor made for those early retirement dreamers. Kind of go back to my brother's conversation there about, Well, if they... I'll retire a couple years early, if they make me go back to the office kind of thing, but I'll work from home." So it's enticing for sure, but point out some challenges to just ponder if you are retiring early, ahead of what you originally planned, you guys kind of divide up a few of these, if you would, but John go ahead and start with a couple of bullet points to think about.   John: Yeah. One of the things that I think about is qualifying for Social Security. The earliest you can draw Social Security is age 62. So, if you're retiring at let's just call 57, you got a decent gap of where you can't take any Social Security. So you really have to evaluate are there any other income sources coming in like a pension or maybe some real estate income or whatever it might be. And then if there isn't, is your nest egg able to sustain your plans. [crosstalk 00:14:06].   Mark: Five years, yeah.   John: Yeah. Is it able to work if you're using your nest egg to basically live off of for that period of time. So those are one of the things. And then you always want to of look at as one, we've had situations where one spouse might retire early and the other one's still work and they say, "Hey, we could live off of just one income for the time being. And if we need any extra money, we have the nest egg that we can pull from as needed." So that would be a big one to really look at.   John: Another one that we come across quite often is healthcare coverage. I'd say one of the main reasons that people don't retire. From our standpoint, what we see is really healthcare. So they wait till they're 65, so they can draw on Medicare. And prior to that, they just kind of look at the cost of going to the Marketplace and say, you know what, this is probably a little too rich for my blood, so [crosstalk 00:14:55] kind of hold off.   Mark: And if you use your example of 57, I mean, you're talking eight years, what are you doing in that gap? Right.   John: Yeah. And we've seen everyone's situations different in what their premium is, but I've seen some premiums for individual at that age at $10-11,000 per year. Nevermind, the coverage isn't as good. So that's [crosstalk 00:15:12]-   Mark: And that's not per person too. Right. So if you and the spouse.   John: Yeah, yeah. Yep. That's per person.   Mark: Can your retirement accounts handle that for that setup that we just talked about or whatever the case might be and then realizing that that's also, that your retirement is now going to be longer, right, because you've retired early, so it's the kind of great multiplier. So those things just kind of compound and go up from there. Nick, do you agree with that and what's some things you see?   Nick: Yeah. For sure. It's definitely a slippery slope when you start to factor in. We've got some clients who work for large employers, their total health premiums for the households can run $2-3,000 a year for both of them. So when you go and you take... You go from $2-3000 for both of you while you're working to somewhere between $8-20,000 a year before Medicare age, it can be pretty substantial. And oftentimes, for many people, there's going to be a price increase, even when they're on Medicare from if you were working for a company that was a larger employer and had pretty inexpensive health benefits. So that makes a huge, huge difference.   Nick: And one way that some people have managed things from that perspective are with some of the Marketplace options out there will kind of connect people with specialists that can help on the medical insurance side of things. And you may be able to take money from taxable accounts that don't have large gains to put your income lower so that you don't pay as much, but in reality, to be frank, usually the only people that can do that are ones that have saved substantial amount of money into a non-qualified account, which usually means they have a lot of money. So, it's less of an issue. So really looking at that, looking at the different types of accounts, when you create your withdrawal rate, and figuring out, hey, how can we keep your income taxes low, not a only for a short period of time when you're in retirement, but kind of building flexibility throughout your retirement, where you're not just letting this tax bomb grow, or you're not using all of your Roth money first or leaving it all for the end.   Nick: It's usually kind of a bit of a balance. So we harp on it a lot, but this is really where there's so many factors and things like this. That this is where kind of software and the tech tools that we have today really help us tailor make a plan, come up with a really good income and liquidation strategy, help us figure out what kind of gaps are we going to have between the time that you retire and when things like Social Security are going to kick in to help supplement the income, and then when Medicare's going to kick in to help reduce expenses. So, it's definitely a puzzle and fortunately we enjoy putting the pieces together.   Mark: Right. Well, look, if you're on the fence, well, if you already did the resigned and walked away, hopefully you had a plan in place, but if you're not, if you're among some of those folks that are still considering, I've heard some interesting stats that they think that's going to happen. Again, early on the first half of 2022, make sure you're talking with an advisor about all the different things that could happen if you do step away early. Most people, hopefully do, but sometimes you just get frustrated or whatever the case is. And a lot of it does have to do with this kind of going back to work, staying working from home, it got good to us, we really kind of, in some ways, very much so enjoy being able to work from home, in other ways we kind of missed the camaraderie. So there's a lot of different things to just kind of take into account before you pull the Great Resignation.   Mark: And with that, we're going to wrap it up this week. We're going to knock out an email question here real fast. Whichever one of you guys want to tackle this, but we've got one from Rebecca who said, "Guys, every six months or so I tell myself, I need to start saving more for retirement and I pretend like I'm going to get serious and actually do it. But then I can't stay motivated to increase my savings. I'm putting a decent amount in the 401k and I have a pretty nice balance there, but it feels like I could be doing more. It's the beginning of the year, I want to be more motivated. How do I do it?"   John: This comes up quite a bit. And I'd say the easiest way to save is probably the 401k, because it's done through payroll and you really, once you start saving in to it, you really don't miss the money coming out into it and you can always adjust it. And we've had some people where they say, "Hey, I'm putting enough into my 401k, what else should I do?" And the first step is just really just setting up an account and you can start with as little as $25 a month, or $50 a month, but once that account's open, it's much easier just to say, hey, let me up this. So I would say the first step is look at the 401k and if you don't want to continue contributing to that, just open up an account somewhere with your advisor or on your own and just set it up monthly, and then you can always adjust it as needed.   Mark: Yeah. Or maybe a Roth, right? If she wants to look at a tax, something more tax efficient. So...   John: Yep.   Mark: That's another way to look at it. But yeah, I think if you automate it and you just put it in play, Rebecca, that should hopefully get you... You just, if you don't see it and you don't think about it and it's just happening in the background, then that's the beauty of it, so then you don't have to worry about necessarily getting motivated. But another way might be to sit down with a professional and start getting some advice. It doesn't matter really on your age, the sooner, the better. So if you got questions, need some help, reach out to John and Nick, go to the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   Mark: Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you like to use, Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, just type in Retirement Planning Redefined, or again, just find it all at their website, pfgprivatewealth.com. If you got questions, need some help, John and Nick are here for you.   Mark: Guys, thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. Talking to me about the Great Resignation and we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks here, we'll see what's going on.   Nick: Thanks, Mark   John: Thanks.   Mark: I appreciate your time as always. Guys, thanks for hanging out with me. We'll see you next time here on the podcast, with John and Nick, this is Retirement Planning Redefined.

Even if you have a solid financial plan in place, things can quickly get out of tune if you don't make adjustments from time to time. Let's talk about some of the areas where we often see people get out of tune in their financial plan. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another edition of the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and myself as we're going to talk about Retirement Planning Redefined once again. This week, we are going to chat about getting in tune. No, not instruments, and we're not going to sing, because that might be bad, but we're going to talk about getting our retirement plans into tune, especially because we all want to have that good solid piece in there that we know we're going to be comfortable and happy and get the things we need out of it, but we also can drift off from time to time. So, we want to pull those back in, get the reins if you will. So, that's going to be our topic this week is getting in tune. What's going on guys? What's shaking? How you doing? John: All good. Nick: Staying busy. Speaker 1: Yeah, staying busy. How's the dog? I know you got that dog that's really old. Is she doing okay? Nick: Depending upon your definition of okay, she's doing great. Speaker 1: Well, good. Nick: Yeah, she definitely keeps me on my toes. I think she had to go out five times before 11:30 today, so that was fun. Speaker 1: Holy cow. Nick: Yeah. Speaker 1: My mine's 15 and she's going deaf and going partly blind, but she's still okay in that department. How's yours doing? Is she having some hearing or vision? Nick: Oh yeah. No, she can't hear and her vision is not great, and so it's fun stuff. I'm on the third floor of my building, so I carry her down every time to go out. She's not a big dog, so it's easy, but- Speaker 1: It's cute and it's sad sometimes that she's losing her hearing. I'll be calling for her and she can't figure out exactly where it's coming from, because she's not completely deaf. So, she looks around in different angles and I'm like, 'I'm right next to you, you ding dong.' Nick: Oh yeah, I know that look well. Speaker 1: Pretty funny stuff. John, what's going on with you buddy? I know you don't have these exciting dog stories, but what's happening? John: Not too much. Just staying busy and I think as you're aware, becoming a school parent, so that's fun and then started my little one in gymnastics, so I have to head there tonight. Speaker 1: Oh, nice. Yeah. You're getting to that phase now where you got hobbies and activities all the time, right? John: Yeah, play dates are starting to get formed now. I pick her up from school and it's like, "Hey, I want to do a play date with my friend." It's like, "All right." Speaker 1: Yep, go, go, go. That's all right, hey, at least we're getting back to some of that stuff. So kids and stuff. I mean, everybody needs interaction, so it's good that we're here getting some of that stuff going on. Getting our life back in tune, so to speak. That'll be my segue back into the topic here. So, let's talk about how to get our financial plans or our retirement plan back in tune in case we've got out. We talked a couple weeks ago guys, and we're waiting to see what the fine details are going to be, we'll probably do a podcast on it, but tax considerations, future tax considerations. Speaker 1: A lot of the stuff that's right now at the time we're taping this that's before the house, it may go through, there's quite a bit to the corporate tax change, there is bumping up. They're trying to make it sound like it's all going to be for the higher net worth folks, but $400,000, $500,000 is not that hard to get to for some of these things. So depending on where you're at, tax considerations needs to be on everybody's radar no matter what you're making. Nick: Yeah, tax considerations are definitely something that we try to focus on with clients. I think in our minds, the number one, the rule of thumb when it comes to tax considerations in regards to investments and retirement accounts is to have options. So, what we mean by that is not only a diversification in the types of investments, underlying investments that you have, but also in the types of accounts that you have. Nick: You want to have accounts are going to be tax free down the road, accounts that will be taxed down the road and then maybe some accounts that are subject to income or capital gains taxes versus just ordinary income. So, the having options, building a personal moat and being able to have the ability to adapt and adjust, I think and staying nimble is the number one priority when it comes to planning. Speaker 1: Having a personal moat, I like that. John, you've been getting so much rain, you might have your own moat, right? John: Yeah, that's funny. I do feel like it's been raining every day. It's just new house, it's like we have this big yard and I walk back there and it's constantly soaked and the pool's always overflowing. So yes, I do have a personal moat keeping Nick out. Speaker 1: Nice, I like that. Okay, so tax considerations. Again, lots of things happening there, so that could even be changing and that's why it's definitely important to make sure. It's always important really, no matter what time we're in, but I mean certainly when we get to retirement, tax considerations and what we're paying is a big deal. So it's not what you make, it's what you keep, all that stuff. Speaker 1: Life insurance. Fellas, having the right amount, well, 'Hey, I'm retired, I don't need it.' That's what most people say, or at least that's the general consensus or rule of thought, but is that correct? John: Sometimes it is. It really comes down to when you're looking at, do I have the right amount? So, is there a need for it? If there is a need for it, then it becomes income replacement. So example, I go to retire and let's say I do have a pension that's life only. We talked about that a couple weeks ago and if I pass away, that pension's gone, does my spouse need that money for her money to last at that point or for her to hit her goals? John: If the answer's yes, she needs that pension replaced, then yes, there is a need for life insurance. There're other things that go into it, but that's just looking at it from a retirement standpoint. It's really replacing someone's income or assets that are needed to generate income for the surviving spouse. Nick: Yeah, and I would say just on top of that, I think probably the reason that we mentioned this in this conversation is just to not absentmindedly push it off the side. I think there's a perception for people that no matter what, they're not going to need any sort of coverage approach in retirement or into retirement. Just like anything else, we think it's important to take inventory, and when you're building your plan, to make sure that you vet out the different situations and scenarios. Nick: Because when you were originally planning, you may have not expected to have a mortgage, you may not have expected to help out your kids with education costs or maybe at the level that you did, or a myriad of other things. So life comes at you quick, we think it's important that... because so many people automatically assume that it's just no longer a part of the conversation for them, that you make sure that it is or is and take a good inventory to see if it makes sense for you. John: Yeah, definitely. Let me jump in here real quick. Speaker 1: Sure. John: This is really important for big business owners to look at as their near retirement, because a lot of small businesses, they are in essence the business, and if they don't have any life insurance and something happens to them, sometimes we've seen businesses have to fire sale and stuff like that. Nick: Yeah, if something happens to the owner, the business is relying upon the owner, the family expected to be able to sell the business and cash out and be profitable and sail into the sunset that can get derailed pretty quickly. So that's another good example. Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned cash, just cashing out, but that was actually, cash is on my next one who doesn't love cash. I mean, everybody loves cash. We want to keep a nice amount around. We feel like most people kind of have this, the higher the number the better. My kid, she's 24 now she's working, making good money for a change. Speaker 1: Now she's learning how to play this game with herself about, Ooh, how much can I get my savings account to grow? I'll be chatting with her and she'll be like, 'Yeah, I'm trying to hit this number. And I'm adding a little bit more.' And it's nice to see her kind of start to play that game with herself where she's trying to grow those accounts. And she enjoys always the fact they're growing and that only happens more as we get older. So people sometimes want these pretty large amounts sitting around. So what's the right amount to actually have, because I mean, at some point, we start talking about emergency funds and so on and so forth. I mean, what are you going to do with $100,000 sitting in the banking cash? Is that really too much? Is that the right amount? I mean, how do you figure that out? Nick: Well, this is where our very effective, but also annoying answer of it depends comes into play. So, this answer possibly more than almost anything else is I think hyper dependent upon the people or the person that we're talking about. Obviously there's kind of the rule of thumb of, six to 12 months of expenses in cash. But really when we drill down further, one of the things that I like to run by people is to have them think of cash in a way of it's the ultimate permission slip. What I mean by that is what amount of cash allows them to feel comfortable enough to not make irrational decisions with the rest of their money? So if having a year or 18 months, 24 months, even 36 months of cash allows them to be invested in a way that they should be with the rest of their money. Nick: Then in my mind that the opportunity cost of that money, getting more upside, that cash getting more upside is worth it because it prevents them for them overreacting to things like market corrections like we're having this week or these different sorts of scenarios and circumstances where one of the best techniques that has worked for us is going through and saying 'Yes, the market just pulled back over the last three months. Let's just say it did 10%.' But if we can go to the client's accounts and say, 'Look at, you've got your next 18 months of expenses without ever touching your investment accounts is sitting there in cash for you.' Plus remember that we've got somewhere between 30% and 50% of your actual investment and fixed income automatically their blood pressure, their heart rate, and their amount of emails and phone calls to us go down, which are all things that are positive. Speaker 1: Really that's the talk, starting talking about risk as well. And that's my final bit on getting the plan in tune is having the right amount of risk for the time that you're in and for the situation that you're in. Maybe those two things go hand in hand, well, they all really go hand in hand, if you think about a retirement plan in general, but getting the right amount of risk is certainly important. Speaker 1: And we touched on this a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about couples and how they sometimes they're opposites in that regard. So you still have to find that that happy place that's working for the plan. I think I saw an email for somebody in a couple of weeks back guys, and it was something like, my account haven't done as well as the market this year and maybe I should change advisors. And it was like, well, wait a minute. You know, don't just assume that it's the advisor's fault because it didn't keep up with the market. How are you set up from risk? Are you exactly... Are you taking all as much risk as possible in that, which case the market return should be closer? Or are you very conservative and just don't really know what you have and that's why you didn't perform as well. There's lots of ways in variables to look at this correct? John: Yeah. It's definitely one of the most important things to look at when your overall portfolio is what is your or risk tolerance and how are you invested in? And what you just said is on point, we find that a lot where people are trying to compare not only to us, but other advisors like, 'Well, the S&P did this, what did I do?;' And then when you start diving into it, it's, well, you're a 50, 50 mix and that's the S&P all 100% equities. It's not going to be the same. John: But definitely from a planning standpoint, we try to make sure people are invested correctly based on their risk tolerance. Because if you are more aggressive in your portfolio than you actually are, when you start to see a dip, chances are you're going to panic and chances are if the dip is fast enough or goes down enough like in the COVID period, there March, April 2020, some people change courses and went from what they were, and then went to very conservative. John: And then three weeks later, the market just rallied back and all the gains were lost if you were, are seeing on the sidelines. It's important to really pick your risk tolerance, pick your portfolio and stay at the course based on the plan. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't panic. That's usually the worst time to do it. It's definitely one of those cases where we tend to do that. And that's, again, the value I think of an advisor, because somebody can call up and say, like the pandemic crash or whatever, and say, 'Hey, I'm panicking. What do I do?' And you can walk through those scenarios without just locking necessarily locking in those gains by panic selling or whatever that case might be. Speaker 1: So something to look out for, make sure you have your plan in tune, and they require a tune note, folks, these they're not a set and forget it kind of thing, it's not. Even life insurance, if you bought life insurance 25 years ago, and you hadn't looked at it 25 years, it's one of those things where we buy it, we think we're never going to need it to look at it again, but no, that's not the case. Speaker 1: Stuff changes. Life happens. So make sure you're making little tweaks, your plans should change and ebb and flow just like your life's going to. And that was our topic this week on the podcast. And as always, we're going to try to take at least an email question or two, if we can, if you'd like to submit your own, go to the website at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com drop us a line there and subscribe to the podcast while you're there as well. Speaker 1: We'll see if we can get these two in at least one, we got a question for Nick, from Jamie. He says, 'Nick, I've looked forward to retirement for many years and I enjoy the podcast. And now that I'm actually retired, I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to run out money. So you got any solutions for fighting the feelings, or should I just go back to work?' That's one of these things where people get into that situation. It's like they maybe don't have a good plan or they're just not comfortable. So they're not really sure what it's doing for them. Nick: Yeah. So this is interesting because I would say that realistically, the majority of the people that work with us, their plans are pretty solid and we have a high level of comfort of them retiring. In those scenarios where, where we have a high level of confidence in their plan and what we've done, especially, because we use a lot of pretty of variables. We try to up the cadence of meetings or the amount of times that we talk and get them to start trying to view things maybe a little bit more like us. Nick: So using things like the client portal that we have, where they can view their cashflow or their lifetime and see the different parts start to become more familiar with how the planning software works and get some of that comfort and affirmation that they're online and on target is really, really important. Nick: And then from the perspective of things that maybe aren't quite as static, in our regular reviews, really trying to drill down and dig into what are the things that are concerning them the most? For example, for some people, the things that are concerning them the most might be taxes. We can work, show them and illustrate a scenario of a significant bump in taxes and show them how that impacts them specifically. Nick: When I realized that I should ask clients that have serious concerns about how these specific things that they're concerned about impact them specifically, because one of the things we've seen is that, it's like, 'Okay, I'm watching the news and the news says this is going to happen and freak out in twos. Nick: They're thinking in large terms maybe from societal standpoint and that's understandable, but take that one step further and say, 'Okay, well how does this impacting me? How impact my plan? How does this impact me? And then when we start to drill down, when they start to learn to do that, the amount of stress that they have starts to go away pretty significantly. 'Okay, well I'm concerned about these taxes.' All right, well, Hey, let's take a look at the amount of income you're in. Let's take a look at sort of bracket you're in. Nick: Historically, even if we go back the last 20 years, how much that bracket has fluctuated and you see throughout 9/11, throughout the great recession, throughout the bounce back, throughout... Year bracket that you're in has gone plus, or minus 3%, that's not going to really have a huge packed on you or let's even just let's bump it up an extra 10%, those sorts of things or using that same sort of situational awareness with markets or, whatever else it is, health, those sorts of things. When people start to really think about how to impact them, it's usually kind of a calming factor for them. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, if you don't have a good strategy in place that makes sense to you and that you understand you're going to have a hard time shaking that feeling and not feeling calm and feeling nervous about it. And that's really where the right advisor and also the right plan comes in place. If you're working with somebody and you feel like things maybe aren't totally there, it's okay to get a second opinion. Whether it's Jamie or anybody else that checking out the podcast, find out if you're working with somebody and you're not sure that that's the right fit, then get a second opinion and you may find that it is. It's everything's working swimmingly well, and that's fantastic. Or you may find that you might need to make a change. Speaker 1: And if you do, just reach out to John and Nick and schedule some time, have a conversation with them. Second opinions is part of the industry. So give them a jingle, have a conversation, pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com and time wise, guys, I think that's going to wrap it up for this week. So we'll, we'll take that next email question next time on the show. Speaker 1: So reach out folks, let them know, to give them a cell, 8132867776 is the number to call. It's just easier to go to the website, pfgprivatewealth.com, subscribe to the show and all that good stuff on Apple, Google, Spotify. And we'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick and you guys have a great week. We'll see soon. Nick: [inaudible 00:18:25] John: Have a good one.

Princess Harry, Anthony Weiner, John NOT a Legend, and talkin about how we can't take hollywood people and politicians at face value, New Inventions like love adiction, and Lockheed Martin's hilarious workplace Training to purge whiteness

John Vuong started his Toronto-based agency, Local SEO Search, in 2013 with the goal of helping small- to medium-sized businesses in North America, UK, and Australia improve digital presence in their local communities.   John had ten years in advertising and sales for print media directories with their online performance-based networks and then worked for 5 years at Yellow Pages. Through this experience, he honed his understanding of how to dig out a business's gaps, opportunities and challenges, its potential customers, where those customers were located, what those customers wanted . . . and what businesses themselves were looking for in an agency. John explains that product characteristics, physical proximity, convenience, and/or services are only the beginning of the variables to consider in “positioning” a company. Whatever it is that a company's customers want needs to be prominent on its website. John says, “Make it easy for people to realize what you offer.” John believes “Google My Business” is “the biggest asset piece for the local space” – it is what sets local apart from traditional organic traffic. This link between Google search and maps is critical. Small business owners need to understand how people “shop, navigate, and search for information.” Websites at the local level need to be simple for Google to easily crawl and index user-relevant information.  Typical clients for this agency are professional service businesses (dentists, lawyers, physio/chiro, massage, and anything medical spa-ish), trades (e.g.; plumbers or roofers) and B2B businesses (e.g.; manufacturing, distribution, and e-com) – businesses that more competitive in nature, have higher revenue expectations, and have a higher lifetime customer value. John says the process of building a business takes time and work – that there are no shortcuts for things that are worthwhile. Local SEO Search has specialists that develop SEO strategy, build links, create content, and manage social media. The agency employs web developers and graphic designers. But even with that variety of services, the agency's focus is totally and simply on the attributes and signals Google uses to rank websites. John' strength is sales. Yellow Pages taught him a lot about business. He met business owners where the businesses had been in existence, not just for years, but for lifetimes. How? “They took care of their customers. They relied on word-of-mouth, referral business. They understood how to run a really good business – service, pricing, competitors, unique selling proposition, understanding all their products and services. Inside out, they knew how to run it.” John sees the internet as the “new Yellow Pages.” When he started his agency, John had to learn how to deliver, how to hire and manage people, how to provide customer service. “There's so much more to running a business than just sales,” he admits. John values honesty and hard work and admits that he “went door-knocking at the beginning to get clients, and it worked.” Today, he says, he's “just looking for good people to connect with. Good, honest, real businesses that not just need and acknowledge that they need help, but they're good people” who “have business experience and knowledge and insights on what real business ownership means.” Those are the people he feels he can best help. John can be reached on his agency's website at: www.localseosearch.ca.  Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by John Vuong, owner of Local SEO Search based in Toronto, Canada. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Thanks a lot for having me, Rob. I'm excited to be on your show today. ROB: Super exciting to have you here. Why don't you start off and tell us about Local SEO Search? I think we might know what your superpower is, but why don't you tell us about it?  JOHN: Yeah, definitely. I started this agency 8 years ago, back in 2013. My sole purpose is really to help the small to medium size businesses service their local community and really help them for their digital presence, so make them appear more visibly on search, in particular Google. ROB: Interesting. We've talked to some different SEO firms, but a lot of times they're more on that “trying to rank for a keyword,” that B2B software client. How does that work differently with local? How do the tactics and mindsets differ when you're trying to be the pizza place somebody finds when they look locally? JOHN: There's a lot of different nuances. In my background – and maybe I'll take a step back before I even start with starting the agency. I actually worked 10 years prior in advertising/sales, and I dabbled in traditional advertising/sales and print media directories, some online affiliate performance-based networks, and then I resided and worked for 5 years at Yellow Pages. For me, I really learned a lot about local businesses, understood what gaps, opportunities, and challenges they had, and what they wanted to look for or to in an agency, or someone that they wanted to build their trust and relationship with. When I started this company, it was all about understanding them, asking the right questions, and understanding what they really, really cared about in terms of staying connected and harvesting a good relationship long term. For me, that's all I needed to get into this agency world without knowing how to run an agency. Working at Yellow Pages is not your traditional digital agency. It was more traditional channel print media, telephone book. But I learned a lot from a big company, how to run a real company. In terms of local, the big thing for me was understanding who their customers were, understanding their challenges/problems, and ultimately the customers that were consuming their product or service. Fast forward to now Google and how local sets themselves apart from the traditional organic traffic, Google My Business is the biggest asset piece for the local space. How you understand and claim and verify and rank for a lot of terms to be on that prominent proximity or relevant map is so critical for a lot of these small business owners because that's how people shop, navigate, search for information. For you as a business owner, I feel you have to understand what your customers are looking for. The keyword gap analysis, great, but positioning so that you actually know exactly that pizza shop, what people are looking for, seeking out – is it the weekly specials? Is it the different toppings? The convenience factor, proximity, free pick-up, Uber, whatever? There's so many different variables. Understand that. Make it prominent on your website, and then make sure that Google recognizes that it's inside your schema markup, your sitemap. Make it easy for people to realize what you offer that's accessible and simple for your customers. ROB: Dig in a little bit just for a moment on schema markup. That's something I think some of the amateur SEOs like me out in the world might know less about. JOHN: Schema markup is just the way you sort your information on your website so that Google can index things. It's another way to add attributes within your website. The key about everything you do in terms of not just digital, but in your business, is to make it as efficient as possible for your customers. The more simplistic it is, easy it is – just like your sitemap on your website, making it so simple that Google can go in there and crawl it without trying to navigate five layers deep on the content piece that's relevant for the user. If you mark it up so it's simple, so that Google doesn't have a problem indexing your site, it allows you to then make it a clean transfer of information/content to the actual users and make it easy for Google to then crawl and index your site. ROB: Thank you for digging into that. It's an interesting through-line going back to your work with Yellow Pages. You've been helping businesses be found by people for longer than you've had a business. That's pretty fascinating. I wonder what a typical customer looks like for you. I might've pulled you down a path with that pizza restaurant example, but who are we talking about for your customers, usually? Are we talking about doctors or lawyers, home professionals, retail businesses? What's the meat and potatoes of who wants to be found locally and wants some help with that? JOHN: Our typical persona/avatar type of client is the professional service-based type of business, whether it be dentists, lawyers, physio/chiro, massage, anything medical spa-ish, as well as trades, which are the plumbers, roofers, etc. And of course, the B2B kind of businesses – manufacturing, distribution, e-com, etc. The reason for that is typically it's more competitive in nature, and in a local marketplace – I live in Toronto, Canada, and it's one of the larger metropolitan areas in all of Canada. There's more competition in dentists than there are barbershops. Therefore, if you are in business for a higher ticket service type sale of your client – and the lifetime value of a dentist is 7 years – so the value of acquiring a customer, you want the good type of avatar, a good ideal lead nurture of a client. Understanding that whole process, understanding who you want to cultivate, understanding how you want to portray your brand or yourself as a business cultivates the best lead source if you do SEO properly with the right company, yourself, or freelancer contractor. It doesn't matter. If you do it properly, you should have an inbound lead flow of quality clients begging for you, for your service. Those are typically my type of clients because of the price point, the value that they're looking for, and how difficult it is to get new customers in any other form of media channels, from social to paid ads to traditional, tradeshows, print media, radio, television. There are so many different media sources, but I feel SEO still cultivates the best lead source of your ideal type client. ROB: That makes sense. You started walking down a path I was interested to get into. Obviously, SEO is the name you hang on the front door of the business, but you mentioned other marketing channels. Have you engaged more deeply into paid and content and some other things? Or have you kept it pretty tight around SEO? JOHN: My agency focuses on SEO only, but there's pillars within SEO. We take care of the strategy; we have specialists. We also have link builders. We have content creators. We have web developers, graphic designers, social media management. But that is all attributes and signals of what Google is looking for to rank a website. Anything that is required to rank a website, that's what we touch. Anything outside that, which is usually paid – like if you're doing paid ads on social or Google Ads or behavioral networks, performance networks, email, that's different. We only focus on being a full-service SEO agency that's more of a boutique agency. ROB: You must've had clients, though, ask you to manage their paid budget. How have you looked at that temptation, potentially, and said no to it? JOHN: We have that daily, actually. A lot of clients know they need SEO, and I tell them there's a ton of agencies that offer full-service from paid ads to SEO to content, and they break it up, and that's fine, a la carte. I just want to be really good at one thing and do it right and be known for it. There's different strategies, different agencies out there. I just feel there's a big enough marketplace for being the best at one thing. If you're known for doing it really well, that's what people know you by, and that's enough business to be had. I could dabble into digital, like paid ads, and hire someone in-house and take it over, but I'm not a true believer in that. [laughs] I have to believe in it at a very high level to really be a big, strong proponent of selling it. ROB: Right. Super-duper interesting to keep that sort of focus. You mentioned your journey, you mentioned coming through that Yellow Pages background. It almost seems like there might've been a journey for you within that previous role before starting the company where you started to see something shift. What was your journey from “Hey, I'm working at Yellow Pages, I'm working with these businesses” to “I'm going to go start my own business”? Because it's a big difference between having someone who pays your bills and figuring out how to pay your own bills. JOHN: The journey definitely is something that I feel is a mindset journey for a lot of people. When I was at Yellow Pages, I was there for 5 years. I learned a ton about sales. I had the privilege to meet with thousands of business owners, and I was being mentored by them on what it takes to a business owner. And that's something that was invaluable at that time, for me to then pick their brain on what really mattered in not just business ownership, but in life. These people were so grateful to be ultra-curious about how they ran their business, what really made them happy, and what ultimately they wanted to do for their community, for their family, to have a good lifestyle. That's what resonated with me, along with, of course, selling ad space in a more dated format like the print directory, which allowed me to know that there was a gap in opportunity in the marketplace. People wanted to go with someone they trusted, or a company, but they didn't know how to do it and what was involved. So I wanted to be that transition piece. As you know, paid ads in the Yellow Pages was a diminishing return on investment. People were spending more than ever, getting fewer people transacting. The return on investment was lower, and people like myself were spending more time on Google to do search results. I knew there was an opportunity digitally. I didn't know anything about SEO at that time. I just knew there was a gap in the marketplace to add an idea, and I knew there were people willing to pay for someone or something to help them. That's all I really needed to get my foot in the door. But it was all timing as well. I did extremely well at Yellow Pages and ads, so I was doing well in sales. My wife gave me the go-ahead, because she had a stable job opportunity. For me, it was more, look, I can go get another job, maybe work at Google, work at another ad agency or whatever – or I can try something. Basically, she said, “Go for it.” The first couple years it was a struggle to learn how to run a business. [laughs] More so than the SEO thing at all. My strength was sales, so I was out there selling from Day 1. The first two months, I already had 10 clients. So, the sales aspect wasn't the challenge; it was more about now I had to figure out how to deliver and hire people and manage, customer service. I realized there's so much more to running a business than just sales. ROB: For sure, that is an interesting part of the journey. I wonder a little bit – I don't know if Yellow Pages ever tried this, but I know a lot of the TV and radio stations and the conglomerates around them that used to sell to local businesses tried to make this transition. They've been selling TV ads, radio ads, billboards to these local businesses for forever. A lot of them tried to make the jump into selling digital advertising and selling SEO, but it just doesn't seem like that transition worked for them. What is it that made it hard for those organizations to turn the corner where they already had the client relationship and build up that new line of business? JOHN: I think the biggest barrier for them was they were so comfortable with the margins they had. With a big company like Yellow Pages, they were so comfortable with a directory that they billed monthly for ads where they printed an ad, and the cost was less than one-quarter of a month. I knew the cost and the margin of retaining a customer and getting them to buy ads in their asset, which was the printed book. Now you go digital and the margins are a lot less; to get into that and then not know what expectations and profitability is, it's going to be bad on their shareholders because ultimately it's all about big business. For me, that's where this was a huge gap. I'm realizing, now that I've been doing this for 8 years, why do these business owners gravitate towards smaller boutique companies? Because the big guys will try to cut corners for cost – not deliver on the actual results. They're trying to do as little as possible and earn as much money as possible. ROB: And they're not used to doing the execution at all. You put something in a book and you're done versus managing a relationship, actually having to do execution, having to apologize. I'm sure something goes wrong sometimes in the Yellow Pages, but not the same way – I know of an ecommerce site that stood up their ecommerce site and WordPress had a setting that said “Don't Index Me.” That was kind of a problem for their SEO on a site migration. It doesn't usually happen that way in print. JOHN: Exactly. Again, digital is so multi-touchpoint and so many people need to be involved. With traditional media, like newspaper, flyer, tradeshow, radio, television, they already own their asset piece. It's a sunk cost. So, for them, it's all about ad spend and people. When you look at what is required for digital to perform, you invest a ton of money. For these companies that were so reluctant to spend and invest, and so comfortable with that profit margin, very difficult to get that mindset. Especially when they're older in terms of the older generation. They're okay with the status quo. They don't really forward-think like what we see today. As digital agencies, we have to look ahead. We have to stay ahead of the curve. ROB: You mentioned those first couple of years where you were learning a lot about running a business. You mentioned that you had some customers pretty early. Was there a point where it felt like you had turned a corner and you said, “Okay, we're not just trying this, we're doing this” and hit escape velocity where you'd built up a team now where you saw that ahead of you? JOHN: My goal to do this was either commit, do it properly, or not do it at all. For me, my intention was spend less time in the business eventually and learn as much as I can, early days. Because I did have a family but I didn't have children yet, I had time. I didn't have a lot of money because I bootstrapped everything. It was like, I've got to figure this out. I've got to make this happen. I've got to make this work. I didn't really have a digital background. No technical skills, no SEO skills. I had to learn it. I had to figure it out. My background was always just sales, but then I had to learn how to manage and operations and bookkeeping and all that other stuff that I needed to run a business. But that's the challenge of business ownership and entrepreneurship. You should always try to grow. You should always try to learn. And there are going to be tons of mistakes along the way. You have to acknowledge it, move ahead, and get better every single day, every hour. Challenge yourself. Figure out, what are the gaps? Where are the opportunities? Talk to people and get out there and learn. There's so much to it, and we only have a 30-minute podcast, so I don't even know where to start because there's so much I've learned over the last 8 years. ROB: It's such a big journey. I think you came into SEO at a pretty interesting time. SEO has an early baggage of being a gimmick business rather than a discipline business, or at least some people were very much in the gimmick business for a while. Were there any gimmicks or tactical short-term wins that you had to look at early on and either steer away from or get bit by once or twice to learn – I feel like what I would say is the best way to be found is to be worth finding, but it took us a while to get there in the SEO industry. JOHN: Yeah. There's so many hacks, fast ways. This is life in general, I feel. I was very fortunate working at Yellow Pages, where I met these business owners that were generationally in business – not just 5, 10, 20 years, but think about different lifetimes – 50, 100, 150 years. How did they survive without the internet? Internet's only been around for 15-20 years, right? Google has only really taken off in 10-15 years. It's transitioned and transformed the way we shop and our behaviors. Imagine these businesses. What did they do so well to keep them sustained? They took care of their customers. They relied on word-of-mouth, referral business. They understood how to run a really good business – service, pricing, competitors, unique selling proposition, understanding all their products and services. Inside out, they knew how to run it. If you take that foundation and you put it now digitally, people don't put that much effort in the foundation of a business online. They're looking for shortcuts. And in life, typically there's no shortcuts. Just like any profession – not just in business and entrepreneurship, but profession as in if you're a dentist or a lawyer or a doctor or a plumber, is there a shortcut to become one of them? Probably not. You probably have to go to school. You probably have to apprentice. You probably have to work as an associate. You've got to put your years in, training in, learning in. By the time you put in your 10, 15, 20 years, then maybe you have enough savings to start your own business. But now, with internet and with a lot of social media and videos and podcasts and everything, people find that it's easier for knowledge and information to be transferred. You can access information at your fingertips. There's so much information and intel at your disposal. However, there's not a lot of experience at your disposal. A lot of people think there's easier ways, faster ways to earn a living, and they get bitten by these videos or ways to do it. Just like a sports athlete, I'm all about mindset. I'm all about habits. If you look at one of the top basketball players – Michael Jordan, LeBron James – or Tiger Woods – how many years of training did they have to harvest? How many hours, how many years of dedication from help, practice, failures, to actually become that? People forget that in terms of business, and that's why in the first couple years of business ownership, a lot of people fail. They watch a video, they read a book, they listen to a podcast, and they purchase something on Wix or Squarespace or Shopify and build a site thinking, “Now I have a business.” But they don't have business experience and knowledge and insights on what real business ownership means. That's the gap that I'm saying. In terms of what I've seen over the years, I'm more a mature business now because I've learned from the type of clients I want to work with versus the type of clients that are not even real business owners yet because they're not profitable or they don't know how to run a business. I don't want to train someone how to run a business to be working with them, if that makes sense. People that are starting off or have an idea aren't my clients. ROB: Right. Those clients tend to go away. It's a great point about the athletes and about the experience. I think I heard you mention before “I didn't have kids yet,” which makes me suspect you may have them now?  JOHN: Yeah. ROB: So I think because you have experience, you don't have the time you used to have. Tiger Woods isn't as young as he used to be, and at one point he had to retool his entire swing to stay competitive, and there are still things he changes in his game now. Because he's not as young as he used to be, now he has to heal two broken legs, I think. That's what I think I saw, I don't know. But he's going to figure out and adapt, and experience is going to be the thing that gives him what maybe having raw energy and pure physical prowess gave him early on. We still have to work all those muscles. But it's a great point, a great analogy. JOHN: Yeah, ultimately it's mindset, right? What you feel will be what you want to do for a very long time. A lot of business owners are in it for the wrong reasons. They're chasing money or chasing fame and glory or trying to be the best, but they don't put in the work to become it. Business ownership is the same way. SEO is the same way. Digital ad agencies are the same way. I'm not selling a fake promise. I'm being authentic in terms of the journey. I want people to realize how long it takes, what's involved, and let them make an informed decision. The more you're up front with any transaction or interaction you have with your customers, the more likelihood they're going to stay with you for the long term. ROB: You're still doing it. You have more people, you have in some ways more opportunities, but also more problems. So, what is it at this point that makes it worth it to you? JOHN: I'm really just looking for good people to connect with. Good, honest, real businesses that not just need and acknowledge that they need help, but they're good people. The challenge with digital agencies – and again, I'm not your traditional agency coming from the ad world. I come from Yellow Pages, and that's all I built my business around. Long-term trust in clients that have a problem, fixing the problem and answering it. It's not rocket science, but it's very simple. People overcomplicate things with funnels and landing pages and different ways to try to cultivate new clients. I'm the type of guy that just went door-knocking at the beginning to get clients, and it worked. These things that really foundationally set these business owners apart when they first started still apply. People are always looking for shortcuts; there's no shortcuts. ROB: And it turns into – generically, not speaking specifically to the business – saying you're in the business of helping good people achieve what they want in their business in a way that you're skilled and enjoy. Isn't that what I think most people want from their work? JOHN: Not only will I give it all my best effort and my team will do what we possibly can for all clients, I'm trying to cultivate good, ideal customers that you want coming to you and positioning yourself as a thought leader. So, for me, I think a lot of business owners need to realize why they're in business, who they want to go after as their ideal type of client, and then focus heavily on that versus trying to take anything they can. Yes, maybe when they're first starting, you're doing that because it's like survival mode. But then you realize as you mature in your business what you really want to be known as. Who do you want to cultivate as an ideal customer? Just have fun. A lot of people forget about why they started the business in the first place. ROB: That's great advice, John. You've shared a lot of good lessons along your journey. Is there anything else you can think of – a key moment, a key decision you want a do-over on if you could? Obviously, we can only move forward, but if you could change something on the journey? JOHN: For me, I wouldn't, actually. Even though I made a ton of mistakes – I mean, I still make mistakes every day. I'm learning. I'm constantly eager and I'm hungry to want to be better. I don't have to be the best, and that's okay too. I'm always trying to get better. I know there's gaps in the agency. I know there's gaps in client expectations, and we can do more. I'm all about generating more value for my customers, taking care of my clients, taking care of my staff, and being a better human and living a better life of joy and happiness. If I'm enjoying that entire journey and process, that's what being a business owner should be about. ROB: That's fantastic, John. When people want to find you and Local SEO Search, where should they go to find you? JOHN: They can check out my website. It's www.localseosearch.ca. We're located in Toronto, Canada, but we service clients all across North America, UK, and Australia. For us, it's all about helping good people and informing them with decisions and letting them decide. I equip people with insight and knowledge, and they make their own decisions of who they want to work with and what they want to do. But just be informed. I think that's the biggest thing about SEO. Know what you want and go out there and be realistic, because there's experts or a lot of information out there; you just don't know who to trust and what that really means. ROB: When one goes to Google and types in “local SEO search,” I can affirm that you're proving your craft. You are the number one organic result for “local SEO search.” Not only that, there's like four or five ads above you, which means people really want that spot. It seems like there's some evidence here that you can do your job, John. JOHN: Thank you, Rob. ROB: It's pretty cool. And you're above people like BrightLocal and folks who would really like that slot. That's pretty impressive. JOHN: Yeah, Whitespark, BrightLocal. All of them have their own business. I feel just stay the course. It's a long game. Have fun, enjoy it. ROB: Sounds good, and we shall. John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great to hear your own journey and wisdom from it. JOHN: Thank you, Rob. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

On this week's show, strap in for the utterly confusing ride that is 2011's Cars 2, directed by John "Not the boss anymore" Lasseter. Who made these cars? Why do they have things like religions and monarchies? Does that mean there's a Car Jesus? Do these cars have souls? If so, where is the soul located? How are these cars reproducing? And what's going on with this bonkers plot? All this, plus we watch Cameron Diaz do something obscene to an automobile and play a game of Real Car / Fake Car! Cars 2 is directed by John Lasseter, and stars Owen Wilson, Larry The Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Bruce Campbell and Eddie Izzard. Bad With Numbers is a weekly podcast from Toronto, Canada; hosted by Neth Knowles, Laura Medeiros, Rodey Gozum and Megan Swaine. Follow us on Twitter - @BadNumbersPod or drop us an email at bwnpod@gmail.com

In 2008, the economy had tanked and John McDonald was left at a crossroads. Rather than withdraw into comfort, he took the opportunity to do something a bit crazy. John was a woodworker who spent time at trade shows, and someone once suggested that he make cabinet doors that fit with IKEA cabinets. With nothing to lose, John launched Semihandmade to do just that. Now, a decade later, Semihandmade has seen consistent double-digit growth year over year and has been featured in countless blogs, interior design social posts, on the feeds of influencers worldwide, and in the homes of tens of thousands of people. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, John tells the story from start to finish, including how he built a successful ecommerce custom cabinet model on the backs of the IKEA brand, and how he’s now launching into the DTC space with the first US-made custom cabinet DTC offering, BOXI. From finding the right partners, to building an omnichannel approach that doesn’t handcuff your resources, to challenging yourself to strive for more, you’ll learn something from John and his story that just might help you level up your ecommerce business, too.  Main Takeaways:Perfect Partners: For ecommerce brands taking on an omnichannel approach, there is no reason to tie up a lot of your resources into retail spaces and showrooms. Instead, exploring partnership opportunities with other brands in a similar category might be a mutually beneficial way to expand your brand, the brand you partner with, and offer an in-store experience to customers who seek one.Meeting the Moment: The world of home furnishings and interior design is changing rapidly, especially as A.I. and VR technology enter the marketplace. With that tech, users are gaining more flexibility to design their own spaces without leaving home, which means there is an opening for DTC companies that are tech-first. Step Up or Step Out: You can’t let competition scare you, let it inspire you to raise your game. By surrounding yourself with the best and forcing yourself to compete against them, you have to level up to simply survive, and succeed expectations to grow your business in a meaningful way.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, Cofounder at Mission.org. Today, I had the pleasure of chatting with John McDonald, the Founder and CEO at Semihandmade and also Boxi. John, welcome.John:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you on. Before we get started, I was hoping you could give me a little background, and for anyone who doesn't know what Semihandmade is and also Boxi, how did you start it? What is it? How do I think about it?John:Sure. Semihandmade is a company that's been around, I guess, just over 10 years now. We're based in Southern California. We make doors that fit IKEA cabinets. What that means is, if you want to buy a kitchen, bathroom, closet media system, IKEA, for the most part, gives you the amazing flexibility of not buying their doors. For a kitchen, you'd buy the cabinets, you'd buy the interior components. Then we have over 40 different options from entry level doors to some really high-end, one-of-a-kind offerings.Stephanie:I love that. Do I think of it like white labeling? You take IKEA's [inaudible] and then you can add like rose gold fixtures on it, yeah?John:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The credit, obviously, goes back to IKEA. This is an ever expanding ecosystem that's been around probably for 15 years now. People that make amazing slipcovers that you can put on their sofas. People that make furniture legs, companies like us that make fantastic cabinet doors. It's a way to get a really high-end look for a really mid-level price.Stephanie:Cool.John:I'm even fortunate to grow quite a bit with that.Stephanie:That's great. How did you come to this idea?John:I'm always honest and clear that this was ... It's a spectacular idea that somebody gave to me.Stephanie:Who gave it to you?John:I think his name is David Stewart. I think he's a photographer. Look, I'm 53. I don't know if I'm older than a lot of the people you talk to.Stephanie:A little.John:I came to things a little bit later. I had moved to California from the East Coast when I was 21. Well, wanted to get rich and famous, work in the film business, didn't really have any kind of plan, bounced around with that, was writing, not making any money like everybody else I knew waiting tables. Then I woke up in my early 30s and said, I got to do something with my life. It was post 9/11, which is a wake-up call for a lot of people. I tried a bunch of different things. Then I somehow landed in woodworking and furniture making at first and cabinetry. I got good at it.John:Through the late '90s and early 2000s, that's what I was doing, Southern California based custom furniture and cabinetry company called Handmade. I worked hard. I approached it like a business into my late 30s, which was different than a lot of other people I knew, the craftspeople, spectacular artists, but just no head for business, no interest in business. I always looked at it like as a business like any other. That's what I was doing through, again, the early 2000s. I was networking and blogs just started to happen. I was doing a lot of woodworking shows but also design shows. At one of those design shows in 2008, I think somebody came up to me, this guy randomly and said, "Have you ever thought about making doors for IKEA cabinets?"Stephanie:Was that something that others were doing? Why did he have that idea? Then was like, I'm going to tell John to do that.John:It's interesting. Again, I always want to give credit where credit is due. On top of him, there was a company called Scherr's based in North Dakota that has been making doors for IKEA cabinets just a little bit prior to that. People are always making their own doors as well. It is because IKEA lets you not buy doors when you buy their kitchens. I don't know why he mentioned it. I think part of it was because when I did those shows, it was a show called Whelan Design, which is a great show in Southern California at the time and back when Dwell magazine was really in its heyday and just an iconic brand.John:I was always like the one off independent company. It was me and all the big brands. It would be like Kohler and Caesarstone and Sub-Zero. I was there alongside them with my little custom furniture setup. I don't know if he took a liking to me, but we just spent that day, the Friday and then the following day just talking about it. I had no idea what he was talking about at first.Stephanie:That's awesome. Then for people listening, I know when I first heard of your brand and was looking through it. I'm like, oh, it's just like a small thing, a big thing. Then I was looking through some of the stats and you've been named like the fastest growing private company every year by Inc. magazine [inaudible].John:Well, yeah, one of. Yeah, one of many. Inc. 500 originally, we've been on that list, I think, six or seven years now.Stephanie:You've had double digit growth for almost a decade, year every year.John:Yeah. It's exciting. It's, again, one of many things. I try to be candid and clear, but I never expected this. I never thought in a million years I'd be doing this. Every year that we were fortunate to grow, even my ambition or dreams, it got bigger. It's like get to a million, get to two million, get to five million. It's been exciting. Believe me, I don't take it for granted. That's why I enjoy doing things like this, because I always ... At 40, I was newly divorced. I didn't have any kids at the time. I have a son now. He was nine. I lived in my shop for a year, because I got divorced.John:I didn't have anywhere to live. I had options, but I wanted to hide. I lived in my woodworking shop. I lived on my sofa with my dog. I just said, I got to do something else. It was a huge wakeup call. Then that's when the conversation I had, I think, six to nine months prior. It was like, maybe I should try this. Again, in terms of the second acts in life, whatever, I was 40 and had no clue. 10 years later, more than 10 years later, it's different.Stephanie:Yeah, that's very inspirational. Cool to hear about and cool to see where you can start and where it can grow to. How did you grow the company? From starting out where you're woodworking, you're building stuff, and then you're like, okay, I'm going to buy IKEA stuff and make it better. How did you get in front of people and be found in general?John:Like anything, Stephanie, it's like you look back on it and as much as it was, a long journey at times were so challenging, whatever. You get through it, and you gloss over it. It's only when conversations like this that I do get an opportunity to look back. The reality was, again, I had a nice custom furniture cabinetry business. I had some really good clients. I work with some good architects and designers. Then in 2008, the market tanked. Everybody went in the dumpster. I had to do something else. Things had slowed down.John:I started saying to a couple designers and architects, "What if we try to do integrate some IKEA cabinetry into the custom project." Because at the end of the day, a box is a box, and you're just going to see the outside of the beautiful panels and the doors. There were a few people that took a chance on that. That's how it ... It's like anything. I was 100% custom in 2009. Then it's like, okay, you can start mixing it in and starting to organically ... I don't even know what kind of ... I wasn't doing advertising. Blogs had just taken off.John:Apartment therapy had seen see me at a design show and written about me, which was amazing. That was a really big deal. L.A. Times did a story on me, which is incredible. Yet it was always organic. Through 2010 and 2011, it became, okay, now we're doing half custom, half IKEA. Then every year, it's a little bit more headed towards full IKEA. The truth is, I don't know when it was, maybe 2013, when it was fully just making doors for IKEA. It was fun. It was always a steady progression, always growing every year.Stephanie:Yeah, sustainably growing, which is a lot different than a lot of the brand.John:Yeah, profitable every year. Beginning, doubling every year, which, again, was not what I expected. Part of that, what's funny too is I have a lot of incredibly supportive family, but also friends, guys that I grew up with. When I was in California at 21, or 22, or 29, or whatever, they were amazing. They love me. They were supportive, but they probably had no clue where I was headed. I didn't either. Now, it's fun. I gave them a hard time constantly about the fact that they probably gave up on me.John:Not in a bad way, but it's just ... I mean, I do think that there is a time to cash in your chips. It's great to have dreams. There was an interesting like Scott Galloway kind of thing recently about if you should follow your dream. His overly simplistic thing is definitely do not follow your dream. Because unless you're willing to pay your bills to start because following just exclusively your dream can be incredibly impractical. The people that you admire, suddenly, the people that I admire weren't these head up in the clouds kind of people. They worked really hard. I geek out on founder stories, things, podcasts like this. I'm fascinated by that. It's never an overnight thing, or at least it's rarely. Again, I'm 53 now. This is all house money.Stephanie:Wow, that's awesome. When you started, getting more money, you're doubling growth, more revenue, obviously. Where did you invest? How did you think about investing that? Because I'm sure you're like, woo-hoo! I'm going to go have fun now.John:No.Stephanie:No?John:It was never like that, no. It's interesting. I would say I like nice things like some people do. I'm pretty frugal. In terms of the business, everything lives inside the business. I had a partner at that point. Up until three years ago, we made everything in-house. I was the original guy making the doors and packing them up and then shipping them in New York or different places. Then my partner at the time, Ivan, came on board. He was the guy cutting the doors. Now, we were fortunate to grow.John:Eventually, we had close to 35, I think 35 or 40 people that were working in production. Up until three years ago, we topped out at 75 people and half of them were making products. Now I'm proud to say we don't make anything in-house. Everything, it's made around the US, some at the top manufacturers in the country. That was a huge shift. To answer your question, everything is in the business. That's why you see revenue numbers are different than other things.Stephanie:Yeah. What were some mistakes maybe that you remember where you're like, ooh, I would have avoided this if I were to do it again, or especially in the more maybe the past five years or something. Not early on when you're just ...John:Right. If we're going to say 10 years ago, the mistakes that I made were unavoidable in the sense that I was creating this out of thin air. Ivan and I were just making stuff up as we went along. We were two guys. He's a little bit younger than me. He came out from Boston. I came out from Philadelphia to be writers. In some ways, no business starting this kind of business. In the last five years, it's probably the mistakes that I've made are ... I don't know, maybe waiting too long to really build up the team, which is not to say that we didn't have good people, we did.John:Part of my job now is just looking at the next 12 months and 18 months and say, hopefully, where are we going to be? Where do we think we're going to be? What are we going to need then? As someone who is ... Again, I think pretty honest about their limitations or whatever, we only thrive with people that are smarter, better, or more experienced than me. That's one of the biggest changes in the last at least six months, where we really just hit the gas and brought in some really amazing complementary pieces.Stephanie:Yeah, cool. How do you think about building on top of another company? What if IKEA changes their cabinet line or does something different, did that ever worry you, building a business that's ... I mean, a lot of businesses are built on another businesses, obviously. How did you think about that?John:We've always been after market. With IKEA, it's pretty well documented. We've gone up and down with them. I think in most ways, they appreciate what we do. Certainly, it's undeniable that we sell kitchens that people wouldn't normally buy if we weren't available. They also, I think, hate a little bit that we're there. I don't know this is arrogant or anything to say. They're not going to change their model because of us. They're never going to not sell doors. Even if they did, I would say to people like, "Then just buy the doors that literally cost $2."John:Then we'll pay for them and recycle. Their model is that a la carte wide range of pricing. We've always been respectful. Again, I have immense respect for them and what they built. It's extraordinary. Even when my fiancé and I moved into a new house and it's like going there, buying the basics for the house, it's just nobody can beat it [inaudible].Stephanie:Yup. I'm doing that now as well. I think, like you said, you're opening up a market that they probably wouldn't have access, otherwise. When I'm about finishing this house now, I honestly would not have thought to go to IKEA to get cabinets. I don't know. Then when I saw you guys, I'm like, oh, well then you can have the finishings and the colors and the things that I actually want. I don't actually care what a cabinet is like inside or behind the scenes, but I care about how it looks. A lot of the IKEA stuff does look like you know sometimes.John:Yeah, it's understandable. Because at that scale, you can't get that fancy and creative. This is the part where I drop names, just in the sense that what I do love is we work with some really cool people that do make IKEA more accessible. It is people like Karlie Kloss and Coco Rocha and all kinds of celebrities and high end designers and influencers. They, more so than us, have normalized IKEA. That's good for everybody. If design is supposed to be democratic and accessible to everybody, there's nothing more accessible than IKEA. Obviously, Amazon, Wayfair, and things like that.Stephanie:Walmart? Walmart is coming back. I have bought rugs now, a little egg wicker chair. It's from following influencers. I'm like, Walmart is coming back.John:You're right. It's funny, because the same thing with my fiancé, Stephanie. Yesterday, she was looking at different coffee tables. She said, "This is ... " She showed me a thing. I was like, "That's awesome." She said, "Oh, it's like the Kelly Clarkson line." I was like, "This is great." It's true. Look, certainly, you can make the argument that some of that stuff is more disposable and it's going to go into a landfill and less sustainable. I understand that. The reality is, not everyone has the same access to disposable. If you can get cool stuff, it's reasonably priced and it lasts for a few years. I don't know. It's hard to turn that down.Stephanie:You mentioned that you partner with influencers and celebrities. How does that relationship work?John:Yeah. I think that's always been a huge differentiator for us, one of several things. From the start, I always felt no self-consciousness about reaching out to people. Whether it was blogs, I would say, "This is what we're doing. Here are some photos. I'd love for you to write about us." Or even influencers. The biggest one and the one that we worked with the most is Sarah Sherman Samuel. We've had a door line with Sarah for three years. That's a situation where, god, I think 2014 or 2015, she reached out and said, "Hey, I bought a bungalow in Venice. I love IKEA cabinets.John:I wonder if we could partner on some doors." We did a small collaboration, gave her a tiny discount. She painted the doors. She styled everything. She took photography. The kitchen went completely viral. It's one of those kitchens that is everywhere. I think a really cool Farrow & Ball paints, brass and mixture of this light green and white. That just opened the door to all these other relationships. People saw that and started reaching out to us. It's been an amazing thing. The truth is, we've gotten to a point where we've had to pull back on that because it's just a different way to market the brand. It can be expensive. It's definitely grown us, there's no doubt about it.Stephanie:Have you thought about Netflix series? I'm just thinking, wow, they should be on a home remodel type of show. How perfect is that? People always trying to do amazing things on a budget on like the HGTV [inaudible].John:Yeah. We've talked about that stuff in the past. I like that stuff. Again, I don't know. I do think it's interesting our growth. That's how I always look at things, behind the scenes of how businesses grow, especially within that. I do like someone we haven't worked with in a while, the Studio McGee, the Netflix series, which is great. That's really interesting, especially after listening to another podcast like our friends at Business of Home, where ... I left the podcast with so much more respect.John:Because my interaction with them was a long time ago, and then I just see the photos and the beautiful stuff. Just the growth that they've had and the behind the scenes, and again, hearing their story is really extraordinary. I enjoy watching that stuff. I don't know if I want to watch this. I get sick of hearing myself talk. Maybe if it's everybody else, that might work.Stephanie:Yeah. I was just thinking like, wow, that'd be a really good partnership strategy. I always bring up the Container Store partnership that they had on the Netflix series and just how much Container Store sales went up after that series.John:[inaudible]Stephanie:I can see why, same thing with cabinets and stuff.John:Yeah, it's interesting. Because even that, again, I'm a lot older than you, but in the early '90s, whenever Trading Spaces came on and that was huge like ...Stephanie:I watch Trading Spaces, just to be clear.John:I mean, even in the '80s, the godfather of that is like Bob Vila in this old house. That's definitely before your time. That was restoring amazing New England homes and stuff. It was master carpenter, Norm. I think Norm Abram is absolute craftsman. That was the start. Then you had Trading Spaces. Even now, you would have thought, after 10 years, that goes away, and it hasn't. That's the thing. Is it the ladies like Home Edit and stuff like that? I don't know. It hasn't evaded, it just only grown. Obviously, Chip and Joanna Gaines and the dynasty that they have built. It doesn't show any sign of stopping.Stephanie:Yeah. It seems like the world is now just moving to a more curated collections like I'm going to look for someone who knows my style, so I don't have to waste time looking at everything. Whereas before, it's like, oh, I'm going to go to Target to get this, and then I'm going to go to Dollar Tree to get this. I make it up. I think, 10 years ago is very much about DIY, but all over the place. Now, it's like, okay, I'm going to follow Chip and Joanna Gaines, their line at Target, whatever that is, and follow the people that I know are my style and be ready to immerge myself in that brand.John:Yeah. The interesting, whether it's the 180 to that is the amount of growth that Restoration Hardware has had, where it's just almost like meteoric, being a complete luxury brand and selling the whole experience. It is like the Ralph Lauren of today, and now as they move towards hospitality restaurants and sounds like hotels. Part of your brain thinks, man, you can't sustain that. How do you keep growing? There is a market for that. Even when you watch the Studio McGee, their services are not expensive. Amber Interiors, who we work with, people like that, incredibly talented, at the really high end of the market. They keep growing.Stephanie:Yup. Tell me a bit about your omnichannel approach. I saw that you had showrooms around the country. Then you're, obviously, online as well. Now you're moving into DTC. How do you think about keeping a cohesive story of your brand but also expanding and reaching a lot of people on different channels?John:I guess the biggest challenge, if it is the biggest, it's just the fact that what we're selling comes at a higher price point than the average online purchase. We sell certainly, if you're doing a GODMORGON bathroom vanity, that then may cost $150, $300, $400. We're selling cabinet doors and panels and complementary trim and things like that that can cost $3,000, $5,000, $20,000. Again, it's not buying a pair of Warby's or an Olay bag for a couple hundred bucks. There's a lot to it, a lot of back and forth. Excuse me.John:Showrooms we're always a part of we've got to show people our product, especially when we're asking them to spend that much. The benefit of IKEA is, even though they're still a privately held company, there are only, I think, less than 60 around the US. What I could say to people to say to you, Stephanie, or wherever, like you're in New York, go to one of the five local IKEAs. Then come into our mini ... I never want to call it a showroom, because it could be 200 square feet. It's got some cabinetry in it. It's got door samples, things like that. There would be a whole experience.John:I would always say, if you want to see a kitchen, go to IKEA and you can see 15 kitchens or see 20 kitchens. Want to see the doors? Come see us. We've had that in New York, in Brooklyn, in Chicago, obviously, in LA, Minneapolis, a bunch of different places. Again, trying to be reasonable about that. I don't want the overhead of signing leases if I don't have to. What we've typically done and we will continue to do even more so is partner with other great brands. It is like a multi-brand approach.John:With our lighting friends, with hardware companies like Rejuvenation, Fireclay Tile, upcoming collaboration with Caesarstone, it's partnering with Cambria in the past. It's just saying, let's do this collectively. Because the kitchen is, as someone said to me, "The base purchase, if you're fortunate to have him as a house, there's a car, and then maybe there's your kitchen." We're trying to grow the company that way. We started what I think is an amazing ... I got to [inaudible] blog anymore. It's that. [inaudible] stories that launched last summer.John:That was the idea that I wanted to bring together all these great writers, great content to help promote the brand, of course, but also expand us, again, to make that cliché to becoming a lifestyle brand. On the one hand, it would be enough to have a really successful cabinet door company. I just think we have the opportunity to do so much more. That's what something else we can talk about, is this brand Boxi, which is going to launch at the beginning of March. That really is direct to consumer. That's our own product, no IKEA. That's a whole different thing for us.Stephanie:Alright. Let's move there next after my one thought. I've many ideas when talking to you now.John:Awesome.Stephanie:What about having like partnering with IKEA on their AR app or developing your own AR app, instead of having to have a showroom, being going to IKEA, pull up your phone, and then you can swipe through the designs of ours, and you can see exactly what that trim would look like, what that doorknob or whatever, so then you eliminate showroom.John:It is interesting. Look, the thing with IKEA, they have partnered with people in the past. Obviously, places like Target have done an amazing job of that completely. As you said, Walmart too.. It always seem like the natural fit with us. If you were going to do it with anybody, it would be us. In terms of AI, yeah. IKEA has been slow and is put a huge push in the last couple years of their online presence and their economy. They have an app they launched last month. What we are doing with the new brand is working with a 3D AI company called Skip. It's going to launch in the next few months. That lets you basically not go in showrooms.John:There are ways to order this new line of cabinets, and one of them is to make an appointment and someone comes to your house and 3D scans your room. Then you design remotely. With 80 hours of AI and machine learning and everything else, it's compressing that and then presenting you with design options.Stephanie:That's cool.John:That's where we're headed. All has changed dramatically in the last year. COVID or not, it was headed towards that. The new iPhones have the camera technology where you can almost do that. Maybe in 12 to 15 months, you don't even need a guy to come to your house. You can do it with your iPhone. They're already pretty close.Stephanie:Yeah, I think it's fair. I have a little tape measure app on my phone and it says, okay, scan the whole room. You do that and then you can measure everything. The placeholders all around the room for you and [inaudible].John:Yeah, it's fascinating. Even brands like Primer that launched last year, which do the work with other brand partners, and you want to click on like the Hygge and West Wallpaper, you can hold it up to your wall. They'll show you different swatches and things like that. It's interesting. For us, yeah, that is part of what we think is a differentiator. IKEA is always going to have massive brick and mortar. Even though they move in some cities towards smaller footprints, it's still footprints that are 20,000 to 150,000, as opposed to 300,000. There's another cabinet line that's launching.John:It just launched, it's got a 30,000 square foot showroom on the East Coast and 100 kitchens. You go in and wear the AR or the VR goggles. That's completely different because you're looking at some space that has nothing to do with yours. It's kind of what you're saying. The point is, things are changing so fast. With Boxi, it is saying, can you make this as DTC as possible? The caveat being, it could cost $10,000 to $15,000, to $20,000. It's not like ...Stephanie:Okay. Tell me what is Boxi then since we [crosstalk].John:Boxi is the first American direct to consumer cabinet brand. It's a cabinet system for the entire home. It's basically taking the last 10, 11 years of everything we've learned from IKEA and saying, let's try and offer something. I don't know, if it's ... I don't want to say better than IKEA. Because again, I've huge respect for them. It's a more complete package. Certainly, the quality is there. The accessibility is there. One of many things that we're going to improve on is the fact that Semihandmade customers have to go to IKEA first.John:It's a two-part process where you've got to go to IKEA. You've got to order the cabinets and hardware. Then you've got to order the doors from us. Thank God that they do, but especially in the last year, IKEA, like a lot of people, has suffered horribly with supply chain issues. We have customers now, unfortunately, it's January, they're hearing, cabinet boxes might not be available for three, four, or five months because ...Stephanie:I ordered a couch from Pottery Barn and four months out. [crosstalk] order, I just didn't look, I guess.John:As a business, on a personal level, that annoys me because I want ... That's a whole thing. We have such ridiculous expectations because they're easily met or they have been up until now. Not to blame Amazon because that's too easy. I'm a hypocrite about Amazon too. With Boxi, we're saying, no big box stores. Somebody can come to you, things ship, leave the factory in a week. Part of what we're doing, you're from Palo Alto, I don't know if you're born there, but it's almost like an In-N-Out Burger West Coast approach. Meaning we're going to do a limited number of items, and we're going to do it great. If you want ...John:What they do is they're great. What's interesting about that is they ... I think just little background on burgers. I think the founder was best friends with Carl Karcher who started Carl's Jr., another big West Coast place. In the '50s, they open hamburger stands right next to each other. The In-N-Out guy's thing was always, I'm not worried about competition. You're welcome to open across the street from me, next door, or whatever, because I'm just going to bury you. I'll just be that much better. Not like in an obnoxious, overly competitive way. Just like, this is going to raise our game. With us, with Boxi, yeah, limited selection, fast turnaround ships in a week, never need to go to a big box store. It's built in the US at a really competitive price point. That's the idea.Stephanie:I love that it's built in the US. I think that a lot of companies right now are bringing things back into the US and some are struggling seeing how expensive things can be and what was happening overseas and maybe how it's just different here. What did you guys learn from IKEA that you're taking with you? Then what are you discarding where you're like, we're going to do this different though?John:Again, in some ways, I learned everything from IKEA. Look, I learned a couple things. One of them is you can't compete with them in terms of pricing. That's the most basic thing. I always say like, with Amazon, the same thing, you can't ... I mean, then the turnaround lead time. Up until recently, with COVID, you could buy a kitchen today and bring it home today. Nobody else could do that at a crazy price. Best of all, really high quality. IKEA, to their credit, pretty much every year, as long as I can remember, the last 10 years, is right at the top of like J.D. Power customer satisfaction in terms of quality, customer service, things like that.John:You could complain about certain products from IKEA and their quality, but their kitchens, I think, are inarguable. As much as I'm not affiliated with them directly, I always get defensive when people would slag them. Because it's also understanding that the product that they offer, and this blows some Americans minds, but it's a particleboard core with a melamine skin, a three-quarter melamine box. That standard in the entire world for kitchen cabinets. The most expensive cabinet brands in the world are constructed the same way.John:In the US, that's less the case because 70% of the market wants a frame around their cabinet. It's literally a face frame cabinet. The European style that IKEA is called frameless 32 millimeter. Again, I've learned everything. We're deeply indebted to them.Stephanie:Well, is there anything that you're changing though now that you are exploring DTC that's [crosstalk]?John:Yeah. We'll always have the ability. With Semihandmade, one of the differentiators were ... You'll always have this when you're smaller, we're microscopic compared to them. It's just being able to be nimble, to be able to get more custom, to be able to offer certain versatility that they could never do. Limited run doors, ability to do appliance panels for really anything. The Semihandmade, we could always do that. We can do upgrades with matching ... We used to do open cabinets that match your doors and things like that. We do less of that now.John:With Boxi, what will be interesting is because the hope is anybody to scale and to have short lead times, quick turnaround, we're not going to offer as much customization. We've learned like what ... In terms of people's taste. We have eight doors, which are basically the biggest sellers for Semihandmade. It's basic white, gray, black, and some wood tones. It's not saying like we have at Semihandmade of 45 choices. That's fun to me. Because if anything, you can have too many options and that is paralyzing.Stephanie:Yup. Just going to say that I appreciate when things are curated or you showed me something cute and I'm just like, "I'll have that." Whatever that is, the white, the gold, and the brown, perfect. That's what I want. Not choose every single piece of it. Which I think is for a lot of ecommerce, that's what I've heard throughout many interviews, is don't give so many choices, show people what you think or know that they're going to want based off of preferences or how they're interacting with your site or whatever it may be.John:That's part of if there'd been multiple challenges with getting Boxi off the ground understandably. I think the biggest one is like you said, with even a call today, there was seven of us on the screen and I said, "If the seven of us were the typical technology guys or girls that knew nothing about socks, but we're launching a socks brand, we wouldn't bring all this baggage to it about what we thought we knew." With Semihandmade, we have all this great knowledge, but some of it can get in the way with the new brand.John:Because the new brand, for it to really work, you can't do all the customization. There are certain things that Semihandmade where we'll make exceptions and we'll do things. Of course, you always want to service the customer, first and foremost. It's just recognizing that if the goal is for this really to take off and grow, which I think it will, we have to be a little stricter, a little more brand fidelity, like say, this is who we are, this is how we get to where we want to go, and then stick to that.Stephanie:Yeah, that seems tricky. Having two different hats where you and your team are like, we know what works, this is what works, we build a company that does this. Then having a slow creep where you turn the other brand into the same thing. Like you said, you have to really be strict about creating a whole new company with a new vision and making sure everyone's on board and not just let the old company creep in and [crosstalk].John:I think in some ways too, whether in a good way or a bad way, the fact that we've been fortunate to have growth and success for Semihandmade, it's either made it easier or harder to get the new venture off. Because it buys you certain time. If we were a startup, we raised funding. We've got 18 months to runway all these different things that will be different. Probably, things have taken longer. On the other hand, we wouldn't have been able to do it. When this launches, what we leverage is, yeah, it's 10 years of Semihandmade. It's 25,000 projects. It's incredible.John:We have 2,000 semipro designers around the country that are champing at the bit to offer this. It's relationships we've got with Rejuvination and Kaff appliances and Caesarstone that are going to be partners. I continue to remind people and even myself like if we were a startup, we'd never have this stuff. We wouldn't have five, six amazing influencer projects that you're going to roll out in the next six weeks with the new launch. You'd be launching and then keeping your fingers crossed.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Alright, so let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have one minute or less, prepare, get your water, [inaudible], shake it out, do what you got to do. Alright, are you ready, John?John:Yup.Stephanie:Alright. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?John:That's great question. Do I have a minute for this?Stephanie:Yeah, a minute.John:I think it depends. I'm cynical about the fact that in some ways, yeah, a lot of companies have taken off, Instacart and things like that, but even like Wayfair. I was reading Bed Bath & Beyond today. I think the question is whether or not that'll be sustained. When life comes back to normal, which hopefully, inevitably will, certainly, people will be more inclined to shop online. There's no doubt about that. The world is changing. It's not going to go back. There are companies that have gotten a little frothier or whatever that I think that artificial is going to wear off. It's normalized.John:It's great. There's stuff I would have never done. Even with not ecomm, but with Zoom, we hired a new president, Beth and Molly, who runs marketing and stuff. I hired three of our highest people remotely. They're based in New York. I would have never done that. I would never trusted people or trusted myself. Now, it's normal.Stephanie:Yeah. I was slow with grocery delivery and curbside pickup. It forced me to do that because I was the one who always want to go to the grocery store, look around with my friends, whatever it maybe. Now, I'm like, oh, I don't really want to go there anymore. There's no point. I'll save my time and do other things.John:It is amazing. To me, it's more interesting to see how those people make money. That's the part where it's one thing to do great revenue. Obviously, profitability is a thing, unless it's not your money, unless you have a thing too. When it is your money, it's much more of a focus.Stephanie:Yeah. We just had someone from Intel on who was saying that they work with a hardware store and they're struggling because contractors were coming in and placing 40, 50 item orders for curbside pickup.John:All of it?Stephanie:Because they're like, why would I send in my contractor and paid him to be there for two to three hours when I could just have you all do it. They're struggling with trying to figure out the program because they weren't really expecting them.John:Yeah, that's interesting.Stephanie:I'm like, that's scary. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?John:Business wise or otherwise?Stephanie:Anything, whatever comes to mind.John:I guess the biggest cliché was my son's mom having my son. That's probably ...Stephanie:That's a good one. Having three kids, I appreciate that answer.John:I mean that from heart.Stephanie:Yeah, that's a good one. What's up next on your reading list?John:I constantly have five or six books I'm reading. That's interesting too, whether it's because I pursued writing for a long time. I haven't made the jump to eBooks. There are few writers that I correspond with on Twitter. Twitter is another thing that I didn't use that much before this. I've asked them like, "Well, what's the feeling on eBooks? Is it like cheating or whatever?" Of course, these guys and girls want to sell books. They're not considered cheating if you buy their eBook. The response I got from a bunch of them was, it's best in some ways for nonfiction.John:I read tons of nonfiction. I'm reading Say Nothing, which is a story about the troubles in Ireland. I'm finishing a great book on ecommerce called the Billion Dollar Brands book, something like that. That's spectacular. I've got so many. I'm reading a book on Chinatown, the making of the movie. I love a lot of different things. It is mainly. It's less fiction now. It is more nonfiction.Stephanie:Very cool. What is your favorite cabinet design? What's in your house?John:My house, it's interesting. Because in my house that I share with my son who I split custody with, we have a more contemporary kitchen. It's walnut. It's unique. We sell a fair amount of walnut and it is one of a kind. Every kitchen is different. That's a little more contemporary, even though it's wood. It's contemporary. In the house with my fiancé, where she lives, that's a more traditional. It's a shaker kitchen. It's got some really pretty hardware. I guess I'm very particular about what I like. In general, even when we she and I have arguments about furniture, I just say like, "Buy something quality and it'll fit with everything else." I know it's a copout, but that's where I'm landed. I love eclectic as long as it's nice quality.Stephanie:Yeah, cool. Alright and then the last one, if you were to have a podcast, what would it be about? Who would your first guest be?John:That's a great question. I like a lot of probably IKEA. I like a lot of different things. Even podcasts, same thing. I didn't listen to before, frankly, a year ago. I listened to one the other day. Marc Maron was really talented, funny guy who've been doing podcast for about 10 years. He had this guy, Daniel Lanois, who's a big time record producer, did U2 and all kinds of amazing people. I was amazed at the depth of Maron's knowledge of music. I don't have that. I don't know. I like diverse things. I don't know if I could do it.John:Because I like to think I'm a good listener, but I'm probably not because I'm always ready to say something. Obviously, like in your spot or whatever, to do it well, you should be listening to people. Again, I love screenwriting podcasts. I like anything. I like news, podcasts.Stephanie:Okay, so it'd be a little bit of everything. I like that. That's cool.John:I could do this kind of thing. If we're talking about remodeling, if anything, would always have an edge to it. If I were going to do a show, that's the thing. I gravitate less, maybe not towards Gordon Ramsay, but like Anthony Bourdain. There would be an edge to it. It wouldn't be ... Even when I was inside people's houses, I don't know if I was combative. I had very strong opinions about with architects and designers and homeowners and what I thought they should want. The one thing I don't like is when it's all sweet and sacristy and artificial. Totally with an edge.Stephanie:I like that. That sounds good. Alright, John, well, this has been a pleasure having you on. Where can people find out more about you and your work?John:Sure. Semihandmade, we can do semihandmade.com. Then Boxi, which launches March 1st, is at boxiliving, B-O-X-I-L-I-V-I-N-G.com.Stephanie:Okay, thanks.John:I appreciate the time. This has been great.Stephanie:Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on. It was fun.John:Thanks for having me, Stephanie.

 TGAHP 28: Captain Bellybuster and the Speed FactoryIn this episode, Ralph and the Gang find themselves in a real pickle. The mascot of a burger chain has discovered that the company he works for has broken bad and is selling not only delicious and nutritious hamburgers but also some speed on the side. So the gang must help Captain Bellybuster bring down some mobster type bad guys and at the same time protect Ralph's identity from a snoopy tabloid reporter. BURGER ALERT!! BURGER ALERT!! Thanks to an amazing listener of the show we now have a new podcast promo courtesy of the one and only William Katt! Also, this episode contains an amazing interview with William Katt himself that the listener, John (Not sure if he wants his full name out there or not) gave us permission to include in this episode. Thanks again to John for using his time with Mr. Katt to not only get us this amazing promo but also to answer a couple of our most burning questions about the show. John, you are our hero for sure and we'd love to have you on the show some time to talk about your love for the greatest 80's superhero show ever made!

Don't Waste Your Life (Part 1) - John PiperDon't Waste Your Life (Part 2) - John PiperDon't Waste Your Life (Part 3) - John PiperFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Don't Waste Your LifeDay 3 of 3 Guest:                            John Piper From the Series:         Boasting in the Cross ________________________________________________________________ Bob:                On days other than Good Friday is the cross central to your thinking?  Is it central to your life?  Here's Dr. John Piper with thoughts about the cross. John:              The word "cross" might mean something you're crucified on, or it might mean a piece of jewelry, or it might mean the last name of somebody you know, but in redemptive historical terms Jesus Christ the Son of God came into the world, He lived a perfect life, He laid Himself out voluntarily to be slaughtered on a cross.  He breathed his last breath in obedience to the Father so that He was a perfectly righteous substitute.  Then He raised Himself from the dead, He was taken up, sits at the right hand of God, intercedes for us.  When I say "the cross," I mean that great redemptive work from incarnation to the installation at God's right hand.  Yeah, that's really crucial to see. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, July 28th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today we'll look at the implications of the cross, why it still matters for your life 2,000 years later.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition.  You know, Dennis, I don't know that I will ever forget something that I heard our guest today say.  I remember where I was.  I was driving along on a highway on my way to Mount Ida, Arkansas.  I was tooling along listening to John Piper on tape, and he was saying that the world is not going to look at Christians in times of prosperity and say "I want to be a Christian," because you know what?  When Christians are blessed, they say "Praise the Lord," and when pagans are blessed, all we say is, "Boy, wasn't that lucky?"  He said, "No, the world is going to sit up and take notice when we go through adversity, and we still have a confidence in God; when we go through trials, and when we live the kind of radical life, then the world will say, 'Where does that come from?'"  And I thought, "He's right.  I am too comfortable, I am too content."  In fact, I should say here at the very beginning there needs to be a surgeon general warning on today's program. Dennis:          Mm-hm, I'll tell you that. Bob:                This program will create conviction in your soul and could bring you to a point of personal repentance yourself. Dennis:          It could bring you to the conclusion that you are dangerously close, too close, to the world. Bob:                Yeah, and it might bring you to the point where you need to get more dangerously involved in the Gospel.  And so let me introduce the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church and the person who has brought me under conviction many times, John Piper, who is back with us for a third day.  Welcome back to FamilyLife Today. John:              Thanks, I'm real glad to be here. Bob:                And this book, "Don't Waste Your Life," you felt so strongly about this book you went to the publisher and said, "I want to give 50,000 copies of this book away." John:              Yeah, we created a website just to give it away called "Don't Waste Your Life."  You can go there now, but we don't give them away anymore, because people took them, and we got a special deal because we just wanted to jumpstart the impact of the book and give as many away as we could, so we raised the money and people took them. Bob:                Gave away 50,000?  Do you have any idea – any of the stories of folks who wrote to get a copy of this book? John:              Not yet. Dennis:          John, at the end of the broadcast yesterday, we challenged the listener to consider writing a title deed and transferring ownership over to Jesus Christ to become a disciple, a learner, a follower, a pursuer of God and His agenda for their lives.  And this is really at the core of what "Don't Waste Your Life" is all about.  In fact, you quote 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, as really one of the seminal passages in the New Testament calling people to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. John:              Yeah, the link that I heard, what you ended the program that way, was between signing your life off so that it belongs now to another and the glory of God, which is the ultimate value of the universe and the value that we live to display, and the link is made there in that verse in 1 Corinthians 6 because Paul says you are not your own, you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your bodies, which are God's.  So he made the link between being owned by God and glorifying God.  And so I think you're absolutely right – every person should be challenged to sign the title of their lives over to another who will not then say, "Ah, now I have a slave."  He will say, "No longer do I call you slaves.  I call you friends.  And now, come on, let's live together to magnify my glory in the world, thus says the Lord."                         So that was the link I heard, and I thought it was crucial because the cross is right at the center of this book, and that's what I thought it might be helpful to think about a little bit – in what way is the cross center, because this book grew out of the one-day event in Memphis, Tennessee, in the year 2000, I think it was, where I delivered a message called "Boasting Only in the Cross," and told the illustration of the shells and so on that we talked about a couple of days ago.  That message was taken from Galatians 6:14, which says, "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world was crucified to me and I to the world," and I raised the question, "Really?  How can you only boast in the cross, only glory, only enjoy the cross?  What about your family?  What about your health?  What about your job?  I mean, aren't these good things that the Lord has given us?  Shouldn't we be glad that we have them?"  And my answer was, "Yes, you should be glad that you have them, but you should realize that as a sinner you only have them to enjoy forever because Christ died to take away the penalty of judgment and to become your righteousness and to become your sacrifice."                         So the cross is relevant for every single delight in my life.  If it's a beautiful blue sky day outside, and I have eyes to see it, I should be glad because of the cross, because apart from the cross I'd be in hell today.  He would snuff me out of existence because I deserved to be judged.  So the cross really is an absolutely central reality in everything I think about and everything we all do. Dennis:          And the passage that commands us as followers after Christ to take up our cross and follow after Him – what do you think He's challenging us to do at that point, John?  If the cross is to be central, and we're focusing on Christ-finished work, the love that is poured out there, the grace, forgiveness, the purpose, the peace with God, the relationship with God, all that's found in the cross, and He commands us to pick up our own cross, it seems to me at points it's almost like the fine print in the contract.  It's like now that he's got me, hello, there's a cross that I must carry. John:              Yeah, the whole text, in fact, uses the words "deny."  If anyone would be my disciple and deny himself and take up His cross and follow me, but the argument that he gives following that verse is "For he who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake and the Gospels will find it," and you do want to find it, don't you?  Therefore, lose it.                         So you've got this paradoxical call from the Lord saying, "Look, I have come to give you life.  I will give you everlasting joy in My presence at My Father's right hand if you join me on the Calvary road of self-denial and love."  Now, what does that mean?  I think it means assess all the things that stand in the way of making Jesus look more valuable than life and get rid of them.                         In other words, it might be your car, it might be your house, it might be the job you presently have.  Whatever is standing between you and an effective display of the superior worth of Jesus in your life, let it go.  That's what I think self-denial is. Dennis:          Isn't it interesting how we, as believers, can find something or someone or some activity that we enjoy and become enslaved to other than God?  It's just fascinating to me.  He made us to know Him, walk with Him, enjoy Him, interact with Him, and yet it's as though we're running from the hound of heaven in pursuit of all these different things, even the ministry.  And you've experienced this as a pastor, I'm sure – even the ministry can be addictive. John:              Right, it can be.  And how to move away from that without contradicting the goodness of creation is a challenge.  Because most of the idols that we have are good, they just shouldn't be idols.  And so to move away from them, you can swing to the ascetic side where you become a creation-denying person, and do you know who I got a lot of help from on that, is St. Augustine, and it's a prayer that he made.  He said, "He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake."  I found that very helpful, because it's saying anything can be an idol, any good thing can be an idol.  "He loves thee too little who loves anything together with Thee," and then he qualifies it by saying, "Which he loves not for Thy sake," which means that any good thing that is an idol can be deposed from its idolatrous position and become an instrument of worship.  So you might be worshiping food, and the solution to that is not to starve yourself to death with an eating disorder, but rather to say it's a precious gift from God to be used in moderation for the joy it brings and the strength it brings, and I will now turn all my eating back in thanks and worship to God and eat in moderation.  That's the kind of thing that he wants the shift to involve. Bob:                We started talking about not the cross that we pick up and carry but about the one that He carried for us.  I don't know that I can go through the day consciously aware of the cross.  Is that something that comes to mind on a conscious level for you, hour by hour, throughout a day? John:              I wish it came more often.  I think, to be honest there, I'd have to say no.  But my prayer is that when Paul said, "God forbid that I should glory, exalt, boast, rejoice, save in the cross, he meant, I think, number one, the cross bought all my joys as a believer.  It bought all my joys.  Therefore, as I rejoice in anything, that joy should be attached to the cross.  It doesn't, I'm sure, have to consciously be at every moment but probably more often than we do.  If we could realize the magnitude in the history, in the universe, of what happened when Christ, the Son of God, died in the place of sinners and provided a righteousness for us ungodly people, I think we would be more ravished with it than we are, and it would be more constant in our thinking than it is.  So, to be honest, no, but to express my longing, I wish it were. Dennis:          And so, for you, when you say, "I want to glory in the cross, I want to focus on the cross, I want to be caught up in the cross," you are caught up with the presence of God, His righteousness, His incarnation, His death on the cross on behalf of your sins, His burial and resurrection and ascension into heaven.  Have I done a good job of paraphrasing or describing what you are caught up with as we describe the cross?  Because a lot of people wear it as jewelry, and it's an event.  It's not just an event, though, is it, John? John:              That's a very helpful observation for the radio, especially, because the word "cross" might mean something you're crucified on, or it might mean a piece of jewelry, or it might mean the last name of somebody you know, but you summed it up – in redemptive historical terms, that's right – Jesus Christ the Son of God came into the world, He lived a perfect life becoming a holy, perfect lamb of God, He laid Himself out voluntarily to be slaughtered on a cross.  He poured out his forgiveness on us – "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing" – He breathed his last breath in obedience to the Father so that He was a perfectly righteous substitute, and then He raised Himself from the dead.  I say that, even though the Father raised Him, it says in Romans 6, because He said, "Nobody takes my life from me.  I'll lay it down, and if I lay it down, I can take it again."  Jesus Almighty raised Himself from the dead, He was taken up, sits at the right hand of God, intercedes for us.  When I say "the cross," I mean that great redemptive work from incarnation to the installation at God's right hand.  Yeah, that's really crucial to see. Dennis:          And to that person who is listening to us right now, who does not have the awe, who does not have the wonder, who looks at the cross and said, "Yeah, that was an event in history," but who doesn't know the Savior, who doesn't know God's forgiveness, the peace with God that passes all understanding, what would you say to that person right now?   John:              Depending on how much they know, I would say, "Get to know Him by looking at the Scriptures, reading the Gospels, and once you see Him crucified, risen, then do what the Bible says – "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved."  And if you say, "Believe on Him," what does that mean?  What does that involved – believe on Him?                         I would say take these three words – it means trust Him or accept Him or embrace Him as Savior from your sin and judgment, as Lord of your life who has the right to dictate what is healthy and good and right for you to do, and the third and maybe just as important as the other three is embrace Him as your treasure, because I find that many people today will talk about Jesus as Savior or Jesus as Lord, and it's such worn-out language, they don't really realize the impact it must have in the transformation of their values.  But when I say, "Is He your treasure?  Are you accepting Him as your treasure," to as many as received Him, to them gave me power to become the children of God, receive Him as what, that I say, "Treasure, the treasure of your life."  Then they say, "Whoa, maybe He's not."                         And so I would say to every listener, get to know Him well enough to see that He is a Savior.  He is a wonderful Lord.  He's not a hard taskmaster, and He is a treasure that is so valuable that you can "let goods and kindred go, this mortal life, old soul, the body they may kill, God's truth abided still," and you can live a radical God-glorifying lifestyle because He's the treasure that will never fail. Dennis:          We have people listening from all types of denominations, and when you just went through what you explained, immediately they thought, "Well, do I need to pray to be able to move into that right relationship with God?  Do I need to kneel?  Do I need to go to a church or a cathedral?  Where do I need to go, how do I go about establishing this right relationship with God?" John:              One of the most beautiful things to me about the coming of Jesus Christ into the world is that He de-localized and de-externalized worship.  Because when He met the woman at the well, and she said, "Well, now, help me to understand this worship issue, Jesus.  Do we worship in this mountain or do we worship in Jerusalem?"  And Jesus said, "The day is coming and now is when you will not worship in this mountain or in Jerusalem, but you will worship in spirit and in truth."                         Notice the shift in categories from geography to spirit, and the reason he shifted from mountain in Jerusalem to truth in spirit is because truth in spirit can be anywhere, anytime.  In fact, Jesus Himself becomes the new temple.  Christianity is the one religion that has no geographic center.  We have no shrine.  You don't have to go anywhere or move one single muscle to get right with God through Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is here, now, whenever He is called upon.                          And so I would say, "Call upon the name of the Lord, and you will be saved" – Romans 10:13.  And you can do that without moving your tongue.  A paralyzed person lying in bed unable to move eyelash or tongue can call upon the name of the Lord in their heart, and He promises you, "Call upon me as Savior, as Lord, as treasure, and you'll have all your sins forgiven, and you will have a righteousness imputed to you.  You'll have a home in heaven with me forever, because you've just honored me as a great Savior." Dennis:          And what I would say to the listener after the compelling picture you've presented to them of the love of God, poured out in the person of Jesus Christ, after we've spent an entire broadcast describing the cross and how attractive it is – if right now that picture, the person of Jesus Christ and all the cross represents is attractive to you as Savior, Lord, and treasure, right now, don't drive another mile, don't do another activity at work or at home or wherever you are listening to this broadcast.  Right now stop and make it right with God.  Do business with Him. John:              And, you know, I would just add when you use the word "attractive," they're going to feel that as yes and no, aren't they? Dennis:          Uh-huh, they are. John:              The cross is horrific.  It is ugly.  In fact, we've seen it recently in the movie.  It's really ugly.  Mel Gibson's, "The Passion of Christ," portrays Gethsemane and the cross for what it really was and yet in that very substitutionary ugliness is the attraction.  I mean, my only hope is that that didn't happen to me, it happened to Him for me, and so I'm both repulsed by it.  I've talked to people who say they can't watch more than a third of that movie, it's so horrible, and yet others are drawn to that movie because that it happened is my only hope.                         And so I hope that my effort to describe the meaning of that suffering will really help people see what that's all about. Bob:                You know, I was in the audience with about 3,000 others back in April when you spoke at the "Together for the Gospel" conference in Louisville, and you talked about how the cross is really the centerpiece of the Gospel, and if we're going to present the Gospel, we have to present the reality of the cross.  And if that's the centerpiece of our life, then our life is not going to be a wasted life.                         I really want to encourage our listeners, get a copy of John's book, "Don't Waste Your Life," which we have in our FamilyLife Resource Center.  This would be a good book to read together with your teenagers over the summer or just hand it off to them as a reading assignment and pay them $15, $20, whatever it takes, to get them to read it.  Maybe there's some other incentive you can use to get them to go through this book, and have them write a book report on it and report back to you on what they learned from the book.                         We have it, again, in our FamilyLife Resource Center.  Go to our website, FamilyLife.com, and in the center of the home page, you'll see a little button that says "Go."  Click on that button, it will take you right to the page where you can get more information about John's book, "Don't Waste Your Life."  You can order online if you'd like.  Again, it's FamilyLife.com or you can call 1-800-358-6329; that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team can let you know how you can have a copy of this book sent out to you.                         I've already mentioned this week that my daughter had a chance to hear you speak at one of the Passion Conferences a few years ago.  In fact, she heard you twice – one year – I think it was in Texas, and the next year it was in Tennessee, and she brought back CDs, and I listened to them as well, and both of us profited from your teaching ministry during those conferences.                         She also heard Beth Moore speak at those same events with you and was struck by Beth's passion that our lives would be cross-centered, spiritually centered and, Dennis, you and I had the opportunity to talk to Beth several months ago.  We talked about her marriage and her family.  She's been married to her husband Keith for 25 years and, of course, tens of thousands of women have done her Bible studies in churches all around the country.                          Our conversation with her, I described it to my wife later and said she was one of the most highly caffeinated people I've ever met.  It was an energetic conversation, a lot of fun, and this month we'd like to make a CD of that conversation available to any of our listeners who can help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount.  We are a listener-supported ministry, and we depend on your financial support in order to continue the ministry of FamilyLife Today.                         If you can help us with a donation of any amount, you can request the CD of our conversation with Beth Moore.  You can go online at FamilyLife.com, fill out the donation form that you find there.  As you do that, you'll come to a keycode box, and if you type the word "free" into that keycode box, we'll know that you're interested in getting a copy of the CD with Beth Moore or call us at 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and make a donation over the phone and, again, mention you'd like the CD with Beth Moore, and we'll be happy to send it out to you.  It's our way of saying thanks for your financial support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today.  We appreciate hearing from you.                         Well, I hope you have a great weekend.  I hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and I hope you can be back with us on Monday when we're going to begin to look at the kind of a foundation that needs to be poured underneath a family to make sure that it grows to become a spiritually strong family.  I hope you can join us to be part of that conversation.                         I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.                          FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.   We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you.  However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.  If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would   you consider donating today to help defray the costs?   Copyright © FamilyLife.  All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com      

Today is part 5 of our social security series and we will focus on the survivor benefit option. We will talk about a few situations that can arise and share a couple of client stories that have revolved around this topic.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Back here with us for another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined, the podcast with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. Gentlemen, how's it going? Nick, how are you today, my friend?Nick: Doing pretty well. How about yourself?Speaker 1: I'm hanging in there. Not doing too bad. We are into December. Moving along nicely on this. John, how are you doing? You doing all right?John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. No complaints. It's a getting a little cooler here in Florida, which is nice. It's been been hot, so it's nice to get a little a cool, no more humidity.Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Now, as planners, you guys plan a lot of things, but are you the same way when it comes to holiday shopping? Have you kind of gotten some of this knocked out? We're at about the middle of the month here now in December. So you guys ready to roll for Christmas or are you last minute?John: I'll take that one first. No, I do a lot of Amazon shopping [crosstalk 00:00:49].Speaker 1: Me and you both. But how about you, Nick?Nick: Anything I can do to avoid going to a store, I do, so the majority of my shopping [crosstalk 00:00:59].Speaker 1: I think so many of us are that way, right, which obviously we can see in the death of brick and mortar, for sure. But yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there. Well, hopefully, folks, you're out there getting your shopping done. Maybe you're checking out this podcast while you're driving around doing some shopping or walking around in the malls or whatever the case might be. That is kind of the beauty of podcasting. It's not like traditional radio obviously, so you have more options, and hopefully you're subscribed to the podcast Retirement Planning Redefined. Do it at Apple, Google or Spotify, and a couple others as well, and you can find the links if you want, and podcast episodes on their website at PFGPrivateWealth.com. That's PFGPrivateWealth.com.Speaker 1: All right, part five. I think this is going to probably wrap it up, too, for our series on social security. We're going to talk about survivor benefits. Guys, give us some things to think about here. Survivor benefits are available to children and surviving spouses, correct?John: Yeah, so it is available to children and surviving spouses. For today's session, we're going to focus more on surviving spouses because that comes into play more when we're doing retirement planning.Speaker 1: Okay.John: So we always like to actually joke around with the survivor benefit. Not many people are aware, but they get a nice $255 lump sum death benefit if the spouse were to pass away.Nick: Obviously has not been adjusted for inflation.Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that doesn't cover much of anything, does it?John: No, no it doesn't. But they do get a monthly benefit as survivor and when it comes to planning, that does help out quite a bit when we're talking about strategies and trying to figure out a plan for a survivor. Kind of some rules that go with that. A survivor can actually start drawing social security at age 60 versus 62, which is kind of the normal first spouse, which we discussed last week.Nick: It is important to note that as a reminder, even though they're eligible to draw at 60, there are still the income tests from the standpoint of reductions. So if that person is working, then it may not make a whole lot of sense to get that early.John: Yeah. What Nick's referencing, we talked about the earnings penalty if you start taking social security before your full retirement age. That does still apply age 60, so if you're still working, most likely that will wipe out any social security benefit you're going to get as a survivor.John: Some other things to consider, and I'll kind of give some examples of this. Survivor benefit is not available if someone remarries before age 60, okay, unless of course that marriage ends. So we've had situations where we were planning for clients and we were talking about doing some survivor strategies and they actually ... Let's just give an example. They were 57 and were considering getting married and actually deferred their marriage until age 61 to be safe, which I don't think the spouse is too happy with us on that because it deferred the marriage, but it made sense because we actually get some pretty easy strategies, which we'll talk about later, to maximize the social security.Nick: For the widow to the eligible for those survivor benefits, they had to have been married for at least nine months. There's a caveat to that where the death was an accident, that could come into play. So essentially, that's pretty lenient, but it is important to understand the nine month rule as well.John: Yeah. And we stress a lot on just understanding what your situation is. Just kind of give you an example of that, I had a client that thought she's eligible for social security because she was married, but he passed away when they were within eight months of marriage. And she was shocked [inaudible 00:04:23] the whole time, let's say the last seven years, she was planning on it and then didn't qualify for it. So it was shocking, and unfortunately for her, she was hitting 62 so it made a big difference to her overall plan.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. So good information there. Surviving spouse's benefit is based on what?Nick: So essentially kind of the caveat to this is whether or not people have been collecting. So if both spouses are receiving their benefits and there is death, then the surviving spouse receives the higher of the two.John: Not both.Nick: Correct. Not both, which some people will be surprised about how that works. But it's important to understand that they receive the higher of the two, not both. And one of the big factors that gets calculated into the firm calculation of the amount of money that the widow will receive takes into account when the deceased spouse originally claimed their benefit. And it gets a little bit confusing, quite frankly, for most people, but it factors in essentially whether or not they took it before or after their full retirement age. So John will walk us through an example on that. But it is important to understand how this works.John: Yeah. Again, we like to do everything in the realm of planning. So this is where doing the social security maximization strategy is very important. Social security is a big part of someone's retirement income. So you want to make sure that you're making the best decisions available to you, because the last thing you is to look back 10 years ago, it's like, "Oh, I wish I did this. I could have had X amount of dollars or really been enjoying my [inaudible 00:06:05] a little bit more."John: So just going to touch on an example of that. We'll call them Jack and Jill. We talked about some survivor strategies last week, but let's say Jack's up for retirement benefits, 2,400. Doesn't take it [inaudible 00:06:20] 70. Basically, Jill can jump on and actually take ... Let's increase it to 2,976 increases. That will be her new basically benefit for social security, so she gets a nice increase and that's where we talked about really trying to protect the spouse and giving them more income for life. And if she tries to draw early, let's say she takes it at 62, which anytime you draw early, you get reduction of benefit or a reduction based off of now the higher amount that he deferred, which is a nice little caveat. We have to really do some planning for a spouse.Nick: And one of the things too from a comparison standpoint is when we discuss the spousal benefits and how the spousal benefits do not grow past full retirement age, the death benefits does, or the widow benefit, survivor benefit does grow past [inaudible 00:07:15] age, so another reason why that's really a big factor.John: Yeah. And one thing that we'll always do, if we're incorporating strategies, you always typically want to delay the higher benefit. So if you're looking at an opportunity to take a widow's benefit or my own, rule of thumb, and everyone's different, but rule of thumb is defer the higher ones. I'll give my family as an example. My father-in-law, his wife passed away young and basically age 60, he was able to actually draw her social security benefit at 60, which a reduced amount. Most of his income is from real estate and investment income, so an earnings penalty didn't apply to him. So the plan is he's taking the widow benefit at 60 and he's deferring his, and then at full retirement age, he's going to switch over to his and get his full retirement benefit. So from 60 to 66, he was actually able to get some type of benefit and then at 66, will jump to his own and he gets the full amount.Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's some good strategies, some good things to think about, good information here when we're talking about these survivor benefits. So a couple of final key points or key takeaways, guys, just to think about?John: Things to consider is a reminder that basically when the person passes away, their social security benefits stop. And if the surviving spouse is going to take one, they'll take either their own or the deceased spouse, whatever one's higher, just making sure that it's important to plan and make sure the strategy is best for you based on your situation. Social security ... This is everything, not just survivors ... it's very confusing, and there's a lot of different things you can do, so if you're working with an advisor, just make sure that they have the capabilities to stress test your decisions, to make sure you're making the correct decision based on your situation and not your neighbors or as Nick likes to say, up north, his clients, they've talked to their plumber.Nick: Yeah. Everybody likes to get an opinion from somebody else. We will talk about opinions. But so anyways, I think the biggest kind of overlying thing, and we talk about it a lot, but we can't emphasize it enough, and even when we do overemphasize it, people still ask, but this is not a decision to be made in a vacuum. So many other factors tie into this decision.Nick: And even when we plan ... As an example, I was walking somebody through a plan this week, and they are three or four years out from retirement, and even though we have a strategy set up for social security in the plan on what we plan to do from a baseline standpoint, they asked and I really had to emphasize that realistically this decision doesn't really get made until maybe three, six months before their retirement.Nick: So we may plan for a certain strategy for four or five years, but the importance of planning and updating your plan every single year cannot be understated, because especially with social security, if we're in the midst of a recession, if we're in the midst of a 2008, we're not going to have somebody take a bunch of money out of their nest egg even though over the last five years we planned to do that. We're probably going to have at least one of them take social security, protect the value of the nest egg, give it time to bounce back and then adjust accordingly. The planning is via kind of a living, breathing thing and we always have to adapt and adjust.Speaker 1: Nope, I think that's a great point. We've said that many times here on the podcast that you've got to have a plan and then you have to realize that that plan needs to evolve much like your life's going to. A lot of times we kind of get a collection of things. We have some investments, we have some insurance vehicles, we think about social security. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a pension and you say, "Okay. Well, I've got this collection of things. I'm good to go. I have a retirement plan." No, you have a collection of things. So pulling them all together in a full retirement plan is really important.Speaker 1: That's what John and Nick do every day at PFG Private Wealth, so give them a call if you've got questions or concerns. Get on the calendar at 813-286-7776. That's 813-286-7776. Don't forget to go to the website, PFGPrivateWealth.com. You can always subscribe to the podcast and get new episodes, check out past episodes, things of that nature on Apple or Google or Spotify. So check them out online as well@pfgprivatewealth.com and also share the podcast with folks that you think might benefit from it as well.Speaker 1: This has been Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks so much for staying tuned into the show. John. Nick, thanks for your time, as always. I hope you have a happy and safe holiday and we'll talk actually I think in 2020.Nick: Sounds good.John: All right.Speaker 1: You guys-Nick: Thank you.Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Take care and enjoy the holidays, everybody, and we'll see you next time right here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

A weekly podcast about programming, development, and design.I'm John, I run a design and development firm that builds apps and websites.I'm joined by JP:Hi, I'm a software engineer at a real estate tech start upCatch up / What's today's episode about?This week Best and Worst AppsDesign and development patterns we love and hate.JP: Gripe 1:

This week on episode 246 of the We Like Drinking podcast we’ll be discussing used beer, shift beers, and we drinking Peju wines with winemaker Sara Fowler, so crack open your beer, uncork that wine, and let’s get drinking. If by now you’ve already realized that you are listening to podcast gold, be sure to get yourself subscribed to the show so you never miss an episode. Visit WeLikeDrinking.com/Subscribe to take your first step down the WLD path of awesome sauce. Panel Introductions And What We’re Drinking Our guest this week was voted best local winemaker in this little wine region known as Napa Valley in 2016, 17, and 18.  She got her start in wine working for Kendall-Jackson while in high school as a seasonal employee working under the one and only Jed Steele. Currently she is the winemaker for Peju wines and has been with them since 2006. Please help us welcome, Sara Fowler. Wine, Beer, or Pop Culture Referencel  Solomon Sara Fowler Interview Booze News  John - Not they do not! - https://www.wsj.com/articles/craft-brewers-have-a-dark-secretthey-drink-light-beer-11569341870 Sustainability people, sustainability! https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beer-waste-bread Podcast Award Update Watch the podcast awards this Sunday, Sept. 29 starting at 6pm Pacific at https://internationalpodcastday.com/ Last call That’s right, it's time to break out your phones and get that last minute hook up with us. Follow us on the socials, Twitter, Instagram and our private group on Facebook known as the Tavern. As a reminder, Sara, where can the listeners find Peju wines on the interwebs Search up the show on Apple Podcast and leave us a big fat 5 star review. And, if you enjoyed this episode in particular, share it with a friend. And, visit We Like Drinking dot com slash pledge to find out more information about becoming a patron of the show and help  You can also find the show notes for this episode with all the links to the stories or mentions we had at http://welikedrinking.com/episodes

This week on Armed Lutheran Radio, Lloyd and Pastor Bennett dive back into Patheos.com to look at a 2013 article by Ellen Painter Dollar who suggests that fear is what motivates gun owners and as Christians we should have no fear…so we don’t need guns. Plus tips from Sgt. Bill and Aaron Israel. THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY COOK'S HOLSTERS. AMERICAN MADE CUSTOM HOLSTERS WITH A 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE. www.CooksHolsters.com Links of Interest Patheos.com – Does Inciting a “Wave of Fear” Sound Like a Christian Response? Ballistic Minute with Sgt. Bill Sgt. Bill talks about the relationship between dry fire and live fire and how improvement doesn’t mean you can afford to slack off. Fundamentals of Defense Aaron shares some additional lessons learned when he revisits a self-defense shooting in Arlington, Texas. Mia’s Motivations Mia has the week off after joining us Friday night for our Reformation Gun Club hangout. Clinging to God & Guns Ellen Painter Dollar is a progressive Christian who writes about faith, parenting, and disability. She sprinkles Jesus on her political views to justify her political positions (except for her “nuanced” views on abortion). When it comes to guns, she’s knows all the anti-gun cliches and lies, and she thinks the only reason we own guns is because we have fear in our hearts. And according to the Gospel of John, we should have no fear. Or is it 1 John? Not sure. Prayer for the Week O God, because You know that we dare not put our trust in anything that we do, mercifully grant that by Your power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Our Closing Theme A rockin' rendition of A Mighty Fortress is Our God, performed just for Armed Lutheran Radio by Kenny Gates.    

Xiaohua: It has long been a mystery to men why so many women enjoy watching tear jerker movies with their friends. But now scientists have come up with a suggestion –sharing sad emotions helps women bond. 女人似乎天生喜欢看催泪电影，尤其是和闺蜜一起边看边哭成一团。而最新研究显示，和朋友分享这些悲情片，有助于减少这些影片对她们情绪上的负面影响。Is this true, what the scientists are saying?Heyang: The scientists are, well, this is the only one study, right? And this is from Cardiff University and they looked at 30 pairs of female friends, so only targeting female. We don’t know what the man’s response is, so bear that in mind, so they looked at these 30 pairs of female friends and showed them these happy images and negative images, then see what kind of response they get from it. And it seems like when you’re with someone, the happy images seem happier to you and then the negative ones don’t seem so sad either, so it’s good experience over all. So it’s about sharing and bonding.John: Well, I mean, it makes sense. I’m not sure if you guys ever experienced it, but certainly it happened to me where you know watching a funny movie or funny TV show maybe someone recommended to me and I’m watching it. That’s funny but I don’t really laugh, maybe I can give a little chuckle or something like that. And then I can what the exactly same movie, exactly same episode but sitting with someone and I’ll think something is funny and I’ll actually laugh. This just goes to show that you never forget fundamentally human are social animals. We exist as we exist in a group. We are not like cat or anything that as soon as we were born we just kinda go off on our own, we’re more like dogs in that sense, where we need other people around us for various reasons. So this idea that being with someone makes the happier moments happier and the bad moments not as bad just make complete sense. But I think that in general when we look at gender or sex differences between men and women and how they bond, men usually bond over activity and women usually bond over emotion or communication.Heyang: Yeah, that actually not all that...John: Not all that untrue.Heyang: Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out what it’s like with men and women, I think men need communication, too.John: It’s different, I mean, why do you see so many men playing football all the time, like they have good friends but the only time they ever see them when they play football together or just right after the football match or something like that.Heyang: What about all the beer drinking and watching sports?John: Oh, beer and watching sports are activities.Heyang: But it’s about communication, isn’t it?John: It’s different.Heyang: I’ll not argue against that. We’re different. And I think with ladies, it’s not just watching a weepy movie also like shopping and talking about girls’ stuff. I think men and women have different ways to relax and communicate.John: It’s interesting too because I had the kids to myself this weekend and I ended up going to a restaurant, a fairly new open foreign restaurant in San Li Tun. It’s an international restaurant and they have many chains around the world. And I went in there and I was struck by number one there were no other foreigner besides myself; number two, most the other customers were women in groups. So maybe there might have been a boyfriend or girlfriend, but most of the customers are two or more women together eating and talking. I found that fascinating, suddenly something kind of clicked, Oh, this is why I see some of the advertisements targeting women, oh, this is why I see so many restaurant and coupon things targeting women because this is how women bond. They go out together, they walk around in a mall together, they window shop together, they have lunch together, and they’re just talking and sharing the entire time.Heyang: And also I think in recent years, this is only my own observation but I think in the media, there seems to be more and more of this girl-group-power kind of advertising since Sex and the City, sudden female friendship is so important in China .I think you know that has something to do with all of this, maybe it’s following your own call but I don’t know.Xiaohua: That’s true. And Draco says maybe that explains why the situation comedies insert the canned laughter background because they let you feel you’re laughing with someone.

Xiaohua：The dinner table is more than a place to sit down and enjoy food. It’s also a social place. Business deals are inked there. Strangers become lovers there. But what if you abandon the social function of a meal by eating alone? Recently, a New Yorker article talks about the rising number of people in China who eat alone or cook alone, and are enjoying it. First, do you think that it is becoming sort of a more commonly seen thing? Heyang：Yeah, I think it’s something that’s becoming a bit more popular and I think it is breaking through some of the existing social stigma of one person dining outside. It used to be frowned upon, maybe more or less, but not that much anymore.John: Yeah, I mean I disagree with the term “popular,” because popular implies that everyone thinks it’s a good thing. And so I think when we talk about something is popular, I don’t think eating alone is popular. I don’t think that most people in China think that eating alone is a good thing. I think we see happening more often, mostly because of various commitments to your time mostly. And lots of people don’t have the time after work or on the weekend or wherever you are going to from A to B, to actually make a plan to sit down with someone. No, I need to eat something now, so I can go do what I need to do.Heyang：Well, actually, I think I see a different kind of interpretation of what’s going on or whether you call this a trend or not. I think it’s actually sort of popular and I think the negative perception of it has changed in China, maybe not in a wide scale. But certainly in certain groups, it’s sort of like a cool thing to do. It shows that you are confident enough and it shows that often you actually have the taste to go to a pretty nice restaurant, and you are enjoying the food yourself. You could be nicely dressed or just decently dressed, and just you are enjoying that food. It’s a relationship between you and the food. John: Sounds so depressing. Heyang：No, hell no! It’s a healing process.Xiaohua：It’s empowering, food is empowering.Heyang：Well, I think it’s just, it’s a greatest experience. You can actually focus on the food and that healing process for some people. OK, John, you married a guy, you don’t understand this.Xiaohua：OK, have you guys ever eaten alone in a good up-scale restaurant? You know, something more than a fast food chain. Heyang：I have, I have.John：No, no.Xiaohua：I have, too. John: Why?Heyang：And it was sort of like, I mean you are an independent young women who has the money and the taste.Xiaohua：John’s not. I thought you’re conversing to him.John：She’s addressing the audience.Xiaohua：Yeah, sorry.John：But I think we have some men in the audience though.Heyang：Yeah, well, OK, so you are just having that intimate relationship with the food and it doesn’t really matter what other people think or…John：But the food is an inanimate object. It’s something to be consumed. You cannot have a conversation with food. You cannot order five dishes, and then share your food with someone else. Oh, this is really good. I’d like his because of this. I don’t like this because of this. I mean I understand, like I eat alone all the time. As you guys probably know for lunch. I almost always go alone.Heyang：Yes…excuse me.Xiaohua：Not an up-scale restaurant though.John：Not up-scale restaurants, you know, Xiabu Xiabu is kind of…Xiaohua: It’s not up-scale. Anyway.John: Anyway, so I think that, you know when I was a single and in the university, you know, after graduated and I was working by myself and working in a job, I’d eat by myself all the time. Yes, I did enjoy it, but I think that in most of those cases, it was just something to do quickly and get it over with. And really now, I mean I view it very much in having a relationship with someone whether it’s a friend, whether it’s your spouse, your kids, or whatever. It’s sharing the food, sharing a healing, as you said, a nourishing thing, that’s really important.Heyang: That’s one type of way to dine, but there’s a completely different type. Previously, when you were, you know, single, you would just make it a fast food kind of experience. That’s not really an experience of FOOD. Here we are talking about. You take the time, you relax and you really enjoy the food. And why is it a conversation, it’s sort of a conversation in your mind, that you can really feel the food on your palate, and think about that and you enjoy that. And that’s perfectly fine. I think it makes me feel really good.Xiaohua: Yeah.Heyang: And you are sort of dating the city. I don’t really see why there’s the negative feelings about like going out to a nice restaurant on your own.John: I don’t feel negative about it. I just don’t see the point. All you said that I get it, I understand why you are saying that. None of it applies to me. Heyang: Because you have a family, and when you don’t have other…John: No, it doesn’t. Because I would never, even without a family, I would never go to a nice restaurant by myself.Heyang: OK, well, here I’d like to quote a little bit from this really popular Japanese TV drama called “孤独的美食家”, The Lonely Gourmand. So, it basically tells you that when you are having the food alone, it’s free from the constraint of time and society views. And one fills le appetite with happiness and in that brief moment as you are enjoying the food, one’s heart and mind is set free. And that intimate moment is what I cherish so much.

Xiaohua: We used to think most young people don’t want to live with their parents. They need some time alone. However, a recent survey shows the situation to be otherwise. According to the recent survey, while the majority of young respondents are willing to live with their parents, 80% of senior residents prefer to live independently. Do you think the result actually make sense？ Liu Yan: Not necessarily. Because, first of all, this survey is jointly conducted by the Shanghai Women Federation and Fudan University. Well, if you just look at these two bodies, maybe they are trustworthy; However, if you look at the sample, they had only more than three hundreds respondents to a certain questionnaire. So, no matter how you judge it, I mean, three hundred, is just too small a sample. John: Not even that, I mean, they even said that 40% of their respondents were aged 31 to 50, and yet somehow, their most interesting findings are from people who are 30 and under and from people who are 50 and over. So you look at almost, so 40%, that’s almost half, right? So 120 of these respondents were from 31 to 50. So 180, Let’s just split it up, so that’s 90 in the younger. I mean, that’s almost nothing when it comes to statistical significance. Xiaohua：And also I do think there are some problems with the wording of the questionnaire. Therefore, I do not quite understand what the outcomes can be interpreted as. So they are saying that 75% of the young respondents say that they are willing to live their parents if the conditions allow. Does that mean they warmly welcome to their parents, or does that mean that if… Liu Yan: If they are forced into such situation…. Xiaohua: Yes. They have no choice but have to accept this. John: Which is interesting, you know, 10 years ago, if you were to ask a similar question, you know at States, I think this figure would be lower. They would be willing, I think, a lot of younger people would not have been willing where in US, it has changed quite a bit. So, yeah, it not about yes I want to live with my parents cause I love them so much or whatever. No. what they are saying is if I have to I will. Xiaohua: Yeah, I think that is pretty much the underlying meaning here. So, that’s why I don’t think that the two different results can be compared together. Because one is saying that the younger people say ‘Okay. I can live my parents if I have to.’ But on the other hand, the older respondents say if healthy that they rather live by themselves and probably with their spouse, I guess. But then again, still a large number of respondents say that they don’t want to live in retirement home. So what does that mean? Does that mean that probably living at home is probably their most comfortable way of spending retirement life, maybe? Liu Yan: Well, I think there is another problem we need to consider, because I believe a lot of elderly people, they have this rooted idea that if I admit I would like to live in a nursery home or something like that, that’s losing face. Because people would construe that as I don’t have a very good son or daughter because they don’t want to be pious sons and daughters, and things like that, maybe that’s why they keep saying this. Xiaohua: I do think that you know, as unscientific as the survey is, we could probably still see something. For example, the one we just talk about, about the elderly parents not wanting to go to retirement homes. I think that percentage is still quite high John: Well, I think it’s just depends on the perception of the industry itself. I mean, in the United States, at least, you know nursing home, they get a pretty bad rep. So I think you ask most older people of they want to live in a nursing home, they probably gonna say no. But if you ask them if they wanna live in a retirement community, they might say yes. Right, because the business model is a bit different there. Nursing home, you know, also kind of implies that someone is taking care of you and you live in a small room, and you know, you don’t actually get that much interaction. You don’t go outside of your room very often. And there are different business models around taking care of older people. But, I think it is interesting, because you know, as Liu Yan mentioned, when you look at self-reporting like this, the factors of shame, losing face are always going to come in. And looking at the younger people, I think you know, they have less reason to do so. But older people, perhaps, they say that they do not or do not want to live in a nursing home, because again, they might lose face or be shameful. But also the flip side of that is perhaps that so few of them said they want to live their kids because they didn’t want to seem like they are trying to burden their children or something like that. Xiaohua: Do you think there is also the factor of not wanting to take care of the grandkids for the children? John: I doubt it. Liu Yan: Yeah. From what I can see, most elderly people are very excited about the prospect of actually taking care of a baby. So I don’t think that’s the reason. John: Yeah. I know. Looking at the Chinese culture, it is always amazing to me how, I guess, it’s just Asian culture in general somehow. But I mean you compare it with the western culture, and Chinese people love kids. It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you see a five year-old boy or girl, almost always there is gonna to be some kind of ‘Aww…’you know, kind of reaction. Liu Yan：Yeah. That’s true.

XH: Hello and welcome to Round Table’s Word of the Week. This week, we’re talking about the word “phubbing.” It’s a really funny sounding word. John: It’s actually a neologism, two words combined into one. The first word is “phone” and the second word is “snubbing” so we come up with the word “phubbing.” XH: 这个词被翻译成低头症，也就是指因为低头玩手机而冷落了旁边的人的一种症状。 John: The term “phubbing” is supposed to mean someone who has the habit of snubbing someone in favor of using a mobile phone so that could be in a restaurant, that could be in a bar while you’re on a date or perhaps even while you’re watching a movie. XH: It seems that everyone is guilty of “phubbing” nowadays, but then where exactly did this word come from? John: That’s actually the funny thing about this word. This isn’t a word that someone randomly came up with and started using on Reddit or Twitter or what-have-you. Instead it was actually created by McCann Melbourne, which is an advertising agency that created the word behind a campaign by the Macquarie Dictionary to describe the habit of snubbing someone in favor of a mobile phone, now we call it “phubbing.” Macquarie Dictionary actually began a “Stop Phubbing” campaign that was designed to bring attention to this word and, of course, bring attention to the dictionary. XH: 和其它自然而然产生的新鲜网络词汇不同，这个词居然是由一个公关公司制造出来的，并且随着这个词汇的推广，他们还开展了一个叫做“停止看手机”的活动。 John: Not so much to do with pubbing, but I think one of the best strategies to deal with people who are, for example, walking on the street or in a subway station looking at their phone and not looking where they’re going, is most people have the tendency to try to walk around them, but I think the most effective way, as like a public campaign to get people to stop doing that, is to not walk around them. Either you can walk right into them, you know, gently, don’t hurt them or get into a fight. Or you just stop where you are and let them run into you. XH: That’s a very interesting idea, John, but I’m not sure how many lawsuits or street fights that will instigate. John: That’s what I’m saying, just do it gently and everything will be okay. The whole point is to remind people to stop doing that. XH: Hmm. Alright and that’s it for Round Table’s Word of the Week.

John Artman: With mobile devices becoming so popular, people joke that the distance between life and death isn't as far as the distance between people while staring at their phones. Increasingly, we see this happening even in college classrooms. To combat this rising tide of inattention, the Management Department of the Luoyang Institute of Engineering has taken matters into their own hands. Now, students must put their phones into storage bags before the class even starts. So before we look at what the Luoyang Institute of Engineering has done, how serious is the staring at your phone all the time of problem in universities? Amy Daml: I’m not sure this is so different from way it back in the day, when grandma Amy was in university and we used to do crossword puzzles and sudoku , you know, I think it’s exactly the same thing. John: Or doodle. I used to doodle a lot. Amy: You used to doodle? Okay. John: Not diddle, but doodle. Zhou Heyang: Oh god. Amy: I think everybody… college students always find a way to screw around with your time in class whether it’s… you know just have a perfect device helps you do it. ZHY: Yeah, totally, I think people daydream. They… well, college students they just don’t really want to just focus on the books any more since that’s what you have been doing all your life in China, I guess. John: But this isn’t the point that’s going to the university and going into the classrooms for to you to pay attention, I mean that you are paying for, right? ZHY: Totally, but a lot of the times when you are just imagining you in the shoes of a college student, often I think for Chinese college students, it’s just like freedom after years of being, you know, supervised by your teacher and parents all the time, now you have the freedom to do whatever you want. And then people just feel like they have the time to throw around. But that being said, when I first saw this, I just thought, why are we… are we talking about college students? I mean this should be something that high school students or teachers do, I think. I think we you are in college, you are a young adult. Shouldn’t you be, you know, grown up, more grown up than this? John: No! Amy: You’re a young adult, but just barely a young adult, a very young adult, I mean. I remember going to college, and I was like, “Woohoo! I’m out of my parents’ house, and finally I don’t have the try so hard, and I can do ever I want. My classes don’t even start until 11 o’clock, like if I’m gonna go them at all.” You know, it was like this world opened up to me. I had all these choices. And it takes you while as a young adult to be disciplined enough to choose the best thing for yourself. John: Well, also I think it’s a little bit different in terms of Chinese culture, especially with the relationship to technology. It does seem that in general, compared to the US, these new, newer technologies get picked up really, really quickly. And I think that, yeah portable screens, as my mother would call them, are becoming a problem around the world, but especially in China and other Asian cultures, to be honest, the portable screen is… it just kind of sucks people… sucks people’s soul away. They’re there, but they’re not really there. ZHY: But still you are a young adult, that’s, you know, getting your hands onto the device in the first place, and allowing themselves to get sucked into it. John: So blame the parents. Don’t buy the phone, right? Amy: Well, I mean, I would tend to agree with John. I think that this is much more of a technology focused culture than back in the States. At home, you know, we have like, come up with some social rules about when it acceptable to use your iPad, your iPhone or whatever, and so we know that when you go into a movie, you shut your phone off, when you go into class, you shut your phone off, you know, or at least you put it on silence so that the teacher doesn’t catch you to playing games. ZHY: Yeah, but do students actually do shut their phone off in American classrooms, I kind of doubt that. Amy: They put them on silent, I think. John: Well, I don’t know, I mean it’s been so long. Amy and I are so old now. But, seriously because when I was in university, I just had like a little crappy, you know, Samsung feature phone. ZHY: And it doesn’t stop you from texting. John: All you could do was play Snake on it. Amy: Yeah John: But so we’ve gone off on a bit tangent here, but to bring it back, let’s take a look at what the Luoyang Institute of Engineering has done. So again, you have to put your cell phone into a bag before class starts. Do you think this is going to work in terms of attention and getting them to focus on their school work? Amy: Well, so they started this project on April 3, it has even been a week yet, so there’s plenty of time for it to succeed or to fail, but basically, the idea is that they bought a big that I image like a shoe storage a kind of thing, and then you each got a pocket, and then you stick your phone in the pocket at the beginning of the class, you can get it back at the end of the class, but basically you have to voluntarily surrender your phone during class time. ZHY: So do you have to? I think if people who are willing to do so can have it done Yeah, so I guess for those already pretty disciplined, I would say, to be willing to give up their phone during class, then they can do it. I think that is a good way to just physically keep it away from you, then you kind of have to focus on whatever you should be doing. But that doesn’t always work, because for those who want to daydream, I don’t think put your phone away will stop you.