Podcasts about like hey

The Pat And Aaron Show back from an extended holiday weekend shared what they liked the most from the time off this weekend including a LOCAL hot dog championship, a Rays all star, and believe it or not we're just two weeks away from training camp.

Join host Brian Mattocks as he interviews Rachel Gogos, Founder and CEO of the brandiD and MyPath101, to explore her experiences in brand building and helping students find their path. Rachel shares how her businesses have evolved and the challenges she faces in marketing. She also discusses her innovative approaches to sales and partnerships. This episode highlights the importance of strategy and implementation in brand building, the commoditization of branding, and Rachel's commitment to assisting individuals and businesses. Moreover, Rachel underlines the significance of faith, persistence, and mindset in her journey towards becoming a successful multi-business magnate.Rachel Gogos, a serial entrepreneur and personal branding expert, has dedicated her career to helping individuals find their purpose and leverage their unique identities. As the CEO of brandiD and MyPath101, she empowers students and businesses to build successful paths through personal branding, digital marketing, and identity development. Rachel's extensive expertise in this field, including being one of only 15 worldwide with a Master's level certification in personal branding, makes her a remarkable guest to explore the importance of personal branding and digital marketing for entrepreneurs. Here are a few of the topics we'll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market: Rachel Gogos launched brandiD, a personal branding and web agency, over a decade ago, focusing on building WordPress sites for thought leaders and entrepreneurs. The brandiD's growth has been primarily organic, relying on word-of-mouth and high-quality work, but recent years have necessitated more intentional sales and marketing efforts. Rachel explores various marketing tactics, including podcasting, social media, LinkedIn presence, lead magnets, and potential partnerships and workshops. Embracing an organic and dynamic hosting style creates a more authentic and engaging experience. Brand building is becoming commoditized, but the combination of strategy and implementation sets businesses apart. Rachel's services cater to high school and college students, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Persistence and a long-term focus are essential in overcoming challenges and achieving success. Resources: brandiD Podcast Chef Connect with Rachel Gogos:LinkedInConnect with the host, Brian Mattocks: LinkedIn Email Quotables: 5:05 - “The podcast that I launched a little over a year and a half ago was certainly more of a marketing tactic for us. Just an opportunity to get my voice out there and my own thought leadership. And of course share the platform with as many other thought leaders as possible and share their stories, social media, but mostly organic.” 11:15 - “The price point is $19.97 per month a subscription, like I said now for any college student that's like a couple of visits to Starbucks. In a month, it's really not that much money. But again, we know most likely they won't want to spend the money on something like this. And that's why I'm more trying to do it through these other organizations or consultants where they could maybe bundle it into their offers that they have.” 14:10 - “So with the podcast, it was something that had been on my mind for years and years and years and I was always working on it in the back of my mind. And then some years back I started, I had a client who had a very active and large podcast and we became friends over the course of working together and we started kind of brainstorming ideas for my show. Because I wanted it to be a little different, of course. I wasn't sure what the angle should be. So it took another couple years after connecting with her on it that I finally launched it. And I've just really enjoyed it because it's an opportunity to meet, to your point about the network, just lots of new people that you wouldn't normally have a conversation with or interact with because they're in different industries or different parts of the country.” 15:22 - “I don't know about you, but I mean, we use ours in a lot of cases to just connect people together. Like “Hey, who do you want to meet? Take a look through the list of folks that we've interviewed, if you want intros to any of those. Let us know and we can make those work. That's been really a powerful place to sit as well because when you become that connector, you gain some social sort of capital as it were. And when you ask for like, “Hey, can you share this on your social media? Or can you do this or that, whatever, it usually works out reasonably well. So there's just a ton of positive investment that's come out for us in that relationship development stuff.” 20:55 - “The things that we've done as of late have been the email follow on. So we sent out “There's a new episode for the show that you've been featured on.” We also invite guests to connect to each other. Like, “Hey, if you want to meet our new guest that's going to be released in this episode or whatever, let us know.” That process has been good and we get some uptake on connecting guests with each other. But we also get, essentially those guests that have been on the show now are sort of scoping out what's coming.” 25:05 - Brian: “I've never heard you lead the conversation with like, “oh yeah, we're a web team.” The angle of that conversation takes you out of that commoditization problem that the WordPress website builders have, right? You now are no longer in direct competition for web design. You're in competition for access to people making a brand statement. And that's a different sort of conversation. And I like the strategy. I think that's pretty insightful.”Rachel: “Yeah. Though I do feel like even the brand part is starting to become commoditized as of late. I think there's a lot more people offering the brand building, like brand voice services too. So I'm hoping that pairing the two together, the implementation, not just a strategy. Because I always say strategy's great, but it's nothing if you don't do something with it.” 29:05 - “Sometimes I think I've been my own worst enemy in the aspect of my personality that is a little bit more on the introverted side. And I didn't want to put myself out there and I think it has definitely stunted growth at times in my professional, like on my professional journey. So just really working on my mindset and remembering that my work is here to be of service to others. It's ultimately not about me, it's just being that channel or that bridge.”

Our members of The GlowFM ScapeGOAT Fan Club have had exclusive access to this complete unedited video interview Parts 1, 2, and 3 with Moote, Kimmie, & Otis for weeks before you! Become a member today to receive more monthly benefits to *secret* content & episodes in advance!  https://glow.fm/davithescapegoat/   Davi is back at iHeart Studios with the morning show gang from The Bull. They been roasting corporate for a few episodes - now it's time to take a more introspective look at themselves. Everything is going great until the drama unfolds when Davi vetoes Kimmie's submission for her personal red flag. Together, they finally crack the code on how to get men to stop asking women to smile in the office. Davi and Otis have waaay too much in common, energy wise, and so many questions bc of it. Like WHAT even is BRAINSTORMING??? And Moote moves forward, squirrely as ever, on the path toward getting cancelled and maybe even a little vengeance, too. And stop being awkward at parties today! They've got better questions for you to ask! Like "Hey girl, what if we kissed in the Zone of Death?"  THANK YOU to our episode sponsor and my newest touring travel essential ;  • AG1 by Athletic Greens! Check out athleticgreens.com/DAVI today for a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase of AG1! Got questions, comments, drama, or need advice? Hit us up:  https://www.davicrimmins.com/contact Check out Davi's comedy tour 2023, coming to a city near you: https://www.davicrimmins.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Urrutia is Founder of Voy Media, a “growth marketing agency” focused on helping marketing executives grow their online businesses – but not from the “ground up.” Voy Media does not help companies that want to get started in online marketing, build clients' businesses, or act as any client's marketing team. Instead, the focus is on scaling successful client companies and taking them to the next level, moving them from 6 to 7 to 8 figures in monthly sales . . . and doing it fast. These clients already know what they need to do to build a business and they're doing it. They already have mature systems and processes in place for emailing prospective buyers and getting online content and reviews. Voy takes this collected information, breaks it down, and uses it to feed the creation of new ads, new videos, and new images for clients' social media – their already existing Facebook pages, Google Ads, and LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok accounts. Kevin's background is in computer programming. During college, he started a web development consulting company. After he graduated, he moved to Silicon Valley to work for Mint.com (Intuit). In that fevered e-commerce boom era (global e-commerce sales topped $1 trillion in 2012, up 21.9% from the previous year), “I kept building things. I kept going to hackathon startup events.” Frustratingly, all that “building” and networking did not result in sales.  Then Kevin discovered “marketing.” He researched SEO, found it “interesting,” and concluded that “Everything around you is really marketing, but it's great marketing when you don't think it's marketing.” He jumped to a startup called Zaarly, and then moved to New York and did what none of his programming buddies wanted to do: He started starting his own businesses. His buddies wanted “jobs.” He wanted to own something bigger and was willing to take the risk. Kevin started an online-scheduled cleaning company. and thereafter, a number of e-commerce companies, learning the lessons on switching products to drive sales and growing teams that he, today, passes on to his clients.  In this interview, Kevin discusses how the recent iOS update, iOS 14, allows individuals to turn off tracking and limits a lot of ad options that used to be available for advertisers. Now, instead of looking at the individual platforms to get information, companies must ask the questions: “How much revenue did we make from new customers this week? How much did we spend on ads? What is the ratio between new customer revenue with ad spend?” Kevin says things are more “fluffy” in one sense, but companies do have a better grasp on their profitability. He says, “People are actually building brands again, versus like, ‘Hey I just want to make quick buck online.'”  That's a good thing, he believes, because “Building a real business takes years.” Companies need to “reinvest into the branding. You got to reinvest into ads, copy, photography.” Kevin can be reached social platforms and on his agency's website at: https://voymedia.com/ where you will find case studies, courses, and Kevin's blog. Transcript follows: ROB: Welcome to The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Kevin Urrutia, founder at Voy Media, based in New York City. Welcome to the podcast, Kevin.  KEVIN: Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.  ROB: Great to have you on the cast. Why don't you start off by giving us an intro to Voy Media. What do you want to be known for?  KEVIN: Voy Media . . . we're growth marketing agency. Pretty typical, but the difference between us and other agencies is my background is in computer science programming. We'll talk about a little bit more of that later on. The way we help founders is by we come in to help you scale. We're not here to help you get started in online marketing. That's a different type of agency. We're more here for founders or other marketing executives that want help to grow their online business with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Creatives are also a big part. We're doing that now with the whole new iOS update and we're seen trying to switch around and again restructure agency to fit the market's needs too. ROB: (Laughs) I see. So, this is not, “I have an idea. I want to get the word out there.” This is “I know who my customer is but help me because I still don't know how to reach them.” Is that where you play?  KEVIN: It's a little bit after that, too, where you already spent some money and now you're saying, “Hey I have a marketing person in-house but we still need help because we want to scale” and you don't want to bring somebody new on again. So, I tell people all the time, we used to do what we said before . . . “Hey, you have a brand new idea. Let's help you” . . . and then it turned out that this was just a different type of client or customer that we didn't want to educate about what marketing was. It was just very difficult. I see some agencies do that. It's like I'm prey to you. Those clients, the ones that pay you that much, they're calling you every single day to give you an update. I think it's so funny, but like you've probably heard before, the more they pay you the less they call you. It's so true. ROB: That's amazing. What is it about a business at that stage that aligns with your talents? What's the playbook that starts to make sense at that stage that maybe isn't available sooner?  KEVIN: I think the playbook that's available is that these businesses already have systems on how to get content, how to get reviews, how to do all that stuff – just feeds our creative team to make new ads, to make new videos, to make new images for their social media, for their Facebook page. It's not like we're saying, “Hey, you should send an email out to get customer reviews.” They already are doing this, so their mindsets are already in this – “Yep, this is what we need to build a brand or a company.” It's just a different business shift of a person and for us, it's less pulling, like “Hey, we need this from you.” It's more like “Yep, this is already in our pipeline. You're gonna get it next week.” If we can, we get user-generated content every week – We just get that in the Slack channel – “Hey, guys. Here's this week's content.” They already have a process in place and we're here to help them. I tell people all the time – a lot of times business owners, in the beginning, want us to basically build their whole business for them. I say, “No, I'm your marketing team. I'm not here to build your company.”  ROB: This is our customer. What do you think? KEVIN: Yeah. I'm like, “I don't know. You have the product.” They're like, “Isn't your team supposed to do that?” Yes, but like, “I don't know exactly what you're doing” :Hey, it looks like this product. . . .like customers are complaining about this. Are you going to switch your product?” They're like, “No.” I'm like, “All right then. If your sales aren't going up, then you need to do something.” So, for me too, this comes from not just doing marketing, but because I've also had my own e-commerce companies too. So, I've had to switch products, I've had to grow a team, and that's where for me, it's like, I see you sometimes, I mean before like we work with founders, I'm like, “Hey, people are clearly complaining about this. Why aren't you switching or doing something?” And at least for me when I had my outdoor gear company – we recently sold it -- we made three to four versions of a trekking pole based on customer feedback because that's what you do as a business. You iterate over and over again. Sometimes people say, “Hey, this is a perfect product.” I'm like, “Is it a perfect product? You need to switch things around if people are complaining about it.” So, I don't know, for me, I'm trying to find people that, like I tell people all the time, the best people that we work with are people that have done it once, failed, and like, “Okay now. I know what to do because everybody has been through the trenches in the fire.” ROB: Sure. What it sounds like they have is they have a steady pipeline of content that speaks to their audience but . . . I think a lot of people's natural format is more long-form and not marketing copy, right? So, you can kind of take what they have, break it down, atomize it, align it to different channels, test some things, and then layer on a set of known tactics that work when you have legitimate content.  KEVIN: Exactly. That's what it is. It's like, “We're here to use tactics to help you grow versus help you figure out these tactics are. We can help somewhat but there's only so much time we can tell clients, “Hey, you need you see.” and they're like “Oh? why? I don't know how to go get it.” I'm like. “Send an email out.” They're like, “Oh okay I forgot this week.” I'm like, “All right. (sighs) I can't press this send button for you.” ROB: Right? Step 1 is send an email this week. Then come back and talk to me.  KEVIN: So yeah. I get it. I think for me, our agency – at least I tell people all the time – it just depends on what type of company or business you want to build. There's people that want to be in that zero to 1 stage, where it's like, “Hey, we're gonna build this system and process for you. But for me, I just don't want to be doing that. So, we're saying, we're shifting more towards – “Hey you have something and you have some sort of team. We're gonna come here implement, help you and supplement you and be that agency.” ROB: Sure. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, I heard you mention briefly iOS 14. Obviously, the kind of individual targeting, opt-outs, all that is changing how ads run, how ads are tracked. What has been changing for you and how are you responding or suggesting people respond when it comes to the options that are no longer available to them due to those changes?  KEVIN: I think iOS 14 . . . it's interesting. I see both. For us, bad side for a lot of agencies like us is . . . I tell people, like we were, you could track everything. So, our incentives are very like, “Hey look! We spend more money. We make more money.” We see revenue going up, we can spend more money.” Because it's tracked and now that has really affected our ability to scale as an agency and again clients as well because they were spending 15k a month, now they're spending 20k, and they're just like, “Well, the results are even worse and we're not getting any sales.” So, I think, what has changed a lot is the way we're tracking because now we're so used to just looking at the platforms, Google, Facebook, say, “Yep, this is a 1 to 1 or at least pseudo 1 to 1, where right now it's even worse. I don't even know where it's coming from. So, tracking itself has changed and, at least for us, the way we're doing it now is like what people should have been doing or at least sort of had done. Which is like, “Hey, this week, how much revenue did you make from new customers? How much did we spend on ads? What is the ratio between new customer revenue with ad spend?” It's a bit more fluffy, but at least you're saying that, yes, you are profitable. So, more daily profitability sheets/ weekly profitability sheets or even monthly – like your P&L. Go into your account each month and say, “Yep, reconcile all the expenses. Were we profitable?” Great, business is still good. That is something that, at least before iOS 14, people didn't really know, which is interesting. I think any business, you have to know this stuff. People are getting a little more savvy with these numbers. At the same time, something that I've seen shift is that – I think it's good going back with my background. I think now people are actually building brands again, versus like, “Hey I just want to make quick buck online.”  ROB: Right.  KEVIN: That was something that we saw so much because it was so easy to track, like, “Hey, you like pet stuff, right? Let me make this pet niche store and for the next 3 months let me make 20K.” It wasn't like a brand where, right now, similar to any business like you probably seen . . . Building a real business takes years.  ROB: Right.  KEVIN: And there's gonna be years where you don't make money. Everybody had this weird mentality like, “Hey, if I spend a thousand bucks, I need to make 5k this month” . . . or else “You suck – not me.” This is not how you build a company. You got to reinvest into the branding. You got to reinvest into ads, copy, photography . . . I just saw this crazy, quick-flipping of businesses where ten years ago, you were actually okay, “I'm gonna mess with your cake(?) and I'm gonna make this thing a big brand and try to build something. I think that's coming back again, which is great because it's gonna be entrepreneurs that I think want to build true businesses for the long-term.  ROB: Right on. I think I may have heard this. I may have heard it wrong, but there's also an increasing challenge with now with the attribution window. Is that right? That there's actually a short, you can't, I think it's like used to be able to see if . . . so you ran an ad and somebody bought in thirty days. Mow you get what 7?  KEVIN: Yeah. You got like 7 or even like 1 day. Sometimes it's just so much tougher? Yeah.  ROB: So, it is more empirical. It's, “I spent money, am I making money? I increased my spend a little bit ago, am I making more money now?” It's trickier.  KEVIN: It's definitely trickier, like I said. I think you now need to have the stomach for it, like, “Hey, you're hoping to make money,” and I get both sides. You know there's always the side of like, “Hey, I'm not a VC-funded company.” I'm like, “Yeah, I know.” Most people aren't, but there's a reason why companies like Facebook and Google – obviously those are outliers, but other companies such as them that spend . . . like Uber, right? literally in business for ten years and every year lose money, right? There's a reason why it's like – again, that's a bigger scale but you sometimes need to think yourself as a smaller scale, say, “Hey, you're in this for the long run.” You're like, “There's a reason why everybody knows Uber, like, “Hey I'm gonna get a cab because all the brand equity of the advertising.” So, a lot of times you've probably seen business owners don't want to do that because like, “No I need to make money.” I'm like, “Yes, you should make money – but there is something to be said for reinvest into your business and saying, “Hey, I'm gonna do this as ‘quote-unquote' my life's work. It doesn't do your life, but like the next 5 to 10 years, right.  ROB: Sure. I think it's helpful. I think people are starting to get this understanding a little more – to know when you're doing brand marketing and to know when you're doing performance marketing because getting those things twisted is also a real source of misunderstanding if you . . . KEVIN: Oh yeah, there's definitely performance marketing everything and there's also brand marketing. A lot of people just want to do performance marketing but you still need to have great Instagram accounts, great Twitter accounts, great social media people. I tell people all the time, like, “Why do I need a social media manager– they don't make any money?” – But you still want people interacting with your community, talking to them. You know, some of the best companies out there do both performance and branding. Branding is one of those things that you see it when you see it. But when you're doing it, you don't see it. It's tough to put into a balance sheet but you know it when you see it. It's like Uber, you know? Lyft, you know? So it's hard. I know that for sure. ROB: And when sometimes it's even just a negative signal you're never going to see right? Somebody looks up your company. They look up your Twitter or your Instagram or your Facebook or your LinkedIn and if there's nothing there or if it's really dead, people judge that. I mean, they do. I do.  KEVIN: I know I do. I always think marketing is so funny because, like I tell people, “What do you do when you look up a business?” I know you're gonna go like look up reviews. I know you're gonna look at Instagram and then I'm like, “How come for your company you don't think you need to do that?”  ROB: Yeah.  KEVIN: They hate when it's like, “Oh, yeah. I don't know what I'm saying.” They feel dumb but I just hate saying, “I'm like you. You do this same thing, too. So why don't you do for your business? I'm like “Hey if . . . I also tell people this. I'm on calls. I'm like, “If you weren't on your website, would you buy?” And if it's a no, then, “Why do you think other customers would buy?” – So like, “I don't know.” ROB: Take us back a little bit in time here, Kevin. Where did Voy Media come from and what led you to jump off this company-building cliff.  KEVIN: Voy Media is my newest company that I started. Basically, my quick background is computer science. I was a programming major in upstate New York . . . Binghamton. All throughout college I knew I wanted to do my own startup – since I was17 – it's something I wanted to do for a long time. So, in college, I started doing one tiny bit which is my web building. I was 19 or 20. I had 2 employees working on web projects there. We were just getting customers through Craigslist – so developing stuff. For me it was mostly like I've always wanted to build a startup. After college I was like, “Okay I gotta go to Silicon Valley.” I went to work for Mint.com as a programmer and then I went to work for another startup there for 3 years. During this time, I wanted to build stuff so I kept building things. I kept going to hackathon startup events. One of the things that happened for me during this time – I have always was in this mindset of like, “Hey, if you build it, they will come.” Because, hey, if you have a great product people just naturally find you. That was the thing that programmers in Silicon Valley just said to each other. Like “Hey, if people build something great, people will just find it” is one hundred percent not true looking back – but the mindset was very different back then. So, I kept building stuff. Eventually, I was like, “Man, how come I'm not getting any customers?” And then, I started looking up “what is marketing.” I was like, “Okay, this is actually a thing.” That's when I started learning more about marketing. My initial foray into marketing was SEO, like black-hat, world-affiliate marketing, CPA stuff. That was for me very interesting. When I first discovered it, I was like, “Oh, this is very interesting.” The reason why I found it so interesting because these affiliate guys were getting these twenty dollars like, “Hey, you can make twenty dollars off this widget that you sell,” so they had to sell it for a hundred twenty bucks to make profit. So, I was like, “Oh, these guys are using cutting edge tactics.” You would join these underground forums or Skype groups of people saying like, “Hey, try this marketing message.” I was like, “Whoa!” I didn't realize marketing is like that – it was like performance for me. I always thought marketing was this branded thing. I didn't know there's this other type of marketing that was purely based on sales. That's what got me at least . . . at that point I wasn't doing ads. It opened up my eyes to this marketing world. I was like, “Oh, everything around you is really marketing, but it's great marketing when you don't think it's marketing.” Behind the scenes, there's guys pulling the levers that's doing the marketing. So, it's like one of those like realizations that you have. I was like, “Okay, this is kind of what I need to do anyways.” I came back to New York because I missed my family. I started my cleaning company called Maid Sailers and here, for this cleaning company, is where I did almost all the marketing. I did SEO. I did reviews, blogging, PPC, Yelp ads, kind of everything. I did that for about a year-and-a-half. I wanted to keep growing it but people that have a service-based company – even some like Moy media – service-based businesses can only grow as you grow people – humans, right? So, it's human capital intense kind of business, which is great to get started. So, I think I tell people, times like these are great businesses start. But if you want to grow it, I didn't think I could grow it that big. So, then I started ecommerce because at that time too I saw all my friends are doing FBA, Amazon, I was like, “I got to jump into this, right?” It's one of those things with FOMO -- I got to do it. Then I did my Montem, which is my outdoor gear company. This was more scalable because, at the time – it was much easier back then with e-commerce products like Amazon. You're selling. Then, again for Montem, when we did e-commerce, I learned so much more. This is kind of where I first started doing more Facebook ads, Google ads, review blogger reviews. We were like number 1 on Wirecutter, so we were able to do partnerships. We did retail. We were pitching retails with the events – kind of like everything involved and, at least for me, that's why I like entrepreneurship in startups because I like all this stuff I just described. If I worked for somebody, I would never be able to do it all. Because you're only stuck in 1 thing where it's like a founder you could just say, “Okay, I'm going to do it all like,” and you figured it out somehow, which is either exciting or not exciting for some people. For me, it's like, “Oh, this is awesome.” I went to China 3 times up to my factories. So that's kind of where the concept of Voy Media came – because I was doing this e-commerce stuff. And then I was like, “Okay, I want to help other founders achieve success,” – that's the inkling, the idea of Voy Media. Of course, what we are now is very different than what I thought initially because you iterate your business based on what you see. But that's how Voy Media started.  ROB: How did you navigate away from those assumptions of the business, from those predispositions that you had? I mean, candidly, folks who come from a software developer background a lot of time have a hard time taking their hands off the keyboard. They want to be writing code, right? So how did you kind of navigate to the truth of the business instead of where you started?  KEVIN: I always tell people that one of the main reasons why I always wanted to do a startup and it's something that I've always like wanted to do since I was 17. But one of the things when I was in Silicon Valley, at least for me when I was 21 or 22 – I don't know, I was probably 23 at the time – very naïve. I was looking at a lot of my friends in the space, like the programmers there, and they would just talk about stuff and I was like, “Oh, wow! These guys are really smart. I don't think I'll ever be that good. I need to do something else because these guys are just awesome programmers.” My roommate, his name was Adam. We worked at the same company and he would talk about a concept. I'm like, “Dude, I have no clue how you just got that!” I thought I was smart but that's kind of what for me I'm like, “I got figure out something else in my life because I want to make money but, clearly, you're on another level.” I was like, “Let me just do business stuff and that's kind of it for me.” Another relationship for me was that I would talk to him or talk to other people like, “Hey, why don't you start a company. You are really smart,” but they're like, “No, I just want to be an employee.” That made me think, “Hey, there's guys like me that want to have a company and then I can hire guys like him that don't want to take the risk,” and you're gonna hire these super smart people that are gonna work for you and that's where the realization came to me, “Hey, I don't have to be the smartest but there's a lot of smart people that don't want to take the risk I want to take, and they could just work for me. Yeah!”  ROB: Yeah, so that's a good lesson to pick up along the way. As you reflect on the journey so far in building the business, what are some other key lessons you might want to go back and just tell yourself if you were starting over? Some good advice.  KEVIN: Good advice is so obvious. But like hiring people – I think once you feel an inkling that a person's not going to work out, you really got to let them go because it's a drain on the company and drain on yourself. That's probably the one people always say but it's also the hardest because people with emotions and working with them. But that's really tough. I think it's getting better, at least for service-based companies, it's just getting really better at vetting the people you work with just because it's a really personal relationship and, if you already feel like they're gonna be a very demanding, upstart, they're probably gonna be demanding the whole relationship and it's just gonna be a battle to please them. That's something I tell my sales team all the time. Like any red flag. I could see an email and I'm like, “This is a red flag. I can tell already this is gonna be a terrible partner to work with. Let's not even sign them,” and they're like, “Why?” I'm like. “Trust me. This one word they said, I pretty much know what they're looking for.” I think another one that's super important, I think for me at least, it's like, “I couldn't do my theme(?) companies. Every company I've done it, it's been with a partner.” You need somebody there to talk to, to help you with the problem, because like any business they're gonna be high highs and low lows. Sometimes you need somebody else to talk to them about it because sometimes you can't tell your employees how you're feeling because then it's like, “I work for you,” and then they're like, “Oh well. If the founder's feeling this way, I can't feel that way either.” Having a partner that's on the same like equal level as you or around that area – you can like tell them the real issues and how you're feeling, so I think a partner is gonna be great. And again, it helps distribute the work depending on what you're doing and how you're splitting the stuff with the business because it's a lot of stuff to do.  ROB: Yeah, is that somebody that you had early in the business or is that somebody you brought in? Is that somebody outside the business for you? What's that look like?  KEVIN: For Voy Media, it's Wilson. I've known him since college. We've literally known each other for over ten years and we've going back to everything before like one tiny bit the Ruby on Rails company. He was my partner there, too, in Silicon Valley. When I moved there, he was in college and I just graduated. And I was like, “Yo, Wilson! I'm moving.” He's like, “I'll move there with you.” So I've known him for a long time. I tell people it really depends. There's these relationships are very . . . You need to be careful because there's a level of trust you already have so you can't really get mad at each other. But again, it's careful. Sometimes things go wrong, you get mad at each other but you know that “Hey, we're doing it because we both” . . . I I think you both need to know the goal of the business. So, it's like, “Hey, this is why I'm like upset with you. It's not that I'm upset about you personally, it's because I'm upset about the business and we both want to achieve this and we're not achieving it together. How do we get there?” So, it's a careful relationship, like any couple. Things are upsetting us. Why? Because we both want to be happy. How do we fix that issue so it's not like I'm attacking you personally? ROB: Right. And if you're partners on that, you got to solve it one way or another. You can't stay grumpy and you can't stay stuck in the mud. It can go sideways pretty quick. So, you had Wilson there really early on in the business.  KEVIN: Yeah.  ROB: What was another kind of key inflection point that you noticed, where you felt like you had to level up the capabilities of the firm? The people in the firm, the processes – were there any kind of chokepoints so far that you had to kind of reevaluate in a significant way? KEVIN: Yeah. I mean like honestly, at least for Voy Media, one of the biggest things that we made was hiring an operations person to really help clean up everything at the agency. Because from reporting to hiring, I think that really helped us. I think it's one of those things where . . . I consider one of those positions where you want to be so involved sometimes. But you need to bring on someone that can do the work for you, that's smarter than you, that you can give complete ownership. I think, with any business, that's probably the hardest part – giving up some part of the business to somebody else to run and just trusting them. That's probably some of the best things that we've done because now the agency has grown quicker. With that comes a few points. One is cash load. You have to have the money to hire somebody good or can you take a little hit on income? That way you know that this person is going to hopefully pay off in six months. As a bootstrap founder, you think about these things but hiring people like that is super helpful.  ROB: Where was the business in terms of size, however you think about it, when you made that operations move?  KEVIN: We were probably like 5 to 6 people. Now we're about 30 people. So, it's definitely grown a lot more now. But yeah, hiring those people – like higher level people are helpful because there's only so many people that are doing the work. Of course, you need those people as well. But you need people thinking about strategy, thinking about processes and systems and that's why it's helpful and again, at least for me, it's the biggest . . . honestly, one of the biggest things too is thinking about yourself as the founder, as the person running the company. What do you want to be doing? I don't want to be doing all this stuff. I want to hire somebody else to do it because that doesn't give me energy. It drains me. I want to be doing what gives me energy, which is podcasting, sales – that's exciting for me. So, I know I'm gonna do a better job and I know I'm gonna be reading books about it whereas like – “Hey, accounting, – I don't want to look this up.” Find somebody else to do it because it's going to drain you and that's going to affect your whole day.  ROB: Wow. That all makes sense. As we look ahead for Voy Media – when you look at either what the company's doing or what will be necessary in the types of marketing that you do – what's coming up that you're excited about?  KEVIN: What we're excited about right now I think, again going back to what I said before, we're working with founders building these great brands. Better for us to work with founders out in the long run – before I was quick. Like, “Hey this month sucked. You guys suck.” It's like, “Oh god, this is a stressful relationship.” It's more like, “Hey, let's build something big and great together,” and again a big thing for us too. It's gonna be the creatives. People are really open to having great images, great creatives. People are more open to trying new things now because they're seeing that Facebook isn't the only platform. There's now Facebook, there's TikTok, there's Instagram stories, like there's all this new stuff out there. It's exciting again to make content. I see that as exciting. Where before people were just like, “I just want to do Facebook ads. Okay.” “Well, TikTok.” “No, I don't know that platform.” Where people are, I think . . . I don't know . . . there's a shift there where people are more open to new stuff now.  ROB: Yeah, it's certainly a shift. It's certainly interesting in terms of openness. How do you think about the difference between what should be legitimately out of bounds for a particular brand versus what is their being flexible in a way that that is actually necessary? People have their experimental budgets. It can't all be experimental but some of it has to be.  KEVIN: I think it just depends what level you are. I think, for example, when we work with consumer companies, all the consumer platform is always great – TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook of course. But if you're a consumer company, Linkedin doesn't make sense because that's more like professional. So, there are certain industries where it's very clear cut like, “Hey, if you're a SaaS or software or marketing company, you should be on LinkedIn because that's where quote – unquote professionals are. We think about it like that. As you get bigger and you're scaling your business, you need to think about platforms outside – like billboard ads are something that's more branded but there's a lot of ways to access those now in like easy platforms stuff. Some of my friends do that because they raise money and they say it's not effective. But I think something that brands need to think about right now is that, before, it was “you just sell online.” Now I'm seeing a big shift of online plus retail as well. So, getting into the Walmarts, the Targets, the Amazon's, the stores – everything like that is so important because it's more omnichannel versus like, “Hey I'm only direct to consumer.” I'm seeing that big shift now, too.  ROB: Right on. When you say the billboard stuff is more accessible, what does that actually look like? Can I go like buy a billboard? Can I buy it where I want it? Can I set what time of day I want to see a digital like, I don't know . . . What can I do?  KEVIN: I forgot the exact website. I'll try to find it later. But yeah, basically you can do exactly that. I think it's ClearView, one of those company that owns it. They now have a website similar to what you said where you can just say like, “Hey, for 100 bucks I want an ad near Times Square.” It makes it super simple and easy. You can just upload your creatives. Before it was kind of what you were saying . . . even subway ads now in New York City, you have to spend 30K minimum to get like one car of subway ads, where it should be self-serve, right? “Okay, I want one car, one creative . . . how much is it gonna cost? All right?” Subway ads are harder because you actually need to print the thing, where some of these new billboards are digital. So yeah, you could do it. I forgot the exact platform but it's cool. I've seen some friends do it just for experimental. It kind of works but it's one of those things where you just try it out and see.  ROB: Sure. I've thought about it. There's some ways . . . maybe it's too creepy . . . but you can almost get account-based marketing. You know a bunch of people for this company come this way, light up this billboard during the commute, leave it shut down during lunchtime – like who knows, right? KEVIN: Yeah. It's funny you're saying that because there's this company . . . they were a remote job board, right? Facebook announced, I think a few months ago, that like, “Hey, starting in 2022, everybody needs to go back to work in the office.” So, then this company took out ads on that highway to say, “Hey, don't want to go back to work? Apply for new jobs here.” But exactly what you're saying. You can know where these things are, they'll pinpoint the area, and then you can do account-based marketing that way. People do this when they launch a Walmart or Target in the city. There will be billboards around there so say, “Hey, look! We're now available at Target down the street!” So, you can do that type of stuff.  ROB: Very interesting. So much to do. So much to learn. Still, Kevin, congrats on the journey so far. Thank you for coming on and sharing with us as well. I wish you well and I know our audience will enjoy what you had to share. KEVIN: Thank you Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.  ROB: Thanks, Kevin take care. Bye 

It's time to return to The Dreaming! This week, we're discussing the third and fourth volumes of Neil Gaiman's celebrated series. Come for the one-off stories of Dream Country, and give the devil his due when we cheer Lucifer's epic trolling of Dream in Season of the Mists.  ----more---- Episode 17 Transcript Jessika: [00:00:00] I just, I like have had five sets of teeth in my life. They just keep growing bigger and bigger each set I got,   Hello, and welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcasts where we morph from delight to delirium one issue at a time. My name is Jessica Frazier and I'm joined by my cohost, the blasphemous baker, Mike Thompson.  Mike: I am full of carbs and caffeine. How are you doing? Jessika: Oh, I am somewhat of both as well. Could use a little more sleep, but I have a day off tomorrow, so I will be doing that,  Mike: I'm jealous.  Jessika: Dude. I work nine hours a day. Don't be too jealous. It's those nine hours that get me that day off.  Mike: Oh man. I've been pulling [00:01:00] like 10 to 12 hour days for a couple of months and I'm just,  Jessika: Oh shit. Nevermind. Goodness. Well, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. If you'd like to support us, be sure to download rate and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you live.  Mike: Yeah, that really helps with discoverability. We know that we are not a large podcast, but the support that we've gotten from everybody has meant a lot to us. And we're hoping that we can continue to reach more people. If you like, what you're hearing, do us a favor and invite your friends to like our pages, every little bit helps.  Jessika: Yeah, well, today we're continuing on. with the second episode of our book. As we discuss volumes three and four of the Sandman series. But before we jump into [00:02:00] that, Mike, what is one cool thing that you've read or watched lately?  Mike: Something actually that you mentioned on the last book club episode that we did was that there is a Sandman Audible book right now. As much as I don't like giving Amazon my money, if I don't have to, I've had an Audible membership for like a decade. And that means I have access to their Audible originals, which is what this audio book is. And then one of my friends, hi, Darren, also recommended that I listen to the audio book after I told them that we were doing a Sandman book. So I finally downloaded the audio book and started listening while I walked the dogs. And it's legit incredible, like all-star cast. It feels like an audio play complete with like all these incredible production values. Neil Gaiman is serving as the narrator and then they have all of these incredible actors voicing characters and it actually, you know, Neil [00:03:00] Gaiman rewrote it. And so it feels like what he wanted the Sandman, the first volume Preludes and Nocturnes to be, with the hindsight of 30 plus years. Jessika: Nice.  Mike: Yeah, it's great.  Jessika: And he's such a good orator.  Mike: he is he's done a couple of his other audio books that I've listened to over the years. He did The Graveyard Book, which was The only way I can describe it as a Victorian Gothic version of the Jungle Book. And then he also did Coraline. I think he did Coraline. I'm pretty sure he did, but every time that I've listened to him, narrate stuff, it's always been just fantastic,  But, yeah. Jessika: Great.  Mike: How about you? Jessika: Well, I grabbed another $1 image teaser comic. , this time it was Kill or Be Killed by Ed Brubaker. Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breittwiser. It was okay.  It didn't grow. It followed the first person account of how a man was driven to be an assassin. He basically attempted to die by suicide by jumping off a roof, ended up not dying, but [00:04:00] being visited by what appears to be a demon who tells him , that he now owes him for the life. He tried to waste or something, a life for a life, kind of a such and the rubric for killing being , someone basically like bad and it's not very well defined. So he goes from this guy who can't fathom killing someone to being ready to kill. So he doesn't die. The whole reason he wanted to die was over a woman that chose his roommate over him, by the way, like his best friend. And it was this whole pining love thing. It was just a little just had, really bad incel vibes. You know what I mean?  Mike: Yeah, Jessika: I don't know. It just felt very strange. Like his whole motive was very, contrived it felt,  Mike: Yeah. Brubaker does a lot of good stuff, but he writes a lot of, kind of the modern equivalent of pulp noire.  Jessika: Mm.  Mike: Everything that you've described sounds very much like a Brewbaker story. You got to find the right thing. He writes some really good stuff. Like he's the guy who actually created the winter soldier for the Captain America Comics. Jessika: [00:05:00] Okay.  Mike: Yeah. He did a couple of other kind of like noire-ish stories for image that they were hit or miss for me, but when he's good, he's really good. And then other times it's just, it's not my vibe. Jessika: Okay. That's fair.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So, honestly though, again, it was one of those $1 Image teaser situations.  Mike: I love how they do that.  Jessika: I didn't feel like I really lost anything.  Mike: No, I think that's a really great strategy of theirs where it's just kind of the entry-level pilot. Jessika: Yeah, well, let's mosey on to our main topic.  Mike: Yes. Jessika: So last episode, just to recap, we covered an overview of the history and places you can read, watch and listen to the Sandman series. And if you haven't already listened to episode 15, we highly recommend you check out that episode for that. And our discussion on the first two volumes of the Sandman series, because from here, we are going to be discussing [00:06:00] volumes three and four. I don't really have many tidbits per se for us this episode. Really? We're just going to look at the plot and then talk about what we thought.  Mike: I actually have a couple of tidbits. Believe it or not, not many, but a couple. Jessika: Mike has tidbits everyone. I love it. I didn't even know. Well, awesome.  Mike: All right. So should we kick things off?  Jessika: Let's do it. Volume three is titled Dream Country and it was published in 1990 and only included issues 17 through 20. And what made up a four-story anthology. It was, of course, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Kelly Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Charles Vess, and Colleen Duran. We start with the story of Calliope, the youngest Greek muse, who has been imprisoned by Erasmus Fry to be his own personal muse. Super gross. [00:07:00] She'd been captive for closest 60 years. So Erasmus gives Calliope to Richard Maddick, who is a writer who has one successful novel but now has hit a patch of writer's block. And unfortunately for Calliope, he's a greedy motherfucker who only cares about his own success. So he takes Calliope who has been left without clothes in a room alone. And of course, immediately rapes her. This one was really hard for me. You can already tell, as I'm trying to get through this description.  Mike: Yeah, it's an uncomfortable issue to read now. Even now it's, mean, it was really uncomfortable when I first read it when I was, I don't know, 18 or so. And it's just gotten increasingly gross as time goes on, especially now, post me too in the entertainment industry. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, definite correlations there.  Mike: Oh yeah. Oddly prescient. Jessika: Yes. So Richard of course gets gains from this whole [00:08:00] situation and enjoys a few years of very good success. He writes more hit novels, some award-winning poetry, and even gets into Hollywood with writing and directing. So here we are again with the correlation situation and of course winning awards in that area. And this is all happening while Morpheus is still in prison, by the way, until he isn't any longer. And one thing we need to know about Calliope is that she and Morpheus have history. In fact, they have a child together. So Calliope calls out to him in desperation. After being told by her visiting muse sisters, that they were unable to help her and help Morpheus did. The author wanted ideas, then he was inundated with them. So many that they were causing him to have an actual breakdown seemingly with psychological effects. In the end, Richard sends someone to release her where he only finds Erasmus Fry's book in the room where she should have been.  Mike: And doesn't it [00:09:00] originally start out with Morpheus trying to free Calliope, but Richard doesn't want to, because he needs the ideas she gives him when he rapes her? Jessika: Yeah Mike: Yeah. And that's when Morpheus sits there and basically punishes him with an overflowing chalice of ideas. Jessika: Yeah. It's, definitely a fitting punishment. In my opinion  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: story, number two was super fun. I think you and I can probably agree. And this story was about a cat speaking to a crowd of cats in a graveyard. And this cat told the story of having kittens and having them taken away by the people that owned her. And of course, the guy was super level-headed about the whole thing and took the kittens to a shelter and they were adopted by loving families and, oh wait, never mind. He put them all in a bag, tied the bag to a large rock, and threw it in a body of water. I just can't with people. Like, honestly, I can't,  Mike: It's a safe assumption that people are going to be terrible throughout this series. Jessika: I mean, it's true, [00:10:00] but I would love to have them all adopted. So the cat naturally is super upset but also looking for some sort of vengeance or something. And that night she has a dream where she goes on a long and difficult dream quest to see what is ultimately Meowpheus the cat.  Mike: Meowpheus I like that.  Jessika: So basically a Meowpheus tells her that cats used to rule. They were larger and humans were basically the pets. Instead, cats choosing to hunt humans for food and sport and keeping them to feed and groom them. One day, humans banded together and with participation from only 1000 humans, they were able to dream the same dream together and basically manifest humans being the alpha in the world, instead of the cats. And this went back into time where the power of the collective dream actually rewrote history in favor of humans, making the cat subservient. Instead. [00:11:00] The cat in the graveyard was basically preaching a gospel, asking all the cats in the graveyard to dream the same dream. That she was trying to get 1000 cats to help her so that, they could all pull a Cher and turn back time to be in power once again. I enjoyed the partying quippy remark from one of the listener cats, which was effectively good luck getting multiple cats to do anything at the same time. Mike: Uh, yeah. Accurate. Jessika: And while it was really sad and cruel I like the idea that cats have an attitude for a reason.  Mike: Yeah, I thought it was cute. It was just, it was a very, I mean, we'll get into this later on, but it was, I thought it was very. Jessika: Yeah. The third step. Told us, the creation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream wherein Morpheus has actually requisitioned the play in specific terms and asks Billy Shakes and his troop to perform in the middle of an empty field. Well, kind of. That field is not empty for a long as [00:12:00] Titania, Oberon, Puck, and all the other characters from the fairy realm have arrived through the portal, which Morpheus opens for them. It's mentioned during the dialogue between Titania and Morpheus, that this is probably the last time the mortal realm would allow them to enter, that they were feeling the hostility from Gaia upon their entry. During the play puck steps in for the actor playing himself and kills of course, and Titania is very strangely fascinated with Billy's 11 year old son Hamnett and is like trying to entice him. And then in the end, everybody, but Puck leaves the realm. And it's mentioned at the end of the issue that Hamnet died later that same year. So like, did Titania finally get Hamlet to go with her?  Mike: You know, it's left a little bit open, but it's playing into that whole idea of the changeling child and, you know, the mortals who go over into the very realm, as children, which I really liked that I thought it was a nice ending that was very bittersweet. Jessika: Yeah. I thought so too. And the fourth and final story [00:13:00] of this volume is called Facade and it is about a woman named Rainey who we learn has been given a gift by the sun, God Ra, which makes her a metamorph. Meaning that she can change her physical appearance, physically change faces, skin, everything. But this also means that she no longer has a normal human appearance. Her skin is scaly and multicolored. Her hair has turned of violent shade of green and her face is withered and her nose is almost completely gone. We find Rainie living a very solitary life, getting a monthly disability check and only interacting with the worker assigned to her, but disability case she's depressed and has suicidal ideations. Probably the scariest part of the story is when an old friend who works for the same company that Rainey was working for, when Ra messed her up, who invites her to lunch, Rainie sucks it up, puts on a face literally and meets [00:14:00] at the restaurant. Where her entire face falls off into a plate of spaghetti. I don't, I don't know about you like that. I thought it was super terrifying. Mike: Yeah. I mean, it goes back to that very human emotion of seeing someone that you haven't seen forever. And you're trying to do as much as you can to make sure that they don't see that you've changed too much.  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: You and I are at that age now where it's like, people from high school want to get in touch and we're all older. You know, some of us are. And so you see these people and you still want to seem like the person that they knew, because you don't want to, you don't want them to comment on how you've changed. You don't want to acknowledge it. And I read it as she'd been working for like the CIA or an intelligence agency because they call it “The Company.” They don't ever refer to it as anything else. Jessika: I think it was something of that nature kind of checking out sites, et cetera.  Mike: Yeah.[00:15:00] But yeah, and then the whole thing is that because she can change her body into elements. She's, she's a sidekick from the old Moetamorpho series in the sixties. I didn't really know much about her, but I did a little digging cause I couldn't remember a lot. And so Metamorpho is a DC hero who is part of the justice league and his whole thing is that he can't. Basically change his body into any element that he wants. And so that was the whole thing where she's talking about, oh, like it's not hard for me to change the color of my hair. I I just turned it into copper and, and then she basically grows a kind of silica over her face, but she was saying that after roughly a day it gets stiff and, it falls off. And unfortunately, that's what happened with her, at her lunch with her friend. Jessika: Yeah. it was definitely a bummer. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So of course, Rainey goes home crying where she has to break into her own house by melting the handle because she forgot her purse with her keys and breaks down crying. Death appears having been visiting one of Rainey's neighbors who fell off a stepladder and talks with Rainie, advising that she should [00:16:00] ask rah nicely to take away her gift, or at least giving us an option. She looks into the setting sun and becomes what I'm assuming is a pile of Ash. It looks like death didn't actually take her. So I'm not sure if Rainie is supposed to be just with the world. You know, just one with the world as it kind of seemed like she fear being  Mike: You know, I read it as like she was, she had her immortality taken away from her because she seemed so happy when she turned into, I don't know if it was ash or glass or something. It was kind of hard to tell what the art, and then it cracked and fell apart. And then Death answers the phone and says something along the lines of like, no, she, she can't come she's gone away or something to that effect. And, death isn't this cruel being or anything like that. I think death helped her move on. I'd like to think that she did. Jessika: Okay. Okay. Yeah. it was Fe usually. she like wanders away with the person [00:17:00] she's like low key reaping. Mike: Usually. Yeah. I don't know. I think maybe it was just a little bit, it, it was for the sake of narrative in this case,  Jessika: That's fair. That's fair.  Mike: But yeah. Urania was this, so her full name is Urania She was a side character for a few issues in Metamorpho's sixties series. And then she wound up basically giving herself the same powers that he had, and it was delivered via device called the Orb of RA. So it's really interesting because, Metamorpho is always a science character, because it's all about the elements of what he can turn himself into. But at the same time, there is in his background. is this like, you know, mystical quality to it. And so I liked that they kind of tapped into that mythology a little bit, and really they did a nice job with a character that I think most people had forgotten existed. Jessika: So, Mike, did You have a favorite [00:18:00] character part of the story? What did you dig from this?  Mike: This volume in particular, I really like, because it feels. Like a breather from the main narrative. And honestly, I think that's something that we needed because I mentioned last time, how I always am a little bit surprised at how dark the early stories are. They're very much horror stories with a little bit of fantasy kind of softening the blows a little bit, but there's a couple of moments in those first couple of volumes where I feel like I need to pack a flashlight. it's dark. but yeah, this collection is just, a much-needed change of pace just for a little bit. My least favorite story is the one with the cats. And it's not because I think it's bad. I just don't connect with it that much. Part of it is because we've got a rescue cat, we treat her better than the kids. Let's be honest. I can't fathom throwing kittens into a pond. It was just, it feels a little bit too mustache-twirly. You know, especially in this day and age where like, if people find out [00:19:00] about that you get tracked down on social media and just annihilate it. But it was cute. The whole bit where at the end, it's like, oh, it must be, it's dreaming, you know, it's chasing something and, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. So it's, it's dreaming of hunting humans. Cool. Jessika: [laughs],  Mike: And it's funny, cause I was actually in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream when I first read this collection. So I loved everything about that specific issue. I loved how it tapped into fairy lore it showed this kind of weird, strange relationship with Titania and Oberon. And how absolutely sinister pock seemed not to mention how there's that dangling plot thread, where he basically gets loosed on earth afterwards  Jessika: mm.  Mike: I don't know. It's just, it's very different than any other portrayal I'd seen up until then. And, , it's interesting because they brought those characters specifically back in a number of different ways across the vertigo comics later on, like to Tanya actually had her origin explained in the Books of Faerie, which was in itself a series that [00:20:00] spun off of another comic that Neil Gaiman wrote called the Books of Magick, where eventually it's revealed that the main character from the Books of Magick, Tim Hunter, who was like the next great magician of the age, he's like our version of Merlin. It is very. They always leave it a little bit up in the air, but Titania''s his mother, because she was a human who was brought into the world of Fairie. And then eventually he got married to Oberon and then she had an affair with a human that was in service to Oberon.  Jessika: Okay.  Mike: She becomes a major part of the lore in her own right. Which I thought was really cool. And Puck shows up again later in the series. I, like I still squirm when I read that story of Calliope, especially where we are like sitting on the other side of me too, and the ongoing flood of stories about successful men in the arts, just being abusive, assholes to those who aren't as powerful as they are. Like when we're recording this, there's a whole flood of stories coming out of Activision [00:21:00] blizzard, if you're not in video games, they make Warcraft and a bunch of other stuff. it turns out that that was a really toxic place for women. And I spent almost a decade working in video games with various companies and yeah, it's not surprising, but it's just, these stories need to be told that at the same time, they're always super uncomfortable to read. Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: Um, yeah. And then, the facade story, I really liked, I really appreciate how gaming does this amazing job spinning out a story that's focused on loneliness and how harmful it is. and then I thought it was kind of neat that it arguably has a happy ending, though the main character dies. Jessika: Yeah. I can see that.  Mike: Same question back at you. What about you? Jessika: So, you know, I really enjoyed the cat story.  Mike: You don't say. Jessika: I did. I mean, I get it though. Like cats are, are super intense and honestly they make [00:22:00] me a little nervous. I heard some horror stories about cats, just going bananas on people and them just like getting super fucked up, like missing part of an ear and shit. Like I've heard some stories. That's just like a regular house cat. Oh, I don't think so  Mike: Well, and then you've met our cat. Jessika: Yeah. Well, yeah. You know that's but I don't, I didn't fear your cat right away. There are some cats I go into someone's house and I'm just like, oh, I got to watch my back.  Mike: We have a dog and a cat's body. Jessika: Yeah. Your cat's sweet.  Mike: No, she... she's fat and lazy and she knows who feeds her. So she's like, I'm good. I don't need to get out. I don't need to be now. Jessika: I'm strictly a dog household, so I just don't really truly get them to be honest with you. And I honestly, I'm kind of glad I have allergies as an excuse, not to have to get one. So did you have a favorite art moment in this volume? Like was there a panel or cover that really stood [00:23:00] out to you or hit you in some kinda way?  Mike: Yeah. That final sequence in the Midsummer issue, so that one was illustrated by Charles Vess and he's this really he's this artist that has this really beautiful illustration style that feels very old school storybook. Sarah loves this British artist named Arthur Rakim and Vess always kind of reminds me of his work, but the closing monologue by Puck is I gotta be at that closing monologue is kind of terrifying, especially with the way that it's illustrated. I also liked how this felt almost like, well, I mean, it was in certain ways, it was a sequel to men of good fortune, that issue that we talked about last time with Hob Gadling and the mortal that keeps on meeting up with Morpheus.  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: Yeah, you remember during, the last book club episode, how I mentioned that Sandman won the World Fantasy Award. Yeah. So it was for this issue specifically, you know, and then they got all grumpy about it and they [00:24:00] changed it so that you could no longer win a world fantasy award with a comic book. So. The only comic book to ever win a world fantasy award, Jessika: extra salty,  Mike: extra salty. Jessika: Hate to see it.  Mike: what about you? Like, I'm actually curious. What did you think about Vess's illustration style? Because we haven't seen, I don't think we've really seen much of his artwork in the series up until now. Jessika: We haven't, and that's actually this, this was my favorite art volume as well, or art issue as well. I mean, it just, it was beautiful. It used color in a really interesting way that went from playful to dark and serious. I mean, it just with the same type of illustration and the color would just change the whole.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Which was super cool just by adding shadows, moving the colors. Plus you got to love a good donkey head and you know, okay. I was musing and you have to go with me on this journey. They had to have used a taxidermied donkey's head. Right.  Mike: [00:25:00] No, they, I  Jessika: Please. Come on, come on, go with me on this journey.  Mike: Ugh no. Hmm.  Jessika: Ah,  Mike: Like, like that's a whole element in that American Horror Story series, like where  they make a mandatory by putting a bull's head on a dude. Like, no, no, Jessika: I am going horror with this one. Mike: Well, have fun going down that road. I'm not there with you. Jessika: Okay. Well, that's good. I suppose we are on volume four  Mike: I suppose  Jessika: Volume Four!. Alright.  Mike: What accent is that? Jessika: I don't know, I do a lot, don't I? Mike: A little bit?  Jessika: I think it's my 1920s.  Mike: Okay.  Jessika: I don't know. It's like my newscaster, I used to have an old-timey newscaster kind of an accent that I did.  And I think I'm combining, I'm combining my Virginia [00:26:00] Montgomery Prescott, the third Esquire.  Mike: It's, that so proper American that it's almost English kinda like that very Northeastern accent.  Yeah.  Jessika: Yes. Yeah.  Mike: Yeah. All right.  Jessika: All right. Volume four is titled season of the mists and came out between 1990 and 1991 and included issues 21 through 28. Story as always was written by Neil Gaiman and illustration was done by Kelly Jones, Malcolm Jones, the third Mike Drigenberg, Matt Wagner, Dick Giordano, George Pratt, and P Craig Russell. Volume four begins with our introduction to destiny. Ooh. While wandering his realm is visited by the fates, the three sisters that we have seen previously, the sisters inform him that he needs to call a [00:27:00] reunion of all his siblings of the eternal realm. So off, he goes to the family gallery where he goes up to each portrait of his sibling and they appear out of the portrait. When summoned the siblings are a mix of characters we have seen. And one that is new to this issue. Death who is told to change her outfit, even though no one else was, I thought that was kind of rude.  Mike: Yeah, Destiny's a stickler for formality. Jessika: Yeah. Well, the other one's got to wear nimble to CWA. They got to wear whatever  Mike: Hmm. Jessika: I, whatever. I don't know. It makes me angry. So don't tell women they have to change. They are not a distraction. Death has followed by Dream and then the twins, Desire and Despair, and lastly Delirium who we come to find out, used to be Delight. So during their reunion, desire calls out Dream's treatment of lovers who have spurned [00:28:00] him, leading him to ask for validation of his actions from Death. And Death instead agrees with. Prompting dream to plan, to travel to hell in order to remove queen nada from her torturous captivity, who was, that was the subject of their whole conversation.  Mike: Yeah. And we actually saw that whole story in the previous volume to  Jessika: Yes,  Mike: saw what happened to. Jessika: exactly. so destiny closes out the reunion basically stating that the actions that needed to be put into motion had been accomplished by dream deciding to go back to. hell.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: The next issue gives us a taste of what hell looks and feels like. So back in the dream realm, Dream is saying his goodbyes and makes a big announcement to those living in his realm. He tells them about Nada, how he had been unjust and how he had to rectify his actions and that he may not return as he is not on good terms with Lucifer. So [00:29:00] he sends Cain to Hell as a messenger to let loose for know that dream will be visiting whether he approves or not basically. So that was fun.  Mike: Well, he knows that he can't kill Cain because Cain is protected by the mark of Cain from, the Cain and Abel story. He knows about that.  Jessika: oh yeah. Yeah, for sure.  Mike: That's why dream sent Cain it's because he knows that Cain can't be killed. Jessika: Exactly. Exactly. Lucifer clearly is still really salty about being embarrassed. The last time dream was there and he makes an announcement to his, his demonic minions reminding them that he is the oldest and strongest bad-ass lets them know that dream will be returning and implies very strongly. That the day that Dream returns will be very memorable. Kane delivers the response to Dream. And on the last stop of his farewell tour, Dream also visits Hippolyta whose husband [00:30:00] was the pho dream king superhero thingy from one of the other stories while he was enslaved or, you know, captive.  Mike: Yeah. she and Hector the previous Doctor Fate were being used by Brute and Glob to basically create kind of like an island for them to operate outside of the dreaming the dreams of a kid who was being abused.  Jessika: Exactly.  Mike: And then, Dream is on her shit list because he sent her ghost of a husband on to wherever he got sent onto, but she was pregnant at the time. And so there's a connection between Dream and the baby because she carried the baby to term mostly in dreams, Jessika: Well, the baby was in gestation for like that, like 30, 30, 40 years or something more than that. I mean, it was like 60 years? I don't  remember how many it was like however long or  Mike: I,  Jessika: or was it just the kid timeframe? Mike: I think it was just the kid timeframe. So I think it was only for a couple of years, but still it was in gestation injuries for a long time compared to. Jessika: Oh, I can't even imagine [00:31:00] being pregnant once, let alone for like two years straight. Holy crap. And she was like really pregnant. That's not comfortable.  So Morpheus advises Hippolyta to take good care of the kid that had been gestating in the dream realm, because he will take it someday. So. Cool. Thanks, Dream. That's awesome.  Mike: Really endearing us to you, buddy. Jessika: Yeah. serious. Oh, he also gives her the name Daniels because she had kind of been struggling with a name for him.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: So that's the kid's name now? I guess. So Dream makes his way to hell anticipating a fight with Lucifer, but what He finds is an eerily empty hell with Lucifer in the process of locking all the gates. And when asked about this loose advises that he's, he's done, he's quitting and he is no longer the ruler of hell. He's freed everyone and everything that was locked up. And he's not really sure what happened to them or where they all went, whether it was to earth or other realms or what, but he just [00:32:00] knows they're no longer in hell Mike: Yeah. He likes straight up. Does not care.  Jessika: Oh, zero fucks. None.  Mike: They're his favorite kind of problem. Not his. Jessika: Then he goes, Yeah. think I'm bluffing. Hey, here's a knife. Why don't you cut off my wings? Just see, just, just go ahead and see. And, and Dream does. And then as a parting gift, he hands the key to hell Dream stating basically Like Hey, this is your problem now. Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: that's some high-level trolling.  Mike: Dream was prepared for just about every outcome except that one. It is. Jessika: Exactly. We are then introduced to Oden who travels to the cavern where Loki is being held captive and has been enduring an eternity of torture until Ragnarok, the end times in which the Asgardian realms would be destroyed. Odin [00:33:00] frees low-key from his situation and asks him to help him as he wants to take over the Hell situation since Lucifer abdicated and Loki agrees to help, then we cut back to dream because he's not really sure what to do. So he calls on his sister death for advice. And she has like, no time. First of all, she has no time for him in that issue. She's like, what do you need? I'm super busy. She pretty much says, this is your problem. Also, he knows things are going to go down and he hides, frustrated his castle basically. And then he just starts getting visited by all these different parties, all wanting the keys to hell. So you have the Asgardians, Azazzle and a demon Envoy who're like “That's my house. I just want to live in my house again.” Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Yeah. Anubis and Bastet who are like, yo, [00:34:00] you know, who does a good job with death with underworlds let me show you.  Mike: it's a really eclectic mix of mythological figures because you also have. The Lords of chaos and order send their envoys, Shivering Jemmy from the Lords of chaos who... I really like her. I think she's a great,  Jessika: did too.  Mike: and then the Lords of order send their representative and it's a cardboard box that basically spits out ticker tape  and  Jessika: Which  Mike: And, then you get the elves, a ferry at one point. And they have, a really unique proposition, which is that the lands of Faerie had a tie to hell where every seven years they had to send over a certain number of , their best and brightest as a sacrifice. And they wanted, basically begging dream, not to let hell reopen. Jessika: And we did. We establish that That was still a thing when all the other shit went down.  Mike: That specific deal? Jessika: yeah.  Mike: Oh yeah. It's still a deal. And actually, that was a whole thing in the books of [00:35:00] magic. They have a whole thing with ferry and hell going into conflict with each other, because I think it has been almost 20 years since I read this last. But if I remember right, it was, I think Faerie refused to pay the tithe anymore anymore. And as a result, they basically straight up, went to war with hell. and it was, oh man, it was cool. I remember liking that storyline. I don't remember it enough to really talk about it a lot though, because it's  been so long.  But it's, it's good. It's in one of the collected volumes of the Books of Magick that they did, they only collected the first 50 issues, 50 through 75 aren't collected anywhere. Jessika: Hmm.  Hmm. So we also had Suzan O No Mikto  Mike: Yes.  Jessika: Oh, and a couple of angels who were there just to be voyeurs to the situation  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: and Dream finally lets them into the castle. [00:36:00] After he stopped sulking and he advises that he'll be hosting a banquet and having accommodation set up and they could discuss the key to the realm the next day, basically. And we start seeing the consequences of hell's release through a boys boarding school where one solitary boy is staying over during the holidays while his father, as a prisoner of war in Kuwait  and all hell returns. When boys and staff who used to attend the school, start to show back up  Mike: yeah. Jessika: Along with the headmasters previously deceased mother.  Mike: Yes. It's... that issue. It's really interesting because I really didn't like it originally. And I've come to appreciate it more because it feels like a very Gothic or story kind of like the Hunting of Hill House from Netflix.  Jessika: I can see that. Yeah.  Mike: yeah.  Jessika:  It was wild.  Like all of them had reasons that they were in hell.  Mike: Yeah. That [00:37:00] issue is really interesting and it's really weird because it's drawn by Matt Wagner, who has a very interesting style. All of his own Wagner himself is famous for creating a couple of different characters on his own. Like he created a character called the Grendel, who is this assassin and wound up becoming a cult property, had a long run with Dark Horse, if I remember right. But this story in season at the mist is really creepy because the whole thing is that the dead are coming back to earth and all sorts of unexpected ways. And then there were a bunch of boys who were really awful, Who come back and they start tormenting Charles, because he's the only living soul there. And he's also, you know, he's a sweet, sensitive little kid, like who is just an easy target for people like that. And the thing is, is like, that was me when I was at that age was I was that sensitive kid who was just an easy target for bullies. And so it was really hard to read it when I was younger. And, I've got a little different perspective now, [00:38:00] but it's, still tough. Anyway, go on. Jessika: Oh, that's okay. So yeah, Charles, unfortunately, he got tortured by that trio of boys. And apparently those boys had murdered another school boy as an offering to Lucifer. So joke's on them, the offering didn't save them from the torture of damnation,  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: so Charles ends up being physically tortured and then starves to death. And his only companion was that other boy who had been killed on the premises that boy, that, those,  that trio allegedly sacrificed. Edwin. Yeah. So death rolls up to pick them up and Charles says “Yeah, no thanks. I'm gonna hang out with, uh, Edwin and deaths. Like you don't, I don't, I don't have time for this. Like literally every one is coming back. Like I literally don't have time. I will come back for you.  Mike: I loved that she was in early nineties, jogging paraphernalia, like  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: I thought it was fantastic. Jessika: was ready for it.  Mike: [00:39:00] I may be misremembering this, but I thought it was really funny how it was like, I think it was like pink and purple too. Like it was very colored. Jessika: I think it did have some color to it.  Yeah. Oh, funny. So back in the dream realm, two more guests from the theory realm, those two that we had talked about, they arrive and the banquet in. And each of the guests eats and drinks, their desire delicacies, cause , poof we're in dreamland and shenanigans ensued due to the differences of the attendees. And one by one, they basically corner Morpheus requesting a private conversation and he provides each of them with a signal stadium that he'll meet with them after the banquet and entertainment have concluded Cain and Abel show up as the entertainment we're able dies,by being cut in half and then being made into sausage in a magic act  Mike: which. That is a, that is a recurring theme with Cain and Abel in, in the Sandman comics.  Jessika: Yeah, I've noticed.  Mike: But, [00:40:00] Cain was the host of another horror series called the house of misery. And he always had this kind of macabre sort of sense of humor. I know Abel eventually showed up in the house mystery series. I don't know if Cain murdered him every time. I wouldn't be surprised. Jessika: Fair enough. So this is this tracks apparently, each of the guests go off to their respective quarters to wait to be summoned. And they each go to Morpheus, either offering something they think he would want or threatening him in order to turn over control the key to hell. And he advises each one of them that he will announce his decision in the morning. And once in the privacy of his own quarters, he ruminates on the pressure of the weight of his responsibility that was dropped on him.  Mike: Yeah. What was your favorite bargaining tactic? I've got mine. I'm curious about yours. Jessika: I didn't like the whole trading people thing. I don't know. Cause they were all so good in different ways. Like order and chaos were both really interesting to me. I think chaos just being like, [00:41:00] we will find you  Mike: Chaos was my favorite Jessika:  I was going to say like, but Shivering Jemmy was just so funny to begin with.  Mike: Well,  Jessika: was just such an interesting.  Mike: you know, they play, they play with this a lot because, Dr. Fait is one of the Lords of order, DC comic books. And so there's always been this presentation that, order is, the right way to go. And what I kind of enjoyed is that this very much embodies, no order is a dull little box in chaos is chaos. It's not what you expect. And so they send this, hobo girl with a red balloon and  Jessika: like, uh, like a clown face.  Mike: yeah, and she's like, speeding. Almost like toddler English, like it's much younger phrasing than you would expect from a kid who looks like they're 10 or 11. And then, turns into this monstrous thing, delivering ungodly threats to the Lord of dreams. And then, you know, it turns back into the little kid again, after when it was like,[00:42:00] byeeeee. Yeah, I can get behind this. Jessika: So good. She just ate ice cream for dinner too, which I loved.  Mike: Oh yeah. It was so good. I, again, I think she shows up in the books of magic later on, but I can't remember for that one. Jessika: That's amazing. So I really did like her as a character.  Mike: it was good. Jessika: So the next morning. As Morpheus, still struggles to decide to whom he will grant the key. He is visited by the voyeur angels who tell him they have a message for him from the creator who dictates that the two angels will now run hell and guess what guys, you're not allowed back to the silver city Remiel. Oh, Remiel was not happy about this situation. He did not take this well.  Mike: No, he did not it was very much implied that he was about to rebel, like Lucifer. Jessika: Yup. He's like fuck the shit. [00:43:00] Why do I have to go down there? And he had that. He was like, this is your fault. I was like, whoa, damn, you need to go calm down. Your silent homie is not the enemy. there was some salt. This issue.  So Morpheus hands over the key after Remiel takes a chill pill and Morpheus still has the task of telling the other as the outcome of his decision and lets them know the decision was really made for him that if the creator of hell wanted angels to run it, who was he to decide differently from what the creator of that thing wanted to do with it. And most of his guests took this. Okay. I liked orders response of this? This is logical.  Mike: Yeah. And then chaos is like, man, it's fine. We just didn't want order to get it. It's fine. Whatever. Jessika: Exactly.  Mike: And then  Jessika: was even better.  Mike: doesn't she give Morpheus her balloon afterwards?  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: Yeah, I thought that was great Jessika: She's like, oh, well,  I didn't really want this anyway. [00:44:00] but Azazel was especially upset about this whole situation  Mike: Embodiment of bitter party of one. Jessika: Yes. yes. Table for one. Absolutely. And he pretty much said that he was going to consume the souls of Nada as well as his companions from hell, because he had actually kidnapped her.  Mike: Yeah, and we should note that one of his companions from hell was actually, the demon who had Morpheus's helm before. it was a honied offer of him sitting there and saying, well, I will give you the woman that you're searching for, but then I'll also let you enact punishment of this guy who challenged you and to make you look bad in front of all of hell. Jessika: That makes sense. I was kind of wondering why he was like, why would he care about this one, dude? But that makes way more sense. I forgot about that, dude.  Mike: Yep.  Jessika: There's a lot. There's a lot to remember in this.  Mike: You know, I can't remember everything and I've read this series multiple times. It's a dense story. And I always feel like. I probably caught things before, but, I always [00:45:00] find things that I feel like I'm discovering for the first time with each reread. Jessika: Oh, that's so cool. I'm so glad I picked up the trade paperbacks.  Mike: Yeah. I'm glad that you, I'm glad you're spearheading this. This is a really fun series to talk about. Jessika: Thank you. So Azazel tells Morpheus, basically, I'm going to consume the souls of Nada and my other companion, unless Morpheus could jump into the abyss of space of teeth,  the abyss of his Azazel's teeth, which he's just like space with teeth. Like that's what he is.  Mike: And eyes.. Jessika: And eyes. Yeah, that's right. He does have eyes too, but he's just like a bunch of Maltz mostly. Yeah. So Morpheus does it. He does the thing and jumps in, finds them, captures his Azazel  after he tries to go back on his word of letting them go. If he'd have found his company. And then asks his Raven friend, Matthew, to tell Nada that he needs to talk with her because he has some apologizing to do,  Mike: Mm Jessika: The inhabitants of hell [00:46:00] begun to return as the new angel leaders look on and dream meets with nada and makes a pitiful attempt at half-apology and Nada slaps him and in doing so extracts an actual apology, which it shouldn't take that much. But Dream seems to realize how he's in the wrong.  Although he almost immediately negates that understanding by once again, asking her to be the queen of the dream realm.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Bro. She was, and she was like, bro, we've done this already. I don't want to do this. I already said no to you once. And  I meant it.  Mike: I really appreciate that gaming does not make dream this infallible being, he very much shows like, no, he is. A flawed dude  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: and he doesn't always get things immediately. Jessika: Yeah, That was really interesting. [00:47:00] That piece of it, I mean, dream has to concede, but he he basically says, let's go discuss your future.  Mike: yeah,  Jessika: Which is really neat, cause he's taken her whole life away and, and then some, and he's in a, he's a negative said this blank she's for thousands of years been tortured in hell. Like how do you even make that up?  Mike: Exactly. And that was actually something that I was curious about the first time I read it, I'm like, how do you make this right? cause that's, that is so much red in the ledger. Jessika: That's What I was thinking too. It's like, oh, okay, well, what are you going to do now, dude, aspire flowers and be like, well, babe,  Mike: What about you chocolates? I only ate half of them. Jessika: right? It's Valentine's day it's. This is what we do. Right. So, so Loki who was supposed to have been taken back to his cave of acid dripping wonder  Mike: His torture cave, Jessika: his torture cave with a snake and a woman. And torture.  Mike: where he is [00:48:00] bound in the entrails of his own son and his wife catches venom dripped from a snake's fang. And then occasionally when she empties the cup, that's catching the phenom. It causes him to shake the earth and agony. And that's why we get earthquakes. Norse mythology is a thing.  Jessika: Yes. And so Loki though has switched places, the little trickster he is with Suzano No-Ol-Mikoto who was sent back to the cavern to be forever tortured, which is rough. He didn't do anything. And then he tries to cut a deal with dream, to not get them sent back.  Mike: he, he does like, he actually cuts a deal with him. Jessika: I mean, he does cut a deal He does, which. Guy, are you at least get a, go get the other homie from the blade? He doesn't, he doesn't even go other homes. Mike: yeah, he does  Jessika: like he does.  Mike: Yeah, he does. He says what I'll do is, as I will, I will basically create , an illusion of you in that tormented space.  Jessika: Okay. I must have missed that part because I  was just like guy. [00:49:00]  Mike: it's a throwaway line. It's he basically sits there and he says like, but if I do that, you owe me a favor.  Jessika: Okay. I mean, I got that part of it. I was like, you're getting out of this, but like, whoa,  Mike: I have a lot of favorite moments in this, in this volume, but that was one of my favorites where dream asks him and he's like, why did you choose Susano No O Mikoto, but Loki basically just says, yeah, I just really don't like thunder gods. And I was like,  Jessika: Which all  Mike: also I love how much of just a turd Thor is throughout the entire time that he appears he's such a gross dude.  Like there's  Jessika: gross.  Mike: the bit where he's trying to hit on bass and he's like, do you want to touch my hammer? It gets bigger when you play with it. I'm like, blech Jessika: it was so bad. And that he's just trashed. He's just like,Ugh.  Mike: Well, I think bast actually scratches up his face too, which I thought was great.  Jessika: Yup. Yup. Mike: but it's funny because I read this in the nineties, give or take my only exposure to Thor in comic [00:50:00] books before that had been Thor, the superhero, and this was such a wildly different take on him. I was like, this is amazing cause Thor was awful and mythology. Jessika: Yeah. Oh Yeah. there were definitely some, questionable stories that I have read. Yes.  Mike: Anyway, I really enjoyed that.  Jessika: yeah. So we also find out that Nuala that was one of the two ferries is being left in the dream realm, even though the ferry deal was not the one that panned out her bros, just like, see ya. I, I wasn't ever supposed to bring you back. You're staying regardless.  Mike: Yeah. You're, a gift from the court to dream.  Jessika: Which, and he's just like, okay. And he's like, oh, by the way, I don't dig glamour here. So you can just drop the glitz. You're glimmering right now. And then she's just this little petite, mousy hair, smaller elf looking, which, you know what I did not, I didn't like the whole idea that, she had to be, [00:51:00] that,  That she felt like she had to glamour to begin with. And that, that was a whole thing.  Mike: I don't know what part of mythology it is, but, but one of the European pieces of mythology is that the elves have an ability to wrap themselves in illusion. in that they're actually these kinds of weird, gross little things. So that, that was tying into kind of the European folklore. But yeah, it's a thing. I don't remember if she shows up in later issues. I think she does, but I don't remember. Jessika: I mean, that would suck to just be like, by the way you live in the dream realm now oh and we're never featuring you again. Double rough.  Mike: yeah,  Jessika: Yeah. So after dream is like, nah, you gotta be you, boo. He goes and puts not a soul into a newborn child basically. So it's assumed that she will get to live the life that dream took from her so many centuries ago.  Mike: Yeah. He basically, he, he gives her the opportunity to live life again, kind of wiping the slate clean, which is, mean, let's be honest. That's probably the best offer that [00:52:00] he can give her. Jessika: He also puts her in a male body, which like, talk about like leveling up,  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Come on. You're already doing better. Mike: Yeah. And then he has that really nice moment where he says something along the lines of I will remember you and love you matter what body wear. And you will always be welcome in the dream realm. I have my quibbles with, with Dream, especially with this whole storyline. But I feel like that was arguably the best solution he could have come up with. Jessika: Oh I agree. Yeah, when I did see that, that was the solution. I mean, you can't provide somebody with multiple lifetimes, but you can take away the pain of knowing that that happened and provide them with a new life that you don't interfere with. I thought it was a good, a good deal. I guess. All things considered.  Mike: Yeah. Jessika: We then cut to Lucifer, wingless, chilling on a beach, looking at the sunset where he is approached by an older man who walks [00:53:00] over and make small, talk about the sunset with him and stay till, see him tomorrow. If he's still there and Lucifer admitting that the sunset is actually really beautiful, goddammit and giving some credit to the creator. And we end the volume with the two new leaders of hell going around and making quote unquote changes  Mike: yeah. Jessika: the way things are. Basically, they're still going to be torture, but it's supposed to be phrased differently as a rehabilitation, but the angels don't quite understand the meaning of the tortures of hell, which makes it even worse.  Mike: Yeah. It's so uncomfortably abusive where they're like, no, we're doing this because we love you. And one day you'll thank us for it. Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: you're just like, woo.  Jessika: It's it was a gross abuser situation.  Mike: Yeah. And then there's that bit where one of the souls is like, no, you don't understand that makes it worse. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh Yeah. And unfortunately the angels start to embrace their [00:54:00] roles in the endless pain and suffering.  Mike: Yeah. And that's actually, that's something that is, brought back to the forefront in Lucifer, the series that Mike Carey wrote in the late nineties to early odds, which I've talked about this before, but like that series is also, I think just as good as Sandman. It's really great, we also see a lot of pantheons of different gods getting pulled into Lucifer's machinations and there's a whole thing where he makes things difficult for the angels running hell. Jessika: Oh, I'm excited to see it  Mike: It's very good. Jessika: Well what were your overall impressions of the story and who were your favorite or least favorite characters or events of this?  Mike: It's actually hard to sit there and talk about just a couple of favorite moments because I really love this collection. I loved it when I first read it. I still love it. I love the strange sadness of the overall story and the original takes on the gods. And also, I really love the twist that heaven takes over [00:55:00] the running of hell. We talked about how I really enjoyed Dream kind of, spoiling the plot twist about Loki, having switched places with Susano. And, I really soured on Dream as a character in these early issues over time. I dunno it, like, when I read this as a kid, I was like, oh, okay. He feels bad about his actions. And is going to rescue this woman that he loves from hell and now I'm like, motherfucker, you put her in hell. And she details how awful her time there was like, come on, dude, you condemned her there for millennia just because she wouldn't marry you?Like, get fucked. Jessika: And then you said, I guess I did something bad if that's how you feel.  Mike: it wasn't even, you didn't even come to this realization  on your own. You had to be told by multiple people that you fucked up. Like a mediocre white guy in his thirties, you sat there and dug your heels and went no, no. Well,  maybe Jessika: “I don't think that's right.”  Mike: maybe. All right, fine. [00:56:00] It's like, whatever, Jessika: Oh, no.  Mike: like that. I'm coming down harsher on dream than you are. Jessika: No, but that's how I felt about it too. I mean, you're just doing all the work. I'm just going to sit back and ride this ride because I'm like, I'm there with you, but I'm like passenger seat. I'm chilling. Like I don't need to be the navigator. We have maps now we have Google maps. It's fine.  Mike: I'm sitting there swinging my arms and getting all mad and getting the cardio. Jessika: Oh yeah. And I'm doing the pumping our movement of the trucks next to me. You know, I'm just along for this ride. No, I agree. He's a shit heel and a lot of these, and I'm like, I have had more than a few moments where I think to myself, how am I supposed to feel about this character? But then I think to myself, no, that's a good character. But then I think to myself, no: That's a good character. That's a good character, because that means it's complex. It's more realistic because that's what people.  Mike: Yeah. To be honest, he is that privileged male character who has never had to really stop and think about his [00:57:00] actions really not have things go his way.  And we are now at the part of tonight's program where we are finding out after having fucked around for a while. Jessika: Fucked around so hard. So Well, I really enjoyed the banquet and I really liked the different interactions between the different mythologies and how they behaved and what they ate. And it was really funny, but I also thought it was very thoughtful. In the way that it was done. And similarly with the way that each party had a different way and signal to meet with dream, it just really showed his understanding and empathy by adapting to each of his guests needs.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Or perhaps he's just used to doing this for each individual's dreams.  Mike: Well, it's a little bit open to interpretation because in other episodes you see his appearance changed. Like there was, you know, he was Meowpheus. Jessika: Yep.  Mike: So my take on him is that his appearance. Doesn't change. It's just, we [00:58:00] perceive them in different ways. And because we are, you know, people reading the story, we are seeing him in his siblings manifest as people.  Jessika: That's very astute, sir.  Mike: But yeah, I mean, like you looked at like the different art styles that came into play when he was meeting with the different gods. And I mean, I, I still think about how doesn' het have like a tea ceremony with Suzano when they're, when they're talking. And then I feel like it's much darker and moodier when he meets with Odin. And then again, the art style changes again when he meets with Bast.  Jessika: Yeah. Well, speaking of art, did you, did you have a favorite art moment in this volume?  Mike: Yeah. okay. So you remember how last time we talked about how I have this, one defining moment where in Men of Good Fortune hob has these three panels where his face changes?  Yeah. There's a couple of different images throughout the series that I always just kind of have pop up in my head when I think about it. And one of them is from this volume and it's the bit where he's inside a Zazzle and [00:59:00] he's like prying open the mouse and the empty space and he's floating around it feels kind of more traditionally action comic booky, and the way that it's drawn, that's not a bad thing. It's just, for some reason it feels that way. And I, I think it's really good. and I also really liked how at the end of it, he reveals that he is trapped. Azazel in a jar. It's very in keeping with how Gaiman would resolve conflict in ways that could be a giant battle, but instead they're very clever. , it was like when they had the battle between him and Dr.Destiny, and then afterwards you get the field of white and then it turns out he's just sitting in the Palm of dream's hand. Jessika: Yes. Yeah.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: So good.  Mike: I'm curious, you're approaching this with fresh eyes because this is the first time you've read through this. So I'm wondering, do you have the same moments or are they different? Jessika: I actually thought Morpheus had a lot of really good billowing robe moments.  Mike: Yes. Jessika: Like, I mean, they didn't have, I think they may have had like one semi-full page of like a billowy robes situation. But there were quite a few shots of him, like floating into [01:00:00] hell and he was just making an entrance  Mike: yeah. I was just thinking that Jessika: here for it. Yeah.  Mike: he's got his helm  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: the bit where  Jessika: dressed up. This is the met gala. He is here.  Mike: Yes. And then what I really liked about that was there's that moment where Lucifer is like, are you afraid of me? And more visas? Like, yes. And I'm like, all right. Not, your difficult comic book. All right. Cool. Jessika: Just being real between you and I. Absolutely.  Mike: That was great. Jessika: Yeah. So I really like, again, to your point about what you really enjoyed was the kind of feeling of movement of probably him floating through space and having that action feeling. That's what I really liked about the billowy ropes. Was it just, I could almost see them moving,  and I could feel the movement of him floating down, which was so neat. Yeah. Well, let's move along to our brain wrinkles. [01:01:00]  Mike: All right. Jessika: So this is the one thing comics or comic-related. That has just been sticking in our noggin since the last time we spoke. So, what is it for you?  Mike: Well, Sarah and I had our anniversary this week, and she got me this really cool book called American Comic Book Chronicles, the 1990s by Jason Sachs and Keith Dallas. Do you remember those American century books from time life? They were those prestige format  photo history books, and they would document major moments in America and world history from across the 20th. Jessika: I do. Yup.  Mike: I feel like every school library had a complete volume.  Jessika: Exactly.  Mike: So this is like that except for Comics. And so it's really cool. And nobody should be surprised at this point to hear that I particularly love comics from the eighties and nineties. And as I'm reading through this book, it's reminding me about how absolutely insane the early nineties were when it came to the comic book industry and [01:02:00] also just comic collecting in general. So I think we're going to have to do an episode where we talk about something related to that topic sooner or later, probably sooner. it has been rattling around my head for the past couple of days where I just reread I've read the stuff that some of it, I knew some of it I didn't and all of it's insane. Jessika: well, let's definitely talk sooner rather than later, because let's go back to childhood.  Mike: All right. You talked me into it. We're going to do a nineties episode at some point. It's fine. FINE! Jessika: Twisted his arm. There's no violence on this podcast. I'm a pacifist. God dammit.  Mike: Uh, but yeah, that's me. What about you? Jessika: Well, Mike, you told me about the podcast Bitches on Comics, which, okay. I'm not going to lie to you. I've binged the first 45 episodes since you told me about it less than a week ago, you haven't, it hasn't been a week.  Mike: I can't remember. I know it's been about a week. [01:03:00] I really like that show. Jessika: It's been about a week. Okay. It's so good. And they have their, I mean, they're very queer, which are, you know, a hundred percent I'm here for, and I got to tell you, they,  Mike: Like more queer fans of comic books. Oh, no. Jessika: Oh, no. Well, and they have this thing in there where they're. There aren't a lot of queer podcasts about comic books and I'm like, wait, we're here now, here we are. Pick us.  Mike: Yeah, exactly. I'm like, oh, can we come talk to, you want to have us on, or do you want to come on our show? Like, whatever you want to talk about, it's fine.  Jessika: I, will awkwardly approach them with my bag lunch and ask if I can sit with them.  Mike: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. They're great. their Mojo episode, I thought was really interesting and I wound up tweeting with them for a little while because they pointed out that there really aren't many characters like mojo. And I think I made a good point with him. I mentioned how Superman's bill and Mr. Mxyzptlk might be another equivalent character[01:04:00] where he's all about throwing shit up in the air and, disrupting everything but no, they, they were great. Jessika: So good. Well, they, in episode three, they introduced me to the novel, the refrigerator monologues, which delves into the, the idea of women in comics being fridged or killed just for entertainment sake, or to drive a plot narrative, or to make the, the main hero sad, or, basically as a plot tool and the refrigerator monologues delves into it as first-person accounts of female superheroes and how they had been used. And I went and listened to it because you can find it. I kept it on hooplah actually. So I listened to it for free and it was an audiobook.  It was very, very good. And he talked about them not having autonomy or storylines of their own. it got me thinking about the way that we write characters and who we are allowed to succeed in [01:05:00] any given situation. I don't know, I just, I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend listening to Bitches on Comics because they have got me just like thinking about shit.  Mike: Yeah, you and I should talk about a Hawk and Dove from DC in the 1980s and how they just did the most egregious fringing of Dove in a 1991 crossover in a way that was really bad. it's one of those things where I still talk about it. I've been talking about it for 20 years because it's so wild. Jessika: Man. Well.I guess we'll have a really uplifting conversation about that later. I'm sure I'm going to have no zero opinions about that.  Mike: No. Jessika: I tell you, I commit now. No opinions. I can't commit to that. Everyone knows I'm

Sean: Now there are some listeners here may be wondering, okay, how can I do that? How do I know my strengths? What's the next step for them? Jason: One of the ways that - one of the best ways that you can actually understand what is your strengths, imagine this like, so Sean when you first started doing your work and all that, right? When you're doing certain things about your work, are there some tasks that you look forward to? Sean: Yep, for sure. Jayson: You enjoy doing you look forward to, and when you're doing that task as time kind of stand still, Like "Hey what three hours has passed?" You get great satisfaction as well. Sean: Yeah. Jason: Yeah. So all these things are clues to the strengths that you have. So one best way. And I called it the whole idea of your emotional compass. Let your emotions be the compass of where your strengths are. So give you an example. If you're doing 10 different tasks at work, I can almost guarantee you maybe three are things that energize you. Rest of them you are okay doing, maybe four. The last few, it drains you, emotionally it drains you. So one best way really is to take stock of all the things that you do. You can be an entrepreneur, you can be a business unit leader, or you can even be an individual contributor. Of all the things that people ask you to do or you must do, what are the things that energize you the most, you feel alive when doing it? And when you feel alive, you must like, when you're doing the task, you look forward to that task. Then while you're doing it, wow time goes past, really fast. You get into this thing called the flow. And when you understand that when you finish that task, you look back, Hey, I want to do more of that. So your emotions play a great part in understanding how you navigate, what are strengths that you have and what are some of the things that you may be not using your strengths. So use the emotional compass that you have to say that, "Hey, yeah, I do feel energized during this." That's a clue. And after a while, when you take stock of all these things, and if you go back into time, the last five years, 10 years, and you put in more different tasks that you do, and another 10 tasks, different tasks you've done over the last 5-10 years, you will see a pattern. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

When, we returned from our festive season break…J Sbu was acting very awkward around a member of our team - Buhle. He could not even look her in the eye. This was because of what he saw and he obviously jumped into conclusions about it... So J Sbu, spotted Buhle’s partner in his apartment building during the festive break, at night, walking in and without Buhle. He wanted to mention it to Buhle, Like ‘Hey saw your person’ but he was scared that Buhle would have been like Woah what was he doing there. Definitely awkward! When then asked KZN, if you caught your friends partner in a compromising position or at a place that you thought was odd would you tell your friend or mind your business? Listen to what KZN had to say, it might be not what you think.

This week, we're not only back to a normal schedule, but my online adult friend Jake (AKA Lord Jacob Travers of Sealand because of course) sat down with me to discuss his life during the COVID era, working for his father, pro wrestling, being a Cleveland Browns fan from New England, and so much more! Please excuse the occasional choppy audio, I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. Enjoy the episode, and be sure to listen to the whole thing! DISCLAIMER: the views expressed in this recording are not intended to be insulting or negative in any way, shape, or form, so please sit back and enjoy two friends having fun. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Well hey, Northridge family, welcome back to A Little Better. Happy Easter. We are glad that you're with us. Today is the day after Easter. I don't know if that has a name, but I'm gonna still call it Easter. I'm the kinda guy who says "Merry Christmas" well after Christmas is over, so, I guess I'm just that guy. Drew Karschner: Do you really say “Merry Christmas” after Christmas is over? Or before it has happened? Aaron: Yes. Both, both. I mean, it's just like the Christmas season. It's a generic timeframe. Drew: No, the Christmas season ends after Christmas. It just makes sense that way. You got 25 days that lead to Christmas. You say “Merry Christmas” all the time. But once Christmas is over, you're not walking around like "Merry Christmas!" December 26th. That's weird, bro. That's weird. Aaron: I still do. I don't know. Okay. Well, anyway, happy Easter. [Both laughing]So, tell me about your Easter, Drew. How did it go down in the Karschner household? Drew: Well, we had a beautiful day with my mom and my family and my brother and sister. We watched the services. And we had turkey, so we baked a turkey, and we had some good food, great celebration. We hid some eggs, and when I say "we hid some eggs," I mean I threw them in the most obvious places for a five, a three, and a two-year old to get them. So we had a little Easter egg hunt with candy and little pennies in there, and the kids loved it. It was great. Yours? Aaron: Awesome. It was good, it was good. How many services did you guys watch? I feel like you're the kind of guy that would watch -- you're always watching other churches and seeing what they're doing. So did you check out other churches or just Northridge or what did that look like? Drew: I watched every Northridge service and I watched other church services as well. It's amazing. All day long my computer was full of services, so. Aaron: Yeah, you're like -- you get so many bonus points for how many Easter services you watched. I was present for all three of ours as well, 9, 10:30, and 1. I guess -- wait, do we have a Monday? Drew: We have one tonight at 7. Yes. Aaron: Yeah, we have one tonight at 7, that's right. So I guess I haven't been present for all of them yet. I've been present for all of the ones that have happened. But actually we're switching around service times. Have we already talked about that? Why don't you tell us what's coming this week for service times? Drew: Yeah, we're just moving -- so, Monday night at 7, it's been a great little experiment, and so we're going to shift it to Saturday night at 7. So, we're gonna take that Monday service. The only thing that's changing with our weekend services is we're taking the Monday night at 7, and we're moving it to Saturday night at 7. One reason why, Monday night was just a harder night for people to engage. I think after Sunday, they kinda move on to the next week, and so, a lot of churches I have worked for have had a Saturday night service, so we're gonna try this out, see if it works, and yeah. Praying God does cool things with it. Aaron: All right, so it's moving, not adding. We're just moving. There won't be a Monday starting next week. Drew: Exactly right, yep. We are moving the Monday night to Saturday night. Aaron: Sounds good. Yeah, I definitely have never heard of a church with a Monday night service. I do think it was a cool experiment, but I can't recall ever seeing that before. Saturday does make some sense. And we have the ability to do it, since we're having to pre-record right now, so that's cool. But hey, the big thing about Easter, obviously Jesus is alive, that's amazing. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Did you guys grow up saying that in church, "he is risen"? Drew: I mean, I think everybody says that. Even now. Aaron: No, I mean, it was like a call and response. It was like a real live thing every easter, you'd say "he is risen" and the church would say like "he is risen indeed." Did you guys -- was it just me? Maybe it was just me. Drew: No comment. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Anyway. So, we're excited. Jesus is alive. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the response from Sunday? What are we hearing from our people? And even people placing their faith in Christ. Did you have any of your pi2 people show up? Talk to me about that. Drew: Yeah, so Sunday was an amazing celebration. So one thing if you watched on our live.northridge platform, you saw a couple unique things that we've been adding. One of those is you could see when I gave the gospel and people had a chance to respond, you could see people say "raise a hand if you prayed that prayer." Aaron: Yeah, that was a cool thing. Drew: Yeah, it was really cool. Our team worked hard on that. Over our three services, we saw 27 people say yes to Jesus Christ. Aaron: Wow. Drew: Plus, three more that came in from a different avenue in that way. And so 30 people said yes to Jesus Christ. If you think about that, over four weeks, that is 61 people. 61. Aaron: Amazing, amazing. Drew: I mean, how amazing is God? And you know, we're griping and moaning over this COVID-19, but God is totally using it to draw people to himself. I know we talked about it, but I hope that never gets old. 61 eternities have been changed because of this, and whew! Let's go! I'm ready for more, I'm ready. Aaron: I know. That is very exciting. And I just love that we were able to capitalize on this season. You know, not every series and not every timeframe would be perfect for that kind of a shift where we're offering opportunities every single week, but this was just like the perfect moment and God utilized it, so I'm really excited about that. That's a very high number. Of course the number is reflective of stories and people that know and people that we’re following up with. They're not just nameless numbers. These are stories we care about and that we're checking with. So, that's very exciting. Drew: Yeah, and kudos to the people of our church for inviting. I got a couple messages from people who texted me and said, "Hey Drew, my friend texted me and said they said yes to Jesus." And that, just stirs a fire in people's hearts. My contractor. We've been adjusting some things in my basement for my mom to move in, and my contractor texted me this morning, so today, I think it was around 9:30. He says "Hey, we tuned in and it was awesome. Thanks for that." I got a message from my high school sixth grade teacher, who said, "Hey, I haven't felt that much hope in a long time. Thank you so much." Aaron: Oh my goodness. Wow. Drew: I mean, again, cool stories of God just working. He's fulfilling our mission. More and better, baby, more and better. People are growing closer to God and people are meeting Jesus for the first time. So, let's go. Aaron: Beautiful. And Drew, dude, I love that you're living pi2. I mean, it would be easy in your position, I think maybe mine too. We've talked about pi2 endlessly, especially back in the Paul series. It's easy at times to feel like that's outside of our purview because we're, you know, we work with a bunch of Christians and stuff, but I love that you've got names of people that you're thinking about. I love it. I've sent out some invitations, and got some positive responses. Some people ghosted on me, but, you know, that's gonna happen. And so, anyway, we'll see what comes from that. I loved getting texts during that morning. Like “Hey, my friend from wherever is tuning in, please be praying.” You know, people just in the moment being like, “I'm so excited they came!” I love that feeling for people, and just that they're sharing and spreading and praying, and we're all kinda like waiting with bated breath for what God's gonna do. And yeah. It's an especially expectant time because of the sadness and the distress and the fear that people are feeling, but then also of course with the biggest Sunday of the year in terms of people being interested in church. Drew: Yeah. Aaron: Yeah, so let's jump in and talk about the resurrection a little bit. Let's talk about this sermon from Sunday. I have some random thoughts that I might end up sharing that just were from my own devotional time on Sunday morning before church. But that's a whole 'nother thing that I'm looking at my notes here. We'll see if that comes up. But for now, you talked about how the resurrection should impact our daily life, and I just kinda thought, what does that mean? What would it mean for the resurrection to, as a believer, impact my daily life? How does the fact that Jesus is alive change what I'm doing day to day? Drew: I mean, if you truly believe in what Jesus accomplished, I don't understand how it cannot change everything. I mean, it should change your motives for getting out of bed. It should change the way you think about life and eternity. It should change the way you choose to live and act towards the people you love and the people you don't love. I mean, every fiber of who you are should be changed by the resurrection. Now, that doesn't happen in an instant. You know, it happens over a life of living in the perspective of the resurrection and how the resurrection gives you victory over your sin. And so, I think the major way that the resurrection has changed my life is the battle between my flesh and the Spirit. Living in light of the resurrection, man, my flesh wants to do things that I know I shouldn't do, and so the battle that wages within me, it helps me overcome the sin that I was enslaved to but now have freedom over. And so my daily choices of how to respond to my wife when she annoys me or how to have patience --Aaron: Wait, that's -- I'm gonna have to stop you there. That doesn't happen. Drew: It's actually usually in reverse, probably for my wife and me annoying her, but every once in a while --Aaron: Good clarification. Drew: But I think of patience with my kids, when we're locked in a house all the time together. I think of just the random emails that you get of frustration of people. Just every area of your life, the resurrection can impact. From my desire to want people to experience what I've experienced, you know. When you truly see the amazement of the resurrection and how it can change your life, it should create in you a desire for people to experience that as well. To love your neighbor, to tell your neighbor about Jesus. When I look at my life and I think about the resurrection, that Jesus is alive, what it really does is it makes me alive. It gives me life. And out of that new life, it changes everything I do. Aaron: That's great. I was thinking even to -- I don't know -- at the kind of really granular level, or really practical level, the fact that Jesus is alive, the reason you're saying it should impact everything is you're walking through the implications almost in an unstated way. You're like, if Jesus is alive, that means . . . and there's like five or six boxes that you're checking as a result of that truth, but like, why would a person 2000 years ago change my life? It's because what that resurrection means, as you said. That he's conquered sin. That resurrection means every claim he's ever made is true. That means that, if we have victory over death, even now in the midst of COVID, I don't have to be terrified of anything. I don't have to be terrified of even getting COVID and dying. I don't have to be afraid of people that I love having this disease and dying. I don't have to be afraid of economic ruin, or anything, global conspiracy that's making this whole thing up. Literally name your fear or whatever. None of it stands a chance against the fact that the worst thing that can happen to you is you lose everything and you die, and none of that can be -- the resurrection is more powerful than any of that. Drew: Right, and you think about this series. We've talked about, okay, you go back to Jesus' baptism, right? We talked about that giving him his identity. We talked about the temptation. It gave him his credibility. I think the resurrection gave Jesus -- it validated him as the son of god. It just took every claim Jesus had made in his life, as crazy as they were, and they said, check that box off, because that was true. You know, I think of even when he was crucified, the soldier, after he died, the veil was torn, the earthquake happened, the soldier says, "truly this must have been the son of god." It's like yep, checked that box. This was God's son. He did exactly what he said he was going to. And out of that, out of his resurrection, whew. The implications of that are endless in someone's life. Aaron: Yeah, and I don't have to -- if my spouse annoys me or if life isn't what I was expecting or if I never get married or if whatever, none of those things, as disappointing, frustrating, and hard as all of those things are, they're not ultimate. We have an ultimate truth in the form of Jesus' resurrection that overcomes everything. And so, it's kind of one of those "if all else fails" things, like, but it's not just an all else fails, break the glass in case of emergency, like, if your house is on fire, "oh no!" Quick, grab this last ditch effort. It's like, this is so important, so ultimate, that it actually can be pervasive in every detail of your everyday life. It's not just helpful in the biggest things. If you allow it to be, it's life-changing in the smallest of things. Drew: Exactly. And we're not saying that there are times in life where -- you know, life is hard and difficult. Right now, people are dealing with some really difficult things. And we're not saying, hey, walk around like "Oh, I got COVID-19, but don't worry, Jesus is alive." Like, yeah. He is alive. But that doesn't take away from the things in life that are hard and difficult. What the resurrection does in the midst of COVID-19, or in the midst of my dad dying or in the midst of anything that happens in life, the fact that Jesus is alive can change my perspective on any situation I go through. Aaron: I love it. In the midst of the story that we talked about on Sunday, there was obviously two guys, they're walking away from Jesus, and from faith. It's just insane to me. I was reading my Bible on Sunday morning before church in light of what I knew was coming in your content. It's just so remarkable to me how no one was expecting him to come back to life. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, and so we know how this whole story ends, but these two guys, it's not like they were walking away because they hadn't heard. They had already heard that the women had come, they had gone to the disciples, it had spread enough through the disciples. These guys had already heard. There are already claims of a resurrection. They're like, “Yeah, but we didn't see him, so...” They're just walking away. And here's what I was struck with as I was reading my bible. After Jesus dies, Joseph of Arimathea comes. He goes to Pilate. He gets Jesus' body. He puts him in a new cut cave, puts the stone over the entrance. So immediately Jesus is buried. First of all, that's fine. It's to be expected. But it does indicate to me at least on some level -- they didn't want him laying out on the ground rotating, but I'm wondering like, why are you doing this? If you genuinely expect him to come back to life, it might be a little weird, but like, I don't know. Put him in your backyard on a patio chair or something. Like, he's coming back. Just give him a minute. You want to be there when it happens. But they put him in a tomb. Okay, that's fine. But then the religious leaders -- this is what blew my mind -- immediately they go to Pilate and say, “Hey, this guy claimed to say he was gonna be resurrected.” That's interesting to me. They knew that. Second of all, they said he's gonna be resurrected on the third day. That's what he claimed. So they had comprehended and, at least to some degree, believed it was going to happen. At least they expected that his disciples would be expecting it and they would try to fake it. So they're like, “This dude's gonna try to pull off that he came back to life. Can we just put a guard and seal the tomb?” And Pilate's like, “Yeah, that's fine. Do whatever you wanna do to seal the thing.” So they put two guards. And they're standing there. And then the women go on the first day of the week, and they're bringing -- again, this blows my mind -- they're not bringing party hats and kazoos, waiting for the third day to happen, they're bringing burial spices because they expect him to die and rot, and they don't want him to smell. It's like, the only people who took Jesus' words seriously about coming back to life were the Pharisees. All the disciples were like, "Aw man, he's dead. And now he's gonna be dead forever." And the more I was reading that, I was so confused. And these disciples, Cleopas and whatever his friend is, we don’t know the name, they're walking away too! I'm like, what is happening? Why did no one comprehend it? And I would cut them some slack if it weren't for that the religious leaders did! Sorry. I just went on a random rant. I told you I had stuff from my devos. But I've never put it together before that the Pharisees were legit like, “Yeah, he definitely thinks he's coming back and it's gonna be on the third day, so let's make sure that doesn't happen.” And the disciples are like, “Well, I don't know what's gonna happen.” Drew: I think the Pharisees were worried that the disciples were gonna come and steal the body. I don't think they actually believed that Jesus was actually gonna be alive. I think they thought, okay, they're going to try to do some trickery to spread this lie. But, think about it. It doesn't surprise me. Can you imagine if someone came into our world and made claims that Jesus did? I think this is a really good question. How many of us would have recognized Jesus if he walked on the face of our earth right now? What's crazy is, the people who claimed to know the most about God were actually the people who killed God. The Pharisees were the ones who walked him through court. They're literally in a circle, looking at God, and they don't know him. Aaron: I guess the thing that's blowing my mind about it is they knew enough, they had understood Jesus' teaching about the resurrection thoroughly enough that they were taking active steps to prevent him from being able to fake it. Like you said, they weren't expecting it to actually happen, but they're like, “Let's just post a guard to make sure these guys don't try to fake it.” I guess I'm thinking, the disciples, what would have been cool is, even if they weren't sure I'm telling myself -- and I'm being way too generous to myself -- but I'm telling myself, I think I would have gone, "Okay, he said he was gonna come back to life, he said it was gonna be on the third day, it's Sunday, can we just go chill? Let's just go sit there and let's just see what happens." You know what I mean? "I'm not actually expecting it, I don't really want to get my hopes up, but let's just go." Now, at the same time, I recognize it was dangerous for them and blah blah blah, and I'm being way too kind to myself, but it just never clicked to me that the religious leaders were like, "Yep, this is probably gonna at least get faked, so let's work against it," and the disciples were not taking any actions. Drew: But that's exactly what these two guys did, Aaron. They didn't leave until Sunday. They waited around, I don't know if they waited around because they thought at some level Jesus was going to come back --Aaron: That's true, that's a good point. Drew: But they obviously didn't believe it that strongly, because they heard the rumors that he did come back and still left! Aaron: They're like, “Yeah, I know.” Drew: That's pretty pathetic if you really think about it. Okay. “Jesus is dead. Okay. He's gonna rise again. Oh, he did? Nah, let's go.” Aaron: I know. So bold. They're just like, yeah, probably not. Let's at least go find out. Normally I'm not a disciples basher because I recognize I've got my issues. I would not have handled this better than Peter or whatever, but some aspects of the resurrection are like, guys, why not just stick around a couple more days and just see if you can at least find out who stole his body or something. Then you'll be on the inside. Don't just peace out. Then I love that Jesus walks with them the whole time, explains the Old Testament scriptures, gets to the very end, and they realize it's Jesus. I love what you said in the video where you're like, at first they probably were really embarrassed or whatever. I loved that point because I would have just been like, "Oh no. We look so dumb.” Drew: What do you say to Jesus? I mean, like -- Aaron: Thankfully he disappeared. Drew: I was just gonna say, I betcha they were so glad he disappeared. Because do you know how embarrassing and how shameful? I mean, in all seriousness, it's funny, because we're not them, but sometimes we are, aren't we? How many times do we doubt God? Like even right now. You think of COVID-19 and all that we're going through. We say things like this all the time as Christians. “Hey, but God's got this, he could take this away in a second.” But do we really believe he can? Aaron: I know if he did, and he were standing here, I would be like, “Well, I gotta say I didn't see that coming.” Like, I intellectually believe it, but I'm fairly certain I don't actually believe it. Drew: And think about how, I mean, it's one thing to take a disease away. To raise yourself from the dead. Again, we've heard this story so many times that what we say and what we claim feels so normal because we get the repetition of Easter, the repetition, but like to hear it for the first time, to believe someone's actually going to do it, it's hard to put ourselves in their shoes, because we know the story. We've heard it over and over again. This was so fresh and so crazy in their culture and their day that, if I'm being real, I probably would have been the guy that would've been like, "Jesus, I love you. But you're crazy. You're crazy, dude." Aaron: Yeah. Obviously my life indicates that I'm no better than these people when it comes down to the details, but it just does sound -- I love what you said on Sunday too, about how it's just another -- I actually can't remember exactly how you said it. It's just another thing with more traditions that's lost its meaning or something like that. You kinda compared Easter to Christmas. I heard it three times. I should be able to quote it, but I can't. But I love that because I do think that that's true, where it's so common. They're like ah, Jesus rose from the dead. But it actually is a crazy sounding thing. Cause it is a crazy thing. And I've even found -- I don't know if this is true for you, Drew -- but like, occasionally encountering other religions and studying them a little bit and finding out what they claim, all of their claims sound so audacious, like what? Like "Mohammed is capable of what?" or you know, whatever. Like that's just ridiculous. But then I go, “Oh no, wait.” That's of course exactly how all the claims I make sound about our God. I just have grown up with them and so it's very kinda, "Oh yeah, Jesus came back to life and that's what we celebrate." So, that brings us to how we lost the amazement of Easter. And I think that's so relevant for all of us to think through whether or not this has just become one more Sunday where we dress up, or where we have a nice lunch. Have we lost the amazement? When do you feel like you've been most amazed, and when were low times for you in terms of amazement of what Jesus did? Drew: Well, I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in recapturing the amazement has been my kids. You know, telling my children, like Joelle, who is really on the cusp of fully understanding the gospel and believing in it. I think seeing it through her eyes is so refreshing. It takes me back to when I was a new believer. Just explaining to her what Jesus did and that he rose again from the dead, the amazement in her eyes is the amazement that I want, hearing the story like as the first time. If you've got kids, I encourage you, share the stories with your kids and watch their reactions. Listen to their questions. I think this is why Jesus says to have childlike faith, where you can believe in something and you can submit to something even if you don't fully understand it. And kids, they believe things greater than we do, because they don't have, you know, the logic of life just stripping away from the faith that you have. Aaron: That jadedness that develops. Drew: Yes, and I see the lack of jadedness in my daughter and in my son when I tell them the stories. Joelle, just looking and watching her listen to the story and watching her eyes and her being in awe that God could do that, I'm like, "God, give me that again." You know, like just give that back to me. It has really helped me recapture. I think I'm in a season now too where I'm emotional cause you know, my dad's dead. I just think God is refreshing and giving me a new sense of amazement for life. I mean, my mom said while we were watching services, she was like, "I wonder what Easter's like in heaven." Aaron: Ah, yo. Drew: I wanted to cry. But I also wanted to rejoice. Aaron: I'm trying not to right now. Drew: Because like, man. Dad is literally with the risen Savior. It was a hard Easter for our family, but it was also helpful in recapturing how amazing Easter is, and to know Dad is with Jesus. Again, what are Easter services like in heaven? Come on, you wanna talk about a party, let's go. Jesus is alive! Aaron: I bet they have Monday night services. Drew: I betcha they get a little charismatic in heaven. Aaron: [Laughing.] Oh man, I had so many other things I was thinking about saying, but I'm fighting back tears right now, so I think we should end on that. In fact, I want to use that as a segue to talk about what's coming next. I'd love for you to just give us a little bit of even just excitement about what's coming in our next series, and I think obviously it's got some ties to what we were just talking about, so what's next? Drew: Yeah, so one, I'm saddened to see Unfiltered Jesus go away. What an amazing series. Aaron: Oh man, me too. Drew: And you know, again, I wanna just say thank you to the Davidsons, Drew and Meg. They're volunteers in our church that have put so much blood, sweat, and tears into this series. They got regular jobs, but they're making and creating these videos. God did some amazing things through these videos, and so, Drew and Meg, thank you for --Aaron: I don't think he's done using them. Drew: He's not. He's not. And thank you so much for your time and energy. You guys are amazing. I also am excited for our new series. It's gonna be different, but it's called A Life that Matters. And really, I'm gonna be just kinda teaching you what God's been teaching me in this series, through, you know, my dad's death, through COVID-19, what really makes a life that matters? I think death and crisis brings a level of focus to our lives, where we really understand what is important and what's not important. And really that's what this series is all about, getting us to get back to the place in life where we're not distracted, where we're zooming in on what truly lasts for all of eternity. And so, it's gonna be a fun, and challenging series, but I think it's what we all need right now in this season. Aaron: I love it. Crisis brings clarity, and I'm looking forward to the clarity you can bring us starting this Sunday. It's gonna be a great series. Thanks for jumping in and joining us again, and everybody thanks for listening. We've got some cool things coming for the podcast, just some updates even just to make it a little more accessible that we're hoping to be integrating, so we'll talk more about that in the weeks to come. Thanks for listening, sharing, send in your questions, podcast@northridgerochester.com, we'd love to be able to interact with those. And especially now that we're in a season where we're recording after Sundays, if you've got things that come up while you're listening on Sunday, if you shoot those off on Sunday, we might even be able to talk about them in the podcast. We'd love to be able to do that. Please reach out, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or, since Drew puts up his email every single week these days, you might as well just email him. Actually, email whatever you want @northridgerochester.com. It'll probably make its way to us. That's if you can stay awake long enough to type “northridgerochester.” Thanks, guys for listening, we'll see you next week.

TranscriptAlbert Miller: This is the church planning podcast. Thank you for tuning in every week. We sit down with leaders who are shaping church planning efforts. Here's your host just too risky and click with them.Josh Turansky: All right, welcome to the church planting podcasts Clint Clifton. Clint Clifton: Hey Josh, how are you? Josh Turansky: I'm very good. Here we are back in your office.Clint Clifton: Do you know the most commented on item in my office. Can you guess what it is as you look around? Mmm, man.Josh Turansky: There's this great sign that says “District”.Clint Clifton: No, that's not it. Josh Turansky: the map of Washington DC. Clint Clifton: It's the animal head on the wall Josh Turansky: Yes, the animal head. It's like a goat. Clint Clifton: It's a goat head and it's like mounted as if it were like a stuffed. You know, what do you call that Taxidermy? Yeah, but it's made out of porcelain. People comment on and all the time they want to know why I have it and what symbolism it and I literally got it at like TJ Maxx and the in the clearance bin, but people think it has some sort of symbolism.Josh Turansky: Yeah, I can see that I can see that. People have to check that out next time they're here in your office. You're welcome to come to my office. If you're ever in the Washington area absolutely stop on but you can make it through all the doors planning HQ. All right, so David Platt, this is part 2.In the interview that you did with David Platt talking about his new book that just came out. Yeah great stuff. So let me just start off by saying that the you know the seems like why are we on a trip on a podcast where I worry about pedaling David Platt new book. I granted. It feels like that.Clint Clifton: First of all, let me say David's not making any money off of this book all the money that that all the proceeds from these books all of his books actually go go to the spread of the Gospel around the world. So this is not about that. But you know, honestly the book is helpful, it's good. And so I wanted to talk about it.Josh Turansky: This is how you should lead. The things that he covers in this book are things. That should be a part of your leadership Church. Clint Clifton: Yeah, for sure. I mean if I'm going to assume that if you're a pastor a church planter listening to this you desire not just to spread the gospel at home, but you recognize the command we have to spread the gospel among the.And in this book does a lot the books called something needs to change and the book does a lot to combine sort of the stirring that many of us have about global missions urgent physical and spiritual need around the world church planting, you know, all of those things are kind of in the book and so.So yeah, it's it's a really good read. Josh Turansky: Awesome. In fact, you had your family read through it. Clint Clifton: Yeah, we did we read it as a family as is just a family fun exercise and it was really good for us. We talked about some things that brought up conversations the certainly never we've never talked about with our kids some very Vivid things in the book that you can't get away from that were that were hard to talk about, you know in that I got to introduce my kids to some ideas.Very depraved ideas, you know and talk to them about how the gospel applies to those ideas because David brought her up in the book in a really careful and appropriate way but yeah, it was it was good. He wrestles through those things and shares his wrestling feelings. You know, how he's always seeing things and I got to we got to talk through that with our kids and it was really really good.I mean we've taken our kids on overseas which they've seen tremendous poverty and all kinds of stuff and but but for them, too, Talk about it and not just see it but talk about it and wrestle through it with with the family was it was good, man. Josh Turansky: That's awesome. In fact, we have a clip of audio of you talking with your kids them talking about what they learned from the book and we'll let people hear that as well.Yeah, let's jump right into the episode and then we'll follow that up with a conversation you had with your family about the book. This is David Platt part 2.Clint Clifton: David you've just come back from the Himalayan Mountains and you've been there before tell us how you got connected there and what that's about. David Platt: Yeah, so I. How do I start this? Let's see it all started for me Himalayas specifically when I met a guy after a service down in Birmingham where I was pastoring the Church at Brook Hills came up to me. He lived in the Himalayas and he working among the unreached. He introduced himself to me. I didn't really think much about it. We talk for a little bit. In the days to come Heather and I started an adoption process from the country where this guy lived and long story short reason we chose that countries because we had her just stories but a lot of trafficking there and we wanted to care for a little girl who would not then be traffic to her. So we started that process and then it fell through at the last minute because the country shut down for adoptions and we were heartbroken like why did God lead us down that we were praying like for a long time for this little girl from this country and that we didn't know yet.But anyway soon after that shutdown, this guy came back to service and he just happen to be back in town introduced himself to me. And I said you're from this country, right? He said yes. I said can we get together tomorrow and talk and we got together my office and he shared with me how yes that trafficking and all kinds of other physical needs were yeah, very real and those mountains in addition to spiritual need like the need for the gospel just tons of unreached people groups and he said, you know, would you like to come over some point? I said sign me up and I really believe like the Lord had led us on this process and put our hearts and that particular part of the world for a reason and so that began a process of partnership together in Ministry with this brother and the work that he's been doing for years over there.Clint Clifton: Did you get a sense of what sorts of things you would experience and see before you went there? Can you explain?David Platt: Yeah, it's the kind of thing where you know, you hear it but it’s a whole other thing when you see a face. He told me some of the realities about poverty about just the lack of gospel access, but it's a whole other thing when you when you see people. Who are living in really impoverished conditions and you talk to people and you mention the name of Jesus and they say “who's that?” like they've never heard his name. It just goes to a whole other level in your own mind and heart. Clint Clifton: Yeah, so you went the first time you went you met him you went on a trek of sorts David Platt: Yeah, we actually helicoptered in its kind of easy way to get in the mountain right then hiking up. So we helicoptered in landed and I can't remember eleven twelve thirteen thousand feet I can remember. Trips, but then we hiked out over the next six days about 90 miles just threw Village after Village and in the middle of places where they were doing work.And yeah, it was a humbling, overwhelming, life jarring, life-changing trip. I try to go overseas three or four times a year to be a part of what God's doing around the world and and taking folks from the church and other pastors, but the Lord did an unusual work and my heart on this trip such that I was really jarred. Is this is this God calling me to move overseas? I've wrestled with that in the past. And so I started wrestling that and it all together fresh way. Clint Clifton: Yeah, and how does Heather, your wife, How does she receive those kinds of things? Do you keep it to yourself?David Platt: No I it's like impossible to keep to myself and she she's so gracious.She's always kind of bracing when I'm coming back. Like “Hey, anything I need to know?” I was in pretty remote places where I didn’t have cell phone access… I couldn’t text or anything like that. So we came back and we have been able to talk. We got in late on a Friday night. And I knew I was wrestling with is the Lord leading us to move here, but I didn't want to jump into that conversation. I'm jet lagged so she's like “tell me about the trip” and I was like, let's just talk tomorrow.She's like “no I want to know now!” so we're laying there or land there in bed. I'm scrolling through my journal. I'm just sharing different things with her. I got to the point in my journal where all I said was, “Is the Lord leading us to move to this country?” then I paused and. In that pause, I fell asleep. Like I was totally jet liking and so my wife, my poor wife, her heads on my shoulders in tears like “are we moving or family” and I'm like snoring over by that point. So we I wake up the next morning. I was out like a light. We wake up the next morning. She's like can we pick up the conversation where we left off? The part where it was you and me and our kids moving in this country. She was like, “let's let's pick right back up there”. So anyway, I have I have an incredible wife. Clint Clifton: Yeah, so you a lot of people in the pastoral world or short man the missions World they sort of have a negative tone about short-term mission trips, but you're one of those pastors that talks a lot about global mission that urges people to go on Church short-term mission trips. Why do you do that? David Platt: well one, I think that short-term Mission can be really unhealthy really unhelpful. But I think the converse short term Mission can be really healthy and helpful if it does two things so and bad short-term mission trips usually fall on don't accomplish one of. Two things are maybe both.So in order to be healthy helpful a short-term mission trip should fuel long-term disciple making processes on the ground wherever we're going. So there there should be a partnership with people on the ground such that your brain being there you're having a team there for a week is going to help further the gospel in helpful healthy ways, and we don't determine that like people on the ground determined that we can go with all kinds of ideas what we think would be helpful that can actually be really unhelpful. So and we're not going to make disciples plant a church do all this in one week. Like that's a long-term disciple making process, but I think. Are things that can be helpful that we can do in a week? I mean I think about when I've gone to an unreached place in the world and helped get gospel literature out.Like I can do that and get kicked out of that country. No problem. If somebody else who lives there gets kicked out of the country that has a lot more ramifications. So, I mean, that's just one example, there are so many different examples where. We can be a part of fueling long-term summing process there.The second thing is short-term missions when it's done right fuels long-term disciple making processes in the local church that were part of. So when I take people overseas, And we walked through that experience together. We prepare together. We walked in experience and then we come back together.Like there's so much disciple make that's happening and that that fuels long-term to settle making process right here where we live. So I think about some of the most fruitful Ministry I've seen in local churches. I've been a part of that Ministry was started by short-term mission trips that ended up open people's eyes to opportunities for mission right where they live and so again bad short-term mission trips. You come back and life looks just the same like should life should look very different as a result of being involved in Mission like this. The other thing I would add is most every long-term missionary.I know. Got a heart for the spread of the Gospel among the nation's to other places through a short-term mission trip mile, so it can fuel long-term disciple-making even in those places through the people who start with a short-term trip for all those reasons. I think short term mission trips can be really valuable if they're done.Right? Yeah, but we don't want to do is if we're not careful we can actually be harmful in the ground or we can have no effect on the local church for a part of high. I would even argue biblically that you look, Jesus disciple making process he was using short term Mission. He sends disciples out.They come back he processes with him. This is a part of his long-term settlement asses Clint Clifton: So on the other end of this podcast is a pastor or maybe a church planter or maybe a seminarian who hopes to be one of those one day and and he's not taking his people on Mission. Maybe he's not quite as adventurous as you maybe he's got a lot of reasons why he hasn't yet done that.It's too expensive. It seems like an inefficient use of missions dollars to to get people on Mission. It's hard to talk people into going to hard places giving up their vacation time like talk to that guy for just David Platt: I just I would encourage him. So well one just to refuse to turn this into an either-or like okay either I care about the people right around me in the community right around me or I care about the spread of the Gospel Nations like.Don't know make that an either or this is a both an like. Your commitment is to your local church. And your local context is not compromised by putting your eyes periodically on the spread of the Gospel other places. I would even argue not just periodically we've been given a clear command to make disciples of all the nations there are nations ethnic groups ethnic where the gospel is not yet gone.We actually have a command to be involved in getting the gospel to them. We can't we cannot just focus on where the gospel has gone or where we live like we've got to be focused on getting the gospel where it's not gone. So. I would just encourage every pastor church planter sooner and whoever to really every Christian to seriously consider how is my life going to be the part of the spread of the Gospel both right where I live and to places where it's not gone in the world. Like we must be intentional about that. There's two billion people who have little to no knowledge of the Gospel right now. We must all be thinking about what's the part God's leading us to play in getting the gospel to them.This is for all of us. We all have this. It's obviously going to play out differently in our lives. So then if that's the case for every Christian, then I would say to every pastor church planter leader and Shepherd of Christians lead by example, like lead by example look for opportunities and you don't have to go hiking in the Himalayas.There's all kinds of different places. You can go where the gospels not gone and work to get the gospel there develop Partnerships with people who are working there and say, how can we be a part of serving you the long-term disciple making processes you have. And then see this as a critical part of your own disciple making in your own church, like this II feel like I can accomplish more in a week overseas and then aren't just in some other context with the people I'm shepherding than I can in a year when they're in their own context just to be out of their own have their eyes opened to need in a whole new way and then shepherding them to see God's word God's purpose for their life to make his glory known among the nation's like there's so much that can be accomplished through that kind of one seeing that in you and then to you shepherding them through that. I would I would just encourage to the extent possible unless the Lord clearly says.Don't which I yeah be involved in taking the gospel to places where it's not gone and shepherding your people to go with you. Clint Clifton: What are what are some? Practical things that a pastor could do that would in the life of every day church that would ready people for that kind of thing. I imagine most Pastors in the contexts the churches that I know if they were to stand up and say what you just said, you know and kind of urge people to go out.They would be met with you no resistance because the people aren't ready to in any way and maybe. Their budget is not set up for that. Maybe who knows all kinds of things that can you think of anything that they can do that would begin the process of really priming the pump for that. David Platt: Absolutely. So first and foremost, just I mean doing disciple-making. In the church teaching people to obey everything Christ has commanded including making disciples of the nation's like Jesus has commanded us this like so build this into the fabric of disciple-making. Yeah, and the the healthier disciples are the more disciples are making disciples the more they're going to be open to do that.In other places in the world Shepherd them to do that cross-culturally where you live so think through opportunities to do that cross-culturally right where you live and then I I think something of some other simple things. Like praying I think about one Church. They pray every single Sunday for a different unreached people and along the way God has called out people to go to unreached people groups. Just buy them praying. Yeah, I and I think it makes sense when you look at acts 13 while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting and praying the spirit said set apart from Saul and Barnabas. So and I would encourage a pastor church planter we're going to do this soon like just set aside a week. And where you fast and pray and just ask God together as a church. Are you setting apart any of us to go and see what he does? I just see what he does. So exposure People to unreached People groups. I think a lot of Christians don't even know what that means.So build that in the fabric of if not every Sunday like regularly in the church. And then also like when Jesus says where your treasure is there your heart will be also. When people give toward the spread of the Gospel among the Nations then their hearts going to be pulled their when people give and they see all their money being used for more stuff for them in the church than their hearts going to be pulled their.Yeah. So so highlight ways the church is involved through giving and what go what's going on around the world and then watch people's hearts follow Clint Clifton: One of the things. People know about you is that at Brooke Hills? You were known to have, you know taken away things from the kids in order to fuel global missions like goldfish.David Platt: I don't really appreciate the way you put that that is that is a gross misrepresentation of that story. Clint Clifton: Yeah. Well, that's that's the lore that's out there. But the reality is that churches do have reallocate their budgets, right? Yeah. David Platt: Yeah, so just to speak to that story specific. This is that that came out of a process.It was so great. We sat down at our staff kind of retreat and we said all right, we kind of looked at Urgent spiritual and physical need in the world. And we said let's let's make a difference. Let's for this next year. Just try it for a year. Let's cut everywhere. We can free up as much money as possible to go toward urgent spiritual physical Navy.And so we did, you know, how like usually staff budgeting time like everybody's kind of competing to get more dollars. Well, this one everybody was competing to see who can sacrifice the most and they're like, yeah, it was great like if they wanted to win and so our preschool leaders. Chose, they said we have such an assortment of snacks.We don't have to have all these next we're going to cut some of the snacks. So yes, they ended up cutting the Goldfish and that's where that came from. But at to so to to that point. Yes, like we we're fooling ourselves. If we think we're going to be serious about getting the gospel to the nation's and like really make a difference in the world.And we spend our money in the exact same and that's true in our lives individually or family. Yeah, and it's certainly true as a church family so so but I found like well, let me step back. Well, actually let me say the more positive than I'm going to step back the I found like when people see the church giving to what is making a difference in people's lives who are starving or struggling physically or never heard the gospel another hearing the gospel. Like I think that is energizing it's exhilarating and and it makes sense to somebody who has the spirit of Christ in them. There are. I want to be a part of that.I want to be part of that. Now. Let me step back. There will always be resistance to that guaranteed. There will always be resistance don't ever think that you or I don't ever think that I'm going to Shepherd the church to take the gospel right around us or to the nation's and there's not going to be resistance.There will always be resistance to the global purpose of God as long as there's an adversary in this world. Clint Clifton: Now this past Sunday here at McLean Bible. And for those of you who don't know Maclean's a large church more than 10,000 people and it's into multiple campuses you pressed hard for people to go around the world were sort of this may be the first time I've seen you here, press that hard. What could a couple days since since that were recording this on Thursday? And that was Sunday? What have you seen out of that? This was just this week. David Platt: So all the above that I would expect like certainly resistance like yeah, we were like. Why are we talking about missions like this and some people just and I said in the message, like I know people will say like why do we talk?Why are we why do we care so much about work over there and unreached people and I just said like there's two billion unreached people like we're nowhere close to caring too much about them. There's two billion people who were born live and die without ever hearing the gospel right now like so but so there's there's certainly been some of that feedback.But at the same time I I'm so encouraged like as Spirit of Christ in people. The spirit of Jesus wants the world for Jesus if people have the spirit of Jesus in them, then then they will be drawn to a vision to live for the spread of the Gospel in the world. And so how I think about think about conversations that I had I mean one sweet older woman. What'd she say to me this week? When I saw her she said, well, you pretty much put me in my place with all the excuses I've used throughout all my life for why I've not worked for the spread of the Gospel in the world and she said but she said this was a smile on her face like she said I am so thankful.And then she almost got a little sad she says I just wish I was younger. I wish I heard this a long time ago and I was just I was just of course trying to encourage her like yeah don't underestimate the role. You can play right now. I think about another couple I was talking to in. Yeah in tears in the lobby afterwards because they have a job that can go to different places in the world and they were realizing it's time it's time to look for that transfer and intentionally go to a place where the gospels not gone.And so I just love seeing this. Beard of God work through the word through the word to mobilizes people. Clint Clifton: Yeah. I haven't told you this yet, but we I was at one of the campuses this week and and heard the sermon myself and a person that in my church who had come to Faith and I was there and and his wife in praying for her and for a long time and and she decided to come to church for the first time on Sunday that she.David Platt: This last Sunday when we were talking about taking the gospels have never heard. Yeah, but we were saying but it starts with him the gospel right across the street. Yeah, it would make no sense to focus there and ignore the people around you here just like it's new. It's not biblical to focus just here and ignore the people who remember the gospel.So this same couple who said okay, we're ready to go also and in this like in the same conversation, they said and there's two particular people that we'd like to ask you to pray for us where they were trying to share the gospel with hear the weirdest brainer come to Christ. They still the story.So I just was so that one conversation kind of sums it up for me because it was like they got it. They they're not just like okay, I'm gonna do this somewhere else and ignoring right here or they're not just saying I care about leading people to Christ here, but not somewhere else like it. They see it as a both.And so anyway, praise God for yeah the word does the work. Clint Clifton: Yeah. That's and that's really it. Encouraging to me and just a reminder to me that you know, I can think and strategize all I want but the Lord does what he does and it's time I move so my children and I have been in my wife have been reading Something Needs to Change a book that you just finished coming out this week.Why'd you why'd you write the book? David Platt: So so much of what we've just talked about. Like seeing urgent spiritual and physical needs specifically in the Himalayas. Like I wish I could take multitudes of people in those mountains. That's obviously not possible for a variety of reasons. So. I wrote this book in an effort to bring those mountains into the laps of I hope a lot of people.Yeah to be able to see urgent spiritual and physical need in the world and see it alongside God's word and then wrestle with what that means for our lives in the world. So what I try to do in this book, it's it's really different than anything else I've ever written when it comes to format because I just I did my best kind of come out from behind the platform like it's one thing to preach about these things.Yeah. On stage. It's a whole nother thing to process these things when you're you know, when you're face-to-face with a girl who is really impoverished and girl who has been trafficked and a body that's burning on a funeral pyre of somebody who's never heard the gospel. Like that's just a whole nother level.So what I try to do in this book is open up my journals and even my wrestling with a lot of the things that I preach it's not that I don't believe the Bible, but when you engage urgent need in the world. There's just a lot of questions that come in the service that you find yourself wrestling with and I just want to be honest with my own wrestling in that and help help people to wrestle through some of this same things and in the end wrestle through.Not just why this or whatever what does this mean for my life Clint Clifton: Yeah, you mentioned the format of the book is different than anything you've done before it's different than anything I've ever read before and since that it's it's organized by the days of tracking you've taken a few of the times that you visited in sort of.Melted them into one hypothetical track. Yeah. David Platt: So what I try to do is take all the experiences I've had seen in the Himalayas and put them in an eight-day Trek through those mountains. So try to take the reader on a journey. So the book is intended to be like a journey through the mountains and and just seeing things processing things and.I think about when I got down those mountains one particular trip and just on my face at the end. I'm balling like weeping uncontrollably on the floor and and somebody asked me like what's your take away your as like something needs to change and so I don't presume that by the end of this book, like people will be uncontrollably weeping on the floor baby.Maybe the Lord will do that through his word that I hope is reflected in this book, but I do hope that. Serves the journey that will lead people in the end say alright something does need to change my life my family, the church. So what is that try to help people to think through? What what that might mean?Clint Clifton: Yeah is my family's been going through it even I mean my nine year olds, encountering the concept of human trafficking for the first time and. Description of a body being burned in front of you and things like that that they opening up conversations that we never would have ever talked about the Urgent spiritual.David Platt: That's encouraging. I hope I hope it will do that and you know, even even those things like and I mention this in the book like trafficking, for example, I had actually on the plane over on one of these trips. I had written all sermon on. Where I was talking a lot about trafficking and I had done it for a pretty cold-hearted perspective.Like I mean, I had all these facts I had all these different but but then I was I saw it I was weeping and so my hope in the book is to help people see it might help people to encounter urgent spiritual physical need in a way that through and I want to be intentional not to like exalt experience over God's word by any means but letting God's word speak to us in the context of experience.Yeah to help help Shepherd people. An encounter that I hope will not just allow us to talk about these things intellectually, but feel the weight of these things emotionally. Clint Clifton: Yeah. Well, the books called something needs to change and out this week and David you've been inspirational to me and many other pastors and subject of global Mission and thank you for your work and your ministry and your dedication to this topic and thanks for talking to me today.Thanks for thanks for having me. Does your church need a new website or maybe a logo? Well 180 is the ministry partner that you need to move your church forward. They've been working with churches and businesses for over 10 years and they have solutions for churches that are large and small. They also have Support options to help you run your own website.So go to 180 digital.com that's 180 digital.com and learn more right now. They're offering podcast listeners 20% 20% off of any website or branding project. Just for mentioning the church planting podcast. My name is Kenji. Adachi Church planter at All Peoples Community Church here in Fairfax, Virginia.And we did an Outreach on Halloween and invited our community in the Big Catch was to have the firefighters they came out and they brought a ladder truck and they were dropping a candy from the sky from their top of the ladder and we try to separate the group by age and grades. However, you know when you say.Free candy falling from a fire truck. It didn't matter the kids went crazy. It was like Black Friday at Walmart. People are finding Bargains, which is running over each other and you want to see the depravity of children come out Drop candy from the sky. Noah: I'm tasked with introducing my little sister Ruthie.She is 15 years old and she is the biggest David Platt fan on the planet funny story. We we were we were like escorting people at a Gala and Mr. Platt came through the elevator. And she started have a little freaked out but she's keeping it cool because like her biggest... I kept it cool. She's septic semi cool air quotes and he asked to come out to Ruthie was like, where's the bathroom and Ruthie Point them in the direction.He walked away and she literally freaked out OMG doll over the place couldn't even bro. Don't tell me that's that's Ruthie for you. Ruthie: Okay? Well anyways, I'm introducing Isaiah. He's 14 years old and he's a gamer. He's wearing sunglasses at night to my youngest brother Moses. He is 9 and not as attractive as me.And he is a cool guy. And he is 17 awesome and Clint Clifton: I'm going to introduce my beautiful wife Jennifer. She's. In her 20s, that will go with that good. All right. Well, we're going to be talking about the book. Our family has been reading it over the past couple of months and it has his been a really good book for us because it's caused a lot of great discussion.So I want to just ask you guys a couple questions about the book. The book is a story about a track through the Himalayas. So some of the things that took place in the story made David think differently about things at home. You guys remember any part of the story like that? Ruthie: Yeah, he talked a whole chapter about how he went into one Village and they warned him before they came in that there wouldn't be a lot of younger girls from the ages of 8 to 20 and that kind of hurt him a lot because he has a younger daughter and around that time she was about eight and so they explain to him that it was because sex traffickers convinced parents that they could get their daughters jobs down at the bottom of the mountain and that they'd be able to earn money to send back home and they were so desperate they did that but then they ended up losing their daughters through that.Clint Clifton: So he saw some really awful things on his journey. What stands out in your mind as like the worst of what he saw Noah: One of the worst things I talked about in the book is a the sky burials the funerals. We're basically set the people on fire you could tell in the book that it really took a toll on him spiritually and emotionally because he he knew those people.I had never heard the gospel or Jesus really and the they were basically burst into flames and they going straight to the eternal flame in hell you could tell in the book that it really like messed him up a little bit it had him thinking. And questioning and stuff which was vulnerable but I thought it was one of the best parts in the book.Clint Clifton: Yeah on their Trek. They only met a handful of Christians. There was one part of the story though where he talked about actually getting to go and worship in a church with some Christians that they met along the way. Do you remember any differences between the church they visited in the churches we go to.The churches there. The people they tricked up a mountain for two hours in the cold and dark and how when they came up they could see little lights. That's how they knew the people that were coming to the church. That was them and in the book it says that. that it took them. All day to get up the mountain like every ten steps was they had to take a break because it was so far and it was in this tiny house and people were just cramming in everywhere.Yeah, where they like joyful or where they're sad and tired. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like old people babies young people some people carrying their babies. Yeah. Noah: Also in that chapter. He was like Moses said he was talking about how it took him all day and free those listeners who don't understand David he is a he's a pretty he's in shape guy does CrossFit he keeps his body in good shape. He was struggling with that and he just had to do it one time going up. I think obviously coming back down but he's like Moses said he was every ten yards. He had to take a break or every 20 yards. He had to take a break compose himself, then go another 20 knowing that those people have to go up there two hours up go to church than two hours down.Yeah, it really was convicting like. If I had to do that for church, yeah what I go. Yeah, or would it just be like that's too far as to challenging because here in America church is really easy to get to 7 minutes to get from our driveway to the parking lot of church. Yeah, it's not that hard what people I go to church with and consider strong Christians or even myself what I go to church if I had to go to ours up a mountain then two hours back down and the dark and cold Ruthie: But he also explained that when people walked up the mountain and they tracked all the way up there. They didn't think of it as something they have to do. They think it as something they get to do ya something.Noah: Yeah. It was a privilege for them to get together church, and I think that we don't appreciate getting to go to church. As well as we should because there are a lot of places to people don't have that privilege Ruthie: Pastor David explained that that was the only community that they had. Yeah in a lot of ways.Clint Clifton: The book was about a guy named Aaron who was the full-time worker there. He lived in Himalayas and was working with those people all the time. Do you guys remember the part of the story? Where are and explained how he met neighb in the translator on the. Yes, so when Nathan was very young his mom died and his dad didn't take it very well.He started beating Naaman and eventually his dad found another woman married her. She didn't like David and eventually convinced the dad to chain him up in their barn, and just leave them there and one day Aaron was looking for a place to stay the night and he went over to their house. They didn't have any rooms left, but they said that he could stay and stay the night in the barn and when Aaron went to the barn he got into sleeping bag, but then he started to hear noises.He figured it was just animals at first, but they kept going and eventually he got up until see what it was and he found the little eight-year-old Navin chained up in the barn. Noah: Yeah, he was also I think you said this but he was getting beat by his dad and was also getting burned Clint Clifton: and remember what happened later and they've ins life.Noah: Yeah. He was going back up the mountain. And he'll Aaron rescues. Oh, yeah, Aaron rescue them my family. Yeah years later Nathan goes back up the mountain and conveniently coming down. The mountain is his father with the new step child who is like six of the time I think so he went down and he asked Nathan to go back up the mountain to where his stepmom was who's the one who didn't like him and wanted him chained up and beaten burned.And so the father basically asked me even to go care for her why she's sick and he helps the stepchild and he did he did. Yeah, three months or dad returned could not have been easy. Yeah, so it really is a good example of forgiveness. Yeah, and also reminds me of the Joseph Story how Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and then later he helped him out.Clint Clifton: So, you know when you read a book like this, I can't help but think you could just kind of stick your head in the sand and not go to a place like this and not find out that things like stick this in the world or you could go there like David didn't expose himself to these things. There's like an argument on both sides.Maybe it's better just to not know about this stuff so we don't have to deal with it. What do you guys think about that? Noah: I think. Me personally, I think that's immature. God calls us to Go Make Disciples of all Nations and how can we do that? If we're stuck here kind of go out and Mr. David put himself in a vulnerable spot and went out to a dangerous part of the world.And yeah, he came back and I think it made his faith stronger and I think in ways makes him a better pastor leader because he knows he's seen it with his own eyes The Good Bad and the Ugly since he's also encouraging other people to go out by writing this book. Yeah, and he did see all these terrible things and you know kids not having food and you know, the little girls being taken but he also saw the.Jennifer: Blessings of the ministry that is happening, even though it seems very small like at the end of his track. He got to go to a place to where he saw girls that they had rescued. Yeah, that's true. So he saw all the terrible stuff. But he also saw even though there's very few people. They're living out God's love and sharing the gospel fruit is happening and people are being saved and rescued.Clint Clifton: So the moral of this story is if you have a family or even if you don't read the book and if you have a family read the book with your family because it it was really impactful. I mean second-best actually going and seeing it for yourself. The book was really Vivid where there any ways in which the book helped you be thankful for the way things are here at home?Noah: You don't think about it here in America really because we're so comfortable and those people are out suffering every day not knowing whether they're going to get their next meal. We're just laying back comfortably and were like, oh we go to church. We read our Bible. Those people are out there on the field every day.They're not doing it because they have to but doing it because they want to and they love God. Yeah. Jennifer: Well, it's eye-opening to because we feel like we take our faith seriously and we feel like we're doing the things Gods commanded us to and then you read some of these stories that they encountered and like people are carrying other people on their backs just to get them, you know somewhere.Noah: Yeah, and you're like, oh they really are not carry you on my back dad. Just saying. Yeah, not some bling, isn't it? Yeah. It should also it suck the whole book is kind of like a call to action. That's basically yeah things step up and that something needs to change.We can't like we got to do something or. I don't know how you read a book like this and not. ChangeAlbert Miller: thank you for listening to the church planting podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review of your favorite podcast. Josh Turansky: Today's episode of the church planting podcast is sponsored by new city Network. That's the church planting Ministry of MacLean Bible. A special thanks to today's guest David Platt for taking the time to join us Josh kuransky produced Today's Show Sookie Bastion was her showrunner and her husband.Nick was our editor. Thanks to Hudson kuransky and Marvin Marvin provided administrative and web support to the program and last but not least thanks to you for listening all the way to the very end. If you'd like more information about the show. Feel free to visit our brand new website. Www dot church planting podcast dot-org there.You can find all of our past episodes as well as notes and links from today's show. Be sure to tune in next week to the podcast. We will be talking with Daniel Im. Who's the senior associate pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, California. God bless. David Platt just released a new book: Something Needs to Change. You can order it on Amazon here. David Platt is the Teaching Pastor at McLean Bible Church. Bio here.

Do you feel like you’re fighting to get Google’s attention? Like “Hey look at me! I’m over here!! Pay attention to me!!”In this episode we’re podcasting live from the Social Media Summit at LaRoche University which was put together by the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber of Commerce. It's a fun episode and we're talking with Bill Warren from RevLocal about how to get your business found on Google. Google’s algorithms will eventually find your website but it can take time. But there are things you can do to speed up the process and move you up in a Google search. Join us as we talk about….· How to get a Google My Business listing· How to get listed on the local map· How important Google reviews are and what to do if you get a bad one· Reviewing your website analytics· How to use Google Adwords · What “retargeting” is and how to use it to connect to people who have visited your websiteIf you’re a business owner or leader you don’t want to miss this episode!!! There’s gold here!

Welcome to Life After Losing Mom With Kat Bonner. In this episode, we’re joined by writer Kimmy Meyer. Kimmy lost her mom only 15 months after her brother passed away. Losing two loved ones in such a short period understandably sent Kimmy into a state of darkness and despair. Here, she shares her journey of dealing with that feeling of hopelessness and how she learned to find laughter and joy again. What To Listen For Kimmy’s story of losing her brother in a tragic accident followed by her mom passing away in her sleep just over a year later How drinking became Kimmy’s outlet for numbing her pain after losing her mom Her dad’s response to her endless heartbreak and grief Kimmy’s darkest moments when she couldn’t handle living in a world without her mom Her impossible wish to bring her mom back that left her isolated and alone The inspiration her mom’s legacy gave her to stop drinking, turn her life around, and learn to rebuild her life How Kimmy learned the difference between hopelessness and helplessness The importance of connection in Kimmy’s healing process Her views on the dangers of social media for someone who is grieving How Kimmy reacts to other people complaining about their parents or siblings Her most effective forms of therapy and what worked for her in learning to move on How getting out of her comfort zone impacted Kimmy’s healing process Wanting to connect to other people through books and writing her own story with the hope of someone else benefitting from her experience The strategies that led her to learn to laugh, smile, and live again The importance of finding your tribe in working through the grieving process For Kimmy, healing was all about connection, whether to people in a support group, through the written word, or even in finding ways to stay close to her mom and honor her memory after she was gone. Kimmy’s double loss of her brother and mom made living seem impossible but finding the types of therapy that resonated with her brought her back from hopelessness and wanting to join them in death. While alcohol temporarily numbed the pain, today Kimmy has healthy outlets for processing grief that have allowed her to find joy, love, and happiness again. Resources From This Episode: Instagram Follow Kat: Visit The Website Subscribe to the Podcast Join The Life After Losing Mom Facebook Community Like On Facebook Follow On Instagram Transcript Kimmy: 00:00 You feel so isolated alone and it's like, oh no, no. You don't have to be like where, where here? Unfortunately as like the club that nobody wants to join, but we're here to hold your hand and we're here to support you. Voiceover: 00:11 In 2013, Kat Bonner lost her mom in a tragic car accident. She figured out how to manage her grief and is helping other women do the same. On this podcast, you'll hear from other women who have lost their moms and discover the exact coping strategies you need to get through the day and be in the best place you've ever been. Don't miss another episode. Subscribe today. More information can be found at KatBonner.com/podcast and if you'd like to join a group of likeminded women head to Facebook and search for the life after losing mom community. Lastly, if you're looking for help managing your grief book a complimentary connection call at KatBonner.com Kimmy: 00:59 well, I would say ever since I learned about death when I was a very, I want to say it was about six or seven years old when I first understood death. Has a concept. Um, and I remember, I don't remember, I think it might've been around the context of losing my grandfather. Um, and, you know, kind of really trying to understand that and wrapped my brain around what that meant for him to be dead. And then making that leap immediately to being like, oh, that means Sunday mom's gonna die. And I remembered just being very, like, anxious about that for a large part of my childhood. And I'm trying not to focus on it too much because like, you know, there wasn't really gonna do too good, but, um, monopoly remembering, like, not idea, like, and it was always, it was my, my sole thing was on my mom. I mean, I love my brother, I love my father. Um, but it never occurred to me that, well, first of all, it never occurred to me that I lose my brother. And as you know, I, I lost him first. Um, um, and it never really occurred to me that I lose my dad. And I mean, for me it was always focused on my mom because I was such a mommy's girl from the start. Kat: 02:23 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing. Um, awesome. Yeah, it's hard when you know, you're confronted with this and you know what it is, but that still doesn't, you know, make anything easier because no matter what, you still can't prepare yourself for like the death of your mom, even though, you know, eventually like, hey, this is probably going to happen while I'm alive and Kimmy: 02:50 right. Kat: 02:52 Yeah. So that's just interesting. Um, so let's say you were a mama's girl. Um, where was your brother? Sorry. Um, close to your mom as well, or just tell me a little bit more about the dynamic of your relationship with her. Kimmy: 03:10 Sure. Um, well, a little bit of a back story or, because I'm adopted, so was my brother, um, as far as we know, we were never like, you know, related, but we're both adopted from Bogota, Columbia, um, and my parents, um, my mom really always wanted to be a mother. Like ever since she was a young girl, she's like, I want to be a mother someday. Um, and she and my dad, um, we're trying to get pregnant for a while. Um, had to go through fertility treatments and all that. Um, they finally did get pregnant. And then, um, my mom went into premature labor and lost, uh, lost the baby. He lives for day. I'm at six months. He was shooting only pregnant for six months. Um, excuse me. And he was, and then he was born and lived for a day and died. And then the doctors had told them at the time that it really wouldn't be a good idea for my mom's body or the baby that she was going to try to carry to do, to get pregnant again. Kimmy: 04:17 Um, so at that point the doctor was like, you know, if you really want to be parents Sunday, you should probably look into another method like adoption. So my parents, my mom was like, well, that's it. Well, if we're, I need to be a mother, so we, this is how we're going to do, this is how we're going to become parents. Um, so my brother was adopted first. Um, and then, um, and I think secretly other than it was never outright said, but I think secretly my mom really wanted to have a daughter, which I understand. Um, Kat: 04:50 so Kimmy: 04:51 she, um, she did after she, after my brother was about three and a half years old, they adopted me and it was all over at that point. Like again, it was never stated like, Oh, you know, Kimmy are my favorite, like, but I think especially standing, uh, as an adult and sent him like at from a different perspective and looking back on my childhood, I can kind of see like out of that, I was my favorite from my mom. Um, although she loved my brother and, but they had a very, um, clashing dynamic because they were both very stubborn and both very hot headed, um, and wouldn't back down from each other. So they were constantly clashing and I always wanted to be the people pleaser, especially wanting to be like the people, the people pleaser for my mom. Um, especially as I saw her like getting into these types of my brother and everything. Kimmy: 05:50 So I wanted it to be like, oh, okay. Like being mad at him, but there'll be mad at me. I'll follow the roles and the directions and yeah, like being quote unquote perfect daughter for her. Um, because I never wanted her to be mad with me and I always wanted her approval with everything I did. And so, and because of that, I think we became very close because mmm. Cause I was always more last time we saw her in her directions and doing what she told me to do with within reason. Um, so, uh, so we were really close. I mean, she, we bonded over, um, the love of reading and, um, and theater and traveling places. Even at a young age, she would bring me places and he just always had, um, I really, really close connection. Um, more so than I think, you know, I think my brother and her dad achieved some sort of connection, um, after he got through his teenage years. But it was never, I don't think as close as my mom and I, Kat: 06:53 oh my gosh, that is so funny. Um, yeah, I love hearing about that dynamic. Just like your mom's relationship. You're actually, well, sorry, you're in your mom's relationship. I'm sure you're the first person that I've had on this show that's adopted, so like, wow, like they're quite, yeah, I'm like, they're closer to their mom and um, and I'm like, shoot, like, I mean everybody that like I've had on the show, it was like decently close to their mom. I'm sorry. But I was just like, okay. Like, wow, this is great. You have a great relationship. Um, but I mean it just goes to show that obviously blood doesn't make family. That's my purse, your Damian. But obviously no one really asked me about that. Um, so, uh, when I guess, did you realize like, because I know that your son was born after your mom passed, um, and you know, when you lost your brother before your mom, but do you think like the struggle and like your lack of Ho came from like losing your brother first and then your mom? Or was it just like you lost your mom and your, it was like, oh my God, my world is like tumbling down. Does that make sense? Kimmy: 08:15 Yeah. Well, Liz, he, my brother was fighting expected and um, he was, um, riding home on his bicycle and Brooklyn, um, tried to go over a curb and miss judged it, hit his head on the curb, um, not knocked him unconscious. Um, and then he unfortunately was ran over by a, by a truck or are they never caught the person that ultimately tells him. Um, and that was completely blindsided. All of us. I mean, cause it wasn't just, it wasn't something that we ever expected to happen. And you know, when I thought about death all the way leading up into that moment, um, November 18th, 2013, it was always mom is going to die first. Um, because my mom was really sick and, um, she had rheumatoid arthritis. Um, we knew that she was going to have to go for a aortic heart valve replacement. In fact, when my dad, so my dad, my mom and my dad separated, um, late, they were married for 42 years and then, uh, you know, just decided, yeah, we're done. Um, so, uh, Kat: 09:37 fair enough. Kimmy: 09:39 Yeah, like really big, empty nest in terms of both my brother and I were out of the house by that point. Um, so when my dad actually called me at work to give me the news about my brother, um, I was 29 years old at the time. And my brother, um, my dad, I'd rather, I, I never had ever heard him cry, um, ever because he's one of the Stoic, like people that, you know, not really, he's emotional, but he doesn't really show emotional. He's a great guy. I love my dad, but you know, he's, he's just a man. Um, so when I picked up the phone, like the secretary kind of came into the room, my classroom, and I only had a couple of students at the time, um, that was like a before school program. Um, and she came in and she was like, um, can you need to go into the main office? Kimmy: 10:36 Your Dad's on the phone? And I was like, that's so weird. Okay. Like it's eight 30 in the morning. And I asked my dad calling me. Okay. So I like went into the main office in them from main office cleared, which should have been my first indication. And I picked up the phone, right. And I hear my dad, but he's crying, which was like, Whoa, like what is happening? Like this is, I've never heard this before. Um, and my immediate reaction was I knew someone died, but I was like, okay, mom died and it's like bracing myself. And I was like, and the back of my head I was like, wow, I'm surprised that subset. Like they got divorced and my dad was remarried and, but you know, okay, they've been married for 42 years. There's history there, but I'm still surprised that he was crying over the death of my mom because he was really struggling, of course, with delivering the news. Kimmy: 11:24 So I had all this time to like, think about this, build this story in my head that like, okay, mom said, and then he handed it and then he finally was able to get out the words that it was Christopher, my brother who died. And, um, so that was just like what? Um, and I, I screamed like, cause there was, I had two friends that at the time that we're working as, because they had texted me and they were like, are you okay? We just heard you scream. I don't even remember screaming. Like I don't remember any of that. Um, especially just because it was just so unexpected. So then once I brother died, I was trying to rebuild my life and kind of figure out what this was, creases and everything. And I was trying, it's starting to get a little of a foothold on everything. Kimmy: 12:20 Um, and then, uh, 15 months later I got that, I got another phone call that woke me up in the morning. This time it was from my mom's assisted care living place that she was living at, um, to tell me that she had died in her sleep. And I just, after I would say, because I was in the second year of losing my brother and, and then I felt like reset button on everything and then plunged into first year three of losing my mom. It was just, I just lost all hope at that point. And I just, I honestly would just get drunk every single night because I could not handle living in this world without two of my favorite people in the world. My two biggest cheerleaders, like it just was like, okay, like this is, this is absolutely ridiculous. And if I'm not, if I'm, if I'm sitting here sober, I'm like, this is, I just sit there and cry, cry, cry. Um, so then I would just turn to drinking because it was like an easy outlet of like, I need to escape from the factual reality of losing these two people. Yeah. Kat: 13:35 Bless your heart. Yeah. And when I think about, you know, I guess losses before, um, our mom, it's like, okay, if we have our mom to go through this, then it's okay. And then when you have a loss and you have your mom and then you lose your mom and you're like, oh my God, like I don't have this person that I lost before my mom and now I don't have my mom. And like, I mean, yeah, you and your dad can be closed, but there's just so many things that, Kimmy: 14:08 yeah, Kat: 14:10 there's so many things that like, okay, like this is all I got from my mom. What the heck? Kimmy: 14:16 Oh yeah. Kat: 14:18 Yeah. Kimmy: 14:19 Well him by, he, um, I would say this is probably about three weeks after I lost my mom and I, you know, was just obviously sitting in there crying all the time and like not being able to breathe and all, everything. And he sat me down. He was like, are you going to stop crying? No, no. Not Anytime soon. Like you do realize I lost my brother and now my mom, like of not trying, it's not an option. Right. Yeah. Kat: 14:52 That was your dad? Yeah. Oh, bless him. I would've been like, you lost your kid. Like, oh, what are you going to stop crying? Kimmy: 15:02 Well that's the thing. I mean men and women obviously as you do with a lot of things in life. And I know obviously it was so hard that he lost my brother, but after the initial first few months I haven't seen him crisis. So he was like, cause he kind of like, okay, like processes, however he processes that. He has an amazing new wife. I love my step mom and I think she helped him deal with a lot of his grace. But for me like, and like when he was saying that like, you know, you gotta, you know, you've got to pull it together and, and, and stop crying. Like three weeks after my mom died, I was like, ah, if mom was here, she would like you, like, are you serious? And I think my, my step mom I think overheard or whatever, and she came in, she was like, rob, no, like a letter or cry. Like Kat: 15:59 it was a rock reason around here. Um, did your step mom, wow. He never mentioned that. So was she, I'm just curious, was she married to your dad before your mom passed? Kimmy: 16:12 Yes. Um, she actually, they haven't really adorable story. Um, my step mom and my dad, um, dated in there like early twenties, um, then broke up. They both play. They don't remember why they broke up. They broke up Kat: 16:30 and Kimmy: 16:31 had families, had lives, had children. And then like 45 years later, um, stabbing each other through Facebook, reconnected, connected. And, uh, my parents were in the process of getting separated when they reconnected. Um, and then they kind of just picked up where they left off, um, 45 years earlier. And, um, and she's a gem. She's, um, she is absolutely amazing and it has helped like the whole family kind of stay together through the loss and she's actually even integrated. Um, my mother's my mother's side of the family and to our families. So we have holidays together and um, and by my aunt who lives up here, cause my mom's youngest sister eating, um, she's always over there at my dad and mom's house for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, like all of that. And once like I and I owe that a lot too. My stepmother and just being so open, ears open and loving and um, such a strong woman can be like, you know what, you might be my husband's ex wife family, but we're all family and here are my open arms trio. So she's, she's amazing. Good. Kat: 17:50 That makes me so happy. It's always good to have another woman you know in your life or oh yeah. Plus of them whose life it is. Um, Kimmy: 18:02 sorry. Kat: 18:03 Yeah, that's important. So, okay, cool. So I'm trying to process, so she was married, your dad when your mom passed. Um, did you live in like the same city that your mom did or Kimmy: 18:18 no, I live in New York City area in Queens. Um, yeah, I was living there when she passed, so it feels like such a, such a long time ago. Um, and she was living out on long island. Um, so she, and moved, um, from her big house that she had shared with my dad. Um, they, uh, Shane moved out of the house and into an assisted living unit, um, about four months before her death because, um, she had like a house of like four bedrooms, three bathrooms, like she didn't need all of all of that. Um, and it's hard to upkeep and everything. So as a family, we're all like, you know, why don't you live when you move a little bit closer to Queens, so you're not so far away from me and I can get you a little bit easier because where she was living at with about a two hour drive for me. Um, and then when she moved it was about, uh, probably about 45 minutes. Um, so, and it was nice. I mean, I wish she had longer. She had, you know, spend longer time there for many reasons. Um, [inaudible] she was still alive. It'd be great. It's, uh, it's not bad that bad of a drive. So, um, that, you know, Kat: 19:43 thanks pat. Have a dry, Kimmy: 19:46 yeah, Kat: 19:47 New York City. That sounds super daunting, but Kimmy: 19:53 I love New York City. They're at play. Like I moved that from Ireland for about two years there when I had my son and I was like, nope, we have to go back. I hate it here. So now we're back here in the store. Yeah. Kat: 20:07 Well I mean there's plenty of things to do for sure. Um, so how long would you say, cause it was you lost your brother about two years before you lost your mom. So, um, how old were you when your mom passed? Perchance Kimmy: 20:22 I was 30. Kat: 20:23 30. Okay. So old enough, I guess to under stand, you know, what was happening. It's so sucked. Right. Um, Kimmy: 20:33 understanding what's happening. But yes. Kat: 20:35 Were you already pregnant by chance? Kimmy: 20:37 No. Kat: 20:38 Okay. You were not cool. Kimmy: 20:41 Yeah. So I was, uh, but my mom like, cause so when my mom passed, I had a serious boyfriend at the time. Um, to the point where I should like, okay, so what are you guys getting engaged and getting married and having him? I may be a grandma. Like, it was like, this is when my brother passed. She was like, I want to be a grandma. I want to be grandma wanted me, grandma, you and your boyfriend's seem like you're, you're serious about each other. My boyfriend and I were living together, so she was like, Hey, like tick, tick, tick, tick, tock, tick tock like, hello, when are you giving me my grandkids? Um, and then after my brother passed, she was even more like, okay, like, you know what would be really helpful around here, a baby. Um, but unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be with my boyfriend at the time and everything. And we wound up breaking up. I'm only five months before my mom passed. Um, and uh, so yeah. And how, and then my mom met that on me and grandma by about two years. Kat: 21:47 Okay. That's fair. But I mean, at least she knew that like the thought was like in your head. Um, so she and I had a possibility to look forward to, uh, how long after your mom passed, would you say that like your struggles really started? Like, was it immediate? Did it take you out a process? Like what had happened? Kimmy: 22:09 Yeah, it was immediate because it was just like, so actually January of 2015 I was on vacation seeing my favorite band and Mexico where they were playing on the beach and I was feeling at peace. Um, I was like, you know, like they, they have a song called with you and your dreams, um, the bandhas Hanson and um, I have this song all about like, well, they wrote it for their grandma after the grandmother had passed. Um, and it's about loving the ones that passed and how they're still with you in your heart and your dreams. And it's a beautiful calm. Um, and they had played that on the beach, um, during their concert. And I remember just feeling really at peace and you're like, okay, like my brother passed, been a year and two months at this point, but I'm going to be okay and I will be able to make it through everything. Kimmy: 23:13 And then like literally a month later from that time, my mom died and I was like, oh, that like I'm done. And just kind of was like, that's when I started. I would say that my mom died on February eight. Me Buried her on February 14, which was Valentine's Day was my mom always made so special for us. Like we were always her Valentine's and she, oh, he is like just being really cute about holidays and everything. Um, so burying her on that day, just ridiculous. Um, and then I came back to the city, I would say the day after and then after that I was just pretty much drunk for like a month straight. Kat: 23:56 I Kimmy: 23:57 continue that is like, I was also in Grad school and to become a librarian. But like, luckily all those, like all my professors are really understanding because like, they knew my story that I lost my brother and like actually losing your brothers, but uh, pushed me into this round of Grad school to become a librarian. And then I looked like I just lost my mother. Like I can't produce anything, any kind of work. Like I don't even know what's happening right now. I don't mind the day it is. I don't know who I am. Like, I will catch up on my work or I'll go on like leave or whatever. I just know that I can't do any of this work right now. Um, and they were so understanding and let me catch up in my own time. Um, so then that whole month, like it was just drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, and, um, then I was in therapy though. Kimmy: 24:50 I mean, I was in grief therapy for when I lost my brother and I just love my therapist. She's amazing. So I continued with that and I'm like, and then when my mom died, obviously I stayed in therapy and she was seeing me on the few hours that I would be sober day and she would be like, hey, like, you know, you can't just, Oh, you can every day. Um, and then I would say like about a month into a, after I lost my mom, I was like, okay, like, right, this is permanent. I WRAL for a few weeks there, I would've loved to join my brother and my mom. I also knew that I didn't want to do that to my dad more than anything because I'd like he doesn't need to lose. Cause at that point that would have been three kids and two, he also lost his, uh, Baby Clinton, um, and uh, from when he was younger. Kimmy: 25:47 Uh, and then losing your brother and he's lost me too. I was just like, he can't do that to him. So I don't, I was actually away cause I feel like traveling for me is huge for my grief. That's something that has really helped me with hope. You have you any hope and everything. So that month anniversary of, um, losing my mom on March a, I was away visiting your friend and Massachusetts and something clicked in my mind of like, okay, when I come back to the city, like I have to stop drinking every single night and checking myself to oblivion and start trying to rebuild the, because I did it with what, after Christopher Path. And I know I need to do this again with, for, for my mom's memory and I know that, you know, my mom would want me to continue my life and, and to be a mom, like that's something they always wanted. Um, and you know, although she's here, like I still want her to be able to have that grandmother status. Um, so I kind of started rebuilding from, from that point after that first month of just seems like blackout drunk. Kat: 26:56 Yeah, that makes total sense. Trust me, you know, only one who's done that. So I am glad that you learned because that's definitely not the answer. Um, but yeah, I think after a while, like after you lose so many people, you're just like, fuck this. Like, I mean, not saying like, what do I have to live for? Because that's like a pretty negative thought, but it's like, all right, like it's pretty easy to lose hope when you keep losing people. All right. What hope do I have that nobody else is going like that? I'm, what hope do I have left that I'm not going to lose somebody else? You know, you just become kind of immune to it. And I think that, I mean, you're definitely not the only person that has struggled with that. Um, like after you lost your mom, that's when you realize you were like, all right. Like was it more of like hopelessness or helplessness or maybe both. Kimmy: 27:59 Yeah, a little bit more hopelessness. Yeah. How? Cause I feel like my mom, like my mom and I talked every day to help you out with all the little problems and the big problem. So it's like anyone, a little things came up, I don't know, just like, oh, I need to like, oh, how long do I put the salmon in the oven for? Kat: 28:28 I didn't, Kimmy: 28:29 can you call her? And I'm like, oh my God. Like, you know, like, stuff like that. And then like, and then the bigger things too, like just everything. Like I just wanted to call her about everything and it's just so hard to not have that person to, to be there for me. Um, and, um, but then, then, yeah, I don't know. I just feel like, well, I started doing a lot of yoga. Um, around that time, um, and a lot of my friends and family obviously knew that I took that I was just completely knocked off my feet with both of those deaths within 15 months of each other. Um, so a lot of, there's a lot of people there that were just there for me, encouraging me. Um, listening to me, listening to my stories, listen to me to just cry, like as like, I feel like it was a lot of, um, in, in when like if a friend loses somebody, like, you know, as a friend, you're like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, I don't, you know, I don't, I, I'm here for you, but I don't know what to say. And it's like, you don't need to say anything. Kat: 29:40 Yes. They're all preach it. Kimmy: 29:42 Yeah. Yeah. I can just sit with me and let me cry. Like I your, cause there's nothing that you can say that will bring my brother or my mother back. Like there's literally nothing and that's all I want. That's the, besides that, just sit with me and like, don't be scared of me being upset. Um, and luckily a lot. I had a lot of amazing friends that were able to do that for me. Um, and, and family and, and my therapist. I love my service. And I also, um, so for the sibling, um, lots of the sibling, there is a group called compassionate friends and um, they have chapters all over the world for parents who've lost their children, but they also have chapters of siblings who lost their siblings as this whole big grief support group. Um, and since I was already doing that for about a a year and some change, um, I met a lot of wonderful people there that unfortunately I've also lost their siblings. Kimmy: 30:42 Um, so then when I then got the reset button and lost my mom, they were huge, huge, huge, like components and giving me hope because they were just there and they're like, hey, you know, we might not have lost their parents, but we've lost, we've lost somebody. So we're here for you. And there were some people that had multiple losses in that. We're like, we get it. Like this multiple last thing is complete shit. Like, but we're here for you. And with that group is especially being able to find laughter. Um, and just the fact that nest of the whole situation, um, really, really helped, um, kind of helped me rebuild the life that I just was like, I don't know how to rebuild this, but at least I have you guys. Kat: 31:29 Exactly. Laughter. Oh my God, it's when people say laughter's the best medicine. I'm like, Oh yeah, I can 100% agree with that. Um, and I loved that you did yoga. Like literally yoga was, I swear to God that's the only way that I was able to heal at that point. Oh really? That's amazing. Well, I'm also like super type a in the sense that like, okay, like I'm a very wound up kind of person anyways, so that was never really able to control my emotions then. That was very much so like stepping out of your comfort zone because that's scary for a lot of people. They don't realize like, oh my God, like I have to be like calm. Like how can I focus? And you're like, okay. Like being able to literally clear your mind and not think about anything. It's like, oh my God. Kat: 32:15 MMM. But yeah, I love how you were like saying the difference between helplessness and hope. Hopeless, helpless and hopelessness. Sorry. Yeah, verbage. Um, because that's definitely, there's a huge difference. Obviously that's important to point out. Um, and it's like, I definitely like wouldn't, you were helpless and she were, you know, already getting help. You already kind of knew your coping strategies, but sure. It was just like another thing to cope and grieve and that's where, you know, the hopelessness came in and the struggle with hope because I mean the girls, your mom, a mom is a girl's best friend and you know, you lose your brother, you have your mom and then you lose your mom. And it's like, all right, like, ah, what am I going to do now? Kids. Right. But yeah, I love that you mentioned too, like about that support group. Kat: 33:15 It's, it's always better I think, at least to meet face to face, you know, if you can, because, well, I feel like too, like maybe when like people first lose a sibling or a parent or have a significant loss, they feel so alone. And then when you talk to people, you're like, oh my God. Like when I first started this podcast and that sort of thing, I was like, oh, like there's not gonna be, you know, that many people that have lost a mom who can relate to this. And my mind is blown. Like, I mean, there's already a ton of people in the world, but like, sure. I guess just not really having a huge friend group. Um, you know, that nothing, I don't have support system, but like if you don't know a ton of people that I've gone through this like a similar loss, then I mean, you just don't realize how many people out there like have been through what you've been through or something very similar. Kat: 34:13 Like you're like, okay, like those are the people that I find myself, you know, turning to when I'm really, really struggling because yeah, like you have friends, but like, you know, like you said, they don't know what to say or do. And especially if I want advice, like if I just want somebody to listen, that's a great, like my friends can listen. But like if you want advice, um, your grief or anything or help, then I feel like that's when you would turn to, you know, that support system. Um, um, have you noticed yourself like doing that too? Or is that just me? Kimmy: 34:51 Yeah. Oh No, I absolutely agree. 100%. I mean, I feel like I had slightly Karen to this support group that I have found. Um, I, so there's also like, um, so within compassionate friends there's also an online Facebook group as well. Um, and I just feel like, cause it's just, it is, like you said, like you said, it was just, it's so reassuring to know that you're not alone. So even if it's not like I necessarily need advisor or help or anything on a situation. But just to be like, you know, like on, um, I don't know, like, oh, Kat: 35:38 this one true. Well, cause I found that the sibling groups have just been a little bit more helpful and I just don't know if it's just because that's how it came in my life was like I lost my, my brother that I lost my mother. And I'm sure there's wonderful support groups online for her that as well. But since I had like kind of found my group of grief people, um, I do tend to go to the siblings, the sibling group, but, um, during national siblings day, um, which is like, I think April 9th, uh, every year I was like, is that a real thing? Yeah. Oh. Kimmy: 36:13 Um, and is actually like, the history of it is, it was started by a bereaved sibling as a way to honor her sibling. But if you look, if you log on to Facebook on that day, everybody is posting their pictures of their siblings and how much they love their siblings and look like everything like of just seemed like, oh, like simply invite. Yay. And for those that are have lost their sibling, that day is such a huge trigger. Um, so it's like just to go on to the sibling group and be able to vent and be like, oh my God, like I can't look at everybody's posts today without like crying because my sibling lane isn't here. Or when friends like not meaning to you and they shouldn't have to restrict themselves, like complain about their sibling or their mother actually. Kat: 37:03 Oh God. Kimmy: 37:04 And then they complained to you and I have some friends that are aware of that. Look, I'm so sorry I shouldn't be complaining to you about my, my brother or my mom because you've lost as, and I'm like, no, it's fine. Like you, I don't want to restrict you and not have you like complain about that. They're humans. Like I get it. Like, you know, you're not always going to get along with your mom and it's fine. Like I want you to be able to be with me but, and be open with me. But it's also nice to have, I grew up to fall back on and be like, oh man. Like, I wish those are my complaints. I wish I could complain about my mom right now for x, y, or z reason. But Kat: 37:39 yeah, social media is, um, um, interesting. I don't really have any words for it. It's great if it's used correctly, but for some people I'm just like, oh my God, like social media is a little bit early going to in this world. I swear to God I will, but I still people, I'm like, if it's mother's Day and you've lost your mom bothers and you've lost her to head siblings, ain't lost a sibling, do not get on social media. Kimmy: 38:05 Sure. Like, you know, it's gonna be hard for you and you can't like deal with it. Kat: 38:09 Obviously you're going to ways, pictures, like that's life. So remove yourself from the situation like that. I mean, I think that's personally common sense, but once again, whatever. But no one asked me. Um, but yeah, and that's why I try to like, and I mean people are going to post pictures about their mom, whatever. That's fine. But like, especially I noticed after I lost my, like I don't post things about like, I'm like, oh, I have the best brother. Like I had the best dad. Like I don't post those kinds of things because I know how it affects other people. Kimmy: 38:46 Okay. Self awareness of, Kat: 38:48 yeah. And I've talked here at we're about like, and I don't really even like post about Madec my mom's passing and my grandma's passing like that much. But like when I feel compelled to, I do because it's more important to talk about [inaudible] death, excuse me, than it is to talk about life. I mean that's just my personal opinion. Like I'm not trying to be a negative Nancy, but like those are things that people don't talk about. So why not talk about it? I mean, uh, Kimmy: 39:12 100% great cause I feel like as a society we just don't talk enough about it. And then, and everybody loses somebody. And then when you do lose somebody that's like one of your core people that you feel so isolated and alone and it's like, oh no, no, you don't have to be like where we are here unfortunately as like the club that nobody wants to join, but we're here to hold your hand and support you and get through all this shit. Like I've just suck. Kat: 39:42 Yeah. Kimmy: 39:43 But not have, you know, your mom to support you, but Kat: 39:48 especially close to. But I mean it's life. So what that I was like, especially if you and your mom are close, it really sucks. Um, yes. I mean it's life. And like when people realize like people be like don't talk about death or aren't really confronted with death the first time they lose somebody to like, what the fuck? Like what am I going to do? And then they talked to other people and they're like, wow, there's people in this world that have lost their mom or that I've lost or siblings that have lost a child. And I'm like, ah, yeah, what do you live in? Or a rock, like, I mean, yeah, but sad, like that's just the way that society is. Yeah. I mean, I could go on and on about that. But would you say like the thing that helped you the most with feeling hopeless was the support group or like what was the catalyst that you know, helped you? Speaker 4: 40:41 MMM, Kimmy: 40:42 yeah. You know, I do think it's like the human connection and connect with others that that had been through, that have walked there to then I like, I remember early in my grief, um, with my brother in particular, looking at people who are like farther along in their grade and being like, okay, they need it. They made it through the first anniversary. They made it through their, their loved one's first birthday without them the first Christmas, the first, you know, all those firsts. Kat: 41:15 [inaudible] now the first hand [inaudible] you make it through that and you're golden. Kimmy: 41:22 Yes. Yeah. And, and just, I remember looking at that and being like, they did it. I can too. And kind of almost using them as like, um, grief role model of some form. Um, and that was able to kind of like pushed me up and they're like, okay. And I feel like now, you know, I'm five and a half years from losing my brother and four years, um, from losing my mom and I feel like, you know, I'm old lot for their log in my grief and I was obviously like the first few weeks of losing both of them. And, um, and I would hope that someone could, you know, benefit from hearing my story and, and feeling like kind of that same gut feeling that I felt in my early three, like, okay, wait, she did it too. She picked herself up in this eagle from those tasks, all this, all this shit and everything. Kimmy: 42:16 And now, you know, is obviously always missing my mom and my brother, but I'm enabled to put together a happy life and I'm able to smile and laugh and, and enjoy life despite that. Um, which is I, I always, I think we touched upon this a little bit, but, um, which is what I'm working on my memoir partly because like I want to have, cause for me books I need, even before I had lost people, books have been my number one love. And um, I, whenever I have like hard things that happen to me, um, I usually run two books and try to find books that can help me get through stuff. So when my parents got divorced, I like one on Amazon and bought all the books for adults too are dealing with their preferential divorce pf, there's not a lot of out there. Kimmy: 43:21 There's some books out there and using when I'm always dealing with adoption stuff like same thing like I read probably like every book out there, there is about being adopted. And then when I went to the reunion, same thing like, cause I've been United with my birth family. Um, I read a lot of books on um, adoptees who have been reunited with their birth families and always felt like, wow, this is still helpful. So I did that. Obviously with the loss of my brother and found all the books developed, feeling the sibling loss, loss of my mother, then all the books and read them. And that journey. A lot of hope too, cause like in this book, there's just so much content of other people that have gone through the same thing and, and everything. Um, and uh, so I feel like I'm like, I kind of want to add my voice to do that for other readers out there that are devour books and, and use books as a former therapy. Um, and as a form of healing. Kat: 44:20 Yeah. That's so funny. I love how books become very comforting. Um, and that sort of regard. Um, it's just kind of like an escape. Like you can like just sit there and read. At least that's how, you know, I looked at it. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. Well I love that you were able to. Hopelessness is definitely, um, I mean a fee grief in general is, but that is like a very strange feeling. You're like, okay, I've literally never felt this way in tone now. So now what, um, what would you say are actually I take that back. What would you like, what advice would you give to someone you know who is struggling with this? Kimmy: 45:13 MMM, Speaker 4: 45:15 yeah. Kimmy: 45:16 Well, honestly, like to not give up hope even when you want to. Um, Speaker 4: 45:24 that sucks. Kimmy: 45:29 Absolutely. Like it's a hot, there's no way to deny that losing somebody that you love is in your mother. Like even if, I mean, honestly, even if you didn't have a close relationship with your mom, it's still like that stuff at a different level because then it's just like, you know, there's regret. Um, and wondering what could have been if there was more of a, you guys did have a relationship or time to reconcile or, or whatever the case may be. Um, so, and there's no way around the fact that it's like, it just totally sucks. Um, but Speaker 4: 46:05 that there's hope Kimmy: 46:10 you can, you can smile again. You can laugh again. You can, you can live again and, um, and just lean on other people. Like, we are a society of, um, you know, he likes to make connections like this walk and we'd like to share stories and everybody has a story like we're sharing. Um, and just kind of find your, your grief, um, decrease tribe of some sort of, of other other women or men who have four in the same boat as you. Um, and that ambitious makes a huge, humongous, humongous difference. And I feel like, you know, I love that you're doing this podcast because I feel like they can't necessarily connect with somebody in person, in their community, um, that there's, you know, podcasts like this. Uh, they can read people from lesson two and, um, and just not feel so alone because you're not like, that's it. That's a huge part of their life is I said, I feel like I heard early on is you're not alone and you know, really aren't, um, you know, you have a lot of people that are here for you. Okay. Kat: 47:23 Yeah. It's important to know too, like, especially somebody who lives in like a rural town or something like that. And like, books are great. Like if they're not for them, because you have to be very in tune, like when you're reading a book and you have to like focus on it and sometimes obviously focusing on the content that is, you know, related to your loss isn't always the easiest thing. So thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate that. And I know a lot of times like, you know, they're those support groups and stuff like that on face book, but sometimes those things, I'm not saying they aren't monitored, but sometimes it can be filled with a lot of like a negative self talk with you know, the members and that might not be very encouraging for other people. So I made it a point like, you know, like there's not going to be any negative self talk on here, like us all going to be inspiring that kind of Juke cope with the struggle, that sort of thing. So it's like, it's literally only giving people hope. Um, at least that's the goal. But yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. Is there anything else that you want to leave the listeners? I know that we kind of like touch on that briefly about, you know, any advice that you would give them. Kimmy: 48:33 But yeah, Kat: 48:37 just know you're not alone. Kimmy: 48:39 Yeah. You're not alone. And that was a humongous filled me with hope as well. Kat: 48:49 Even being outside like nature too. Does that help you? I love that. Like going on a nature walk quick. If you can't travel, like go see the world. I mean, Kimmy: 48:58 yeah, I mean, well yeah, you can go walking in the woods. Is part of that different parts of the world. Kat: 49:04 Was your mom cremated by chance or, because what'd your mom cremated by chance because I noticed that um, like my mom was, and I guess that's why I feel so close to her, like in nature, but maybe I'm just crazy. Oh no, that's right. You said you buried her. Kimmy: 49:20 Yeah, no, he to be varied. Kat: 49:23 Let me, maybe it's just the world. It's like, okay. Like, oh, like there's a sunset, a sunset on a bad day. Like Hey, Kimmy: 49:31 absolutely. Yeah. I feel like, well, my mom loves nature as well, but that also kind of helps me feel connected to her because of her love for nature. But yeah, I think like, yeah, like you said, even like going for a walker, you know, if you can't travel necessarily, like getting out of your head, it's just like, it's like I go places, um, on the, on the hard anniversaries when I can, um, I try to go do something and um, and you suddenly out of the norm because it's just, it just helps, you know, like he said, get out of your hat and everything. Kat: 50:14 Yeah. Especially if you're alone too. That's what I've noticed. That's actually, I literally decided this year, like on mother's Day or my mom's anniversary, like if I try, like, if I can just go somewhere I've never been and I go by, I'll take my dog. Um, but oh my God, I did not realize how helpful it was, especially if there's no other, like, I know it sounds stupid, but you can't control the weather, so. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so glad to have you. Um, tell me the listener, um, where can the listeners find like more of your writing? Kimmy: 50:54 Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so right now, um, I am working on my first shop of my memoir, so super, super early stages. Um, so, and I am documenting that on Instagram and my Instagram handle is writing Wednesdays. Um, so Kat: 51:12 that's why Wednesdays, Kimmy: 51:15 um, well two reasons. One I love alliteration is one of my favorite things. Kat: 51:21 Fair enough. Kimmy: 51:23 The second reason really is, um, so I am, I'm a single mom and I have been able to for the past, I would say formal three or four months. Um, I, I've gotten a babysitter on Wednesdays and I get, and that, that is my dedicated time to work on my memoir that I wound up doing a lot of my writing on Wednesdays. Kat: 51:48 Oh, that's so cute. Kimmy: 51:49 Oh yeah. That's it. That's where it comes from right now. Kat: 51:52 It wasn't super money. Oh yeah. It was so great to have you on. I hope you enjoyed it. Kimmy: 51:58 Yes, I did. Thank you so much for having me. I so enjoyed it. Kat: 52:01 You're listening to Life After Losing Mom with me, Kat Bonner. On this podcast, you'll hear from other women who have lost their moms and discovered the exact coping strategies you need to get through the day and be in the best place you've ever been. Don't miss another episode of life after losing mom. Subscribe today. More information can be found at KatBonner.com/podcast and if you'd like to join a group of likeminded women head to Facebook and search for the life after losing mom community. Speaker 6: 52:34 [inaudible] Voiceover: 52:54 this has been an OutsourceYourPodcast.com production.

  Fitting In Fitness & Healthy Eating... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry we have a return guest from episode 93, Dr. Slyvia Gonsahn-Bollie. She is America's Favorite Obesity Doctor and she comes back for a second time to help our busy women especially moms in the Lunch and Learn Community just how to fit health and fitness into their busy schedule. This episode should serve as the busy mom's guide to get over the hump of losing weight and staying on their fitness journey. The conversation follows the trend of our initial one where we focus on many of the obstacles that these busy women face when dealing with trying to juggle working, taking care of families and having little time to actually take care of themselves. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources - These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media Links/Resources: Official website – www.drsylviagbollie.com Twitter – www.twitter.com/fittmd Facebook – www.facebook.com/fittmd Instagram –  www.instagram.com/fittmd Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 111 Transcript Episode 111 Transcript.. Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I’m your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com, as well as the host of Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Bring you another amazing episode with Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie who is, if you remember that name is actually a repeat guest of ours. I was very fortunate enough to get her back on a second time because I know she's crazy busy, but I was able to get it back because I had a lot of feedback from her previous episode, which was episode 93. If you're unfamiliar or if you just a new subscriber since the last time she was on. And she talked about obesity, obesity-related medicine, and gave us a lot of tips on how to kind of get us and keep us on our new year's resolutions, especially because a lot of them tend to fall under the wanting to lose weight category. So we got her back and again, I got a question from Lunch and Learn community. Well, Dr. Berry, I'm a busy mom. I work, I take care of the kids, I take care of my family. I really don't have the time to be healthy. Like what can I do? And that's where, you know what I said, I could've given her some tips, right? I could have given her some tips. They probably wouldn't have been the best. But I say good. If I'm going to talk about weight loss tips and especially for my busy moms out there, why not bring America's obesity specialist to talk to us, to educate us, to really get us on the right path. So this episode is going to be for the busy moms out there who have way too many responsibilities, way too many things to do and unfortunately that happens, right? And we all know is that the health tends to fall by the wayside, right? Like usually you have to take care of everyone's personal wellbeing and housing and work and everything else tend to happen. And unfortunately our health usually suffers, right? Usually is the case in this standpoint here. So we have Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie to really educate our busy moms and gives tips on how to stay on our weight journey. Right? And we're going to talk about weight journey a lot because I think, and I loved it because a lot of times we think about weight loss at this point A to point B type of thing. But really what she talks about, she says, no, this is a lifestyle change that you have to like go for the rest of your life, right? So even when you get to that goal weight, you have to understand like you have to keep on going. That’s just the second part, right? We broke it down in parts. Just a second part, just getting to the weight. So quick little bio again, if you had not checked out episode 93 please go back and check out episode 93, so drberrypierre.com/llp093 because it was an amazing guest, especially it was an amazing topic. And again, we're hitting home today with the busy moms. So Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie to just to kind of give a little quick bio from her. She's a board-certified internal medicine physician. She's an obesity medicine specialist who helps inspire optimal health through honesty and hope. She lost 40 pounds, overcoming emotional eating and physical inactivity. Now she has both personal as well as professional expertise in weight loss as well as weight maintenance. As a working mom herself, a wife and self-professed foodie. She keenly understands the limitations that prevent busy people from achieving their health goals. Dr. Bollie is passionate about helping busy people, especially working women, obtain and maintain a happy and healthy weight. At the end we're going to give you her links to follow her cause she's pretty much on all social media is just like I am. Even in the show notes, you'll have a chance to find where she's at because again, this is a person that you need to follow. She does actually weekly teachings on health and weight loss and again absolutely amazing person. Like I said, I was very fortunate enough to get here a second time around. So again, if you have not had a chance, remember, subscribe to the podcast, leave a five-star review and let her know how great she did on the podcast. Because I tell you, she blew it out of the water. You guys have a great day. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright, Lunch and Learn community, we have a repeat guest on today's episode and definitely one that was, you know, really requested that you guys love for an episode. You know, Dr. Bollie and you know, she's come back, right. You know, I was able to get her to come back for at least one more time. We haven't annoyed it too much and she really going to be talking about the busy mom. Right? And I know I have a lot of Lunch and Learn community listeners who ran into that issue of having to balance their health, their kids' well-being, they spouse well-being and everything, job, everything else. And unfortunately, that health tends to fall at the wayside. So ladies and gentlemen, please again a quick little introduction again and thank you for Dr. Bollie for coming back to the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Berry. You know, I love being here. You're so wonderful. So thank you for having the back and forth. And I love the lunch and learn community and just the fact that you're spreading this information because it's so important and the diversity and the topics that you're sharing also. So thank you for having me back. Dr. Berry: So for those who, maybe, someone, you know, got a lot of listeners since the last time we talked, right? So just give them a little bit of introduction of who you are. You know, why you're so important and you know why, you know, I was again, fortunate enough to kind of get you for a second time around? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Oh, awesome. Okay. Well, so I am Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie. I'm board certified in internal medicine and obesity medicine, but I probably should back because you know, we all have this program spill that we do. But I am a wife. I'm a mom, I'm a doctor, I'm a runner, I'm a foodie. So I have many hats and, and, but I'm passionate about helping busy people, especially work for women, obtain and maintain our happy, healthy weight through practical lifestyle interventions. And this for me all kind of started with my own weight loss journey, which began in 2014 late 2014 but I count 2015 as my actual start. That was when I did my first 10 K at trained up to and did it. So I've just sold it five years on my fitness and weight loss journey and I don't even like calling it a weight loss journey and we'll talk about that my weight journey. So I have personal and professional experience with it. I am. When I started this journey, it was about a year and a half after having my first child, my son. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or on social media, I have a second child now. I'm five months postpartum. But with my first child, that was when this, what I'm going to talk about today, really hit home for me. You know, I was getting used to being a new mom. I was just finishing up my residency. I was a chief resident of transitioning. So chief resident, which for us is an extra fourth year. And also I'm an attending, so becoming like stepping into my new, into my career. And then I was also just getting used to everything. And so I put everything ahead of me and my health and my weight, even though I was preaching health to other people. Right? So I was 40 pounds overweight at the time my son was one and I kind of held onto that for about a year and a half. So finally it started to impact the way I was counseling patients. I would be like what did you eat for lunch? And then I would hear in my own head, what did you eat for lunch? So exercise, like I would ask the patient, did you exercise it here? I hear the voice, did you exercise? And so I started to feel very convicted about what I was doing. So this, for that reason I started to focus on my own health and prioritize in it. And I started by training for that race of which is the monument, 10k, a popular race here in Richmond, Virginia where I live. And then from then just kept building and building and growing. But it's not easy, you know. So because of that, I know, as I said, it's hard to fit in fitness. It's challenging to make those healthy food choices, especially when you're stress, especially when you're busy. So I know that the journey has to be individualized in some ways. Like we can share in a community in terms of encouraging each other. And there are some general things that theme to it that we can do, but you really have to address your own individual journey to try to be able to fit this in. Dr. Berry: Interesting. We should definitely touch on a few parts. One, I want to highlight that she said this, this is one of her first 10 k's which means she's run multiple, which is absolutely amazing. And you talk about the weight journey. I take care of a lot of patients and now I do inpatient medicine. So I tend to see a lot of the end state stuff when I did inpatient medicine, outpatient medicine, you know. It was always that start right where I used to see a lot of at the beginning. And I think they were mentally at the point where they're saying doc like I'm ready to lose some weight, but I didn't necessarily know how. And I think a lot of times it was that population of those moms, those women who were busy lifting. Like again, it is not like they weren't doing anything. Life was just happening all around them and whether it be work, whether it be school or whether taking care of kids, whether be taken care of their family. Unfortunately, the health guy left on the back burner. So when you talk about your personal weight journey, was it like, were those patients the big like kind of step that's a, you know what I gotta do something because I like how can I keep looking at my patients over and over and over again and tell them exactly what they need to do to lose weight, but I'm not personally following it myself. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Definitely. I mean, because, you know, as I've mentioned, I think in the last podcast. There’s a study out there that shows that physicians who are overweight or have obesity are less likely to counsel their patients on it. And I think for me personally, I started to feel that I understand that because I almost felt like a hypocrite, you know, talking to people about what they were doing and I was not doing it and live in it. So once I noticed that it was starting to, it had gotten to the point that I felt it was starting to impact the way I was able to deliver care, especially to a set population of patients that really needed the care. Then I said, okay, it's time for me to reevaluate it. And I think for me personally, how and why it was helpful, it really improved by empathy, right? Because there's something different. And we all know this, we were both parents. So you know, there's different from book learning. Like there's these we would say by the book, but as a parent, but once you have your own child, you're like, and you see the nuances, oh, maybe I can't do that. Maybe an extra 30 minutes of screen time is okay today. Yeah, that's it. That's just what it boils down to. So that's what I think happened. And so what I realized that I had to do was to number one, stop just telling people what to do and think about why and so, and think about what I was doing in that let me be able to help to empathize and to better help people. So the first step really was as stop beating myself up and being very negative because you know, I was sending these lots of the goals that weren't really attainable for a person who had eight then a 16-month-old child and also had a busy professional husband and had a lot and was working full time. So maybe really saying that I need to work out 30 minutes every day, wasn't going to happen initially in the beginning or saying that I should eat, you know, go from drinking soda to drink and water every day. That was going to be challenging because you've got to get acclimated to that decrease in and that's on many levels, not just psychologically, but also physiologically. Your body just used to a certain level of sweetness and you got to tone it down so you're able to tolerate the regular water - clean water. I get used to drinking water. Dr. Berry: I get used to, sometimes I look at juice now and it looks so good. Get Back. (Yeah.) Now the goals were, were there goals that you know we're kind of placed upon you? Like people thought like, well, you should be able to do 30 minutes every day. You should just cold turkey drink juice. Was those like just kind of like outside goals, kind of waited upon you? Where those kinds of like internalized in yourself and then you kind of realize this is not a successful route if I continue to try to go this way? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah, well I think, you know, we have guidelines right? As, as physicians and a dietician’s health community, so their guidelines set, right? So the American Heart Association recommends that we get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. So that's two and a half hours of exercise per week and moderate being that you can move without sinking. So like while you're jogging, while you're walking, you're moving fast enough that you're not sinking or an hour and a half of vigorous exercise, which is moving fast and if we can't talk while you exercise. So that's the American heart association guidelines. So that, of course, is what I would strive for because that's when I'm counseling my patients on it. Now the dietary guidelines are controversial for people. There are people you know who don't believe in me, don't believe in dairy, things like that. Personally, I feel like the literature really supports more of a Mediterranean diet and as close to the plant-based as you can be, which is hard because I do love my chicken. I love chicken. So unapologetically I'll try it. So, but you know, so my goal was to really minimize, I don't eat red meat or pork since I was since age 15 so that wasn't hard for me. But kind of back on like chicken, fried foods, things like that, and trying to eat as clean as possible, which is minimizing process foods. So those were my goals based on all the data and all the things that I've seen about eating a healthy diet. So that, and for me, the big one was sugar like and is still cutting down on sugar because when I'm stressed I tend to eat a lot of sugar. And that's again very physiological thing because those high levels of cortisol make you want to eat more sugar. Dr. Berry: No stress like a mom. No, no, no. No stress. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So that's where I feel a lot of pressure came from because I knew the guidelines, I know what I'm supposed to do, but you know, there's a gap between what I'm doing and what I need to do. Dr. Berry: So when you were making the mental transition even before you made the leap, like physically as far as stopping doing things and you know, working out more, what was the support system like? Because I feel when I talked to the moms out there, a lot of times they feel like it's on their own. And they feel because it's on their own, that's what makes it more difficult than not to even start and if they do start to continue. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. Well, I'm glad you talked about it. So let me characterize this. What would I call the person then? Then we'll get the "not answer that question because I do want to talk about what I called this busy woman syndrome". That's what I call it syndrome. Or for those people who are in the church also known as Martha Syndrome. So people who are familiar with the Bible and things like that. So if you are not familiar with the Bible, I'll tell you real quick. So it's a story about two sisters, Mary and Martha and Jesus comes to visit and this is paraphrased of course. Jesus comes to visit their house and you know, Martha is all busy. She's in the kitchen, she's cooking, she's cleaning up their house, she's just all over the place busy. Really what I would be doing. Mary meanwhile is the chill sister. She's chilling, seat by the Jesus at his feet, just like enjoying the moment. And Martha comes out. It just like I could see myself doing it. It's like, Hey Jesus, like tell Mary to get some business about herself. Tell her to come and help me. Let's get ready. Do something. And instead of reprimanding Mary as you would expect, Jesus actually says, Martha, you are concerned about many things. Meaning you got way too much going on. Mary has chosen the most important thing, which is to just be present at the moment, to enjoy the moment and to spend time meaningfully with people she loves. So I think this is a perfect picture of kind of how we are. We put a lot on ourselves and some of it, yes it's true, we must do it. I mean we have to work, have to cook, like all these things. But there's a time and a place where we can actually, where we feel like we need to be doing something where we can take a break and sit down and be present in the moment. And I think when it comes to health, we have to carve out those moments where we can sit and be present and say, I'm going to prioritize my health. Whether that moment is eating something healthy or making a healthier choice or is actually going out and exercising and doing something for a few minutes for ourselves. Dr. Berry: More than Mary, less than Martha. I love it. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So now, you asked the question on what was the support system like? So that's why I kind of bring out too. For me, I'm a person of faith. So I think a lot of times when we think about like our health journey or weight journey in general, and again getting back to this concept of weight be, and we can talk about Dr. Berry at the end, may be about, it'll be in a weight journey and not just a weight loss journey because too often we focus on that weight loss. And once we get to that weight loss is like, Oh, I lost the weight and let me go back to eat and what I eat and you know, and you regain all the weight and you're back on another weight loss journey. So I really want to shift our mindset to it being a weight journey where that includes the weight loss, the weight maintenance and everything where we're doing it. So for the weight journey, it's so important not to do it in a vacuum. For me, I followed the philosophy of faith, family, friends, fitness, and food. So I like alliteration. So all those F's. So, but faith is the basis of thinking about it. You know, really for me Biblically, what does the Bible say about health and taking care of our bodies and being able to stay healthy and using that as a support in that some people who are a part of a faith community, maybe your church or synagogue or your mosque, it has some resources that you can use to build into that. So if faith is important to you, don't exclude that from the journey of your fitness journey. So that's one of the things. So it's creating support with what we already have versus looking at it. Now, and that's, you know, probably more of the touchy-feely time. For me on my fitness journey, I would say friends were important. I have a very good friend and she to me was the key to unlocking my weight loss journey. And to be perfectly honest, because I am such a perfectionist, I can be very hard on myself. So you know, I'm like, oh, I didn't make that 30 minutes. I didn't get two and a half hours, this and this and that. And so one day I was talking to her about how frustrated I was about losing weight and my fitness journey and she just stopped me and she was like, be nice to Sylvia. I like her about her saying that just like it hit me. I'm like, yeah be nice. Because when you're kind to yourself, you're not holding or nice to yourself or to anyone. Be nice. Because most women were very caring and will help people. We're not going to be, you know, a kid comes to you and like, you know, mom, I didn't, I wasn't able to get a hundred on my test this week. You're going to be like, that's okay. You got an 89 and it's all right. You'll try harder next time. Let's figure out what we can do to get those grades up or to see why you miss those points. So that same kind of kindness that we would extend to other people, we have to extend to ourselves. So, okay, this week I wasn't able to make it in two and a half hours, but let me look back and realistically think why that was, oh my goodness. You know, it was close to the month. I had to get all those charts and I had to submit on my work at work. There was a lot going on, that was an obstacle. It's not an excuse. It's an obstacle to me getting this work done. So it took me getting that workout in, all right, but now that identified the obstacles, what could I have possibly done to do and instead to get that workout in instead, or what? How could I have set myself up to make better food choices? Okay. I know that it was a week that was filled with PTA meetings, soccer practices, football practices, dance practice, whatever. And so realistically me thinking that I was going to cook dinner every night, didn't it make sense? But maybe instead of us rolling up to a fast food place, I could've just like meal prep and make like chicken. It used some big chicken or some enough food for a day or it could have gone to a healthy place and gotten a family meal pack that we could have actually had two days of leftovers from. So those are the kinds of choices when you're being kind to yourself. So I talked about faith, I talked about family, talked about friends first and then family. So the family is a tricky one, right? (Let’s talk about, yes.) Because sometimes family can actually, it can help or hinder on the weight loss, on the weight journey. Because let's say, and especially for moms, they're like, I hear this all the time, my kids don't like eating that or my husband does not like eating that. And then, and that's true, there's data to support that, right? Actually, for married couples, that data was an in married couples and I'm probably could work for common law couples too, but for married couples that you're more likely to adhere to your diet plan or your healthy eating plan if your spouse is involved with you. And also in the first year, an interesting fact in the first year of marriage, you more likely to gain 50 pounds. So there's a newlywed 50 too for women. Because we start heated up to that. So you know, so having that your partner, your spouse involved with you is so key because it will help. But what do you do if they're not involved? Like for me, I love my husband. He supports me as much as he can, but he has been blessed with a great metabolism. He got a six pack from drinking a six pack of coke. Like he just gets, it just comes naturally. He doesn't have to work out. So he can't really be on this journey with me because he can't get it. So he just eats what he wants to be. Right. I'll ask him, I'm like, can you go get me some fruit bars and then wanting, the one time I asked him for that and then he came back with like a box of Gelato and I'm like, ah, the nutritional content of this is very different like you're not helping me at all. He was like, oh, it's just ice cream. Yeah. Dr. Berry: That's usually what I get. I usually get like, well, my kids don't eat that way. My family members don’t eat that way. Maybe I don't have time to cook two different meals for two different groups of people. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. Well, what I'll say is don't make it hard for yourself. And that's what I did. So number one, I shifted my mindset rather than say, you know, oh, I don't have them and he's not helping me, or my kids don't want this. I said, okay, well this is another form of mommy me time. I get to eat, mommy gets to eat what she wants to eat, they can eat whatever they want, but this is my me time. This is something I'm doing just for me. I'm going to eat this salad for me. I'm going to eat this kale for me. And that's how it's for me. You know, I'm buying my own personal grocery. Actually, now that are kind of territorial. They're like actually had guests recently and they were eating me, I'm special low carb bread and I was. (The guest bread is over there.) Why are you eating my bread? So yes it does. But that's how I changed my mindset about it. To make it easy on myself, I keep the protein the same, but I kept the carb so we can eat the same protein. So be it chicken, be it turkey, be it fish, I eating it. That's me. You know what I mean? They're not even that. But I keep the protein the same for the most part. And then I keep the vegetables the same. I'm lucky to do, especially my son loves all vegetables, so I keep the vegetables same, but I cut the carb or switch to the carb about. So I’m in a family of big rice eaters, they like a lot of rice. Try to get them to eat brown rice is hard. They like white rice. Dr. Berry: The brown rice talk over here. It doesn't even, I know exactly what that white rice. Family is life. I know that life is life. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So they're not trying to have that. Sometimes if I get the right brand, like Uncle Ben's friend of brown rice. I can interchange it out, but it has to be the first day, you know, its very thing. So anyway, that being said, I've changed the carb about, so I just do a half a plate of vegetables for myself or I might do cauliflower rice for myself and then they can eat that. And that makes it very easy because then I, or I've put a salad, you know, then that way I'm not fixing to different meals. We're sharing the same protein. We're sharing the same vegetable is only a quick, simple thing that I have to do for myself. Dr. Berry: I love how you talked about having to make them the mindset shift first before the action occurred. Whatever that action is. Cause I think that you know, really slows a lot of moms down. They may know, they may read all that they needed to read and they see all the videos needed to do. And they have that first step really doesn't happen and nothing subsequently is successful. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Well, I have been, you know, practicing now in the past five years. I've seen, I've had what, 15,000 plus patient encounters and I started obesity. Yeah, I know, right? They check this data and I'm a nerd, y'all know, I know this data. So, and then I, you know, and then I started weight loss doing, you know, 40% weight loss exclusively in 2017 and late 2016. So I've seen lots of patients, right. And one of them, and so I can, but I will say when it comes to weight loss, weight management, 90% of it is the mind. It's the mind. Because when you, you know, the old song says free your mind and the rest will follow. Once you make that mind shift, then these things that seemed hard, that seems like it's that were quote-unquote excuses your obstacles, you find a way around them. You find a solution for them but it, so I really, I’m a big proponent, a big advocate of the mind. I recently was working with someone and they wanted me to just like, give them formula. Just give me some exercises, just give me some things and it realistically you don't need me to do that. There are billions of exercises you just go on YouTube. I love to search for it and find new people to do that. There are billions of diets and the data supports the best diet for you is the one that works right? The one that you can stick to. So it really comes down to me helping you change your mindset. And I don't do it alone. So when we talk about the team, the other part of your team is figuring out what those mindsets are. For a lot of my patients that they will end up going to see a therapist or a psychologist because there is deeper than the weight. I always say weight is not just a number, it's a story. There's a story behind what got that person to that weight. And once you unlock that story and figure it out, then both as the physician, both as the clinician but also as them for themselves, then we can figure it out. So sometimes we, they end up needing a psychologist on the team and not just the provider, a physician on their team to help because there's a lot of comorbidities like depression, anxiety, trauma, PTSD. A lot of that is tied into weight as well. Dr. Berry: I know you said you were taking out they were comorbidities that are there. (I know.) Obesity-related. Because I remember the bill. Nope, that was it. So now that you have a team, right? You have your mindset has shifted, right? I'm a busy mom. Right? Like I have mentally made that leap. Right. Then I'm ready. Right. What do I do next? How do I start? And I guess is that, would you say that's the start of their weight journey? Like when does that actually begin? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah, I would say your weight journey starts, once you decide and you make that change that you're ready to do it. No one can force you. No one can talk to you about it. You know, it's almost, I think last time we talked about I make it analogous for those who are in medicine or in healthcare to smoking cessation. Like when you stop smoking, quitting smoking, right? If you've ever been with this smoke grip, to get them to actually quit smoking as a matter what you put on the cigarette pet, where you put on the team, it doesn't matter. So we rate it. We say you're either pre contemplated, meaning you're not even thinking about it. So don't even talk to you, contemplating, you're thinking about it. Got some idea, but you're not ready for action yet. Grant action based and then you're in maintenance and then relapse. And so I treat obesity just like that, which is model for change. That's the formal name of it. So, so when you now are conscious that you've really wanted to change and you're ready to, so you're in the contemplation stage, that's step two. So now you're ready for action and to make the change. So I think yes, the mind shift changes number one, and then ready for action. So I think number one, I tell people to identify, and I can send this to you, the link, I put it on my website, I made a little graph or sheet that kind of follows my weight loss journey. So you'll be able to go directly to her site. Download that. Yes. Dr. Berry: This will be on the show note for Lunch and Learn community so you'll be able to go directly to her site. Download that, mentally. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So now that you're ready for it and you can write down, you need to write down like acknowledge what are your barriers, what are the obstacles that you face, be it time, be it an unsupportive family. So yeah. So getting started, what I tell you to do is, so address your obstacles and create opportunities. So what I recommend that you do is write down everything that you identify as the obstacle. The common term for it is excuses. People say it's just an excuse. But again, that mindset shift, right? Excuses is a very defeating term. It makes, it puts blame on you. Like I'm not doing something, I'm supposed to do it, but I could be doing it. So I shift it from saying it's not an excuse, it's your life. It's a barrier to what you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish it. So instead it's an obstacle. And once you recognize as the obstacle, but that obstacles as opportunities. So now you have an opportunity to change what you're doing. So what I'll do, so like lack of time, for instance, what opportunities can you create for a time in your schedule and give yourself some options. Give yourself A, B, C, even D, E, F. So like for me, when I started back in late 2014, my obstacle time was a huge obstacle because at that time my husband was commuting about two hours a day back and forth. So that when I got home I had to take care of the baby, my little toddler. And that made it hard for me to go to the gym and exercise. Right. So what opportunities can I do? All right, well let me exercise in the morning instead. And how much time, I'm more of a morning person anyway. Let me try to get up earlier and exercise in the morning. Maybe I can get a baby stroller, like a jogging stroller. So I actually got one of those offline. Maybe I can find a gym that has childcare in with it. So I would join the gym with childcare in it. Okay, well sometimes I can't get to the gym. What can I do? Let me do some. I started actually with a rockin' body, so I started with that because actually one of my first obstacles was I didn't like exercising. At least I thought I did exercising. Dr. Berry: Very telling because I think a lot of people don't realize like that's actually alike. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: You have to like it. And that's why when you don't like doing something, you'll find any reason not to do it. So, of course, I don't have time because I don't like it. And what I realized in that, so that's actually a huge, not just a mindset shift, but also a barrier or obstacle. So what I realized is I was trying to force myself to do things I didn't like to do. So when I started with rocky and body, which was just like dancing and I am not a good dancer, but it made me feel like I was so things like do it that way. So I like doing that. It made me feel good, you know, and it has short workouts so it has some as short as 10 minutes and some as long as 45 minutes. Then I started the running, which one of my colleagues that I work with, he's like, oh he actually just turned 60 yeah, we celebrate the 60 but he's 60 years old, but he's been running for years. And he said, yeah, so 30 plus years he's done a Boston marathon, lots of things. So seeing him and just his consistency with it really inspired me. And so that's how it started. A trend for the first 10K that then I did. And because he was doing it and you know, he really motivated me to do it. And then I found I liked running, you know? And so I kept going, kept adding it, have added distance at a distance, did a marathon in 2016 and it kept doing the 10K and did my fifth monuments 10K. This year was my fifth one, four months postpartum. (Congratulation.) Thank you. So, but you don't know what you like to do until you try, you know? Whereas then I have other friends, I have colleagues, they like doing CrossFit, they like doing Hit, they liked doing weightlifting. I don't like doing that stuff. I recognize the value of it. But I know for myself I don't like it. I have to do it because it's good for the strength and aspect of it. So I say figure out what you like cause you may say I hate exercise, I don't like exercise. But really you just haven't found what you like to do. So challenge yourself to find the activity and think about activities you don't consider exercise that you do enjoy doing. Like do you enjoy dancing? Do you enjoy being outdoors? Do you enjoy, because then maybe you can find, uh, some form of exercise, quote-unquote that you enjoy doing too. Dr. Berry: What I love about what you just said, especially cause it's kind of eye-opening, is that a lot of us when we'd say, well, I don't have the time to exercise. Where we're really saying is I don't like that exercise that y'all want me to find time for us. So I'm not going to find time to do it. But once you find something you like, whatever that something is from an exercise standpoint, all of a sudden you'll wake up early in the morning and you'll stay up late at night, you'll squeeze it in during lunch. You'll do things for stuff you like which makes sense. Right? Again, when we got to the food we like, we'll do whatever we got to do for that food. We like, right, when you have an activity we like, we'll do it. We ever have to do. And I think once we hold up that same appraise with an exercise, whatever that exercise is for you, you'll find the time, right? Yeah. Some kids got to go to sleep, right. You know, family guy, you're taking it, you do that time to kind of be by yourself. And I liked that you said maybe you don't have time to go somewhere. Right. Maybe there's some stuff you can do even in your own house to kind of maximize the free time that you do have. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. And that was another, you brought up a good one. Another barrier, right? Healthy food doesn't taste good to me. Like that was probably, you know, is it, like I said, it's been five years. I forget where I started. Right. We want to front and act as we've been there. I've always been healthy. I've always been on this witness. No, I did not like healthy food when I first started. So that was my first month to set shift for me. It was just like, okay, well how I actually worked around this because I'm a foodie? Both of my parents owned a restaurant when I was a kid. I grew up like just immersed in food. Culture food is a big part of my life, but what I challenged myself with was how can it, rather than saying I don't like, maybe again, I'm not liking the healthy food I'm choosing. Or I'm choosing tasteless food. I'm not applying the same principles of Buddhism to my food, my healthy food. So what I will do is challenged myself to make my healthy food as delicious as possible, but still healthy and to find healthy options when I go out to eat. Because you know, again, being busy, I do have to eat out a lot. I do sometimes some weeks of his very busy. I may not have the time to cook the way I want to, but let me challenge myself to find those restaurants that have healthy options and let me challenge myself when I cooked to make it delicious, healthy, and delicious. Not just something dry or blend because I say I'd want to eat healthy. Don't punish yourself, enjoy what you're eating, but just try to stay within the parameters of making it healthy. Because to me, if you're a good cook, if you're a true foodie, then you can find deliciousness and make deliciousness with anything. Anyone can make it delicious. If you get to put a whole stick of butter in it and half a cup of sugar, but it takes real skill to make, you know, some quinoa delicious or it seemed to make this tofu delicious. So that's what I've been, what I challenged myself to do. And that's kind of how I worked around the barrier of not really finding healthy food at that time appealing. Dr. Berry: When we talk about healthy food, right? Because this is personally, I always run into the issue right? I'm a very visual person with the food and some of the foods that they called healthy I got to ask that question, it's not even a secondary question. Some of the food that they called healthy really don't look good. Like Hey, I haven't even like tasted it yet. But sometimes that mental barrier, they even taste food that's healthier for me it's difficult because I'm, "oh that food doesn't even my...what is that?" And I that's, that's sometimes I get, what am I looking at right here at the hospital and they do this, they always have like a vegetarian section. This thing that it looks like meatballs, but I know for a fact is not a meatball. And then it's almost like hard like a rock. Like it's just like, okay. And that's what always gets me like, and I know that's probably going to get a lot of moms out there, right? Like the food don't look good to us. It's difficult for us to even put it in our mouth to eat. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. So what I would challenge you to, what I would say to that is you're right then don't eat what does it look good to you? Like personally for me and, and that's again about knowing yourself and that mindset shift. I don't like big food and I shouldn't call it big, but I don't like to look for light foods. Big chicken. I told you I like chicken. Finally, I found one brand that actually does taste like chicken and it's made from, but when I read the ingredients like you when I know what do I really want to eat this, like wheat, soy and some kind of fungus, but it really tastes like chicken. But before that, I don't like those like big meatballs. I don't like big things like that because you're right, psychologically I'm expecting the taste, the texture of a meatball that I'm used to. And then when I get this and my brain is like automatically going to think it tastes gross because you know, it's not the meatball that I'm used to. So I would say focus on what you do like. So if you like vegetables, so initially within, you know, I know that I like vegetables so a lot of my things is stir fry. If he even looks on my Instagram page and stuff like that. There are a lot of stir fries because I can eat vegetables. There's a lot of eggplants. I like, eggplant is hardy. There is a Portobello mushroom, it's hardy. So more of the more vegetables which you know the plant-based community or argued that it's healthier for you anyway and cleaner for you than eating something that's processed to look like me in the first place. And so I would say if you identify that, then don't eat it because already if you don't think it looks good and you're right, most of the food is person visual and not only visual but also smelled too. So if you have that perception before you even put it in your mouth, it is not going to taste it. Once it hits the cognitive part of your brain, you know, it's missing all those functions. It’s missing the texture, it’s missing the taste that you're expecting and no one would like that. So don't eat it, don't eat it. Find something else that is appealing to you. Like maybe make the list of it. Now it is more challenging for those people who say, I don't like vegetables, which I do run into people like that or I only buy fruit. That again adds into your team, which is the second part. So you asked how do you get started? So address your obstacles and create opportunities to is assemble your team. Like we talked about your support system and your structure. I use the principle of fitness inspire through teamwork. That's my handle or whatever, FITT. So we need a team, right? So who's on your team? So maybe you need a Dietitian on your team professionally because you don't like a lot of foods. Or you have health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, prediabetes, insulin resistance. You have conditions that do require special attention to come up with a specialized or individualized food plan. And I'd tell people all the time, why haven't a physician? So if you can find an obesity medicine physician in your area, you can go on the OMA website, which would come put in the show notes also. They can help you get started. But when it comes to nutrition counseling, I'm the type of person, I like to acknowledge my limitations and my training and it helped my patients get to where they need to go. So I said doctors, we do drive-thru nutrition counseling. That's for many reasons like you know what I mean? Like you go drive-thru, we tell you a couple of days. Don’t eat carbs, don't eat sugar. But when you go to a nutritionist, they give you like a full four course meal and nutrition counseling because they can go through in detail, they have the time, go through detail and to see what it works for you, what doesn't work, and look at everything like that and come up with a very detailed plan. So I always recommend if you have a lot of barriers to things you like, dislike health condition. He should see, it starts with your physician. But definitely seeing nutritionists to help you on your team. And the team that I use, you know, as I said, I use my F so you know, faith, family, friends, if a physician or primary care provider, psychologist, dietician, you know, so a comprehensive team is important to help you with your weight journey. Dr. Berry: That's beautiful. Okay, I'm a busy mom. Right? I made the mental switch, I got my team together. I’m starting to identify what things, I will make time for it, right? Because we know the time is there, right? We've already, the mentorship has already said, but you know, time is there. So we already know what the time is there and now we're starting to identify this is, I like this exercise. I don't like this exercise. I'm going to lean towards this way over here and now we're even starting to like even say, you know what? Maybe I can eat healthy right now and I'm asking it as a little bit later as far as, especially when we talk about eating out because I always get that excuse, I am eating healthy and I'm doing everything like well how come I haven't lost my 20 pounds yet? I think that's the part of the journey that I feel like people would hit the stop sign and breaks and that's when they kind of get off. Right? Because, they, for some and again, and maybe kind of going back to having more realistic goals. Right? But they don't, right? But they don't, right? They say I haven't lost my 20 pounds and now they're back to see you because they say, Hey I did all these things and the weight's not coming off. Right? Like what do I do? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Alright. So going back to the steps, let me just reiterate one more time. So getting started. So I address obstacles and create opportunities, assemble your support team. And then the third thing is to act daily. Do something daily towards those goals that you have set. So even if you can't get your 30 minutes in one day, okay, do one minute. Because I find when it comes to mindset comes to momentum. You just got to keep going. I don't allow myself to go more than 48 hours without exercise. And because I find that that third day that's when the inertia or the laziness, that's it. And it gets harder for me to get back on my routine. I mean, unless of course, I'm sick or something like that. There've been times when I've been sick and I had to go for a week. But since it started, so that third day come hill come high water, I'm going to do some. And where there's just one minute of a plank. I view my time bank of fitness as a bank account, right. Rather than viewing it like I have to do 30 minutes each day. No, I have to get in two and a half hours this weekend. However, I get that two and a half hours is fine. So if I just do 10 minutes today, but over the weekend I can do an hour, then it's all working towards the same goal rather than see a very rigid that you have to do 30 minutes every day or something like that. So break it up how it works for you. So just something every day, maybe today I'm going to, instead of having that chocolate chip cookie at 3:00 PM, I'm going to have, make a choice and choose to just have an apple at 3:00 PM instead. So that's what it means to do it by acting daily. Now when you talk about it, and I wanted to make sure we clarify that before we shift into the weight because the weight loss part of it, because you're right, the struggle is real. So this is the way that I talked about this, which I mentioned in the first podcast, was just that, number one, we've got to think about a couple of things from evolution or hysterical, whatever you believe in and point of view. We were not made to lose weight, right? Weight has an advantage, excess weight. The reason why we have this adipose or this fat tissue is to protect this and to serve as storage for energy, to serve as the storage for food, for times of scarcity. Right? And so I always tell my patients who have obesity and they left. I hope you will too, that if we were in like caveman times or they would be queen and the king of the jungle and I would be eating like this is real, right? You have a protective advantage of where you are. But unfortunately, as we have now moved into food positive times where we don't need this extra adipose or this extra tissue to hang out as we did before, now the body is not used to getting rid of it and certainly not used to getting rid of it as quickly as possible. So we know from a lot of studies that have been done like this showed the biggest loser study came out and it showed that most of those people who lost all that weight so quickly to a very intensive process with a lot of team of people. For those people, they gain most of the weight back. And part of that, when they looked at the biology of it, their body set into motion a whole process for them to regain their weight. Like their metabolic rate slowed down. There was a release of hormones that made them hungrier, that made them not process the fat in sugar as well. So there was a lot going on for it because of the fact that they lost the weight so rapidly and how much of the weight was lost. So we know that you know, we have physiology fighting against this in many ways. And then also psychologically as you're alluding to, is just the fact that, oh, I'm not losing weight, how I feel or would the as quickly as I feel. And so then we do other things and we'd go back into old habits as well that too. So when we talk about weight loss is they're complicated, but then from a more practical perspective, so that was how the nerdy science kind of stuff and the psychological stuff. But let's be real. It took you 50 years to gain that weight. Why do you think you should lose it all on 50 days? Common guys, give us some time. (I love it.) That rapid weight loss is very traumatic for the body. It is. It is. So the body's going to say, pola, pola, pola, pola. We starving. Why are we losing so much weight? Let me slow down this process a little bit. Let me give myself time to get used to all these changes. And so you may experience what is called a weight loss plateau. Now there's controversy. Some people don't believe in it, this and that. I believe in it. I've seen it and I think the science does support it and it makes sense like your body needs time to get used to the changes that are being made. So I think during those times when you feel like the weight is not coming off as quickly as it should, that is definitely the time if you don't already have a good support system to seek it out. And again, I mean no shade to any of their specialty or profession, but I know the training that I got as I transitioned from internal medicine, so obesity medicine, I learned a lot about what to do during those times and to really about treating obesity as a disease. So that would be a great time if you are, do have access to an obesity specialist or clinician in your area to try to seek one out, to see if they can help you lose weight. Now in terms of what you should look for in one, I think that probably should be a whole another set very, because I could go on for a long time. But you do need to seek help to help you through the weight loss plateau. So that help, just in short may include dietary changes. It may include behavioral changes and it actually should include a lot of those. And then sometimes if you already optimized on all those things, especially, I'm sorry, a key one for working moms, I should say sleep. You need seven to nine hours of sleep at night to lose weight. That is because all of our natural weight burnings, that burning hormones are weight loss hormones. They are reset when we sleep and when we get into the right circadian rhythm, and that takes about seven to nine hours at night. And then also stress, you need your stress level to below. So stress management is a key part of it because people who rate their stress levels as moderate to high, on average, we weigh about 11% more than people who rate their stress levels as low. So you need to really make sure that those are in place. And then if all those things are in place, then this is when a physician or clinician may say, maybe we should do weight loss medication and there are several on the market that had been approved to help treat the disease of obesity and to help with weight loss. So that's when, and that's what we may need to almost quote unquote trick the body out of this kind of Plateau state or non-weight burning state. Dr. Berry: I love it. So after an action, what's our next of a plan or action? So we've got action, we're doing it at least a minute. I love that at least a minute because I think sometimes the moms do feel guilty. They do feel guilty, (We do.) Just couldn't get it, I wanted to and so and so happened. I know I'd be working out like I tried to work out in the mornings, but usually, my twins usually toward that, right? They wake up early, someone's got to be with the other along the way. And it's usually me. Right? So I know there are always obstacles that are in a way. So I do love that we give them an opportunity to say no, you know, it's okay. Just put it in the bank. It's not a race. We just need you to get there. We just need you to get there. Had to be the first. We just got to get you to that point every single week. And I love when I stay up. When they get to point in there the action and they're losing weight and now they're feeling good about themselves. Right? Like what? Like what do you do? How do you counsel them to stay on it, right? Because again, I love the fact that we really call it a journey, right? Because this is something that as a lifelong thing that they need to like handle it. What are some of the things that you've seen that's caused people to maybe backslide a little bit? And what are some of the tips that you have to say like to keep on going? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So the next stage in the stages of changes is maintenance, right? So you guys what, we're in action, now we just need to maintain it. You've already addressed some things. So lack of results is a key thing like you mentioned. So people who may lose that initial five to 10 pounds and get it off very quickly because it's more water weight and people in the body was ready to give that. But then you get to a place where maybe raw now five to 10% of your body weight and then your body kinda plateau or as not losing as quickly. So people get discouraged and the negativity sets in. I think it's very important then to again, tap into your team and figure out what's going on. That's the time to make their appointment with someone that's to talk to your friends who are on the journey with you. Those people who are going to support you, your family, your faith, those things to keep you on the journey. And that's the glue that's kind of keeping you going during those times when you may feel discouraged on your own. Because everybody will feel that way. I think number one, again, a mindset shift is just knowing that this plateau or this lack of results as part of the journey. Number two, knowing that it's a constant journey. So you mentioned something very common, like yeah, I have the five months old now. She often wakes up, but if you follow my Instagram stories, you'll see her in that video with me. Right? So that means maybe I have plans to go out for a run that morning, but she woke up. So now we may be doing a carry fit or like a baby carrier exercise instead. And I'm just lifting weights with her or, you know if she won't let me put her down or I'll put her in a thing and exercise in the swinger or something. So you know, knowing that it's going to be constantly something. Something will always be there. That's the other mindset struggles. Not just because, okay, I've declared this thing and I'm going to do it. That is going to be quote-unquote easy. It's not going to be easy. There were always been some barrier there, but you get better at figuring out how can I navigate around that? So that's why I say mindset is so important because that's what's going to help you to maintain and continue the weight journey. So now that you've lost the weight or a year in the process of losing the weight continuance to go, and so that's how I know in the office and in the clinical setting how I support my patients. So number one, showing up, right? Sometimes you have a tendency to hide when you haven't reached the goal or the goal is not going the way you want. Don't hide, still, show up. Come to your appointment. Call your friend, call your trainer and I'm so sorry my fitness trainer friends are going to be so mad at me. Yes, fitness trainers, they're been important. You know, I'm more like individual because my exercise is more of my me time. But definitely if you struggle with being alone or working out alone, get a trainer, get someone to help you. And I'm actually going to get a trainer later on this year too because they can help you get to that next level of fitness that you want to get to or you need to get to. So yes tapping into the resources you need, show up using your team and still continually reevaluating what is working, what isn't working and knowing that you needed, you're going to need to change. Like I can't tell you how many times I would come to feel like I was finally in a group with especially fitness and I focused on fitness. But the food, of course, is the number one thing for weight loss. But fitness helps them so much. So I would get my fitness schedule down and then my husband's work schedule would change and I'd be like dad, waking up baby. And so, you know, it's always going to be something. I think that's what I've learned and that's life, right? There's always going to be something. But your ability to adapt, which probably it could still see as we talk. It helps out so much. Right. I just added a fourth A so I had a sense and assemble. I had act now I have, did I just already forget it? This is the sleep deprivation can get but no, but yeah, I just added a fourth A to it though. So you have assessed, you have, so you acknowledging those barriers. You had to assemble your team, you have acting daily and then assess. So constantly reassessing what needs to change, what you need help with that so important. Dr. Berry: I love it. Before we get you out of here, again amazing teaching education and I know obviously we talked about the moms, of course, busy dads. I know y'all out there clearly, but we got to talk about the moms because you know, we know how hard they work. Before we let you get out of here. Right? Like what I need you to tell everyone, like again, we've talked about before, how can they get in touch with you, teach you, learn from you. What is out there that they can kind of consume cause I think, uh, you know, they're going to listen to this and then go back and listen to episode 93 and then be like, wow, this is the person that I need to follow. How can they follow and learn and continue to kind of even follow your journey that you're still on as we speak. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah. Well definitely through social media. I have a website that is drsylviagbollie.com. I also am very active on Facebook. I do weekly live postings where I teach on different topics and I'm committed to trying to do those weekly now. I also post regularly on Twitter, on Instagram, just to keep us all motivated on our fitness journey. And that's my main goal, just showing real-life examples of trying to fit into in fitness and fit in healthy eating and so busy lifestyles, especially as a working mom. So there's social media is the best way. Dr. Berry: Okay. So I ask all my guests on the podcast, how is what you do helping to empower busy moms across the world empowered themselves for better health? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: I think what I'm doing is helping busy moms across the world because I'm empowering us to just be ourselves and work within those confines would be in ourselves. Work within that rather than trying to fit any mold, fit any model and putting yourself on there. Like you mentioned a lot of guilt, a lot of pressure. Like I, my goal and how I hope to help all of us is to just help us realize that number one, it's possible to fit in fitness. It’s possible to fit in healthy eating. And it doesn't have to be the way that anyone else does it, but in a way that works best for you. Dr. Berry: Love it, love it. Again, Lunch and Learn community, I want to thank that Dr. Bollie for coming on the second time and dropping even more gems. And she did the first time and you know, blessing us, educating us, and really getting this right and together, especially for the busy moms out there. I know a lot of them are. I know a lot of them in the Lunch and Learn community who are starving freedom. So I like this. So again, thank you for joining the show today. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Thanks. Bye. Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

Boom! What's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen. This is Sales Funnel radio, and today I'm going to talk to you about how I found my VA's.   What's up, guys? Some people have asked, "Hey what's a VA?"  I'm talking about virtual assistance, I'm talking about how I found my team.   Now what's funny is, I remember sitting at a few events and I would watch these guys who had made 2 Commas through their sales funnels. And there was this interesting correlation that I saw as would watch these guys.   Someone would get up,  and they'd take the picture with the award "Yay!" (mine's over there.) And they'd take the 2 Comma Club picture and they'd be like, "Check it out! This is so cool!" And the next person would get up and they'd do it again. "Woo, what's up!" They'd take the picture; "I finally did it, yeah!" Which is really, really cool.   But I started noticing this very interesting thing about all of them - I can't help it, I'm kind of a pattern junkie.   I started looking and I was like, "What do each one of these people have? Like why is it that that guy can do that?" Right. "Why is it that that guy can do that?"   And I'm not trying to be like weird or whatever, but there's a lot of them that stand up and be like, "I think I can build a funnel better than that guy can in his own category, but he made a million bucks." Right. "Why didn't I?" You know what I mean. It's important to ask those questions.   And one of the things - amidst many of the things - one of the things I started realizing was that all these people had, (that I did not at the time), was a certain mentality. I was lacking in this area.   Growing up, I'll just tell you guys, this isn't to get all sad and sobby or whatever, but I didn't know what I was good at. And growing up, a lot of times entrepreneurs don't. They don't know what they're good at for a little while.   I always tease a few, but it's kind of like the X-men. Like you're still trying to figure out your powers. And I hate the mystic crap that people try to lace around entrepreneurship. It's not mystical, okay, it's business. It's giving value and getting paid for it.   Entrepreneurship is not mystic, you're not like a godsend to humanity to go bless, anyway. You know what I mean? You know the mentality I'm talking about? You see around a lot of times. That irks me a little bit, okay?   But anyway, right, I was young and I was like, "What am I good at? What am I good at?" And as I started getting a little bit older into my teens I started realizing that I had an ability to focus hard and go sell stuff.   I had a very intense fascination with the act of selling. And I started learning more, and there's a lot of self-discovery involved with entrepreneurship, I decided like, "Oh my gosh." I started learning how to learn and I got addicted to it.   I started saying things like, "Well I'm gonna learn that, and I'm gonna learn that, and I'm gonna learn that, I'm gonna learn that. And I'm gonna try and be the best at this, and the best at this, and the best at this, and the best at ..." And I like, "I'm gonna learn it all baby! Bring it on!"   And funnily enough, that's like the exact opposite of what each one of these entrepreneurs onstage were doing. And I was like, "Well what are they doing then? Like how does this actually work?" And I remember I was sitting next to some extremely successful people and one guy he leaned back and he goes, "Yeah. I have no idea how to drive Facebook ads."   And I was like, "Are you serious?"  I didn't know either, but it shocked me that the guy didn't know because that's where I saw most of his stuff. I was like, "Yeah," he's like, "Yeah I just outsource it." I was like, "Huh. That makes sense. You really have never done one ever though? wow. Hmm."   Even I have massively failed at least getting one out the door. And I was like, "What's the issue? Huh."   And then the next guy was like, "Yeah, I didn't write my own book. I want to make sure I actually write my book, I'm writing it right now. But he's like, "Yeah I went through and I just dictate it over the phone or whatever and somebody writes it while I'm speaking."   And I start that way when I'm doing it, a lot of guys do. And then I like to go back again and rewrite again. I'm too much of, I do like the art of writing a little.   But anyway, so one thing that started fascinating me though is the incredible obsession each one of these guys had at having a team. That was it. The thing that they all had that I didn't.   I was focusing on being a Renaissance man. Being a Renaissance man has never made anybody a ton of money, okay? To a certain point, it's great to know how to do a little bit of everything, to a certain point, to a certain degree. Especially when you're brand new and you gotta wear a lot of hats, okay.   But there comes a point when you've gotta stop doing that right. And so the thing that all these guys had that I didn't was a team ...   And when I suddenly realized that, that's when I actually started getting into things like affiliate marketing. I started getting cash in and hiring out tasks that I could have done but should not be doing. Does that make sense?   So this episode's a little bit different - I took one of the lessons - well parts of it - from Affiliate Outrage. It's a free program. This is towards the end of the program.   I wanted to go through and share with you guys my strategies for finding good people for the team - because I've wasted a lot of money on bad talent. There was no talent.   So anyway we're gonna cut over here, I hope you enjoy it.   There are several strategies that I walkthrough for how to find good people, and how to vet them out. Is this an actual employee that you're bringing in? I'll show you how to do that kind of stuff.   Specifically, I want to share with you guys how I found VAs. So these are people that you're not going to hire, but you need to have specific talents for things that you need to be done.   So anyways, I'm excited about this. Let's go cut over there. This might be a little bit of a longer episode, but I think that's okay.   Pay close attention to this. This could save you literally time and money with the wrong person.   So anyways I hope you guys enjoy this, thanks so much, let's cut over now. What's up, guys? I thought it would be cool if we go through and do a lesson today on how to find good people for your team.   A team is something I like to ... it's so funny...   I know there's a lot of people who go back and forth on this like, "You're so stupid for doing it by yourself. Okay, well, if I don't have cash flow I'm not gonna go into debt to get a team, right?   So that's why I started doing affiliate marketing, and then when I had a little bit of cash from the affiliate sales, I would go and get good people.   But then this is super choice cash, I mean it's really protected special cash, so I don't wanna go just blow that.   So how do I find good people? I totally get that, right? Some of you guys might be feeling that like how do I get good people then?   In college, I wasted a lot of my own money on bad VA's - like just tons of 'em - just 'cause I wasn't a coder. Sometimes I needed a website, or I need this, or I need that ...   There was this one time I spent $500 on this guy who said that he could put together a very simple thing. It was garbage. I mean holy crap it was so bad. I wasted money. I wasted money on bad writers, bad image people, bad...   The issue was this. In pretty much every single platform,  you can find a good virtual assistant... Places like upwork.com or freelance.com or Fiverr. Don't try to hire talent on Fiverr.   I like Fiverr for really tiny stuff. Why? Because it's five bucks! Like how good a talent can you get for five bucks?   It was the way that I was  finding people that was not good.   So two things here:   I just wanna share you guys real quick how I find people. It's actually very, well, pretty much the same strategy.   When I need somebody for a specific job that has to do with a creative thing, you know what I mean? Like "Hey, what's up, creative person? I need you to go make this image, or make this video intro, or outro, or make this, this jingle or voice over..." Stuff like that. I will go in, and I will just try and get a someone real fast, pay $50, $100, $200, $300 to go and do this thing.   When it's somebody that I'm wanting to bring onto my team, (whether or not they're a 1099 or they're actually W2) - the process for it is actually very similar. But one's just more intense than the other.   So to get a creative, okay? If you're like "Hey, I'm building this funnel, I wanna find somebody for this, this and this."  Freelancer is the best. Freelancer.com is amazing. If you guys go over to bestmarketingresources.com and scroll down, you'll see my video on how to get good people.   This is a big topic, right? So you'll see my video on how to get good people, and then what I wanna show you...   If you use the link to get a freelancer account, I think they give you $15 credit or something like that.   It's my affiliate link of course, but anyways, you get a little goodie for that.   There's a really good book called... I remember the sub-headline... It's called A Whole New Mind. It's called Why right-brained thinkers will rule the future... or rule the world." It's something like that. It's a fantastic book.   If you think about where we are right now and you're like, "Stephen, what does this have to do with getting a team?" It has a lot to do with it.   Are you farming right now? Unless it's by choice, probably not.  Are you going to a Well every day to get your water? I doubt it, right?   There are so many things in life that are already taken care of for us.   In the past, fortunes were made by supplying the basics of life. Fortunes were made that way, right? Let's get power to you. Let's get internet to you. Let's get water, food, let's get shelter, let's get ...   You're not building your own house most likely, right? There are systems created around the basics of life.   It makes the argument that because of that those are very left-brained ideas. What's logical, "Why I should go and make a system to bring water to my house?" That's a logical thing.   And so it says, because so many of the logical things have been taken care of now, the future is ruled by those who can be right-brained thinkers - those who are the creatives. Those who can sit down and say, "Hey, you know what? I've got this idea."  That's why right-brained thinkers rule the future.   I know that's one of the reasons why I do so well with my stuff is because I try to be creative, right? I wouldn't say I necessarily was at the beginning of my life, but that too can be a learned trait.   In the book, it goes on to say, "You've gotta figure out to be creative." So the problem is that you wanna make sure that you get someone on your team who is creative, right? Who's actually good at what they do, right? I still believe in capitalism baby, woo. I want the best of the best in every area of life.   So how do you find a good virtual assistant? How do you find a good freelancer to come and do this task or that task for you?   Following the capitalist rule... I stopped just going and trying to find somebody who was awesome. Instead, I created contests. This is literally how and why I was able to do what I do. Because while I was working a job, I had these rock stars getting these things done for me - which was paid for by affiliate cash.   So that's why I'm trying to help you guys understand this thing. So one of the things I did though with this is I went, and I grabbed ... funny enough Upwork doesn't even do the same work. They may have added it in the past little bit but, anyway ... freelancer.com is my favorite because they are the only one that allows me to actually create a contest...Freelancer facilitates the contest.   So what I like to do, and I'm like "Man, I need somebody to create images for me." I still do this, guys. I've got a bank of people that I'll go back to because of this process. This is the process. I had somebody complain to me once, "But that sounds like it's gonna take a few days." I'm like, "You're not gonna spend a few days finding somebody who's really good. What's wrong with you? C'mon, right?"   So this is what I do. It's all automated, but freelancer is the only platform I know of that automates and facilitates this contest process.   So what I do is  I try to make sure to overpay a little bit in these contests. So these contests run like this: I don't have to pay you unless you are the contest winner.   So here's what I do. I say, "Hey, what's up everyone?" ...Let's say it's an image and I just need a simple cropping done and put on the background of something else.   Something really, really easy and photoshopped. Something I could probably take my own time to go do, but I'm not an expert at it so why would I do it? So I don't.   So instead, in Freelancer I can put a contest up that says, "Hey, I need this image." I usually do a little screen record. "I need this image placed on this background, with this stuff cut out. It's a contest, and if you win the contest, I'll give you $100." $100? What? That's part of the strategy. You understand?   I make sure to overpay a little bit for it. Why? Because it attracts a butt load of people to me, right? Lots of the freelancer people they start jumping on and jumping on and jumping on and jumping on. They start submitting this image.   I make the contest a week long, and then what I do after that is I make sure that in the contest, I've got my critiques set to public - so that everybody else can see all the other submissions, and everybody can see my critiques.   For the first five days is I am pretty harsh in my critiques. I'm not saying I'm rude, but I'm not mincing words:   "I hate this. I hate that. I love this. Change that. I hate this. This is terrible. No, nothing like this at all. Why did you do this?"   Frankly, I'm very forward about it, and I don't wanna say rude. I'm not rude about it, but I'm forward because I know hundreds of other freelancers are watching my comments. They're watching my critiques.   And what's funny is 'cause it always happens away. I always do it for a week. I  do a week long, and I'm publicly critiquing just once a day, hard, heavy. Public critique, public critique, public critique. I'm like, "Holy crap, this is terrible," or like, "No, whoa, not this at all. Are you kidding?"  I'm super forward, and I'm giving feedback back on the critique.   Well, everybody can see that in the contest. Everyone sees it. Everyone gets notified of it.  The funny part is that on the last two days, the real talent will swoop in. The real talent swoops in, they see the comments, they see my critiques, and then they'll make just this incredible stuff, and I'm like, "Where have you been? I've been trying to find you in all of Freelancer and all of the freelancing world, the entire VA world. Where have you been?"   During the last two days, I'm even more interactive, and I will farm out the top 10 people and keep interacting, keep interacting. "Yes, I hate this. No, I don't like that." Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Back and forth, back and forth, and then it's always within the last 12 hours just the most incredible work comes through, and I only have to pay the top one.   I did this once on a t-shirt and I had ... was it a t-shirt or an image? I can't remember. There was over 200 submissions. 200! It was cool 'cause the last little bit right, the last few hours, the real talent came in, the true designers. Just really gifted people, I could tell. They came in and I only had to pay the top person, but now the next time I needed a t-shirt done, I just went to those top three. I can go back to them afterward and just go straight to them, rather than a contest.   Does that make sense?   I literally filtered out hundreds of people that weren't good. I've done that whenever I need an image. I don't have to keep doing it because I found who they are, right?   That's literally how I created the graphic for Sales Funnel Radio - with me pointing at my shirt. It's through a contest. That's how I came up with that. The t-shirt that I have for "Hey, Steve." That was a contest.   A game, an actual coder. I found ... that actually was a "Help with freelancer" themselves. It's like an extra $10, and they helped me find out a good person. I love freelancer for that reason.   So number one, the biggest way to create and grow a team is you gotta understand, I use contests. I use 'em heavily. Not just when I need a freelancer position. I actually use it when I am hiring out for team members as well.   So when I found my incredible Facebook traffic driver, and you guys know that story if you're this far in the training. You guys know that story of me hiring Sema. You guys have learned it from Sema. It was literally a contest, and she won.   Then after that, I was like, "Holy crap, you're Dan Henry's traffic guy, too." That's crazy. She's very, very talented, but I found her because of contests.   I don't give a crap about resumes. It's what peaks my interest initially, but who I actually decide to have a long-term relationship with, it's based on contests. Who makes it rain? Who can make it happen? I want those kinds of people, and so I make sure I get people who can do that.   I use contests regardless of whether it's on the freelancer platform or not. Usually, I try and use though because there's great talent on there. You just gotta find 'em. Then in the future, you don't have to do it again.   A few caveats with this whole thing:   In college, I was taught to hire for the sake of building a business before creating revenue. That's backward. That's dumb. Don't do that. In my honest opinion, that is some seriously terrible advice. College taught me some great things. That was not one of them.   If you guys have ever watched my podcast, I've talked about the beginning of this year what really happened to me. There was like $200 grand almost that came in, just bam, real fast, but my business structure wasn't there to support the revenue coming in.   I had never considered that a funnel was not a business until like two or three years ago. I was like, "Yeah, well I built the funnel, so therefore I got the revenue," that's it. Like, "No, no, no, you still need a business to support the revenue." Support, itself. Fulfillment. Maybe you gotta get out there and actually do shipping stuff.   Maybe it's high ticket - like you're gonna fly out to them. What are the processes? If I handle every single customer complaint different. If I handle every single Dream 100 package totally different... I'm not saying you shouldn't customize.   If I handle every single purchase differently. If I handle every single aspect of every single thing I do, every time different. I don't have a business. I am the business. Does that make sense?   So I can have a funnel, but if there are no systems, there's no business. And so that's exactly what I'm trying to say here.   So I don't care about this whole like go build a team thing. Don't do it until you have freaking revenue. Otherwise, you're gonna go into debt. That's why they teach "Go get a loan, go get business loans. Go build a proposal to get a loan." Why? What does that money do? That was asked: "What are you gonna do with this money?"   The scary thing is when you find out that money that you've taken on is to build a business structure only. That's freaking scary because it means that you literally have no proof of concept. There's no proof of concept. There's nothing.   So what I'm trying to say is you guys gotta understand, don't go build teams for the sake of people saying you need one. Hire when it hurts. That's my whole thing. I hire when it hurts. Which means I gotta run hard. I'm totally fine putting a little sweat equity - which I'm totally known for doing. I'm cool with that.   I'm not telling you not to get help. I'm not telling you that you should be the one to do all the aspects inside of your company - but until you get revenue, man, I would not go out and hire people. I mean, for real, don't go hire people.   When it comes to team things though as far as like or creatives, I'm not gonna go take the time to learn some aspects of Photoshop that I know some other guy could just ... I could pay him $50 for and just have him do it, right? You see what I'm saying? Right.   You know Russell does all his doodle drawings? I went, and I found this awesome doodle drawing guy on freelancer to do some very similar things for a workbook I was putting out. It was a huge process to find him, but when I found him... I go back to him all the time now. He's awesome. He's super cool, and he does all my doodles for me now.   Anyways, I want you to know when it comes to creatives or when it comes to anything,  just 'cause I can do something...   There are several schools of thought with this. Yes, the business should not all be you eventually. It's fine if it is for a while -  in my opinion. If you're just standing up, you're just barely getting revenue coming in - I don't know why you'd ever go hire somebody? All your revenue should be back into putting into getting more sales, right? So eventually don't be the business. Don't be the business. Don't be the only one running the business. Get a team, get a system running. Totally, 100% love it.   In contrast to that,  I believe that you should hire when it hurts. That's something that Russell always told me when I was there with him. He said, "Hire when it hurts, hire when it hurts, hire when it hurts." Meaning if you can handle it, keep doing it.   A lot of companies died because they hire too quickly. Seriously, that's one of the major reasons why companies die quick is because they hire too fast.   To caveat that again with a third point,  just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should be doing it.   As I said, I'm not gonna go learn crazy things in Photoshop just to pull off this one image.  I'm just gonna go hire a dude. You know what I mean?   What I'm trying to help you guys understand, is that the trick is seeing what task needs to get done and asking yourself, "Is this a task that I can do?" Or "Is it a task I should do?" You know what I mean? You're trying to figure out what scenario to go for. "Am I just gonna pay $50 for someone to get it done for me in the next 24 hours, or should I just do it?"   Guys, entrepreneurs wear a lot of hats at the beginning, that's totally fine. It's the reason you love your company so much. It's the reason I love my company so much. It's the reason I'm very babyish of it. I have given much family time to the business instead of my family. You know what I mean? Because I'm wearing a lot of hats.   As things have grown, I've found other places,  people, and systems that take over aspects of it for me. But you gotta ask yourself....   The fourth point to think about is, "Is this a revenue-generating activity?" If it is, you should do it. If it's not, don't do it. Is the image you need to go get created, is there potential for it to bring revenue in? If the answer is yes, okay that's fine. But it doesn't mean you should do it. Maybe you could just go pay someone $50 to get it done, or run a contest and find out who that person is? You understand what I'm saying? I'm trying to teach several different schools of thought...   I run my entire process of this thing, I call  Red Dot, Green Dot. I think entrepreneurs are really good at writing massive task lists, and that's cool. But the problem is that bogs you down, it stresses you out, and overloads you. Some things should be getting done, you never get done because they're important, but not that important. You know what I mean?   So I like to list out all the things I need to go do, and then I'll do a red dot, green dot. There are several planning systems that I use. This is the one I really a lot.   I just list out all the stuff and be like, "Oh, green dot. That's the one that makes me revenue, sweet." If it's a big green dot, I do it during the parts of the day that I know I'm most fresh. Usually, for me, that's like 7 am to 1pm.   I do the small green dots in the evening or the afternoon. They're still revenue generating - just not as big, right? A big green dot, that's like script writing, certain aspects of funnel building, or doing sales videos where I need to be fresh, I need to be awesome, I need to be hopping on. Does that make sense?   A red dot is something that needs to get done, but it's literally a cost on the business. I should never be doing those roles. An easy way to do it, and the way I did it for quite a while, was a red dot, green dot. Is it a green dot or a small green dot? What's the red dot? If it's a red dot, don't even worry about it. Most of the time, you really don't need to worry about those things. Unless it's like, set up an LLC or something that's truly foundational, but I guess technically that's revenue generating, that's why you're doing it.   So I hope that helps. I hope that helps with the whole team building thing. I just wanted to do a lesson real quick on how to actually find good virtual assistants, on how to find them and how to source things out.   I'll tell you, I just wanna finish with this real quick. I'll tell ya something that Dana Derricks told me:   He and I were chatting on Voxer one day, and he said one thing that's really helped me out is... At the beginning you're probably the one doing support, that's fine. Especially when you're wearing a lot of hats. After a while, you don't wanna be doing that. It's not revenue generating, but you may not have the revenue to get rid of it and buy back your time. You know what I mean? So just keep going on it, that's totally fine.   ....But one thing Dana told me, that I thought it was really cool, he said, "I always make sure whenever I'm about to go do a process, that I do it the hardest, most arduous way possible. Because when I do that, I make sure to document what I'm doing.  Then I literally have the system that I need to hire someone to do." He's like, "I make sure I do it the hardest way."   It's completely 180˚ of how most people react to pain or any kind of discomfort or growth. Like, "I don't wanna do the hardest way! Are you kidding me? Don't make me do it the hardest way." But he's the exact opposite, man.   He's like,  "Do the exact opposite, do something the hardest way the first time, do it a few times to document your system, document the process and now you have the system."  You'll know exactly what to hand off to somebody to buy back your time and replace you. I thought that was very, very key and really cool that he said that.   Anyways, guys, hopefully, that's helpful for ya. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about that.   So as you start to grow and start to get cash coming in. Honestly, strategically, what I would do, start thinking about what it is you really wanna go sell?   Affiliate products are incredible. A lot of people make a fortune just selling other people's products. It is a lot more fulfilling - both to your wallet, but also to you - to have your own product.   So as you're kinda beginning to stockpile cash, you're trying to figure out what you wanna go sell or whatever, it's just, it's important to think about that kinda stuff.   I've never seen a 2 Comma Club winner do it on their own - EVER! They might be the solopreneur, but they got a team. They at least got an assistant, a support guy, a high ticket seller, you know? Stuff like that. A fulfillment guy. You know what I mean? A sales guy. Does that make sense?   They're the ones still running it, but they got the team below them doing all the dirty work making sure the stuff gets done so they can keep selling. You know what I mean? I've never seen a 2 Comma Club winner EVER get it solely on their own. Where they're doing every function of the business, Yeah, right, Yeah right! That doesn't happen.   So just know as you start to get cash in...   I know a lot of you guys may not have money right now. That's totally fine, but as you start to get cash coming in, start thinking, "Where do I wanna drive the ship? Where do I wanna go? How do I wanna make this happen?"   And as you do that, hire smartly. Hire slow. Hire very slow. Be very careful of who you're bringing in. Be very careful what they do. Are you actually hiring a skill or just a heartbeat? Are you hiring a skill or just a heartbeat?   And with those few things in mind, use red dot, green dot,  so that you know you what you should be doing. Can someone else be doing it? Do you have the revenue to do it? Maybe you don't. Go sell something else then, right?   Anyway, super cool guys. And hopefully, this is a helpful lesson for you. I said that was the last thing, but this is the last thing here.   When Russell was getting Tony Robbins to speak at Funnel Hacking Live. He's not cheap, okay? I'm legally not allowed to tell you how much it was, but it was an absolute crap ton amount of money. It was a huge amount of money.   I know that Russell follows a principle called, "The question is not how do I do this? It's who already knows how to do it?" It's not what? it's who? It's not how? It's who. "Who knows how to do what I need?"   And what was interesting is instead of going like, *SHOCK* "Tony, you want that much money? What?" And freaking out about it, he said, "Okay, how can I afford that?" He could've paid out of his own pocket, but that's not the point. He's not gonna use his own cash. Instead, he asked, "How can the business pay for it?" So he added a few extra things to the event to pay for the thing he most wanted.   There was a guy who taught me once. He's the man actually. He's Don Hobbs. I was on a call with him, and he said, "Stephen, the question you need to start asking yourself as you're leaving ClickFunnels - this is a little bit after I had left. He said the thing you need to start asking yourself, "How can I hire people that I can't afford?"   When you can hire people that you can't afford it means that your vision of what you're trying to take down is big enough, but also realistic enough that it's attracting actual talent.   If you look at the list of people that I have had on this course so far for you guys, I could not pay all their fees together in a lump sum - there's no way, there's no way. I sold them on coming to do this because of the vision, and because of what I'm actually trying to get done.   When you actually go and start grabbing people in, when it's actual growth time, you need to make sure that you're hire slow, and you're hiring people that you actually cannot afford. Because when you do it that way, you're actually gonna be protecting your vision. You're gonna be hiring people who actually invested in what you're doing. What are they doing in the nighttime hours? What are they doing in the evening hours? What are they doing, right?   Man, I'm still building ClickFunnels dream even though I don't work there. I'm 100% invested in that. I know I am, right? I'm 100% invested in the products that I sell because I change people's lives. I know I am. And when I find people that are aligned like that, it's a huge deal.   So I make sure I go, and I grab... like that's why we hire slow. And you try and find people based off of talent, not how much they're gonna say like, "Oh, well, I'm this much money." Well if the vision is big enough, it's cool enough, and it not just like far-fetched, then you're gonna have a great time because you're gonna start attracting amazing talent to you that scratches your back and theirs. It might mean a partnership. It might mean that you just give them some revenue.   I hate it when somebody approaches me and says, "Hey, I got a great opportunity for ya, Stephen." You think I need another one? I got plenty. I'm trying to manage the opportunities I'm finding on my own. I don't need any more opportunities.   When someone walks up, they go, "Stephen, I got this great idea. Dude, here's the idea.  If you go build it, I'll give you like 50%!" And I'm like, "Huh. You know what's fascinating? I could just go do that on my own and keep 100% of it." Right? Ideas are nothing, guys. Ideas are not assets. "I got an idea." So? It's worth nothing. I don't even care what the idea is. Right?   That's why I was laughing at Shark Tank. They're like, "Well, I haven't actually sold anything yet." Then you have nothing. Even if you're holding the freaking product. You have nothing. Ideas are nothing. They're nothing. There's no value attached to an idea. Show me an idea that was sold for a whole bunch of money without some asset attached to it? It doesn't happen.   So when you're going out, and you start getting actual team people to start joining you, you need to make sure that what you're actually offering to somebody to come and join your thing, has everything to do with selling 'em on a vision.   Make sure that you've got assets. Are you gonna sell something? Ideas are nothing. So make sure, anyway ...   There's a podcast episode, I ranted about this a while ago.  I think it's like 100 episodes ago, but it just makes me laugh. So anyway, rant over. Rant's done.   But I just want you to know how I find VA's. How I find freelancers. How I find people to join my team. That's how I find 1099 versus W2 - it's because I'm trying to make sure that it's aligned with my vision, that they're people that will add constantly to the vision.   Guys, I worked way more than nine to five for Russell. Holy freaking crap, right? I'm totally cool with that. No contest. He spent zero time indoctrinating me into the culture of ClickFunnels. No time. I hit the ground running. No training. Tweaking? Sure. Stuff that he wanted me to change? Absolutely. But I was there to run. I produced day one.   So when it comes down to actually hiring people, there's no better way to do that than hiring from your own audience - 'cause they're sold on the vision, they know who you are.   If you're like, "Man I don't have an audience yet." That's totally fine. That's exactly my point. Then don't hire someone (like an actual W2) for a while, that's totally fine.   Hopefully, this hasn't felt like it's been all over the place! There's a lot of nuggets that I dropped.   I'm trying to help you see that when it comes to it, the sales funnel, the sales cycles are different from a business, and a business cycle. You're gonna be the one most likely doing both for a little while, and that's okay. Eventually, you shouldn't be doing both. You need to hire when it hurts. That's probably gonna be a little uncomfortable in the beginning. It is for everybody. That's okay.   Somebody told me this great quote: "It'll take longer than you think, but not as long as you fear."   So when you're jumping out you're gonna feel alone. You are alone. No one's around you. That's okay. But when you start to hire, man, it is methodical. It is not easy to work for you. It's not. It shouldn't be. You shouldn't just take anybody on. That's why I went ... that's why I still go the VA route forever -because it works.  I got my content team. None of them are W2's. They don't need to be. I still pay 'em a lot of money. But I sold them on the vision. They get crap done and problems solved I didn't even know were problems.   They're sold on the vision. They understand where I'm going. I'm trying to be a voice of clarity against a lot of gurus that are out there because I've actually done a lot of it. It's not just theory, you know what I mean?   Anyway, and when I find people who are not just willing to accept but also wanna protect and grow the same vision, it's like, "What do you want? Yes, come with me. What is it that motivates you? Okay, Tony Robbins, you want that much money? Okay,  I'm not gonna say no. Instead, let me figure out how to pay for that."   So this might feel like a little bit of rant, and maybe it is a bit, but I want you to understand when it comes down to the hiring thing, I'm very opinionated on this topic - because I wasted a lot of money for a lot of years until I made it hard to join my team -whether it was a $50 image or a big thing.   Guys, thanks so much. Hopefully, it's been helpful to ya. Again, please reach out. We got just a few more lessons that I wanna drop out to you as far as making it all work for you as an affiliate  - to make you money - and then we'll be done.   If you got value out of this, promote my stuff. This is my free stuff. You can imagine how good the paid stuff is. The products are good. I'll take care of your customers. I'll take care of any traffic you send over to me.  I really appreciate it. Guys, thanks so much and I'll talk to you later. See ya later, see ya in the next lesson. Bye.

Remeber when the Supreme  Cour was something you could look to for the tough, but correct decisions?  And then remember when Trump stole two seats?   Also, Sarah Hucakbee Sanders got kicked out of a restaurant, and peoples feelings are getting really hurt.. but we're the snow flakes?   PLEASE DONATE IF YOU CAN - www.patreon.com/thatsdelightful follow us on facebook at www.facebook.com/thatsdelightful on instagram @totallydelightfulstuff on twitter @delightfulcast and find other great podcasts at www.podbros.com

There are people who are trying to get free vacations just for posting their trip on Instagram. What if you were not allowed to catch a nap at an airport during a layover? The troopers slow left lane driver tweet that went viral.  A baby born in a Paris train gets 25 years of free rides. Only 25 years? Why would you put your head in a tailpipe? The woman with the makeup pencil that stabbed her eye and no advertising on the bus? All that and more on the Driving You Crazy Podcast. (P.S. sorry about the mic level. I’ll fix that for next time.)   Contact: DrivingYouCrazyPodcast@Gmail.com Jayson: twitter.com/Denver7Traffic or www.facebook.com/JaysonLuberTrafficGuy Joseph: twitter.com/josephdenver7   Production Notes: Open music: jazzyfrenchy by Bensound Music into first break: Easy Going by Audiobinger Music out of first break: Cha Cha Cha by Dee Yan-Key Close music: Latché Swing by Hungaria

I heard something really cool today while listening to Frank Kern’s podcast and I thought I’d share it with you. In this episode Russell talks about listening to Frank Kern’s new podcast and why he says that the information age is over. Here are some of the other things you will hear in this episode. Why Frank considers the information age to be over and why Russell thinks that is so profound. Now that the information age is over, find out what the next phase is. And see why the specialized insights you have are going to so important. So listen here to find out why Russell agrees with Frank Kern when he says that the information age is dead. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late night Marketing Secrets podcast. What’s up everyone, I am heading home from the office, it is 12:35 at night. This is like our second or third late night in a row. But I want to say something. If you’ve been listening, I think we’re on like episode 462 or 463 of this podcast. You probably remember many, many all nighters where we were at the office until 4 or 5 in the morning, 5 or 6 days in a row trying to launch Clickfunnels and build the empire and grow everything. We don’t do that very often anymore. But Todd and Ryan are in town, it’s the last night. Well, we pulled all nighters but they haven’t been real all nighters. We’ve been, last night, well last night we were there til 2, tonight was 12:30 so it’s pretty good. But I think in our old age, we’re getting older and we’re like, “You know what? We should go to bed. So we’re not as hard core as we used to be, which is good. So for those of you guys who are hustling entrepreneurs who are at the beginning of your journey, feel free to keep doing it because I did it for a long time. But I think maybe I’m maturing. I don’t know. I told my kids that I will never mature, and that I’m not like the other boring adults. So I don’t want to completely mature, but it is kind of nice to go to bed by 1. Anyway, take that for what it’s worth, I have no idea. I want to share something cool with you guys today, that I learned from Mr. Frank Kern. Frank is still one of my favorite people to study from, and he’s got a new podcast that came out called, Your Next Million Dollars, so if you are looking for a new cool podcast, Frank is the man. And in the last one I was listening to, it was really cool. Someone was interviewing him, I can’t remember who exactly. I don’t know if I caught who was interviewing him, but in the interview he asked something about information. He said, “Is information dead? Is it still the information age? Are people still buying information products?” things like that. And Frank as he usually does, said something brilliant and I was like, dang. It was awesome. He said, he feels like information is dead. There’s so much information out there. It was the information age for the last however many years. He said, the problem is not people can’t find information. Instead information is everywhere. There’s so much information. The Future is not information, like, ‘here’s a 20 module course, I’m going to teach you everything about blah’. The future is insights. Like what are your insights? Like ‘Hey, this is the tweak I found, the insight that you missed. We’re shifting from information age to insight age. The people that are getting paid the most money are not necessarily the ones who give information, because information is free, it’s the ones that have the insights. The ones who are able to come in and be like, ‘Here’s the thing you need to shift. Here’s the tweak.’ Which is why coaching consulting does well. It’s why I think a lot of times the stuff that we’re doing, Clickfunnels, we were talking about this the other day. If you look at the marketplace, pre-clickfunnel, before everything, there were a lot of people all out there, and there’s still people selling…..I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say….There used to be a lot of people that, I don’t know, people used to do product launches every week, these huge ones selling $2000 courses over and over again. It’s been interesting watching as that’s kind of faded. It’s still happening, but it’s not to the scale it was before and I think it’s because, especially our company. We are able to give away such amazing information for free because we make our money in the tools. The software is where we make our money. And then our inner circle is about insights, not about all this stuff to learn. It’s all about insights, here’s the tweaks for you. It’s the accountability, these other pieces. Two Comma Club X coaching is about accountability and about the systems and things like that. So when we were pitching at the Funnel Hacking Live event, we launched the new Two Comma Club X coaching program, and while we gave people information, tons of information, it’s part of it, that wasn’t the pitch. Because, you know, they have information, there’s all the information I’ve been publishing for the last 4 or 5 years, it’s everywhere. 460 something episodes of the podcast, a million YouTube, the content is there, but it’s the systems and the insights. Those are the things becoming more and more valuable. So start thinking about that for you guys, as you’re publishing. How can you make to where you can give away your information because the other piece of it becomes more valuable? For me it’s the software, but maybe it’s the systems, maybe it’s the specific insights that you have. Anyway, I thought it was really cool when Frank said that. I was like, that’s really cool. The information age is ending and it’s the age of insights, and that’s really where the value is at. Anyway, I thought that was really, really cool and thought I would share with you guys. Hey everyone, real quick, I just got done recording this podcast, and I was heading in the house and went back to find Franks podcast and listened to it again because I just wanted to make sure I had kind of said it correctly, and as he does sometimes, he said it way better than me. So I want to kind of restate one piece so I don’t miss it, because I think it’s the key to the insight you guys need. So what Frank said is that the information age is ending. There’s all this information and most of us are overwhelmed with information, and what he said was the insights are big because what people want, they don’t want more information, they want the one or two things they need to act upon to get the result they need. So that’s the insight. So it’s shifting from, “Here’s my 80 hour course.” To boom, “Do this and this and you’ll get that result.” It’s the insight. So anyway, I just wanted to kind of reemphasize that here in this podcast to make sure you guys didn’t miss out on that message, because that was the key. And like I said, the way he said it was so cool, I just had to come back and restate it. So thank you Frank, you’re amazing, and I will jump you guys back into the rest of the podcast. I am home now, I’m in the garage, I’m going to go to bed. I appreciate you guys, have an amazing day. Go build something awesome. We’re working on some fun things and it’s just, it’s exciting. I’m excited to show you guys over the next 12 months, between now and next year’s Funnel Hacking Live, all the cool stuff coming out. We’re working on the bigger roll out of Actionetics MD, which is so cool. We have all new onboarding dashboards and UI that’s going live in the app over the next few months, you will see, and then some really cool feature stuff coming out. Our new CRM that I was showing off today on Instagram, if you’re following my Instagram you saw that. It’s really, really cool. Our new memberships sites….some really cool things. I hope you guys are okay with us over delivering. We’re going to keep making the software better and better and better for you guys. But just today, and having Todd and Ryan here, if you guys know Todd and Ryan, Todd is my co-founder, Ryan is one of our partners, they’re the smart dudes. Them, and their teams who build this amazing software, it’s just fun seeing all the cool stuff they’re doing. We’ve basically, since last December, we’ve more than doubled the size of our development team, which is cool. It means we’re moving faster on things, we’re getting more stability. They were able tonight to double the size of our databases, which means we could double as many members as we have and won’t have any kind of load issues, which is awesome. They’re doing one more thing probably in the next week or two that will double it again. So we’re going to 4x our capacity, which is amazing for all of our Clickfunnels members. Things are going to move faster and, anyway, so many cool things. I cannot wait. So make sure you are listening in and make sure you’re subscribing and connecting to all the cool stuff we’re doing, because we are literally giving you guys all the info for free for the most part. My free plus shipping books are free, there’s, the information is there and now we got the tools and insights on the backsides to help you guys and get you to where you need to be. So with that said, I’m going to bed. I will see you guys later. Have a great night and we’ll talk soon.

Show Notes – http://heytechiesshow.com/shows/hts77/ Michael, Bruce and The Guru discuss Power outage in Ukraine, Looking back on 2016, Uber, Facebook, Encryption, Tweet causes seizure, Rumors, This week in tech history, Overclocked stack plus much more.

Any topic is fair game in this episode! The guys touch on ethnic cleansing in D.R., the Confederate flag, the possibility of a college comedy course, and Obama on Marc Maron’s podcast.Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram @NewYorkSilly, and let us know what you think of the show using the hashtag #NewYorkSillyPodcast.