Podcasts about key quotes

In this episode, I get into something that's becoming more important than ever for membership owners: the ability to actually deliver results.For years, memberships have leaned on giving people more content, more features, more bells and whistles. That was never the right approach, and now AI is exposing it. Members don't want information. They want transformation.I walk through what a results-driven membership actually looks like in practice, from understanding what your members really want, to engineering early wins, to building a culture where progress is recognised and celebrated.If you want your members to stick around for years rather than months, this episode is for you.In this episode:Why content and features are no longer enough to keep members engaged long termThe four membership motivators that drive most memberships, and why knowing yours mattersHow to engineer an early win in the first few weeks of a new member's experienceWhy your members need a clear pathway, not just a content libraryHow to build a results-driven culture by recognising, rewarding, and reinforcing member winsWant a step-by-step framework for engineering a tangible early win for new members in their first 2-3 weeks? Grab the free Early Win Playbook at membershipgeeks.com/478, including worked examples for all four membership motivator types.And if you'd like a wider view of where the gaps in your membership business actually are, our free Membership Healthcheck is built for exactly that.Key Quotes & Takeaways:"Members don't want information, they want transformation. And all these new AI tools are giving them content, they're giving them info. That's covered. Your membership needs to give them something more.""People don't join memberships to stand still. They join because they have an outcome in mind, they have a problem they need solving, they have a goal they want to reach, a transformation they want to undergo.""At no point should your members be in your membership thinking, what should I do in order to move forward? There should always be clarity through your content, through the way in which you engage with people on the precise step they need to take next. The clearer the path, the more members will actually walk it.""They don't want the stuff. They want the results that the stuff makes possible."You might also find useful:Using Onboarding to Give New Members a Warm WelcomeWhy you need a solid member onboarding process21 Quick Tips For Improving Member RetentionHow to Create an Extraordinary Member ExperienceThank You For ListeningWe really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show.They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

We'd love to hear from you. Send us fan mail!The 5-Step Transformation Framework That Turns Your Biggest Leadership Gap Into Your Greatest StrengthAbout This Episode:After 25 years in corporate America as VP, Chief Knowledge Officer, global team leader, Bernadette Boas was fired and labeled a tyrant. What she built out of that experience is a proven, five-step leadership transformation framework she has since used with 400+ executives across SMB - Fortune 500 companies and high-growth organizations.This episode is for the manager who is still in the seat, not facing termination, but feeling the gap between the leader they are today and the leader they know they are capable of being. That gap is showing up in your team, your results, and the exhaustion of performing a version of leadership that doesn't actually feel like you.Bernadette walks you through every step of her Shift to Riches Formula — Discover, Confront, Shed, Create, and Accelerate, and gives you three specific actions to begin your own transformation today. What You'll Learn•       Why the gap between the manager you are and the leader you want to be starts on the inside, not in your title or your org chart•       How to identify the fears, insecurities, and ego-driven behaviors quietly costing you trust and results•       The 5-Step Shift to Riches Formula — Discover, Confront, Shed, Create, Accelerateand how to apply each step immediately•       Why building new goals without confronting old patterns is performance, not transformation•       The three requirements for sustaining leadership change when organizational chaos pulls you back•       Three actions to take today, not next week, to begin your own leadership shift Key Quote"The leader you are today was shaped by the fear you chose not to confront. The leader you're meant to be is waiting on the other side of that work." — Bernadette Boas The 5-Step Shift to Riches Formula•       Step 1 — Discover: Who you are, who you want to be, and what internal fears and insecurities are getting in the way•       Step 2 — Confront: Looking directly and honestly at what you discovered — without rationalization, blame, or shame•       Step 3 — Shed: Releasing the behaviors, beliefs, and patterns that are no longer serving your leadership•       Step 4 — Create: Building new behaviors, a new leadership identity, and new goals grounded in who you are choosing to become•       Step 5 — Accelerate: Sustaining the transformation through iteration, accountability, and continued investment in your growth Your Three Actions From This Episode1. Name your dominant internal fear or insecurity — fear, ego, self-doubt, imposter syndrome. Write it down. That is your Discover work.2. Identify one behavior to shed — just one — that is showing up in your leadership and costing you trust, impact, or peace. Name it.3. Write one sentence about the leader you are choosing to create. Not the leader your organization needs. The one you want to be. That sentence is your north star.Resources & LinksFree Leadership Gap Diagnostic: balloffirecoaching.com/opt-inBook a Discovery Call with Bernadette: coachmebernadette.com/discoverycallWatch on YouTube: youtube.com/@ShedtheCorpBitchTVBernadette's Website: balloffirecoaching.comPodcast Page: balloffirecoaching.com/podcast  About Bernadette BoasBernadette Boas is an Executive Coach, keynote speaker, and founder of Ball of Fire Coaching. A former Global VP and Chief Knowledge Officer, she has coached 400+ executives across Fortune 500 companies and high-growth organizations over 16 years. She is the author of Shedding the Corporate Bitch, published in 2011, and is currently authoring its sequel — Shift to Riches: The Guide to Your Success.Support the show

What happens when a team generates a thousand ideas - and kills most of them within minutes? In this Quick Win, I speak with Exploding Kittens co-creator Elan Lee about how he and his team turn chaos into creativity during their quarterly design retreats. Over three intense days, they generate, test, and ruthlessly discard ideas - all without bruising egos. Elan shares how he’s built a culture of trust where killing ideas isn’t failure, it’s focus - and why showing your team it’s safe to let go might be the most powerful leadership move you can make. Elan and I discuss: Inside Exploding Kittens’ quarterly design retreats Why Elan ditched the “yes, and…” rule for “no, kill it” How to create psychological safety in creative chaos The leadership habit that helps teams detach from their ideas Why rejecting ideas fast can unlock better ones KEY QUOTE “All the best ideas start out as terrible ideas - they just need room to evolve.” Explore Elan’s games at explodingkittens.com and connect with him on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn. Listen to my full conversation with Elan here. My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/ Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au Credits: Host: Amantha Imber Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why This Episode MattersSabrina Maniscalco is one of the few people in quantum who has lived the full arc: two decades of academic work on open quantum systems and non-Markovian noise at Palermo, Turku, Edinburgh, and Helsinki, followed by founding Algorithmiq with three of her former researchers after an early Qiskit Camp. That trajectory matters now because Algorithmiq just had a landmark stretch — sole winner of the $2M Wellcome Leap Q4Bio prize for a quantum-enabled cancer drug discovery workflow, an €18M Series B, a global HQ move to Milan, and its Tensor Network Error Mitigation (TEM) function landing in IBM's Qiskit Functions catalog.If you're trying to make sense of where quantum software actually creates value before fault tolerance arrives — and what a credible "trajectory to advantage" looks like when paired with real clients in life sciences — this is a grounded, technically specific conversation with someone building it.EPISODE SPONSORThis episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.What We Get IntoWhy a background in open quantum systems and non-Markovian noise turned out to be unusually well-suited to running algorithms on noisy near-term hardwareThe actual science behind the Q4Bio winning workflow: simulating excited-state dynamics of a photosensitizer drug already in Phase II clinical trials, on up to 100 qubitsHow quantum-boosted DMRG works — and why it gives you a built-in benchmark against the best classical method via the bond dimensionThe tradeoff Sabrina would and wouldn't make between more qubits and lower noise, and why neutral atoms' slower sampling rates matter for chemistryWhy even fault-tolerant algorithms like quantum phase estimation still depend on getting state initialization and measurement rightAlgorithmiq's two-product structure: the Digital Quantum Interface (hardware-agnostic infrastructure) and the life sciences application frameworkHow methods built for chemistry are now opening doors into optimization and GenAI — and why that direction emerged from the work, not from a strategy deckWhat the move from Helsinki to Milan signals about the European quantum ecosystem and Algorithmiq's commercial scale-upHow an active learning pipeline is already proposing novel drug variants for synthesis in Prof. Sherri McFarland's labResources & LinksGuest & CompanyAlgorithmiq — The company Sabrina co-founded with Guillermo García-Pérez, Matteo Rossi, and Boris Sokolov; quantum software for life sciences and chemistry.Sabrina Maniscalco — University of Helsinki Research Portal — Publication record covering open quantum systems, non-Markovian dynamics, and quantum information.Sabrina Maniscalco — AI for Good Bio — Consolidated bio covering academic roles and advisory positions, including IQOQI Austria and CERN's Quantum Technology Initiative.The Q4Bio WinAlgorithmiq Wins $2M Wellcome Leap Q4Bio Prize — Company announcement detailing the photodynamic therapy workflow.Wellcome Leap — Q4Bio Prize Announcement — Funder's perspective on finalists and criteria.IBM Quantum Blog — Q4Bio Finalists — IBM's account of the workflow and quantum-classical integration.Funding & HQ MoveTech.eu — Algorithmiq's €18M Series B and Milan move — Coverage of Italy's largest quantum VC round to date.Quantum Computing Report — Algorithmiq Relocates to Milan — Strategic context including the Q4Bio win and IBM partnership.EU-Startups coverage — Investor lineup and Italy's National Quantum Strategy framing.Quantum Advantage & ToolingIBM Quantum Blog — The Dawn of Quantum Advantage — Includes Algorithmiq's TEM (Tensor Network Error Mitigation) function in the Qiskit Functions catalog.Algorithmiq & IBM Quantum Advantage Tracker — The heterogeneous materials experiment Algorithmiq and IBM put forward as a community benchmark.Silicon Republic interview with Sabrina — Useful prior context on her philosophy of using quantum to simulate quantum systems.Key Quotes & InsightsOn the foundation of the company's approach: "We learned very early what we thought were the bottlenecks of quantum computers — what you really need to worry about if you want to implement computation at scale." A direct line from Qiskit Camp Vermont to Algorithmiq's product strategy.On Q4Bio, in Sabrina's words: "This molecule is already in Phase II clinical trial. So it's not hydrogen. It's a real molecule." A useful counter to the common critique that quantum chemistry demos still live in toy-model land.On quantum-boosted DMRG (insight): In the worst case, the method matches the best classical technique; in the better case, it outperforms it — and the bond dimension tells you which regime you're in. Built-in benchmarking against the classical baseline.On the hardware tradeoff: Asked whether she'd prefer 100 higher-fidelity qubits or 200 noisier ones, Sabrina's answer is "it depends" — and the explanation about why neutral atoms' lower sampling rates limit chemistry use cases is one of the more concrete things you'll hear on platform tradeoffs.On strategy (insight): New verticals at Algorithmiq are ...

Today we're diving into something we use every day - our voice. Most of us are walking around with an unconscious default voice that's been patched together from old stories, childhood wounds, cultural expectations, and whatever got us through the day. But what if that voice isn't really you?Meet Barbara McAfee - voice whisperer, author, singer, and playful catalyst for authentic expression. For more than three decades, Barbara has helped people shed vocal habits shaped by old stories and step into voices that feel truly like home. Through sound, story, character work, and her Five Elements system, she makes voice liberation both profound and ridiculously fun. She's a master voice coach, bestselling author of Full Voice and Vocal Intelligence, and dynamic speaker whose two TEDx talks - including the widely viewed “Bringing Your Full Voice to Life” - have inspired hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Her work has reached leaders, organizations, international educators, community singing movements, and countless individuals through keynotes, retreats, coach trainings, and her beloved Morning Star Singers hospice choir.Barbara, in so many ways, graces us with her presence on The Junkyard Love Podcast to remind us that our voice is the primary way we shape our world.Your voice is the instrument that shapes your expression on the way out. What we really 'mean' is upstream of the voice, and how we express what we really mean is changed by the voice - our life is lived downstream of our ability to express ourselves. Our expressions are interpreted by one another through an infinite number of micro movements, frequencies, rhythms, pheromones, sensory perceptions, biological responses, and so many more - but our voices carry truths even our own conscious perception can't filter out. Barbara shares that our voices are often shaped by past traumas, survival strategies, cultural pressure, and old stuck identities - and she teaches us how to release those unconscious holds in our physical body, allowing the voice to open and flow without restraint. In this back-and-forth conversation, we cover how most of us are unconsciously wearing what Barbara calls a “vocal girdle” - that invisible tightness and restriction we build over years from old wounds, family expectations, and cultural pressure that keeps our voice smaller and safer than it wants to be. She shares how we can gently loosen and remove it through her joyful Five Elements framework (Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Air), by playing with characters and archetypes, and through simple, everyday practices like laughing through the different sounds, voicing your yawns, and reading children's books out loud. We also explore the magic of group singing, the power of pretending to be someone else, code-switching with awareness, and why freeing your voice changes so much more than just how you sound - it changes how you show up in every part of your life.If you've ever felt like your voice doesn't quite match who you really are inside, this conversation is full of heart, laughter, insight, and practical tools you can start using right away - to start speaking with your real voice.Key Topics Covered:Unconscious vocal habits and the “vocal girdle” most of us wearHow childhood experiences and trauma shape our voiceThe Five Elements Framework for vocal freedomPlaying characters and archetypes to access hidden parts of yourselfThe power of group singing and collective connectionPractical daily tools to open and strengthen your voiceCode switching, ego, and authentic flexibilityVoice work for leaders, creatives, and everyday lifeChapter Timestamps (YouTube & Podcast Platforms)00:00 – Why Most People Are Stuck in an Unconscious “Default” Voice00:58 – The “Vocal Girdle”: How Old Wounds and Expectations Restrict Us02:13 – How Childhood Trauma and Family Secrets Shape Your Voice Long-Term04:10 – The Five Elements Framework (Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, Air) Explained05:40 – Barbara's Personal Story: Overcoming Fear of Singing Solo08:32 – The Secret Power of Playing Characters and Archetypes13:38 – Ego, “Brain Rats,” and Gently Expanding Beyond Your Comfort Zone22:55 – Practical Voice Tools for Leaders, Presentations, and Difficult Conversations30:29 – The Magic of Group Singing and Deep Human Connection34:05 – Jacob's Wild DJ Story: Unifying Experiences and Collective Flow40:06 – Laugh, Yawn & Read Children's Books: Easy Daily Practices to Open Your Voice46:26 – Code Switching: Shifting Voices Authentically Across Situations55:12 – Why Humans Crave Collective Ecstasy and Group Singing01:01:40 – Barbara's Books, Music, and Life's Work01:12:45 – Current Retreats, Courses, and What's Next for Barbara01:17:01 – Final Wisdom and Closing ReflectionsLearn practical voice exercises and how to speak with more confidence and authenticity.Key Quotes from Barbara“Most of us are using our kind of unconscious default voice that we think is us, but it's not. It's cobbled together with duct tape and popsicle sticks and trauma…”“We're all kind of wearing a vocal girdle.”“Pretending to be somebody else is kind of the secret sauce.”“The parts of my voice I hate the most have the greatest gifts for me.”“Our voice is the primary way we shape our world.”“Singing is like the mycelial connections between trees.”“Laughing is a great way to just open up the different sounds.”Resources & LinksOfficial Website: https://www.barbaramcafee.com/TEDx Talk (Full Voice): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze763kgrWGg & https://www.audible.com/pd/Vocal-Intelligence-Audiobook/B0GJ6S1JS3?clientContext=133-8676392-2129631&loginAttempt=true&noChallengeShown=true&srsltid=AfmBOorP30WNp0kMoRLLeUmuQ5u-QS5iM86MSz-MzEmJclaZfpu6Na-h&showMosaicSSOView=true&showAmznLopSignalBanner=trueBooks (on audible, physical copy, or Kindle!): Full Voice: The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence and Vocal Intelligence - https://a.co/d/0hOIWVoz // https://www.audible.com/pd/Vocal-Intelligence-Audiobook/B0GJ6S1JS3?clientContext=133-8676392-2129631&loginAttempt=true&noChallengeShown=true&srsltid=AfmBOorP30WNp0kMoRLLeUmuQ5u-QS5iM86MSz-MzEmJclaZfpu6Na-h&showMosaicSSOView=true&showAmznLopSignalBanner=trueMusic: https://barbaramcafee.bandcamp.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaramcafeesings/For the most up-to-date Junkyard Love Podcast news, clips, and details: @Jacobfromtheinternet on InstagramPlease subscribe, follow, and like if you enjoyed the show!

BIBLE STUDY| MIRACLES OF JESUS SERIES.|THE FIFTH MIRACLE OF JESUS pt.30| THE POWER OF RETREAT| JESUS WALKING ON WATER| CHIMDI OHAHUNA In this episode, we confront one of the most misunderstood practices in the Christian walk: prayer. Too often, prayer has been reduced to burdensome rituals, dramatic displays, or exhausting routines that leave believers frustrated and discouraged. But Scripture reveals something far simpler, more profound, and more liberating, prayer as seamless communion with God. Drawing from Luke 22:44 and James 5:17, we explore the examples of Jesus and Elijah, both of whom prayed earnestly yet without theatrics. Jesus, in agony, prayed until His sweat fell like drops of blood. Elijah, a man with passions like ours, fear, discouragement, even suicidal thoughts, still prayed, and the heavens obeyed. Their stories remind us that prayer is not about noise, posture, or performance; it is about intimacy, faith, and alignment with God's will. This teaching dismantles the myth of “higher dimensions” of prayer. As the Greek word proseuchomai shows, to pray earnestly is simply to pray. No additions, no subtractions—just authentic conversation with the Father. Whether whispered or cried out, prayer is prayer. And when rooted in faith, it carries divine authority and produces loud results, even if offered in quietness. Listeners will be challenged to: - Reclaim prayer as a blessing, not a burden. - Recognize that endless prayer is not about style but about consistency and sincerity. - Understand that intimacy with God is the true power source behind declarations and miracles. - Move beyond dramatized practices to embrace prayer as seamless, sweet fellowship. Key Quote for Reflection: “I prefer a quiet prayer with a loud effect than a loud prayer with a quiet effect.” This episode is a call to return to the simplicity of prayer—where divine nature meets human frailty, and heaven responds to the earnest cry of God's children. Under the New Covenant, established on better promises through Christ's blood, we stand on a greater pedestal than Elijah. If God answered him, how much more will He answer us today? Jesus is Lord.

What does it take to advise Heads of State, broker back-channel diplomatic deals, and operate inside the world's most complex political environments, all while building a global firm from scratch?In this episode, Julian sits down with Vlada Galan, geopolitical strategist, crisis management expert, and founder of Oracle Advisory Group. Vlada advises Heads of State across five continents, has worked on elections and conflicts in over a dozen countries, and was awarded a medal by the Ukrainian government in 2023 for her work on behalf of her home country.But the bio only tells part of the story. Vlada arrived in America at six years old with her mother, a cardboard sign, and two words of English. Everything she's built—a Harvard master's degree, a multimillion-dollar advisory firm, a career at the highest levels of global power—came entirely from scratch.This is a conversation about what power actually looks like from the inside, what separates the people who own the table from everyone else trying to get a seat at it, and what a Ukrainian immigrant who once knew two words of English learned about success that most people never figure out.— Episode Chapter Big Ideas (timing may not be exact) —0:00 — Intro1:35 — Finland trip: disconnecting in the Arctic Circle7:50 — What do the people who own the table actually have?11:51 — "Everything you need is within yourself”—did she believe it on Day 1?15:06 — Standing outside the private city club: the three A's of overcoming imposter syndrome18:16 — How she found her way into geopolitical consulting22:03 — Why she prefers the harder, less glamorous engagements25:53 — What the first 48 hours of a crisis actually look like28:09 — Track 2 diplomacy: the back-channel work that never makes the news32:20 — Managing personal identity and professional neutrality as a Ukrainian consultant36:30 — The bank governor story: aggression as an asset40:45 — How to be the honest advisor in a room full of yes people43:41 — The most enjoyable part of running her own firm45:05 — How she takes care of herself: weight training, cooking, and real disconnection48:18 — How she determines what's a good fit as a client50:20 — The biggest misconception about her field54:05 — The hardest part of building something from nothing55:23 — Book recommendations57:44 — What would that six-year-old girl on the plane say?— Key Quotes from Vlada Galan — “If you want to hang on for the long term and develop a reputation for actually bringing change and bringing results, be the no person because that is the person in the room that is the most courageous to say what they actually think, no matter what the consequences might be.”"People will test your boundaries. The more you allow them to cross those boundaries and steamroll you, the more they're going to take advantage of that.”"You learn a lot more from losing than you do from winning. That acquiring of knowledge that you actually get from failing is exactly how you become successful."— Connect With Vlada Galan —Website: https://oracleadvisorygroup.com/ Book website: https://success-mentality.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vladagalan/— Connect with Julian and Executive Health —LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianhayesii/X — https://x.com/thejulianhayesDon't let your biology become the bottleneck to the enterprise you're building. Book a private call —https://www.executivehealth.io/contactWebsite — https://www.executivehealth.io/***DISCLAIMER: The information shared is not meant to treat or diagnose any condition. This is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes. The content here is not intended to replace your relationship with your doctor and/or medical practitioner. Consult your provider before making any decisions.

Why This Episode MattersFirgun Ventures launched in late 2025 with a $70M first close anchored by the Qatar Investment Authority and a mandate that doesn't exist anywhere else in the market: lead Series A and B rounds in quantum scale-ups globally. Kris Naudts is a neuroscientist and former Culture Trip founder whose path to quantum runs through a near-fatal medical misdiagnosis. Zeynep Koruturk spent over a decade building the Goldman Sachs Tech Initiative and meeting more than a thousand founders. Both were early angels in what became Quantinuum.If you're trying to understand how quantum companies actually get financed between the lab and the IPO window — or why a specialist fund needed to exist at all — this conversation is one of the clearest views available. It's also a useful frame for founders thinking about what an informed institutional investor actually does in a round.SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.What We Get IntoWhy Kris's ALS misdiagnosis became the conviction event that pulled him from media entrepreneurship into quantum investingHow Zeynep's decade at Goldman Sachs Tech Initiative shaped her pattern-matching for deep tech, and where that pattern-matching breaks down in quantumThe structural reason Series A/B is the real bottleneck in quantum financing — and why precede and seed capital is no longer the gap people assume it isHow Firgun underwrites engineering and execution risk after the scientific risk is largely retiredWhy a quantum-specialist fund unlocks soft commitments from larger institutions that otherwise stay on the sidelinesThe role of Firgun's "scientific co-founder" Professor Mete Atatüre and the need for sub-specialist diligence across modalitiesHow Firgun thinks about portfolio construction across silicon-spin/photonic (Photonic Inc.), silicon CMOS (Quantum Motion), and other architectures without picking a qubit winnerWhy a truly global mandate is a feature, not a focus problem, given how concentrated quantum talent is in roughly a dozen ecosystemsHow sovereign capital, US equity-stake announcements, and geopolitical fragmentation are starting to reshape who can invest in whatWhy the binary "fault-tolerant or bust" framing of quantum investing misses the gradient of capability that drives near-term valueResources & LinksGuest & FirmFirgun Ventures — The fund's homepage, with the team and "Time to Talk Quantum" podcast featuring the founders' own framing of the market.Firgun Ventures on Crunchbase — Confirms London HQ, global mandate, and Series A/B focus.Fund Launch & ThesisFirgun Ventures Launches $250M VC Fund to Invest in Quantum — The Quantum Insider — Launch details, QIA anchor commitment, and founder backgrounds.Firgun Ventures Launches With $70M for Quantum Tech Innovation — TechFundingNews — Deeper breakdown of the LP roster and market rationale.Firgun Ventures: Scaling Quantum Beyond the Early Stages — Future of Computing — Extended interview with Kris and Zeynep on the Series A/B bottleneck.Portfolio Companies MentionedFirgun Invests in Photonic Inc. — The Quantum Insider — Firgun's first portfolio investment in DARPA-validated Photonic Inc.Photonic Inc.'s World-First Quantum Teleportation — QC Report — Technical context on the "Entanglement First" silicon-spin/photonic architecture.Photonic Inc. Closes $200M+ Round — The Quantum Insider — Final close at a $2B valuation.Quantum Motion Raises $160M Series C — The Quantum Insider — Firgun's first European investment in silicon CMOS quantum computing.Quantum Motion's Silicon CMOS Approach — Technologies.org — Technical analysis of the CMOS scalability thesis.Key Quotes & InsightsKris on the conviction event: "If you're expecting to die and then you're told you're going to live, you have to rethink it yet again… You can go in the direction of enjoy every day, or you can go in the direction of let's try to do something meaningful with whatever time I have left."Zeynep on the real bottleneck: Pre-seed and seed capital in quantum is no longer the gap — the A and B rounds are. Roughly 40% of companies in the space need that bridge to unlock larger institutional capital, and almost no one is set up to lead it.Kris on diligence limits: No one person can underwrite the full quantum stack. Firgun pairs a "scientific co-founder" with sub-specialists for each modality, because in quantum "no propositions sound stupid" — and that's exactly the problem.Zeynep on the asymmetric bet: Quantum is one of the few areas where geopolitical reality creates a floor under the downside. The West can't afford to lose, which means funding will be there long enough for the right companies to mature.Kris on willing the timeline: "You cannot will it into being. The space will evolve at the pace it is set to evolve with the capital and the talent in it." A useful corrective for anyone pitching a five-year cure-for-Parkinson's roadmap.Related Episodes

In this episode of Building Doors, host Lauren Karan sits down with Cathryn Greville, CEO of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), a lawyer, governance expert, and one of the industry's most passionate advocates for systemic cultural change. From collaborative contracting to parental leave, from male allyship to psychological safety, Cathryn makes a powerful case that construction's biggest challenges: productivity, skills shortages, and retention won't be solved by technology alone. They'll be solved by leadership.Cathryn shares the evidence: inclusive teams make better decisions 87% of the time, and twice as fast. She explains why the single biggest risk time for losing women in construction is pregnancy and return to work, and why getting more men to take parental leave is a retention strategy, not a social one. She also pulls back the curtain on NAWIC's $5 million "Allyship in Action" project, including site-based allyship programs, sponsorship training, and a cultural ambassadors program designed to reach young tradies before bad habits set in.Tune in for a frank, data-driven, and hopeful conversation about what it actually takes to build workplaces where people want to stay  and why inclusive leadership may be the most underleveraged commercial advantage in construction today.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Inclusive Leadership and the Future of Construction:Why inclusive leadership is a commercial advantage, not just a social initiativeHow leadership styles directly impact workforce retention and project outcomesThe role leaders play in creating psychologically safe workplacesThe Link Between Inclusion, Productivity, and Performance:Why inclusive teams make better decisions and achieve stronger business resultsHow psychological safety improves productivity and reduces workforce riskThe hidden financial costs of poor workplace culture and employee turnover Innovation Starts with People:Why innovation is about more than technology and AIHow diverse perspectives create better solutions and stronger decision-makingThe connection between workplace culture, creativity, and problem-solvingWorkforce Challenges and Talent Attraction:Why construction's workforce shortage requires a broader talent strategyHow inclusive workplaces help attract and retain the next generation of workersWhat Gen Z expects from employers and why culture matters more than everFlexibility, Retention, and Modern Work:Why flexibility means more than working from homeHow small adjustments can significantly improve employee retentionThe importance of designing workplaces around people's real needsPregnancy, Parenthood, and Retaining Women in Construction:Why pregnancy remains one of the highest-risk points for losing women from the industryThe role parental leave and caring responsibilities play in workforce retentionHow supporting fathers and caregivers benefits the entire workforceMale Allyship and Culture Change:What male allyship looks like in practiceWhy giving men the tools to support change is critical for industry transformationHow NAWIC's Allyship in Action program is helping shift workplace cultureRecruitment, Bias, and Untapped Talent:Why construction still relies heavily on traditional hiring methodsHow transferable skills can unlock new talent poolsThe importance of challenging assumptions about who belongs in constructionBuilding a More Sustainable Industry:Why workforce sustainability is becoming one of construction's biggest challengesHow governments, clients, contractors, and leaders can work together to drive changeWhat organizations can do today to become employers of choice Key Quotes from Cathryn Greville:"Productivity all comes back to people.""The biggest impediment to innovation isn't the technology. It's whether people are able to implement it.""Innovation is not just tech. Innovation is about solving problems.""The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.""If you're not engaging 50 percent of the population, you're missing a huge opportunity.""We need workplaces where people feel safe, valued, and able to do their best work.""Inclusion is not just a diversity initiative. It's a business strategy."About Our Guest:Cathryn Greville is the CEO of NAWIC (National Association of Women in Construction), a lawyer by background with decades of experience in industry reform, regulation, and governance. She has worked across litigation, collaborative contracting, and cultural transformation in both the UK and Australia. Cathryn is currently leading NAWIC's $5 million "Allyship in Action" project (funded by the Building Women's Careers Grant Program), delivered in partnership with CPB Contractors, Adco Constructions, the Australian Workers' Union, and Holmesglen Institute. Her mission: to make "male ally" an obsolete term within a decade by building a sector that works for everyone.About Your Host:Lauren Karan, founder of Karan & Co. and host of Building Doors, is dedicated to helping professionals unlock their potential. Through insightful interviews and real-life stories, Lauren empowers listeners to create opportunities and thrive in their careers.How You Can Support the Podcast:Subscribe and leave a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.Share this episode with anyone interested in construction leadership, retention, team culture, and building a more inclusive industry. Connect with Cathryn Greville and NAWIC to learn more about workforce inclusion and culture change initiatives.Stay Connected:Follow Lauren and the Building Doors podcast on LinkedIn.Subscribe to the Building Doors newsletter for exclusive content.Let's Connect:Want to be a guest or share feedback? Email us at reachout@buildingdoors.com.au.Thank you for listening! It's time to stop waiting and start building.

Recorded live at Smart Bash 2026, Pete Ling is joined by Phil Smith, Jeevan Jeyaratnam and Varun Sudhakar to explore one of the biggest challenges facing profitable bettors today: not finding value, but actually getting money down.The panel discusses how AI driven risk management, affordability checks and increasingly sophisticated customer profiling have changed the betting landscape. Topics include account longevity, timing of bets, market selection, exchange betting, accumulators, player props and the practical realities of avoiding restrictions while still maximising value.Drawing on experience from both sides of the industry, the conversation offers actionable insights for bettors looking to improve their returns, preserve access to bookmakers and make more from the edges they already have.Key topics:Why finding value alone is no longer enough, and how to make sure you can actually get meaningful stakes on your best betsWhat modern bookmakers are really looking for when profiling customers, and how AI is changing the way winning bettors are identifiedPractical ways to improve account longevity and reduce the risk of restrictions, affordability checks and stake reductionsHow accumulators, player props and other market types can help serious bettors maximise opportunities and stay under the radarWhy the timing of your bets can be just as important as the selection itself, and how to avoid common execution mistakesHow betting exchanges can provide greater flexibility, better scalability and an alternative route when bookmaker limits become an issueActionable advice for £50 to £100 stake bettors looking to increase profits, preserve accounts and build a more sustainable betting operationSupport The PodcastYou can support the SBC Podcast by visiting our podcast sponsor, Matchbook. Get 150 days commission free via this link: https://welcome.matchbook.com/SBC150Resources & MentionsPhil on Twitter(X): https://x.com/philbettingJeevan: https://x.com/JeevesOddsVarun: https://x.com/svarun91Smart Betting Club: https://smartbettingclub.com/Key Quotes"Finding value has become much more democratised. Getting your money down is now 50% of the problem, if not more. The real challenge these days is execution."Varun"Every Monday morning I'll be at my desk looking at my deposits for the week and making sure I don't go over £500 per week because the affordability check will tend to trigger if you're depositing five grand a month."Phil"It's about not what wins, but what wins you the most."Pete"I've realised that I need to spread the staking across various different accounts. When I do it on one or two accounts, that's when the affordability check triggers."Phil"We're seeing algorithmic AI solutions that will do this job much faster, much better and at a greater scale than human traders can do."Jeevan"You can prime an account, but AI will pick up your bet as soon as you put the good bet on."Jeevan"You can have the biggest edge in Romanian tennis, but if you can't get down, it just doesn't matter."Varun"If you value the account, you've got to be very careful betting on niche markets where there's little liquidity."Jeevan"The worst thing that you can do is keep getting accounts locked with big cash balances in. You don't know when you're going to get paid out. It's just a nightmare."Phil

In this episode, I tackle one of the most under-appreciated drivers of retention in any online membership: expectation management.I share why memberships are uniquely unforgiving when it comes to overpromising, and how a mismatch between what you sell and what you deliver will quietly kill your retention long before a cancellation email ever hits your inbox.We'll walk through seven practical ways to set realistic expectations - from the claims you make in your marketing, right through to how you signpost future value for members already inside your community.If you want members who stick around, get results, and rave about your membership rather than resent it, this episode is for you.In this episode:Why managing member expectations matters so much more for memberships than for one-off productsThe danger of "magic beans marketing" and how to sell with confidence without overpromisingWhy being clear about who your membership isn't for will attract better-fit members who stay longerHow showing behind the scenes, tweaking your pricing strategy, and using FAQs can pre-empt misaligned expectationsThe role of signposting future content and events in keeping existing members engaged and reinforcing clarityWant the practical companion to this episode? Grab the free Magic Beans Swap Sheet – a swap table, list of words to retire from your marketing, and a self-edit checklist for your sales page.And if you'd like a wider view of where the gaps in your membership business actually are, our free Membership Healthcheck is built for exactly that.Key Quotes & Takeaways:"One of my favourite things with the online membership model is that there's no place to hide. If you cannot live up to what you promise your audience, they're going to figure that out and they're going to do that pretty quickly.""Don't go out there selling magic beans. Don't make these kind of wild guarantees and promises because of course there's no such thing as a guarantee.""Don't be afraid to put people off joining your membership and to tell them explicitly, this is not for you. Because then you can double down on the people your membership actually is for.""If you set your expectations sky high, there's no way to go after that. But if you've set realistic expectations, then you can wow them a little more. Then you can surprise and delight them."

Bungie's total mindshare has collapsed 86% since 2019, Destiny is winding down to a final mission, and Marathon is on life support. Greg Posner and Colan Neese (SVP Gaming, ASI Screen Engine) work through what happens when a studio forgets who its audience actually is, then pivot to Activision's surprise Modern Warfare 4 announcement, Bond's launch curve under the GTA 6 shadow, why Lego Batman is the first Batman content Greg's six-year-old can actually engage with, and predictions for next Tuesday's State of Play.Chapters00:00 Cold open and Player Driven update 02:50 Welcome to Player Driven Live 03:30 Modern Warfare 4 surprise drop and the October 26 release 06:55 Is Modern Warfare 4 part of the Xbox comeback story? 09:00 Why the GTA 6 release window is "black Sharpie" for everyone else 12:00 The "popcorn Call of Duty" vs the grimy core-gamer franchise 16:00 2026 as the year of the AAA comeback: Resident Evil, Forza, Crimson Desert, Wolverine 19:00 2018 Black Ops 4 vs Red Dead 2 — the precedent for this release strategy 20:20 Lego Batman, the Arkham mechanics, and TT Games' ownership purgatory 24:25 "The first thing that's come out of Batman since my son was born in 2019" 26:00 Did Lego overcorrect the formula and alienate younger players? 29:15 Sean Layden callback: bigger games aren't better games 30:00 Bond: how IO Interactive's marketing missed the audience 33:00 Why Bond, Lego, Subnautica 2, and Forza all cannibalized each other in one launch window 35:00 "Making a good game slows the degradation curve" — the Spider-Man 2 pattern 36:55 The Bond launch window that could have been 38:30 The Crimson Desert garden hose tangent 40:30 State of Play predictions: Wolverine, Gears, Fable, and a possible GTA 6 date drop 41:25 Bungie's 86% mindshare collapse since 2019 43:50 "You come out with something called The Final Shape — and then you're like, but not the end?" 46:13 "Unless the plan was let Bungie die" 47:00 Marathon as the cleanest case of a studio forgetting its audience 48:45 Concord, the previous Sony regime, and the half-billion Destiny 3 question 52:30 Bungie's rebellious DNA: from Microsoft to Activision to Sony 56:30 Charlie Olsen, the original Call of Duty SBMM algorithm, and an upcoming Player Driven podcast 58:45 Colan's final word: "I'm not anti-Bungie. I'm anti-Bungie leadership."Key Quotes"Bungie's total mindshare across all its IP and games has fallen 86% since 2019." — Colan Neese"How do you build up such a community and then squander it? Unless the plan was let Bungie die." — Greg Posner"Bungie was a studio that made games for normie gamers to get on board with shooters. Anyone could just play Halo and have a good time. Then they made Marathon for hardcore gamers." — Colan Neese"Modern Warfare has always been the popcorn game of their sub-genres. Black Ops is the grimy core-gamer franchise." — Colan Neese"Making a good game that people then go and talk about how good it is does matter in terms of slowing the degradation curve." — Colan Neese"This Lego Batman is the first thing that's come out of Batman since my son was born in 2019." — Greg Posner"I'm not anti-Bungie. I'm anti-Bungie leadership." — Colan NeeseResources MentionedModern Warfare 4 — releasing October 26, 2026State of Play — next Tuesday (June 2026)ASI Screen Engine — Colan's mindshare data sourceSean Layden interview on the Player Driven Podcast — referenced on filler content and game scopeBloomberg reporting — Destiny 3 estimated $500M budgetCrimson Desert — Colan's current obsessionLego Batman, Bond, Subnautica 2, Forza Horizon 6 — the May launch window pile-upComing soon: Charlie Olsen (built the original Call of Duty SBMM algorithm at Raven Software, 2017) on a future Player Driven PodcastHostsGreg Posner — Founder, Player Driven Colan Neese — SVP Gaming, ASI Screen EngineConnect

On this episode, we talk with Gabriella Taylor, a TCK to Portugal. You'll hear her share how God led her to step out in faith even though it was uncomfortable - plus the lessons she learned along the way! Gabriella is young yet wise beyond her years. She also shares with us about what God is teaching her as she navigates a major life transition. We even get a glimpse into some reverse culture shock and a testimony of God's provision! Make sure to tune in as we journey alongside Gabriella.What questions do you have about this episode? How can we help support you or your TCK? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us HERE. HOSTS: Michelle Ellis, John Michael Caldwell, Nicole CaldwellSONG: Sunscreen by Vic DaviCONNECT WITH US: Instagram | Facebook | Email UsCHAPTERS:0:00 - 0:31 | Introduction0:31 - 1:59 | Getting to Know Gabriella1:59 - 6:13 | MK Debate6:13 - 9:51 | Starting a Ministry as a Teenager9:51 - 15:35 | Lessons from Leading a Bible Study15:35 - 19:52 | “Wins” from Stepping Out in Faith19:52 - 23:20 | Encouragement for Those Taking Leaps of Faith23:20 - 27:22 | A New Transition as a College Freshman27:22 - 30:59 | A Testimony of God's Provision30:59 - 37:51 | Growing in Trust in the Lord37:51 - 40:44 | Final Reflections on God's Holiness40:44 - 44:32 | Culture Shock & ClosingSHOW NOTES:19:18 | Romans 8:28 - “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”34:09 | Jeremiah 18 - Clay in the Potter's hands35:49 | Philippians 4:6-7 - “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”KEY QUOTES:19:20 | “[God has] a purpose for you on the field.”21:08 | “The Lord took that obedience and grew it and grew that seed even though I didn't know what I was doing and lacked confidence in it. He took that obedience and just really grew it into beautiful fruit.”21: 28 | “I think wholehearted surrender and just being open to whatever the Lord might have for [you] is incredible.”22:18 | “It's in that stretching and leaning into being a little bit uncomfortable that ultimately we grow and the Lord develops us.”26:46 | “…I really don't feel like I'm from here but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm supposed to be here.”28:21 | “My contentment and my joy and my satisfaction is found in Christ.”29:19 | “I'm in an amazing place for a miracle. I just need the Lord to come through.”32:30 | “Being in a place of complete surrender, I believe goes hand in hand with trust [in God].”38:13 | “How often do I go through my day and truly forget that my Creator, the God who made this world and who made me, is someone who I can just pray to at any point and I can have those conversations with?”Interested in partnering with John Michael & Nicole in prayer, one-time giving, or monthly giving? Do that HERE.COMMON TERMS:TCK - third culture kidMK - missionary kidLAC - Latin America Caribbean

Why This Episode MattersYuval has a rare profile in the quantum industry: an M.Sc. in physics from Tel Aviv University, an MBA from Kellogg, two decades as a CEO and CMO in deep tech before quantum, and now the commercial lead at QuEra — the company whose neutral-atom architecture is colocated with NVIDIA H100s inside Japan's ABCI-Q supercomputer and just demonstrated 96 logical qubits from 448 physical atoms in Nature. He also hosts The Superposition Guy's Podcast and has just published Quantum Bits, a comic-book guide to quantum computing.This is a crossover conversation — Sebastian's book A New Quantum Era came out the same week — so the episode reads as two practitioners comparing their explanatory strategies, their reading of the modality race, and their honest forecasts for when a quantum computer becomes genuinely non-simulatable. If you want a candid look at how the commercial side of quantum thinks about hardware timelines, error-correction overhead, and the work of translating physics into procurement, this is the episode.SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.What We Get IntoWhy Vladan Vuletić's confidence horizon for neutral atoms expanded from 5 years to 10 years in a single 18-month window — and what changedThe honest case for neutral atoms when wall-clock speed is the obvious weakness: parallelism, algorithmic fault tolerance, and a 2:1 physical-to-logical ratio for quantum memoryWhy "time to solution" — not gate speed — is the metric Yuval thinks the industry should be arguing aboutHow Shor's algorithm went from requiring a million qubits to roughly 30,000, and what that compression means for cryptographically relevant timelinesThe craft problem of explaining quantum without saying "zero and one at the same time" — and why both Yuval and Sebastian refused to use itWhat it took to make a quantum comic funny in German (the German is perfect, the joke is not)Sebastian's read on the modality race: neutral atoms short-term, superconducting mid-term, spin and photonics long-term — and Yuval's pushbackWhy Yuval thinks Sebastian's five-year forecast for a non-simulatable machine is pessimisticThe shift inside QuEra from "95% science, 5% everything else" to a company that has to ship serviceable systems and uptimeHow podcasting becomes a business development tool once the microphone is offResources & LinksGuest LinksThe Superposition Guy's Podcast — Yuval's interview show with quantum CEOs and technical leaders across computing, sensing, and communications.Quantum Bits Comics — Yuval's comic-book guide to quantum computing, including custom editions and multilingual versions.QuEra Computing — The neutral-atom quantum computing company where Yuval serves as Chief Commercial Officer.Yuval's published writing — Aggregated Forbes, HPCwire, and Built In bylines on quantum ROI, workforce, and commercialization.Papers & ArticlesQuEra and collaborators on Algorithmic Fault Tolerance (Nature, 2025) — The paper behind the claim that syndrome measurements can happen per algorithmic block rather than per operation.HPCwire coverage of the AFT result — Independent take on the 10–100x runtime overhead reduction.IEEE Spectrum on neutral-atom quantum computing in 2026 — Context for the AIST Gemini deployment and Yuval's time-to-solution argument.2026 Quantum Readiness Report, Part 2 — The survey of 291 stakeholders behind Yuval's "show-me phase" framing of the market.BooksA New Quantum Era by Sebastian Hassinger — Sebastian's outsider's introduction to quantum computing, referenced throughout the conversation.Quantum Bits: A Comic Book Guide to Quantum Computing by Yuval Boger — Yuval's illustrated explainer, with a glossary covering terms from superposition to QLDPC codes.Background Reading MentionedThe Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder — Sebastian's inspiration for the working title of his next book.Key Quotes & InsightsOn the magic of neutral atoms: "We've got this rubidium atoms, we hold them in place using tiny lasers, they're four microns apart, we shoot lasers, and then we take a photograph and see how they're doing. It's science fiction until it isn't."On the modality timeline (Yuval, paraphrasing Vladan Vuletić): Eighteen months ago Vladan was confident about neutral atoms for the next five years. Six months ago, after recent results, that confidence horizon stretched to ten.On what actually matters: "Obviously what matters is time to solution and not clock speed." Yuval's core rebuttal to the standard critique that neutral-atom gates are slow.On the error-correction compression: A recent Harvard result showed the physical-to-logical qubit ratio for quantum memory dropping toward roughly 2:1 — not the thousand-to-one figure that dominates most public discourse.On the takeaway from his book (Yuval): "Quantum is magical, but it's not magic."Related EpisodesEpisode 18 — Neutral atom arrays with Alex Keesling of QuEra Computing — Sebastian's earlier conversation with QuEra's CEO on the foundational technology.

If you've been saying "I'm trying to recover" for months or years, this episode will completely change how you approach your healing journey. Today we're diving into the science behind why the phrase "I'm trying" is literally programming your brain for partial commitment—and why that guarantees you'l stay stuck. This isn't about willpower or motivation; it's about understanding how your language creates neural pathways that either support or sabotage your recovery. In this game-changing episode, you'll discover: The neuroscience behind why "trying" keeps you in limbo How decision defaulting protects you from commitment (and healing) Why your undernourished brain struggles with decisive action The trauma response component that makes decisions feel dangerous Two powerful exercises to shift from trying to deciding Real client stories of transformation through decisive language Warning: This episode will make you uncomfortable with your own excuses—and that's exactly the point. THE DECISION DEFAULTING TRAP Decision defaulting: When you avoid making definitive choices because not deciding feels safer than deciding "wrong." Sound familiar? "I'm trying to eat more" "I'm trying to stop restricting" "I'm trying to get better" "I'm thinking about getting help" Every time you say "I'm trying," you're leaving yourself an escape route. You're keeping one foot in and one foot out, protecting yourself from the vulnerability of full commitment. The raw truth: Trying is just a socially acceptable way of avoiding responsibility for your choices. THE NEUROSCIENCE OF "TRYING" Dr. Carol Dweck's research shows: The words we use create neural pathways that either support or sabotage our goals. When we use tentative language like "trying," we're literally programming our brains for partial commitment. What your brain hears: "I'm trying to eat breakfast" = "I'm not really committed to eating breakfast" "I'm trying to stop restricting" = "I'm keeping my options open to restrict if things get uncomfortable" From a neurological standpoint: Definitive decisions require activation of the prefrontal cortex (executive functioning). But when you're undernourished or in chronic stress from disordered eating, this brain region is compromised. Decision defaulting feels easier because it requires less energy. THE TRAUMA RESPONSE COMPONENT Many people with eating disorders have histories of choices being criticized, controlled, or dismissed. Decision defaulting becomes a protective mechanism: If you never fully commit to a choice, no one can tell you your choice was wrong. Dr. Kristin Neff's research on self-compassion shows: People who struggle with decision-making often have internalized critical voices that make them afraid of imperfection. The eating disorder amplifies this by convincing you every decision must be perfect—so it's safer to not decide at all. CLIENT STORY: BRITTANY'S BREAKTHROUGH Brittany came to coaching after 3 years of "trying to recover." She'd been in therapy multiple times, bought every book, started and stopped countless times. When asked what she wanted from coaching: "I want to try to finally get better." The intervention: "Brittany, you've been trying for three years. How's that working for you?" The realization: All her trying had actually kept her trying. The shift: From "I'm trying to recover" to "I'm deciding to use my resources and trust the path." The results: Within 6 months—weight restoration, rebuilt relationships, career changes she'd put on hold. THE POWER OF IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION Research by Dr. Peter Gollwitzer shows: People who use implementation intentions (decisive language) are 2-3 times more likely to follow through than those who rely on general intentions. Instead of leaving actions up to willpower, you're pre-committing to specific choices. THE LANGUAGE SHIFTS: OLD: "I'm trying to eat regular meals" NEW: "I'm deciding to eat breakfast tomorrow, lunch at noon, dinner in the evening—regardless of how I feel" OLD: "I'm trying to exercise less" NEW: "I'm deciding to take two complete rest days this week and limit exercise by 30 minutes" OLD: "I'm thinking about getting help" NEW: "I'm deciding to talk to three support professionals this week" WHY YOUR EATING DISORDER LOVES "TRYING" Your eating disorder wants you to keep trying. It wants you in the wishy-washy space where you're sort of committed but not really. As long as you're trying, you're not a real threat to its control. When you start deciding—making firm commitments and following through regardless of feelings—that's when your eating disorder panics. That's when recovery becomes inevitable. THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Decision defaulting gives you an illusion of control: You think you're keeping options open You think you're staying flexible You think you're being logical What you're actually doing: Giving your power away to circumstances, other people, or the eating disorder voice. Real control comes from making conscious choices and taking responsibility for outcomes. CLIENT STORY: MARIA'S THERAPIST SEARCH Maria spent years researching therapists but never booked appointments. She was terrified that choosing the "wrong" person would confirm she was beyond help. The reframe: From "I need to find the perfect therapist" to "I'm deciding to take action toward support and will adjust as I learn." Within a week: Started coaching. Within a month: Real progress. None of this would have happened in decision default mode. KEY QUOTES

In this episode, I dive deep into the crucial role that frameworks play in building a successful membership business.Joined by Charlotte Crowther, founder of Signature Framework, we explore why simply piling on content isn't enough to help your members get results or to make your membership stand out in a competitive market.We break down what a framework actually is, the difference between methodology and framework, and how having a signature, visualized structure can streamline both your teaching and your product offerings. You'll get practical advice for building your own framework and insights on avoiding the most common mistakes.In this episode:What exactly is a framework, and how is it different from just a collection of courses or resources?How does having a signature framework offer advantages over a standard “content library” model in a membership?What are the best ways to implement and leverage a framework within your membership, including for non-linear or community-driven memberships?What are the common missteps to avoid when developing a framework, and how can you ensure it becomes a powerful asset for your business?Key Quotes & Takeaways:"I feel more and more people just want the specificity. And they don't want to be told, here's a thousand things that could be useful. They want to be told just the 10 things in the right order that are specific and useful for them.""knowing that there is a structure, a reference point, like there is a method to the madness, is always going to reassure people and make them more likely to actually jump in and engage the way that you want them to.""Often a key factor of a successful community is that everyone's on a transformation journey together. So when you give them the building blocks of that, you just make it easier for everyone to connect and get on."Thank You For ListeningWe really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

Philosophy of Physics Meets Quantum Engineering with Elise CrullWhy This Episode MattersElise Crull is Associate Professor of Philosophy at CCNY and the CUNY Graduate Center, co-author with Guido Bacciagaluppi of The Einstein Paradox (Cambridge, 2024), and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2025 for her archival work recovering voices like Grete Hermann from the foundations of quantum mechanics. She was also one of the speakers on Helgoland in June 2025 for the centenary of quantum mechanics — opening, as Sebastian notes, by thanking the organizers for the courage to invite a philosopher.This conversation matters because the truce between physicists and philosophers of physics is over. Quantum computing has turned interpretive questions — what counts as entanglement, what decoherence really is, whether causal order can be put in superposition — into engineering questions with budget consequences. If you build, fund, or write about quantum hardware, this episode will sharpen how you hear the words being used around you.SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power. Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.Go deeper with the blog post.What We Get IntoWhy "decoherence" and "noise" are not interchangeable, and why error correction strategy depends on telling them apartThe six-plus working definitions of entanglement currently circulating in physics — and why "classical entanglement" makes a philosopher's eye twitchWhat Einstein actually objected to in EPR (hint: it wasn't really determinism), drawn from Schrödinger's "Einstein-Paradoxon" correspondence folderIndefinite causal ordering: whether the experimental speedups reflect genuinely acausal physics or our stubbornly classical definitions of "cause" and "signal"How monogamy of entanglement is only monogamous with respect to a single degree of freedom — and why that nuance is already being exploited in entanglement harvestingWhy "it's just a tool" is the most insidious thing an engineer can say about quantum or AI technologyHow the standard heroic-origin story of quantum mechanics structurally erased experimentalists — many of them women like Hertha Sponer — and what that pattern predicts about quantum computing's own emerging origin storyWhat Grete Hermann did to von Neumann's impossibility proof forty years before anyone listenedWhy Crull thinks the next physical theory, whatever succeeds quantum field theory, is likely to be stranger, not tamerResources & LinksGuest LinksElise Crull — CCNY Faculty Profile — Her institutional home, with current research interests and talks.Elise Crull — CUNY Graduate Center Profile — Full publications list including forthcoming work.Elise Crull — Academia.edu — Preprint archive, including her 2024 Leggett–Garg/Feyerabend paper and earlier decoherence work.Books & PapersThe Einstein Paradox (Bacciagaluppi & Crull, Cambridge UP, 2024) — The archival reconstruction of the debate EPR unleashed; the centerpiece of the conversation.Ryckman's BJPS review of The Einstein Paradox (2025) — A scholarly assessment of what the book changes about how we read 1935."Realism with Quantum Faces: The Leggett–Garg Inequalities as a Case Study for Feyerabend's Views" (Crull, 2024) — Her most recent standalone article on macroscopic realism."Physics Scratches a Philosopher's Itch" — APS Physics (2022) — A feature on her work on indefinite causal ordering and causation.Helgoland & HistoryPhysics World: Helgoland 2025 — the Inside Story — Post-event report on the centenary where Sebastian and Elise first met.AIP: "What Happened on Helgoland" — Historiographical pushback on the Heisenberg origin myth.AIP: Crull on Hertha Sponer and the path to wave/particle duality (2026) — Her most recent piece on how standard histories minimize experimentalists.For General AudiencesStarTalk: "The Philosophy of Physics with Elise Crull" (June 2025) — Crull with Neil deGrasse Tyson, kicking off the Einstein Paradox promotion cycle.StarTalk: "How Quantum Physics Complicates Objective Truth" (April 2026) — A complementary, more recent treatment of the same themes.Key Quotes & InsightsOn what philosophy is for: "Every aspect of science we do requires interpretation, because the world isn't just out there. We make choices about how to encounter it."On decoherence vs. noise: Crull notes the question physicists at Duke recently raised with her — how do you tell the difference between decoherence and noise? — and stresses that one is something you shield against, the other is something else entirely. Error correction strategy depends on the distinction.On what really bothered Einstein: Despite the popular story, "He wasn't as concerned about determinism as you would think." What Einstein wanted was a theory whose mathematics had a one-to-one mapping to individual systems with their own states — and entanglement broke that.On indefinite causal order: Experimentalists often equate causation with signaling constraints, but "those are very different things." The superposition-of-causal-orders results may reveal less about causation than about the fact that temporal ordering itself remains defined in irreducibly classical ways.

In this episode, I share practical, quick tips for offering multiple tiers within your membership business.I dive into the common challenges faced when creating tiered memberships, from avoiding over-complication to choosing the right differentiators for each level.I also cover how to effectively focus your marketing, prevent friction for members, and optimize upgrade/downgrade pathways.If you're considering multiple tiers or struggling to manage existing ones, you'll find actionable advice to help your membership thrive.In this episode:How many membership tiers should you offer, and why is keeping it simple important?What are the best ways to differentiate your tiers beyond just content?How can you effectively market your membership when you have multiple tiers?What strategies ensure smooth upgrade and downgrade paths without making lower tiers feel like a "second-class" option?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?Whether you're looking to launch your very first membership or scale and grow an existing one, come and join me inside Membership Academy - where I'll give you everything you need to succeed at every stage of your membership journey.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"So having too many tiers and therefore too many different options for people to compare and weigh up makes the decision-making process harder. It adds friction.""It's so much easier and clearer for you and your audience when you choose one tier whether it is your lowest priced or your highest priced, to be the focal point of everything that you do.""You don't want to make the low price feel like it's for second-class citizens. Because who wants to be part of that? Who wants to join a membership where right from the get-go we know that we are being seen as less than?""If you can offer a lower price tier as an alternative to canceling, then that can keep people in your membership for much longer. It can increase their lifetime value, and also they could always end up upgrading again in the future when the time is right."

ACIM Quote:"If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible." (ACIM, T-18.III.3:2)Today's Guest:Thomas Rich-Caverly joins Tam and Matt to discuss an over-arching forgiveness that occurred when a friend chose to see him differently.Key Quote from Guest:"What would keep you up at night when all is forgiven?"Connect with Thomas: https://www.sosliferecovery.com/ sosliferecovery@gmail.com Instagram: @t.rich.picturesHave a Forgiveness Story That Could Expire Others? Submit your forgiveness story at http://www.miraclevoices.org/formFeel Inspired to Make a Donation? Visit https://www.miraclevoices.org/donateClosing ACIM Quote:"Love waits on welcome, not on time" (ACIM, T-13.VII.9:7)

Matt Maher, founder of M7 Innovations and the thirty-fifth member of the MIT Media Lab Consortium, joins Phillip and Brian to interrogate what really happens when enterprises leap from "zero to one" to "one to a hundred" with AI. The conversation moves from the productivity paradox (studies showing AI can add 20% to completion time even as users swear it saves them work) to the human hand-off in commerce, the limits of agentic shopping, and the shrinking aperture of the internet. The big takeaway is that 2026 is the year of assessment, not aspiration. Paleolithic Brains; Medieval Infrastructure; Godlike Technology Key Takeaways AI has created a productivity paradox. Although it may feel like a magical solution that unlocks productivity and throughput, it often lengthens time to completion.  Cognitive atrophy is real and happening faster than we realize.  Net-new ideas still need human intuition. AI learns from and mimics existing experiences and content.  The human-AI handoff should be designed for where the agent stops and identity begins, mapped across three tiers: low-emotion, middle-emotion, and high-emotion products and content. Fix your site for LLM crawlers now. Agentic checkout can wait. Key Quotes [00:06:30] "We did not have a digital information superhighway… that was zero to one. And now we are in that one to 100 moment… we snap our fingers, and we're at parity with all these capabilities." — Matt Maher [00:17:30] "It objectively takes more time. Our dopamine receptors are feeling good when we're that productive. So we'll happily take 20% more time and claim we didn't." — Matt Maher [00:23:30] "AI could literally never have created [the elevator screen] because it did not exist in the world before. It is a reduction to the mean." — Matt Maher [00:51:30] "The aperture of the internet continues to shrink, and everything becomes more personalized for each of us. If you are not in that aperture of what people see, you don't exist anymore." — Matt Maher In-Show Mentions M7 Innovations The METR study (late 2025) on AI developer time savings E.O. Wilson's The Origins of Creativity Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings Amazon v. Perplexity lawsuit Associated Links What AI and Watchmaking Have in Common The Death of Slop and the End of Time Get STRATA by Future Commerce Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we're witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I dive into the time management and productivity techniques I've personally honed through years of running a membership business.I share the exact frameworks and mental models I use each day to structure my workload, prioritize tasks, and maintain focus amidst the constant demands of membership ownership.You'll hear about the Eisenhower decision matrix, the “big rocks, little rocks, and pebbles” method, and my own 3x3 daily structure.Whether you're overwhelmed by your to-do list or just looking for more consistency in your routine, I break down practical approaches you can try right away.In this episode:How do I quickly decide which tasks to prioritize and which to ignore as a membership owner?What practical system can help me distinguish the size and impact of different tasks?How can I structure my typical workday to ensure that both big projects and smaller tasks get the attention they need?What mindset should I adopt to stay flexible and consistent with my time management approach, even when days don't go as planned?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?Whether you're looking to launch your very first membership or scale and grow an existing one, come and join me inside Membership Academy - where I'll give you everything you need to succeed at every stage of your membership journey.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"Some people will use this grid to essentially categorize tasks into 4 things: the tasks they do, the tasks they decide on scheduling, the tasks they delegate, or the tasks they delete. Handily comes out as 4 Ds: do, decide, delegate, delete.""I can't remember where the whole big rocks, little rocks came from, but it lodged in my brain. I look at, okay, what are my big rocks? So the stuff that's going to take forever. What are my little rocks? So the stuff that I could get done today. And what are the pebbles? What are the little 5, 10-minute things that could be done?""The decision matrix helps give me that quick ability to prioritize, to determine what needs my attention, what needs a simple decision on the scheduling, on where it's going to be taken care of, what I could look to have someone on the team do, and what I can just cast off the list forever.""Rigidity, that lack of flexibility, is what I often have found makes methodologies, structures, frameworks, or whatever you want to call it for trying to be productive, kind of fall apart."

The funnel's compressing, content volume is exploding, and everything is quickly descending into AI slop. But the Miami heat and chilled coconut water hit just right, so everything is juuuust fine.  We're unpacking our hot takes fresh out of POSSIBLE, Hyve's sprawling beachside conference at the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc resorts. Between Walmart's "Who Knew" thesis, EMARKETER's no-safe-channels reset, and Phillip's case for what it would take for POSSIBLE to rival Cannes, the team weighs what makes a conference culturally relevant and what's still missing from most experiences. Great, Now We're Drowning In Pod Slop, Too Key Takeaways: POSSIBLE's beach-party-meets-marketing-conference format makes activations feel organic, not transactional. The customer journey isn't collapsing anymore; it's compressing. Pinterest now suggests 10 posts to break through feeds. Meta wants 50. Is the new playbook all about volume and velocity, not relevancy? Walmart leverages AI in 73% of its marketing investments, but it's still hiring. POSSIBLE can only rival  Cannes if or when the city itself has skin in the game. Key Quotes: [00:29:37] "People will not become comfortable with AI until it's indistinguishable." — Sarah, on the EMARKETER-led "No Safe Channels" panel [00:38:35] "Being AI first doesn't mean people last." — William White, CMO, Walmart US [00:45:25] "Ops fulfills the promise that marketing makes." — Chris Gosser [00:45:55] "Marketing's job is changing beliefs and behaviors." — Phillip, on William White's framing Associated Links: Get the post-POSSIBLE dispatch on The Senses Get our in-depth analysis of the modern conference industry Buy STRATA by Future Commerce Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hardware-Faithful Digital Twins for Quantum Computing with Izhar MedalsyIzhar Medalsy is not a career qubit theorist. His path runs from a physical chemistry PhD and an ETH Zurich postdoc in atomic force microscopy and ternary nanoscale logic, through productizing scientific instruments at Bruker, through building one of the fastest resin 3D printers on the market, into co-founding Quantum Elements in 2023 with Daniel Lidar (USC) and Amir Yacoby (Harvard). That arc — nanoscale measurement scientist turned deep-tech operator — shapes how he thinks about the simulation gap in quantum computing.The conversation lands at a specific moment. In April 2026, Quantum Elements published a joint result with AWS, USC, and Harvard simulating a distance-7 rotated surface code with 97 physical qubits using full quantum master equations on AWS HPC7a, and announced a deeper collaboration with Rigetti Computing on next-generation superconducting processors. If you care about how error correction strategies, decoders, and pulse-level controls actually get developed before they ever touch hardware, this episode is for you.EPISODE SPONSORThis episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.comGo deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for====================================================================================================What We Get IntoWhy generic noise models fall short and what "hardware-faithful" actually means when two nominally identical QPUs have different noise fingerprintsHow Quantum Elements scaled open-system master-equation simulation from a brute-force ceiling around 16 qubits to 97 qubits using stochastic compression on top of Quantum Monte CarloThe compute reality of the distance-7 surface code run on AWS HPC7a — only 96 vCPUs and a few hundred gigabytes of memory, not the thousands of vCPUs they initially fearedWhy decoders are the invisible bottleneck in fault tolerance, and where AI-trained decoders fed by digital twin data could plausibly run inside the real-time quantum-classical loopExtending error suppression from physical qubits up to logical qubits — the IBM Eagle work where digital-twin-guided strategies reportedly took entangled logical qubit fidelity from 43% to 95%How the same digital twin approach extends to neutral atoms (live today) and ion traps (on the roadmap)What Rigetti gets out of the partnership, what it means to have Chad Rigetti on the board, and how Constellation fits alongside real hardware timeIzhar's "wooden models in the air tunnel" critique of how the quantum industry currently iterates — and what a parallel virtual development track buys youResources & LinksGuest & CompanyIzhar Medalsy — Quantum Elements team page — Background and role at Quantum Elements.Izhar Medalsy on LinkedIn — Full career arc from ETH biophysics through 3D printing to quantum.Quantum Elements — Constellation platform, where listeners can build their own virtual QPU and run circuits, error suppression, and QEC experiments.Papers & ArticlesAWS Quantum Computing Blog: Decoding realistic QEC syndrome with Quantum Elements digital twins — Primary technical reference for the 97-qubit distance-7 result discussed in the episode.The Next Platform: How HPC and AI Digital Twins Accelerate Quantum Error Correction (Apr 17, 2026) — Independent reporting on the AWS/USC/Harvard simulation.The Quantum Insider: Quantum Elements & Rigetti collaboration (Apr 21, 2026) — Details on the partnership Izhar describes.Guest post: Quantum Digital Twins — The Missing Acceleration Layer — Izhar's own framing of the thesis.The Next Platform: Startup Profile of Quantum Elements (Jan 2026) — Background on the company.arXiv 2603.14607 — Calibration-Based Digital Twins for IBM Quantum Hardware — Useful independent context on the limits and promise of calibration-based twins.Key Quotes & Insights"Sometimes when I look at the quantum industry, there are instances where you think, well, it's almost like building the next fighter jet with wooden models in the air tunnel." — Izhar's framing for why the field needs a real simulation layer.On hardware awareness: each modality, each QPU, sometimes each calibration cycle has its own pulses, its own noise processes, and its own failure modes. You cannot build the control stack without modeling where you are starting from and where you are trying to get to.Insight: The brute-force ceiling for open-system master-equation simulation is roughly 16 qubits. Stochastic compression layered on Quantum Monte Carlo is what let Quantum Elements reach distance-7 surface code at 97 qubits — exploiting sparsity rather than enumerating the full state space.On logical qubits: "We cannot assume that logical qubits will be noise-free." Error suppression strategies developed at the physical level need to be re-derived at the logical level, and digital twins are how you train and test those strategies before hardware.Insight: The most interesting downstream story may not be simulation itself but AI decoders trained on digital-twin-generated data — small enough to run at the edge, fast enough to live inside the real-time quantum-classical loop.Related EpisodesEpisode 52 — Quantum noise with Daniel Lidar — Quantum Elements' co-founder and CSO on the noise suppression and error correction foundat...

On this episode, we talk with Heather Santymire, a TCK to Zimbabwe. You'll hear her share about her life as a TCK, a parent to TCKs, and serving parents of TCKs. Heather has a wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to all things TCK! She talks about growing through hardship and clinging to the Lord in good times and bad times. She also talks about some of the joys and wins she's had in her various roles. This is an episode you don't want to miss!What questions do you have about this episode? How can we help support you or your TCK? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us HERE.HOSTS: Michelle Ellis, John Michael Caldwell, Nicole CaldwellSONG: Sunscreen by Vic DaviCONNECT WITH US: Instagram | Facebook | Email UsCHAPTERS:0:00 - 0:55 | Introduction0:55 - 7:41 | Getting to Know Heather7:41 - 10:32 | Proactive Member Care for Families10:32 - 16:08 | Navigating Transitions for TCKs and Parents16:08 - 17:20 | The Importance of Community17:20 - 20:43 | Lean Into the Lord20:43 - 26:15 | Accepting It's Okay to Not Be Okay26:15 - 31:23 | Celebrating Wins and Success Stories31:23 - 36:51 | Finding Hope in Hard Times36:51 - 39:23 | Encouragement for Parents of TCKs39:23 - 42:33 | MK Debate42:33 - 46:19 | ClosingSHOW NOTES:33:05 | Psalm 121:1-3 - “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.”35:33 | Romans 8:28 - “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”KEY QUOTES:6:28 | “When you answer God's call on your life, get ready for a battle… and it's vital that you have community around you that will help support you through that.”11:22 | “We can't and we shouldn't remove all the hard. We grow through the hard.”16:29 | “It can be so easy to feel like I'm the only one walking through this situation and the enemy sweeps in very quickly to say, “yep, you're the only one. You're alone. No one cares.”17:22 | “Lean into the Lord. Don't lean away from Him.”22:14 | “If everything is always easy then I'm more dependent on myself. It's really in the hard times that we can say, "‘oh, that's when I had to go back to the Lord and say I need your help.'”Interested in partnering with John Michael & Nicole in prayer, one-time giving, or monthly giving? Do that HERE.COMMON TERMS:TCK - third culture kidMK - missionary kidLAC - Latin America Caribbean

What happens when a cultural figure with 20 years in the limelight decides to become a brand operator? Adam Domian, SVP & Head of Commerce and Audience at 11:11 Media, joins Phillip and Brian to break it down. From Walmart shelves to TikTok lives, Adam shares how Paris Hilton's portfolio balances licensing cash flow with equity-driven brands like Parive, and why "founder energy" is becoming a moat in an AI-saturated marketplace, especially with someone “sliving” such a dynamic and coveted life.  Commerce Is Hot Key takeaways: The licensee-licensor era is giving way to the celebrity-as-majority-owner era. US social commerce lags Asia because of consumer habits, not the technology itself. Trust travels with the person—platforms just shape the dialect. Once everyone has AI, cultural instinct becomes the differentiator. Archive footage is the new commercial inventory for legacy IP. Key Quotes: [00:14:31] "She is the same person across those platforms; it just allows us to lean further into different aspects of her life." — Adam Domian [00:19:15] "She was in the labs with the chemists from day one. [Parivie] product development took two and a half, three years." — Adam Domian [00:23:44] "We have Paris and her cultural pulse as an asset to these businesses, but 80% of it is running a traditional playbook." — Adam Domian [00:26:16] "When everybody's leveraging AI, there's a moment of parity. The humanness becomes the differentiator." — Adam Domian In-Show Mentions: 11:11 Media M13 Parivie Associated Links: Get Strata by Future Commerce Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I discuss three practical strategies to boost attendance for your live member calls, whether you run Q&As, workshops, masterminds, or office hours.I share actionable tips that can easily fit into your workflow, from leveraging technology to personalizing member onboarding.If you've ever worried about empty seats during your live sessions, you'll find plenty of fresh ideas here to increase engagement and ensure your members get the most out of their membership experience.In this episode:How can you make it easier for members to remember and RSVP to upcoming live events?What's an effective way to invite new members to live sessions to improve their chances of attending?How can you help first-time attendees feel more comfortable and included in your live calls?What small tweaks to your onboarding and event reminders can make a big difference in live call participation?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?Whether you're looking to launch your very first membership or scale and grow an existing one, come and join me inside Membership Academy - where I'll give you everything you need to succeed at every stage of your membership journey.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"The first is to use a subscribable calendar. So there's a fantastic service called addevent.com that enables you to set up an events calendar where you can give the link to your members. You can also embed it in your member area. That then enables them to subscribe to that calendar so that whether they're using Google Calendar, whether they've got the calendar in Outlook, Apple Calendar, whatever it is, the events you add to it will automatically populate that calendar.""Set up a subscribable events calendar embedded in a location on your membership website, but also email the link out to your members so they can subscribe to it so that all events that you add automatically get pulled into their calendar.""You could actually start it 15 minutes early and have that first 15 minutes exclusively for first-time attendees, whether they are brand new members to your website or just someone coming along to a live session for the very first time. That can be your newbie 15 minutes.""People are getting what they pay for because they're using what they pay for. And if people are using what they pay for, they're less likely to go and cancel it."

The Mechanics of the MetaScriptThe speaker describes several tactics used to maintain this perceived illusion:Trutherr Bait: False clues or “hoax indicators” are intentionally planted within events. These are designed for conspiracy theorists to find so they can be “instantly discredited” when half of their evidence is easily debunked.Guardrailing: High-profile influencers like Tucker Carlson or Jimmy Dore are described as “gatekeepers” who lead their audiences into specific right-wing or left-wing conspiracy subplots. This keeps the audience “enmeshed in the script” by ensuring they never question the fundamental reality of the event itself.The Bloody Guardrail: A specific tactic where “real death” (or the perception of it) is kept in a scenario to ensure the public continues to believe it is real, whereas “the instant you see it's theatrical blood... the whole thing falls apart”.Analysis of Modern Events and SymbolismThe transcript applies these concepts to several recent events:The Butler Shooting and Charlie Kirk: These are analyzed as textbook examples of the “SIOP Entertainment Complex”. The speaker points to “iconography” in photography—such as the “fight, fight, fight” moment—as evidence of staging modeled after films like Braveheart.Space as Religion (”Nasotology”): Modern space missions (Artemis, SpaceX) are described as “pagan pageantry” and a “syncretic blend of science fiction and traditional religion”. The speaker suggests that movies like Project Hail Mary or Spaceman provide “concurrent programming” that aligns with real-world NASA events to synchronize the public's worldview.AI and Narrative Control: The speaker discusses his own channel's demonetization for being “repetitive AI generated content,” viewing it as a broader effort by platforms like YouTube to “retain a monopoly on perception” and “delete their competition” before future large-scale events.Strategy for De-ProgrammingThe speaker's mission is to reach “self-deprogrammed” individuals who have left the mainstream but remain “guard railed” by alternative media. To combat this, he is expanding the IPS reach through:Decentralized Marketing: Utilizing a “Clip Army” where individuals are paid to disseminate short-form, viral clips of deconstructionist content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.Technological Independence: Moving monetization to platforms like Patreon and Ko-Fi while using Starlink to maintain a consistent, unblockable live-stream presence for open phone calls.Key Quotes from the Source“The meta script consists of all of the fake events in sequence going back decades, but also planned into the future that are superimposed over reality over our real lives.““When I say truther bait, it's meant for the people who are looking for the conspiracy to find so they can be instantly discredited.““The bloody guardrail concept is that as long as they can keep real death in the scenario, the scenario remains real.““They're not leading their subscribers into auto-hoaxology... they're leading them into their right-wing conspiracy narratives. That's guard railing.““Conspiracy theories are subplots within the meta script... If you're following a conspiracy theory, you're still enmeshed in the script.“

People will let AI be their therapist but not their partner, their assistant but not their manager. Gillian Katz of Hannah Grey VC joins Phillip and Brian to unpack the firm's newest Cultural Vibrations journal and the qualitative study behind it: a read on how people are actually negotiating AI's role in their lives, domain by domain, role by role; from anthropology to sommelier frameworks to Goodhart's Law. You Can Manage AI, but AI Can't Manage You Key Takeaways: People accept AI in almost every domain, but reject it in specific roles within them. Naming a cultural signal may be what stops it from moving. Qualitative research captures what dashboard culture flattens. The next frontier isn't the technology, it's the governance around it. Key Quotes: [00:11:04] "No one wants to be managed by a machine, but they're okay to sort of put control over one." — Gillian Katz [00:27:08] "It's exactly like the way you wish every person interacted. But if you did actually have that experience time and time again, you would be so frustrated." — Gillian Katz, on AI sycophancy [00:29:22] "We give people the benefit of the doubt, but we expect a hundred percent accuracy from AI." — Gillian Katz [00:40:56] "If you only use AI to go build your business, you're gonna lose the discernment that's required to actually use AI well in the first place." — Brian Lange In-Show Mentions: Learn more at hannahgrey.com Read the latest issue of Cultural Vibrations, featuring Brian Lange Associated Links: Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I dive into the crucial relationship between your marketing strategy and member retention.I explore how the way you attract new members to your membership business lays the foundation for whether they'll stick around long-term.I break down why focusing solely on sign-ups can backfire and how certain marketing tactics may actually set you up for higher churn rates.The aim is to help you develop a retention-first mindset that keeps your membership thriving.In this episode:Why does retention start with the way you market your membership?How can urgency and scarcity tactics impact member retention negatively?What are the risks of relying on discounts, offers, and bonuses to drive sales?Why is overpromising in your marketing strategy detrimental to long-term member success?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?Whether you're looking to launch your very first membership or scale and grow an existing one, come and join me inside Membership Academy - where I'll give you everything you need to succeed at every stage of your membership journey.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"Without question, we all know memberships are a retention business. If this is news to you, then this is something you need to get to grips with pretty quick.""Retention starts with the way that you market. I really want you to understand and to embrace that and to develop this long-term view when it comes to your marketing, because marketing for a membership, the success is not measured by how many new signups you get. True success comes from how well those signups, those sales you get, actually stay subscribed. How long do they stick around?""If somebody can't afford $50 a month, but they'll afford $40 a month. That's too small and too narrow a margin to be sustainable because all that it needs is for one of the things that that person's paying for in their life to become a little more expensive. And then all of a sudden your membership's potentially on the chopping block.""The biggest culprit, or one of the biggest culprits, for the kind of marketing that ends up backfiring in terms of long-term retention is membership owners who hugely overpromise. They oversell, you know, they really, really go over the top with their value proposition."

Furniture.com is a new kind of furniture marketplace: a single platform aggregating more than 3 million SKUs from 80+ retail partners, using standardized data and AI-powered personalization to replace the 15-hour odyssey most shoppers endure. VP of Brand & Creative Olivia Hnatyshin joins Phillip and Brian to unpack how the team is rebuilding the third-most expensive purchase of a person's life – one where hunter green and forest green finally mean the same thing. Building the Zillow of Furniture, One Couch At A Time Key Takeaways: Buying furniture is the third most expensive purchase a person makes, after a car or a home. 83% of furniture shoppers start online; 73% of searches are non-branded. Shoppers spend an average of 15+ hours across 4+ retailers before buying a single sofa. Data standardization is the real unlock for the category. Verticalized, purpose-built AI beats general chatbots when the stakes are high. Key Quotes: [00:07:20] "It's not really a discovery problem. It's a systems problem. The industry hasn't caught up to how people are actually shopping." - Olivia [00:18:50] "When you stop trusting the system's recommendations because they're going to be guided by advertising, you stop believing there's a real curation based on your tastes and your needs." - Phillip [00:19:45] "We're doing one thing and we wanna do it really, really well. That gives us the advantage because we're not trying to build for a bunch of other retail streams." - Olivia [00:35:50] "We're moving away from search entirely. It really is more about expressing intent and having that intent met instantly and accurately." - Olivia Associated Links: Shop on Furniture.com Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send us Fan MailIn this deeply personal solo episode of Soulful Self-Care Conversations, Pearl Chiarenza opens her heart and shares one of the most difficult journeys of her life—what she calls “divorcing” her mother.This isn't about blame. It's not about tearing anyone down. It's about what happens when love and self-protection collide… and you're forced to choose yourself.Pearl takes listeners behind the scenes of a quiet, emotional battle—one that didn't come from a single moment, but from repeated patterns that disrupted her peace, her energy, and her ability to show up fully for her own life and family.Through vulnerability and strength, she shares how people-pleasing, over-functioning, and trying to “fix” everything led to a painful realization: You can't heal what you didn't break… and you can't keep betraying yourself to keep the peace.This episode walks through: The emotional weight of setting boundaries with a parent  Recognizing unhealthy patterns that don't change without interruption  The difference between love and self-abandonment  Why boundaries are not rejection—they are direction  Letting go of guilt while still holding onto love  Choosing peace, even when it hurts Pearl also opens up about the internal struggle—questioning herself, feeling guilt, navigating doubt—and the unexpected sense of relief that came when she finally chose to protect her spirit.This is a powerful message for anyone who feels torn between loyalty and self-worth… especially those struggling to say “no” without guilt.If you've ever felt overwhelmed by relationships that drain you, or found yourself sacrificing your peace to avoid conflict—this episode will speak directly to your soul.This is just the beginning of a multi-part series, where Pearl will continue to unpack what this journey looked like, how it unfolded, and what healing truly requires.

Evelyn Mora, founder and CEO of VLGE, joins Phillip and Brian to challenge how we think about AI training data, brand identity, and the coming era of individual-first commerce. We move from the mechanics of world modeling to the cultural philosophy of what it means for brands to let go, adapt, and become an ingredient rather than the star of the show.  PLUS: Strata Volume 001 is available for purchase now!  Key Takeaways: Good AI agents are trained on embodied, human data, not synthetic simulations. Brands' training data pipelines will become their most competitive IP. The "personal economy" is shifting commerce from generational boxes to radical individuality. Brands must become an adaptable story that's recognizable but infinitely mixable. The future of AI is expensive. Data sovereignty and consent economics are coming. Key Quotes: [00:06:46] "A good agent would know my budget, my personality, my preferences." — Evelyn Mora [00:21:08] "When you have humans going and playing and reacting with their free will and their freedom and their personality and identity... that to me is the ultimate high signal data." — Evelyn Mora [00:40:06] "Brands should kind of evolve into these different mediums... into a flavor that can really be mixed into everyone's lives." — Evelyn Mora [00:53:54] "In this agent Hunger Games, it really does matter how you train and what kind of training data you capture." — Evelyn Mora Associated Links: Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hearing God's voice every day — not just on Sundays — is exactly what life coach April Snook teaches women to do.In this episode, she shares the faith breakthrough that shattered her financial ceiling and how you can start hearing God in your everyday moments too.What if the ceiling you've been living under isn't a money problem — but a faith problem?That's exactly what April Snook heard from God in the middle of a grocery store. And it changed everything.April is a life coach, wife of 28 years, mom of four, and the voice behind How to Do Life with God. She's one of the most practical women I know when it comes to actually hearing God's voice — not just on Sunday mornings, but on Tuesday afternoons in the cereal aisle.In this conversation, we talk about:

In this episode, I dive into the concept of "1,000 true fans" and why it's the key to building a thriving membership business.Forget chasing massive audiences and vanity metrics—what truly matters is finding and nurturing a core group of highly engaged superfans who love what you do.I break down the myths about audience size, share why smaller, more passionate communities lead to deeper connections (and profit!), and show you how to shift your focus from quantity to quality when growing your membership.If you've ever felt discouraged by your follower count or overwhelmed by the competition, this episode is for you.In this episode:What does the "1,000 true fans" theory mean, and why is it crucial for membership success?Do you really need a massive audience to launch and grow a successful membership site?How can having a smaller, focused, and passionate audience be more valuable than chasing big numbers?What practical steps can you take to find and connect with your own 1,000 true fans?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?Whether you're looking to launch your very first membership or scale and grow an existing one, come and join me inside Membership Academy - where I'll give you everything you need to succeed at every stage of your membership journey.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"You don't need to have hundreds of thousands of people on your email list or millions of followers on your social networks before you can be in a position to start something like a membership.""Some of the advice that you see out there that tells you just start, doesn't matter if you don't have an audience, doesn't matter if you don't have an email list or waitlist, all you need is one member, that's all it takes. Honestly, it's some of the most dangerous, nonsensical advice you'll ever find out there.""All you need to build a sustainable business is 1,000 true superfans who will hang on your every word, who put in extra effort to consume your content, to buy what you're selling. They're so engaged, they're so connected with you. They are your people. Everything you put out speaks to them, and they absolutely love you for it. 1,000 people like that is all it takes to accomplish fantastic success in the online space.""Because by drilling down into that smaller audience, you're more likely to find your people. You can appreciate the value of that smaller, more specific, more targeted market who have the sort of connection with you that simply wouldn't be feasible if you were trying to be all things to all people, trying to please everyone, trying to tick everybody's box."Mentioned in this episode:Enroll in our FREE Open Week for Membership AcademyVisit https://www.membershipacademy.com/open to take part in our Open Week, starting April 20th

Specifically for Seniors • Guest: Bill McKibbenAbout the GuestBill McKibben is a journalist, author of 20+ books, and professor at Middlebury College. He wrote the first major book on climate change in the 1980s and founded 350.org — the world's first global grassroots climate campaign — and Third Act, an organization mobilizing Americans over 60 on climate and democracy.Episode SummaryMcKibben joins host Dr. Larry Barsh to argue that cheap solar and wind power represent the most powerful climate tool humanity has ever had — and that older Americans are uniquely positioned to lead the fight.The Solar Revolution. About five years ago, solar and wind became cheaper than fossil fuels. China now installs 3 gigawatts of solar daily — one coal plant's worth every eight hours. California regularly generates 100%+ of its electricity from renewables, with batteries storing the surplus. Every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent matters: each pushes 100 million people from safe to dangerous climate zones.Sunlight vs. Oil. "Sunlight travels 93 million miles to reach Earth — none of them through the Strait of Hormuz." Oil is the truly intermittent energy source. A handful of drones can shut down global supply. Nobody can embargo the sun.Batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are recyclable. The total minerals needed for the renewable battery revolution through mid-century are less in volume than one year's global coal mining. Lithium lasts 25 years and can be reused. Coal gets burned once and requires constant replacement.Health Costs. Fossil fuels cause roughly 9 million deaths per year worldwide — 1 in 5 deaths globally. Canada's 2023 wildfires, driven by climate change, caused 80,000 US deaths from smoke inhalation alone. Home insurance costs are skyrocketing as climate risk makes underwriting nearly impossible.Third Act & Senior Power. With 120,000 members nationwide, Third Act is proving seniors are a political force. Recent wins: legalized plug-in balcony solar in Utah, Virginia, and Maine; won a clean-energy majority on Arizona's Salt River Project board (serving 2M people); launched Gray PAC and phone banks for key elections. The "Rocking Chair Rebellion" shut down big-bank branches in 100 cities to protest fossil fuel financing.America's Self-Sabotage. The first solar cell was invented at Bell Labs in 1956. The first industrial wind turbine was built in Vermont in 1943. These American technologies have been handed to China while the US rolls back clean energy policy — what McKibben calls "economic national self-sabotage" without precedent.Legacy. "We're in danger of being the first generation that left the world a lot worse off than we found it." Young people aren't just anxious about climate — they're anxious about being abandoned. McKibben's call: use the time, skills, and political power that come with age to organize, vote, and fight.Key Quotes"There is no known way to stop old people from voting. We come preloaded with real power."— Bill McKibben"Solar energy takes power away from billionaires. That makes it ipso facto good."— Bill McKibben"Sunlight travels 93 million miles to reach Earth — none of them through the Strait of Hormuz."— Bill McKibben"There is no known way to stop old people from voting. We come preloaded with real power."— Bill McKibben"We live in a world where billionaires have too much power. Things that take power and money away from billionaires are ipso facto good — and solar energy is one of them."— Bill McKibben"We're in danger of being the first generation that left the world a lot worse off than we found it — which we do not want to do."— Bill McKibbenResourcethirdact.org350.orgBook: Here Comes the Sun by Bill McKibbenSpecifically for Seniors Podcast • Follow or subscribe wherever you listen

Do you struggle with your mornings? Are you tired of feeling behind before your day even begins? In this inspiring episode of the Compared to Who? podcast, Heather Creekmore welcomes bestselling author Jennifer Dukes Lee to discuss her newest book, "How to Love Your Morning: Faith-Filled Habits to Build Joy and Purpose One Day at a Time." * Together, they unpack the powerful connections between morning routines, spiritual health, body image, and God's design for a fresh start each day. If you’ve ever felt “not good enough” in comparison to those perfect morning routines you see online, this episode is for you! Highlights: The Pressure of Perfect Mornings: Why the Instagram myth of “waking up at 5am, running a marathon, and cooking gourmet breakfast” doesn’t serve most of us (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 02:00). Spiritual and Practical Rituals: How starting your day with even a few minutes focusing on God changes everything, and why elaborate routines aren’t necessary (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 03:38). Dealing with the Temptation of Screens: Why scrolling first thing is so common, why it’s unhelpful, and practical tips for finding balance (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 04:33). Morning Archetypes Quiz: Discover which of the four morning types you are—Daybreak Doer, Morning Mover, Meditative Mind, or Social Seeker—and how to build a routine that suits you (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 09:28). Sleep Matters: Jennifer Dukes Lee unpacks why sleep is critical to holistic health, the impact of the industrial revolution and artificial light, and how to fight “revenge bedtime procrastination” (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 22:15). Grace for Your Season: Morning rituals for EVERY woman, no matter your season of life, including practical sample guides for college students, working professionals, moms, retirees, widows, and more (Jennifer Dukes Lee at 21:03). Resources Mentioned Take the Free Morning Archetypes Quiz:howtoloveyourmorning.com/resources How to Love Your Morning – Book & Bible Study.* (Amazon affiliate link - a tiny portion of your purchase goes to support this ministry when you use this link to buy.) Preorder Bonuses:Details on the Morning Person in Progress t-shirt, stickers, and digital morning survival kit for preorders. Preorder offer may end 4/7 so act now! Key Quotes “God is a morning person. And because we are made in his image, we are morning people too. It's not about the time we wake up, it's about how we wake up.” — Jennifer Dukes Lee “When we compare our reality to what a morning routine is ‘supposed’ to look like, we can feel like we're failing before the day even begins.” — Jennifer Dukes Lee Who Should Listen? Anyone overwhelmed by unrealistic morning routines Women struggling with comparison, body image, or perfectionism Those wanting a grace-filled, spiritual approach to daily habits Listeners seeking practical tips for better mornings and healthier sleep Subscribe to Compared to Who?Don’t miss more honest conversations to help you stop comparing and start living! Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform or share this episode with a friend who needs some morning encouragement. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

In this episode, I dive into the most common reasons why membership site owners lose members—and more importantly, what you can actually do to prevent it.Taking a trip into the Membership Geeks archives, I unpack actionable strategies to tackle member cancellations, improve retention, and boost overall engagement in your community.xWhether you're battling churn or simply want to keep your members around for longer, these practical tips will help you plug the holes in your retention strategy and maintain healthy growth.In this episode:Why do members leave after consuming all available content, and how can you continue delivering ongoing value?How can technical issues and poor onboarding lead to cancellations—and what solutions can reduce frustration?What strategies can you use to re-engage members who've forgotten about your site or slipped into inactivity?How should you handle pricing, failed payments, and members who leave after achieving their goals to improve retention and customer loyalty?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"Techie gremlins can cause an immense amount of frustration, particularly if your members are having issues from day one of their membership. And in a lot of cases, they'll simply cancel their account rather than trying to persevere, rather than trying to figure out what's going on, and sometimes rather than contacting you and giving you that opportunity to fix the problem.""We've all done it— signed up for a product or a service with the best intentions of using it to its fullest, only for it to fall to the bottom of the to-do list because life simply gets in the way.""Even if you get a lot of signups for a product that has a high monthly premium, if those same members quit after a month, then it's likely they never intended or were never able to pay that amount on a regular basis.""Make use of testimonials, case studies, endorsements, and interviews so that even if you aren't in a position to offer something to help that particular member on the next stage of their journey, you can at least utilize the fact they have achieved their goals as a way of bringing in new members to replace them by leveraging that social proof."

Summary On this episode of Chattinn Cyber, Marc is chattin' with Ben Wilcox, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at ProArch. Their chat opens by focusing on high-impact, practical ways organizations can reduce cyber risk. Ben highlights identity as the top priority: his team moved to passkeys to remove passwords and lower the attack surface. He stresses that threat actors increasingly use man-in-the-middle techniques and that AI has accelerated the automation of credential-theft, which makes strengthening identity controls essential. The chat then moves to AI and data governance. Ben describes rolling out visibility tools to monitor internal AI use — what prompts users run and what data is fed into models — and pairing that with data labeling and classification. He warns organizations to restrict where AI tools are allowed and to implement compensating data controls to prevent accidental or intentional leaks of sensitive information. Ben cautions that AI and cybersecurity must be adopted in parallel, because AI will reveal existing misconfigurations and permission drift. He gives practical examples (like Copilot showing information a user shouldn't see because of incorrect permissions) to illustrate how AI surfaces weaknesses in access controls. The takeaway is that AI can be a force-multiplier but also a magnifier of existing security gaps. On leadership and tradeoffs, Ben explains how combining CTO and CSO responsibilities can be an enabler if balanced correctly. He argues for marrying a product/technology lens with a risk lens, leveraging internal expertise, and making business enablement and security complementary so organizations can move quickly while maintaining the right groundwork. Finally, Ben addresses translating cyber risk into financial terms for CFOs and boards. He recommends business impact analysis—linking key system outages (e.g., Active Directory) to production downtime costs—to quantify risk and justify security investments. He shares real incident cost ranges (low seven figures to tens of millions in some cases), underscores the role of compensating controls, and concludes with a call to monitor industry trends, assess outage and reputational costs, and prioritize risk reduction. Key Points Identity-first approach: move away from passwords (passkeys) and reduce reliance on MFA tokens that can be intercepted or automated by attackers. AI visibility and data controls: monitor internal AI usage, restrict sites/tools, and enforce labeling/classification to prevent data leakage. AI exposes existing weaknesses: adopting AI without fixing permission drift and misconfigurations surfaces risks rather than hiding them. Speed and detection advantage: AI can accelerate detection and response in SOCs—gaining even seconds can materially reduce impact. Translate risk to business terms: use business impact analysis to quantify downtime costs and build the financial case for security investments and insurance. Key Quotes “Last year we took the initiative and we moved to pass keys.” “AI has sped up that weaponization and being able to turn that around and get those tokens automatically.” “AI is going to expose the weaknesses that are inherent within your security controls that you already have in place.” “If we can get even 5 seconds faster or 10 seconds faster or 20 seconds faster, sometimes that makes a difference.” “And that’s why they should have bought cyber insurance.” About Our Guest Ben Wilcox is a seasoned technology leader with over 25 years of experience driving innovation and solving complex business challenges. Serving as both Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at ProArch, Ben combines a forward-looking vision with a hands-on approach to cybersecurity. He is passionate about leveraging technology to accelerate business outcomes while embedding security best practices into organizational culture and operations. Ben's strategic mindset and dedication to excellence have strengthened ProArch's resilience and helped protect clients' data and systems. Outside of work, Ben channels his relentless drive into racing as an instructor and competitor with the Northeast Audi Club, and enjoys gardening, cooking, and spending quality time with his family. As he puts it, “Security isn’t just about defending against threats—it’s about enabling trust, protecting growth, and ensuring every decision we make strengthens the foundation of the business.” Follow Our Guest LinkedIn | Website About Our Host National co-chair of the Cyber Center for Excellence, Marc Schein, CIC,CLCS is also a Risk Management Consultant at Marsh McLennan Agency. He assists clients by customizing comprehensive commercial insurance programs that minimize the burden of financial loss through cost effective transfer of risk. By conducting a Total Cost of Risk (TCoR) assessment, he can determine any gaps in coverage. As part of an effective risk management insurance team, Marc collaborates with senior risk consultants, certified insurance counselors, and expert underwriters to examine the adequacy of existing client programs and develop customized solutions to transfer risk, improve coverage and minimize premiums. Follow Our Host Website | LinkedIn

As we wrap up Q1 (and look ahead to Q2!), I've been taking stock of market trends and what's impacting business for coaches, consultants, and experts selling to corporates. This quarter, I've seen incredible client wins - like proposals accepted at £31,000 and larger scale training projects signed off. But I've also noticed some worrying shifts in the wider landscape. A phenomenon I'm seeing play out is the "race to the bottom" - companies and entrepreneurs slashing prices, reducing standards and chasing quick wins.  Now's the time to stop panic selling; double down on a proven sales process and refuse to compromise on quality or value. If you've been caught up discounting offers or overwhelmed by noisy trends, use this as your cue to reset. While the market is changing, there are significant risks in adopting a 'herd mentality' without a clear strategy. Focus on what really works and set your business up for a standout year ahead. Key takeaways for you: Stop waiting for change: The old "wait and see" approach isn't working anymore. Set boundaries around your sales process and dedicate time for consistent sales activities or risk being left behind. Don't compete only on price: Lowering your fees or creating cheaper offers can create a damaging market feedback loop. Instead, focus on quality, credibility, and premium transformation to stand out and win repeat business. Double down on proven processes: Relying on shiny new marketing tactics or AI quick fixes isn't a substitute for a robust sales process. The best results come from consistent lead generation, expert-led sales conversations, and strong proposals. If your Q1 has plateaued or declined, now is the time to reset and rethink your approach. You still have nine months to turn things around in 2026 - but only if you take action now. Key Quotes; Race to the Bottom in Coaching: "What we are seeing is that as a result of this race to the bottom mentality where people are cutting their prices, they're trying to do everything at discounted rates, they are, you know, working often without or in unregulated areas." 00:26:3600:26:53 Quality Over Price: "I have always openly said to my corporate clients, look, I'm not the cheapest resource. But the reason that I'm not is because I'm really, really good at what I do and I've got a really good success rate." 00:33:4900:34:02 The Race to the Bottom in Pricing: "If you have lowered your prices, tried to create cheaper offers in the hope that companies will buy them, or avoided increasing your rates in the last 612 months, that is a way that you're being impacted by the race to the bottom and by public feeling around companies only wanting to buy things that are cheap." 00:46:0200:46:20 The Race to the Bottom in Online Education: "Essentially the online space has entered a race to the bottom and that means that people have compromised quality of service, they have lowered their pricing, they have compromised regulations and standards. In some places they're even compromising Core beliefs that I think are really serious around equality, around diversity, around discrimination that is exactly representative of what race to the bottom looks like, if you consider the online space as its own entity." 00:24:2900:25:12 The Hidden Risks of Relying on AI for Corporate Training: "They're paying for you to be able to go in and use your expertise and lived experience to deliver transformation. Again, fine, to use for inspiration, but I wouldn't be planning out client work using it. That is a contribution to some of those points we talked about earlier around lack of due care and quality and service provision, you know, because we don't know where that information goes and a lot of us don't know what anyone else is plugging into these models and whether they're naming companies, whether they're talking through difficult situations that they're experiencing, you know, outside of the sales process. That could be considered confidential information that then is available for somebody with a good prompt and a lot of time to get access to." 00:54:4100:55:38 Key Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Join the B2B Sales Edit https://magic.beehiiv.com/v1/988ac64b-5875-4924-9d10-50faad2aa4ad?email=%EMAIL% Episode sponsored by The Expert Services Directory: A key resource for coaches / consultants / trainers and done-for-you service providers to generate inbound leads. Access The Expert Services Directory here https://bit.ly/ExpertServicesDirectory and use code PODCAST for a special bonus. If you've enjoyed listening to Racing to the bottom' (and what does that mean for revenue in Q2?) check out these episodes.   5 important things to remember when creating an offer to sell to corporate clients https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/5-important-things-to-remember-when-creating-an/id1469526548?i=1000712712897 Creating your best B2B sales mindset (and generating more revenue!) https://sellingtocorporate.com/podcast/stc112-creating-your-best-b2b-sales-mindset-and-generating-more-revenue/ Content Disclaimer The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.  

On this episode, we talk with Cristi Alexander, a TCK to South Africa. You'll hear her share about what she's learning about God and herself in seasons of change and disappointment. Cristi talks vulnerably and beautifully about living in the tension of knowing who God is while her circumstances might try to tell her otherwise. We always love talking with Cristi and we know you'll love being part of this conversation too!What questions do you have about this episode? How can we help support you or your TCK? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us HERE. HOSTS: Michelle Ellis, John Michael Caldwell, Nicole CaldwellSONG: Sunscreen by Vic Davi CONNECT WITH US: Instagram | Facebook | Email UsCHAPTERS:0:00 - 1:17 | Introduction1:17 - 7:43 | Getting to Know Cristi7:43 - 16:33 | The Tension Between Going and Staying (and God's Grace in the Middle)16:33 - 22:58 | Dealing with Pain and Disappointment22:58 - 25:37 | Believing God is Good When it's Hard35:37 - 35:51 | Words of Comfort for Parents35:51 - 43:22 | A Prayer for Listeners in the Valley43:22 - 47:33 | MK Debate47:33 - 56:14 | ClosingSHOW NOTES:28:46, 40:13 | Psalm 23 - “Yahweh is my best friend and my shepherd. I always have more than enough. He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near the quiet brook of bliss. That's where he restores and revives my life. He opens before me the right path and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness so that I can bring honor to his name. Even when your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for you already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of your love takes away my fear. I'll never be lonely, for you are near. You become my delicious feast even when my enemies dare to fight. You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit; you give me all I can drink of you until my cup overflows. So why would I fear the future? Only goodness and tender love pursue me all the days of my life. Then afterward, when my life is through, I'll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!”KEY QUOTES:5:03 | “I've always known that the gift that that I was given as an MK was such a gift from God.”13:30 | “I'm learning that if I push and I long and I resent or fight the seasons that I'm in, all it does is just cause an ache in the heart.”19:05 | “This has been my season of, ‘who is God to me now in the seasons of disappointment and pain and loss and grief?;”20:38 | “My TCK experience was so good and I'm so grateful, but it also cost me a lot.”22:24 | “It is a gift to be able to stay and to wrestle through.”31:06 | “Intimacy with the Father is what is going to allow me intimacy with others.”32:03 | “I think a lot of times where the source of wounding is, God is so good and He's so redemptive that He wants to heal in that way too.”32:44 | “The tension is allowing myself to be honest with the Lord, allowing myself to be vulnerable with others and allowing the mess to be visible.”41:29 | “I know now more than ever before that the valley of darkness is real, but that God's goodness and presence and power is more real.”42:05 | “Lean in, He's got you.”Interested in partnering with John Michael & Nicole in prayer, one-time giving, or monthly giving? Do that HERE.COMMON TERMS:TCK - third culture kidMK - missionary kidLAC - Latin America Caribbean

In this episode, I take you back into the Membership Geeks Podcast vault to revisit one of the most pressing challenges facing membership owners today: subscription fatigue.I share insights into why consumers are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer number of subscriptions and how this impacts membership-based businesses.I break down practical strategies for making your membership essential so it doesn't end up on the chopping block when your members review their recurring expenses.In this episode:What is subscription fatigue and how is it affecting membership businesses today?Why are consumers feeling overwhelmed by subscriptions, and what does this mean for your membership?What proven strategies can you use to make your membership indispensable and avoid cancellations?How can you repackage, personalize, and communicate the value of your membership to stay competitive in a crowded subscription market?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"This idea of subscription fatigue was kicking in because more and more businesses have been moving towards a subscription model. Not just memberships, but TV and movie streaming, music subscriptions, subscription boxes, subscriptions for your software, subscriptions for your car. Like, pretty much anything imaginable shifted towards a subscription model.""Anything which makes their relationship with you and your membership have more more of a personal connection will make the decision to end their subscription much harder when they're evaluating their expenses, particularly when they're comparing to other subscription products they're paying for that doesn't have that personal connection element to it.""If you bring them all together under a single product, a single payment, a single subscription, then that can make it far more likely that you'll avoid the chop when someone's reevaluating the services they're paying for.""The easy way to remove subscription fatigue is to remove the subscription element. So consider non-recurring fixed terms. Sell a 3-month pass, a 6-month pass. Maybe sell credit credits to your site that can be redeemed for downloads or courses or something like that. Maybe even go pay-as-you-go."

Are you in the middle of a storm right now — wondering if God even cares? In this episode of Chasing Happiness, I share what hit me like a ton of bricks on a prayer walk: I realized I didn't have enough faith to believe God would give me peace WHILE I'm in the storm. This is raw. This is real. And it just might change the way you see your struggle.

Armand Wilson, Chief Revenue Officer at Whatnot, joins Phillip and Brian to unpack why live shopping finally took hold in the West. Drawing from Whatnot's recent 2026 State of Live Selling Report, we trace the platform's origin from a niche Funko Pop marketplace to an $8B GMV juggernaut after landing $225 million in Series F funding. Main Street Went Live Key Takeaways: The barrier to entry for live selling is far lower than traditional eCommerce. 80% of Whatnot buyers return the following month, compared with approximately 30% in traditional eCommerce. Live selling lets brands tell their story in ways a static product page never can. Whatnot raised $225M in Series F; the platform did $8B in GMV last year. Live commerce is quietly revitalizing small businesses and local brick-and-mortar. Key Quotes: [00:09:00] "It's clienteling in almost a digital way, blurring the line between parasocial relationship and actual relationship between seller and buyer." — Brian Lange [00:12:00] "It could cost you a hundred thousand dollars to open up a comic bookshop. It costs you $0 to open up a comic bookshop on Whatnot." — Armand Wilson [00:31:45] "It's really hard to tell your story in an authentic way when you're just telling it on a couple of lines of text on a product page." — Armand Wilson [00:41:30] "80% of our customers come back the next month, whereas traditional eCommerce is, on average, maybe 30%." — Armand Wilson In-Show Mentions: Whatnot's State of Live Selling Report Associated Links: Check out Future Commerce on YouTube Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Escalation: it's a word that can make even experienced project managers tense. But what if you approached it as a tool rather than a threat? In this Top Shelf Replay of Project Management Happy Hour, we revisit the classic episode "Embracing De-escalation," exploring how savvy project managers use escalation to enhance visibility, make informed decisions, and navigate risk—without losing their cool. Hosts Kim and Kate dive into the nuances of escalation, showing how the best project leaders balance assertiveness with thoughtful communication. Far from being a reactive panic button, escalation can be a strategic lever to guide projects, protect team morale, and keep stakeholders in the loop.  In this episode, we cover real-world examples of when to escalate, how to frame your message, and why keeping your sponsor engaged is critical for project success. From handling medium-urgency issues to preventing scope creep, Kim and Kate provide a roadmap for using escalation effectively—turning potential project risks into opportunities for alignment and growth. Expect memorable metaphors, including broccoli for "healthy escalation habits" and creative exercises from the improv world to illustrate collaboration and communication.  By the end of this episode, you'll understand how to elevate project visibility, manage competing priorities, and leverage escalation strategically, all while maintaining calm and confidence. Key Quotes from This Episode: "Escalation is just another tool in your project management box, and it's one of the best." "Sometimes you almost kinda need to grab the sponsor and tell them to step up—they are the sponsor, and it's their project." "Think of escalation as eating your vegetables: a healthy activity that keeps your project going strong." "Escalating helps your sponsor make decisions whether they want to or not." Key Concepts The strategic use of escalation to improve visibility and decision making. Balancing sponsor engagement with day-to-day project leadership. Recognizing when a problem exceeds your decision-making authority. Communication techniques for reducing tension during escalations. Viewing project status and benefits realization beyond standard red/amber/green metrics. Love our content? Then join the PM Happy Hour membership at pmhappyhour.com/membership

In this episode, I take a deep dive into one of the most debated topics in the membership world: why member lifetime value is actually more important than focusing solely on churn rates.I share my insights on reframing how we look at member retention and challenge the idea that churn makes the membership model less viable than courses or other digital products.Whether you're struggling to boost retention or just questioning your business model, this episode is packed with practical advice and a fresh perspective on what really impacts your bottom line.Get ready for a mindset shift that could transform how you approach your membership strategy!In this episode:Why is member lifetime value a more valuable metric to track than churn rate in a membership business?How should membership owners reframe their thinking when faced with member cancellations and natural churn?What's the real financial impact of churn compared to other business models like selling courses or client services?In practical terms, what steps can owners take to improve the overall value of each member rather than just fighting churn numbers?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"If a member only stays for X months, then what's the point? Usually that's followed by, I might as well do X. So why would I run a membership? Because if members are only going to end up canceling after 10 months, then I might as well just sell online courses.""We debunk the whole myth that industry average churn rate is 3 months, and we actually debunk the idea of industry average at all. Now, if you had to pin it down and you absolutely had to give a thumb in the air industry average, it's more like 8 or 9 months.""If you get exactly the same amount of sales of a $500 course, the end result financially is still the same. Each sale of that course to you is worth $500 for the lifetime of your relationship with that person who buys the course. In the same way that the lifetime value of every individual person who joins your membership, that's $50 a month, 10% churn rate, is $500.""Churn rate is merely a factor in determining the end point after which you get no more money from that person. So when you use that definition, courses have a churn rate. It's just that churn rate is instantaneous because you get no more money from the sale of that course after the initial sale goes through. So it has a 100% churn rate."

Do you ever feel like you're hustling non-stop just to keep up with your current delivery—and then, suddenly, your sales pipeline dries up? Or maybe you go from feast to famine: booking lots of work, then radio silence, then panic? I've been there. In fact, it's something I hear a lot from consultants and coaches so today I'm sharing the straightforward sales technique I've used for the last 10 years to sign new corporate clients every single month - even when things get busy. Most of us get stuck in a cycle: when we're flush with delivery, we go all-in for our clients, leaving sales activity until we're running on fumes, promising ourselves we'll tackle it "tomorrow." Before you know it, there's no new pipeline… and the cycle starts over. Why? Three key reasons: Pricing: Are you charging enough to justify your time, or is every new client eating into space you should use for business development? Forgetting Your Real Job: You're not just a consultant/coach/trainer—you're also the lead salesperson in your business. Reactive, Not Proactive: You spend your best energy on client delivery, leaving sales for when you're already exhausted (and it shows). The Simple Technique That Changes Everything Ready? Here it is: 10 Before 10. Every day, before 10am, complete 10 meaningful sales activities. That's it. I started doing this in my very first corporate role - and have continued ever since: It puts your pipeline first, not clients' urgent requests. You build the habit and "sales muscle" by practicing daily, not just when the panic sets in. By focusing on true sales activities (not just tinkering with your LinkedIn profile!), you consistently generate leads and stay visible. What counts as a "sales activity"? Proactively reaching out to new contacts or decision makers Sending follow-ups or chasing invoices Writing or sending proposals Anything that promotes direct sales action - NOT just passive content posting How to Make It Work for You Block an Hour Each Morning. No emails, no delivery work - just you and your pipeline. Define Your Sales Activities.  Treat Sales Like Your Most Important Client. Because it is. The activities you stack up today will create clients and cash flow 90 days from now. You deserve a business that's predictable, impactful, and sustainable - not one that leaves you drained or dreading another quarter. Key Quotes; Overcoming Sales Overwhelm "People are often feeling quite overwhelmed by their own sales process and particularly how they manage that with delivery." 00:08:0700:08:16   Viral Productivity Hack: "If I can do 10 sales activities every day before 10 AM, then my pipeline will always be building because I'm actively choosing to do sales activity first, which means I'm actively prioritising my pipeline first thing in the morning." 00:19:3500:19:52   "This should be a busy time for your sales process, and you should be making conversations with corporates happen now." 00:05:3200:05:40   "And that's something I've really tried to keep in my own business, is this idea of having definite decompression time where I'm just not working and not thinking about work." 00:01:0400:01:14 "The problem is, a lot of people think about, well, I'm just going to focus all in on this delivery, and then I'm going to do business development when I have the energy. That is really difficult because unfortunately, if you are in that pattern - and you'll recognise it instantly if you are - when that happens, you operate in this feast-famine cycle because your business has to." 00:09:3100:10:04   "There are so many things that fall under sales activities that do not involve any social media platform or any content creation that you absolutely should be prioritizing each day." 00:20:4600:20:57   Avoiding Burnout in Business: "It is a recipe for A, hating your sales activity forever, and B, burning out you know, and actually not enjoying the business that you've spent so much time and energy to create." 00:23:0900:23:22   Key Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Join the B2B Sales Edit https://magic.beehiiv.com/v1/988ac64b-5875-4924-9d10-50faad2aa4ad?email=%EMAIL% Episode sponsored by The Expert Services Directory: A key resource for coaches / consultants / trainers and done-for-you service providers to generate inbound leads. Access The Expert Services Directory here https://bit.ly/ExpertServicesDirectory and use code PODCAST for a special bonus. If you've enjoyed listening to The simple sales technique I use to sign corporate clients every month, why don't you check out this episode.   Are you speaking to decision-makers or influencers (& why it matters!) https://bit.ly/SellingToCorporate167   Content Disclaimer The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.  

In this episode, I dive into the concept of "off-platform engagement" and why it's becoming essential for membership owners.I discuss how member behaviors have evolved and why relying solely on getting people to log in to your site is no longer the only—or even the best—way to deliver value.I share practical strategies for removing friction and ensuring your membership stays relevant and engaging by meeting members where they already are.You'll walk away with ideas to broaden your engagement approach and make your membership more resilient for the future.In this episode:Why is it no longer realistic to expect members to visit your website every time they want to engage or gain value?How does "off-platform engagement" help reduce friction and improve the member experience?What are actionable ways to deliver value to members outside of your membership platform (such as email and private podcasts)?How can rethinking engagement strategies help your membership thrive in an increasingly distracted and competitive world?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"We're talking about something that I'm calling off-platform engagement. So By this I mean embracing the notion that not everything about getting your members engaged means getting them to come to your website, getting them to log in, getting them to post in your community hub, or engage and consume stuff within your learning portal.""We can start looking at ways that we can push our value, push the benefits, push the value of being a member into the spaces that are in their world, onto their turf, taking our value to their inbox, to their podcasting app, to their daily workflow, to the systems and the environments that they are operating in.""We embed the value in those emails. Yes, we still want to get people back to our website. But if they don't have time, if they are consuming on the go, just by reading the email, on their email app, on their phone, they're still getting some value from being a part of your membership.""Private member-only podcasts are a fantastic way of doing that. So having a podcast that is only available to your paying members,. So they're the only people who can subscribe, they've got private subscription URLs that only work when they are active and paying. This gives you a channel for off-platform engagement that is ripe with potential."

“Know the law and the numbers but be willing to sleep on the floor.” Entrepreneurship can be exciting, rewarding and incredibly lonely. In this episode of the Better Call Daddy podcast, host Reena Friedman Watts and her dad Wayne Friedman welcome real estate professional Vinnie Enriquez to talk about the reality of building a business, navigating entrepreneur loneliness, and developing the mindset needed for long-term success. Vinnie shares how he transitioned from construction into the competitive world of real estate, and how understanding homes from the ground up allows him to guide clients through one of the most emotional financial decisions of their lives. Instead of chasing transactions, Vinnie focuses on relationships, communication, and trust a philosophy that has helped him build a sustainable business and a loyal client base. Throughout the conversation, he also reflects on the challenges entrepreneurs face behind the scenes, including loneliness, perception, and the responsibility that comes with running your own business. For anyone building a company, selling a service, or navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, this episode offers powerful lessons about grit, leadership, and perspective. Key Quotes from Vinnie Enriquez “In any business, if you're chasing money, you're already out.” “Perception becomes reality.” “You want to be the hardest working person in the room.” “People are doing the best they can with the tools they have.” “Know the law and the numbers—but be willing to sleep on the floor.” What You'll Learn in This Episode • Why entrepreneurship can feel lonely and how to navigate it • The importance of building relationships in real estate and business • How perception and communication shape client trust • Strategies for educating clients throughout the home buying process • Why successful entrepreneurs focus on long-term reputation over quick sales Episode Timeline 00:00 Welcome to Better Call Daddy 02:30 Vinnie Enriquez: From construction to real estate 15:00 Why relationships matter more than transactions 25:00 Navigating loneliness in entrepreneurship 35:00 Communication strategies that build trust 45:00 Hard work, resilience, and legacy Guest: Vinnie Enriquez Real estate professional focused on relationship-driven sales, client education, and long-term success in the housing market. About Better Call Daddy The Better Call Daddy podcast, hosted by Reena Friedman Watts and her dad Wayne Friedman, features real conversations about entrepreneurship, life lessons, relationships, and resilience with fascinating guests and candid father-daughter wisdom. Connect with Reena Friedman Watts Website LinkedIn Instagram YouTube Connect with Vinnie Linkedin TheEnriquezGroup.com  

In this episode, I dive into the crucial role member onboarding plays in the overall success and retention rates of your membership business.I share why retention efforts need to begin from the very moment a new member joins and not just when cancellation looms.We'll explore the three essential pillars every onboarding process must include to supercharge your members' long-term engagement.If you want your members to stick around and love being part of your community, this episode is for you.In this episode:Why is member onboarding so critical for retention, and when should it actually start?What are the three core components every successful member onboarding process needs?How can you structure your onboarding to support members throughout their first 90 days, not just the first few days or weeks?What practical steps can you take to affirm, acclimate, and advance your members to maximize their satisfaction and results?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"Retention starts day one, minute one. The second someone joins your membership, the clock is ticking and the first impression is absolutely vital.""So first and foremost, if you don't have an onboarding process in your membership, this is your top priority. So many memberships have horrendous churn and the reason is because they do not have member onboarding.""Truly effective member onboarding goes way beyond just those first 30 days. Ideally, you want to have a strategy in place that is mapped around at least the first 90 days that someone is in your membership.""It's about us thinking, okay, where are the knowledge gaps? What does someone need to understand how to do in terms of functionally using this membership in order to get the best from it."

In this episode, I dive into the two fundamental strategies for increasing the revenue of your membership business.I break down why making more sales and boosting the lifetime value of each member are the only real ways to grow your income, and share actionable tips for improving both areas.From smart marketing adjustments to retaining your members for longer, I offer proven, practical advice you can implement right away.If you're looking to ramp up your membership profits, this episode is packed with insights to help you get there.In this episode:What are the only two ways to make more money from your membership?How can you refine your marketing and sales strategies to attract more new members—and even win back former ones?What practical steps can you take to increase the lifetime value of each member, including improving retention?Thank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing us and for supporting the podcast.What's your next step?If you haven't launched your membership yet, I've made my signature Membership Roadmap Course completely FREE, walking you through exactly how to get set up for success!Already have a membership and looking to grow and scale? Join me inside Membership Academy where I'll help you take your membership to the next level.And if you found this episode valuable, I'd be eternally grateful if you would leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience, and I read each and every one!Key Quotes & Takeaways:"If you're not bringing people into your world, you're not getting traffic, you're not building your followers, you're not building your email list, then there's fewer people to sell to, and by virtue of that, fewer people who join your membership.""If you are bringing people into your world, your list is growing steadily, but they're just not joining. We need to reach out and survey those non buyers, find out why they've not joined, find out the main obstacles, and then tailor your marketing in order to preempt those and to overcome some of the issues that might be keeping people from becoming members.""At Membership Academy, around about 25 to 30% of people who leave ultimately return within a 12 month period. On average. When we've done our survey, that is tending to be around about 15% across the thousands of memberships that we surveyed, about 15% of people in memberships where they conduct win back campaigns, about 15% of those X members come back. That's one heck of a conversion rate.""So once they've been in there for three to six months and they start to get some wins, they've start to feel integrated into the community, they start to feel that sense of belonging, then they might be more receptive to upgrading to annual."