Podcasts about MM

Tilastokeskuksen tuoreiden tietojen mukaan pari- ja lähisuhdeväkivaltarikosten uhrimäärä kasvoi viime vuonna viidenneksellä. Miksi väkivaltaa ei saada kuriin, vaikka ongelmasta on puhuttu jo pitkään? Keskustelemassa varapuheenjohtajat Karoliina Partanen (kok.) ja Pinja Perholehto (sd.). Mitä tiedämme suomalaisten työkyvyttömyysdiagnoosien määrästä sekä yleisestä sairastavuudesta? Kelan uusimmasta selvityksestä kertoo erikoistutkija Kati Sarnola. Jalkapallon miesten MM-kisat alkavat tänään. Yhdysvalloissa, Kanadassa ja Meksikossa pelataan seuraavat viisi viikkoa. Ennakkotunnelmista kertoo toimittaja Juri von Bonsdorff Washingtonista. Jalkapallosta rahan ja politiikan pelikenttänä keskustelevat politiikan tutkija Mira Söderman ja urheilutoimittaja, tietokirjailija Tapio Keskitalo. Euroopan keskuspankin odotetaan aloittavan tänään ohjauskoron nostojen sarjan. Mitä se merkitsee asuntovelallisille? Haastattelussa Nordean pääanalyytikko Jan von Gerich. Juontaja Seija Vaaherkumpu. Tuottaja Anna-Maria Haarala. Toimittajat Lotta Lautala, Seppo Kivimäki ja Veera Nikkilä.

EWOT for Stroke Recovery: The Affordable Alternative to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Brad Pitzele did not set out to become an oxygen therapy equipment maker. He set out to survive. After years of battling significant health challenges, conventional medicine had given him answers that kept failing him. He tried around 200 treatments. Some helped. Many did not. Then he found EWOT Exercise With Oxygen Therapy, and something finally shifted. Brad’s journey is not the same as a stroke. But what he discovered about oxygen, inflammation, and cellular energy maps directly onto one of the most stubborn obstacles stroke survivors face: the feeling that the brain has gone offline, that the body is running on empty, and that the path back is either impossibly expensive or simply does not exist. In Episode 407 of the Recovery After Stroke podcast, Brad shares what EWOT is, why it works, and why he now makes affordable EWOT systems through his company, One Thousand Roads, specifically so survivors do not have to remortgage their homes to access oxygen-driven recovery. What Is EWOT? EWOT stands for Exercise With Oxygen Therapy. The concept is straightforward: you breathe high-concentration oxygen through a mask while exercising even lightly, and that combination pushes oxygen into parts of the body that normal breathing cannot reliably reach. Most people assume oxygen therapy means a hyperbaric chamber: a pressurized tube, a clinic, a course of treatments costing tens of thousands of dollars. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is effective. Brad describes it as “a heroic treatment.” But it is also inaccessible for most survivors, financially and logistically. EWOT operates on a related principle without the chamber. The key mechanism is not about oxygenating red blood cells; they are already carrying close to their maximum load under normal breathing. The target is the blood plasma. Plasma does not carry oxygen efficiently under resting conditions, but during exercise, even light exercise, blood pressure and circulation increase enough to force dissolved oxygen into the plasma. That plasma can then reach the micro-capillaries, the tiny vessels that feed tissues deep in the body, including areas of the brain that become inflamed and oxygen-starved after a stroke. The Post-Stroke Energy Problem One of the most commonly reported and least-explained symptoms after stroke is fatigue that does not go away, no matter how much a survivor rests. Most survivors are told that is just part of it. Brad’s framework centres on mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria are the energy-producing structures inside cells. After stroke, the cells in and around the affected area are often not dead; they are in a kind of low-power state. Brad describes it as a “brownout”: the lights are on, but dimly. The mitochondria are not producing energy at full capacity, and one significant reason for that is insufficient oxygen supply to the tissue. “The cells that are offline after a stroke are not all dead. Some of them are just starving. Oxygen is part of what feeds them back.” — Brad Pitzele, Episode 407 When EWOT increases plasma oxygen during exercise, it can reach those inflamed, under-oxygenated micro-capillaries that larger vessels cannot access. The result, for some survivors, is a gradual improvement in energy, cognition, and physical capacity, not because the therapy is miraculous, but because it addresses a specific physiological deficit that conventional post-stroke care often does not target. EWOT vs. Hyperbaric: What’s the Real Difference? The honest answer is that EWOT and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are not equivalent. HBOT delivers oxygen under pressure, which drives it into tissue more forcefully. For certain conditions, particularly in acute or severe cases, hyperbaric oxygen has a stronger evidence base.  But for many stroke survivors in the subacute or chronic phase of recovery, access is the defining variable, not theoretical ceiling. A home-based hyperbaric unit costs $50,000 to $75,000. A clinical course can run to $60,000 or more. EWOT systems are available for under $2,000.  The question Brad puts to survivors is not “which is better in a lab?” It is: “Which one can you actually do, consistently, at home, over the months and years that brain recovery requires?” Consistency matters more than peak intensity in long-term neurological recovery.  Starting EWOT With Deficits EWOT does not require running on a treadmill. The exercise component can be a stationary bike, a recumbent bike, or simple seated leg movements with one limb strapped in. The goal is to raise circulation enough to push oxygen into the plasma, not to hit a cardiovascular fitness target. For survivors exploring this option, Brad’s team has built a specific resource at onethousandroads.com/stroke-recovery with a listener discount of $100 to $500, depending on the package. There is also a broader introduction to EWOT at onethousandroads.com/pages/exercise-with-oxygen-therapy. Recovery Is Possible — And It Does Not Have to Be Expensive If this episode resonated with you or if you want to explore more conversations about recovery options that do not require a second mortgage, Bill’s book, The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened, is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. And if the Recovery After Stroke podcast has been useful to you, you can support it financially at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Every contribution helps keep the show going and these conversations accessible to survivors around the world. This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan. EWOT for Stroke Recovery: The Affordable Alternative to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Why pay $60,000 for hyperbaric oxygen? EWOT brings oxygen therapy into your living room — and could help the brain cells that are only offline. One Thousands Roads Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) YouTube Channel Highlights: 00:00 Introduction and Background 05:37 Challenges in Stroke Recovery and Treatment Options 13:45 Understanding Oxygen Therapy and Its Mechanism 15:51 Oxygen Toxicity Explained 19:24 The Importance of Oxygenating Blood Plasma 24:53 Oxygen and Mitochondrial Function 31:16 Adapting Exercise for Stroke Survivors 38:27 Cost and Accessibility of Oxygen Therapy Devices Transcript: Introduction – EWOT for Stroke Recovery Brad Pitzele (00:00) like many of your listeners, when you have a medical issue that isn’t treated by traditional medicine and you’re desperate to get your life back, you’ll try just about anything. You, the lens it goes through is like, Well, how bad can this hurt me? BIll Gasiamis (00:15) Welcome back to Recovery After Stroke. I’m your host, Bill Gassiamas. Today’s guest is Brad Pitzele, founder of 1000 Roads, who overcame significant health challenges of his own and along the way discovered the science behind exercise with oxygen therapy. In this conversation, we get into how increasing oxygen saturation in the blood, specifically in the blood plasma, can help reach the inflamed microcapillaries. That are blocking oxygen delivery to cells in the recovering brain. We talk about mitochondrial dysfunction, post-stroke fatigue, and why Ewatt is worth understanding as an accessible alternative to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Before we get into it, if you’ve found value in this podcast and want to support it financially, you can do that at patreon.com/slash recovery after stroke. And if you haven’t yet read my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened, it is available at recovery after stroke dot com slash book. Here’s my conversation with Brad. BIll Gasiamis (01:19) Brad Pitsley, welcome to the podcast. Brad Pitzele (01:22) Thank you so much. BIll Gasiamis (01:24) Thanks for reaching out and ⁓ connecting with me to educate me on another thing that I can bring to stroke survivors that could potentially help them in the rehabilitation side of their brain. The the thumbnail that people found on YouTube is probably gonna have E W O T on it somewhere. E what. And it sounds something like something out of that ⁓ space war out of out of what is it? Brad Pitzele (01:53) Star Wars. Star Wars. BIll Gasiamis (01:54) Star Wars. Like the Ewok, right? And it doesn’t really mean anything to me. But before we descri tell people what Ewok is, ⁓ tell me a little bit about your background, the work that you do and how it is you came to be on the podcast today is for s for for the specific discussion that we’re gonna have. Brad Pitzele (01:58) Yep. Sure. ⁓ yeah, so I ⁓ I I’m an e recovering engineer. I like to joke. I spent my first decade of my life engineering. later on in life, I left engineering and went into different pursuits and I became chronically ill, had a variety of medical issues, ⁓ cancer, autoimmunity, and eventually Lyme disease. And I was in really bad shape. And a doctor recommended I look into either hyperbaric oxygen or this exercise with oxygen therapy, EWAT, that almost no one had heard of, and I’d never heard of it. ⁓ I I I had tried like everything to get better at this point. I was many years in special diets, ⁓ all sorts of supplements and ⁓ all sorts of modalities and things. And nothing really worked. There was nothing in a matter of fact, some of the medications I took actually gave me cancer. So it kind of forced me on this road to try something different. ⁓ and eventually I found my way back to health through exercise with oxygen when so many things weren’t working. ⁓ and actually later paired that with ⁓ red light therapy. ⁓ and along the way I started because I’m an engineer and I’m inquisitive, I like It was Lyme disease is kind of a do-it-yourself disease. ⁓ so I started digging in and pouring into research, not just on Lyme disease, but autoimmunity, ⁓ chronic illness, ⁓ trying to figure out what the heck was going on with me. And so ⁓ what I found about exercise oxygen therapy along the way was really fascinating to me. and about a year into using it, I went back to that same doctor and he was kind of shocked. At my turnaround, and he was like, What did you use? Did you do oxygen? And I said, I did. And he was like, Who’d you buy it from? I want to tell my patients about it. And I said, I didn’t buy it, Doc. I actually ended up making my own. And he was kind of surprised by that for obvious reasons. And then he said, Well, gosh, would you consider making it for my patient? And so, my patients, and so that’s how we got into this business back in two thousand eighteen. We launched one thousand roads to kinda make exercise with oxygen therapy accessible to people who are dealing with chronic health conditions. BIll Gasiamis (04:39) Okay. And it stems from science, right? There’s scientific data that backs up this exercise with oxygen therapy. Before you go into that a little bit, we don’t have to go deep into it, but we can just ⁓ chat about it. ⁓ when I talk to stroke survivors, they get stuck always with what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? They want the The blue pill, take that one, everything gets fixed. I mean, stroke is not like that, right? And it’s and it’s stroke is also a you’re on your own kind of thing. Because once you get out of the acute phase, once you get sent home, the ⁓ follow up and the medical fraternity doesn’t have a system to kind of say to you, we can’t help you. Speak to that guy. ⁓ that guy might not be able to help you, but but there’s a guy over there. Brad Pitzele (05:09) Yeah. Challenges in Stroke Recovery and Treatment Options BIll Gasiamis (05:33) Like there’s none of that. And stroke survivors need podcasts. They need ⁓ people selling all sorts of crazy stuff that they will almost try almost all the time. They’ll try everything. And then they’ll pick and finally stumble into one that helps and gets them a result. But before we talk about all of that, what I want to do is also go back to what you said about ⁓ a year later, you went to your doctor, he was stunned at the result. We can’t put that down just to eat what? We can’t put that down just to exercise with oxygen therapy. Give me the brief steps on the other things that you also attended to because people miss that. Brad Pitzele (06:15) Yes. Yeah. I well, here’s what I’ll tell you. I started I started to get arthritis in my hands in like 2010 or eleven. and then I started taking traditional drugs for it. And one of the side effects of the drugs is higher risk of cancer and specifically melanoma, which I developed in two thousand thirteen, I wanna say, maybe two thousand fourteen. And that kicked me off the traditional medical path. ⁓ to your point, you don’t you don’t in the stroke recovery, there’s not a traditional path. There it was a traditional path, but it was clear that it was a you know it was a choice between cancer and autoimmunity, and neither one seemed great to me. ⁓ from there I tried so many things, Bill. I did s I actually made a list recently and looked at it because I had it like just off the top of my head, I came up with 200 different things I did try. We’re talking special diets. Eating all sorts of weird, strange things, all sorts of supplements, antibiotics, because it’s Lyme disease, herbal protocols, ⁓ ozone treatments, sa various different types of saunas, ozone sauna, infrared sauna, ⁓ heat steam saunas, ⁓ colonics, coffee enemas, ⁓ weird stuff, you know, you’d never think you’d do. I mean BIll Gasiamis (07:39) You are committed Brad Pitzele (07:42) ‘Cause like many of your listeners, when you have a medical issue that isn’t treated by traditional medicine and you’re desperate to get your life back, you will you’ll try just about anything. You the the lens it goes through is like, Well, how bad can this hurt me? Like like ’cause I know where I’m going right now. For me at least it was a I was just like this gradual step down. It was like I knew like I I couldn’t do this. I had a young family. so, you know, that doctor, I remember him saying, like, look, Brad, we’re trying all these things, we’re gonna get you on thyroid medications and get that right, and we’re gonna do this. ⁓ there on that list of 200, there were about eight things that gave me any kind of benefit that I could identify. ⁓ But I remember he’s like, Brad, we’re gonna take out the big dog. We’re gonna do this ozone treatment. And it’s a special kind where we remove the blood from your body, we inject ozone, put it through UV light, and put it back into your blood. And this helps everyone. Like if nothing else works, this helps, but it’s really expensive. So we’re saving it, kind of. So he he did it. He’s like, do a course of three of them. And he’s like, You might feel bad after it the next day because it kills a bunch of stuff and might you might feel toxic. Or you might feel better. We’re not sure. And give it a few days. And like I did all three of them, I never noticed a difference. And it was ⁓ the most depressing, scary part was like going through that. So when he said go do oxygen, I was like, Okay, like I’ve done everything else. I’m just gonna check the box so the doctor knows that’s not gonna work, so we can go try to find something else. ⁓ And I didn’t believe it was gonna work. I I you know, I didn’t jump on the the bandwagon gung-ho. I was, you know, kind of kicking and screaming. And that was part of the reason I built my own, is because at the time they were so expensive and the they were five to twenty-five thousand dollars. And I was like, I just can’t spend, you know, ten thousand dollars on an experiment. I just can’t do that. ⁓ And he also suggested maybe hyperbaric and that was like fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars. And I was like, geez, if I knew this was the the blue pill, as you said it, if I knew this was the blue pill, I’d go mortgage the house and I’d go do it because like then I could work full and I could do all the things, I could be present for the family, but ⁓ I couldn’t. BIll Gasiamis (10:05) And and and you know what? And it’s not, and and the reason it’s not for a lot of people is because you need to have penumbras the brain from a stroke survivor perspective that are recoverable and that you can bring back to life that are offline, not dead by ⁓ cell death because of the stroke. And there’s no diagnostic process in the majority of the people I’ve spoken to, you can’t diagnose somebody and then work out whether they’re a candidate, and that really Brad Pitzele (10:20) Yeah. Right. BIll Gasiamis (10:33) Pisses me off to somebody gonna have to spend 50 grand to find out if they’re gonna get a result, right? The s the guys that who I’ve interviewed about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, ⁓ Viv clinics, ⁓ those guys will do a thorough diagnostic beforehand to determine whether somebody is a candidate. And whatever that costs, even if it’s five grand, I don’t know what it does cost, but even if it’s five grand, at least you can go, you’re not a candidate, don’t spend any more money. Brad Pitzele (10:38) Yeah. Right. higher yes, you have a higher level of certainty before you spend the money. BIll Gasiamis (11:04) Yeah. And if you do do it, you’re doing it for the other ⁓ non-brain related benefits that you’re gonna get from hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And that’s totally up to you. But it’s not the thing to supposedly fix the arm or the leg that doesn’t work, or to ⁓ repair the damaged cells in your brain. So that part really frustrates me. And if I’m gonna spend that much money, then there’s the opportunity cost as well. It’s like Brad Pitzele (11:33) Yes. BIll Gasiamis (11:34) Now I can’t spend that somewhere else. Brad Pitzele (11:36) Exactly. That was me too. It was like you you knew you had and I was like, man, if I spend this kind of money on it and it doesn’t work, like nothing’s worked for the last, I don’t know, almost ten years at this point. Like how many of these shots do I have in the cannon, right? Like you you know, now I’m I’m depleted and I’m still sick. And that’s even i and you know this, when you’ve got a chronic health condition, sometimes the psych psychology of it all is just as hard as the condition. And If you’re like, wow, now I don’t have money. I feel trapped. There’s nothing I can try. Then hope starts to dwindle. And I say like hope is is like the most potent weapon in recovering from a chronic health condition. It’s a double-edged sword because like you’re s afraid to get hope up because you’ve been let down. But it’s also the thing you need. You ha like when when you start losing hope, and I and I’ve been at that point, it just gets incredibly dark. ⁓ and incredibly scary. so I I think that was part of it. I just wouldn’t allow it. It was the financial part. I you’re right. You only have so many shots out of the bow. But it was also like if it doesn’t work and I am depleted financially you know, I don’t like that that brings me to a a level of hopelessness I I’m not sure I can confront. BIll Gasiamis (12:53) Yeah. And then in order to get back up, you’re getting back up, you’re financially depleted, you’re energetically depleted, your health is depleted. And it’s like, my God, that is a that is like the lowest place that you can find yourself and to get back up is a lot harder. And yet people have still done that, but I know the task is harder. I’ve been in a similar sort of situation. Brad Pitzele (13:12) Yeah. We all love we all love reading that inspirational story. No one wants to live it if they can avoid it, I’ll tell you. Understanding Oxygen Therapy and Its Mechanism BIll Gasiamis (13:23) Avoid it. Yeah, a hundred percent. ⁓ so so you’ve tried all this stuff, you’re unwell, and then somebody says to you, try oxygen. Now, what I imagine when I hear oxygen is get a can from the local gas supplier, ⁓ pop pot in a tube, put it on the back of your chair, wheelchair. You know, I’ve seen a lot of older guys who have got it, and then they’ve got oxygen attached to their face and they’re breathing in oxygen. What specifically did your doctor tell you to get and if you didn’t get what he suggested, like w what did it look like for you? Brad Pitzele (14:00) Yeah, so the challenge with bottled oxygen is number one, it’s almost impossible to get. number two is when you exercise, you can take in a massive amount of oxygen, and that’s part of what makes the the therapy really cool. So y you and I sitting here, maybe we’re taking in three liters of oxygen a minute, okay? ⁓ three liters of air a minute, maybe something like that. ⁓ When you’re exercising, you can easily take in 50 or 60 liters. So it’s a massive multiplier. So you need something that’s going to give you a large amount of oxygen. Now, there’s two ways you can get oxygen in your home. One is that bottle you mentioned, and then you’re always refilling it, and you can imagine lugging one of those things around. ⁓ the other way is there’s a device called an oxygen concentrator, and all you do is you plug it into the wall. And it turns the it purifies the oxygen in the room. So, you know, at sea level, the oxygen in the room has 21% oxygen and it can purify it to 93%. Now, the challenge with these devices is they put out either five or ten liters of oxygen in a minute. So not enough to exercise with. If you were to try to exercise with it, you would also be sucking in this air at 21% and diluting it. ⁓ and so what you do is you take this device and you fill a large reservoir, it’s about a thousand liters, ⁓ and you fill it up. using this device and then you hook up a hose with a mask on it and then you breathe through the mask while you do a fifteen minute exercise session. BIll Gasiamis (15:41) Okay. A reservoir, ⁓ water tank. Oxygen Toxicity Explained Brad Pitzele (15:45) It well it it’s like it looks like a big pillow. So it’s like six you know, two meters by two meters, sort of ⁓ big pillow, six feet by six feet for us still on Imperial. And you fill it up so a thousand liters and it’s you know it’s it’s thin film and so it’s not a a rigid body of something, and then yeah, it’s a bag. BIll Gasiamis (16:06) It’s a bag. Like a bagpipe, a massive bagpipe. Brad Pitzele (16:10) There you go. BIll Gasiamis (16:12) Okay. Okay. W I’m sure there’s an image of that, right? We’ll put it on the screen. People can see it while we’re talking about it, trying to work out what it is. Okay. So this thing is something that you accessed and you used specifically for yourself, how many years ago? Brad Pitzele (16:16) Yeah. Yeah. I’ve s I’ve been using it for a decade straight now. BIll Gasiamis (16:33) Okay. This stuff’s been around for about a decade. This Brad Pitzele (16:37) It’s well, the the research on it goes back to the nineteen sixties and seventies. This it’s really fascinating. actually some of the early research goes back to the turn of the ⁓ twentieth century, the nineteen hundreds. So in the early nineteen hundreds, a gentleman named Otto Warburg won a Nobel Prize for proving that he could turn any cancer or any regular cell into a cancerous cell by depriving it of oxygen. ⁓ and so there’s this really well-established linkage between oxygen and cancer. Even today, a ton of research on that. So in the 1960s and 70s, there was a a German physicist and prolific inventor named Manfred von Arden. Now, and he started to want to do research on Otto’s work, and he he actually started doing research on exercising with oxygen as an anti-cancer protocol. And some of the research he found was really fascinating. what without getting overly technical, basically it our circulatory system, obviously, this is really relevant to stroke, ⁓ people deal in strokes, is as you get down into the the end runs of your circulatory system, there’s capillaries and they’re like thinner than a human hair. And this is where your nutrients and your oxygen are actually exchanged with the cell. And what he found is as we age naturally this inflammation builds up on the lining of our capillaries. And it actually causes the capillaries to swell shut so that now none of your red blood cells can get by. Now, I mean, this is how exquisite our body is designed. ⁓ our capillaries are actually thinner than a red blood cell. So under the most healthy of conditions. A red blood cell actually needs to fold up like a taco to get into our capillaries and deliver that oxygen in the last mile of our circulatory system. So any swelling in that capillary can cause a blockage. And now all the cells downstream are not getting oxygen and in a sufficient quantity. And so they kind of go into what they what he kind of referred to as like a brownout, right? Like it’s a low energy state. They’re doing anaerobic respiration to get some energy. Maybe some of the smaller red blood cells might squeak by here and there and give a little bit, but they’re not getting the full oxygen they need. And what he found is by doing this procedure, just a few times he had very elderly people with very inflamed ⁓ capillaries. He was able to re-establish normal blood flow. And the reason is is oxygen is incredibly anti-inflammatory. ⁓ and a lot of research on that we can go into a little bit later. The Importance of Oxygenating Blood Plasma So, number one, it causes this anti-inflammatory reaction inside these inflamed capillaries to reopen them. But it also does something really amazing that he discovered is when you’re doing this procedure, ⁓ it causes the oxygen to not just attach to our red blood cells like it always does, but it also saturates our blood plasma, which is this clearish liquid that our red blood cells ride on. And Our blood plasma is a thousand times thinner than a red blood cell. So if you imagine these blockages, red blood cells are not getting through, but obviously the blood plasma can get through as long as it’s like as thin as water. So as long as there’s any opening there, and it can immediately deliver oxygen downstream, both to cause an anti-inflammatory impact in the capillaries, but also to all those cells that are starving. And so you can obviously, as we’re talking through this, you can kind of see how this fits folks who are dealing with various different strokes ⁓ and how that can help them as well. BIll Gasiamis (20:32) Yeah. Okay. I d before we spoke I did a little bit of research and found ⁓ as well that there’s some there’s a lot of relevant data with regards to oxygen and ⁓ increasing the oxygenation in the blood. you so tell me a little bit about oxygen. I I don’t understand exactly what that is. I’ve heard of people becoming ill. Because of too much oxygen, ⁓ ill because of not enough oxygen. So what is what what is becoming ill of too much oxygen and why is ninety nine percent saturation not that? Brad Pitzele (21:18) Yeah, yeah. ⁓ good question. So oxygen toxicity can occur if you get too much oxygen under certain circumstances. So if you’re in a hyperbaric chamber too long, it can cause oxygen toxicity. And basically that’s when oxygen gets trapped in your bloodstream and it can’t get out. and You can actually get it without hyperbaric. So hyperbaric is oxygen under pressure. You can get it at normal barracks. So if you were just sitting on the couch breathing oxygen, you could eventually get oxygen toxicity. Now, it would take over twenty-four hours. So if you were breathing just pure oxygen, no exercise, sitting on your couch for 24 plus hours, it starts to get into the risky zone. When you’re doing exercise with oxygen, that’s actually one of the cool things about it that because of the synergies of exercise and oxygen, it’s impossible to get oxygen toxicity for two reasons. one is that reservoir is only a thousand liters. it’s not a high enough dose that you could get a oxygen toxicity. It is a massive dose, it’s about the same amount of oxygen you take in in a day, and you can take it in in 15 minutes, but it’s not more than. And the second reason, even if we could make our reservoir 10x, 100x, and you could exercise nonstop, you still couldn’t get oxygen toxicity because when you’re exercising, your body produces a massive amount of carbon dioxide gas. And that goes into our bloodstream and it increases pressure in our circulatory system. And that actually forces the oxygen out of the circulatory system and into the cells. So it works as a protectant as well from oxygen toxicity. So that’s oxygen toxicity. It’s a real risk. ⁓ Most of the time it’s a very controllable risk. You know, if you’re doing hyperbaric, they’re gonna keep you in there for so long so that you’re not gonna be at risk generally. ⁓ if you’re assigned to do oxygen while you’re stationary at home, they have protocols to make sure you’re not doing it, you know, twenty-eight hours nonstop sort of thing. ⁓ or they have you wear a cannula where where you’re also taking in air and it’s diluting it. ⁓ and in exercised oxygen therapy, it’s not really possible because of the massive amount of carbon dioxide. ⁓ now, not enough oxygen. So if you if you want to measure your oxygen in your blood, the way they normally do it is a device called the pulse oximeter. You can get one for 20 bucks off Amazon. What it does is it looks at how much how many of your red blood cells are saturated with oxygen. And what you’re gonna find in most folks. Is it’s close to a hundred percent. It’s ninety-eight percent, it’s ninety-six percent, ninety-seven percent. ⁓ there’s not a lot of room in our blood for more oxygen. So that’s why it’s important that ewak can actually oxygenate our blood plasma. The same with hyperbaric does the exact same thing, it oxygenates our blood plasma. So BIll Gasiamis (24:26) Okay. I think before you go on, that’s the key ingredient. It’s oxygenating the plasma as well. Where where previously you’ve got let’s say ninety seven, ninety eight percent saturation of your red blood cells. What we’re doing is adding that little bit of extra oxygen into the space where the plasma is. That’s kind of the key difference. Brad Pitzele (24:36) Yes. And there’s two reasons why it’s important. so normally, just for comparison, you and I sitting here, maybe 2% of all the oxygen in our blood is in our plasma, so it’s not very much. ⁓ but under these conditions of IWAT and hyperbaric, we can saturate that blood plasma. And it’s important for two reasons. One, obviously, it increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, but that’s the more minor one. The more major one is that the blood plasma can get into let’s just say the nooks and crannies, smaller spaces in our body where inflammation is blocking off access of red blood cells to downstream cells. And so it can deliver a dose of oxygen where it normally is not able to get. BIll Gasiamis (25:40) You you’ve spent a lot of time on this topic by the sound of things. ⁓ and that’s really awesome. So before we talk about how to actually use a device, how to get a device, how to how to behave while you’re using a device, I wanna understand like how Oxygen and Mitochondrial Function Brad Pitzele (25:52) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (26:02) How you notice the difference in yourself? Because a lot of people ask me what I did in my own stroke recovery. And Brad’s experience is going to be different from the stroke survivor’s experience. My experience was ⁓ I’ve got nothing from the doctors other than let’s monitor your bleed, let’s give you brain surgery. I mean, that’s not nothing. That’s amazing. Like I’m very Brad Pitzele (26:05) Yeah. Yes. BIll Gasiamis (26:31) Grateful for all of that. That removed the the blood vessel that was leaking that was going to potentially kill me. ⁓ so the immediate risk was gone. And then what what I mean I I got nothing is the specialists did their specialty and then I got nothing because they don’t do nutrition, they don’t do exercise, they don’t do meditation, they do brain surgery. And it’s really important for stroke survivors to understand that when you go to a doctor, a neurologist, whoever. Brad Pitzele (26:55) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (27:00) They do a specific thing, and once they’ve done it, they can’t do anything else. And you need to get over the fact that you ⁓ might feel disappointment at the at that I don’t know where to go next, and they don’t know where to send you. Okay, they’re not trained and they cannot legally send you elsewhere. That’s why you’re kind of on your own. So I did meditation, I did nutrition, I did all this kind of stuff and Brad Pitzele (27:16) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (27:27) Somebody who’s interviewed you is Dave Asprey. I would I’ve been following Dave Asprey and a whole bunch of other guys ⁓ probably since around 2012, 2013. And what I learned was how do I reduce the inflammation in my brain? And I had that one area of inquiry, the one area of inquiry that I could personally impact positively by taking out inflammatory foods from my diet. And before that it was, you know, ⁓ processed white bread, it was alcohol, it was cigarettes, ⁓ it was all the stuff that you get in a packet that doesn’t really help to nourish the body, right? So I went back to basics. We’ll call it just for the simplicity of the explanation, we’ll call it protein, ⁓ vegetables and basic carbohydrates like rice or potato. And then what I found was that inflammation decreased, and that was a game changer in how I experienced my brain. And it was a game changer in how quickly I improved neurologically. But just so that people know, it wasn’t the be all end all, it didn’t remove the damaged cells that still are in my head that mean I experienced my the left side of my body in a completely different way than my right side. I’ve got numbness, proprioception issues. I’ve got ⁓ tingling, I’ve got burning, I’ve got ⁓ spasticity, you know, the muscles are tight. So all that stuff is still there. But I have a better experience of the rest of my body and brain because of the things that I took out. But what I didn’t have was the link between exercise, which I do, light exercise, because I’m a stroke survivor. I can’t. use the left side of my body like I used to. so I would do exercise ⁓ like riding an electric bike because it’s easier to pedal, like walking and like doing very light weights at the gym. ⁓ but I didn’t have that oxygen part of the the therapy. And that’s kind of why I interviewed the guys about hyperbaric to understand how oxygen supports how mimicking i a hypoxic brain in the chamber supports ⁓ so how how does like what’s the next part like how does that support the brain to heal let’s give stroke survivors an understanding so that they can kind of grasp that I know we spoke about how oxygen gets into the ⁓ into the red blood cell we spoke about how it gets into the plasma but like Brad Pitzele (30:15) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (30:20) Why is that the next step? Brad Pitzele (30:21) What’s it too? Yeah. It’s a good question. I think you’re right. I you know, we don’t I will say we don’t try to go out and pitch like exercise with oxygen therapy is a panacea or it’s everything for everyone. Even the name of our company, ⁓ one thousand roads, is about paying homage to everyone’s own healing journey and recognizing everyone’s unique journey. So I’ll say that, but So I’ll say that, but what I found about oxygen was in IWA in particular. What was fascinating to me was for me when I was dealing with Lyme disease, which similar to folks who are dealing with the stroke, there’s a variety of different symptoms and s from different causes. And I was trying to treat all these things with different protocols, different supplements that and I found that when I started digging into oxygen, I was shocked at how many of them came back to it. So when you have A stroke, often there’s a lot of ⁓ emerging research about mitochondrial dysfunction. And this is interestingly, mitochondrial dysfunction. Now ten years ago when I was researching it, no one heard of it or cared about it. And it’s really burst onto the scene because you’re gonna find it ⁓ At the heart of so many chronic health conditions, right? ⁓ you’re gonna it’s actually they’re looking at it in cancers, ⁓ chronic illnesses of all sorts, Alzheimer’s, all sorts of cognitive and ⁓ autoimmune conditions, etc., etc. So ⁓ you have this disrupted mitochondria, right? So there was a period of time when your cells were not getting enough energy, whether it was a hemorrhagic stroke and Blood wasn’t being delivered to those cells, so no nutrients, no oxygen, or an ischemic stroke where they were just cut off ⁓ because of a clot or whatnot. And so they were not getting nutrients. In each of these cases, what happens immediately when the cell runs out of oxygen, like I was talking about that brownout, it goes from aerobic respiration to anaerobic respiration. And anaerobic respiration, ⁓ it’s It only can produce 5% of the energy as aerobic. So the cell is in a low energy state, which is the first problem, which means it doesn’t have energy to repair, it doesn’t have energy to take out the trash, detoxify. so it’s kind of stuck. But also ⁓ it creates a lot of metabolic waste. So it creates lactic acid, it creates free radicals, all these things produce more inflammation, like you were talking about. So Now we’ve got these mitochondria, which are dysfunctional. They don’t have the energy to repair. They don’t have the energy to take out all these dead cells or ⁓ you know, all these other byproducts of the immune system and the natural kind of response to this damage, which then leaves more of it hanging around to produce more damage, and they’re producing more damage themselves. So it’s kind of like this swirl, and it’s ⁓ you know, it’s a downward swirl, if you will. ⁓ so When you can re-oxygenate the mitochondria, the first thing you’re doing is you’re giving them the energy to do whatever it is they need to do. ⁓ and that can be the immediate like feeling sharper, like, ⁓ I feel like I can get my thoughts together quicker. ⁓ it can be, ⁓ I feel like I’m more in control of my emotions. And I I don’t feel like sometimes I have a disproportionate emotional response to something. It can be I I don’t have that brain fog. ⁓ you know, that sort of thing. Or I literally have energy. So our brain actually consumes like 20% of all the oxygen in our body. And it’s only like two percent of the mass. So it’s like punching 10x its weight, right? So when your body starts running low on oxygen, it starts conserving. And the one of the things it tells you to do is like cool it, like stop using your muscles. You’re tired. You need to just sit there and veg out. BIll Gasiamis (34:06) Mm-hmm. Brad Pitzele (34:27) while our mitochondria try to catch up. And so that’s often that chronic fatigue that folks with a variety of health conditions, including stroke, feel, which is their bodies like, stop using energy, we don’t have enough. We need to redeploy it for something else more pressing. And so When you can reestablish normal oxygenation, it improves energy. ⁓ it improves sleep, it improves memory. and the the cells have energy to start repairing and detoxifying. ⁓ and then obviously I always think it’s cool because we’re pairing it with oc with exercise. And there’s so much research on the benefits of exercise. You mentioned it was so important, Bill, in in your healing journey. And you know, we know how important exercise is for a stroke survivor. Well, now we’re pairing it with oxygen and we’re using that exercise to catapult more of that oxygen around the body through the circulatory system while your blood vessels are dilated and opening up. So if you’re still dealing with blockages in your microcirculation, which most stroke survivors are. You’re opening them as wide as they they naturally can at that moment, and that’s when we’re feeding more oxygen to them. So it works it kind of hand in hand in that respect. BIll Gasiamis (35:48) All right. Now one glitch. Stroke survivors often are struggling to get into the physical recovery, right? Because the body goes offline, one of the legs doesn’t work, one of the arms doesn’t work. It’s a real challenge, right? So how how can we benefit from that even though we are at just after the acute phase where there is not a lot of capability for Brad Pitzele (36:00) Yes. It’s perfect. Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (36:17) physicality and I I say that so that the stroke survivors listening know that what I’m leading to is that early on it’s probably harder to do ⁓ physical therapy, exercise, et cetera. But again, with time and hope, all of those things can improve. Right. So I I wanna put that out there for stroke survivors, but also like it’s a can it’s a it’s a constraint. Brad Pitzele (36:48) Yeah. And you know, because a lot of our customers are dealing with chronic illness, this is a question that’s not uncommon is like, yeah, but I can’t I’m not out here to run a mile, Brad. I’m like eighty years old and I’m sick or whatever it is. The really ⁓ the really cool thing about ⁓ Ewatt is that it will meet you where you are at. So there is something all of us can do. The goal is to increase your heart rate and your circulation. Cost and Accessibility of Oxygen Therapy Devices and breathe the oxygen. So there’s a few ways you can do it. you know, it doesn’t have to be banging it out on a treadmill trying to get your seven minute mile. ⁓ you don’t need to do that. We have folks, you know, depending on where they are, you can start with slow walking on a treadmill. You can start with calisthenics. You can start with stretching. ⁓ gentle aerobics in your living room. You can start by, you know, lifting weights. You could be sitting and lifting weights with the the hand that’s not. We have folks, and this is probably not so much for ⁓ stroke survivors, but maybe jumping on a ⁓ a rebounder, like a little trampoline if you’ve got the balance one with the handle. ⁓ we have people using under-the-desk pedal bikes, the ones you can get for $49 on Amazon while you’re sitting. BIll Gasiamis (38:03) Beautiful. Brad Pitzele (38:04) while you’re sitting in a chair. And then for the folks who can’t do any of that, we have we even have them doing what I call passive Ewatt, which is they will breathe the oxygen while they get in like a an infrared ⁓ sauna blanket. So infrared sauna will increase your heart rate. And so you will get some benefit out of it. And what normally happens, the the really cool thing about exercising with oxygen is The first thing folks notice, the very first benefit most folks notice when they start doing is the exercise is easier. So I always describe this like if you were ⁓ jogging on a treadmill at, I don’t know, pick a number, you know, four miles an hour and you put the mask on, you wouldn’t feel like you were getting the same exercise at four miles an hour. You you crank it up to four and a half, and then later you crank it up more. And Your endurance actually improves much more quickly than if you were just doing exercise alone. ⁓ and there’s a ton of actually research on you know Olympic athletes using it for performance enhancement, which is not what we’re using for in this, but it’s kind of a nice little side effect. So we have folks who come to us who who are out of condition. We’re not talking about the physical disabilities, but out of condition, we’re like, I couldn’t do. And they’re shocked at what they’re doing and they come back and tell us in three months, look what I’m doing, sort of thing. ⁓ But it will meet you where you’re at. So if you want to do passive Ewatt, you can do that for a while as you’re working and as you start to feel better. Then maybe you’re using the under desk pedal bike. And as you’re getting your balance back and feeling better, maybe it’s a a real stationary bike later or walking on a treadmill and so on and so forth. ⁓ the goal isn’t to bust hump and like try to, you know, get a new record. As a matter of fact, I find that for most folks that sets you back. You wanna kind of you wanna do within an envelope that you’re comfortable with because If we work out too hard, also we set ourselves back because in most chronic health conditions and in stroke, additionally, we talked about this fatigue that’s due to an energy deficit. So if you go out there and overwork, you’re just putting your body in more of a deficit and potentially putting it in more of an inflammatory environment. And we’re trying to do this at a level that’s in you know anti-inflammatory and helping you recover. BIll Gasiamis (40:30) I love that. I love your whole explanation. So in my what I was hoping was you were gonna say that I could just sit there and almost do nothing ⁓ as a stroke survivor, where I’m completely in in just, you know, like week three of the acute after the acute phase, and fatigue is a massive issue and energy is a massive issue, and I’m barely able to stay awake, ⁓ and all of that stuff. And then ⁓ you could do just I hope you I was hoping you were gonna say, But you said the equivalent of ⁓ chair yoga, you know, where all I had to do was just move an arm or move a leg and do something just to get me physically going and then it would benefit. That’s what I love about it. The under-the-leg pedal bike, ⁓ under-the-desk pedal bike is one of the best things because you can strap in your leg with the deficits if you have a leg that has deficits, and you can do all the or the majority of the pedaling with the other leg, which is strapped in. Brad Pitzele (41:07) Mm. BIll Gasiamis (41:29) And you don’t you’re not gonna fall over ’cause you sit in in a chair. ⁓ probably you’re doing it inside your house so the the temperature, the weather is always perfect and ⁓ and you don’t have to door for long, right? You only have to door for a few minutes to start with. Brad Pitzele (41:45) And you’re pulling that other leg around and it’s starting to fire inside here and rebuild those connections. And and as you know, exercise increases ⁓ brain drive neurotrophic factor, which is a growth factor in our brain for BIll Gasiamis (41:51) Mm. Brad Pitzele (42:00) neuroplasticity. So you’re getting you’re getting all of these benefits. So you to your point, for someone who’s if it’s my right leg’s not working and I’m strapped in and my left leg’s doing it, my right leg is firing and it’s firing those neurons at the exact time you have that B D N F as it’s called. So BIll Gasiamis (42:17) BDNF’s amazing. And I also interviewed ⁓ recently a gentleman who ⁓ had spoken about ⁓ Jack Clifford on episode 402 who spoke about kind of ⁓ a protocol that enables you to regenerate blood vessels around the area that’s injured ⁓ to increase the oxygenation and the blood flow ⁓ to potentially those areas where ⁓ brain is offline, not dead. ⁓ so all of these things, ⁓ the previous episode that I recorded with Jack, your episode right now, like all are things that you can do that support brain health, brain recovery, ⁓ overcoming all the some of the challenges that stroke causes. And what I love about this specifically is that you can do it from your house. and you don’t have to go anywhere, but there is a cost. So let’s talk about the cost a little bit because I I want to mention it because of the massive difference to hyperbaric, which can cost up to sixty grand if you go on the right protocol. And ⁓ that’s unattainable for most people, let alone a stroke survivor who just lost their ability to earn ⁓ and may not have sixty grand to splash. Brad Pitzele (43:48) Yeah. BIll Gasiamis (43:48) ⁓ so what is the cost of getting a machine, setting it up and putting it in your house? Brad Pitzele (43:54) Yeah. So we sell two different machines. ⁓ we have one machine that’s eighteen hundred and ninety-nine dollars and the other one that’s twenty-four ninety-nine. ⁓ that’s everything you need to get going other than the exercise equipment. and the machines last a long, long time. I think I You know, I think we actually we’ve been in business since 2018 and we had our first customer come back and tell us they wore out their machine like this year. So I have to stop saying we’ve never had one wore wear out yet. So we’ve had one. ⁓ so it it’s one of I think that’s one of the things that’s great about it is it’s something you can do in your house. It’s something that doesn’t take a lot of time. When I was dealing with my chronic health issue, I was joke around about the ceremonies of counting pills and doing this modality and doing that. And they all in stroke survivors, I think, recognize the same thing. It starts to crowd out your life. And then eventually you kind of throw your hands up. You’re like, I it might be helping, but I just don’t have four hours a day for all this stuff. Like I just I need to go on and and live my life too. So it’s something that ⁓ it’s 15 minutes. You do it three to five times a week in your home. ⁓ it’s a one time expense and then it’s you know, it’s something you’ll have for many, many years. BIll Gasiamis (45:12) I love it. Where are you located? Brad Pitzele (45:15) We’re in a Dallas, Texas area. BIll Gasiamis (45:17) Okay. And are these things easy to get and distribute throughout the United States and other places in the world? I don’t know I’ve never heard of it before. So are there other people around who who sell a product that’s similar or can you access them easily? Brad Pitzele (45:35) Well, we do ship worldwide. ⁓ we ship with US power, so people get a power converter we’ve sold to the UK, to Australia, to all over Europe, Asia, ⁓ South America, ⁓ and of course across North America as well. So ⁓ they’re readily accessible. Kind of our mission was You know, when the doctor asked me if I’d make him first patients, I I I I thought about what you were saying about how like spending sixty grand to find out if something’s gonna work. And I felt like I was taking advantage a lot when I was very ill. So we wanted to make something that was accessible to people who are chronically ill. They might not have the ability to earn money. They’re on a fixed in like I have a I guess a deep personal experience and empathy there sort of thing. So ⁓ that’s yeah. So we ship worldwide. BIll Gasiamis (46:27) Yeah. If somebody wanted to reach out to you just to get more information, to have a chat with you, to look at your website, where would they go? Brad Pitzele (46:35) They would go to 1000roads.com slash stroke recovery. We do. And you can find it at the bottom of that webpage, but it’s 1000 Roads HQ. BIll Gasiamis (46:42) And you have a YouTube channel. Okay. What kind of ⁓ things can people find on the YouTube channel? Brad Pitzele (46:56) you can find everything about protocols, benefits, ⁓ how to use it. ⁓ we hit have some customer testimonials and parts of that. ⁓ just talking about the science of it, people’s experience with it, et cetera, et cetera, different use reasons people use it. BIll Gasiamis (47:17) I think it’s very important to bring information like this to stroke survivors so that they can access things in their own home that’s going to make their life better. I wrote a book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened, for the explicit reason to give people like a path forward, a journey forward as to how to ⁓ s how to kind of obtain the silver lining in stroke recovery. And when I wrote it ⁓ in 2018, when I started writing it, something like that, 2018, 2019, I was lacking a lot of the extra pieces that I could put into ⁓ the mindset chapter, for example, or the exercise chapter, or, you know, the nutrition chapter. And In the last five or six years, I’ve been picking up those pieces to sort of attach to those chapters because they’re really relevant. And with the exercise chapter, I think this protocol was the one thing that was missing because I made the point of how important exercise was. I didn’t make the point of how you can exercise and get more bang for your buck during that exercise by Increasing the amount of oxygen that you were getting into your ⁓ bloodstream. How would I have known that if I hadn’t come across the science, which I hadn’t? Plus, there’s only so much you can put in each chapter, but this is the perfect addition. Like, and I love it. So I can go on and on about how much I think this is amazing. Brad, I really ⁓ want to thank you for reaching out and joining me on the podcast. Thanks for the work that you do. I’m glad that you’ve been able to get your health back and now you’re helping other people. Brad Pitzele (49:06) Thank you so much, Bill. I appreciate you having me on. BIll Gasiamis (49:08) Well, that’s it for another episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Might be worth listening to it again. The science here is worth sitting with, oxygenating the blood plasma, reopening inflamed microcapillaries, giving mitochondria what they need to shift out of that low energy state. And the fact that it can be done at home at a fraction of the cost of hyperbaric oxygen therapy makes it worth knowing about. If you want to learn more, or explore the equipment, head to 1000Roads.com Stroke Recovery. Brad has arranged a discount for listeners of this show of between one and 500 dollars, depending on the package you choose. This episode pairs well with the episode 402 with Jack Clifford, which covers a protocol for regenerating blood vessels around the injured area of the brain. The two conversations complement each other. Worth going back to if you haven’t heard it yet. Now, if this episode was useful, please share it with someone who could benefit. And my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became, the Best Thing That Happened, is available at recoveryafterstroke dot com slash book. And if you’d like to support the show financially, I would love it if you could. You can go and do that via patreon.com/slash recovery after stroke. I’m Bill Garciamas. Thanks for listening. See you on the next episode. The post Brad Pitzele – How Exercise With Oxygen Therapy Brings Hyperbaric-Style Benefits Home appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.

In this episode of the Meaningful People Podcast, Nachi Gordon sits down with Rabbi Tzadok Katz, a shadchan with over 23 years of experience, for one of the most honest and entertaining conversations about shidduchim you'll ever hear. From speed dating and picture sharing to the stigma facing working boys and the pressure that's been built into the system, Rabbi Katz pulls no punches about what's actually broken, and what's working better than people think. The conversation covers everything from how technology has completely transformed the shadchan's job, to why girls are maturing faster than boys and what needs to change, to the halacha of sharing information and how buried details may be behind most early divorces. Rabbi Katz also shares his philosophy on excitement, readiness, and why "getting the job done" is more complicated than it sounds. Whether you're a single, working with singles, or just fascinated by how the system actually works behind the scenes, this episode is a must-listen. This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors: ► PZ Deals Download the app and never pay full price again! https://app.pz.deals/install/mpp _________________ ► Colel Chabad Pushka App The easiest way to give Tzedaka https://pushkapp.cc/meaningful _________________ ► EL AL From the Hebrew announcements to the Israeli atmosphere onboard, flying EL AL feels like Israel before you even land. With nonstop flights to Israel and Jewish comfort from takeoff to landing, there's nothing like hearing: "ברוכים הבאים לישראל." Book your next flight with EL AL: https://www.elal.com/eng/usa?utm_source=meaningful&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=gcny_incoming_usa&cid=s:el%7Cm:what%7Ccp:gcny%7Cct:incoming%7Cau:usa _________________ ► Ness Vacation Homes EDEN GARDENS' LARGEST LUXURY HOME COLLECTION Handpicked, high-end homes available exclusively through Ness. OPTIONAL PROGRAM-LEVEL PESACH EXPERIENCE Upgrade your stay with a complete A–Z Pesach setup, including kitchen preparation, catered meals, and fully arranged details by Glatt Gourmet. https://nessvacationhomes.com/ _________________ ► Fine Toys and Gifts Have family in Israel? Send them something they'll actually love. Fine Toys and Gifts delivers American brand toys and gifts anywhere in Eretz Yisroel — LEGO, Playmobil, dolls, board games, and more — with flat rate shipping for just $12. https://www.finetoysandgifts.com _________________ ► Chasdei Lev Chasdei Lev sends truckloads of food and goods to thousands of Rebbes families across 27 communities nationwide. They're in the middle of a major campaign to expand their warehouse, and they need your help to get there. https://www.charidy.com/ChasdeiLev?utm_source=MM&utm_medium=podcast _________________ ► UJA UJA is at the center of Long Island's Jewish community with the shared purpose of strengthening our Jewish future. https://ujafedny.org/five-towns _________________ ► 12 Stones Realty Discover 12 Stones — a luxury private home community in the breathtaking Jerusalem Hills, combining nature, serenity, and elevated living just minutes from Jerusalem. Spacious homes, stunning views, and a one-of-a-kind family atmosphere. https://12-stones.co.il/landing/?utm_source=MPP _________________ ► Town Appliance Visit the website or message them on WhatsApp https://www.townappliance.com https://bit.ly/Townappliance_whatsapp  

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Most owner-led agencies know they should be doing more than media relations. One barrier has always been capability: you can’t execute paid media if nobody on your team knows paid media. AI is removing that barrier, and Chip and Gini dig into exactly how. Gini built a PESO model operating system AI that prompts you instead of you prompting it. Many agencies are strong in one or two media types and need scaffolding to think through the rest. The tool can be used to help agencies execute unfamiliar disciplines step by step. Chip frames this as an opportunity to do things that were theoretically possible two years ago but practically out of reach. A paid campaign to amplify a blog post no longer requires hiring a specialist. Beyond drafting, both hosts made a case for AI as a learning tool instead of merely a content machine. Gini tested this directly by vibe-coding a PESO model diagnostic, working through multiple versions with AI troubleshooting each step. The practical upshot is that you can use AI to build separate knowledge-rich agents for each media type, loaded with client messaging and context, and treat them as thought partners for areas where your team lacks depth. It won’t eliminate the need for people or strategic thinking, but capability is no longer a credible excuse for staying stuck at one letter of PESO. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “AI is a great opportunity for all of the things that you wished you could have done two years ago that now become much more feasible for you to do without having to go out and bring in-house new expertise.” Gini Dietrich: “I have built my entire organization using agents. It doesn’t replace anybody. I still need people to do the work, and I still need people to do the strategic thinking, and I still need people to service the client work. It makes us smarter, it makes us faster, it makes us more productive, but it doesn’t replace anyone.” Chip Griffin: “It doesn’t have to do it for you, it can help educate you… You can make it tell you at whatever level of knowledge you need in order to become comfortable with it, and then you actually start to learn it.” Gini Dietrich: “If you don’t have shared or owned and paid expertise internally, you can use those agents to help you build those things.” Related The PESO Model evolves for the AI era (and why your website isn't dead) Has the PESO Model become a necessity for modern agencies? Agencies need the PESO model now more than ever How to allocate your client's PESO budget View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think we’re gonna let AI do our jobs today. I know we don’t ever talk about AI on this show. Gini Dietrich: We don’t. We don’t like it at all. Chip Griffin: But I think AI is gonna let us do so much more here. Awesome. Maybe even, maybe we can even implement the PESO model as part of the show. Gini Dietrich: Beautiful. Let’s do it. Chip Griffin: I’ve, I’ve heard that the PESO model is something that’s really important that we should- … we should focus on. So why not let AI help us with it? Gini Dietrich: Oh, I love it. Maybe we could use NotebookLM and have it create its, our voices too. We’ll just be done. We don’t have to do anything. Chip Griffin: That’s a great idea. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, let’s do it. Chip Griffin: So then, you and I could just connect and just do our gossiping and chit-chat. Gini Dietrich: Right. Yes. Chip Griffin: And we’d still get an episode even without having to take the time to record. Gini Dietrich: Yes. I like it. Let’s do it. Chip Griffin: I like it. I like that. That would be- That would be fun. Gini Dietrich: We don’t gossip. What do you mean? Chip Griffin: Gossip, talk about world events. Whatever, however you want. I mean- Gini Dietrich: Yes. It’s kind of good that those aren’t recorded. Ah. Chip Griffin: It is. I suspect we would get a lot of listeners, but we’d lose a lot at the same time, so. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: In any event, we are going to talk about AI again because it is top of mind for all of us, and so we all ought to be thinking about it. And we are gonna talk about the PESO model because we just happen to have somebody here who knows a little bit about the PESO model. So let me explain it to you… Oh, no, I didn’t. Oh. I wasn’t talking about me. With the founder of the PESO model as one of the co-hosts. It, we’ve talked about the PESO model before, but I think, you know, one of the things that, that has occurred to me in recent times, and I’m sure it has occurred to you as well, is that AI can help more PR agencies go deeper into the PESO model, particularly in areas where they maybe don’t have as much in-house expertise. And, and one- Yep … of the things we’ve talked about with agencies a lot is that the PESO model touches a lot of different things, and it’s difficult for any small agency to have all of the skillsets needed to fully execute PESO properly. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah. Chip Griffin: AI seems to open the door to more of that. Gini Dietrich: For sure, it does. One of the things that we did late last year is I built a PESO operating system AI. And instead of you prompting it, it prompts you. So it’s built to do exactly that, so that you can say, “Okay, well, we’re really good at media relations, but we don’t have any expertise in shared, owned, or paid,” or, “We’re really great at owned and shared, but we don’t have any expertise in earned and paid.” Whatever it happens to be, right? And so it will h- it will prompt you with questions to help you think through, “Okay, if we’re great at owned and shared, but we don’t have the E and the P, here are the things you need to be thinking about.” And it will help you either figure out how to execute it on your own with step-by-step instructions, or it will give you a creative brief that then you could hand off to a partner. So it, it’s built to do that, but the point is, is that- I mean, would I prefer you use the PESO OS AI that I built? For sure, but really any AI could do that. I think if you,you have to prompt it. It’s not gonna prompt you. But I think any AI based on information that’s out there in the, on the web that we’ve created around PESO, it will be able to take all of that and say, “Here are some things you should be thinking about.” And I think it’s really good at helping you think through things that you’re just not an expert at. And it’s really good at helping you think through, gosh, we should be using paid to amplify our content, for instance, but I don’t have any idea. Do– should I do it on LinkedIn? Should I do it on Instagram? Should I do it on TikTok? Should I do it on Google? Like, I have no idea. So AI is a really good thought partner from that perspective. Chip Griffin: Well, and I think that’s the, that’s the key point is that it allows you to, certainly you can look at it in, at a 30,000-foot level, you know, with your specialized OS that allows you to really think the whole big picture through. Yep. But you can also use it in a very granular way to say “Hey, look, I know I want to amplify this content. Let’s, let’s look at the various ways that we can do it, and help educate me about how we do that most effectively.” Yep. And, you know, to me, AI is a great opportunity for all of the things that you wished you could have done two years ago Gini Dietrich: Yeah Chip Griffin: That now become much more feasible for you to do without having to go out and bring in-house new expertise, or hiring someone if it’s, particularly when it’s focused, right? If it, it really is just, “I need a paid campaign to amplify this blog post.” That is a whole lot easier to do with AI, frankly, than it is to go hire somebody in-house- Yeah … and a lot cheaper. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely, yes. And it will give you the step-by, literal step-by-step instructions if you wanna do it yourself. Right. And if you don’t wanna do it yourself, you say, “Help me create a project brief or a creative brief that will, that I can hand off to a partner,” and it does that for you too. So one of the things that we do is, you know, I have a paid media expert in, on our marketing team, but then we hire out, depending on what we need, we’ll hire out sort of the day-to-day minutia piece of it. ‘Cause, you know, especially in paid media, you have to be in there every day and testing and tweaking and all that kind of stuff. And AI’s great at saying, “Eh, pay attention to this,” but not great at actually pushing the buttons. And so it has helped our paid media team even just outsource some of that stuff too. So it’s, I think it’s really great from that perspective. You know, it’s still, you, like, I think some, especially PR professionals, are using it for, like, list development and media pitching and things like that, which is fine, but it’s still not… it’s still a good first draft. You still have to add your personalization. You still have to do those kinds of things. One of the things that we were kind of struggling with, actually not struggling with, we were arguing over internally, was our outbound sales campaigns and what those said. And I felt like they were way too long. Our chief revenue officer felt like the calls to action weren’t right, and so we put it into AI, and we were like, “This is where we’re struggling. We’re not agreeing on these five points.” And it pumped out some stuff that we were like Okay, that’s– I– All right, let’s try that. So, you know, I don’t know yet if it’s gonna work ’cause we haven’t launched it, but it helped us think about things a little bit differently than we had just the three of us shooting the shit around a Zoom conversation. Chip Griffin: Well, and to your point, it’s a great jumping-off point. It’s not necessarily a final draft of everything, but, I mean, let’s say you, you know, you’re– you don’t consider your team very adept at creating social posts on their own, but you want to use PESO to amplify content. You can take that piece of content and say, you know, “Give me three to five drafts that I can look at.” Yep, yep. And you can pick the one that, that resonates most with you, and then, you know, hone that and use that as your post. So again, it just, it allows you to do things that either would’ve taken much longer a number of years ago or just you wouldn’t have been able to do without hiring someone new in-house or that sort of thing. And so having those opportunities means that you can adopt a lot more of the PESO model as an agency, which certainly benefits your clients, but it benefits your business as well. Because as we’ve talked about, pure PR agencies, despite the renaissance of the importance of earned media as a result of LLMs and all of that, you know, you still, I still think it is very difficult to have a media relations only agency in 2026. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: It’s not impossible. There are certain niches where it works and certain setups that work, but for the vast majority of old time traditional PR agencies, they need to be getting into more of the PESO model, even if it’s not all four letters. Even if you get into two of the letters- Gini Dietrich: Yeah Chip Griffin: that’s gonna help you a lot. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah, for sure. And it does– definitely helps you, like I think I’ve mentioned before that I have several different agents, AI agents, and one is my co-CEO, and my co-CEO, like, it will argue with me, and it will tell me, like last week it said, “That’s a stupid idea.” And I was like, “Ah, well, screw you, too.” But it helps you think through those things. So you say, “Okay, what if I want to build an agency that is focused around the PESO model, and I’m gonna go through the certification so that I can create an agency that’s focused on it. What am I missing? What do I need to hire for? What can I use you, my AI, for? What can I…” Like it helps you think through all of those things. “Help me build a plan to be able to do this over the next two years. I want to create some intellectual property based on what you know about me and how I’ve used you in the past. What is some intellectual property that we might be able to create as an agency?” It can help you with all sorts of things. Chip Griffin: It can, and it, it also, you can calibrate it to your own knowledge level or your team’s knowledge level, so you can have it just help you with some, some drafts. You can have it just teach you how to do things. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And I think that’s an often overlooked use of AI. Yes. Absolutely. It doesn’t have to do it for you, it can help educate you. Yep. And part of that is just communicating with it and say, “Treat me like I’m an absolute idiot.” Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: “And give me out- actual step-by-step instructions. Assume I don’t even know how to click the mouse. Like, tell me to put downward pressure on the button in the middle of the…” Like, you can make it tell you at whatever level of knowledge you need in order to become comfortable with it, and then you actually start to learn it. I mean, I think we, we all think of AI as something that, that’s, you know, can just replace us, but it can also help us learn so that we develop our own skills, and maybe we don’t need the AI for what we need it for today, but instead we can use AI to take us to the next level because we’ve already built in that knowledge from having worked with AI previously. It should be viewed as a growth opportunity, not as just, you know, the lazy way out. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I, absolutely. I love that because, you know, I kept hearing about this vibe coding thing, and everybody was talking about vibe coding. I was like, “Okay, I wanna try vibe coding. What do I want to vibe code?” And so I actually asked my AI boyfriend, “If you were me, what are some things you would vibe code just to test it out?” And it said, “You should do a PESO model diagnostic so that people understand where they sit on the PESO model maturity ladder.” And I was like, “Okay.” So I went into lovable.ai, and I built a PESO model visibility assessment is what I built first, and it was a really good first draft. And then I went through it and I had some friends take it, and I had my team go through it and got all of that feedback, and then I built the PESO model diagnostic from there. So it probably took– I probably had five or six versions before I was ready to take it public. Then I was like, Okay, now I have to figure out how somebody gets their results, and then how do I attach it to ActiveCampaign, which is our software, our email software, so that they can have their results emailed to them? It’s a little bit harder than it sounds. Chip Griffin: I, I think that’s, that’s part of the thing with vibe coding. People- Gini Dietrich: It’s absolute, yeah, a little bit harder. Yeah. But it did exactly what you said. Yeah. I was like, “I am lost.” Yeah. And I actually said, “I think this is above my pay grade.” And, and it said, “Okay, let me help you.” And so it broke it down step by step by step. We finally got it figured out, but then it wasn’t, it was doing everything that we needed it to do, but it wasn’t emailing. So I had all the tokens in the email, so like, “Hi, first name, here’s your…” Like, I had all those tokens, but it wasn’t triggering that. And so it helped me figure out, it like, it helped me troubleshoot and figure out why. And I, there’s no way on earth, not in a zillion years, I could have done that on my own two years ago. Absolutely not. Chip Griffin: Yep. And it really, it really is amazing how it can help you with some of those things. Now, it can also send you down some rabbit holes that are- Gini Dietrich: Yes, it did that too … Chip Griffin: not the right ones, and, and then- Gini Dietrich: Correct. I was like, “No, that’s not right.” Chip Griffin: And then it says, “Oops. Yeah, sorry. That’s, I, I didn’t mean to do… You’re right- Yep, you’re right. Mm-hmm … that I should’ve gone a different direction.” Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yes, it does do that. Chip Griffin: And so, you know, that is always one of the challenges of vibe coding, is it opens a lot of doors, but it can lead to a lot of frustration, and you have to be ready to handle that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And particularly for someone like you, who has not been steeped in development in the past. Gini Dietrich: At all. Chip Griffin: You know, it probably takes more effort to get past that frustration than- Yeah … say, for someone like me, where I can spot early on that it’s going in the wrong direction, ’cause I’ve written code, and I’d be like- “Mm, I don’t- That does seem wrong, too … I don’t know if we really wanna do that.” Yeah. Yeah. And, but, but you can also ask it a lot of questions, and part- you know, I use Claude Code personally, and so, you know, it will often give options, or you can ask for options and say, you know, “Let’s go through the pros and cons of these different paths that we can do before we build out a whole product around something that we’re like, ‘Eh, that’s not gonna work.'” Gini Dietrich: Yep, yep. Chip Griffin: And you can think them through. You can think through what, what are the maintenance costs? What are the actual hard costs of it? Yep. And there are times where the tools will suggest something to you that, that costs something, and they’ll, it, it’s sort of like, you know, Waze. Waze sometimes likes to avoid tolls. I’m like, “Don’t, I don’t wanna avoid a toll. I wanna get there faster.” Gini Dietrich: I wanna get there faster, right. Chip Griffin: Like, to, to me, I don’t- Gini Dietrich: Yeah … Chip Griffin: don’t put me on all these weird side streets so I don’t pay a toll. Same thing with these tools. They often default to the free option, and sometimes you’re like, “Well, I’m willing to pay $5 a month to get this email sent to me correctly, and, and not have to, like- Right … go down to the command line and configure- Yeah … all this stuff. Yes. And then my computer’s always gotta be on, and all that kind of stuff. So, but the, the point is that that a lot of these tools open up the doors for the things that you can do, which then, again, expands that capability so that you are moving beyond just being one of the four letters and moving into at least two, if not all four, of PESO. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I would say also that if you, if you want to do this, it’s not a small undertaking, but if you want to do this, you can, there are lots of ways that you can do this, but I’ll make it super, super simple. Using Claude, you can create projects. And the projects can be focused on, okay, we’re gonna have one for earned, we’re gonna have one for paid, we’re gonna have one for shared, we’re gonna have one for owned. And in those specific projects, you build files, knowledge files that teach it what you wanna do from an earned media perspective. These are our clients. This is what we talk about. These are their messaging. Like all– Here’s our media list. All that kind of stuff goes into the knowledge files. You give it some instructions, and then it becomes your earned media thought partner, or same with your other media types. So if you don’t have, you know, shared or owned and paid expertise internally, you can use those agents to help you build those things. I will say, though, that, you know, people keep talking about how AI is going to replace us, and I have gone way down the rabbit hole from an agent perspective, and I have built my entire organization using agents. It doesn’t replace anybody. I still need people to do the work, and I still need people to do the strategic thinking, and I still need people to service the client work. Like, it makes us smarter, it makes us faster, it makes us more productive, but it doesn’t replace anyone. And so I say that because I want you– I don’t want you to be afraid of, oh my gosh, if we use this and we use this, I use it to help me think through the other media types that we aren’t doing, that it’s going to replace us, or the clients aren’t gonna wanna work with us. That’s not the case at all, at least not in my experience. So I would say test it out, play with it, get really good at it, because it will help you achieve some of the goals that you want to achieve a lot faster than you can do it on your own. Chip Griffin: Oh, absolutely. And, and it doesn’t even require you to know even the general direction. You can simply go in there and say, “Hey, look, you know, I’ve got this blog post. It’s not getting much traction, but I feel like it should. Help me to understand why it’s not.” And, and- Yep … so it’ll help, it’ll analyze the structure and content and maybe make some suggestions there. But then in the conversation you can say, “Well, you know, it doesn’t seem to be generating much in the way of inbound traffic from social. Help me think that through. How can I do that better or differently?” And it, it allows you to do a lot more, and I think particularly for those agencies who are doing any form of video, AI can be a really good tool for helping you to expand the use of that video into other things, right? I mean, the obvious that we’ve had for years is the automatic transcription, right? So you start from a point of you’ve got a transcription and so you’ve got, you know, more content that’s out there that’s more easily indexable by more tools. You know, some of the LLMs, you know, quote-unquote “watch video,” some only can use transcripts, so you wanna give both ideally. Yep. But you can go well beyond that. I mean, a lot of people are just kind of slapping stuff up on YouTube without any kind of a good description if they’re doing video. Use AI. Let it, let it give you a quick first draft and you can do that correctly. Let it start drafting social posts so you can get it out there. Make sure that you’re turning every video into a blog post. There are so many things that you can do from that one nugget. It’s one of the reasons why I love video so much, is because it can spiral out into these other formats so easily. But all of that then helps to fuel your efforts on the PESO model, and all of it can be done in an organization without all of the things that you would have needed five or 10 years ago. You don’t need a dedicated video producer or a high-end external video, you can use something like we’re using right here today with Riverside, where you can just- free plug there. We’re not, we’re not sponsored by them, but- … you know, we, we use it, and it, it does a nice job of cutting this up. If you’re watching this on YouTube, it switches camera angles. I don’t do anything except click a little button that says, “Do this,” and I get to choose how aggressive the, the camera switching is. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: That’s fantastic, right? But it will also then clip things that you can use for social media. And if I’m a traditional PR agency, I don’t know anything about any of that kind of stuff, but it’s all valuable to furthering the PESO model for my clients. So why wouldn’t I be taking advantage of AI to help me go down that path? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I would say if you are a traditional PR agency, even things like, “This pitch isn’t landing. Tell me what you think.” Sure. “How would I… Like, I’m trying to reach this, this, and this reporter with this pitch. Analyze it for me.” Like, that kind of stuff you should be doing every single day. Chip Griffin: Right, ’cause the PESO model isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about doing all those things well, right? Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: You, you can have a nice little report card that says, “Check. I did the P. I did the E. I did the S. I did the O.” But are you doing all of those well? And, and- Right … maybe even what your agency is, is built around, whichever letter is the core of your personal expertise, there are certainly ways that you can use AI to improve even on that- Absolutely … even before you go down the other  avenues. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things that we’ve been, you know, when we, we evolved the model for AI into an operating system, and that is because all of the media types build on one another, right? So it will help you figure that out. So I can say PESO model’s now an operating system, and I’m sure you’re like, “I don’t know what the freak that means.” And it, it will help you figure out what that means and how you can apply that to your business. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, operating system may be one of the most overused product descriptions these days, but- Gini Dietrich: It works in an enterprise. Chip Griffin: everybody’s got an operating… you know, you read anything AI-related, everybody’s got an operating system. Gini Dietrich: Works in an, in an enterprise really well. Chip Griffin: It, it … Oh, I mean, I, I’m not arguing that. It’s just, it’s kind of, it, it’s kind of like 30 years ago where everybody used the word paradigm. Gini Dietrich: Oh, fair. Chip Griffin: Like, okay. Gini Dietrich: Really? PESO model paradigm. Chip Griffin: I gotta, gotta hear about- There, I like that. That’s nice … OS again. Ugh. Ugh. Of course- Ooh … I’m old enough to remember actual OSs back in the day. You know. MS-DOS, for example. Way, way long time ago. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: On that note, before I go down memory lane and really bore everybody, we’ll wrap this episode up. But use the PESO model, and use the AI to help you get there more effectively- Yes … faster. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: Grow your business, help your clients. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Make lots of money. Chip Griffin: Make lots of money. On that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.If you've been sleeping on sports romance, this episode is your wake-up call. Tennis romance is officially having its moment in publishing — and the author who was writing it a decade before anyone else is finally getting her flowers.In this episode, Laura chats with Jennifer Iacopelli, author of Game Set Match and its sequel Wild Card — new adult tennis romances newly re-released through Little Brown's Requited imprint after Jennifer's YA novel Finding Her Edge was adapted into a Netflix series. They dig into Jennifer's 15-year publishing journey, the ensemble cast storytelling structure of the Game Set Match series, the road from canceled Olympics to Netflix, and why tennis provides the perfect natural force-proximity setup for romance. Plus, Jennifer shares her top sports romance recs (including a few you can grab right now) and a YA F1 romance that's coming in 2027 that you'll want to add to your TBR immediately.Perfect for fans of Challengers, sports romance, and anyone who loves a resilience arc — in fiction and in real life.

Hey HBs! Happy Pride Month! We're baaaaaaack with Fresh Ice by Marina Vivancos! It's a fluffy MM hockey omegaverse that we loved! Bonus Content: Mel's obsessed, golden retrievers and black cats, bad parents, knot sacks, Bus(c)h Beans, and so much more! This Friday on PATREON, Mel is telling Sabrina all about the next two books in this series FACE OFF and OVERTIME! They're soooo gooooood! Want to support the show? Rate and review us on your favorite podcast app! It super helps the algorithm connect us to new listeners.  Credits: Theme Music: Brittany Pfantz  Art: Author Kate Prior (her newest release MATED TO MY EX is out now!!)  Want to tell us a story, ask about advertising, or anything else? Email: heavingbosomspodcast (at) gmail  Follow our socials:  Instagram @heavingbosoms Tiktok @heaving_bosoms  Facebook group: the Heaving Bosoms Geriatric Friendship Cult The above contains affiliate links, which means that when purchasing through them, the podcast gets a small percentage without costing you a penny more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this profound exploration of Matthew 25:1-13, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the parable of the ten virgins, revealing it as far more than a simple warning about preparedness. Moving beyond dispensational "rapture ready" interpretations, they demonstrate how this parable addresses the spiritual condition required for entrance into God's consummated kingdom. The discussion centers on the critical distinction between outward religious profession and genuine possession of the Holy Spirit's grace. With pastoral sensitivity and theological depth, the hosts examine the meaning of the oil, the significance of the midnight cry, and the urgency of both evangelism and personal examination. This episode challenges listeners to consider whether they possess not just the lamp of profession, but the oil of saving grace that alone sustains faith through the waiting period before Christ's return. Key Takeaways The oil represents saving grace, not perfect obedience - The critical distinction in the parable is not between those who stayed awake versus those who slept (all ten virgins fell asleep), but between those who possessed oil and those who didn't. The oil symbolizes the indwelling, regenerating, sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit—the grace that comes through effectual calling and genuine conversion. This parable warns against mere outward profession - All ten virgins carried lamps and waited for the bridegroom, representing outward religious activity and profession. The difference lay in the interior spiritual reality—whether that profession was accompanied by the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit or remained empty formalism. The "midnight cry" represents both personal death and Christ's return - Historically, Reformed expositors understood the midnight cry as either the actual cry of Christ's angels at His return or the voice of God in individual death. Each person's death functions as their personal midnight that irrevocably fixes their eternal state. Readiness is not about sinless perfection but possession of grace - The parable is not teaching a fearful "rapture ready" theology where Christians must be perfectly sinless when Christ returns. Rather, it teaches that readiness consists in possessing saving grace through faith in Christ, which sustains believers even when they "sleep" (fall into sin or spiritual drowsiness). There is urgency in the gospel call - The parable emphasizes that the opportunity for salvation has a deadline—"you know neither the day nor the hour." This creates urgency both for unbelievers to trust Christ and for believers to share the gospel, since no one knows when their personal "midnight" will arrive. Calvin's insight: you "buy" oil by receiving it freely through faith - Though the parable speaks of "buying" oil, Calvin notes this doesn't imply paying a price. Just as Isaiah invites people to buy wine and milk without money, we obtain the oil of grace not through merit or payment, but by receiving through faith what Christ freely offers. Key Concepts The Oil as Symbol of the Holy Spirit's Grace The oil in this parable has been consistently interpreted throughout church history as representing the grace of the Holy Spirit—specifically the indwelling, regenerating, and sanctifying presence that comes through genuine conversion. This interpretation aligns with Old Testament symbolism where anointing oil signified the Spirit's presence (as in "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit"). The crucial distinction Jesus makes is not about external religious activity (both groups had lamps and waited), but about internal spiritual reality. Just as a lamp cannot burn without oil, religious profession without the Spirit's grace has no sustaining power. This oil cannot be shared or borrowed; it must be personally possessed. The parable thus exposes the deadly danger of assuming that outward Christian activities—church attendance, biblical knowledge, moral behavior—constitute genuine Christianity when the transforming work of the Spirit is absent. All the Virgins Slept: Grace Overcomes Human Weakness One of the most important details often overlooked is that both the wise and foolish virgins fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom. This demolishes any interpretation suggesting the parable is about maintaining perfect spiritual vigilance or sinless living. The wise virgins' readiness was not based on their superior wakefulness or moral stamina—they fell asleep just like the foolish ones. Their preparedness came from having secured the oil beforehand. This has profound theological implications: our salvation and readiness for Christ's return does not depend on our ability to maintain perfect spiritual alertness or sinless perfection. Even when believers "sleep"—when they fall into sin, experience spiritual dullness, or fail in vigilance—they remain prepared because they possess the oil of the Spirit's grace. The parable thus provides comfort alongside its warning: those who have truly received Christ need not live in constant fear that a moment of weakness will disqualify them when He returns. The Midnight Cry and Personal Eschatology The midnight cry in verse 6 functions on multiple levels theologically. Universally, it points to Christ's unexpected second coming at the end of history. But Reformed interpreters have also recognized its application to individual eschatology—each person's death serves as their personal "midnight cry" that ends all opportunity for preparation. This dual meaning creates urgency both for evangelism and self-examination. The parable warns that whether Christ returns globally or death comes individually, that moment will arrive unexpectedly ("at midnight," the hour of deepest sleep) and irrevocably fix one's eternal state. Once the door is shut, no amount of pleading ("Lord, Lord, open to us") can change one's condition. This underscores a biblical truth often denied in contemporary theology: there is no post-mortem opportunity for salvation, no remedial path after death. The time for obtaining oil is now, in this life, before the cry sounds. Memorable Quotes Every man's death to him is the coming of Christ. That's when our state is irrevocably fixed. And so there's an urgency here—an urgency of evangelism and self-examination because the midnight cry may come at any moment. The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins is not that one of them stays awake and one of them falls asleep. The difference between the wise and the foolish is that the ones that are wise are prepared for when the bridegroom comes, even though they fell asleep. The only way to be prepared for the end is to turn to Jesus. It's not about whether or not you've turned to Jesus and have become perfectly sinless. None of us are like that. It's about trusting Jesus. Full Episode Transcript Welcome to episode 494 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:10] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:15] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. Looks like you and I need to get a midnight oil check. That's if you know, you know, that's what's coming up on this episode, and we're headed to Matthew 25 to do that oil check. We're still firmly in all of these beautiful parables that Jesus tells us, and this one goes by various names. You might know it as the parable of the 10 virgins, or if you're Petra. That classic Christian rock group who produced a song called Midnight Oil, which is absolutely a banger that that should be like the the theme song of this episode. If you haven't heard that song, go check out Midnight Oil by Petra and then come back and listen to us. Like, I wish we had the rights to that. We could just drop it in right here. But we're not that cool and we're not gonna edit that. So I'm gonna leave it up to you to craft your own version of this podcast with that great backing track. Have you heard that song?  [00:02:09] Tony Arsenal: I actually haven't. I, I came, uh, came into Christianity sort of at the tail end of Petra's Big Influence. So I know, I knew who Petra is. I've listened to a few of their songs, but they weren't mainstream by any sort, sort of, uh, stretch of the imagination when I was listening to Christian music. So  [00:02:28] Jesse Schwamb: this one's so good. It's so good. And it's right on point for our conversation today. So we're gonna get into all that stuff. The oil check, the midnight nature of it, the 10 virgins. What does it all mean? Of course, Tony and me, we have for you what I believe to be the definitive exegetical and hermeneutical reflection on the parable. So that's what you've come to expect from us and we're happy to deliver, but before we deliver on that, we got all the things we have to deliver to you, and that is affirming with or denying against something that's that point of course in the podcast or our conversation where we choose something they firm with that we think is. Undervalued, something we might recommend or conversely to deny against something that maybe is a little bit too overvalued or just not that great. So Tony, as is our customer, I say to you, sir, what are you doing? Are you affirming with something or are you denying against something?  [00:03:16] Denial Memory Blank [00:03:16] Tony Arsenal: I'm denying something. This is like denial. Ception is what's going on here. So, uh, first of all, thank you, Jesse for, uh, pitch hitting a solo episode at like, literally the last minute, last week. Um, I think we normally record at seven 30 on the Lord's Day, and I think I texted Jesse like 6 45 and was like, I just don't have it in the tank today. Can you do something? And he just hopped behind the mic. So that's a bonus affirmation there. But, uh, Jesse and I were, we're having a little bit of a pregame, uh, today, very much, you know, like five minutes of how you doing and are you ready to go? And, uh, I realized I, I had a really great affirmation last week, all ready to rock. I remember being super excited about it. I remember, uh, when I decided, or when we decided you were gonna do a solo episode thinking, I gotta make sure I remember this for next week. Right? And it has totally left my brain. It's gone. And, uh, it's, it's the worst feeling in the world when that happens. And I remember reading at some point, like, there's a biochemical reason why this happens and why it feels so weird. Like, it, it feels like you should be able to just dive into your mind and like search around enough and find it. And that's just not actually how your, how like your memory works. It's not, um. I think we think of memory as though it's like a big filing cabinet and you can just, like, you can just flip through the CAD catalog like long enough and find it. That's not how it works. Um, it's kind of like more organic network kind of stuff. But yeah, the, the, it's gone. It's just gone and I hate that feeling and it's gone. And that's what I'm denying is that feeling and losing your mind and feeling like you don't remember anything.  [00:04:56] Jesse Schwamb: I'm totally with you because incidentally, as we talked, we discovered we both had that experience because I had something too. And it's not just that, well, you know, we try to set aside or do a little prep on the affirmations and denials because you know, we come across something great in life, or again, the opposite. And you think, I gotta remember this because I wanna talk about this with Tony. And the worst part of that is like twofold. One, it never is great to forget something that you had or you knew you knew at one time, but it's all the less satisfying when it was something that you're super excited about and you're like, this is gonna be great. And it's that thing that you've completely forgotten that's like double the worst. So I'm, I'm totally with you in this denial. [00:05:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's, it's a really frustrating, terrible feeling. And there's not much you can do about it. And the, the secondary denial to that is it always comes back to you in the worst possible part of whatever conversation you're having. It's like you hem and hover it and you think about it and you, and I'm doing it right now. You, you sit here and you, you continue to try to talk thingy. It's gonna come, it's gonna come. Yes. It's gonna get here.  [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.  [00:06:00] Tony Arsenal: And then just when you finally have resigned yourself and, and the conversation moves on, that's when it comes back around. So I don't know if that's gonna happen or not, Jesse. If it does, I will try my best to ignore it, but I probably won't be able to. So No, I think you probably should get moving. So whatever it was the amazing affirmation, I don't remember. It can come back to us.  [00:06:16] Jesse Schwamb: It can come back. Yeah. I'm hoping that it does. And when it does, you guys just tell us you got, just let it, let it rip. Like even if we're like right in the middle of some deep, heavy, robust, thick theology, I just wanna be like. I, I can't even imagine what your affirmation was. It must have been like something pretty, pretty good.  [00:06:33] Tony Arsenal: I don't know. I don't know. I, I'm sure it was something interesting. I don't even, I'm  [00:06:37] Jesse Schwamb: trying to draw it out of you now.  [00:06:38] Tony Arsenal: Course. I can't even like, think of the ballpark of what part of like, what, what the category even was. It's just totally, it's totally gone. Like it never happened. Yep. It's, it's totally, totally gone. So I keep on saying, and you would think with all of my talk of like note taking apps and how important it's to keep a journal and all the stuff we've talked about that I would finally get around to like just jotting down in Apple Notes what my affirmations are and I just never do it. So. Yeah,  [00:07:05] Jesse Schwamb: I have every intention, but then I think, well, this is the record of them and I'll have it available to me when it comes time. The talk that's, and sometimes it just goes away. Has it happened yet? I'm still trying to draw it out of you by talking.  [00:07:15] Tony Arsenal: No, I'm just gonna give up. It's just gone. It's gone. That's just gone.  [00:07:19] Jesse Schwamb: That's, that's fair enough. Maybe. What do you  [00:07:21] Tony Arsenal: got for us, Jesse?  [00:07:22] Prayer and Anointing [00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe I can just help push it along, as it were by my own. So I'm also affirming with something, lemme just read a couple verses from James chapter five. Is anyone Among You Sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and there to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who's sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they'll be forgiven him. I had really just the profound opportunity and privilege today to participate in this because. My wife at the end of this week, uh, which will be a week past when this is, this airs, is about to go undergo that serious surgery, which she spoke about in an episode, I don't know, maybe several weeks ago. And, uh, my pastor asked if it would, if he'd like us and the elders, um, to come and to pray over my wife. And they did so after our service today. And it was just a really incredible thing. Even I'm still processing it. I don't really know. Like the words to say with what I can bring forward is just like words of gratitude and gratefulness for this kind of living out of the scriptures. What I can say is that the way in which he brought this forward and the elders prayed was just so incredibly loving and genteel and spirit-filled. And I think which is a manifestation of, of God's love for us in this moment as we prepare for this great thing to give us peace, peace, and to increase our faith and to do so by just following what the scriptures say here. So my affirmation is maybe twofold. One, it's for this particular experience, it's certainly for pastors, for elders who make it their objective to care for their flock and to do so under the rubric and the instruction of the scriptures. So I'm grateful, and if you have those kind of pastors and elders in your life, I hope that you'll be grateful to them for them as well, and that you might express that gratefulness. So this was a really incredible and, and lovely thing, and, uh, fills us with a kind of hope and encouragement. And if anything else was a reminder of the feel, there's something different going to experience like this armed fully with the promises of God and asking that he would be glorified, that our testimonies would be strong, and that of course, that he would bring healing through it. So I'm ever so grateful and affirming what this passage and this passage put into practice.  [00:09:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And if you are listening to this, when, uh, when it comes out or shortly after, probably not even shortly after, probably for a couple weeks after or months after, um, uh, Jesse's wife Jen did talk about the surgery and the condition she's been suffering under. So, uh, she's part of the Reformed Brotherhood family. She is, uh, just as important to the show, uh, as Jesse and I are in terms of the support that our wives give us and, and the space that we need to do this. So please do pray for Jen. Um, she'll be recovering when you hear this, if it's anywhere near the time that this comes out. Uh, it's a fairly large surgery with a, a, a moderately long recovery time. So please, uh, please do pray for her, uh, and, and make sure that you're lifting her up. Um, we are trusting the Lord for good things, uh, for her. Yes. And uh, we're confident that he, his will will be done 'cause it always is. But yeah, definitely pray for her. [00:10:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Thank you for saying that, Tony. I appreciate that as her husband and. We are encouraged that we've said this before, but this is where our theology matters, isn't it? It's in the times where we come before the Lord in faith and in full trust, because one, there's nowhere else to go. He has the words of life for us. He is our life, but also because. In his son, this beautiful gift of salvation whereby his son is the suffering servant. So he's well acquainted with all of this kind of thing. And so stands with us in every conceivable way to be both so incredibly transcendent and above the nonsense and the noise of our world with full power and sovereignty over all things. And at the same time, to be fully eminent. To be literally with us in all the ways. In all the things. And again, well acquainted with our condition, including the grief and the suffering, the anxiety, the all of this, which we experience as part and parcel of what it means to be human, who is like our God in this way. And so we do sense his great and uncommon care for us, and it would be dishonest of me even in the midst of these difficult and challenging things to say that he doesn't care for us. He has good and he loves us, and he's making a way, even though that way be hired. So we're sensing even from, I think, following that time of prayer, that whether we receive the bread of affliction. Uh, or the, the water of of agony that we hear God's voice behind us saying, this is the way, walk in it, and he's with us. So I hope that's encouragement maybe to others who are also going through their own things and who isn't going through something, right?  [00:12:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:12:18] Jesse Schwamb: So we all have this great promise in the gospel that God is for us, and I love that James here gives us some practical instruction to that end. [00:12:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, for sure.  [00:12:31] Support the Show [00:12:31] Tony Arsenal: Well, before we move into our topic for the evening, uh, the internet tells me that I'm supposed to do this at this point in the show rather than at the very end like we usually do. Well, let's do it. Um, we are a listener supported episode, not like PBS, uh, not like other things. Uh, maybe kind of a little bit like PBS Yeah, a little bit. Anyway, uh, we have a, a pretty dedicated group of Patreon supporters who, uh, donate a little bit and sometimes some people, a lot, a bit of their discretionary income, uh, to help make the show go. And we've said before, like, we are not interested in providing special content or special gear or swag every once in a while. I think we did it once and we've, we've got plans to do it again sometime in the future. We'll send out a thank you gift to those who are subscribing through Patreon. Um, but we are committed to producing the show and making everything that we put online and everything that we make available, available to everybody. And really the only reason that we can do that, especially in today's economy, is uh, because there are people who support the show. And so we always want to make sure that we're saying we're thank you to those people. Yes. Um, they are a part of this show. I don't know if we are not gonna do like executive producer credits, but they're as close to that as you can get. Since we don't do that, um, we really wouldn't be able to do the show, at least not the way that it is without that supporting group of people. So if that's something that you hear and you no, I kind of think that maybe I wanna be a part of that. We would love for you to go to patreon.com/reform tears. There's no special swag, there's no early releases or anything like that. Um, but we would love if you would partner with us. Um, this is a lowercase m ministry, and if you've listened to the show for a long time, you know what I mean by that. Uh, we, we do consider this to be a calling, something that God has given us and we, we understand there's a responsibility with it, but we also know that we can't do it alone. So if you're interested after you've fulfilled all your personal finance obligations, your obligation to your local church and your immediate area, if there's a little bit left over that you're looking to spend somewhere on something that is valuable, uh, please do consider going to patreon.com/form Brotherhood. [00:14:39] Jesse Schwamb: And if you've been listening for a while and you've thought, you know what, I wonder who else is out there that's like me, that's listening to these guys on the internet. Guess what? You can actually meet some of those people. They have a little spot where they hang out. It's called Telegram. It's just a chat app, and we have our own little section of that app. If you just go to your favorite browser, whatever it is, you can choose and go to wherever you like, just go to t me slash Reform Brotherhood. And that link will take you into kind of a preview land where you can see the space where everybody's talking, and you can peruse some of the different channels, everything from uh, channels just for prayer, for a crusting, prayer to general conversation, talk about the episodes, talk about baptism, all kinds of things. It is, as we always say, one of the kindest, most charitable, most loving corners of the internet. Guaranteed. You can test us on that. So in fact, you should by going to t.me back slash reform Brotherhood, Tony, back to you. [00:15:36] Eschatology Shift [00:15:36] Tony Arsenal: Well, let's just slam it right into gear. We, we, we haven't figured out how to do transitions into or out of, uh, Patreon announcements, uh, or telegram announcements,  [00:15:46] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:15:46] Tony Arsenal: So this, I, maybe this is the awkward charm of the show, or maybe it's just the awkwardness of the show. It's just charm, Jesse,  [00:15:53] Jesse Schwamb: all charm. [00:15:53] Tony Arsenal: We need to talk about some things tonight. We need to talk about some oil. Yes. We need to talk about some lamps. Yes. We need talk about some bridegrooms.  [00:16:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:16:00] Tony Arsenal: It's the parable of the 10 virgins or the 10 lamps, or the parable of the oil flasks. Yes. There's lots of different things that it's called. Uh, it's what it isn't, it's not the parable of, uh, the 24 hour Jiffy Lube, which is what it made, what you made it sound like when you talked about the midnight oil check. Um,  [00:16:18] Jesse Schwamb: I  [00:16:18] Tony Arsenal: didn't even think about that. But yeah. This is, this is a good one. And I think we've, we've sort of. I've sort of observed that the parables do tend to clump around systematic theology themes, and they clump within the narrative of the gospel within Matthew itself around themes. So the last three parables that we talked about were all sort of like parables of judgment against the Pharisees and a, a lot of things like unconditional election and reparation were all baked into that pie. You know, we talked about with the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coins and the lost, um, the lost, uh, brother. We talked about how that has a lot to do with like election. It has to do with salvation and what the gospel looks like in terms of justification in the father's initiative. And we're moving into a section of Matthew, um, where Jesus is starting to teach on the last days. And so the parables in this section start to move toward ha to have more of an eschatological bent. Yes. We talked a little bit about some of the eschatology and the parables when we, we went through the, um, through the, the. Um, my brain just left me. It happened again, Jesse. The, the denial thing, uh, when we talked about the parable of the tears and the wind field and the, the, the different kinds of soils back on track, there was an eschatological element to that. But we are in like straight up eschatology Yeah. In these, these sections now. That's right. So we're coming to the end of Matthew, uh, our plan right now and who knows what the Lord has for us. But the plan right now is once we finish Matthew, to go back and visit some of the parables that are present in the other gospels. And there's not too many of 'em, but that are present in the other gospels that aren't necessarily, uh, present in Matthew. So, like you said, there's not a ton of 'em. Uh, we do want to hit all of 'em. And if there's, if there's time, and I say if there's time as though we have some sort of time constraints, um, if there's time we probably will talk a little bit about some of the I am statements and some of the things in John. 'cause John doesn't do parables quite the same way in quite the same fashion, but he does have sort of some of this. Allegorical figurative language baked into some of his, um, some of his writings or some of the accounts of Jesus that he, he, um, captures that are probably worth talking about in the seam light. So right now we're, we're coming up quick on the end of the parables of Matthew. Um, there's not very many left and then we'll, we'll keep moving on. Uh, that said. We are, it's almost unbelievable to say this. We're going to be coming up to the end of the parable series sometime in the next, I dunno, six to 10 months. Uh, if you've got ideas for what you think the next series should be, start thinking about those now. Bring 'em to the telegram chat. Let's start percolating those ideas up, right? And, uh, like a good coffee maker. And we'll, uh, we'll brew some goodness. How many more parables? How many more, uh, metaphors can I throw in there? Puns, can I throw in there? But yeah, Jesse, let's get started. This is a good one.  [00:19:08] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that was a really, I think, fine introduction. I always enjoyed this parable because it has some really fun, dramatic elements, but I think I, I really haven't really appreciated all the eschatological underpinnings that you were just mentioning. And when you think about it as we're, I think we're gonna soon find here. That this is one of the most searching and solemn parables, actually, that Jesus uttered, and you start to get a sense for that as we've just kind of been hitting them, one after the other. As you said, this one belongs to the great olive discourse. It's delivered by Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Olives just days before his crucifixion. It's in direct response to their questions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the sign of his condiment coming and the end of the age. So you're right. I think this carries like unmistakable eschatological weight because it's not merely this fable about preparedness in general, which sometimes is where we go. Yeah. But it's really more of like a precise theological warning about the spiritual condition required for entrance into the consummated kingdom of God at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  [00:20:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,  [00:20:11] Jesse Schwamb: I think that's the full setup.  [00:20:12] Read Matthew 25 [00:20:12] Jesse Schwamb: We, we've gotta go to the scriptures, right?  [00:20:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:16] Jesse Schwamb: Alright. It's time. You want me to read it? [00:20:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.  [00:20:18] Jesse Schwamb: Okay. Here we go. Matthew 25, beginning in verse one, then the kingdom of heaven may be compared to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bride groom. Now, five of them were foolish and five were prudent for when the foolish took their lamps. They took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout. Behold the bridegroom come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the prudent answered saying, no, there will not be enough for us and for you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves. And while they're going away to make the purchase, that bridegroom came and those who already went in with him to the wedding feast and the door was shut. And later the other versions came also saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. But he answered and said, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Therefore, stay awake for you do not know the day nor the hour.  [00:21:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:21:29] Assurance Not Fear [00:21:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, this one's heavy. And I just wanna say, kind of coming into this, right, I think a lot of our audience, and I would, I would include myself in this, um, we, we came to sort of like an awareness of faith. And I, I don't say that in a sort of tongue in cheek fashion. What I mean, um. I'll, I'll just speak from my perspective, but I think it's probably one that resonates. I came to faith when I was a, you know, a relatively young teenager, 15 years old, and, um, when you first become a Christian, you're not aware of all the different theological debates or even all of the major implications of the Christian faith. And I think a lot of us and myself, uh, as, as sort of the example when we be started to become aware of the different conversations happening in different dynamics and some of the more, uh, maybe third or fourth tier doctrines that you learn when you're, um, sort of being catechized as a new Christian, uh, catechized in sort of an informal sense, eschatology is probably one of those ones that comes along fairly, fairly late in the game. And I recall, um, when I first became aware of the left behind books, right? And so I, I came to faith in a large Lutheran megachurch, uh, that wasn't really as Lutheran as you would think, cup being a large Lutheran megachurch. It was very dispensational. And I think there is a sense of dread and fear associated with rapture ready theology. And I don't, I don't think all dispensationalist that, um, believe in a, a literal rapture of the church either prior to or following or in the middle of the tribulation. I don't think all dispensationalist fall into this category. But there are definitely dispensationalist out there that would emphasize being rapture ready. And you know, you think of like the song, I wish We'd All Been Ready, you know, and, and this, this sort of existential fear that the Rapture's gonna come and I'm not gonna be ready and I'm gonna be left behind. Right. There's an, the entire book series is about people who thought that they were Christians who thought that they were justified and saved and then weren't. And, and I don't think the book gives all that much explanation other than sort of like a general sense of like, these are sort of nominal fake Christians that maybe some of them think they're saved and some of them don't. I know there were definitely characters in the book who really thought that they were followers of Jesus and then they didn't realize they weren't until they were not raptured with everyone else. The only reason I sort of launch into that progam is I think that the tendency in most circles because of the pervasive. Sort of all expansive influence of dispensationalism in the United States, and particularly sort of this like rapture ready, left behind theology that is a, a major thread within, um, American dispensationalism. There's a tendency to look at this almost exclusively in light of that sort of rapture ready fear that right the end is gonna come and I'm not gonna be ready and. I don't, I'm not a dispensationalist, I don't hold to a rapture in that sense. I don't think you do either. Jesse and I, I think there's an element of this that has that same flavor that we have to acknowledge, but I don't think we should read this in light of like, you think you're gonna be fine, but actually you're not. So you better get it together. I don't think that that's the point of the parable. Um, and I wanna say that upfront because it is easy to read a parable like this and to, to become extremely fearful to the point that it actually shakes whatever assurance you may have had. And I've said it before and, and I, I will say it again, it is not, I am not in the business of robbing the assurance away from Christians. The assurance of faith and the assurance of salvation is the rightful possession and inheritance of all those who are Christ. And so I have no, no desire to shake or rob you of your assurance. That's just not my jam. Um, so I wanted to get that out there. Like I don't think that this parable is here. To scare the daylights out of us and make us question whether or not we actually belong to the bridegroom. I actually think it's here for a different reason.  [00:25:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I agree.  [00:25:40] Watch and Be Ready [00:25:40] Jesse Schwamb: I, I think this may have more in common with like the tears in the wheat parable that we've spoken about before versus trying to promulgate a particular understanding of eschatology. There's no doubt that this is calibrated to the period preceding the perusia. At the same time, the parable is a reminder that describes like the visible professing church on earth as it moves toward that consummation. So this is why I think it is important for us to talk about, well, what do we mean by these 10 virgins? What do we mean about the lamps themselves? What is this saying generally about God's church? And again, him addressing the question of what does it mean for that church to be consummated in his kingdom?  [00:26:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I, I'm, I'm trying to find the specific passage, but um. We also should not miss the verbal affinity here. Uh, at the end of the parable, when it says truly, I say to you, I do not know you. We should really read this in light of, um, the, um, the statements. You know, I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I was, you know, and you say, Lord, we did these things. He said, away from me. I never knew you. We really should read this parable. I think in light of that passage and that phrasing, I think that's, that's actually the punchline of this  [00:26:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:26:55] Tony Arsenal: Punchline. That's, that's the point. Parable is that last phrase, and then the, the extra parable, the outside of the parable, um, payoff or sort of like explanation that Christ gives is watch. Therefore, for you neither know the day nor the hour. The point is not, um, you may think you're a Christian. You may think you're, you're on top of things, but you actually, you might be totally wrong. And so you better get your stuff together. The point is what, what happens? Or the point is the same thing as I think it's the author of Hebrew is like, today is the day of salvation, right? Like, do not wait to turn to Christ. Do not wait. That's right to trust in Jesus. Do not wait to enter the kingdom of heaven until the last minute. Do not wait because you don't actually know when the end is coming. And I, I read this when I, when it's watch, therefore for, you know, neither the day nor the hour. I read this less in light of, um. Like universal eschatology, uh, every single person that, that Jesus was speaking to in this original audience that he actually delivered this parable to, did not see that, like, did not see the last days. Right. Whatever the last days looks like. And I mean, like, yes, the last days is from the resurrection to the end of the age. So some of them saw those last days. But what I mean is none of these people saw the return of Christ, like the second return of Christ and that the last judgment. So he would, it would be sort of meaningless to be delivering this parable to those people. With only whatever the last things are with only the rapture in mind with only Right, exactly. The great judgment. None of that would make any sense. So I read this more in light of you never know when your day and hour is coming. Not, not necessarily like the day, like the day of the Lord, although that's true. Yes. There will be a generation on earth who the last day, the final judgment is also their last day in terms of their ordinary human life. But I think this is more of a general call to all of us, and especially to those, um, out there who are in the orbits of the church who are exposed to the gospel, um, and have not yet trusted Christ. [00:29:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:29:09] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is a call to turn to Jesus and to, uh, to, to come into the kingdom of heaven, to be prepared by coming into the kingdom of heaven here. That's, that's the main point of the peril that we have to land on.  [00:29:21] Bridegroom And Virgins [00:29:21] Jesse Schwamb: I agree with you, and I think all of the imagery here points in that direction. So even starting with this image of these 10 virgins, which of course you've been listening to us talk for long enough, or you've read through the Old Testament, you're gonna quickly, and I think cogently see that this is the Old Testament imagery of Israel as the bride or the covenant community. It's also of course, like the Greco Roman custom in which the bridesmaids attended the bride and accompanied the wedding procession when the bride groom arrived to claim his bride. So to your point, what I think is really interesting about this is that we're basically saying that this parable is not speaking of like strangers or enemies, but those who have made a profession of faith. And so even this like idea of the bridegroom who, who's without a question? Christ here, that's a self-identification that's rooted in like John chapter three, where even John the Baptist calls himself merely the friend of the bridegroom and a revelation where you are going already, where the marriage supper of the lamb consummate, consummate redemptive history. [00:30:19] Lamps And Oil Meaning [00:30:19] Jesse Schwamb: So once we get through the idea of we have those whom Jesus is speaking about, and even those who he's speaking to as those who have made some kind of profession, religious or otherwise, to me, where this hinges is in this idea of the lamps or these torches or or burning lamps, which I take to be like this outward profession. And so the question is you have all of them coming with these lamps. Lambs represent this external common to true or false professors alike. But I think to what you are driving at, it's whether within that profession there is a true and actual reliance on Christ himself for righteousness.  [00:30:57] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, oil, I think the oil is really key here too, right? Oil in the, uh, in the scriptures, particularly in the Old Testament. Um, but also in some places in the New Testament, oil is associated with the Holy Spirit.  [00:31:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yes,  [00:31:11] Tony Arsenal: exactly right. So if, if we wanna sort of take the symbolism here, take, take the, the situation sort of as a mixture of, of different kinds of symbols. We have these folks that have all of the outward things necessary to be able to light the lamps. They have the lamps, the wicks are there. Um, they're, they're sort of ready to go. They're, they're ready and waiting for a time. Uh, but what they don't have is they don't have oil, they don't have the Holy Spirit. So yes, we, we need in some senses about false professors, but I do think it's broader than that.  [00:31:43] Salvation Has A Deadline [00:31:43] Tony Arsenal: I think this is, um, again, is a generalized parable about. The, the fact that the hour of salvation, the day of salvation, the opportunity to turn to God, the opportunity to come into God's kingdom is not an indefinite opportunity. It's not going to be out there as a possibility forever. There is a day and an hour and a minute for every single person where that opportunity is no longer available. And of course we're the reformed brotherhood, not the Armenian Brotherhood, right? We're the reformed brotherhood. So yes, God has ordained who will come and who will not. He's ordained the hour and the minute of those who will, and he's ordained that some will never come. But that all operates on God's God's level in God's knowledge. And that's not something we have access to know down here, right? Deuteronomy 29, 29, the sacred things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever. And one of the things that's revealed is that God calls us to salvation. He calls us to repent and trust in Jesus. And here in this passage, he is cutting us to do that, to not delay doing that.  [00:32:53] Personal Evangelism Story [00:32:53] Tony Arsenal: I think there are a lot of people, um. I can actually think of a couple really specific examples in when I was in high school. Um, I was, I, I don't do as much personal evangelism as I I did when I was, uh, when I was in high school and younger. I, I don't know for sure what the reason is. Some of it's probably my own cowardice, but I think probably just that's normal, that as you grow and you kind of settle into different kinds of relationships, you have a different context. But I remember a, a friend of mine named Dave, I'm not gonna say his last name, I remember his last name, but I'm not gonna say it, but a friend of mine named David, um, who. All of us were coming to faith, like all, all of our friend group were coming to Faith. There was one of my friends, James was sort of like the first guy who, he was raised in a Christian home and he sort of came to faith in a very real faith, real way. And he sort of brought all of us along with him and sort of one by one we, we sort of like, it was like Domino's falling. And we all came to a genuine, true saving faith kind of all right in a row. And then there was Dave and Dave just didn't like he, he with us. He did all the things we were doing. And I remember having a conversation with him where I was like, what are you waiting for? Like, what's, what's the hold up here? And I didn't have any, again, I didn't have any framework for like what apologetics were, I wasn't trying to make an argument or any sort of like, um, any sort of like persuasion. It was just a real raw like we are all loving this. We're all, we're all so joyful and happy. The lives are changing and we. This is real, Dave, what, what are you waiting for? He never had a real answer. He, he didn't ever make an argument against the faith. He was very clear that he believed that God was real. He believed that God existed, that the sort of the facts of the gospel were true. Like he, he, um, to sort of put like theological language on it, um, he had, he had a ticia and a census, right? Right. He, he acknowledged he knew the true facts of the gospel and he acknowledged the reality that, that those facts were true. He just never actually took the step to trust in Jesus. And I don't know what happened to Dave. Uh, there's another friend of mine named Theo that very similar kind of situation. I don't know what happened to Dave and Theo. I have no idea whether they eventually came to faith or not, but, but it was like, you guys never know when the day in the hours. That's the kind of person that I think this is pointing to.  [00:35:15] Against Rapture Ready Fear [00:35:15] Tony Arsenal: Not necessarily the person within the church, um, who has made some sort of credible profession of faith, but thinks, but like, because like they haven't stopped swearing yet, or because they still have lustful thoughts once in a while. Like I think that's the rapture ready theology is like. You better not hope that like that's the day that a pretty girl walks by and you have a lutful thought. 'cause if Jesus comes back right after that, you're really in trouble. Like those are, those are actually, um, again, this is, this is a caricature of dispensationalism, but it's a caricature that I experienced. It's, it was people who were being characters of themselves. Right? This idea that, look, you better, you better not sin ever. You better not be asleep. And being asleep means sinning. You better not ever sin. Because if you happen to sin right before the rapture, then Jesus is gonna leave you behind. Right? You're not gonna fly up in the clouds if you're not perfectly rapture ready. And like, again, not all dispensationalist are like that. I actually think most dispensationalist these days would probably not fit into that category. Right? But when I was coming to faith in the late nineties and early two thousands, that was the real theology being presented. I don't think that's what this is. This is about a life orientation of preparedness. This is about an entire life. Yes. That is prepared for Christ's second coming or for the hour of our death. And that the only way to be prepared for that is to be happy in Christ, is to be blessed, blessed assurance, like to have your blessed assurance because Jesus is mine. Oh, what a, you know, oh, what a happy delight like that is. The only way to be ready for death, to be prepared for the end is to turn to Jesus. It's not about whether or not you've turned to Jesus and have become perfectly sinless. None of us are like that, right? It's not about, I just got done writing this series of articles on John Piper's affectional theology, affectional Justification, like it's not about perfectly treasuring Christ. There are gonna be times where your emotions do not sync up with what you actually believe. It's not about being perfectly obedient or wanting to be perfectly obedient. It's about trusting Jesus. And there's only one day an hour that that opportunity closes, and you never know when that is, when that day an hour is gonna be. [00:37:26] Wise Versus Foolish [00:37:26] Jesse Schwamb: We know that to be true in this particular parable because of what's written for us in verse two, how Jesus himself bifurcates and labels these two groups. He says five of them were foolish and five were wise. So Christ himself introduces the critical distinction, not of course, with reference to whatever the external practice is, because both of these groups are carrying lamps, both weight, both know the bridegroom is coming, but with an interior character judgment one is literally foolish, which is the same contrast that Christ employs actually in the parable of the two builders at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, where the wise man hears and does, while the foolish man hears, but does not translate hearing into obedient transformation. So I'm with you on this. The terms carry, I think, significant Old Testament fruit because in the all the wisdom literature, wisdom is synonymous with the fear of the Lord, that true knowledge of God, right? And that practical orientation, I think as you were saying, of one's entire life toward God. The fool is not like an intellectual simpleton, but it's a world spiritual category. It's one who lives as though God does not exist or God does not matter, or refuses in the light of incontrovertible evidence to come before God and to submit to him In this way. They are foolish or they are wise. And so again, I like what you're saying. It's not as if like they've just exhibited some kind of quick departure or they've fallen into temptation or sinfulness, but instead, rather, there's something way larger at stake here with respect to a spiritual category. And I think that's really what Jesus is after, as he's bringing these two groups apart from each other, explaining that essentially that they access the same things. They heard the same stuff, they had the same on the outward, at least the same priorities, but the true internal character, the interior character of who they were, was not compatible. These are not the the same kind of person.  [00:39:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:39:21] All Virgins Fall Asleep [00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: And this is actually something, um, that I hadn't picked up on before. Right. I think we can get into these ruts when we're reading and understanding, uh, the scripture, especially really familiar passages like this. Um, probably like at some point in the past, someone has taught it to me in this way. I heard a sermon or I heard it at a youth group in a particular way, and I just never really went back. The, the wise virgins also fall asleep.  [00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:39:46] Tony Arsenal: Like, like that, that's amazing to me, like Right. I've always heard this passage as though like, falling asleep is the equivalent of spiritual death.  [00:39:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:39:55] Tony Arsenal: But the reality is, in this passage, the difference between the wise and the foolish virgins is not that they, one of them stays awake and one of them falls asleep. One, the, the, the difference between the wise and the foolish is that the ones that are wise are prepared for when the bride root clump comes, even though they fell asleep and, and actually, uh, they're, they're shown to be even more wise because they all fell asleep. Yes. Right. If they hadn't fallen asleep, then the foolish ones probably would've had time to go get more. But the, the wise virgins in this, uh. And not only were they wise in terms of like they had the stuff they needed, they were ready to go, but so wise that in fact their wisdom overcame sort of this happenstance that they were in a state of, of preparedness being asleep when the comes is a state of Unpreparedness, but they have able to compensate for the ready in every other area. And I think this also kind of like mitigates away away from the idea of like the, um. The, the emphasis of the parable here, the readiness of the par of the virgins is not based on the wakefulness of the virgins, right? Yes. The virgins are ready because they have the supplies they need. Right. They're not Exactly, they're not exactly, they're not un 'cause they fell asleep. They're ready because they've, they've prepared by purchasing the supplies they need, by having the supplies they need when the breadroom comes. That's true. Whether they fall asleep or not. So I think like this whole parable needs to sort of like be reoriented in reference to the way a lot of us have, A lot of us have been taught and understood this parable. I was always taught that the, the foolish virgins were foolish because they fell asleep. Yeah, that's probably partially true in that it's foolish to fall asleep when you're waiting for something, but that can't be the only thing that makes them foolish. 'cause it doesn't make the other virgins foolish. [00:41:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, exactly.  [00:41:52] Oil As Saving Grace [00:41:52] Jesse Schwamb: And that's why it's so interesting that Jesus basically doubles down or elaborates in verses three and four by saying for when the foolish took their lamps. They took no oil with them. Yeah, but the wises took flasks of oil with their lambs. I think it's actually, as you're, I think leading us into like the theological height of this whole thing, the foolish virgins took their lambs, but no oil. The wise took lambs and extra oil in vessels. And of course the lambs cannot burn without oil in the same way. I think what we're led to believe here is profession without grace has no sustaining power. So I know like throughout church history, this idea of the oil has been interpreted in various ways, in various forms. I think there's a lot of unification though on the point that the oil is more or less like a representation of the grace of the Holy Spirit. That like specific indwelling regenerating, sanctifying presence of the spirit imparted in effectual calling and genuine conversion. And that's why I think this has a lot in common with both like the tears and the wheat parable. But also what you've been saying about the time that is appointed onto a man to die, either for Christ to return or just for you and I to die. And so this understanding, I think is consistent with the Old Testament symbolic use of, like you said before, anointing oil is a sign of the spirit's presence. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit. And so I'm seeing here like this oil is, I mean, is it going too far to say almost like a saving grace? It's, it's not common grace, it's not the gifts of the spirit, which the reprobate may possess, but I think we're, we're seeing here like that special sanctifying preserving grace, which is inseparable from true election and calling. [00:43:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think that's spot on. While you were talking, I was actually just looking up, uh, what Calvin has to say on this. I, I think it's funny because I constantly am saying things that I feel like I'm discovering for myself in real time. But if I actually just took the, a little bit of time to read some of our great sources a little more carefully, I would run into them. This is what he says. He says on, uh, verse five, he says, some interpret this slumbering in a bad sense as if believers along with others abandon themselves sloth. And they were, they were asleep amidst the vanities of the world. This is all together inconsistent with the intention of Christ as structure of the parable. [00:44:05] Slow Down And Read [00:44:05] Tony Arsenal: Like I think it's clear now here as we're working through this and this, and this is the main benefit, um, of taking time to just walk through the parables, any, any text of scripture, but the parables is what we're looking at. Taking time to just actually slow down and read them. I didn't intend to get to like a whole discussion about Bible reading plans, but the typical, I'm gonna read the Bible through, uh, the entire Bible in a year that typically has you reading three to five chapters a day is the average. That's probably too much if you want to be reading for understanding. And there is, there's definitely value. I've, I've commented in the past, there's huge value in reading large tracks of scripture all at the same time. Like if you wanna sit down over 10 chapters of Scripture day and you've got the time and the energy and the discipline to do it, then more power to you. But I think it's not realistic to think you're gonna sit down and read 10 chapters of scripture and have good comprehension and retention of the 10 chapters that you read. This is a really good example of that. If you sit down and you read three chapters, you're gonna be reading this, you're gonna be reading, uh, another parable. The parable of the talents you are gonna be reading. You know, the all of it discourse all at the same time, all in one sitting. Um, it's not until just now when I slowed down to really look at these passages, verse by verse individually and take an hour to discuss 13 verses with my brother-in-law in front of a microphone, right? Then I realized all of the virgins fall asleep. Like that's the kind of stuff that you really only, um, you only overcome. The assumed teaching that you heard when you were in high school, 15, you know, 15, 20 years ago at a summer camp. You really only overcome that when you slow down enough to read things and actually comprehend them. So that's not much of a commentary on the passage, but it is something that I'm learning as we do these parable studies. Just slow down, slow down and read them, read them multiple times, read it over and over again. Um, it is totally fine. The, this is the last, uh, Bible reading soapbox thing I'll say tonight. Um, I think like, because. Of the influence of like expository preaching and like wanting to read things in, in context, and all of those things are good. I think there is this tendency to think that if you sit down and just read a very short portion of scripture, that you're kind of automatically taking that out of context. I don't think that's the case. Like it's totally fine to sit down in the morning and go, you know what? I've got, I've got 10 minutes, I've got five minutes. I've got two minutes before the kids are up. I've got two minutes before the bus stop, you know, before the bus gets here. I'm standing at the bus stop. I've got 30 seconds before the coffee's done. It's totally fine to open your Bible app. And read two or three verses of scripture, that's a totally fine thing to do. It's totally fine because you've got 10 minutes before the kids got up. Oh, and by the way, you've gotta unload the dishwasher before they do. Totally fine to sit down and go, I've got time to read 13 verses of scripture today. So that's what I'm gonna get done. Um, and, and then just think about those things like meditate on those scriptures all day. I just think there's a lot of values to that and that's maybe that's my takeaway from this episode. I know like that's not a takeaway directly related to this passage. That's good. But I think we can oftentimes. Have and understand that isn't right because we've been taught it and we don't ever have the time or space in our life to like realize that what we were taught is maybe exactly right. This is like something so obvious on the surface of the text. It didn't even take any real thought. It just took slowing down and actually reading the words  [00:47:45] Jesse Schwamb: right. It's also a good reminder, like we said from the beginning, that our goal here shouldn't be to torture every detail, to like press it for some kind of allegorical significance.  [00:47:55] Tony Arsenal: Yes.  [00:47:55] Jesse Schwamb: But to take it on the face and to understand in context what's being said. And by context I just mean the context of the story. Of the accounts of the drama that's unfolding. And it is pretty remarkable that all 10 virgins sleep, that maybe even as you start with the details might not be your impression that that was gonna be, was gonna be the difference here, but both the wises and the foolish alike fall asleep. So to me, the parable is not condemning sleep per se, but I think it's the absence of oil which the sleep merely reveals, right? That's the critical detail here. And so Jesus delivers that to us and that's why it's, I think, important to think about these, these variables about what the oil represents and the context in which they're tested with their preparedness. But it's not because like they had it almost times you get the impression, it's like what we're saying here is the wise had more stamina, that they were the ones that were just willing to tough it out, and they knew the bridegroom was coming. And so as a result of that, they decided that they were going to ensure that they stayed awake, even if they had the drink, a couple of extra cups of coffee, just to make sure that was the case. But really their sleepiness, which they both have to endure, is the very context in which proves that they do are not prepared by having sufficient oil, not that they're unprepared by having sufficient energy or stamina.  [00:49:18] Prepared Despite Fatigue [00:49:18] Jesse Schwamb: Well, with all.  [00:49:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that's a good takeaway too, is, is we all, um, we all will succumb to temptation in this life,  [00:49:32] Jesse Schwamb: right? [00:49:33] Tony Arsenal: Right. Every single one of us. And even if we think of sleeping in this negative sense, which I think we probably need to move away from it, even if we do, I think the point that you're making is really good, for instance, between the foolish and the wises is not their ability to stay awake. So I do think that, I do think there's a slightly negative connotation to drowsy and slept here. Like I think that, I think it's intended to show some level of fatigue. Fatigue, maybe not like a moral right, maybe not a moral, uh, negativity, but there's a fatigue. There's something that overcomes both wise and foolish virgins in this parable. Fatigue and drowsiness overcomes them and they sleep. And it's because the bridegroom was delayed, right? We wanna talk about eschatology, right? This is probably also more a commentary on the church as a whole. The church becomes drowsy and sleeps right, and then there's the foolish and the wise. The foolish are the ones who are not prepared even though they are drowsy and sleep. And then there's the wise who are foolish, or the wises who are prepared and are drowsy and sleep. But E, either way, if we think of drowsy and sleep, even in moral negative terms, right? All of us will succumb to temptation. All of us will succumb to sin in this life. I would even go so far as to say all of us sin in every moment of our life in that we never love God. Truly. Yes. With our full hearts and souls. You got that right soul the way that we're, we're commanded to. Right. Right. So all of us become drowsy and sleep. The difference is not in those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and tape their eyelids open so that they don't fall asleep. Right. I don't, I don't know if you ever like had trouble staying awake in school, but I used to, like I used to sit at my desk with my pencil under my chin. Oh my Lord. So if I started to fall asleep, it would like jab me and I would wake up so I could stay awake in school. Oh. It's not about like gimmicks to stay awake.  [00:51:20] Jesse Schwamb: Right, right.  [00:51:21] Tony Arsenal: It's about the fact that those of us who have trusted Christ. Have received the oil. Yes. So even when we sleep, yes. Even when we are drowsy, even when we are overcome by the fatigue that prevents us from, uh, from resisting sin. Right. Even when that happens, we still have the oil. We still have the grace of the Holy Spirit. We still have the empowering presence and the, the, the justifying reality of Christ's death For us, in my mind as I read this parable, that really is what it is, right? Get the oil, go get the stinking oil now, because you never know when the day or hour is coming. Mm-hmm. Whether that's the day or the hour that you fall asleep and you're not prepared, or whether that's the day or the hour that the bridegroom was, even if you're awake. That's the other element of this. Even if the virgins had stayed awake, they didn't have the oil.  [00:52:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:52:12] Tony Arsenal: So it it's not as though, it's not as though had they stayed awake, they would've had time to go get the oil and come back. They, they wake up right away. Like there's nothing in the parable that's like, oh, it took 'em a little while to get up. So that's why they didn't have time to get the oil. They, they didn't have time to get the oil. 'cause there wasn't time to get the oil  [00:52:31] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:52:32] Tony Arsenal: So the only way you're going to be properly prepared when the bridegroom comes is if you already have the oil and you're already ready to go. Regardless of whether you fall asleep or not.  [00:52:42] Gospel Call Get Oil [00:52:42] Tony Arsenal: So I, I think, I think we have to kind of close this with like a gospel, a gospel call here. Like we don't do this very often on the show, and I think the vast majority of our show are professed, regenerate Christians. I don't, I don't know anyone who listens to the show that is outwardly not a Christian, but I think this is a time for us to say, listen, if you are hearing the sound of my voice, be diligent to make your calling an election. Sure. And that both takes the form of what Peter talks about, where he talks about growing in graces and walking in, walking in the qualities of holine

ACOFAE Podcast presents: Heated Rivalry: "All romance feels like fantasy at this point." Shane Hollander. Ilya Rosenov. You know the names. You've probably seen the show, and the books are more than likely on your radar. It's Pride so let's let the boys have some fun as ACOFAE discusses book 2 in the Game Changer series by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry. A first for Laura Marie, (a sports romance!) Takes readers on one of the longest situationship rides ever as these two hockey players from difference countries and teams fall in love. An MM romance that is sweet and tender, as well as poignant and subtle, Shane and Ilya will stay with you long after the book is finished. Longtime listeners will not be surprised to learn that Jessica Marie has been all over this series and has the books to prove it. TW / CW: discussions surrounding homophobia For additional TW/CW information for your future reads, head to this site for more: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/ Spoilers: Heated Rivalry (book and show), Game Changers (book 1), ACOSF Mentions: The Devil Wears Prada, Pose, Brokeback Mountain, Euphoria *Thank you for listening to us! Please subscribe and leave a 5-star review and follow us on Instagram at @ACOFAEpodcast and on our TikToks! TikTok: ACOFAELaura : Laura Marie ( https://www.tiktok.com/@acofaelaura) ACOFAEJessica : Jessica Marie (https://www.tiktok.com/@acofaejessica) Instagram: @ACOFAEpodcast https://www.instagram.com/acofaepodcast/ @ACOFAELaura https://www.instagram.com/acofaelaura/ “Lost in the sauce.”

#theboys The country has turned topsy-turvy as Homelander effectively takes charge of Vought (and unofficially, the Presidency); Butcher, Starlight, and Kimiko are in hiding while Hughie, MM, and Frenchie are held in a "Freedom Camp". Ashley is the new VP and A-Train in the wind. A rescue mission is planned to reunite The Boys, but complications arise.

Ped & Burk hit a Saturday night pod and come out swingin! The boys play another round of the 3-2-1 game and see if they can break their previous record! Adam then talks about his awesome fishing day with his Dad, with a few people annoyances sprinkled in. Burk then gives us a legendary perfect song this week! In the meat, Mm!, the fellas rank their top 10 sporting events. From Friday Night Lights to World Series, see how they stack up, with a legendary Nascar pull included. We close by talking into a fan in 1997. Lu lah low lu lay. Hut Hut! Love y'all.  

Submit to Season 4 Courage Files Here! What happens after the book is finally out in the world—and all the noise starts creeping in? In this conversation, indie MM romance author Alex Cross joins me to talk about emotionally intense storytelling, publishing pressure, writer's block, and the challenge of protecting your creativity once readers, reviews, and big expectations enter the picture.We talk about the Fire Between Us series and its highly anticipated second installment, From Our Ashes, which released May 4th, 2026, as well as her stunning Us duet—Echoes of Us and Becoming Us. We dig into the craft, including keeping track of dual timelines, writing toxic relationships, character psychology, and messy, deeply human love stories. Alex also shares her journey into self-publishing, the realities of revising published work, navigating social media and comparison, and learning how to reconnect to why she writes in the first place.It's an honest conversation about creativity, vulnerability, and continuing to write even when fear and doubt get loud.Timestamps04:04 Meet Alex Cross08:29 Choosing a risky debut11:37 Echoes of Us19:11 Crafting dual timelines24:44 Revising published work29:49 Fire Between Us update33:30 Writing high-angst stories35:53 Writer's block + sequel struggles37:56 Reviews, doubt, and social media41:35 Boundaries and support systems44:48 Protecting the magic of writing47:26 What's next + where to find Alex To connect with Alex and read her books, go to her website and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.All of Alex's books are available in KU. Have a comment or idea about the show? Send me a direct text! Love to hear from you.Support the show To become a supporter of the show, click here!To get in touch with Stacy:Email: Stacy@writeitscared.cohttps://www.writeitscared.co/wishttps://www.instagram.com/writeitscared/Take advantage of these Free Resources From Write It Scared: Download Your Free Novel Planning and Drafting Quick Start Guide Download Your Free Guide to Remove Creative Blocks and Work Through Fears

The visions you described in your journal and in your dreams are delayed not because of denial, but because there is still some development that has to take place. Click here for the MM donation link: https://checkout.square.site/merchant/D135FAXVEN2D7/checkout/Y67QJUO2WKX5JDCDGENK7UPU?src=sheet

Losing a client is never fun, even when you saw the writing on the wall. The only question is how you choose to handle it. In this episode, Chip and Gini cover the practical and emotional side of client departures, from the moment you get the news to the lessons you take away. Gini points out that there are plenty of reasons a client could terminate the relationship, which may have nothing to do with your work. Strategy changes, budget cuts, and leadership turnover all end client relationships that were otherwise going fine. Chip’s advice is to not react immediately. Ask for a couple of days to review the agreement and put together a transition plan. That space lets you get the emotion out before you say something you’ll regret. Once you have your bearings, focus on making the exit clean. Read your actual contract, confirm the notice terms, and hand over everything the client needs: documents, passwords, contacts, work in progress. Chip is blunt about agencies that fight clients on the way out — it accomplishes nothing and just guarantees a bad final impression. Don't burn any bridges and you just might see those clients come back or send you referrals. Finally, be honest with your team about what the loss means for the business. If there are financial implications, say so before people start drawing their own conclusions. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You never want to react immediately to the news in such a way that you perhaps compound a difficult situation, or at the very least you don’t make it as easy as it should be.” Gini Dietrich: “I always say that you’re remembered by how you left an organization versus the work that you did. And so you never want to burn a bridge, even if you’re caught by surprise, even if you wanted to fire the client and you’re happy about it.” Chip Griffin: “If the client is coming to you and canceling because they’re having financial issues, you’re probably not going to get the money anyway. So rather than fighting for something that probably isn’t there, why don’t you try to make it as painless as possible and get whatever you can so that you’ve built some goodwill potentially for the future?” Gini Dietrich: “Be honest and open with your team because I think they will come with solutions that you may not have thought of or that you may have assumed they’re not willing to do.” Related Why do agencies lose clients? Agency client cancellation policies Agency owners need to put themselves in other people's shoes How to protect yourself from an unexpected client breakup View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, as a famous American once said, “You’re fired.” Gini Dietrich: Oh, no. Chip Griffin: Okay. Maybe … pack your knives and go. Um- Oh … what would you like to go with instead? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, let’s, maybe we’ll do that one. I like that. Chip Griffin: Pack your knives and go. Top Chef is a great show. Gini Dietrich: I love Top Chef. Chip Griffin: Not as good as it was in the early days, but- Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree. Yeah … Chip Griffin: it’s still, it’s still kind of fun occasionally, and I, I still- Yeah … do watch part of each season. Yeah. From Restaurant Wars on. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I did love, I did love a little Top Chef. I agree. Chip Griffin:  Jen and one of my kids watch it up until Restaurant Wars, then they let me know, and I come in and I watch Restaurant Wars through the end. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. They’re like, “Okay, your turn.” Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, that’s where it starts to get interesting, so. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Anyway, no, we are gonna talk about getting fired. Not fired as an owner. We’re, we’re not at that point yet. We don’t have boards that are gonna fire us, most of us at least. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: But clients do fire us from time to time, and we’ve had conversations in the past about firing clients ourselves and, and those sorts of things. But, what happens, what do you do when a client calls you up or, worse, sends you an email and says, “We’re done. We’re out”? Yeah, you know, it’s- What are things you should be thinking about at that point? Gini Dietrich: I think so. The, I think there’s a couple of things here. One is that the word, using the word “fired” makes it sound so bad. Sometimes it’s because there’s been a strategy change, there’s been a budget reallocation, maybe leadership has changed, maybe there’s a new VP of marketing or a CCO. Like, there are lots of reasons, right, that have nothing to do with you or the agency or your work. And so saying that you got fired is, I, I just don’t like that term. Now that I have that off my chest, I’ll step down off my soapbox and say, like, there, I think we should always be prepared for the eventual loss of a client. And because we don’t know, right? We don’t- Uh-huh … we can kind of guess, you know, if there are big changes at a leadership level, or if there’s been a reorg, or if the company has sold or things like that, we can guess. Like, we’re probably not gonna be working with that client much longer. We could also sort of read the tea leaves from the perspective of they’ve been ghosting us, and we haven’t been able to get any work done. They’ve been declining meetings or not showing up for meetings. Like, there are lots of reasons that you can kind of read those tea leaves. And so I always think it’s, it’s really good to be prepared. It should never come as a surprise when you lose a client, and you should be prepared. You should have, you should know what you’re going to say, you should know how, what a transition looks like, and you should have a full pipeline that will replace that client fairly quickly, even in a chaotic world that we’re living in right now, so that you’re not caught off guard. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I think the, you know, the first step when you get this news is, probably 95% of the time you’re gonna be annoyed, upset, unhappy. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Absolutely. Chip Griffin: Some negative emotion. A small percentage of the time you’ll be like, “Oh, thank God, I just- … I, I really wanted to get rid of them anyway.” Yeah. You know? So. Gini Dietrich: Blessing in disguise, yep. Right. Chip Griffin: So, so sometimes that’ll be your reaction, but most of the time it’s not gonna be a happy reaction that you have. And so I think the, the first thing is to just, whether it’s on a call with them or you get it by email or, you know, carrier pigeon or whatever, take a deep breath. Yes. Right? Yes … you, you don’t ever want to react immediately to the news in such a way that you perhaps compound a difficult situation, or at the very least you don’t make it as easy as it could or should be. And I think your advice to, to be prepared for this, certainly if you see the signs on the wall you need to be even more prepared. But sometimes these things are, you know, in retrospect they won’t be a surprise, but you might feel surprised in the moment because you didn’t pick up on all of the little signals along the way and, and that then becomes a learning experience. And I think that’s… to me, that’s one of the most valuable things when you lose a client for whatever reason, is taking advantage of that to learn for the future. Learn the signs to look for. Yep. Learn what you could do differently potentially to maintain the relationship, retain the client. Learn to target better ideal clients, whatever it is. But I, I always like to turn these things into a learning experience as much as possible. But you also have the logistics to actually handle the end of the client relationship, so why don’t we talk about that for a little bit. What, you know, it, it’s not just about the learnings that you can take for the future, it’s how do you handle that immediately? How do you transition the client out? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think, you know, I always say that you’re always remembered by how you left an organization versus the work that you did. And so you never wanna burn a bridge, even if you’re caught by surprise, even if you wanted to fire the client and you’re happy about it, you should never burn a bridge because you just never know, right? So understanding what contract they signed and what the terms of agreement are, you know? We had a situation where I was working with a girlfriend and, she lost a big, big, big, big client. It came out of the blue, that she was not expecting it because she’d had a conversation a week prior that everything was fine. And so she works with several contractors, and we had to say like, “We’re really sorry. We know that we thought you were gonna be doing work in May and June,” and, like, we go, “The client’s gone.” So, and she had one person come back to her and say, like, “We have a 30-day agreement,” blah, blah, blah. They didn’t have a 30-day agreement, but in her mind they had a 30-day agreement. Sure. In the paperwork, there was no 30-day agreement. So I use that as an example because in your mind you may have a 30 or 60 or 90-day termination clause that may not have made it to the final piece. Maybe you have it for some clients and not others. Like, you have to really do your research to, and go back and read the executed agreement so you know what those terms are. And then spend that time ensuring that there’s a seamless transition, that they’re getting all the documents that you’ve created, that they understand where things are, that they understand where the passwords are, where you, what you have access to, all of those kinds of things. ‘Cause I will tell you, there have been situations where we’ve lost a client and we’re still in their Google Analytics. We’re still the admin on their Facebook page. Like, stuff like that, I’m like, “You guys, we’re not gonna do anything bad, but you really need to take us off.” Chip Griffin: Right, right. I mean, I’ve had former clients where, where I have had admin level access to a lot of their stuff- Yes … for as much as a decade afterwards. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: Even when I flag it for them and say, “Hey, guys- Gini Dietrich: Yes … Chip Griffin: you might wanna take me out.” Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: It, it’s kind of amazing at times that- It, it is, yeah … the things that, that people don’t pay attention to. But, I mean, I think that that’s great advice to, you know, to understand what your agreements say, and to really just focus on how do you make it as smooth a transition as possible. No matter how frustrated you are, you need to try to think through how do we make this as pain-free for everybody? Because you can make it difficult for them, but that’s really just gonna make it difficult for you. Yep. And to your point, that’s how you’re gonna be remembered, as the person who made it difficult. And so, you know, if you get it on a, if you get the information on a call, you know, certainly say, “Hey, look, you know, let’s, let’s put together a wind-down plan or transition plan,” or however you wanna frame it. Part of that will depend on how sudden it is. You know, are, are they saying, “We’re not gonna renew in, you know, three months,” or is it, you know, “We’re giving you as short a notice as possible”? That will affect the timelines- Sure … and those sorts of things. Yep, yep. But, but it doesn’t affect the fact that you want to try to make sure that you are making it smooth and clean and painless. And don’t hesitate to say, “Hey, let me, let me think about this and come back to you with a plan-” Right “for how we do it.” Right, right. You don’t have to have every answer in the moment, and, and giving yourself that time to step back and absorb it may allow you to come forward with a more productive plan all the way around. Because your goal has to be to make sure that you’re fulfilling your contract, while at the same time trying to get them to fulfill their end of it. Right. And, and the more that you fight, the less likely you are to even get what you are due under the agreement. And so, you know, you wanna try to make it as, as friendly as possible in, in how you wind it down to make sure that you do get those payments that you are still owed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think, you know, if it comes as a surprise, I think you’re absolutely right that saying things like, “You know, gosh, I’m really sorry to hear this. I’ve really enjoyed working with you. Let me take a couple of days to craft a transition plan.” That gives you time. They, from their perspective, they’re like, “Okay, they’re being thoughtful about this and, you know, strategic about it, and they’re gonna be helpful.” And that gives you time to settle yourself and, you know, be, get all the emotion out of it and actually create something productive. Chip Griffin: Right. And it can be a, particularly if it’s done over the phone, it gives you that opportunity to sit down and take a look at the contract and see- Yeah … what it says. Yeah. Because then you can, you can go back to them and say, “Okay, you know, in order to make sure we do this the right way, you know, we’ll need the notification in writing so that, you know, we can memorialize this properly to protect both of us.” And I think you always wanna use that kind of language when you’re dealing with contract stuff. This is for both of our benefit, even if really maybe it’s more for you- Yeah … than for them, but you wanna stress the, the for both of us. And that’s also your opportunity to then look at other clauses in there that, that maybe are to your benefit, like the notification period, that maybe you didn’t bring up on the call. You know, you can say, “Hey, you know, we need to make sure we get this in writing, and of course, as, as you know from this agreement, you have 30, 60, 90, whatever the notification period is. So, you know, we’ll work to that, as we wind this down.” Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think, you know, there are, we, and we’ve talked about this before too, like our contracts say 90 days, and there are some clients where I’m like, “I don’t need to hold you to that. We’re good.” Like some- Right. Right? And then there are situations- Chip Griffin: How about, how about 90 minutes? How about 90 minutes? Can we, can we just be- 90 seconds? 90 seconds? We can be done now. We’re just, I’m out. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I’m good. Yep. Good. Yep. See ya. Yep. But then there are also situations, you know, we had the Great Recession, we had COVID. There are some situations where you’re just like, you just be, you can be understanding and be like, “Gosh, I’m really, yeah, I’m really sorry to hear business sucks, and we have a 90-day termination clause, but let me, let me waive that for you, and let’s do this instead.” And you’re always seen in good light when you do those things. Yep. And in fact, every time I have done that, either that business has come back or they’ve referred business to us. So you don’t wanna do that in every situation, and you don’t wanna hurt your cash flow, you know, if it’s, if it’s gonna be detrimental. But there are situations where you can be a little more understanding and use, use that kind of language so that they understand that you’re doing them a favor, ’cause you’re, you really are doing them a favor in some cases. Chip Griffin: Well, more to the point, if the client is coming to you and canceling because they’re having financial issues, whether it’s because of a global pandemic or there’s just something specific to their business, you’re probably not gonna get the money anyway. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: Right? So, so rather than fighting for something that probably isn’t there anyway, why don’t you try to make it as painless as possible and get whatever you can so that you’ve built some goodwill potentially for the future? Because you also have to keep in mind that most of the time we’re not working with the actual owner of the business. Most of the time, even in a mid-sized business, we’re working with someone at least a step or two removed from that level. And so why are we making their life more difficult when it’s not, you know, it may not even be their ability to make a decision, particularly if it’s financially related. So, you know, think about that, and put yourself in their shoes if you were in a position. If you’ve got contractors, think about, you know, you want to react to them the same way you want your contractors to react to you. Gini Dietrich: Right. Yep. Chip Griffin: And, you don’t want your contractors coming at you, right? Yeah, yep. And you wanna try to work something out amicably. You should be doing the same thing upstream from you in the relationship as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I just, I think your earlier point about taking some time, and just, you know, it’s, it usually comes as a shock. Even if, even if we’ve read the tea leaves, it still is surprising. It still is stressful. It still has some risk involved. And so just take a beat and use the language of, you know, “Give me a couple of days to put together a transition plan.” And I think that helps you process it all, get the emotion out, and then start to salvage the relationship as best you can so that there is referral business later, or maybe they do come back later, or whatever happens to be. Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, time is your friend on these things in order to, you know, to formulate a better response. And most of the time when we react too quickly, it’s when we end up regretting it somewhere down the road. So- you know, buy yourself the time to avoid that future regret. Gini Dietrich: I will, I will tell you that 100 years ago when I started my agency, the first client I lost, I cried. And the client felt really, really bad, and I was mortified, but I cried. Chip Griffin: Oh, you, you cried when the client told you? Oh, wow. Gini Dietrich: I did. Uh-huh. Okay. So I will say that, you know, you learn and you grow, and you understand that sometimes it’s just not personal. I took it very personally because it was the first time it had ever happened. Like, I’d, I’d never been fired from a job. I’d never like … it was the first time it had ever happened. So I, I did. I’ve matured since then, but there are, you know, there are things that you’re just like, it’s an emotional time. Chip Griffin: Sure. I mean, nobody would ever enjoy that kind of- Gini Dietrich: Yeah Chip Griffin: experience. Mm-mm. Yeah. I, I mean, certainly any time I’ve ever had a contract end, I, I haven’t been like, “Yay!” Gini Dietrich: Right? Chip Griffin: I mean- Gini Dietrich: Woo-hoo! … Chip Griffin: it, it sucks. Yeah. I can’t say that I’ve ever cried when I’ve gotten that news, but may have hung up the phone and had a few choice words for the atmosphere around me or something like that. But, you know, it is what it is. So okay, so, you know, we’re, we’re thinking through the actual communications with the client who has fired us. Sorry, terminated the agreement- Let us go … or shared the decision. Mm, right. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever language you wanna use. I’m, I’m still a fan of firing because that’s kinda what it is. So now we need to think about two things, I think immediately. One is how do we communicate it to our team, whether that’s contractors or employees, and as a corollary to that, how are we going to act as a client for the remainder of the relationship that we have? So not the technical details of working out the trip, but the, you know, how do we continue to service them in that moment? And those two are related because as soon as you tell your team, you know, “Hey, this, this agreement is ending,” they’re probably gonna start mentally checking out of that relationship just as you have. Gini Dietrich: Of course. Yep. Chip Griffin: And I think we need to really fight that urge. Yep. Because, because it, uh, as you say, it is how you exit that people remember you, and a lot of that comes down to if you had, particularly if you have a longer notice period, right? If you’ve got a, you know, say a 60 or 90-day notice period, you can’t just, you know, put pens down unless they, the client is like, “No, we just, we’re, we’re done. We’ll just keep paying you, but we’re not.” Sometimes that does happen- It sure does, yep … where they treat it as sort of severance for the agency. It’s not super common, but it does happen. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But it needs to be on them to reduce your workload, not on you to say, “Eh, we don’t care anymore.” Gini Dietrich: Right. And I think, you know, if you’re doing things like media relations, it’s ensuring that those, the stories that are in progress or the things that are in progress, the pitches that are in progress, those get transferred over. If you, like we said, if you hold the keys to anything, you have to make sure that those are transferred over. All of the things that you have in progress, understand, you know, to your point, that it may be like they just want you to stop work immediately and hand everything over, or they may want you to continue, finish, they want you to finish things that are in progress. But understand what that is so that you can ensure that. And one of the things I always say to my team, and I repeat that, repeat what I said at the beginning, which is, you know, you’re always remembered how, by how you left. It is our job to transition smoothly and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Yep. And I understand that you’re checked out. I’m checked out. I’m surprised by this. It’s not, you know, this, this is gonna be a little bit of a painful process, but we have to be professional, and we have to ensure that we’re transitioning cleanly. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and please do not fight them. It’s, I mean, ’cause that’s even worse than-you know, we, we just kinda give up. But I’ve seen many agencies where they basically fight clients on the way out the door, and the client will say, “Can I have this? Can I have the latest draft of this even though it’s not finished?” And they’ll be like, “Well, no, because, you know, we’re not gonna be working with you anymore, and so, you know, you don’t get the draft. You only get the final version.” No. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely not. No. No. Yeah. Chip Griffin: If you’re doing media relations and they wanna know who you’ve reached out to about a press release- Yes … just tell them. Gini Dietrich: Just tell them, yes. Chip Griffin: Do not fight them on this. I agree. I, I, for the life of me, I do not understand- Gini Dietrich: Yep. I totally agree with that Chip Griffin: the, the way, particularly the PR agencies seem to be particularly guilty of this in my view, where they just will not share with the client anything that they’re doing in terms of detail around outreach or those kinds of things because, well, then they can do it on their own. Okay, fine. Let them, right? They’ll figure out it’s not that easy. It’s not just having the spreadsheet of what contacts you’ve made. Yeah. I’m not saying you need to give them your whole database with all of your personal notations about, you know, stuff that you do across other clients. But if it’s pitch work that you’ve done for this client, give them the information. Come on, man. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially if it’s in progress and there’s, like- Yes … something’s happening, like, there’s no reason on Earth not to give them that information. Chip Griffin: No, no reason. And, look, if all you’re good for is, is a spreadsheet, it probably wasn’t worth hiring you anyway. Yeah. So, you know, you, you’ve got to be realistic about these kinds of things. But as you’re communicating with your team, you want them to understand that, that they need to have this same mentality of being helpful and making sure they finish strong. I think the other thing is to, to make sure that, that you’re communicating clearly with your contractors and employees about what this means. Hopefully, what it means is you’ve got a strong pipeline, and so, you know, it’s a bump in the road, but it’s not a big deal. But if it is a big deal, don’t try to hide that fact, right? I mean, you don’t have to like terrify them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But, but if it does, if you’ve got a contractor and it’s probably gonna mean that you’re gonna have to cut them altogether or partially, if you think it’s, you know, a giant client and it might lead to layoffs, be honest with people sooner rather than later. Because the more you put this off, the harder it is to deal with. Yeah. And again, it’s a balancing act, ’cause you can’t, you can’t just be, you know, like panicking them, which is again another argument for taking a deep breath, absorbing the information, figuring out your plan. You don’t have to hang up the phone and then immediately call up all your team and say, “Oh my God, we just lost Acme Pharmaceuticals,” right? I mean, that doesn’t help anybody. Take the time, think it through, think through the questions you’re likely to get so that you can communicate confidently, but also honestly. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I would say If you have access to an HR team or person, if you have access to a legal team or an attorney, reach out to them as well because as you’re crafting this plan because they’re gonna have a different… They’re gonna look at it through a different lens. They’re gonna have a different perspective, especially if you have a team, getting HR involved in that to say, “Okay, here’s scenarios A, B, and C” to help you plan so that when an employee asks, you have a response, and it’s not just shot from the hip a little bit. Right. And I, I know I’ve told this story before, but during the Great Recession, you know, we had 95% of our clients left between Christmas and New Year’s of 2008, 2009, and I had to go back to the office and lay everybody off. And the biggest mistake I made, I made two big mistakes in that. One is that everybody was talking about the economy and the Great Recession and all this stuff for a year, but I didn’t pay any attention. I didn’t… Like, I wouldn’t, I wasn’t mature enough. I wasn’t experienced enough, and so I just kind of put my blinders on and was like, “Everything’s great. We’re growing.” You know? Yeah. And so I didn’t plan. And the second thing I did, mistake I made is I didn’t let the team know ahead of time, and I didn’t think I could. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live. One of my employees came up to me after I let everybody know, and she said, “I wish you had told us because I would’ve been happy to go part-time.” And I was like, ohhh. Chip Griffin: Right. Gini Dietrich: You know? Like, yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Gini Dietrich: So be honest and open because I think they will come with solutions too that you may not have thought of or that you may have assumed they’re not willing to do when they are. Chip Griffin: Right. Absolutely. So then I think that takes us to that, that final piece, as we’re wrapping up here, and, and that is to take lessons away from it. Because there’s something to be learned from the end of every relationship, whether it’s because it was a project and it just, it naturally ran its course, or because you were on a retainer and they decided to end it or what have you. Yep. There are always lessons to be learned, and I think it’s, it’s really helpful to sit down with your team, not just at the end, but at key milestone points as well and say, “Okay, you know, what, what have we learned from this? What could we have done differently? What should we do differently, not just with this client but with others in the future?” And make sure that you treat as much of what you’re doing as a learning experience as possible because that’s how you really grow- both individually and as a business. If you just keep doing the same old, same old, you might do okay, but you’re not gonna do as well as you could if you’re actually studying what you’ve done in the past. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, that’s the example I just gave is a great example of that. Yeah. Now I know. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Gini Dietrich: That’s a great lesson. Chip Griffin: It’s why, again, I watch all of these episodes back so that I can sit there and say, “Okay, you know, what would I do differently next time?” Maybe I’ll lower the microphone a little bit, raise my voice a little bit, talk a little bit less so that we can actually hear from Gini, and I don’t just monopolize all the time. You don’t monopolize the time. And have Jen tell me what percentage of time I’ve spoken versus… I do talk a lot. I understand that. But it’s, it’s something I consciously work on every podcast that I’m on because I know that I have a tendency to talk a lot. Gini Dietrich: Okay. I don’t think you monopolize the time here. No. Chip Griffin: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome. Chip Griffin: So, I guess we’re not gonna monopolize any more of your time as a listener, so we will wrap up today’s episode, but hopefully we’ve given you a few things to think about the next time that you get that dreaded call or email from a client who is not firing you, but ending the relationship in whatever fashion we wanna call it, so. Gini Dietrich: It’s not always being fired. Chip Griffin: Okay. Gini Dietrich: Fired, fired means that you did a bad job. Chip Griffin: Okay. On that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Tiff and Nikki continue the topic of your practice's vision by discussing how to turn it into something your entire team believes in. They discuss believing in your own vision first, communicating it to your team, establishing consistency and repetition so everyone remembers it, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I'm so excited to be here with you guys today. You know I say that every single time because I truly love what we do. I love what Dental A Team stands for and I love the podcast. and set out a long time ago to really, really, really just provide so much amazing, incredible information for the dental world and beyond. We have listeners on here who are not a part of the dental world. We serve all kinds of business owners and ⁓ healthcare providers and all kinds of people. So it's just really cool. And I want you guys to know how special you are.   And today I have with me a super special guest, someone you guys have not heard from before. I get the amazing privilege of bringing Ms. Nikki Mack onto the stage with us here today in our little podcast universe. Nikki, welcome. How are you today?   Nikki Mack (00:31) Okay.   I'm so good, I'm so excited to finally get to be a part of it. I'm on the other side now, long time listener, first time participator. ⁓   The Dental A Team (00:53) Yeah.   I love that you have been a long time listener. So thank you for that. And for those of you who have not yet met Nikki, you probably were not at our in-person event in February, which means you should get your tail over there next time so that you can meet all of us in person. And very specifically, Miss Nikki Mack here. She has joined our team. She is new to Dental A Team is what we like to say, but she has been in consulting in the DSO world in the   you know, general practitioner role, the family practice role, like all over the place. She's been, she has so much experience. She's been all over the block. We'll call her Nikki from the block from now on. I've got your nickname, Nikki. Yeah, there you go. Carol come up with a new one. But Nikki's, Nikki has been with our team for a few months now. We are just so, so happy to have you, Nikki, a wealth of knowledge. Your clients are already seeing massive results. They are.   Nikki Mack (01:36) love it.   The Dental A Team (01:49) loving you and you connect so easily. So everyone just give Nikki a huge shout out and come meet her at our next in-person event in September here in Phoenix. So Nikki, welcome and gosh tell me I'll do an icebreaker for you for the world here. I know, I didn't prep you for this. Yep, unscripted, that happens. That's how my brain works. So let's talk   Nikki Mack (02:03) Yeah.   Ooh, okay, unscripted. Love it.   The Dental A Team (02:16) Let's talk dental, we won't get too crazy. Tell us your favorite position within the dental world. It doesn't have to be within the practice, it can be outside. What's your favorite position you've ever held?   Nikki Mack (02:28) that I've ever held. ⁓ This is probably gonna come as a surprise or not. ⁓ Marketing, like doing the like B2B marketing and stuff. ⁓ I just, I love being able to get out and connect with lots of practices and being able to represent my team. You know, when I go out like on behalf of a doctor, it's super exciting. Cause like I love the office I'm in. I love the team I work with and the doctor I work for and getting to be the person that   The Dental A Team (02:35) I'll ask them.   Nikki Mack (02:56) like shares our office with the world. ⁓ It's just, it's so fun. So, and you get to meet new people, yeah.   The Dental A Team (03:01) That's really cool.   Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you thrive meeting new people so I could see that for sure. That's awesome. What kind of practice did you do B2B marketing for?   Nikki Mack (03:06) Hahaha.   So that was my time with ⁓ pediatrics and orthodontics. Yep, the most. So yeah, fun events and things like that.   The Dental A Team (03:16) Awesome. I figured. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah,   yeah, we have a lot of pediatric practices and a few ortho actually. So I know the team will be picking your brain because marketing for pediatrics is a massive space to ⁓ unfold, we shall say. Awesome. Very cool.   Nikki Mack (03:33) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (03:36) Well, today, you guys, we really wanted to chat with you some about your vision and communicating your vision. So we walked you through quite a few times. And if you haven't heard them go back through and listen. If you haven't worked with your consultant yet to get your vision out, go call your consultant. We've worked through kind of how to get your vision, how to get there. And I think you guys might remember, I think it was Dana and I, or Christie and I, really chatting about how like your vision, your mission, your reason for being here isn't necessarily.   what is scripted on your wall that says bringing great smiles to our community. Like, yeah, we're bringing great smiles to our community, but what does that great smile mean? How are we actually impacting the people? And today we wanted to chat. I wanted to pick Nikki's brain here on how to communicate that across to your team. So your team actually believes it. And I think more than anything, Nikki, it's really how do dentists and how do you coach your doctors on   expressing their vision in a way that the team not only believes it, because I think there's a difference in like believing it, I can believe that that's your vision, like cool, yep, that's your vision. And me as a team member living it and breathing it, it's a massive difference. So believing it and standing behind it. And with your experience, the things that you've done and the coaching you do now,   How do you help doctors to really, practice owners to really take that vision and create it to be something that a team can move forward with?   Nikki Mack (05:07) Well, and I think a big part of it really stems from that leadership piece and having a team that values you and believes in you as a leader. And then the vision just supports that. But you kind of hit on it. You have to believe it too. If I'm the doctor or the practice owner and I'm unclear on my vision, how can I expect my team to understand it or follow it? Now you'll always have those employees that just value you and will lead wherever you go. Right. doc, we're going to be, I want it. But   The Dental A Team (05:35) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (05:36) Some need to know why we're going there. They'll do what you need, but why are we doing it? So my first step with a team or a doctor is usually what really is your vision? Not what you think your vision is. Let's talk about what is your vision and how do we use that to get ourselves where we want to be? How do we use that to support our goals?   The Dental A Team (05:56) I love that I actually are making me think of something that I heard the other day on is on a Mel Robbins was actually her book, the left them theory. So some of you guys may have heard this or read it. And she talks about, I'm going to botch the first name, but one of the Toyota brothers has the theory of five wise and ask it was forced like she is in context. I'm sure he is in context of when you're bothered by something or you have like a miscommunication or an upset in life, asking yourself like, why does this bother me but   As you're speaking, Nikki, I'm actually thinking it's so hard to dig to your root. why I think is for me, my quote unquote, why are my vision is it feels like it's my purpose. And I think we spend our entire lives seeking our purpose. And we're like, why am I, we've read the purpose driven, you know, books and all these things. And we're constantly looking for it, but realistically it's getting under the surface layers of your thoughts.   because there's so much wrapped around what you think it should be, how you think it should be perceived, how you think it should be ⁓ communicated to anyone. And so I wonder even like that five why theory is, you know, why do I want to change smiles in my community? Well, because, okay, why is that important to me? Well, because and really taking it so deep. I feel like when you feel that emotional tug, and then you speak from that emotion,   that's your why. And the people around you, I mean, I guess if they're the right people, right, if they're the wrong people on the right bus, they're probably not going to feel the emotional tug to it as well, you know, right alongside with you. But when you do finally get to that emotional tug why, I feel like people can't help but be like, yeah, let's do that. Like that sounds freaking amazing. And it might not be specifically my why, but I want to support you in it because I'm so excited.   by your excitement for what you're about to step into the world to do.   Nikki Mack (07:57) Yep, I think excitement is the key word there. You have to be excited about your why and your team has to as well. It's some of the doctors I still think about, you all these years later that I worked for, it's their why and how excited they were to fulfill that purpose, right? And we get to, you know, change the face of dentistry, right? All these people that hate going to the dentist and then they get to come to our office and now they have a different outlook. Like those whys that drive you.   they inspire your team. And that's that kind of key to leadership. You have to understand that piece and be super clear because that's what drives your team, I think, at their core too. Especially to your point, when it's the right people, you're aligned and you guys are just rowing that boat forward, right?   The Dental A Team (08:39) Yeah.   Yeah, and then allows   them the space your team to search for their own. So I know when Kiera got really clear on her why and the vision for this company, it was like, I can live that. And then I saw, this is how mine actually like follow suit or attaches to Kiera's and the company's why how I serve a purpose in this company based on what I want to do in the world.   how I want to show up and how I want to impact the world, I can see how my purpose is served within the company, why as well.   Nikki Mack (09:22) Exactly. Yep. And that I think too, when you're working at a team, because if you're a doctor or a practice owner and you're growing or you're just leveling up, it's challenging sometimes. And it's that drive and that why that helps keep both you and your team motivated to push towards that end result. That's why we see a patient through lunch. That's why we start a same day for someone who really needs it. It's why we do those things. And that makes it to where   the goal makes sense. It's not just spinning our wheels. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (09:52) Yeah.   Yeah,   and ⁓ working through lunch makes me think of, ⁓ you know, one, we've all done that, right, the freaking root canal that has to go through lunch every single time. But when you're attached to how we're here to serve and show up for our patients, working through lunch is a lot less daunting. I know there are some days that I'm like, heck yeah, let's do it. Let's go. Let's go. Let's help this person. And there are other days that I was like, ⁓ another lunch hour. Like, what the heck, but like, I still got lunch. I just took lunch after.   Nikki Mack (09:58) Hahaha   Ha   The Dental A Team (10:22) lunch or before lunch, like we still worked it out, but there were some days that it was like inspiring to help this person. And then there were other days that it was like, I kind of forgot our reason and our purpose. And it was more like it was being forced on me. And those were different seasons of practice and different seasons of, of life there within. But I agree. That's my point there. And I think once you have that, then you're literally, you're speaking it. And, and I think   Nikki Mack (10:45) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (10:51) Something that we often miss is the repetition that's needed in life for everything. needs to be repeated. We have to build systems. People, I think, think life can be so mundane and it's like routines suck. Like you shouldn't have like all of your life shouldn't be a routine. Like no, actually consistency is human nature. We want to be consistent. We want the routines. And when we're not repeating things, they get lost and they get forgotten.   Nikki Mack (10:57) Yes.   The Dental A Team (11:20) And I think Nikki, something I've noticed in coaching is that we'll key in on it. Doctors are like, heck yeah, let's do it. And then six months later, they're just in the mundane and they're like, I'm working through lunch again, this sucks. So how do you help your doctors and your teams to stay in their why in that vision?   Nikki Mack (11:41) Well, and it's funny you mentioned how you do get to that point where you're like, why are we doing this? You have to revisit it. So I think the same way that we talk about doctors and practice owners being clear with themselves before they hit the team, you also have to revisit it as a team. So one of the things I've suggested in my coaching before is like about quarterly or at least twice a year in our team meetings, we're readdressing that why and our mission, our values.   so that the team is clear. Because the day-to-day in a dental office is a whirlwind, right? And talk about routine and repetition. Sometimes it can be a grind, and that's a good thing, but you have to be able to circle back. And ⁓ what is that expression, slow down to speed up? We have to take a step back, and what is that vision? Why are we doing this? And is what we're doing aligning with our values, right? Working through lunch to help a patient, amazing. Love it, always wanna do it.   The Dental A Team (12:16) Yeah.   Yeah.   Nikki Mack (12:40) working through lunch just as a routine, because we're not scheduling well, that probably doesn't align with our vision and we need to kind of revisit it. So it's okay to evaluate our systems and our processes and how does this align with our vision and does it get us where we want to go? So I usually recommend absolutely quarterly is like my dream as your consultant, but at least a couple of times a year, how does this fit? Where are we at? Because you're going to have team change too, right? People are going to change positions. We might grow and get new team members.   And so we have to make sure that everybody's kind of on that same page and approaching it from the same place, I think is what keeps us ⁓ consistent and in that, you know, good mindset, that good position.   The Dental A Team (13:22) Yeah, and something you said sparked a thought. said, is this an alignment? like working through lunch to help somebody is an alignment. Working through lunch just because it's a routine, it may not be an alignment. And I think you keyed in on something really special there of really looking at what are we doing that is serving ROI and what are we doing that is pulling us away from ROI or just.   opposing our why because it's so easy in dentistry to get so like keyed in on just what's not working. So like let's just complain bucket and we're always working through lunch. Well, why does it suck? It sucks because it's not in alignment with what we said we wanted to do. That's why it sucks. If we said we are an office that works through lunch every single time, great.   we can be upset about it, but that we are in alignment with, this is what I'm choosing to do. But when that's not an alignment, that's where we get those upsets and that like rubbing raw situation. so Nikki, even like going through as often as you can, love the quarterly, love, I mean, do you guys want to talk about it every week? Please talk about it all the time. And Nikki is, yeah, it's like, bring those examples. What did we do this week? What did we do this quarter?   Nikki Mack (14:31) We're in.   The Dental A Team (14:41) that served our why, how did we help people? And when you start from there, you're inspired again. So we wanna talk about communicating your vision to your team so they believe it. Like what is your vision and how are we serving it? And how is that serving us as humans and serving our community I think is huge.   Nikki Mack (15:02) Yeah, 100%. It's how I think it establishes for you that baseline. You know, like we said, because we can always bring it back to our vision is what we're doing in alignment, is what we're doing supporting it, is what we're doing helping move it forward. And it's a way to not only grow, but hold ourselves accountable to, you know, the choices and decisions we're making, the systems we use, how do we reevaluate those and make sure that they make sense for the practice, the patients, you know, the team.   It's that mission, it's that values that we talk about that are gonna steer that ship, I think, yeah.   The Dental A Team (15:37) I think so too. And you keyed in again on like something massive is really how we choose to consult, how our company consults. Because what you just said is really looking at the systems, the protocols, the procedures, the things that we are doing every day, are they serving us and our mission and our vision and where we are going? And the reason Dental A Team doesn't pop into your team and into your practice with this massive cookbook that says A to Z, this is how you should do things.   is because you are an individual practice with an individual mission that's serving a different purpose than the guy down the street. And if we gave you and the guy down the street the same recipe book, it's not guaranteed to work. Are some things going to stick and some things going to work? Absolutely, 100 % hands down. Do we do the same systems and similar systems with each practice? 100 % hands down. But the autonomy in it is how does this system   serve you and what you said there Nikki is how are they how how are the systems and things that we're doing every day how are they pushing us forward it's exactly how we consult and you keying in on that is huge because your teams your practices Nikki are getting something really special from you because I know you lead with their why I've watched you do it I get to watch it on recap so I've watched your recap from your in-office visit you just had in Vegas it's   It just looked freaking incredible. And I know you know him as a human. You know his why. And everything that you did with that team served that and taught them to go back and see, OK, is this working to progress towards what our goals are for our vision and our practice goals, or is it detracting us?   Nikki Mack (17:27) Yeah, it's honestly, it's one of the things I love the best about being a part of Dental A Team is that we truly understand that every practice is different. And a lot of people say that because we know it, right? But I've worked in the dental sphere in a few different like worlds and specialties and, you know, like ownership profiles and everyone is so different. And that's not even counting demographics, right? You know, where we are, are we urban or we rural? Is it saturated? Is it not?   The Dental A Team (17:51) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (17:56) And I think that's why there's just no blanket answer that fixes things. And Dental A Team does such a good job of getting to that why. And why do you want to get to a place? And here's how I can help you get there that stays true to you and your practice and your identity. For me, that's kind of the most fun part is if we know where we're going, then perfect. I've got some tools to put in your toolbox and help get us there, but it's got to feel like you. I can't do it for you or tell you how to be perfect.   I'm here to help you get there and make it work. And I think that's why teams get on board. We're not asking them to just do a cookie cutter situation. The doctor's involved, the team's involved, and it feels like you. It feels authentic. It's something that you can present. Circling back to my marketing thing, right? It's something your team can be proud of and sharing that with the world, whether it's the patients in their chair or the oral surgeon down the street or whatever that looks like.   The Dental A Team (18:43) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (18:54) That's why it's so important. It truly shapes every decision that you make in your practice. And I love getting to kind of help that discovery and then finding out those next steps. That's so important and empowering. I love it.   The Dental A Team (19:09) Yeah, I completely agree. You circle back to the marketing and I, I love that kind of marketing too. I really do. I love the beat. I love marketing. You can listen to a couple podcasts ago. ⁓ I love the marketing, but this is why because to me, the marketing is that relationship build and that like speaking of the vision because when you believe in a practice, you believe in what we're doing. You want people   to know, you want to talk about it, you want to invite them to the practice, you want to invite them to invite their friends and family members to the practice and leave great reviews and you want to do all of these things and when you think about it, if you're bought into it, you're like, yes, I want to serve this mission too in this vision, you're showing up different every day because now I'm showing up as the person, okay, wait, back up, like I said when we first started, right?   I said, know, I told you, before we got on here, told you, Kiera, prior to knowing me in person, personally, she stalked me on Facebook and she saw, wow, she's super fun. She's always on Facebook Live. She's doing Beachbody coaching. And I did, and I loved it. I loved it because I loved the energy and I loved the people. And obviously it like forced me to work out. Kiera thought she was hiring this like,   heck yeah, let's go cheerleader who is just 100 % on all the time. But what she didn't realize is I'm secretly like, not even secretly, I'm a very, I'm a Taurus through and through, like I'm the bull sleeping in the pasture as often as I can. So I'm super efficient so that I can have a ton of time to just do nothing if I want to do nothing. So what happens is here, right, I become Tiffanie that's podcasting.   I become Tiffanie who's showing up as your consultant. I become Tiffanie who's on stage. Just like we all show up a little bit differently in the space of life that we're living in. And it's putting on a show, but not with that negative connotation that that sounds like. Like, no, I'm here because I want to change lives. But when it's just, know, Tiff on the couch, like I am a much calmer, chiller person, not as much energy as being exerted. And it makes me   It makes me think of this because even at the dental practice when I was in office, when I showed up as a check-in, I was the check-in person and I was the first person you saw. I was like, hey, how's it going? Let's chat about your kids. Let's do this. Let's do that. And it invigorated me. It gave me energy in life to be able to do those things because I believed in what we were doing. And the moments that that vision got lost, that we weren't talking about it, or that life got stressful, the practice was stressful, the bills were stressful, the   ⁓ refinancings were they were stressful. Those are the times that I didn't know how to show up like that life was hard. I was getting depressed and I was like, what the heck and it all ties back to that significance piece of having a purpose and when I know the why of the of the person that I'm dedicating my life work to, it gives me a sense of purpose, if that makes sense.   Nikki Mack (22:19) Nope, total sense, because it helps you show up. We talk a lot in dental about being on stage, right? You know, kind of turning that game face on, but it's so true because we are dealing with all kinds of things behind the scenes, right? Like you said, it could be crazy schedules, a clearing house, you know, gets hacked and nobody can get paid for months. And there's always some chaos, but the patients don't know that. And each patient that comes in, this is their first interaction with you.   The Dental A Team (22:25) Yes.   Mm.   Nikki Mack (22:46) And sometimes it can be so hard as a team member to just keep turning it on and showing up at 100. And it sounds crazy. I know someone is listening to this, like, I know she's not about to say what she's about to say, but I am because in those tough moments, knowing why you're doing it, it's like a power reserve. And it's how you're able to kind of like take that deep breath. Okay.   And we turn our game face on and we go back to it, know, my God, Mrs. Smith, we haven't seen you in so long. We're so excited you're here. How was your vacation? It's whatever that looks like as showing up as a team member. That's where that well comes from. That's that reserve. And it sounds crazy, but we've seen it. And successful practices, their doctors are clear about their vision and their team has bought in and they support it. It's their vision too, right?   It means a lot. It's a lot of people overlook it. I do think it's one of those like, I'll get to it. But first I have to get, you know, this implant scheduling down, but it's just as important as those pieces. Cause it's going to help your practice run successfully, even through the rough times, the tougher times. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (23:47) Yeah. Yeah.   I totally agree. I love it. Thank you. So I think this is titled how to communicate your why or your vision to your team. And I think Nikki, the how is one figure out what your vision is, what is what is the reason that you're here, and then just do it and do it frequently. Don't be afraid, especially when you dig into that like more personal emotional why. Even if even if this popped in my head.   I have so many doctors that they're like, well, my why is like to provide generational wealth for my family. Cool. Why? Dig one more past that because the the providing for people who you're not sure can provide for themselves. That is inspiring. Right. So a team might not get on board with like, I want to create a life where my kids never have to work. Like, okay, no, that's weird. But why?   So really attached to that personal. I wanted to say that because I do have a lot of doctors that are like, I'm trying to create generational wealth as you should. I think that's phenomenal. Let's go a little bit deeper and figure out why is that important to you? Maybe you didn't grow up with parents who seem to care. Maybe you had to work really hard and you your team's going to get behind those pieces. So dig one further. Do that five why. What's one deeper and then communicate with your team. It's incredibly vulnerable.   Nikki Mack (25:05) Great.   The Dental A Team (25:24) And it can be very scary, especially when you're like, I wanna create healthy smiles in the neighborhood, in the community. Like going from that to like, I wanna help save people from poverty, drastic, very vulnerable. But Nikki, I think just do it, right? Just Nike, just do it.   Nikki Mack (25:36) Right.   Yeah, just do it.   And honestly, I would challenge doctors and practice owners to find out your team's why. Why are they showing up for you every day, right? It may not be exactly the same as yours, but I guarantee you it aligns, right? And it feeds into it. And that might help even shape your why as well. Like everyone's is gonna contribute to that greater cause basically. Yeah, just do it.   The Dental A Team (25:53) Yeah.   Yeah.   I agree. Simon Sinek   says just do it. Simon Sinek says to ask the ask your best friend or best friends. So like the three people closest to you. Why do they? Why do they have you in their life? And when they say something like, well, I don't know, like, you're fine. Like, no, but like, why me dig deeper? Do that five why thing again? Like, okay, but like, why me? And eventually, it's going to turn from   what you do for them. You always answer the phone when I need you. Like it's gonna turn to you make me feel like I'm important. You make me feel. So it's gonna turn from the things that you do for people, you continue digging, to that friend is gonna say, you know what, I don't know. It's just when I'm around you, I'm really happy and inspired and I want to do more in life. And he says that helps key you in on what you bring to the world.   so that you can see what your purpose is. So I think if you do that similar thing, Nikki, with the team, like why do you choose to work here, right? And get them to dig to that deeper space, it does start to bubble up and you start to see the impact that you're already making on the world and does that align? Does that feel good? Does that feel like inspiring to you? Because that's probably your why and your vision.   Nikki Mack (27:26) Yeah, I love that. That's so great. Even in a personal life, I agree. I'm gonna take that home.   The Dental A Team (27:32) Simon Sinek, I tell you that guy, he's got some good stuff, always. Awesome. Well, Nikki, this was super fun. Thank you so much for being here. First podcast down the hatch, you did it. We're here. Good, good, you did awesome. Thank you. And listeners, you know this is her first, go leave her a five star review.   Nikki Mack (27:35) Always a gem, always a gem. Yeah.   It was so fun. Check. Yeah. Loved it. It was a good time.   The Dental A Team (27:55) But really, let us know what you think. Let us know how this went for you. ⁓ Action items, go dig for your vision, go dig for your why. Ask your team, I love that. Ask your team why they choose to work with you. Ask your friends why they're your friend. And then communicate often. You guys, if you're just communicating this, do it every week for the first quarter and then move on to the next quarter. And if you feel like, gosh, we lost it in between, do it more frequently. This is something that you just need to talk about all the time.   Go do the things. Nikki, thank you so much. ⁓ And podcast listeners, you know, go leave us a five-star review. Let us know how you are going to apply these things to your life. And then reach out to us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com, for any and everything. We're here to help. Thank you, and we'll catch you next time. Bye.

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A new type of M&M has hit the You Tried Dat?? tasters' tables as Caramel Pop'd M&Ms faces off against Whims Peanut Butter Cups and Curly Wurly Squirlies.  The crew also discusses a furniture store salesman before finishing up the AHL Mascot Tournament. Follow us on Instagram to see pictures of the snacks @youtrieddat.

Ped & Burk bring you a raspy episode with their sunglasses at night. Adam brings another segment of “Number Ones”, the boys vehemently disagree on parking lot etiquette, and we do our first ever installment of the 3-2-1 game! After this week's perfect song, in the Meat, Mm!, we do a draft of all-time TV neighbors. You know who they are! The boys close the show remembering the tiers of lunchables and how great we had it as kids in the 90s. Hut Hut! Love y'all. 

Sverigedemokraternas partiledare om äldreomsorg, tonårsutvisningar, ministerposter och finanspolitik. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. Med knappt fyra månader kvar till riksdagsvalet ligger Sverigedemokraterna och regeringen fortfarande efter i opinionen, de behöver mellan 200 000 och 250 000 fler röster för att vinna valet. Men Jimmie Åkesson säger att de låg under även inför förra valet. ”Det vi behöver göra är precis det som vi, Sverigedemokraterna, gjorde förra gången. Vi mobiliserade våra väljare. Vi mobiliserade väljare också från den berömda soffan. Vi lyckades också få en del väljare från Socialdemokraterna att rösta på oss. Vi behöver göra samma sak igen”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. För att locka fler kvinnor ur LO-kollektivet vill Åkesson bland annat fokusera på äldreomsorgen. ”Arbetsvillkoren är ju kraftigt drabbade av det faktum att man har använt äldreomsorgen som ett integrationsprojekt. Anställt människor som inte behärskar språket, som inte kan jobbet, som saknar den sociala, kulturella kompetens som krävs för att kunna utföra jobbet på ett vettigt sätt”, säger Jimmie Åkesson Men är inte problemet att det inte finns arbetskraft, hur man än letar, snarare än att det är fel personer som finns där? ”Jag har lite svårt för den utgångspunkten eftersom vi trots allt har en halv miljon människor arbetslösa. Vi har haft en arbetslöshet som har varit ganska hög under väldigt lång tid. Tyvärr måste jag ändå säga att vi inte heller under den här mandatperioden än har lyckats helt med de här matchnings-insatserna. Vi behöver ställa om utbildningspolitiken i högre grad mot de behov som finns på arbetsmarknaden. Det har vi inte gjort”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Ny linje kring s.k. tonårsutvisningarRegeringen och Sverigedemokraterna har under mandatperioden stramat åt migrationspolitiken, färre invandrare ska komma till Sverige och fler som redan bor här ska lämna landet. Sverigedemokraterna vill under nästa mandatperiod ändra lagen för att kunna riva upp redan bevilja uppehållstillstånd. I början av året väckte flera fall av s.k. tonårsutvisningar kritik och debatt. I mars beslutade regeringen och Sverigedemokraterna att se över reglerna och i väntan på de nya reglerna har Migrationsverket pausat handläggningen av liknande ärenden. Nyligen öppnade Jimmie Åkesson för att även pausa redan beslutade utvisningar i väntan på de nya reglerna. ”Tydligen är det inte så att de omfattas och jag har svarat på frågor och sagt att jag tycker det vore rimligt att även de omfattas. Precis som när vi nu prövar medborgarskap mot de nya tuffare reglerna och inte de gamla”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Varför är det rimligt? ”Ja, de är ju här. Det kommer ny lagstiftning som förmodligen skulle gynna åtminstone några av dem. Då borde de prövas mot den lagstiftningen”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Tidigt under året så verkade ni inte tycka att de här tonårsutvisningarna var ett problem och sen ändrade ni er. Vad var det som fick er att ändra er? ”Jag upplever inte att jag har ändrat mig åtminstone. Jag har fått ett antal frågor om hur jag känner inför att enskilda personer blir utvisade och då har jag hänvisat till att jag inte är detaljinsatt i de här enskilda fallen så jag känner inget särskilt alls. Det jag konstaterade var att vi kan inte bygga en lagstiftning som är individanpassad. Vi kan inte ha en lag som säger att är du snäll och duktig så får du bo i Sverige. Vi behöver ha mer objektiva kriterier än så. Nu finns ju den här möjligheten att ändå göra nånting av den här anhöriginvandringsutredningen och då är jag beredd att göra det. Det kommer sannolikt att bli så inom kort”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Kräver tyngsta ministerposternaStatsminister Ulf Kristersson (M) och Jimmie Åkesson har enats om att om Tidöpartierna vinner valet ska Ulf Kristersson bli statsminister även Sverigedemokraterna får fler mandat, och att Sverigedemokraterna ska få stort sakpolitiskt inflytande över migration och integration. Innebär det alltså att en Sverigedemokrat bli migrationsminister? ”Ja, det är min utgångspunkt. Det tror jag att våra väljare förväntar sig. När vi och Moderaterna hade den här diskussionen var det ganska naturligt att om vi ska släppa statsministerposten innan valet så är det ju också rimligt att vi får nånting tillbaka från Moderaterna som vi tycker är viktigt, och migrationspolitiken är viktig för oss och för våra väljare”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Vill ni sen ha ministerposter i proportion till hur stora ni blir? ”Ja. Det är också, som jag upplever det, den diskussion vi har haft med de andra partierna, att utgångspunkten måste vara proportionerligt och lika inflytande”Ja, det borde innebära, om jag har räknat rätt, knappt hälften, elva, tolv ministerposter. Stämmer det? ”Mm, det gör det nog.” Med tanke på att ni inte får statsministerposten, som du var inne på, borde ni inte kompenseras lite extra för det och få fler tunga poster? ”Nu har ju inte valet varit än men låt oss säga att det parlamentariska läget är som det är idag där vi är största parti i regeringsunderlaget så är det väl rimligt att vi får ett inflytande i proportion till det och att vi då också kompenseras eftersom vi inte har statsministerposten, absolut”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Idag har ju Moderaterna de här fyra som är de kanske tyngsta posterna vid sidan av statsministern. Finansminister, utrikesminister, justitieminister, försvarsminister. Borde SD ha någon av de fyra posterna om ni sitter i regering? ”Ja, jag skulle betrakta det som fem poster som är väldigt tunga, inklusive statsministerposten. Om vi är största parti så borde vi ju rent proportionerligt ha tre av dem” säger Jimmie Åkesson. Ja, och vilka tre skulle du prioritera då? ”Jag kommer inte att prioritera dem här i radio med dig, hur mycket du än vill det. Men det är viktiga poster naturligtvis.”Ja, då tänker jag kanske att Moderaterna inte släpper ifrån sig finansministerposten. Att det är utrikesminister, justitieminister och försvarsminister du menar?”För mig ligger alla de fyra på bordet, och alla övriga just nu 19 statsrådsposter också. Det enda som vi har sagt på förhand är att statsministerposten, den får Moderaterna. Moderaterna kommer då att stötta oss när vi vill ha migrationspolitiken. I övrigt ligger allt på bordet”, säger Jimmie Åkesson. Programledare: Johar BendjelloulKommentar: Fredrik FurtenbachProducent: Maja LagercrantzResearch: Johanna PalmströmTekniker: Lisa Nilsson Intervjun spelades in fredag den 22 maj 2026.

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You can listen wherever you get your podcasts or check out the fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, my guest is Dr. Justin Coulson, an Australian parenting expert and father of 6 who has his PhD in psychology and is the author of 10 books on parenting and the co-host of the Happy Families podcast with his wife, Kylie. We discuss the psychology behind peaceful parenting, including how self-determination theory explains kids' challenging behavior. Dr. Justin also shared his three E's of discipline.Know someone who might appreciate this episode? Share it with them!And if you love the podcast, FREE ways to help us out:1- Rate and review the podcast in your podcast player app2- “Like” this post by tapping the heart icon ♥️3- Share this with a friend. THANK YOU!We talk about:* 1:45 – Introduction to Dr. Justin Coulson and his personal parenting turning pointHow struggles with anger and discipline led him to rethink everything and study psychology.* 08:20 – Learning to regulate ourselves, practicing repair, and growing over time.* 15:50 – Why peaceful parenting starts with the parent's self-awareness and regulation.* 19:50 – Understanding behavior through compassion and curiosity.* 20:50 – The HALTS frameworkHow hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness, and stress impact children's behavior.* 23:00 – Self-determination theory and parenting* 33:00 – The 3 E's of Effective Discipline* 41:50 – How to use the 3 E's in everyday parenting moments.Real-life examples: screens, sibling conflict & collaboration* 49:00 – Building trust and the “goodwill bank” with kidsWhy collaborative parenting pays off when tough limits are needed.* 53:30 – Advice to his younger parenting self: “soft eyes”A powerful reflection on kindness, connection, and showing up with compassion.* 56:30 – Where to find Dr. Justin CoulsonHis podcast, books, and upcoming work on boys and healthy masculinity.Resources mentioned in this episode:* Dr. Justin's website and podcast* Yoto Screen Free Audio Book Player* The Peaceful Parenting Membership* Evelyn & Bobbie brasConnect with Sarah Rosensweet:* Instagram* Facebook Group* YouTube* Website* Join us on Substack* Newsletter* Book a short consult or coaching session callxx Sarah and CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit our website for free resources, podcast, coaching, membership and more!>> Please support us!!! Please consider becoming a supporter to help support our free content, including The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, our free parenting support Facebook group, and our weekly parenting emails, “Weekend Reflections” and “Weekend Support” - plus our Flourish With Your Complex Child Summit (coming back in the summer for the 3rd year!) All of this free support for you takes a lot of time and energy from me and my team. If it has been helpful or meaningful for you, your support would help us to continue to provide support for free, for you and for others.In addition to knowing you are supporting our mission to support parents and children, you get the podcast ad free and access to a monthly ‘ask me anything' session.Our sponsors:YOTO: YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can't go where you don't want them to go and they aren't watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HEREEvelyn & Bobbie bras: If underwires make you want to rip your bra off by noon, Evelyn & Bobbie is for you. These bras are wire-free, ultra-soft, and seriously supportive—designed to hold you comfortably all day without pinching, poking, or constant adjusting. Check them out HERESarah: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today's guest is Dr. Justin Coulson. He's an Australian parenting expert with a PhD in psychology, the author of 10 books on parenting, the co-host of the Happy Families podcast with his wife, Kylie, the father of six children, and, last but not least, grandfather of one.We discuss the psychology behind peaceful parenting, including how self-determination theory explains kids' challenging behavior. Dr. Justin also shared his three E's of discipline, which I just loved.If you like this episode, please share it with a friend so more parents can learn about peaceful parenting. If you're a fan of the podcast, you can help us out not only by sharing it, but by leaving a review and a five-star rating in your podcast player app. While you're there, don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss an episode.If you'd like to support us even more, you can become a supporter on Substack to help us offset the cost of making the show. We'll put a link in the show notes.Let's meet Dr. Justin. I hope you enjoy this conversation and get as much out of his insights as I did.Sarah: Hello, Dr. Justin, and welcome to the podcast.Dr. Justin: Sarah, I'm so glad to be with you. Thanks for having me on.Sarah: Yeah, and it's morning for you, evening for me—nice—and I'm just glad that we could make this time to talk to each other. I really appreciate it. Thank you. So, could you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?Dr. Justin: Sure. I grew up on the east coast of Australia, about an hour north of Sydney. Geographically, that kind of locates where I was. I was the teenage boy that every parent hopes they will not have. I don't think I was a particularly bad kid, but I certainly wasn't a good kid.My parents were spending a small fortune—I'm a 1975 baby, I turned 50 last year—but this was in the late '80s and early '90s. My parents were spending so much money to send me to a private school. Because we were on the coast—a very quintessentially Australian thing—I was wagging school.Do you say “wagging school” in Canada? Is that a term Canadians use?Sarah: No, but I think we get the context. I think it means not going to school.Dr. Justin: Yeah, I was truant. They thought I was there, but I wasn't.Sarah: We say skipping.Dr. Justin: I was skipping school. Okay, yeah. We call it a school wag.So I would go to school in the morning and get my name marked off in roll call. Then I would sneak out of the school. Across the road from the school, there were bushes—kind of a forest, or whatever you might call it in Canada and America. I would get changed out of my tie, long pants, and black school shoes, throw on some board shorts and a T-shirt.My surfboard was stashed in the bush, and I'd grab it from the hiding place. Then I'd jump on a bus, go to the beach, and surf all day. Afterward, I'd get a bus back to school in the afternoon, change back into my uniform, and race into the school just in time to get my name marked off, looking like I'd been at school all day.This was in the days before schools communicated with parents via email and text, because none of that existed. I was able to get away with it.So I finished high school. I scored in the bottom 15%—Sarah: Goodness.Dr. Justin: Not just my class, but of the entire state of New South Wales. My parents were devastated.I didn't care. I wanted to have a media career. I wanted to be a radio announcer. So I got into radio. If you've ever listened to the radio—and no offense to radio people—you know you don't have to do well at school to be good at radio. You just have to be able to sit on the microphone and say things that make sense.I knew I could do that, so school didn't matter to me. I didn't care about it. That's what I did.But this is where it intersects with parenting.About 10 years into my radio career, my wife and I were having some challenges, particularly around my parenting. We had a threenager and a newborn baby.That three-year-old—I had always held the opinion that my children would do as they were told, and if they didn't, I would make sure they understood that I was the father and that their job was to do as I said.So I was very punitive. I basically made all of the parenting mistakes you can imagine when I would get angry, frustrated, and ill-tempered. It's not that I was a bad father—I spent a lot of high-quality time loving my kids—but I was also really short-fused and highly aggressive.Frankly, I went from threatening to hitting really fast. You call it spanking; we would call it smacking. I was very, very quick to smack or spank my three-year-old, and it wasn't working.After one particularly bad incident where things escalated, I really did lose control. I didn't just spank her once. There were multiple spankings. This was like a 10-minute escalation session where it just got worse and worse and worse.My wife was out at the time. When she came home, I said to Kylie, “I'm a bad father. I'm not doing this well. I'm making a lot of mistakes, and here's what happened while you were out.”Full confession: Kylie has always been this wonderfully supportive wife—very kind, gentle, compassionate, soft-spoken, thoughtful, considerate, empathic—all of those beautiful attributes that I prize and treasure in my good wife.She was none of those things that day.She had fire in her eyes and said, “You are not living up to the father that I hoped you would be, and you're also not living up to the husband I need you to be.”And it took me back, because I was already feeling downcast. I felt like I was failing anyway, and she just—it was like she picked up a great big lump of wood and whacked me over the head with it and said, “No.”Of course, she didn't actually do that, but that's how it felt. It felt physical. Visceral. Like, Ow. This is serious.I left my radio career shortly thereafter.I was working at one of the biggest radio stations in Australia at the time, and I gave up all the backstage passes with global superstars and hanging out with record company executives at the best restaurants, eating their food so they could bribe me to play their music on the radio station. I went back to school.I became a full-time student. I worked part-time at three different jobs while studying full-time. I'd sleep under the desk at university so I could do the study and the work—Sarah: No surfing this time?Dr. Justin: No surfing this time, no. I was just so committed to it.After eight and a half years of full-time study, I graduated with a doctorate. I had to do a couple of other qualifications first, including a psychological science degree. I graduated with a doctorate in psychology and became a university lecturer.Along the way, Sarah, we went from having our two kids at that point to having our third child in my first year of study, our fourth child in my fifth year of study, and our fifth child while I was doing my doctorate. Shortly after I left the university setting, stopped lecturing, and started writing books and giving talks, we had our sixth child.So we're the parents—Sarah: Amazing.Dr. Justin: —of six daughters. Today, they range in age from 12—the youngest—to the oldest, who is in her mid-to-late 20s. She and her husband have a baby now. They've been married for a few years.Sarah: Wow. You're a grandpa.Dr. Justin: A grand—I'm a grandpa. We have a two-and-a-half-year-old grandbaby, four adult children, one in her teens, and a 12-year-old.So that's kind of my very short version of the journey.Along the way, I've written a bunch of books. We've got a TV show in Australia called Parental Guidance. We've had three seasons of that show on primetime TV. I've got a website and all the things that you'd expect—a podcast and so on.Sarah: What did you do when you had that aha moment—that realization that you weren't being the kind of dad you wanted to be, and your wife also agreed that you weren't being the kind of dad she wanted you to be? What did you change?Because you just mentioned that you spent eight and a half years going back to school. I imagine that you made some changes before you had six kids. So what did you do right away, maybe for anyone listening who can relate to those feelings of rage and feeling triggered by your child?Dr. Justin: Sarah, the first thing I'd say is that there was no linear change, and there were no immediate changes, because I didn't know what to do.I was unskilled. I was uneducated. I didn't know anything about psychology, and I clearly didn't know anything about parenting.But I found a mentor. I have a faith background, and there was a writer who wrote eloquently and compassionately. I just felt like he understood me, and he became a mentor to me.I also discovered a guy called Alfie Kohn. You might be familiar with Alfie Kohn.Sarah: Oh, Alfie Kohn was the first thing I ever read about parenting—Dr. Justin: Oh, great.Sarah: —before I even had kids. And he was on the podcast last year, which felt like a full-circle moment between how influential—I told him on the podcast, “You have probably had the biggest influence on me—not only in my parenting, but in my life's direction—of any single person out there.”So, sorry, fan-girl moment. I'm right there with you with Alfie Kohn.Dr. Justin: Yeah. I've gotten to know Alfie over the years as my academic career advanced and I began to understand where he took his research from.I read his book Punished by Rewards—I think it was a 1993—Sarah: That was my first one too.Dr. Justin: Yeah, it's a 1993 publication or something.Sarah, it was just so influential.What happened was, I was doing my university degree and learning things, and honestly, I'd be sitting there thinking, Hang on, the things they're teaching me in these university courses seem to clash with what Alfie Kohn taught me in Punished by Rewards.So I spent a lot of time in the notes section at the back—you know, all the references nobody ever reads?Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: As I went through them, I discovered researchers named Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester in upstate New York.They had developed a theory known as self-determination theory.A large portion of Alfie Kohn's work is based on self-determination theory.So I really dug deep into that. I still love Alfie, but I moved very much into the academic side because I became a university lecturer and really got into the nitty-gritty of understanding the deepest depths of what self-determination theory is all about. That has become the foundation of the work that I do.And to your question: nothing is linear when you are trying to make improvements.Whether you're trying to change your diet, exercise, get your finances in order, or improve your relationships, you have insights. You have moments where you think, Oh my goodness, this is what I need to do. I need to show up with warmth on my face and soft eyes.And then three hours later, one of your children does something, and you forget what soft eyes look and feel like. You look at them with hard eyes, frustration in your voice, and short, clipped sentences.Then half an hour later, you think, Oh, self-awareness. I missed that.So it's this gradual process: two steps forward, one step back. Three steps forward, one step back. Four steps forward, three steps back. Eight steps forward, no steps back.Over the years, I had this beautiful experience—and maybe you've had a similar experience in your family as you've raised your kids.We were maybe in my third or fourth year of study. My wife has an early childhood background. She knows child development. She knows what kids need.She was a little skeptical about a lot of the things I was starting to talk about and discover as I went through university and got into the depths of what the research meant—comparing and contrasting it with what was mainstream, but actually not always quite right.We had some tension around how we should respond to the children. I was moving away from that authoritarian bent and developing ideas around exploring their world more.One night, I came home from university a little late. It was probably around 9:00 p.m. Our three children were still awake.As I drove into the driveway, all the lights in the house were on. The windows were open. Looking through the living room window, I could tell the house was—to put it politely—a mess.And as I stepped into the house, the kids—it was just awful.I walked over to Kylie and said, “Honey, it looks like it's been a pretty tough day.”I was trying to be compassionate and empathic. I was really trying to do what psychology says is the right thing to do.Kylie looked at me without hesitation and said, “Don't give me any of that psychology crap. I've had the worst day in the world.”Then she stormed out and said, “You fix it,” and walked into the bedroom and closed the door.Again, this is not how my wife usually is, but it had been a really rough day. The kids were feral. The house was a mess.I looked at my priorities. I sat down with the child who was struggling the most and worked with her for two or three minutes. She calmed down, I gave her a little food, and put her to bed.Within about 20 minutes, I had all three kids in bed, and I was so proud of myself.I stepped into the kitchen and started tidying up. I thought, I'll just give Kylie some space.After another 30 or 40 minutes of tidying, I stepped into the living room and said, “Honey, I know you're really upset. It's been a pretty tough day. I wasn't trying to be judgy or anything.”And she said, “It's fine for you. You're not dealing with it all day. You walk in and think you can just snap your fingers and everything's fine.”Then she looked at me and said, “But tonight, you walked in and it feels like you snapped your fingers and everything's fine.”And we had this beautiful conversation where she said, “I've been resenting the things you've been trying to tell me because it felt like you were telling me I was wrong.“But I've been watching, and I'm actually seeing that the things you're doing are working, and our family is feeling better.”It took four or five years to get there, Sarah.It's not like I had this epiphany—I'm a bad father, I need to change—and suddenly I was a good dad.There were many embarrassing, shameful moments after that epiphany where I still made terrible decisions and treated the children badly.Even today, I still lose my temper, say things I shouldn't, and get frustrated, because kids are kids and we're fallible humans.But we call parenting parenting because it's about us. If it were about children, we'd call it childrening.Which sounds silly, right?Dr. Justin: But what I've really discovered is that if I can learn how to regulate myself—high emotions equal low intelligence—then I can regulate my emotions, turn them up or down appropriately for the context, and keep them in harmony with my long-term goals, which are to have loving, kind relationships with my children.If I can do that, I'm going to approach them with a tremendously different focus than I will if I'm looking for a short-term fix.And that is something—Anger is a habit. Yelling is a habit. Time-out is a habit. Reward charts are a habit.We can create other habits. We just have to understand the processes and principles behind those habits and then practice them, like we practice a song on the piano, until we finally get it right.Sarah: I love that.So you and Kylie really had a journey—a back-and-forth dance of your own processes and your own development.I do love how you say it's really about us. Whenever I'm working with clients, after a couple of sessions they'll say, “You know what? This isn't even about my kid. This is just about me.”Dr. Justin: Yes. Yes.Sarah: Nobody wants to believe that at first, because it's so much easier to think, I've just got to change them and what they're doing.But it's really all about what we're bringing to the moment and what we're bringing to the relationship.Dr. Justin: I get in trouble sometimes for being overly provocative and saying things that are insensitive, so a quick warning:I want to say what I'm about to say with all the compassion in the world and all the tenderness and care in the world, because I work with people every single day who are dealing with exactly the struggles you're talking about.I want to step into the world of neurodiversity—ADHD, autism, trauma—those kinds of areas.What we're talking about applies there as well. It's just harder.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: But ultimately, if I'm raising an ADHD child or a child who's been through a traumatic experience, once again, parenting is not about them. It's about how I show up for them.So I can say, “Well, my child's like that,” or, “I'm like this because of the diagnosis,” or because of the label, or because of the trauma, or because of the neural networks doing what they're doing.I can say all of those things, and many people do. It's understandable, and I have all the compassion in the world for them when they do.But the key thing I want to highlight is that in spite of all of those challenges your child might be facing—or even that you might be facing—today begins now.It begins with what you put on your face and what you think in your mind.If we can soften our features and go to our children with kindness and compassion while still holding appropriate limits—or working with them to develop appropriate limits—then what we can say is:“Yes, that bad thing happened,” or, “Yes, we are dealing with this difficulty, so what are we going to do about it?”We can fall into the I can't do anything way of thinking, which is really ineffective and doesn't help at all.Or we can step into I have this incredible thing psychologists call agency, or self-efficacy, where I can make a decision now, and if we work on it, we can actually improve things.It might be a longer, harder road. There may be more obstacles to climb over than a typical family without those challenging circumstances.It may be harder.But we can always improve.I never want to be the person who puts limits on what kids can do or what parents can do.If we change our language, change our focus, and recognize that this is a long game—Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: —which requires sustained effort every single day, it's extraordinary the progress we can make and the changes we can create in our home and our family.Sarah: For sure. Yeah.And unfortunately, it's a long game, right? Because I think today we always want quick answers and solutions.Really, it's just showing up every day as best you can and repairing when you don't show up the way you wish you had.And I think another really important part of it—which you were talking around a little bit—is trying to understand our child's experience and see things from their perspective.I was just talking to a client about that today:What's the most emotionally generous explanation you can come up with for their behavior?Because we don't actually know why anyone does anything, since we're not in their brain.But we often jump to, They're being rude on purpose, or They're trying to annoy me.Really, if we can think, Well, I don't know why they're doing this, but there's probably a reason, because kids want to be good. They want to be connected with us.And just reminding ourselves that they're not giving us a hard time—they're having a hard time.That actually makes it easier, I think, to show up as your best, most compassionate self—with, as you say, soft eyes and warm features.Dr. Justin: Yeah.No child wakes up in the morning thinking, Today's the day. I'm just going to ruin everything.This is the perfect opportunity. My parents are tired and frazzled. There's a cost-of-living crisis. There are all these challenges happening, and if ever there was a moment—it's now. I'm going to do it today.They don't wake up thinking that.Like you said—and you said it so perfectly—kids really do want to please us.I know some parents listening to me say that right now are thinking, No, no. My child does not want to please me.And so the question becomes: Why? Why are they struggling?And maybe this is a nice way for me to bring in some of the principles I learned as I went deeper into self-determination theory.There are a couple of times when children are almost guaranteed to be challenging, and this has nothing to do with self-determination theory. This is just general psychology and wellbeing.I always think of Germany. A police officer tells you to stop, but they don't say the word stop because they're German.In German, the word for stop is halt—H-A-L-T.So we add an S to the end, and the acronym becomes:Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Stressed.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Those are the five times when you can all but guarantee your children are not going to be doing well.If they are hungry, get some food into them—ideally a little protein, because it's satiating and helps them feel full quickly.If they're angry, then we've got to remember: high emotions equal low intelligence.You can't think straight in a high emotional state.So our job is to get curious, not furious, because if we fight fire with fire, we end up with a scorched-earth policy and everything gets burned.Dr. Justin: Lonely.I could be sitting right next to you, Sarah, and feel disconnected and lonely—Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: —even if we were very close.Our children are sometimes literally sitting at our kitchen bench, and they feel alone. They feel a little lost. Because of the way we're responding to them—with hard commands, correction, and direction rather than connection—they feel lonely.Tired.I don't even need to explain that.Even as adults, I don't know any couple who, at the end of witching hour—or whatever you might call it in North America, that 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. stretch when the kids—Sarah: Yeah.Dr. Justin: —are just oof…It's the end of that period, and you're exhausted, the kids are exhausted, and you look at your husband or wife and say, “You know what? We are so tired. We're shattered. But boy, are we nailing it tonight.”Nobody ever says that when they're tired—Sarah: Yeah.Dr. Justin: —because you're not nailing it. You're just hanging in there.And it's the same with kids.Then the S is for stressed, and that includes sickness, because sickness is a stress on the body as well.Those five indicators are going to let you know when your child is likely to be challenging, and I think they're really good to watch out for.But if we go a little deeper and talk about self-determination theory, it says that each of us has these needs.You have them, Sarah, and I have them, and our children have them—even your mother-in-law has them.We have three basic psychological needs.When we're in environments where those needs are supported, oh my goodness, we thrive. These are environments we're drawn to and attracted to. We approach them with a smile on our face and can't wait to be there.But if the environment is what researchers call need-thwarting or need-frustrating—meaning it frustrates and thwarts those needs—then we avoid it.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Or, if we're in those environments, we act in ways that are challenging.So the basic psychological needs are:Number one: a sense of relationship, or relatedness. That's the technical term they use.Relatedness is a sense of mutual belonging.Sarah: So would it be similar to mattering? Like you feel like you matter to somebody?Dr. Justin: Yeah. There's been a lot of talk recently about mattering.But it's reciprocal mattering. It's not just one-way.It's I matter to you, but you matter to me.Sarah: Yeah.Dr. Justin: Let me use Mother's Day as an example.We just had Mother's Day in Australia at the start of May.If I've got a great relationship with my mother-in-law, and it's Mother's Day, I'm probably going to spend the morning with my wife and family while my children celebrate their mum. Then maybe at lunchtime, we head over to the in-laws to celebrate my wife's mum.If I feel like that relationship need is supported at my mother-in-law's—meaning there's mutual belonging, I matter to her, she matters to me, we enjoy one another's company, and it feels good—I'm going to say:“Great. Let's get in the car. Let's go. What do we need to do?”But if I'm going to a need-frustrating environment—if there's tension, antagonism, snide remarks, eye rolls, silence, defensiveness, or wounds from bad things that happened in the past—that environment doesn't feel good to me.So I'm going to say to Kylie:“Honey, why don't you take the kids to your mum's? Have a great lunch. We've made a big mess this morning, and I think the best thing I can do for your Mother's Day”—and I'll frame it nicely, of course—“is stay home, tidy the house, clean up the kitchen, get everything ready, and put dinner on for tonight so you can have your perfect Mother's Day dinner. I'll see you in four hours.”And then I send her out the door.Why?Because my in-laws' home has become a need-thwarting or need-frustrating environment. I just don't want to be there.And if I am there, I'm going to be sullen and sulky. I might try my best for half an hour and then say, “Oh, this is too hard,” and retreat—Sarah: Or text. The adult version of misbehavior.Dr. Justin: Yes, exactly. Exactly.But if I'm a child in a need-thwarting or need-frustrating environment, I'm going to get into fights with the kids I don't like.Or I'm going to say, “I don't want to go to school because everyone picks on me because I don't regulate my behavior properly because I've got ADHD.”Right?So school becomes a place I don't want to go.Or maybe you have a faith background and your child doesn't have any friends at church.Or you've signed them up for soccer, but they don't know anyone on the team.And they're saying, “Yeah, but I don't want to go.”It all comes down to relationship.Relationship is the basic psychological need that's being thwarted.Now, the second basic psychological need is competence.Competence, I would describe as feeling like I can do the thing I'm being asked to do.Sarah: Or that I want to do.Dr. Justin: Yeah. We'll get to want to in just a second, because want-to is the third basic psychological need—autonomy.So stay with me on competence for a second.Competence is capability. Capacity.It's not even necessarily about being able to do something—it's about feeling like you're making progress toward the goal.Let's say I'm joining acrobatics and trying to learn how to do a handstand.That's really tricky. It's a tough skill.If I show up every week to acrobatics, even if I've got great friends there—so my relationship need is supported—and I love my coach, but every time I try to do a handstand my shoulders buckle, my elbows aren't straight, my form is wrong, I fall over, or I can't stay up…After four or five or six weeks, I'm going to say:“I don't like this anymore. I'm out.”I had a daughter who wanted to come cycling with me.I'm a really keen cyclist. I ride on the road. I'm a middle-aged man in Lycra.But I also ride on the velodrome.You've seen those velodrome bikes at the Olympics—the indoor track where they go around and around and around.You might have noticed that after they finish the race, they keep pedaling and do another 10 laps.The reason is twofold.Number one: there are no brakes on those bikes.And second: they use what's called a fixed gear, meaning that when the wheels are spinning, the pedals are spinning.If you stop pedaling, you're going to get thrown over the handlebars because the wheels are still moving, which means the pedals are still moving, even if you try to stop them.So you just have to keep riding until the bike slows down.My daughter wanted to come to Friday night velodrome racing with me.We didn't have the money, but we spent all this cash on a bike, the Lycra, the helmet, the special shoes—it cost a lot, and I was a poor university student.But my daughter wanted to cycle with me, and I wasn't going to miss that opportunity. So we sacrificed and made it happen.Unfortunately, she was competing against girls who had been riding for four, five, or six years.For the first few weeks, she gave it a good go, but she was losing by several laps every race.After about a month, she said:“Dad, I don't want to do this anymore.”And my response was:“But I've spent all this money.”But what was really going on was that as much as she liked the girls and the atmosphere, she didn't feel competent—Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: —and she didn't see progress.She didn't feel like she was ever going to master the activity, so her motivation and wellbeing plummeted.Cycling became a need-thwarting environment for her.Whether it's piano, violin, rock climbing, cycling, swimming, math, PE class—it doesn't matter.If your kids don't feel like they can do the thing, they're going to push back.They're going to say:“This is too hard. I don't like it.”They won't use these exact words, but what they're really saying is:“This is a need-frustrating environment for me. I don't like it. I don't want to be there.”And then they start to act out.My mom got to the stage with me as a 13-year-old boy where she was physically holding me by the arm and dragging me into my piano lessons.Dr. Justin: Which brings me to my third and final basic psychological need, which is autonomy.A lot of people hear the word autonomy and think it means freedom—that kids can do whatever they want. They think it means independence.That's not what autonomy means, certainly not in the strict scientific form we're talking about within this theory.Rather, autonomy comes down to identifying the value of an activity and therefore endorsing the actions required to do the activity.See, if I, as a 12-year-old, looked at piano and thought:This is going to be a lifelong skill that will bring me joy, that I'll be able to share with others, that I can use in service of my family and community. If I can play piano or keyboard, I could be in a band. I could do all of these things.If I identified the value in the activity, then I would endorse the work required to learn it.So autonomy is not about freedom and independence. It's about choice based on values.That's a lot when you're thinking about three-, four-, and five-year-olds, but not necessarily—Sarah: No, I love that.We talk about that all the time in my communities—how important it is for kids to have autonomy.And I think you can have autonomy even when kids can't be independent, right?Because you can't have a four-year-old who's independent, but you can have a four-year-old who can make decisions that matter.Dr. Justin: Yes, yes.And that decision goes well beyond, Do you want to wear the blue suit or the green one?Sarah: I'll quote our friend Alfie Kohn. He says, “Kids should have the ability to make decisions that make adults gulp a little bit.”Dr. Justin: I love it. Yes. Beautiful.Let me give an adult version of this, and then I'll swing it back into childhood, because sometimes parents hear this and think, This isn't quite computing for me.In Canada, you drive on the right-hand side of the road.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: And it's true that if you choose to drive on the left-hand side of the road, the authorities will probably get involved. You may cause harm to somebody. You could even end up in prison.But even in the middle of the night, when nobody's on the road, I can't imagine there are too many Canadians who get in the car and think:Tonight's the night. Nobody's watching. I'm gonna drive on the left.You are being absolutely controlled by the government and by the law. You're driving on the right-hand side of the road.But because you identify the value in driving on the right-hand side of the road, nobody has to compel you to do it.You just do it because you endorse the idea that driving on the right is safer. It's what you need to do.So our job with our children is twofold.First, when it comes to these basic psychological needs, we want to help them be in environments—or create environments—where those needs are supported.We want to send them to a school where they have good relationships, where somebody says, “Hey, come sit with us,” where teachers know them by name and smile when they see them and are excited to support them.A school where they're able to experience progress—which might mean less emphasis on grades and more emphasis on developing capability.And a school where they feel like they have some say in where they're going and what they're doing.Rather than being forced to attend a school like I was when I was a teenager, they get to say:“No, I want to go to that school because that's where my friends are.”Or:“That's where the teachers help me feel good.”Or:“That's where my interests lie.”That's the basic psychological-needs concept.Now let's bring that into discipline, which is what started this whole conversation.Based on this theory—and I guess it ties back to a lot of what Alfie Kohn has said as well—I developed a little model that's really easy to memorize and even easier to enact.I call it the Three E's of Effective Discipline.The Three E's of Effective Discipline are need-supportive.If you look at the root of the word discipline, it comes from the idea that we teach, guide, and instruct—that we show the way to follow.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: But if you look at the modern definition of discipline, the modern definition is punish.Punish means exact retribution. It means hurt. It means make someone pay a price.Sarah: Make people feel bad on purpose.Dr. Justin: Yeah. That's exactly right.And I'm interested in disciplining our kids, not punishing our kids.Punishment is need-thwarting, right?If you make someone feel bad on purpose, there goes the relationship. They feel incompetent, and you've taken away their autonomy.So standard discipline strategies—whether it's time-out, spanking, yelling, withdrawing privileges, taking away the iPad, bribery—all of those standard discipline practices trample over basic psychological needs.We've got to come up with something better.So I developed the Three E's of Effective Discipline, which are basically this:On a beautiful bed of empathy, we explore, we explain, and we empower.Sarah: Ooh, I love that.Dr. Justin: Explore basically means I sit down with my child at an appropriate time.Because we always try to fix things right here, right now.Sometimes we need to, but often intervention simply to make sure people and property aren't hurt—that's all you need.Then you can say to your child:“We'll have a chat about this later when nobody's got a head full of steam.”Kick it down the road.You don't have to fix things right here, right now. Most of the time, it's just not necessary.So once everyone is calm, you explore.You say:“Hey, I've noticed there's been a lot of tension in our home lately between you and your brother.”Or:“Have you noticed that for the last few weeks we've had so much conflict about screens?”And your child says, “Yeah.”And you say:“I just want to listen because parenting's about parents, right? I must be getting something wrong here. Can you help me understand what I'm missing? Where am I going wrong? What's the real problem from your perspective?”Now, there are three things that make this better.Number one: never do it with an audience.Kids always want to save face. They don't feel competent when we start these conversations in front of other people.Number two: have some treats.Because once you're feeding them, they're like:“Oh, I'm not in trouble. We're just chatting, and there are cookies,” or a thick shake, or something like that.And number three: take notes.When you're trying to solve problems—and that's really what discipline is—The Three E's of Effective Discipline are about problem-solving.Discipline—meaning helping, teaching, guiding, instructing—is really about solving problems.So if I want to solve problems effectively in my home—if I want to discipline my children well—I'm trying to say:“Where are you coming from? What am I missing?”When you take notes on what your kids are saying, it's amazing how much information they give you because they realize:You're really listening to me.Sarah: Yeah. You're taking me seriously. You're writing down what I say.Dr. Justin: They're blown away by it.So they'll tell you a bunch of stuff.Now, every now and then they won't. Sometimes they'll shrug and say, “I don't know.”And you can say:“Well, if you don't know, that's fine. But if you did know…”This drives kids crazy, but it's my favorite sentence.“If you did know, what do you think the answer would be?”Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: And they roll their eyes.“Well, I don't know. That's what I said. If I knew, I'd tell you, but I don't know.”And I say:“I know you don't know, and I understand that if you did know, you would tell me. But if you did know, what would you tell me?”Sarah: I love that.Dr. Justin: They get this feeling—it's like this horrible psychological trick where:I don't know the answer, but if I had to come up with one, I guess I'd say this…And now the conversation starts.You get momentum.Sarah: You Jedi mind-trick them.Dr. Justin: Yeah. It's beautiful.And you write it down.At no point are you allowed to interrupt.At no point are you allowed to tell them they're wrong.At no point are you allowed to respond with your adult wisdom.You just listen.Sarah: Okay, and we're still on explore?Still on the first E?Dr. Justin: We're still on the first E.You make all these notes, and once it sounds like they've told you everything, you say:“All right. So what you're telling me is…”And then you read the notes back.This is the oldest psychological strategy in the book—I'm not saying anything new here.If they say, “Yes, that's what I'm saying,” you say:“All right. Great. I've got it.”If they say no, then you say:“Oh, what have I missed? How did I get this wrong? Clarify it for me.”And they give you more information.But there's a really valuable question at the end.When they say, “Yes, that's what I'm saying,” you ask:“Fantastic. Is there anything else?”Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: The power of asking that extra question is profound.It forces them to go deeper.Sometimes they'll say, “No, that's it.”But often, their first answers are shallow answers to get you off their back.They're thinking:I'm telling you what I think you want to hear.But when you say:“Got it. You're happy with this answer? Fantastic. Is there anything else going on?”That's when they look at you and think:Oh—you're actually serious about this. You really care.Sarah: And you're really listening to me.Dr. Justin: Yeah.And it's profound what children will give you after you ask, “Is there anything else?”Once you've got everything written down, confirmed, and you're clear, the next step is explain.Dr. Justin: Now, there are a couple of things around explain.Explain is basically the part where you tell them what they need to know. This is the parent bit.But all too often, we step into lecturing, and the kids fall asleep. They're like, “Oh, here we go again. I thought this was going to be different, but it's no different after all.”So there are a couple of things we need to get right here.Number one: if you're going to explain anything to your children, my recommendation is that you keep it to less than 20 seconds.Now, there's no science around this. This is just my experience in talking with parents and kids in my own family. I find that if you talk for more than 10 to 20 seconds, kids really do tune out, and it goes back to the way things have always been.The second thing is that I always ask permission.“Now that I've listened to you, Sarah, there are just one or two things I'd love to run by you about what's going on. Do you mind if I do that?”I want to make this absolutely clear: as a parent, you do not need your child's permission to tell them things. I really, absolutely, honestly believe that. As the parent, you have the right to tell them stuff they need to know.But this isn't about rights. This is about effectiveness.If I launch into, “Well, Sarah, now that I've listened to that, I get it, but I need to tell you these two things,” I'm already bringing defensiveness back into the relationship.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Barriers are coming up.Whereas if I say, “Sarah, this is so helpful. As I've listened to you, two things have come to mind. Do you mind if I share both of those with you?” Your instant response, even as I say it—I'm watching your face—Sarah: I'm nodding.Dr. Justin: And you're going—Sarah: Yeah.Dr. Justin: Yeah. I actually want to know.You're opening up your heart and mind to me, and we're just role-playing this.Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: And that's what our kids do. They're like, “Oh, okay.” Because we've given them the courtesy of listening—Sarah: Well, and you're not trying to use your power over them.Dr. Justin: Exactly.This is a non-coercive, really supportive conversation.And I still haven't had this happen. A lot of parents will say, “Well, what happens if they say no?”And I'm like, “I've raised six kids, and they've never actually looked at me and said, ‘Now that I think about it, no, I don't need to know anything that you…'”They've just never done it.But even if they did—Sarah: Well, if they do, it's probably that they're—what did you say? When emotions are high, intelligence is low. Maybe it wasn't the right time to have the conversation.If they're saying no, then they're probably still angry and holding onto whatever was going on for them.Dr. Justin: Exactly.But if they're that angry, they're probably not going to have explored nicely with you anyway.Sarah: Yes, exactly. So pick—Dr. Justin: A different time.You're probably not even going to—Sarah: Get to that point. Yeah.Dr. Justin: So it's very much: keep it really short, ask permission, and then share.Sarah: Okay. So give me examples.You said, “We've been fighting about screens,” was one example. You also gave the example of, “You've been fighting a lot with your brother.”So in the explain—10 to 20 seconds—choose one of those scenarios. After hearing your child, what would you say in that 10 to 20 seconds?Dr. Justin: I did this just the other day with my 16-year-old daughter, Lily, who is on social media more than she should be. There's been some tension and conflict.I listened. She shared some ideas, and I said, “There are just a couple of things I want to run by you. Is that okay?”She said, “Sure, Dad.”I said, “Great. There are certain times when we're trying to connect or have family time, and there are certain contexts where you're on your device and we just can't reach you.”She looked at me and said, “Yeah, I know.”I said, “Okay. The second thing I want to highlight is that we've noticed you're sleeping in because, even though you're not supposed to, you've been taking your phone into your bedroom at night and staying up late scrolling. Unless I'm reading it wrong, I'm pretty sure that's what's been happening.”And she said, “No, I have been, Dad. You're right.”So it's just two really succinct sentences where I'm stating what I'm seeing. I'm sharing my experience.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: If it were the sibling fighting, I'd say, “Yeah, your brother is really annoying. I get what's going on. Sometimes I wish he didn't live in our house as well.”I might have a joke with them about the challenge associated with that.And then I might say, “So when this happens, can I just share how it feels for me? It breaks my heart. I love both of you so very much, and my dream is for our family to enjoy being in one another's company and to look forward to conversations and jokes and doing the things we do. When this stuff is going on, it feels like that's a pipe dream.“And secondly, psychologically—you know I've got this PhD in psychology—I know that there's damage being done to the way your brother feels about himself. That's what I'm worried about.”So I've had both of those little conversations on two different topics, sharing two different things, and both were about 10 seconds each.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Again, it's conversational. It's not lecture-style.Sarah: And it's from the heart.I can feel it, even though this is just an example you're giving. I can feel that it's from your heart—that you're really being open and sharing with your child what your true concerns are.You're not trying to power over or control. You're really sharing a heartfelt sentiment.Dr. Justin: Yeah. Thank you. That's the goal.You won't always do that, but that's the goal.The reason there's a problem is because your values are not being upheld in the home, and you're trying to communicate that in a way that shows you honor them and that they've got a brain.Now, we've used two really grown-up versions—or teenage versions, I guess. But you can have the same conversations with three- and four-year-olds. It's just shorter. It's simpler.Usually, with those conversations, in a pretty tight timeframe—60 to 90 seconds—you've done the whole process.There is a higher-order—Sarah: Okay, so what's the third part?Dr. Justin: Just before I get to that one, if you really want to do the advanced version of explain, what I'll often do after I've explored with my child is say:“Okay, so this is the bit where I'd normally explain what's going on from my point of view. I wonder if you can tell me what you think I'm going to say here.”Sarah: Ah.Dr. Justin: And so I get them to explain the explain to me.The reason that's so effective is that whenever my mouth is the one that's moving, my brain is the one that's working.If I can get their mouth moving, their brain is doing the heavy lifting.Sarah: Love that.Dr. Justin: That's really, really effective.And then the last one—Sarah: Is empower.And you're also helping them see things and develop empathy, right? To see things from somebody else's perspective.Dr. Justin: Yes. Powerful.The last one is empower.That's literally as simple as saying, “Okay, so I get where you're coming from. We've had that conversation very thoroughly. You know what my challenge is here. What do you think we should do?”“Where do we go from here? How do we solve this in a way that we can both feel good about?”It's true that every now and then, your child will shrug their shoulders and say, “I don't know.”Or they'll shrug and say, “Well, we should just do what I want to do.”And as a parent, that's where you step in and say my favorite line:“Don't you just wish? Don't you just wish we could?”Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Because—well, let me ask you, Sarah. When I say, “Don't you just wish,” or, “Wouldn't it be good if we could?”—same thing—what have I actually said?Sarah: Total empathy. Heaps of empathy.Dr. Justin: Total empathy.But I've also said something else really clearly.Sarah: That that's not going to work.Dr. Justin: Correct. The answer is no.But it's a no with so much love, kindness, empathy, and gentleness in it—Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: —that your child goes, “Oh, yeah. I know.”And then you say, “So let's see if we can come up with a solution that will work.”What else might work for you when it comes to your brother?What else might work for you when it comes to the party on Friday night that I'm not willing to let you go to?What else could work when it comes to our screen challenges? Because this is an ongoing issue for us, isn't it?Every now and then, you won't get an answer right away. You'll say, “Well, let's talk about it again tonight,” or, “Let's talk about it again tomorrow once you've had some time to think about it.”But I'm big on deadlines.“We need to have this worked out by the end of the weekend, okay? I don't want to go through another week of this. We've got to find a solution. If we haven't had another chat by tomorrow night, we're going to sit down and work it out then.”And I also don't have a problem at this point—Laura Walker is a researcher at BYU in Utah, and she did a study published in the Journal of Adolescence where she found that parents who use these kinds of strategies—she's not talking about the Three E's of Effective Discipline, because that's the thing I developed, but it's based on the same sort of theory that she researches—Parents who use these kinds of strategies, even when they do have to step in and say, “All right, well, we haven't come up with a solution, so it's going to be my way,” kids are much more likely to be responsive and compliant—Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: —because we've been through a process with them that is not autocratic. It's not authoritarian.They've felt like they had a voice. Their perspective has been seen and heard. They've had some input.And even though they don't get what they want all the time—because we're the parents, and sometimes the fact that we've climbed 47 rungs on the ladder of life and they've only climbed 13 is all we need.Sarah: That's what I call in my work the goodwill bank.When your kids experience you as collaborative, non-coercive, and not power-tripping—when they know, over the period of their childhood, that they can trust you to take their preferences into account and be respectful of them—then when you do have to say no about something, even if they don't like it, there's this goodwill bank behind you and this level of trust.When you mentioned, “You can't go to the party on Friday,” I never had that issue with my kids because everything was so collaborative.We'd have similar conversations. I didn't have—I'm not very good at thinking of things like the Three E's—but similar kinds of processes where they'd say why they wanted to go, I'd say what my concerns were, and then they'd invariably say, “Oh, yeah, you're probably right.”It was never, “You can't go.”It was, “These are my concerns. This is what I've been thinking about.”Because they experienced that whole process over years of parenting, you don't get the pushback because they don't feel like you're power-tripping them.Dr. Justin: Yeah.Sarah, I had an experience with one of my adult children who was still living at home. I think she was maybe 19 or 20 when this happened.She wanted to go and do something, and I said to her, “You're an adult. You do get to choose for yourself whether you will do this or not, but I've got some really big concerns about you doing it.“I actually think you're putting yourself into a dangerous situation. There's some history, some volatility, and some challenges if you go and involve yourself in this particular activity. Tell me why this is so important to you.”So she walked me through it, and I said, “Okay, I get it. How do my concerns stack up against your desire to be there?”And she said, “Dad, I get what you're saying, but I want to go.”And I said, “Okay, so…”You used that beautiful term, the goodwill bank. I can't remember exactly what my words were, but I'm going to use your term right now, because I essentially said:“I'm going to use the goodwill I've built up with you over the last however many years and step in really firmly and say you're making a mistake.“As your dad, even though you're an adult, I want to forbid you to go. That's how strongly I feel about this. To the degree that I can, I forbid it.“Ultimately, you will choose because you are an adult, but I don't want you there.”Sarah: I'm going on the record.Dr. Justin: Yeah, yeah.“I need you to trust that this is a bad idea. We can come up with any number of other activities you could do instead, with different people in a different location, but this is a bad idea, and you have none of my support should you go.“If you go and something goes wrong, you call me and I'll come rescue you. But it is a bad idea, and I forbid it.”And I couldn't believe I was saying those words. I've never said them in my life, and now I was saying them to an adult.But she looked at me and said, “Okay.”Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: She didn't fight me. She didn't say, “I can do what—”Sarah: No, because you built up the history with her of how she experienced you.Dr. Justin: Yeah. She was like, “Wow, this is serious. He's never said that before. If he feels that strongly, maybe he's right. Maybe I need to find an alternative.”So anyway, that's the Three E's of Effective Discipline.I feel like I've talked too much, Sarah. I wanted to be much more conversational, but I get carried away when we—Sarah: No, no. I love it.I feel like it's very complementary to the things that I teach, and you've given me some new things to teach parents as well.I love having sort of snappy—the Three E's of Discipline. I think that's great. I love it. I'll share it.Dr. Justin: Yeah, please. Absolutely.It's helped so many millions of parents.Sarah: Yeah.Well, I love that we've connected across the world—from the other side of the world to each other—and I look forward to hopefully talking to you again in March of 2027 when your book Boys comes out.I figured we were going to talk about that, but we had such a lovely conversation about peaceful parenting, discipline, and—oh my God, it's gone right out of my head—Dr. Justin: Self-determination theory.Sarah: Self-determination theory.I think it was a really great conversation, and I really appreciate you sharing all of your experience and wisdom.Dr. Justin: I loved the conversation.Like I said, it was too one-sided. I wish we'd been able to go backward and forward a bit more, but let's do it again.Let's chat again next year when the book comes out, and we'll talk about boys and how to help them.There's so much talk about toxic masculinity.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Wouldn't it be great if we could give them a view of healthy masculinity—a model of that to follow?That's what my book is all about: how we can guide boys into a healthy form of masculinity.Sarah: Well, for folks in Australia, your book is coming out in June 2026. For folks in North America, it's not coming out until spring 2027.So I will definitely be ringing you up and having you come back on to talk about the book when you've got your North American release. I know we're going to have a great conversation then.Before I let you go, though, I have a question that I ask all my podcast guests:If you had a time machine and you could go back and tell your younger parent self something, what advice would you give yourself?Dr. Justin: Jean-Jacques Rousseau said there is—I can't remember the quote exactly—but: What wisdom is there that is greater than kindness?I've paraphrased it. It's not perfect, but it's something along those lines.Interestingly, Rousseau had, I think, five children—maybe six—and he put them all into orphanages somewhere in the first 18 months of their lives so he could spend more time writing and focusing on how to be a good person, which I just find criminal. I can't believe it.So take it for what it's worth, but “What wisdom is there that's greater than kindness?” is what Rousseau said.I've mentioned this idea of soft eyes a couple of times. If I could go back, I would teach myself about kindness. I'd teach myself about many of the things we've talked about today.But I just want to quickly share the story of soft eyes.As an academic, I want everything I say to be evidence-based. There is no evidence that I'm aware of where people have done any kind of randomized controlled trial where parents are asked to interact with their children with soft eyes, neutral eyes, hard eyes, or anything like that.Soft eyes is this idea—I was giving a presentation at a public library one time, and an elderly lady stepped into the back of the room, sat down, and listened to the last 25 or 30 minutes of my presentation. She must have liked what she could hear from the corridor outside, and she stepped in to listen.After everybody had left, she walked over to me and said, “I really enjoyed what you shared. I'd love to tell you something my grandmother said to me.”So we're going back into the early 1900s.Her grandmother said, “Whenever you're talking to your children about matters of discipline, make sure you have soft eyes.”And I thought, I really like that.Because if you try to have a conversation with somebody and your eyes are soft, you just can't say mean things. You can't say harsh things. You can't have harsh thoughts.If you soften your eyes, your face softens and your heart softens. You have this beautiful compassion and kindness, this ability to see the best in them rather than the worst in them, to assume positive intent.There's something gorgeous about soft eyes.So I would go back and quote Rousseau better than I just quoted him to you, and I would tell my younger self that soft eyes will make a tremendous impact on all of my relationships.Sarah: Ah.There's an American—I don't know if you've heard of him in Australia—but he's a pretty well-known marriage counselor, Terry Real.Dr. Justin: Oh, yeah. I quote him in my book.Sarah: Yeah, yeah. He does a lot of work about—well, he says something like, “There's nothing that harshness can accomplish that kindness can't accomplish better.”Dr. Justin: That's so beautiful.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Dr. Justin: Thank you. That's inspiring. I'm so glad you shared that.Sarah: Yeah. I love it.It's hard to remember, but I think it is true. And I wish that—and I know the world needs a dose of that right now.Dr. Justin: Yeah. Yeah.Sarah: One hundred percent.Well, thank you so much.Where's the best place for folks to go and find out more about you and what you do?Dr. Justin: Probably my podcast, the Happy Families Podcast. My wife and I drop a 15-minute nugget of parenting wisdom every day, five days a week.Sarah: Oh, wow!Dr. Justin: Yeah. It's a lot of content, but it's bite-sized chunks, and it's entertaining. We're fun. We get to do it together.And the Happy Families Podcast. I've got a website called happyfamilies.com.au, but basically, if you like what we've talked about—Sarah: We'll link to all of that in the show notes. We'll link to your website and your podcast, and I'm sure it's easy to find you.Dr. Justin: That sounds great. Thanks, Sarah.Sarah: Thank you so much.Dr. Justin: What a great, great conversation. Lovely to be with you.Reimagine Peaceful Parenting with Sarah Rosensweet Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

The SAGA Agency AI Survey results are in, and small agency owners are feeling great about AI. Maybe too great. In this episode, Chip and Gini dig into the numbers and find the gap between how owners think they’re using AI and the reality of what's happening inside their businesses. The headline figures look impressive: 89% of respondents report regular or widespread AI use, 74% use it daily, and 88% say they’ve seen productivity gains. But Chip isn’t buying it. He questions whether the sample skews toward early adopters, or more likely, whether agency owners simply don’t have a clear enough picture of what “good” AI use looks like elsewhere. When 53% say they’re ahead of their peers but only 13% say they’re behind, the math doesn’t work. As Gini puts it, they’re probably grading themselves on usage habits, not operational depth. Next, Chip and Gini look at what agencies are actually doing with AI. Most activity falls squarely into what Chip calls “generative AI 101” — drafting emails, writing social posts, generating blog content. The more interesting stuff is largely absent. AI-assisted design work barely registers. Only 74% are even using AI to revise or edit content, a number both hosts find inexplicable given how easy and useful that is. Gini’s own example of running an article through an AP style agent before sending it to a notoriously precise editor at PR Daily illustrates exactly the kind of practical, low-friction habit that should be universal by now. Another data point they discuss is the disconnect between productivity gains and revenue. Agencies report getting faster, but their top-line numbers are flat or down. Gini’s read is that AI efficiency is getting absorbed into existing scope rather than converted into new value. Agencies are over-servicing clients at the same fees, filling freed time with more of the same work instead of building something new. On the pricing side, almost no one reported clients pushing for discounts tied to AI use. Instead of a reduction in cost, the larger enterprise clients are asking about data governance, usage policies, and procurement compliance. Chip advises unless your agency has the infrastructure to manage those requirements consistently, that’s a market best left to someone else. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “There’s nothing in this data that suggests that there is widespread innovative use of it, widespread use of it for internal operations or for business development or any of those things.” Gini Dietrich: “AI is being absorbed into the existing scope. There’s silent commoditization so that clients are getting more for the same fees.” Chip Griffin: “Now is the time to experiment and figure out what works and what doesn’t when the cost of failure is much lower.” Gini Dietrich: “I don’t believe that AI is going to replace us. I believe that people who know how to use AI effectively are what’s going to replace you.” Resources Survey shows most owner-led agencies think they're ahead on AI. Most aren't. Related How agency owners can use AI as an always-on thought partner How AI impacts PR agencies and solos (featuring Karen Swim and Michelle Kane) Focus on AI value, not cost View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, as, as we sit here on a Monday and record this, I am truly optimistic. I have published my planned photo schedule for the evenings this week, and despite the fact that- … it says it’s gonna rain Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I still have games on that calendar, and I am optimistic that we will actually get those games in even though they don’t generally play baseball and softball in the rain. Gini Dietrich: I don’t know if that’s optimistic or masochistic. Chip Griffin: Oh. No, masochistic would be they were lacrosse games and I know they’re gonna be played in the rain, and I’m still looking forward to getting  wet while I take the photos. Gini Dietrich: And you’re still looking forward to it. Chip Griffin: No, I suspect if the forecast is what it is, I think it is highly unlikely that any of those games will be played. Gini Dietrich: Well, good, then you can be optimistic that you don’t have to go and shoot photos. Chip Griffin: There you go. Yeah. I can be optimistic to have some, some evenings to catch up on, on real work instead of- Gini Dietrich: That’s right. That’s right … Chip Griffin: photography. But- That’s right … optimism is kind of the theme of the day here though, because we have recently completed the SAGA Agency AI Survey, and it, it turns out that agency owners, to nobody’s surprise, are eternally optimistic, and they are astoundingly optimistic about AI, and how they’re using it and what it means for their businesses. Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. So I looked at the results, and that is my takeaway as well, is that they’re extremely optimistic. 89% have regular or widespread use, 74% use it every day, 89% expect AI use to grow over the next 12 months. And so, yes, it is very optimistic. 88% report productivity gains, and 79% report quality gains. Chip Griffin: It is amazing how much work AI is doing for agencies today. It is, it is frankly unbelievable, and I mean that literally. Gini Dietrich: Literally, yes. Chip Griffin: I do not believe it. Yeah. I have either stumbled across a sample of the earliest adopters who are most interested in AI and have really taken it the furthest, or more likely, people don’t really understand what’s out there and so therefore think they are further ahead than they are. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think it’s… Well, I mean, I will, I will say that the head of, the ahead of peers piece of it, so the data said that 53% believe that they’re somewhat or further ahead than their peers, and only 13% think they’re behind. That’s mathematically impossible. And so I think my take on it, and I’d love your take as well, is that they’re grading themselves on their usage and not on the operational depth of it. So for instance, they’re using ChatGPT every day as a habit, but they’re not operationalizing AI as a business model, and I think that 53% are confusing the two. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, I think it’s probably a multitude of factors. I think part of it is that agency owners visualize a very low bar for their peers when it comes to AI. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Chip Griffin: And I, I think part of that is that people aren’t hearing a lot of examples of how agency, other agencies are using- Gini Dietrich: Sure … Chip Griffin: AI. They’re not as active as some of us may be in going out and seeing how other industries, similar industries are using AI and really testing the limits and understanding what’s possible. So I think part of it is that they don’t have an appropriate baseline to know whether they are indeed ahead or not because they’ve set the bar so low in their own minds. And I think that part of it is, you know, this point that if they’re just using it at all, they think that puts them ahead. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that that’s what’s going on. I think that they’re, that they’re saying, “Well yeah, I use it every day.” And that’s, and that’s what makes them think that they’re ahead. Chip Griffin: Right. But I, I think as we dig in deeper and we look at how they’re actually using it, it’s pretty obvious that, that most of the usage by these owners is what I would call generative AI 101. Draft me an email. Yep. Help me create a blog post or a social post. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: It is– There’s nothing in this data that suggests that there is widespread innovative use of it, widespread use of it for internal operations or for business development or any of those things. It really appears to be sort of the basics, sort of the things that people were talking about a year or two ago in terms of generative AI, and that seems to be where most of the activity and most of the stated value is. But even in those areas, there’s a good swath of agencies that aren’t even doing that. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: I think the, if I recall correctly, the number was only like 74% are using AI to help revise or edit content. It’s mind-boggling to me that that’s not almost 100%. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree. Yes. Chip Griffin: Because it’s the easiest way to improve the quality of your content. Gini Dietrich: Yes, it is. Yes. Chip Griffin: So I just, I can’t even imagine not just saying, “Hey, take a quick look at this.” I mean, even if it’s just to proof it. Just take a look through- Right … make, make sure I haven’t- Right … missed anything obvious here, and you know. Right. Because anytime I run it through, it tends to find something. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So why aren’t you at least doing that? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, it’s funny you say that because we just submitted an article to PR Daily, and I know that Allison Carter is a huge, huge, huge, huge stickler for AP style. So I have an AP style agent, and I ran it through there, and it, I think it got five or six different things that I had missed. I was like, “Thank heaven.” Like, ’cause she, she will send it back. She’ll be like, “Nope.” I mean, huge stickler. So, and like, yes, to your point, like you should be using it for that, 100%. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, that’s just– to, to me that’s a very basic use, but there are so many great things that you can do with it. I mean, the, the tiny percentage of people that are using it for anything design related- Gini Dietrich: Right. Yeah … was- It was almost 0%. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was shocking to me- It was shocking, yep … Chip Griffin: that such a small percentage seem to be using it for that, at all. I mean, we didn’t say you’re using it for every image or every video or those kinds of… But if you’re not even experimenting with it- Gini Dietrich: Yeah … Chip Griffin: you’re missing a real opportunity because there’s a lot that you can do with it. Now, I don’t– you know, one of the things that, that I don’t know is, you know, what percentage of these people may not do this because they have the ethical concern, right? And I’ve, I’ve been at a few events recently and watched a few talks online where, you know, there, there’s, there is an, what I consider an unnatural resistance to AI because of use of electricity or- Gini Dietrich: Yeah Chip Griffin: or because of- Data centers and, yeah … concerns over copyright and that kind of stuff. And so it causes people to swear off the platforms and tools altogether, rather than saying, “Let’s try to find solutions to all of these things.” And l- and let’s face it, there are solutions being sought for all of it, whether it’s the electricity angle, whether it’s the copyright angle. There’s a lot of work being done in that area, and for individuals to just say, “No, I’m just, I’m not even gonna do this,” is extraordinarily shortsighted in my view. Gini Dietrich: Oh, 100%, yeah. I, I mean, I think we’ve both talked about this ad nauseam, that you should… I don’t believe that AI is going to replace us. I believe that people who know how to use AI effectively are, is what’s gonna replace you. So if you’re putting your head in the sand, you are, you will be replaced for sure. Chip Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think the other place that was interesting, and you flagged this in, in your pre-show notes, is that they’re reporting largely productivity gains, and yet revenue seems to be flat or declining. Doesn’t really match up. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Again, doesn’t work. AI’s making everyone faster at work, but it’s not growing the business. That is not what we’re trying to do. So what it tells us, right, is that AI is being absorbed into the existing scope There’s silent commoditization so that clients are getting more for the same less, for, for the same fees, so we’re, we’re over-servicing. We’re filling our freed hours with admin, more client servicing or more meetings, and more billable work on undifferentiated services rather than building anything scalable. So that’s what I think is happening, is all of the work, all of the AI that… All the work that AI is doing is being absorbed into existing services, into existing fees, and we’re over-servicing rather than building new product lines or new service lines. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and there are so many opportunities for agencies to truly be innovative and to find these new things that it seems to me that, that any agency owner should be thinking about that and not so much just, you know, “How can we incrementally improve productivity? How can we make sure that we’re claiming we’re ahead of the rest of the pack?” How can you actually make a difference for your business for the long term? Because there is, there is huge runway to be had here, and now is the time to be experimenting when costs are much more reasonable than they are likely to be in the not-too-distant future. I can’t put a particular timeline on it- Yep but it is, is blatantly obvious that the cost of all of these tools is going to go up. Gini Dietrich: Yep … Chip Griffin: as it has with everything else. I mean, I remember the early days of the land grab of Google Ads, and I built an entire business on the back of really cheap Google ads in the early days. And those same ads that I got for pennies back twenty-five now are twenty dollars or more per click for the exact same search terms. And so the, these costs are going to increase. Now is the time to experiment and figure out what works and what doesn’t when the cost of failure is much lower. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right. Like, the cost of failure is lower. The risk to failure is lower. Like, it’s… And it’s actually fun. You know, I did an, a webinar for IABC last week, and I showed them the PESO Model diagnostic that we just launched, and people were like, “How did you do this?” And I’m like, “I vibe coded it.” Like, I did it. Right. I was like, “Here’s what I want. Here’s what I want it to do,” and it took two or three iterations for me to get it exactly right, and there will be a version two because now that I’m seeing people take it, I’m like, “Oh, okay, we should change that question or move this around.” Like, right? But I launched a version one out there just to see, and we’re getting data from it. I get all of the data, which is fantastic. I can see where people sit in the PESO Model maturity ladder. You don’t have to have a copyright like I have with the PESO Model. You can absolutely do… Like, we just vibe coded an ROI calculator for our lead nurturing program for, you know, prospects. Here’s an ROI calculator. Here’s the four things that we hear prospects say they have challenges with. Here’s how much we think it… Like, and you can move the numbers around, and you can toggle things. We vibe coded that. Right. We didn’t have to hire a developer for it. We did it internally, and it was super fun to work on as a team. So there’s so many things that you can do. Chip Griffin: That really there’s no shortage, and there are plenty of people out there who are sharing different ideas- Yes … and so the inspiration that you can take- Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes … Chip Griffin: from others is immense. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: But I, but I do worry that, you know, that this survey sort of reinforces what you and I have talked about which is that, that there’s not enough awareness and incentive apparently amongst agency owners to be pursuing these paths, and it does seem to be much more of a complacent attitude towards the use of AI in their businesses. I will say, it, I mean, at least it is… I was encouraged by the fact that agencies do not seem to be seeing clients calling up and saying, “Hey, we wanna cut your fee.” So that’s- Yep. Yeah, that’s good. Yep … that’s, that’s been a widespread fear- Yep … but it was- Yep … the, the data was quite clear that that is not something that is happening at least at the moment. We obviously don’t know whether clients are just deciding to do things on their own internally, and so, you know, maybe agencies are losing renewals or pitches to internal use of AI. Didn’t ask that question in particular. Maybe for a follow-up on somewhere down the road, that would be a good follow-up question. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But honestly, I was a little surprised that, that there didn’t seem to be any direct pricing pressure, at least from AI from clients. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I will, I mean, focus group of one, I will agree with that. One of the things that we are seeing is not pricing pressure, but we work with big companies, and going through procurement, which is always fun, the questions that we’re getting are, “How are you using AI? What environments do you use? How are you protecting our data? You know, how will you use this specific data?” So they, they ask those really specific questions, and we have to outline exactly what we’re going to do, and we can’t stray from that. So if something comes along six months from now that will improve it or make it better, we have to go back and revise sort of the AI policy that we’ve created with them with procurement. But that’s what we’re seeing so that it’s less about you should charge us less and more about we wanna know exactly what you’re doing with our information so that we can protect it, and we can firewall it and do all of the things that we need to do to make sure that it stays safe. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and the largest enterprise clients are always more worried about that stuff than anybody else. Of course. And so if- Of course … you know, as, as we’ve talked about before, if that’s a market you’re gonna play in, then you need to understand the impact not just on AI but other things. You need to price accordingly for that headache. And more importantly to your point about, you know, making sure that you don’t make a change six months from now that, that it violates the agreement, that, you know, it’s, it’s important that you have the infrastructure in place to manage those kinds of accounts. Which is, you know, these are all just more reasons why I would encourage most smaller agencies to steer clear of these because while they, they sound like great opportunities- … they come with a whole lot of extra headaches- Oh, yes … that you’re probably not- Gini Dietrich: Yes … Chip Griffin: thinking about. And if you’ve never had to experience it directly yourself, you have a, a real good chance of stepping in something somewhere along the way because you, you didn’t set up and you didn’t make sure that everything you do gets vetted by somebody who is familiar with the contract terms. Yeah. Which in a small agency is probably you, the owner, and do you- Yeah … really wanna be- Yep … filtering all of that kind of stuff? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Go ahead. Gini Dietrich: Oh, I was just gonna say, there’s also the, which we started to talk about, but 99, 98% are using AI in client work, 13% put it in contracts, 15% charge for it, 61% have no plans to charge, and you mentioned that 88% haven’t had a client ask for a discount. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I guess this is an area where I had less concern, honestly, because, I think that I, I’m not sure I would agree that agencies should be charging for AI explicitly. I think it should be creating new value that you can charge for. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: But I, you know, one of the reasons why I put that question in there was because I was actually a little concerned that agencies might be explicitly trying to charge- Gini Dietrich: Interesting Chip Griffin: for some of these AI tools, and I, and I think that you shouldn’t because to me that’s like, you know, charging specifically for a freelancer or something like that. You, you need to be in a position where you’re focused on what are you producing in terms of deliverables, results, et cetera, for the client, and not the mechanics of how you get there. Because if you get into the, the space where you’re charging for the tools or for the use of AI, it takes away some of your flexibility in the future- Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm … Chip Griffin: to either earn a greater profit or shift how you’re just doing things operationally or any of those kinds of things. So I’m actually not a fan of calling it out specifically, but it should create additional value for you- Yeah that you can charge for that. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: I, I don’t- my guess is that people looked at it as a more direct are you charging for AI itself, and- Yeah … and so I was actually happy that there wasn’t a lot of that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, I think if you think about using AI to create new service lines, to create new opportunities- And really, I’m, I’m sure that every single person listening to this has a list of things they’ve always wanted to do. Our ROI calculator’s a great example of that. The PESO model diagnostic is another one. Like, I have probably four pages in my notebook of things that I would love to try at some point. This makes it accessible. You can do it yourself. You don’t have to wait until you can hire a developer. You don’t have to wait if you wanna build an app. You don’t have to wait until you can afford to hire an app developer. You can actually do this on your own. Will it be perfect? Will it be, you know, as great as, as if you hired a developer? No. But taking it out there as a beta test or a version one, absolutely you can do that, and test it out and see if it works, see if your idea has legs and has merit. And then use that to generate some income that then eventually you would hire a professional to help you repackage it and make it beautiful. Chip Griffin: Yeah, because I mean, you know, a lot of people are vibe coding apps and that kind of thing, and, and it is, it’s great that it gets you there, and it’s great that it, it’s causing you to expand your horizons. I think people do need to keep in mind that maintaining these applications over time- Yeah … requires a little bit more effort than- Yeah … than I think some people realize. Yeah … I’ve seen plenty of people vibe code these apps and be like, “Oh, cool. We’re all done.” Well, yeah, but if you’re gonna have a lot of users on it over time, there are gonna be hiccups. People are gonna do things that, that you don’t imagine. So if it’s something simple- Gini Dietrich: And I saw on Reddit yesterday that somebody had vibe coded an app and, and took it to, like, 40 people to beta test it, and it worked so well that it was costing him a significant amount of money- Yeah … to keep it going and he was like, “I don’t know what to do.” So there are those pieces of it, too, but I think just experimenting with some of your ideas, AI can help you do that for sure. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and if you can get to the proof of concept stage, that at least opens the door- Yeah … for you to, to begin to think through a rational business model for it. But you know, you, if you don’t even experiment, then you’re never gonna have that opportunity. And that brings us to the last point that I wanted to raise from the survey, which is this, the disconnect between how owners perceive their own capabilities with AI and their team’s capabilities- Mm-hmm … with AI. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: And owners, their optimism, extends very much to themselves, and they see them as at the – themselves as at the leading edge of AI, with their teams lagging behind. Not incompetent or inept or anything like that, but it was, I think it was 84% of owners rated themselves as moderately or very knowledgeable about AI, and 61% of their team as the same. So obviously a meaningful difference between those two. I think that, that 84% is extraordinarily generous scoring for the owners in terms of their knowledge of AI because I have conversations with a lot of owners. I would describe very, very few as very knowledgeable- And a small percentage as moderately knowledgeable. I think slightly knowledgeable is where I would put more- Gini Dietrich: Yes, I would agree with that … Chip Griffin: at least if we’re not grading on a curve. If we’re, if we’re grading on, you know, comparison to other similar professionals, I, I just don’t see small agencies as a place where AI today, at least, is thriving. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I totally agree with that, and like you, I mean, I’m not so much in the coaching business anymore, but I have lots and lots and lots of friends who run agencies, and same thing. Like, it’s… I would say it’s slightly knowledgeable. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, but I do agree that probably many of their teams lag behind them because the teams don’t have the time. The owner isn’t making the investment in them in terms of time- Yep … or products or services. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so if you want to see that change in your agency, you know, you do need to drive that. You do need to encourage your team to be using more of these things. I mean, I… One of the numbers that did concern me was, I think half of the owners said that one of their biggest concerns with AI was their team’s over-reliance on AI. I am not seeing any evidence anywhere of over-reliance on AI by any agency employee. Gini Dietrich: Oh, I do. Chip Griffin: Over-reliance? Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Okay. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Do tell. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. My own team. Sometimes I’m like, you guys- Chip Griffin: And I suppose part of this is how you define over-reliance. Gini Dietrich: Let’s not use AI for everything. You gotta actually use your brain. Chip Griffin: Fair enough. Mm-hmm. I guess, yeah, I, I guess to me, in the use cases that I see, with most agencies, it’s not relying on the AI enough and less so over-reliance, but I’m sure there are cases. Gini Dietrich: It is over-reliance in my organization for sure. Chip Griffin: Okay. That is good to know. So in any case, lots of room for agencies to continue to improve on AI, but happy that, that there is this optimism. I, I much prefer this to… I, you know, I when I put this survey out, I wasn’t sure if it was gonna be just all fear and doom and gloom and oh my God, you know- Yeah, sure … what is AI gonna do to my business? Yeah. ‘Cause you hear a lot of that- Mm-hmm … you know, when you’re talking with- Mm-hmm … agency owners. But for the most part, it doesn’t seem to be the case. It, it does… I think there are certainly pockets of over-optimism to a degree that, that needs to be addressed, and there needs to be more experimentation, more innovation, more investment and all of those things if agencies are really going to thrive with AI in the future. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I totally agree. Chip Griffin: So with that, that will wrap up this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Howard Penrose of MotorDoc joins to discuss current signature analysis, uptower circulating currents wrecking main bearings, and full drivetrain scans in minutes. Reach out at info@motordoc.com or on LinkedIn. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Howard Penrose: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Howard, welcome back to the program.  Howard Penrose: Hey, thanks for having me.  Allen Hall: It’s about time everybody realizes what motorDoc can do. There’s so much technology, and I’ve been watching- Yeah … your Chaos and Caffeine podcast on Saturday morning, which are full of really, really good information about the motorDoc as a company, all the things you’re doing out in the field, and how you’re solving real-world problems, not imaginary ones- Yeah real-world problems. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and  Howard Penrose: whatever annoys me that week. Exactly. And, and whatever great coffee I’m trying out. Yes. Except for a few. We’ve had the ReliaSquatch down our- Yes … um, a couple of times. Uh, yeah, no, I, I enjoy it, and we gotta get you on there sometime. I don’t do- I, it- … a lot of interviews other than an AI character we put in. Allen Hall: It’s a very interesting show because you’re [00:01:00] getting a little bit of comedy and humor and s- Yeah … and a, and a coffee review, which is very helpful because I’ve tried some of the coffees that you have reviewed, that you’ve given the thumbs up to. But if you’re operating wind turbines and you’re trying to understand what’s happening on the drivetrain side, on the generator, everything out to the blades even, main bearings, gearboxes- Yeah all those rotating heavy, expensive parts, there’s a lot of ways to diagnose them-  Howard Penrose: Yes …  Allen Hall: that are sort of like we can look at a gear, we can look at a joint, we can look at roller bearings, whatever, but motorDoc has a way to quickly diagnose all of that chain in about- Yeah … 15 seconds.  Howard Penrose: Well, a little longer than 15 sec- more like a minute. A minute, okay. It feels like paint drying. But- Uh, in any case, yeah. Uh, uh, and, and what’s kind of funny is, um, back in the ’90s, uh, EPRI actually accidentally steered the technology away from its [00:02:00] core purpose, which was in 1985, um, NAVSEA, the US Navy, had done research on using current signature analysis for looking at pumps, fans, and compressors, the bearings, the belts, the components, all the rotating components using the motor as the sensor. Not too much different than we are now. I mean, mind you, we got better resolution now, we’ve got, uh, more powerful– I mean, I look at my data from the ’90s, and now it’s completely different. Um, and then Oak Ridge National Lab, same thing, bearings and gears in motor-operated valves. So in 2003, we were the first ones to apply electrical and current signature analysis to some wind turbines in the Mojave Desert. Wow. Yeah. So, um, nobody had tried it before. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. And, uh, that was a bad thing to say to me because- … it meant I was gonna get it [00:03:00] done. Right. At that time, um, we were looking at bearing issues and some blatant conditions with the, um, with the, uh, generator using a technology called Altest, ’cause I was with Altest at the time. And, uh, I had taken an EMPath software and blended it with a, a power analyzer, and they still have that tool to this day. I was using that technology all the way through 2015. 2016, I should say. And then- And then switched over to the pure EMPath, which was more of an engineering tool. And then more recently, in 2022, uh, made the decision to ha- to take all the work we’d done on over 6,000 turbines, uh, looking at how we were looking at the data and what we were doing on the industrial side, and took a, uh, created a current signature analyzer that would do one phase of current to analyze the entire powertrain. Allen Hall: So when you tell [00:04:00] operators you can do this magic, I think a lotta times they gotta go, “ Howard Penrose: What?” Oh, yeah, yeah. They don’t understand it because they’re used to vibration- Right … which is a point analysis system. Right.  Allen Hall: Vibration at this- Yeah … particular location. Yeah. One spot- Even if it’s- … or a couple  Howard Penrose: spots triax, they’re reading through material, up through a transducer. Hopefully, they put it above the bearing and not in the middle of the machine like everybody is now, because everybody’s trying to sell a sensor. Right. True. They’re not selling a- they’re not selling accuracy. They’re just selling sensors. Right. So, um- Yeah … you know, uh, I, I’ll, I’ll even talk about one of the companies here. We’ve got Onyx here, and they do it right. I mean, they’ve been doing it right pretty well because we’ve been doing some of the same towers they’re on, and we can match the data they’re getting. Oh, good. Right? Yeah. Uh, so but they get it in multiple spots, and there’s areas they can’t quite reach, so we’ll detect those areas as well. So it’s a good melding of two technologies.  Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Sure,  Howard Penrose: sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you have electrical signature and you have vibration, but in [00:05:00] cases if you don’t have vibration, we’re a direct replacement.  Allen Hall: Because the generator- I  Howard Penrose: dare say that.  Allen Hall: Yeah. Whichever–  Howard Penrose: I dare say that, um, with- Well, the  Allen Hall: generator is acting as the sensor. Howard Penrose: The air gap. The air gap in the generator s- specifically, yes. Yeah. Generator, motor, transformer. Right.  Allen Hall: Yeah. So any of those- Mm-hmm … you can clamp onto, look at the current that’s on there. Everything that’s happening on the drivetrain, in the gearbox, out on the rotor- Yep … main bearings, all of that creates vibration. Creates a torque. T- a, a torque. Yeah. Yes, more exactly a torque. Yeah. And that’s seen in the generator, in the current coming out of the generator. Yes. So those signals, although minute, are still there. Yes. So if you clamp onto that current coming out of the generator, you’ll see the typical AC sine wave sitting there. But on top of that- Is all the information about how that drivetrain is doing  Howard Penrose: Absolutely, and everything else. Anything electrical comes through [00:06:00] that. So what you do is just like vibration, you do a spectral analysis. So every component has a frequency associated with it, just like vibration. It’s, as a matter of fact, I, I keep having to try to explain to people electrical and current signature analysis is no different than vibration analysis. It’s the same concept. We use the same tools. The signature looks just a little different. It’s a little noisier, um, but you need that noise in order to see everything. But we have a time waveform, and instead of, um, inches per second or millimeters per second, whatever, you know, uh, velocity, acceleration, and displacement, uh, what we end up with is decibels is the optimal method. You can look at straight voltage signatures at those points or, or current signatures, but the values are so small that you have to look at it from a logarithmic standpoint. Right. There are some benefits to it versus vibration, and there’s some things that aren’t as good as vibration. [00:07:00] So, you know, we, we do… You have to… Any technology is gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure. So we will see everything all at once. Load doesn’t matter. Right. Speed doesn’t matter. It’s… Only reason speed matters is the location of the frequencies. Uh, so the higher the resolution, meaning the longer you take data, the less chance you have on a lightly lo- loaded machine of blending the peaks together. Right. Um, on the flip side, if I have two bearings turning at the exact same speed, I couldn’t tell you which one it is. Because they’re the same. Right.  Allen Hall: And the mechanical features of that bearing is w- what creates the signal that you’re measuring. Exactly. So if a bearing has five rollers versus 10, just imaginary thing. Yeah, yeah. Five rollers versus 10 has a different electrical signature, so you can determine, like, that bearing, that 10 roller bearing- Yes … has the problem, the five is fine. Yes. Yeah. That’s the magic, and I think people don’t translate the mechanical world into the electrical world. That that’s what’s [00:08:00]happening. They,  Howard Penrose: they don’t because, because what’s happening is they named it wrong.  Allen Hall: Yes.  Howard Penrose: A majority of our users are mechanical folks. Sure. Our vibration analysts and stuff like, ’cause they know how to look at the signatures. Right. Everybody tries to force it on their electrical people, and electrical people go, “We don’t know what this is.” Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s a matter of that training and, and, you know, in the electrical world, you’re not taught to look at that. Right. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Mechanical world, you’re taught to look at that. So our intern, we were trying to bring in electrical engineering interns and found out that just wasn’t working. So last year, I brought in my first, uh, intern that’s, you know, he’s been with us now since I brought him in. Okay. Uh, and, uh, Amar, and, uh, you know, he’s helped us develop our vi- uh, vibration software to go along with it. Guess what? It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same sy- system Um, but we just take in a vibration signal instead. But he picked up on it immediately as a [00:09:00] third-year college student. I can take somebody with a decade as an electrical engineer with a PhD and they can’t figure it out.  Allen Hall: Well, because you’re, you’re taking real- Because it’s different. Yeah. It’s r- well, it’s real-world components-  Howard Penrose: Yeah …  Allen Hall: creating electrical signals. That’s hard- Well, you have- … to process for a lot of people. Yeah,  Howard Penrose: yeah. It’s  Allen Hall: just not  Howard Penrose: something that we do every day. But that’s… If they, i- if we sa- i- i- if you’re looking at vibration and you start looking at the sensor, it gets complicated too, ’cause guess what? It’s an electrical signal. Right. It’s, it is technically electrical signature now. It’s converting a  Allen Hall: mechanical signal- Right … into an electrical signal, which is what’s happening in the generator anyway. Yeah.  Howard Penrose: Whether it’s a piezoelectric cell that’s generating a small signal- Yeah … on top of a small waveform that you then take out, you demodulate, uh, or it’s, uh… So you take that carrier frequency out, or it’s a MEMS sensor, which is the same thing. You know, the, it just sees some slower s- It, it does more of a digital output. So you, you, you know, you have those, or you [00:10:00] have this, which just basically uses a component of the machine to, to, as its own sensor. There is one other difference between them, too, and, uh, I find this very useful when I’m going out troubleshooting something that other people can’t figure out, uh, ’cause we use all the technologies. So in this case, it would be, uh, the structural movement. Okay? So, so say I have a generator and there’s something wrong with the structure, and the whole machine is vibrating. So y- well, if I put a transducer on it, they might think that’s vibration or something else. We don’t see it. Right. We only see directly exactly what’s happening with the machine. Sure. So a lot of times when we go in to troubleshoot something that people have done vibration on and everything else, it’s been pro- a, a problem for them for years. We walk in, and all of a sudden we’re identifying whether it’s the machine or it’s something else right off the bat. Then we can take a look at the vibration data and [00:11:00] say, “Okay, it wasn’t the bearing or the bearing, um, structure. It was, you know, the mounting.” Right. It wasn’t  Allen Hall: fastened  Howard Penrose: down properly. Yeah,  Allen Hall: yeah. Right.  Howard Penrose: Go tighten that bolt. Right, exactly.  Allen Hall: Well, I mean, that’s the cheap answer. Yeah. I’d rather tighten a bolt than rip apart a motor or a generator- And, and- … every day …  Howard Penrose: and that’s the whole point. Now, there are other strengths that go with it. So for instance, on the powertrain of a wind turbine, I can tell you if you’ve lubricated the bearings correctly. Wow. Because part of what we do is we do take those electrical signatures, and we convert those over to watts. Watts is an energy conversion. Sure. So you see that as heat or some type of loss. So whatever, whatever’s being lost there is not being sent to the customer. To the outside. Right. Making money. So, um, if I’m taking a look at, say, a main bearing, I might see watts or kilowatts of losses. So you’re gonna have some ’cause you have friction, right? But when we see it increase on, say, a roller, [00:12:00] or the rollers, or, or the cage, that’s usually an indicator that I have a lubrication issue. Or if we only see it on the outer race, that means that they didn’t clear out all the old grease when they were lubricating it, ’cause the rollers then have to ride across it- Right … ’cause it dries up.  Allen Hall: Sure.  Howard Penrose: Uh, and will carry contaminants. So if you see that, you go up, clean it up, you’ll extend the life of the bearing. Absolutely you will. Without having to do a lot of work. So, uh, we, we look at our technology as more so early in the, in the stage of a condition. I don’t wanna call it failure, ’cause it’s not a failure. It’s something that’s mitigable. And I made that word up. You can mitigate it. Meaning you can go up and correct it and extend the life of that component. Sure. Uh, in gearboxes we’ll see problems with, um… Well, the, the one we’re talking about here a fair amount is all the circulating currents going on uptower. We did that research. The current signature analyzer we have is a direct result of doing wind turbine [00:13:00] research just on circulating currents uptower, ’cause we conferred everything over to, to sound at 48 kilohertz. And so that gives me a 24-kilohertz signal. That high-frequency stuff, which we’re researching in CGRE, and IEEE, and IEC, is called supra harmonics, which I– we talked about that before. Yes, we have. Yeah. And, uh, so when you start seeing that in the, in, in the current that’s circulating uptower because the ground that goes from the top of the tower down is for- DC lightning protection. And lightning protection, yeah. It’s not meant for, um- Not for  Allen Hall: high frequency- Yeah …  Howard Penrose: currents. Yeah. Uh, we, when we measured it, when we mapped out dozens of towers of all different manufacturers, we found that the impedance about halfway down the tower is where it ends. Sure. The, the resistance. And then the increased, uh, the high-frequency noise turns any of your shaft brushes into resistors. And at about 15 kilohertz, no current is [00:14:00]passing through them. It’s all passing the bearing, which becomes more conductive the higher the frequency. So with 60% of main bearings failing due to electrical currents, it’s actually currents that are circulating uptower. It’s not static. There is some static up there, but it’s not static. It’s coming from the controls, the, the generator, and everything else. Inverters,  Allen Hall: converters.  Howard Penrose: And we’ve seen up to 150 amps passing through a, through a bearing.  Allen Hall: So I– We run across a lot of operators who have been replacing main bearings, and they don’t know the reason why. Yeah. And I always say, “Well, call Howard at MotorDoc because I would almost bet you you have the f- high frequency running around uptower in the nacelle- And the next main bearing you put in there is gonna go the same way as the- Yeah … first one you put in there. Until you cut off that circulating current and then the cell, you’re just gonna continue with the problem. Then you haven’t eliminated the problem, you’re just fixing the result of that problem. Yes. But it takes- Yeah, you’re, you’re- How, [00:15:00] how, well, how long- You’re replacing  Howard Penrose: a fuse.  Allen Hall: Right, you’re replacing a fuse. Yeah. How long does it take you to s- to determine- An expensive fuse. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, ’cause you’re taking the rotor down. Yeah. Well, how, how fast can you determine if you have harmonics uptower that are gonna be causing you problems? 120 seconds.  Howard Penrose: Okay.  Allen Hall: So that’s the thing. I think a lot of- I mean,  Howard Penrose: that’s of the actual data collection time. So you clamp on uptower, uh, and then you can… Well, the way we have it set up now, you just tell it you wanna collect data every five s- uh, five minutes, and then you go downtower, let it collect its data, go back up, grab it. Um, it’s like… It’s huge. It’s this size. So, um, and then you connect- It plugs into a laptop. Yeah. Plug it into a laptop or any type of tablet. Um, it, it’s Windows now. I’m trying to get away from Windows. We’re gonna have Linux systems, uh, as well. Uh, and then you use that to, um, just collect that data, and then you press another button. Now it pops up, and it tells you if you’re in danger or not, [00:16:00] the amount of current passing through the bearing, and the frequencies all the way out.  Allen Hall: So the ideal is you’re gonna have this kit with you in the truck. Yeah. And as you see these problems pop up, you’re gonna clamp on uptower. Yep. You’re gonna measure these circulating currents, and you’re gonna know immediately if you have another mechanical issue, a, a lubrication issue- Oh, yeah. It’ll look at- … some kind of alignment issue, or- You’ll get all  Howard Penrose: of this information at once. So you- Right … if you go on the power side. So certain turbines, like anything that has the transformer downtower, you don’t have to climb. Right. GE. I mean, I don’t climb. So, uh, uh, you know, th- and that was part of the, the concept behind when we started down this path because I’ve been in the wind industry since 1997. So one of the things I always saw was, and, and we talked about even, you know, here when it was called AWEA, and we were talking always on the health and safety side about wearing out the technicians. Um, so we discovered that, you know, what was it? Almost 60% of the [00:17:00] turbines you didn’t have to climb. Right. Oh, yeah. And even the ones you do, you go up, you set it up, and it’ll tell you where you need to focus. The other thing in the powertrain, let alone the generator, when we do a sweep of a site– Now, if we do a straight electrical signature analysis, I’d term that one as a technician’s tool. Sure. That’s more of an engineer’s tool. Uh, a lot more data, a lot harder to set up. But even though I’m saying harder to set up, it’s still pretty easy. It’s still minutes. Right. Yeah. Most technicians will collect data with, like, a couple hours worth of training. Yeah. You g- You basically gather that data, and if you’re getting a site, so we’ll go out– I love going out in the field. So we’ll go out in the field, especially if it’s a tower we don’t have to climb I’ll knock out, uh, well, let’s just say I’ll, I’ll, I’ll name one. Say a GE 1.6. I’ll knock out one of those every eight to 11 minutes, depending on how you get to the tower.  Allen Hall: So that’s a full diagnosis of drivetrain- Yeah … plus anything odd happening- Yep with circulating currents and all that [00:18:00] can- Oh, no, no. Circulating- Or just- … current, that’s a- That’s a separate thing at tower … separate study that- Okay … you have to do that uptower. But anything, anything drivetrain-wise, you can be in and out- Yeah … in a couple of minutes. Yep. Okay. So there’s a lot of operators that have end-of-warranties coming up, right? Yes. There’s been a lot of developments, so they’re kind of running into the end-of-warranty, and they don’t know the health status of their drivetrain. Same thing for a lot of operators that are in- Yep … full service agreements, and they’re questioning whether they’re getting their money’s worth or not. Yes. I always say, “Call Howard at Motordoc. You guys can have a whole site survey done maybe in a couple of days, and you will know all the problems that are on site for the lowest price ever”. Yeah. It’s crazy how fast you can do it and how accurate it is. I talk to operators that use your system, so I hear you. Yeah. Your podcast, listen to your podcast, I’m calling your customers to find out what they say, and they love it. Oh, yeah. They can’t believe how accurate it is. Yeah. Well, the thing about that is we as an industry need to make sure that our turbines are operating at [00:19:00] maximum efficiency. Yep. And if a simple tool like the Motordoc EMPath system exists, we need to get customers, operators in line to start doing it worldwide. Australia- Oh … Europe-  Howard Penrose: Yeah. We- … Canada. Australia, we’re trying to get into, but right now we even have OEMs using it through North- That’s good … and South America, Asia. Good. Uh, Middle East, um, and, uh, and some of Europe. Good. So it’s, it’s, it’s really taking off. Uh, I’d say probably our biggest market right now is Brazil. Sure. They’re going crazy. Well, the, the turbines are- They’re having a lot of problems. Yeah.  Allen Hall: Right. And the, well, those turbines have a h- high usage, right? So because- Oh, yeah … the winds are so good, they’re operating at, like, capacity factor is above 50%. Yes. It’s insane. Yeah. So there’s a lot of wear and tear. There’s no downtime for those turbines.  Howard Penrose: Yeah. Well, and, and people think it’s all the starting and stopping. It’s not. No. It’s a grid-related issue. So we have- Sure … we have a low frequency. And you know some of the stuff I volun- I, I’m, I’ve been volunteered for- [00:20:00] Yeah … uh, including the CIGRE thing. Um, so I get to sit in the grid code committees for IEEE and put my, and our input into that, uh, and kind of watch the back of the IBR industry, right? Mm-hmm. ‘Cause there’s a definitely bias against our industry. Um, and I also, uh, get to hear what’s going on in the grid side of things from CIGRE worldwide, and it’s all very similar, and it has to do with low-frequency oscillating currents- Yes … called subsynchronous currents- Yes … which are low enough not to damage large synchronous machines. And they thought, and there’s books written on this, by the way, multiple books written on wind turbine impact- Uh, and they’re seeing now, um… Well, we detected it first, along with Timken. Hank, uh, and, and I went out to a site, and we detected for the first time, because of how they wanna do the testing and where the site was located, we saw the oscillating torque [00:21:00] in the air gap, ’cause that’s one of the things the technology does. It actually measures the torque, air gap torque. Sure. So we were watching the oscillating torque as a tower started up. And so we did, we went through the rest of that site looking at the same stuff in the same way. It increased our time and data collection, and time on site. But then we started looking for it at other sites, and going to pass data because I don’t have to go back and retake data. Right. And we’re like, “Oh my God. It’s everywhere.” 16 hertz, 21 hertz, and 50 hertz. And we found a paper that specifically identified that as the sub synchronous frequencies for 60 hertz. So we know what they are also for 50 hertz. Once we identified that and we saw how much the torsi- torque was oscillating, we worked with Shermco, who got us some information on Y-rings that were failing. Yeah. And they were all failing… When the metallurgy was done, they were all failing from fatigue. And you’re like, fatigue how? What’s fatiguing these connections? [00:22:00] Well, the fatigue is that air gap torque- Exactly … because you’re basically causing the, the, everything to oscillate a little bit, and that causes the windings to move slightly. It’s a living,  Allen Hall: breathing machine-  Howard Penrose: Exactly … this generator  Allen Hall: is.  Howard Penrose: Yeah.  Allen Hall: It’s not  Howard Penrose: static. It’s definitely not sta- no electric machine is static. No. Even a transformer’s not static. Right.  Allen Hall: So- There’s a little  Howard Penrose: bit of wiggle going on there all the time All the time. And it’s minute, so it takes a long time. Right. And what, uh, uh, everybody… Well, first people thought it was a particular manufacturer, which it wasn’t. Turned out every defig’s failing the same way. Sure. You’re fatiguing it. Yeah. Every bearing is failing the same way, even in the gearbox, main bearings, and everything else. Right. All of these conditions are happening across all the OEMs, but they’re not allowed to talk. Well, this is, this is the thing that  Allen Hall: I like watching your podcast.  Howard Penrose: Yeah.  Allen Hall: The Chaos and Caffeine. It comes out Saturday mornings. It’s on YouTube. If you haven’t- Yeah … clicked into it, you should click into it  Howard Penrose: because a lot of these issues are discussed there. It’s definitely, um… [00:23:00] Let’s just say I’ll speak Navy quite a bit. Allen Hall: It’s a great podcast, and I think what you’re doing with the EMPath system- Yes … at motor dock is really a game changer. Yeah. I’m talking to everybody, all the operators I know. I keep telling them to call you and to try the system out because it’s so inexpensive and it does the work quickly and efficiently, and it’s been proven. There’s no messing- Oh, yeah … around when you’re talking to MotorDoc. I…  Howard Penrose: Somebody dared tell me that there’s no standard for it. There’s ISO standards for it. Yes. There’s IEEE 1415- Yes … which I chair. Uh, and there’s other standards coming out- This is- … associated with it. And there’s a document that I also chair for Sea Gray- Called A178, which is the practical application of the technology. So it’s well-documented. There are traceable standards for it. I need more  Allen Hall: operators to call you- Yeah … and to talk to you and get systems in the back of the trucks that they can use to check out the health of their gear boxes and their drive trains and their generators. How [00:24:00] do they do that? Where do they go? Where, where’s, what’s- Well- … the first place they should look for?  Howard Penrose: Uh, info@motordoc.com. Okay. I get all, I get all of those as well, so do my people. Um, or, uh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s really good.  Allen Hall: Look up anything. Yeah.  Howard Penrose: Yeah, yeah. So, so either the company at Motordoc, or, uh, I’m, I sh- I’ll show up either searching for my name or, uh, linkedin.com/in/motordoc. Come straight to me ’cause I’ve been in, on LinkedIn forever, so- Right, just- … I got to do that … look up  Allen Hall: Howard Penrose, P-E-N-R-O-S-E. Yep. Or go to motordoc.com is- Yep, motordoc.com … the website address.  Howard Penrose: Yep. There’s a lot of great information there. And we have partners, and we have people. We’re growing the company. You know, talk to me. I, I’ll- Yes … I like answering the phone and talking. It’s, it’s a thing. My people go, “Can we answer the phone one?” No. Um, but, but yeah, we, we, y- when you call us, you’re not just dealing with a single person. Right. The Motordoc is far more expansive. Right now, we [00:25:00] just got our partnership with, uh, Hitachi and, and Juliet- Yeah, that’s great and stuff like that. Uh, we’re helping them with certain things. Uh, we’re partnered with some of the big OEMs, almost all of them, um, you know, helping identify the issues, you know. And, and when users contact us, often they’ll tell us what’s going on, and we’ll, we can, uh, sometimes say, “Yeah, it’s this, and here’s how we prove it.” Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the beauty- Yeah … of calling Motordoc. So I need my operators that, that watch the show- Yeah … worldwide, go online, go on LinkedIn, get ahold of Howard, get ahold of Motordoc, and get started. Yep. Howard, thank you- And- … so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. This is fantastic. I love talking to you because- it’s, it’s like talking to, you know… Uh, no, really, it’s talking like someone who’s a real good industry expert, who’s been there a long time, and understands- Yeah … how this  [00:26:00] works.

This week on The Food Professor Podcast, our interview is recorded live at SIAL Canada 2026 in Montreal. Michael LeBlanc welcomes one of the most influential executives in global consumer packaged goods: Jessica C. Adelman, Mars Snacking North America. Fresh off Mars' massive $36 billion acquisition of Kellanova, Adelman offers a rare inside look at the strategic thinking behind one of the largest CPG transactions in history. She explains how Mars — now a $86+ billion privately held global powerhouse operating across more than 80 countries — is reshaping itself into a modern snacking giant with iconic brands spanning M&M's, Snickers, Skittles, Pringles, Pop-Tarts, Cheez-It, and more. The conversation dives deep into how large food companies are navigating a radically different operating environment shaped by geopolitical volatility, inflation, climate pressures, AI disruption, and changing consumer behaviour. Adelman shares Mars' approach to resilience, reputation management, and long-term strategic planning in an era where business shocks arrive faster and harder than ever before. She also discusses why Mars continues investing heavily in North American manufacturing, including a recent $180 million investment across Ontario facilities. Michael and Jessica explore the transformative impact of AI across food retail and supply chains, from reducing food waste and optimizing logistics to enabling consumer discovery and personalization. They also examine how GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are changing eating habits, portion sizes, and snack consumption patterns — a growing issue every major food manufacturer is now monitoring closely. The interview also touches on sustainability, food system resilience, consumer affordability, and the evolving role of global brands in helping consumers balance value, convenience, nutrition, and enjoyment. Throughout the discussion, Adelman offers a thoughtful perspective on leadership, agility, and why companies must move beyond simply “playing the hits” to remain relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace. But first, Michael and Sylvain Charlebois tackle another packed week in food and agriculture news. The hosts debate Ontario's emerging “6% milk” trend, the accelerating adoption of GLP-1 drugs across Canada thanks to the launch of a generic pill format, and renewed calls (along with the history and original objectives) to overhaul Canada's confusing best-before date system to combat food waste and improve affordability. They also discuss food theft and organized crime concerns in grocery retail, mounting pressure on Atlantic Canada's oyster industry, mushroom trade tensions with the United States, the definition of food deserts in urban Canada, and the critical importance of grain infrastructure in Atlantic Canada and a world awash in Bourbon. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

“ทำอย่างไรให้ ‘เขา' อยู่กับเราได้นานที่สุด?” คำถามกินใจที่กลายเป็นจุดเปลี่ยนสำคัญของเหล่า Pet Parents จนเกิดเป็นเมกะเทรนด์ระดับโลกในปี 2026 อย่าง ‘Pet Longevity' โดยรายการพอดแคสต์ MM นี้จะพาทุกคนไปสำรวจเทรนด์ใหม่อย่าง ‘Pet Longevity' ที่ไม่ได้นิยามแค่การอิ่มท้อง แต่ยังครอบคลุมการดูแลตั้งแต่โภชนาการอาหารไปจนถึงคุณภาพชีวิต เพื่อยืดเวลาความสุขของเรากับสัตว์เลี้ยงให้ยาวนานยิ่งขึ้น . ร่วมพูดคุยกับ ‘คุณกิตินนท์ วังพัฒนมงคล' กรรมการผู้จัดการ บริษัท ไฮคิว ผลิตภัณฑ์อาหาร จำกัด และตัวแทนของ Felina Canino แบรนด์อาหารสัตว์ระดับพรีเมียมที่ยืนหยัดเรื่องคุณภาพวัตถุดิบมาอย่างยาวนาน . Mission To The Moon X Felina Canino . #PetLongevity #FelinaCanino  #RealMeatPremiumCut #missiontothemoon #missiontothemoonpodcast 

Summit 2026 was all about scaling leadership and growing profit in your dental practice, and Kiera and Tiff are here to revisit the highlights. They discuss understanding where your time goes, what it looks like when you need a priority realignment, controlling reasons versus the results, implementing the yes model, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a really exciting day. I got the one and only Spiffy Tiffy on the podcast with me and we're here to do a really exciting podcast. Tiff, how you doing over there today? Excited?   Tiff (00:12) Hi, I'm so excited. We have not podcasted in far too long. Like our schedule's just, it's hard. It's weird because we never see each other. So it's super weird. I know.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:19) I know, but we did just see each other in person, was   honestly the reason we're podcasting today. But did you miss a little bit? I mean, I had thought during that time where we were testing all the sound forever that we should just bust it out and podcast right then and there. Like, let's just do it.   Tiff (00:38) my gosh. Well, last   year at that same time, we busted it out and we did a podcast on the mountains. So it would have been effective, but instead we had a dance party and karaoke.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:43) I know. I know.   We did. And what we're referring to is if you missed summit 2026 with the Dental A Team, you missed out. Tiff and I got together in person, which was a blast. Like I said, Tiff and I used to hang out all the time and Tiff, think like the future life of you and me, that sounds funny. I think that's almost a TV show. I think we need to just like schedule in where we hang out more, not for work. Like I'm coming to Arizona soon. You came out to Reno. We got to just hang out. So, but yeah, we just, were together in person for summit 2026 and   This year's theme and topic was scaling leadership and growing profit in your dental practice. And I think, we just had a good time. what we were alluding to was, ⁓ luckily, I don't think people know, but the day before summit, Tiff and I sat there for what? Eight, nine hours trying to get the cameras and the audio. I have done this. That was summit number six. So Sexy Six is what we did. Tiff, we've done them six together. Like that's a pretty incredible, incredible run.   Tiff (01:37) Yes.   That's wild.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (01:48) but Tiff and I literally sat there. If you saw the reel on Insta, Tiff and I were sitting there doing karaoke. We were dancing. We were doing a talent show like cartwheels, backwards somersaults, handstands, headstands, things that I don't think either of us had done since we were probably like 15. But you know, Tiff, we didn't get to experience that part of life together. So we had to bust that out together. Right.   Tiff (02:08) True. That's fair, that's fair. That was a good assessment,   Kiera Good assessment.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (02:13) Well, it was a really fun time. And I think Tiff, it just reminded me of why I doing this with you. ⁓ I think when we get in person, there's just magic. And so when we put together the summit, I think something people don't really realize is Tiff and I, we don't practice. Like we've got our decks and we've reviewed it, but a lot of the magic just happens because we love helping people. love changing lives. I love watching Tiff in real time do half of my like crazy experiments. Like it's been since the beginning of time that I'm like, all right, Tiff.   I'm not going to tell you in real time, you're going to do this. And I think that that's what makes Summit so special is it's, it's you and me, Tiff, doing it in real time. And the consultants are on the chat, like she definitely carried us quite a bit this year, but we kind of, for those of you who might've missed or those of you who did join, Tiffanie kind of wanted to just do a little highlight reel of some of the key takeaways from Summit that we were able to have. And Tiff, think like probably my favorite part is always the beginning part. ⁓   Tiff (02:54) I'm tired.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (03:09) I mean, it's probably because it's the beginning part. And we talked a lot about how like your business can't outgrow your leadership. And we talked so much about this leadership and Tiff, I know leadership is such a passion for you. within that leadership realm, we talked so much about how like you as a person are the most important piece. And I think a lot of people forget that. And I think that that sometimes like driving home piece of summit that I love to highlight. I know you love to highlight, let's kind of rift on that beginning part, the you part, the leadership part, all of that in that yes success formula that we've.   We talked heavily about at summit this year.   Tiff (03:40) Yeah, and I think, Carrie, you said something there. You said, I love leadership. And immediately, I thought, I do love leadership, but I love leadership because leadership focuses so heavily on the actual person, who they are, how they show up, and how they create the culture that everybody wants to be a part of. So when you say, I love leadership, and then you let it in too, and then them. That's why I love leadership, and that's why I love working with leaders and CEOs. So a CEO dentist and then.   the leaders of the practice, but really those leaders come down to people who are inspired by growth, who are ready to take on the next level and who want to give something back to the world. And for me, inspiring those people, like double, triple, quadruple is the impact that we get to make. So that's why it's so cool to me. And so doing things like Summit where we do, like we do open up with who you are because you are the focus that   is required in order for anything else to work. so, yeah, leadership is a passion because people are a passion and I think both of us feel that way.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (04:47) Absolutely. Like we've said so many times, like life and people are our passion. Dentistry just happens to be the platform where we get to connect with all of you. And Tiff, as you said, that it really made me start thinking about like, what do you spend your time on? And I loved the little, this year we did an hourglass and Tiff, was fun for you to build the hourglass, right? Like where do we actually spend our time? I think it's something where so often as we're running and we're living our lives, we don't take the pause moment to see like,   I can say my family and my health and my business are the most important thing, but when I look at my calendar, when I look at these items, where is it really? And I actually loved the image of an hourglass because ⁓ maybe it was the birthday this year, Tiff, but like there was a moment this year where I was like, I could be halfway done with my life. And so in the hourglass, I feel like it's our time and it's, is it slipping away into the things that we value most? Is it slipping away into the things that we care about the most?   Is it slipping away to where I am, my 90 year old granny with cotton candy pink hair, who's freaking ripped Tiff. There's like another version of her that's come to the forefront. Like I gotta be ripped and like able to move. I can't just be like dead. Like that's been a new element added into this vision at the Villa. ⁓ But like, what is she gonna remember about this time of her life? And what would she wish that she prioritized more? And I think so often we can get stuck in this like the day, the urgent, the chaos. And I love that and Tiff,   This is a fun thing. had you go and build your little sand piece and build your hourglass. What were some of your thoughts like when you did that and doing it in real time and having offices do it in real time with us?   Tiff (06:22) Yeah, I think ⁓ first an hourglass always makes me think of ⁓ Aladdin. I think of Jasmine, right? And so when I think of the hourglass, I think of, yes, like, where am I spending my time and how much time is slipping by? But then I also think of the other side of that, where we're oftentimes consumed by our time. And so I think of Jasmine, like, and I hope everyone here knows the reference that I'm going for here, because I don't have a picture of it.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (06:28) Mm.   Mm.   Yeah, she's like trying to crawl out of that   stand. It's like suffocating her.   Tiff (06:50) Yeah, she's like in the sand   and it's suffocating her, right? So it's like falling on top of her. And that was what I went into that project with that day because I see an hourglass that's just my millennial mind thinks of Jasmine suffocating by the sand. And so for me, I went into it of like, what is suffocating me? Meaning what is taking my time that I'm not intentionally maybe devoting the time to? But I'm like,   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (07:02) .   Tiff (07:17) just letting it, like you said, slip by. And so I went into it with that kind of mind frame and it was really cool. We did it last year too and last year's was a little bit different and last year I forgot to put work on there. This year I did not. It was a fun exercise.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (07:29) It's okay, Tim. It was, I think you had to   block it out. Last year's work was crazy. I think it was like an immediate, like, I need to cut this out of my world, which is fair. And based on the year we lived, I don't blame you. So it felt good that it didn't monopolize. It wasn't home. Like, it's got to just go. We got to, and I don't blame you. It was year for us, for sure.   Tiff (07:40) I agree. It was like an omen.   Yeah,   yeah. But it made it, honestly, it made it intentional. Because no matter what it looks like, no matter how you do this exercise, it brings something to the surface. So last year, it brought that to the surface for me, where I was like, wow, that's wild. Like, why did that happen? Because I didn't intentionally leave it off. I didn't intentionally put it on there. So I don't ever go into it to try to do it right. I go into it to just try to do it.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (08:15) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Tiff (08:15) And especially with your boss standing next to you, like, was like, well, shoot,   cares like you got something to tell me, then tell me. But it was, it brought something to light. And this year felt much calmer doing it. It felt much more ⁓ intentional, I guess, is like the best word I can align. think aligned is my word this year. And so it did feel more aligned and like, there was more intentionality put behind things. And the point of that is wherever you are today is where you are. And being able to see.   where you want to spend time and what your priorities are, is your time spent in alignment with what you say your priorities are? And I love that you always explain, it doesn't mean that it's gonna be equal parts, right? Work, like I work more hours during the day, four and a half days a week, than I do like awake with my family, right? But the...   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (09:11) Mm-hmm.   Tiff (09:12) intentionality behind it of how it's not like to me when I go into that it's not the actual physical hours that I'm spending in those things it's the emotional time I guess the emotional you you know your your what is it that you call it then ROI on your time right are your emotions emotional easy there you go are we thank you I was like is it really that easy emotional ROI that's fine guys so I'm here for it thank you yeah   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (09:23) Mm-hmm.   the emotional ROI, like the ROE, return on emotion. Yeah, I got you girl. Mm-hmm. No, it's ROE, return on emotion, right? You're welcome,   I got you. Yeah, I...   Tiff (09:41) Yeah, so anyways,   that's what it's spun for me. it really highlights a lot, I think, for business owners and for leaders to really see if I'm showing up short, if I'm showing up, you know, chaotic, if I'm showing up calm and like, why, where are my priorities lining and how can I realign?   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (10:00) And Tiff, I love that you said that. And I love like we do, we do a different variation of it. This is something I really like because I feel we don't take that pause moment. Like to me, it's like the, the small space between like taking a breath and releasing a breath. Like there's that small pause. I feel like that small pause is where so much intentionality can happen. so Tiff, thanks for always being my guinea pig. Like it makes it feel like more fun for me because I, I know that Tiff, come into it so real and people that attend summit. So if you don't know about summit Tiff and I do it.   completely virtual. And the reason we've done it virtual, people have asked for years, like, why don't you guys do it in person? And what we found is we want doctors and teams to come together in your office space. Like what is the easiest fastest way for us to rally to impact you? We don't care if your husband or your kids or your wife or your spouse or whomever it is, is with you in that space. Like how fun is it? Like we see families with their kiddos. We see people in their homes. We see   We see you guys living your real lives. And so that's why we've done it virtual. We've done it virtual for six years and it's four hours. It's three and a half hours of CE and it's incredible. It's always the last Friday of April. So you guys can mark your calendars for 2027. I cannot believe that. It'll be the seventh year. I had to remember, I had to remember it's, sorry, it's the second to last Friday. It will be April 23rd next year. But...   Tiff (11:09) I said that earlier.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (11:17) We always do it the same weekend and we purposely do it where it's not the very beginning of the year. It's not the end of the year. It's that like special pause and like, let's look to see. And the whole point this year that we really try to bring in with you, cause like we focus there because I think people want like, what are the systems? What are the tactics? What's the profit? How do I do all these pieces? And we're like, if you pause and look and make sure that where you're putting your ladder and wanting to hang your shingle, is that really where you want your life to be? Because we can be a few degrees off as we're flying our life plane and we can end up in.   Bermuda or we can end up in Antarctica and I've been to both and they're very radically different locations and so it's are you actually headed where you want to go and this year I really brought up ⁓ a Topic that I'm obsessed with and it's like you are the billion dollar asset and if you don't see yourself as a billion dollar asset I think we're looking at our lives wrong and like you are the one who ultimately controls your success and happiness You are the one who has success and failure and you control that in your office   You are the one who controls where you spend your time. No one's forcing you to do anything. Like we are so blessed to live in the country we live in, the places that we live that we get to make these choices. You control the reasons or the results. And I love that line. You control the reasons or the results. You can't have both. And to really just help people see like, I having reasons for my lack of success or my abundance of success? Or am I actually having the results of what I say I truly want? And if I'm saying I want that,   but my actions aren't showing that either I need to change my plan and figure out what I actually want or I need to change my plan to get what I actually want. And so ⁓ one of my favorite lines from all of summit was you must prioritize you first or you will always fail. There is no other way to success. Stop all the excuses, start owning the outcomes. And I think for all of us today listening whether this is a summit recap for you or you're getting the highlight sizzle reel for you.   I hope that today you recognize that you've got to prioritize you first. And it's so easy Tiff, because I feel like I had this epiphany probably before I even met you, I think. I was like, life is so fascinating to me because there's so many things that scream and grab my attention that I feel are so important. But when I take that pause, that breath, half of that doesn't actually matter. And I'm just in the momentum and the slurry and I need to be intentional with how I build my life.   I don't know, maybe I'm going off on a tangent. I know this is something you and I love and I hope for doctors and teams listening today. I hope you can take that pause. I hope you can see that you are the billion dollar asset. I hope you can see like Tiff said, like, are we being suffocated by our time or are we watching our time slip into the areas that we hope it is? Where are we spending our time? We had a bunch of categories of time, but really like stop the excuses or owning the outcomes of what you want because you are ultimately the one who controls all of the success or failure in your life.   Tiff (14:04) Yeah, I agree.   And I think the reason that it's so imperatively important is because then we talk about earnings and then we talk about systems, right? We have our whole model and I can't, you can't talk about earnings, you can, but they're not gonna hit home as much if you don't have like you in alignment or at least reality. I think if you can spread at least reality and just be.   clear on who you are, how you're showing up and how you want to show up, then the earnings come, then those pieces come. So the profitability and all of those pieces that we talk about in our next little highlight reel here, they fall after that because again, like you are the reason that any of this exists. And if you're not in alignment with that, none of the other things are going to happen.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (14:53) 100 % and tiff, it's wild. Do you remember how many times we tried like an alliteration, a little like, what is deadly teams methodology? Remember the SPF one? Like I think that was one of like the funniest ones that like we had some ones and it just landed and locked one day when it was the yes model. Like it's the yes success model and it's you earning systems. And when I first put it together, I thought it was cute and it's crazy because subconsciously we put it in the exact order it needs to go in.   Tiff (15:02) You do?   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (15:20) for to truly be able to say yes to your dream life. Like you've got to focus on you. Then you focus on the earnings and then the systems will be what those two tell us. And it's like to me, the yes, excess are like your three numbers on a combination lock. And I feel like so many people try to be like earnings, Y like you. So it's E Y S like, okay, well that's well eyes like ish like that could be your combination, but you're never going to feel fulfilled. You're not going to be able to say yes. You're going to say eyes or I can be like, well let's do systems and then earnings and then yes.   or like you, well that says say, so are you gonna say, say your life away? Or are gonna say yes to the life you actually want? And it's been fascinating, because I think the more we coach on it, the more we teach it, it was something that came out of, I just thought it was a cute acronym, but the undertone of the subconscious of knowing that you've gotta be prioritized first, then you've gotta do your earnings, and then you gotta do your systems. And so if you're like, let's build systems, and I'm like, well, if you're not profitable, the whole thing's gonna crash down and burn. If you don't take care of you,   the whole thing's gonna crash down and burn. Like it literally is a sequence and an order. like the pinnacle peak of everything that we talk about, everything leads up to a saying like success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I think to everything we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, coming into here, like I think that's my like hill to die on is if we are successful in our marriages, but we're not fulfilled. we're successful in our businesses, but we're not fulfilled. If we're successful like...   That fulfillment piece is joy. That's the happiness. Like that is the juice. That's the squeeze of what we're all working for. But I think we prioritize the success, the money, the earnings, the status, the elite. Like you can have it all, but just make sure you're fulfilled and you're taking care of you. And it's really the life you want to live, not the one you think you should live or the one that you just happen to fall into or the one that the patterns got us into. But you actually own your life rather than just manage it.   Tiff (17:10) I agree. I have been a firm believer that if I'm not taken care of or if I'm not happy, down to the choices that I make in my personal life when it comes to Brodie and his happiness, I have always said, if mom's happy, Brodie's happy. If I'm taken care of, and that's the CEO of our family, if I'm taken care of and I'm a priority, I'm then teaching everyone else to do the same and all those other pieces come into place and for the practice.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (17:30) Mm-hmm.   Tiff (17:39) Every doctor comes in and says, need systems. And we do cover systems. We've a ton of systems in Summit. We cover all of them. But we also are a firm believer, a company that believes that those systems have to be in alignment with your culture, with who you are and what your goals are. So we have systems for everything. But we're going to tailor it and customize it to fit you and your circumstances. And if we're not super clear on who you are, what your goals are, your culture,   We're gonna hit that home real hard first and then figure out your systems, because you have systems and they're working to an extent. We just gotta clean them up a little bit and they're probably a little misaligned with who you are, who you want to be.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (18:23) Exactly. And Tiff, I love that. Like the CEO of the family, the CEO of this, like, and really like, yes, take care of you. Have that. That way you've got a full bucket to come from. So yes, we did go through after that the earnings portions. We talked about overhead, profitability, cashflow, like what are those items? We have a cost spending spreadsheet and you better believe we had an entire stack that people at the end of some were able to access. And it had so many spreadsheets, our overhead calculator,   like what is profitability? What is like true profit? What is cashflow? How do we find those small money links leaks in our practice? So like talking about different ways, like where are the small gaps in your bucket? Where if you just shore those up, there's so like, it is the lowest hanging fruit that are just the aha moments that people are not thinking about. And I love doing it because it's like, ⁓ like that's such a great idea. That was so easy that I didn't even think about. And of course I get like all jazzed on life doing the earnings section because like I   love numbers and numbers of me. Like I live to teach people how to be profitable and how to understand numbers and learning that business acumen knowledge. I feel like it's been another language that if you've watched me even over the years, like both of us growing and evolving and I was the girl who sat in a class that truly was like everyone else has business figured out, but not me. And I think so many dentists and so many owners can relate to that phrase of like, why not a drill a tooth, like PNL, KPI, like what the heck are those?   And to be able to break it down, think one of my favorite, favorite compliments of Dental A Team is like, we are the Dr. Seuss of systems. We make things so simple for people. And I've like hung onto that because if we can make numbers so simple for you, like think Dr. Seuss style, how much easier is it for you to go in and to be confident looking at your numbers, to be a competent CEO that uses those numbers rather than emotion.   to really get to the life and the dream you want. So tip, those are like some of my highlights. Those are some of the fun things. And then of course, you're like rolled right into systems, but I didn't know if there was anything on the earnings section before I roll into like systems, because the sexy systems are always a good time, but anything on earnings you wanted to add to that.   Tiff (20:25) Yeah.   I just wanted to let everybody know like the after summit, the number of text messages and emails and just like messages I know that we all receive, but that I personally received from my own clients that I work one-on-one with it or their attending summit that were like, I know we've heard this before because you guys talk about it all the time, but something hit different today and I'm so excited. Like I had   a call with ⁓ a client actually that morning and he was trying to go through it and he was just confused and he just doing, was like overworking it and overthinking it. And I was able to be like, cool. And then he, he watched it, you know, he, learned it and I made sure he had all the tools he needed in that moment. And he's like, my gosh, I was overcomplicating it. Like the way you do it is so much more simple than I was making it. And that's like, you said that Dr. Seuss, right? But even like that's a system.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (21:15) Nyeh.   Tiff (21:24) So we talk about systems and we're gonna talk about systems, but that in itself is a system really learning how to read your numbers, figure it out and simplify what you're looking at because it doesn't take a doctorate to look at those things. And sometimes we think it does. So we apply our doctorate to it and we overcomplicate it. So I just wanted to make sure everyone knew like the amount of information or the amount of people that are like.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (21:25) Thank   Tiff (21:51) Thank you so much because this was so helpful. And for whatever reason today, I heard it differently. That's why we repeat things too is like how many times have we gone to a convention or listen to the same podcast and we're like, gosh, today I heard it with different ears and I got something else out of it. And that's why we have repeatable systems and why we have those kinds of conversations. Cause something different will come out every time.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (21:53) Yeah.   100 % Tiff. And as you said that, think there's like, there's a quote, I might be tootin' my own horn. I think I actually made this one up. so if I did great, and if I took it from someone, I'm really sorry, and it's actually yours. But it was like, sometimes the greatest form of learning is remembering what we already know. And I think so many times we come to these conferences, we go to these things, it's like, I've already heard that. And it's like, but you haven't, because you are at a different location of where your business is, of where you are, to where it's gonna land differently. And so I agree with you, Tiff.   Systems were fun and we went through like some of our favorites of like case exceptions and block scheduling. But I think what I really loved was we actually like then broke down into like, what is it like to be a CEO dentist and the delegation ladder and like helping people. And then like at the top of the delegation ladder, how we like split leadership into an executive side and an operational management side and helping Dr. C. And we actually did this in our like internal private mastermind group that we work with our clients and so many of the doctors, love that. Like kudos to Tiff. She was one who has the brains behind this topic.   of let's talk about delegation. And when doctors look at their like list of things that they've got going on, when they listed everything off and then they went back and like looked to say, what really can only you do? It was two things. It was vision culture and you might throw profitability on there, like pending upon how your team is, but that's it. And like, tip, I freaking love that epiphany for doctors. I love that epiphany for OMS because when you got like the two halves of a whole like doctors, we need your vision. need that execution. need that culture. And OMS are like, and then give me the to-dos and like, let me GSD over here and to help like,   both of you in the same room, see how this applies to both of you and where your sweet spots are. To me, that was one of my absolute highlights. And then like a leadership evolution where how you evolve through that were truly some of my faves. But Tiff, maybe you had something else, because I know you love that part too.   Tiff (23:56) I agree.   I do. I think it was interesting the way that we laid it all out because we did do systems. We did implementable systems. We always do that you can walk away with. We talked about our 12 systems. We will always deliver those. But the reality of, I think, the biggest part of the systems is what you just said, that delegation ladder, because we have all of these systems. But you're not the only one who can do them, by the way. And you're not the only one.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (24:24) you   Tiff (24:26) You're not the one who has to do them. so learning systems is one thing, but then learning how to foster the systems and like delegate them out and hold someone accountable to doing the system is a fully different kind of system. Like that's why when people come to us and they're like, girl, I just need systems. I'm like, everything is a system. You're just not seeing it from that lens and you're trying to do too much. So what part of the system or what   part of the experience for that patient, do you not have to do 100 % of? If they can do 80 % of it, you can do 20, if they can do 90, you can do 10. Like they make songs about this and we apply it to like romantic relationships, but every interaction we have, every relationship that we have, they work the same. It's a give and a take. And if you're taking more than you're giving and there's never like this back and forth or this equality in the middle,   you're doing them a disservice because they can't grow and you're doing yourself a disservice because you're limiting your own growth. And so when you can see that within the system, see the part that each person plays for those systems and divvy out those responsibilities, that's where the growth is.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (25:41) Exactly. And I think it was just fun because like what Tiff and I do is we talk about like the yes model and then like, how do you actually implement it? And like getting into the nitty gritties of how do you do this? And like Tiff said, like splitting it and how do we actually elevate each other and help each other be our best? And then we talk about winning teams and we pulled in Patrick Lanziani's five dysfunctions of teams and then like the extraordinary success formula and then case studies of like the good leadership and the bad leadership and like things we've seen from consulting like   literally hundreds and thousands of offices. And to me, it's really fun because we like put a pretty bow on it and we wrap it all up and we have this entire awesome stack of like all the spreadsheets and all the pieces. But I think for me, it's a like, all the content every single year is revamped. It's it's built upon it's different ways to present it to you. But what I always hope is like, realizing that the people around you are on the boat to success. And are you going to sit on your own isolated   little island over there, like crying your eyes out because you're lonely. Or are you going to get on the boat to success with like-minded people like you that are going to grow you, that are going to push you, that are going to be a group? like, yeah, there was a surprise. We invited people to our in-person mastermind. And if you're interested in any of these things of like the tech stack or coming into those different pieces or joining us in our masterminds, like please reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and hey, maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I'll share a spreadsheet or two. ⁓   Tiff (26:39) You   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (27:07) But more than that, I hope that you decide that you're the billion dollar asset. Let me be around people like this. If you didn't attend summit, put it on your calendar next year. Be sure that you're on that. And then if you're like, gosh, like everything you talked about you and like putting myself first and like helping a vision and relaying that to my team, because what Tiff and I are obsessed about and why we built this company was we got so tired of doctors trying to relate to teams and teams trying to relate to doctors. That's why it's literally called Dental A team. It's dentists and teams and both sides of that coin, bringing that together and helping all of you.   Realize like how we succeed in our own individual roles, how we succeed together, helping doctors take your own incredible life and translate that into a vision your team can rally. What your numbers tell you, what your systems tell you, all of that. And that's something that I really freaking love. And Tiff, summer was just magical. It was a magical time this year. And that's kind of my rap, but I guarantee you got a rap then. I hope people just loved it. I hope they choose to be on the boat to success and not be left on their own Island. You don't have to be alone.   You don't have to be alone in your problems, but it's time to like own it, stop the excuses and either have reasons or have results. You can't have both. That's my wrap Tiff. What's your wrap? Anything you want to add to that?   Tiff (28:14) Yeah, the community piece, just wrapped it. That last piece that you just talked about is the piece that we get the biggest feedback on, if I'm honest with you. Yeah, we are incredible. I'm going to be honest with you. We are a really cool freaking company and we produce some amazing results. I have heard from so many people, from so many other companies that they say, you guys are different because you're actual   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (28:27) We are.   Tiff (28:40) consultants and you're not just trainers, like individual trainers. So I know without a shadow of a doubt that we do it differently. So I can toot that horn all day long because I know that we are really good at what we do. What is incredible to add on top of that, like the sprinkles that are on top of that is that we allow our clients to be this tight knit community. So not only are we working with you one-on-one and producing results for your practice, we're individualizing   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (28:49) Yep.   Tiff (29:09) all of the things that we do for you, but we're allowing you to share that then with other people. Like everyone loves it. Like I've never sat in a room where I felt so welcome and so heard and so seen and so normalized. Like it's not, hey doctor, hey doctor, hey doctor. It's like first name basis. It's you're just a human just like I am. And we can sit here together and we can collaborate. And I think that even on a virtual platform is incredible that we've been able to create that and foster that.   but even more the in-person events and our in-person visits that we go to practices, all of those pieces. And that's my wrap. Like the community is massive.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (29:50) It is. What do we talk about? We talked about like you are the culmination of the top five people that you hang and spend time with. And I've thought like, is it time for me to elevate my friend group and my peer group? That's why I joined Tony Robbins Lions. Like I needed people that were smarter than me. I didn't want to be the smartest one in the room. I want people I could give back to. And I think Tiff, you and I have taken our passion, our love for people, our passion, our love for life.   the things that we've learned throughout life and we're able to turn it into this really fun thing to help dentists freaking succeed and thrive and not just survive. And so this year I thought it was really fun to help doctors and team members elevate their leadership, elevate their profitability. So if you missed it, I'm not gonna lie to you, you freaking missed out. Tiff and I have a good time. We laugh hysterically. It's all live. It's real time. Some of the things we say shock both of us, but hey, it's here for it.   It's engaging with people, even though it's virtual, like we see all your faces. We've done Tony Robbins, like I, we make this thing a whole production. It is lit. So come join us next year. And if you missed out this year and you want to get like, find out more, you want to come join us in September in our in-person mastermind or February, you want to elevate your peer group. You're sick of being stuck. You're sick of being where you've been. You're ready for the next level. Or if you're like, I just want to optimize or like, Hey, I'm drowning. It doesn't matter. That boat is going. Let's get you on it. Come join us. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com book a call.   I will happily love to see you. team would love to see you. Tiff, I love you. I love working with you. I love creating magic with you. I love creating summit with you. And I'm just so thankful for your sparkle, for your love, because I feed off of that. And I think you and I together, like you said, we built a really freaking cool company and we're like kick a in the industry. We know what we're doing. We're experts at what we do. And we do it for dentists and we do it for teams and we make your life incredible. so Tiff, thanks for just like many, many years ago, believing in a vision and making it into what it is today.   Tiff (31:40) Thank you. Thank you for believing in me that I could do this with you. I love you. I love this company. I love what we create and gosh, I love all of our listeners like our clients. I love you and our future clients and those of you who will always be a listener. We're here for you. We're here for all of you guys and we truly do love what we do and when you're ready for that next layer, we're here to freaking layer it on.   Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (32:02) I love it. Well, for all of you listening, take action. Don't stay on your isolated island. You don't have to. It's a choice. Join the boat to success. Come join us. We'd love you. Take some action from today. You're the billion-dollar asset. Think about your cash flow, your overhead, your profitability, the systems, delegation ladder. ⁓ What's your winning team? Are you guys winning? Are you thriving? What's that extraordinary leadership formula? Take action. Do something. And just make sure you're living the life you want. We get one life to live. And think about that hourglass.   Is your time slipping away from you? you actively building the life you want? I hope you're choosing the ladder. And with that, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

In this profound exploration of Matthew 21:40-46, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and its devastating indictment of Israel's religious leadership. The hosts navigate the complex theological terrain of kingdom transfer, covenant faithfulness, and the identity of God's people across redemptive history. With careful attention to the text's original context and its implications for the church today, they examine how Christ presents himself as the rejected cornerstone—the one upon whom people either fall in repentance or are crushed in judgment. This episode offers rich insights into supersessionism, the remnant theology of Romans 11, and the practical call for Christians to examine whether they're submitting to Christ as the true cornerstone or attempting to usurp his rightful place. Key Takeaways The Self-Condemning Verdict: The chief priests and Pharisees unknowingly pronounce judgment upon themselves when they declare the wicked tenants deserve destruction, demonstrating how the natural conscience can discern God's justice even when blind to personal complicity. Kingdom Transfer as Covenant Transition: The "taking away" of the kingdom represents not the abandonment of God's elect remnant but the historical-redemptive transition from the typological Old Covenant administration to the New Covenant church gathered from all nations. The Cornerstone's Double Judgment: Christ as the cornerstone presents two modes of encounter—those who fall upon him in repentance are broken but healed; those upon whom he falls in final judgment are ground to powder with no remedy. Visible vs. Invisible Church Distinction: The visible identification of God's people shifted from the geopolitical nation of Israel to the universal church, while the invisible elect have always been saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. Fear of Man vs. Fear of God: The Pharisees' restraint from seizing Jesus due to fear of the crowds (rather than fear of God) exemplifies how the wicked are dominated by human opinion rather than divine accountability. Infant Baptism and Covenant Community: The joyful inclusion of children in the visible covenant community through baptism reflects God's gracious promise sealed to those who contribute nothing to their own covenant status. Fruit-Bearing as Evidence: The "new tenants" are characterized not by works-righteousness but by evidential fruit—the genuine works that flow from "true and lively faith" worked by the Holy Spirit. Key Concepts The Irony of Self-Condemnation The theological and pastoral power of this parable reaches its climax when the religious leaders, failing to perceive themselves as the wicked tenants in Jesus's story, pronounce harsh judgment upon the hypothetical villains: "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end." This moment mirrors Nathan's confrontation of David after the Bathsheba affair, yet with a tragic difference—these leaders never experience David's repentance. Calvin observes that the natural conscience, even when blind to personal guilt, retains an "hidden impulse to identify with justice." The Pharisees demonstrate total depravity in high definition: they possess enough moral clarity to recognize egregious covenant-breaking in the abstract, yet remain entirely blind to their own embodiment of that very wickedness. This irony serves as both judgment and warning—we all possess an uncanny ability to see sin clearly everywhere except in the mirror. Kingdom Transfer: Covenant Continuity and Discontinuity The phrase "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit" requires careful theological handling to avoid both replacement theology (in its pejorative sense) and dispensational fragmentation. The Reformed understanding maintains covenant continuity: there has always been one people of God, defined not ethnically but by faith in the Messiah. What changes is the visible administration of the covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the visible church was largely coterminous with ethnic Israel—a geopolitical reality with boundaries, a zip code, and national identity. Under the New Covenant, the visible church explodes these ethnic and geographic boundaries, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that "in your seed all nations will be blessed." This is not Plan B; it's the eschatological unveiling of what was always intended. The "breaking off of natural branches" (Romans 11) refers to covenant unfaithfulness resulting in exclusion from visible covenant privileges, while the faithful Jewish remnant—the apostles, early believers, and the ongoing elect from Israel—remain fully incorporated into the church. The vineyard hasn't been abandoned; it's been opened to "other tenants" who will render the proper fruit: Gentiles grafted in alongside believing Jews into the one olive tree of God's redemptive purposes. The Cornerstone: Salvation or Destruction Christ's invocation of Psalm 118:22—"the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—followed by his dual judgment ("whoever falls on this stone will be broken...on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust") presents two exhaustive options for relating to Jesus. The cornerstone in ancient construction was the foundational stone by which all other stones found their proper alignment and orientation. To fall upon this stone willingly—in repentance, faith, and self-abandonment—is painful. It shatters pride, self-righteousness, and autonomy. But this breaking leads to healing, to being properly "squared" and aligned with reality as God has constructed it. The alternative is catastrophic: to have the cornerstone fall upon you in final eschatological judgment is to experience irreversible, total destruction—being "ground to powder" with no possibility of remedy. The practical application is urgent: we must examine ourselves continually to ensure we're not attempting to be our own cornerstone, measuring righteousness by our own standards, aligning the universe to ourselves rather than submitting to Christ as the measure of all things. Memorable Quotes "There's never a time where that righteousness is removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, as the faithful tenants when the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves?" — Tony Arsenal "The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, the cornerstone is still laid. Blessed are they who receive him—and also get those babies into church." — Jesse Schwamb "This is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are not properly assigning the cornerstone its place... the whole thing is gonna crush you." — Tony Arsenal Full Episode Transcript [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 492 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:14] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:19] Parable Recap [00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Well, the time has finally come for us to close out our discussion in Matthew 21. This is the Parable of the Vine growers, and everybody should just go back and list everything we said so far, but I think here's how we could sum it up. Jesus's authority gets challenged and he sets a trap so beautiful that we should put it into a museum. He tells basically the religious bigwigs, this whole story where tenants speed up servants, they kill the air. They generally behave like it's an HOA literally run by the devil. And then he asks them this question, so what should the owner of the vineyard do And the chief priest. Chest puffed up. Basically shout out the answers to their own indictment. Smoke 'em. Give the vineyard to somebody who isn't garbage. Listen fellas, you just preached your own funeral. So in this we get to see this total depravity in 4K. Sovereign grace skips the credential gatekeepers and it lands on the tax collectors and the gentiles. They elect the vineyard, the self-righteous, get the rock. And we're gonna close out what all of that means, including probably not a small amount of talk about the kingdom being transferred, whatever that means, and maybe a little engrafting. Aah, Romans 11 style. It's all there for us. And that is what is coming up. [00:02:34] Affirmations Setup [00:02:34] Jesse Schwamb: Of course before we can do any of that, we can't even get there. Tony, before we do affirmations, denials, you and I both know it's our contractual obligation. It's what the people want all over the world. If we skip this, there will be some kind of riot revolt. So we gotta start there. Let's not get too excited yet. So I'm curious as always, are you affirming with something or you not against something for this episode?  [00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am, I'm affirming, uh, this is gonna be like people are gonna grow and roll their eyes a little bit.  [00:03:04] Infant Baptism Joy [00:03:04] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming infant baptism today. We had a lovely infant baptism at church, um, and a couple recently had a child. Um, there's been, this was a kind of a particularly, um, poignant baptism. Um, the, the mother was in the hospital for several weeks before the baby was born, um, with some medical challenges, so was in. In the hospital. In the hospital for like, I want to say probably four weeks, which is a long time. Um, they have several other children, which makes it even harder. Um, and then, uh, then the baby was in the hospital for quite some time. He came a little early and then had some other issues. Um, and so this family was out of church for quite some time dealing with these health issues, and we, we all miss them very much. So it was a very sweet moment. Um, and it's just a, a good reminder, right? And, and the way our church does it is, you know, the pastor, the family comes up, they do vows, they do the baptism, but he calls all the children forward and the children come and sit, uh, right in the front row and they watch this all happen. Um. Which is, is very sweet. And you know, I, I went up there with Augie, and Augie was sitting on my lap and he was very, he was like super locked into this, this whole thing, which is, uh, which was nice to see. So I'm affirming infant baptism. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture of the gospel. Um, it's, it's God's promise being sealed to someone who contributes nothing to, um, to that promise contributes nothing to, uh, their own, um, position in the church or status in the church. They contribute nothing. Um, in most cases they're not even aware of what's going on. So I know not all of our listeners are, uh, are covenant infant Baptists, uh, type people. Um, so yes, I get it. You disagree, but there is something just sweet and beautiful, uh, even I think even for people who aren't quite sold on infant baptism. Um, and I think even sometimes for people who are kind of opposed to infant baptism, I think we've commented in the PA past that there's kind of this impulse that I think all Christian parents have that their children should be. Treated in a certain way that's different than how a non-Christian family treats their children. Right. Um, so there is kind of this instinct that the, there's, whether it's a formal status or just sort of a, a way of thinking about things, there is this impulse that the children of believers are somehow set apart in different, and of course, the, the Presbyterian Covenant Baptist, um, position would, would formalize that through the rite of baptism, uh, at least in part. So I'm affirming infant baptism, both theologically, but also just experimentally today. Like it was just, it was just a balm to my soul to see this, um. And like I said, the congregation has been praying for a long time for the health, uh, and the, the welfare of this family, um, and been, you know, doing meal trains and all the stuff that churches do. But it was, it was a very sweet moment, um, to see the pastor scoop this little baby up in his arms and be able to sort of introduce him to the church as the newest covenant member of the congregation. Uh, it was just a very nice moment. [00:05:59] Baptism Dedication Common Ground [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. We can all agree that there's something really beautiful about God growing his church, at least the visible church, through just the multiplicative effect of. People having children, there's something beautiful about that, and then welcoming them in an official way into your congregation, into your midst. Interestingly, in my church, there was a baby dedication today and I was also equally moved though like I would say the promises that were invoked during that time, the equipment's made are very different than what you might hear during kind of pedo infant baptism. You're right in that the spirit of this that is like a representation kind of bringing forward of the child to say he or she is part of us and we're making a commitment to raise them in admonition of the Lord is a really lovely thing. It's like a public recognition that God is providing a manifest blessing in our midst, and that he is growing and working out his church and he's doing it by just bringing new people into it who are being, who are the subjects of procreation. Creation itself, but procreation and how can you not be like, just excited about that. And, and also a little bit like it's also, and I'm not trying to denigrate any practice here, but also just on the face also super adorable. Like when you, when you see a pastor scoop up, like you said, a little child, whether that's to pray with them and dedication or to baptize them. Either way, it's super just like lovely and just pulls in your heartstrings. Yeah. In like this very spiritual way, not just in kind of an emotional kind of way.  [00:07:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't, I think, um, when I think back, you know, Augie's, obviously you know this, but Augie was dedicated, um, Addie was not. Um, but when I think back to the vows we took, when we dedicated Augie, there are some differences, but there's also a lot that's not different like the sure close to like, raise up your child in the church and to like, pray for them and set a good example. And then, and then the sort of reciprocal vows that the congregation typically takes, that the congregation will do what they can to support the family as they, they raise this child and the Lord. Um, you know, even in, even in a lot of contexts, like in the Presbyterian church, I'm in like prayers that this, this child would come to know Jesus and would, would come to confess the faith for themselves and become a full, you know, full communicate member of the church. Like, those things are all present. So as much as I think, um. As much as I wanna acknowledge that infant baptism or, or covenant, I, I say covenant baptism versus, um, sort of like baptist theology writ, large credo Baptist theology, which is covenantal, but differently covenantal in most cases. Right. Um, even though that is a dividing line, and I think like it's a real dividing line. There's a real division that exists and that there's good theological historical reasons why those divisions exist. There still is so much that is the same. Um, in terms of how Baptists and, and Presbyterians or however formed, you know, PR Christians, um, re reflect on and think about their children. There's some differences, but in terms of like. We all want our children to come to know Jesus. We all want their first memory to be worshiping in the church and loving the Lord. We, we don't want them to ever remember a time where the name of Christ was not on their lips as their savior. Um, all those things are the same and even the, the way we promise before God and, and primarily before God, but before others, even the way we promise to nourish them in, in right doctrine and nourish them in good teaching and bring them into the church and, and set a faithful example. All of those things are the same. So I I I, I never want to diminish the fact that there are differences 'cause there are real differences and there are important differences. But I also think we often sort of like. I think because we've talked about this before, like Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are so close that we have to bicker over the things that are different. It's like you're, it's like when you fight with your brother on whose side of the room it's on. Like you're so close that you have to find the little things to really bicker about and then you really, really bicker about them. And I think that kind of like describes the, the Presbyterian Baptist divide in a lot of ways. I know there's a lot of people that would say like, Lutherans are closer to Presbyterians and those people are just, I dunno, they're just wrong. Um, on, on, maybe on baptism, they're, they're not wrong. But in terms of general theological principles, like, you know, Westminster Confession, London Baptists, confession, like, it, it's 95% the same content. Sure. Um, and 95% like the same confession, not just the same like words, but the same meaning of the words. And, um, so yeah. Anyway, that's my affirmation. Infant baptism. It was a joy. I was happy to see it. Um, uh, we have a ton of little, little babies in the, the church. It's funny 'cause another, another, um. A couple announced today that they were expecting, and we've, we've had basically pregnant women in the church for, you know, obviously like at least nine months if someone is still pregnant. But like we've had, we've had this like rotation of, of women delivering babies for like, at least, probably, at least 16, 18 months of, of constantly having people who are, are expecting, which is really a great joy to see. So I, I love it. I love the church. I love the Presbyterian church. Um, and this was just another great example of, of the beauty of, uh, a robust confessionalism and a robust presbyterianism. [00:11:08] Jesse Schwamb: The way in which you said that made it sound like you're about to make like a grand historical statement. Like, we've had pregnant people in the church since the first century.  [00:11:18] Tony Arsenal: Well, I mean that's probably true, but  [00:11:19] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it definitely  [00:11:20] Tony Arsenal: true. Not, not our church. Our church has only been around, our particular church has only been around for like 10 years, so I'm sure there have been times during that period where there were not pregnant people  [00:11:29] Jesse Schwamb: pregnant. It just sounded like we were going all the way back as if like to, again emphasize and maybe this isn't, this is as fair statement, like how faithful God has been like from the beginning. There's always been. Pregnant lady Church. Look, look at how faithful God is.  [00:11:42] Mic Grabbing Babies [00:11:42] Jesse Schwamb: And, and this is true, I like to play this game when there is a baby dedication. I'm not sure what the sound system is like in your church, but often our, our pastors wear like the tiny little like Backstreet Boys style. It's probably outdated reference, but microphone that comes over the ear and to the mouth and it's very discreet. But the game I like to play is like once, once he takes the child for a time of dedication or specifically prayer, the, the goal is to see like how long before that baby goes for the mic. Because as soon as like a baby sees a mic right there, it's like, oh yeah, this is the best thing that's happened to me in my tiny little life.  [00:12:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's like an angler fish is really what it is. Yes. It's like that glowing bulb that just sits in front of its face and it's, the baby's just gotta grab it. [00:12:27] Jesse Schwamb: It's just too tempting. It's just too tempting. And I, and I love, you can tell like our pastors are really adept at being able to keep the prayer going and like discreetly maneuver the child, keep the child happy. It's, it's really an amazing thing. So altogether, I'm totally with you on so many levels. It's so good to see that happen in the church. And I'm with you on that. We gotta take joy in that For sure.  [00:12:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight?  [00:12:50] Book Breath Pick [00:12:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, something that's entirely unlike everything you just said. Certainly. Well, maybe, I guess there is a large spiritual component to this, but it's, I would say, for me, totally unexpected book recommendation and I came across this 'cause it was recommended to me and a while back, the keen or the listener who's been with us for a really long time, or a member that we talked about the book or why we sleep, this book became for me, like the equivalent of that in a totally different kind of topic or genre. It's called breath. The New Signs of a Lost Art by James Nestor and it explores how the way that humans breathe profoundly affects our health, our performance, our longevity. It's a book that is filled with both science and pseudoscience, which the author is really good at distinguishing and calling you to think about those things. But it's really totally changed how I understand like this little pattern in Habits of breathing. And it's a really interesting book of course. Like he draws from a lot of like religious influences, including of course the Judeo-Christian one. And I think that it even drew me back to understanding how God created us. And he did in a very specific way that text's giving some great description to the breadth that he gives us and how he gives us that breath. So if you're looking, I guess, for a little bit of a read, so that might surprise you about something that you might thought was automatic and simple in life and also that might. Be able to bring you some recommendations on how to better your health. Again, we're not doctors, but we are routinely considered among the top 50 healthcare podcasts. Then I would say this would be an interesting book for you to check out.  [00:14:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't read it, but it's been recommended to me and one of the, one of the takeaways, actually, I think it might have been my doctor, my my PCP who mentioned this to me is like, if you wanna improve your health drastically, like just make it a practice of breathing through your nose. Yes. Like something that simple and straightforward has pretty significant health impacts of like. Like the way that your brain processes breath when it comes through your nose, the way that like, there's more filtering that happens with breath, so the air that gets to your lungs is cleaner. There's just a lot of, um, I haven't read it. I've, I think I actually have it somewhere, but I have not read it yet. Um, I, I should, I should take a look at it. I, I've heard good things about it.  [00:15:01] Jesse Schwamb: At the very least, if you're a Christian, it'll cause you to marvel again. That's how beautifully complex God has made the human body and how it seems entirely impossible that anyone could even logically reasonably conclude that somehow we are just time plus matter, plus chance, and that all these things got worked out. I don't wanna spoil some of the punchline. A part of the book is about this. Breathe through your nose, which you might think was just kind of an innocuous decision. Breathe through your nose, breathe your mouth. How, how different could it be? They actually do an experiment where they plug their noses, the author and somebody else for, uh, several, like 10 days straight. And do all these these things under medical supervision to see what the impact is. And I'll leave you to read it so you can hear that. There's also something fascinating, absolutely fascinating about carbon dioxide and a study that's done where they actually have people inhale a little bit of carbon dioxide and what it does to the body. In other words, like the system that God has put into play to ensure that the body gets the kind of right amount of oxygen that it needs and how it functions when it's given the warning side of carbon dioxide, even when. Your lung capacity and your oxygen, your blood doesn't change. There's a fascinating section on that. So I didn't expect to be this interested in the book and generally I take a little time before I recommend a book. I finished this a couple weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. So, and I'm trying to put some things into practice, including I try to do some running and for the longest time I just thought, well, when you run, like even at any like moderate speed, like you have to breathe through your mouth, this book challenges some of that. So lo and behold, I went out and started to try just a little bit to see if I could just breathe through my nose. It turns out it's totally possible, like all this time I just thought that was impossible, like God didn't make us that way, and it's actually improving how I feel when I run and the running that I'm able to do. So I am surprised, I, I'm shocked by all this, and it's just as simple as understanding breath. Who would've guessed.  [00:16:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I mean, I've heard it's a great book. I, I, I. It never ceases to amaze that the, the more we look at the human body, the more we look at God's creation, the more we see the fingerprints of our creators. So not, not  [00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Sounds like a great book. I can't recommend it from personal experience, uh, although I've heard very good things.  [00:17:12] Reading Matthew 21 [00:17:12] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, I think we should probably just get into it because this is now week three of, uh, one week episode and, uh, we want to wanna dig in and we wanna wrap it up so we can move on to the next best thing out there, which is of course, the parables of Christ. [00:17:26] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get some. So I'm gonna read for us starting in verse 40 because if you've been tracking then you've already been with us through the first part of this parable, and it's notoriously or variously called parable the vine growers, or I kinda like the husband men, just because that's fun to say, and you don't get to drop husband men like very often. But vine dressers, vine growers, vine workers, it's all the same. But here's starting in verse 40. This is after Jesus has already explained the parable. He set it up for them and he's gonna bring for the indictment. So Jesus says, and therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and he will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord in his, marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they were guarding him to be a prophet.  [00:18:48] Irony Blind Leaders [00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that last little section here is just such, it's like dripping with such irony,  [00:18:53] Jesse Schwamb: so good  [00:18:54] Tony Arsenal: that like they, they are so blinded by their own, um, I dunno, ambition isn't, maybe isn't even the right word, but something in that, that neighborhood, they're so blinded by their desire to. Maintain their own status quo, their own uh, their own status. That they fear the crowds because the crowds hold them to be a prophet,  [00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:19:16] Tony Arsenal: When in reality, like there is a prophet in their midst and much more than a prophet, uh, and they can't see it because of their own blindness. So I'm stoked to get into it. This is such, like we said, this is such a, like on the nose, paril, it's crazy. This is so much like, you know, Nathan's, you are the man kind of parable. Like yes, that's right, except there never is a, you are the man moment for them. They never get it, which is. Stunning. Like I, I, it just sort of is like, I don't even know what to make of that. [00:19:41] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There is like a wild blindness. I've been thinking about that a lot in our past conversations, but it culminates here. These chief priests and elders, I would say strangely, but I think that this is probably true of all of us, and maybe especially me, perhaps not yet, like perceiving themselves to be the vine growers here in view, they render this verdict of severe justice. It seems like you, you wanna say to them? Like, guys, guys, pull up, hold up a second. Yeah. Take a step back before you overreact here, because you're about to condemn yourselves and in the Greek here, this expression like, miserably destroy these wicked men. Or it gets like this double wretched in our translations. Mostly he will bring those wretches to a wretched end. It's this rhetorical intensification. It's incredible. And I, I think there's at least like two truths here. That come to my mind. One is, we've talked about before, but is in line with what you're saying, that the natural conscience, when not even aware of its own complicity, can still discern the justice of God's judgments. So here are these men who are so prone almost, I think what Calvin says elsewhere, like that we have this hidden impulse to identify with justice. Even when we can't see that we are the ones perpetrating something of injustice, still we can't help but cry out. We can't even help but identify it. And here they. Accurately identify it. And even though they're putting themselves exactly in the cross here, they cannot help but basically cry out that how egregious this behavior is of these vine growers that Jesus has basically, you know, created in this hypothetical environment, even still there, they're filled with rage and the rage gets turned on them. So the Pharisees here, of course, function as this unwitting witness to the righteousness of God's wrath against covenant breakers, even though they, they don't see it.  [00:21:29] Kingdom Transfer Talk [00:21:29] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, the second thing I think that comes to my mind, and maybe this is like more to the point, is that. The verse foreshadows this transfer of the kingdom from the Jewish nation to a new people that would bring forth its fruits, which I realize if I bring that up right now, that we've just committed to like six episodes just on that topic probably. But yeah, but like, we're gonna have to come to it because there's so much here. And the phrase of this, like, let out his vineyard unto other vine growers or husbandman, it does to me like anticipate this calling of the Gentiles and the formation of the Christian Church and in, in this way. It's not to me. The abandonment of the elect, remnant of Israel, but it is like the breaking off of the natural branches and then this engrafting of the wild olive shoots that come through like Allah, Romans 11. So it's, it's not like from one nation to another simply, but from like the carnal seed to a spiritual seed gathered out of all the nations, that that's wild. Right? I, I think that's all in view here. And it's like a kind of a crazy thing to say. It's certainly like a wild thing to say, no pun intended. And I imagine like, unexpected thing to say.  [00:22:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:22:40] Supersessionism Clarified [00:22:40] Tony Arsenal: Let's think about that a little bit because I think too, there's, there's almost an element of, um. Man, I'm gonna get a lot of flack for saying this. You're, there's almost like a legitimate replacement theology here, right? Like replacement theology. I got covenant theology, you know, reformed, um, reformed theology often gets slandered as, you know, supersessionism or replacement theology, uh, with this idea that like, it's, it's interest. Uh, you have to have dispensational presuppositions for that phrase to even make sense because like the reformed paradigm is that there is one people of God full stop. And yes, like the identity of the one people of God seems to sort of like morph from the Jewish national people to now like Jews and Gentiles and actually predominantly Gentiles in the scope of like the whole history of the church. But what I mean by this is like, there's a visible church in the Old Testament, in the old, under the old Covenant, and the visible church under the old covenant is the national people of, of Israel. Right. By and large. Right. Um, and there are, there are sort of like Gentile, um, Clingons, not like the Star Trek people, but like gentile, like attachments to that throughout the history of, of Old Testament, um, theology. Um. That visible, that visible identification of this is the people of God being the Jewish people. Uh, these are the people that are the vineyard, the, they're the, the owner or the tenants of the vineyard or the, the visible Jewish people of the geopolitical nation of Israel under the old covenant that does sort of like get superseded by the church in the church age, in the new covenant,  right?  [00:24:24] Tony Arsenal: But where, where Supersessionism or the accusation of Supersessionism goes wrong is that there is this distinction between the visible and invisible church. And that distinction is what prevents us from being like, sort of like true replacement theologians in the way that the, the dispensationalist wanna paint us. So I, I think you're right that there is a lot to say here about the fact that, um, and, and this is where it gets, um. We have to be careful systematically. Right. God, God doesn't have to pivot. He doesn't have like a plan B. It's not like the Gentiles are the plan B, but there is a sense in almost in which the way that this is presented, the way that it appears in the scriptures is actually, yeah, there is almost like this plan B, like there is the geopolitical ethnic people of, of Israel, the Jewish people under the old covenant. And, and they don't do what they're supposed to do. They don't follow the terms of their covenant. They don't accept the kingdom that is bequeathed to them under the terms of the old covenant. And they, they reject that kingdom because of a disobedience. And, and I think what Christ here is narrowing in on is it's not just disobedience, right? It's not sort of like, um, accidental ancillary disobedience. It's not generalized disobedience. It is this sort of like usurpation of God's rightful status as the ruler and king of the nation. That's right. The the people, the, the Pharisees. And the chief priests and the scribes and the Sadducees, they want to be the rulers of the nation. They want to, they, they seem to wanna take the place of God, at least as far as Christ is presenting it. In this, they wanna usurp the kingdom. They want to take the heirs, uh, rightful inheritance, and they want to claim it for themselves. That is not a generalized disobedience, it's a special t type of covenant unfaithfulness that causes God to causes and kind of air quotes that causes God to hand over the kingdom to another people. Right. Partially, I think, uh, we don't need to get into Romans, the Romans 11 stuff, but partially I think because that's actually the way that he's going to ultimately save the Jewish people, right, is by sort of making, making them jealous of the Gentiles. Like there's a, there's a real element of that, that the salvation of the Gentiles is actually for, in some sense is for or unto the salvation of the Jewish people or the, the faithful Jewish remnant that's all here. And, and you can't really get past that in this parable. Um, this is why I think a, a lot of dispensationalist, um, uh, some of the classic dispensational sources would actually see like this, this is not for the Jewish church. This, this is for the Gentiles. This is actually part of the parentheses, um. You know, and, and again, dispensationalist divide all that stuff up differently, but this is a really interesting section for us to talk about that we can't, we can't just gloss over that. [00:27:11] Jesse Schwamb: I certainly don't mean to imply that it's wild because it's unexpected. I think it's wild because interestingly, the Pharisees, the teachers here, they challenge Jesus authority and his response to that is to challenge their covenant faithfulness.  [00:27:24] Tony Arsenal: Right?  [00:27:25] Jesse Schwamb: So it's not just if he turns it around, he uses this opportunity to explain what's going to happen to them as those who are, like you said, were supposed to be representative. And I think critically like the qualifying phrase. That that's using the text here, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. That's like really important because these new vine growers are characterized by their fruitfulness. So this is not like a doctrine of works righteousness, but it's evidential fruit. And that's why, and I had to look this up and the Westminster Confession confession, chapter 16, good works are quote the fruits and evidences of true and lively faith, which I love. I was trying to find that language true and lively faith. So the visible church under that new administration is identified by the fruits of repentance, faith, and obedience worked out by the Holy Spirit. Again, I think that's all that is in view here, that that's a lot to say. But you know, famously, like you've kind of intimated, when we go back to the Old Testament, even we find when the Israelites leave triumphantly from Egypt, that they're accompanied by those outside of Israel. We find that other characters like Grh who continually want to identify with a Yahweh whom God is saving and drawing onto himself and here is kind. Him, Jesus, at least representing as the son of God. That kind of cli climactic view. Speaking from the prophet register again saying, this is what I was saying to Abraham. I said, like from your seed, all these nations in this spiritual sense will be gathered out. So there'll be a single nation as it were in Christ. And even now, I'm telling you, I'm breaking down those boundaries. But I think to your point, importantly Tony, in part because you have failed in the covenant promises and you who were to represent and to heed and to lead, have fallen down. And so now you're gonna trip over this stone and it's going to crush you. And as a result of that, the vine, the vine growers will be, or the vineyard itself will be turned over to those who bear this true and lively fruit.  [00:29:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:29:23] Israel Failure Remnant [00:29:23] Tony Arsenal: There's an interesting, um. There's an interesting dynamic here that actually strikes me as kind of similar. It's a little bit more opaque, but similar to, uh, like Joseph in, uh, in Egypt, right when his brothers come and he says, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. Mm-hmm. There's a, there's an element of here, we've talked about the parables. That's sort of like systematic theology in story form. Um, there's a reality here that it's both true, that God always intended for the kingdom to be expansive and, and to expand beyond the nation of Israel. To be this universal, global lowercase c Catholic, universal church universal in the sense that it's not bound by any particular nation, by any particular geopolitical reality. Um. That's true, but it's also true that the reason, uh, on a sort of like horizontal level that that's true is that Israel failed. Right? It so God always intended for Israel to fail, yet Israel is responsible for the fact that they failed. Yes, that's right. Um, and, and, and again, we, we, we sort of commented on this before, like there are some in our broader reformed circles that turn this into a sort of antisemitism, like a sort of hatred for the Jewish people. And I don't think, I don't think that there's any warrant in scripture for that. In fact, I think scripture speaks strongly against that. Is that, um. Not necessarily because there's any particular unique special affection that God has for Israel, like, like the modern Jewish people, but, but that, like racism in general is prohibited by the Bible. But I think where we do need to be clear though, is that there is a real failure. It's a true, genuine failure on the part of the first century Jewish. Leaders and people, um, with a faithful remnant. Right? There was, um, we're, we're getting, you know, we're in the springtime and we've already had, uh, we've already had discussions about this. We've already done Easter, but like there is always conversations around Palm Sunday of like, are the crowds that are following Jesus into, into town screaming, you know, yelling, Hosanna? Is that the same crowds that are yelling crucify him a couple days later? Um, I tend to think like, no, like actually, like the people who are saying crucified, crucify Christ are probably like the Jews who live in Jerusalem or like the, primarily the religious leaders. There's a whole host of Jewish believers and kind of the hoy pallo, the, the people out in the country that absolutely follow Jesus. Like they follow him as the Messiah. They, they confess him in many cases. They convince him to be, um, they confess him to be God, to to be the savior, to be the, the figure from Daniel seven, the son of man. Um. There's a reality in which the Jewish remnant absolutely recognize Christ and they persist in the church, right? The earliest Christians were all Jews, and you know, there was a few Gentiles along the way, you know, and maybe not even Gentiles like Samaritans. I don't even know if you would call them gentiles. They're kind of this midway point, but in Jewish gentil. But there are people throughout Christ's ministry, right? Cornelius or not Cornelius, the Centurion recognizes that this is the son of God. Like there are people, the s Phoenician woman, there are people who are not part of Israel proper, who even in the, in the midst of Christ's ministry are recognizing him as God and as Messiah and as the savior of the world. But, but by and large, the earliest Christian movement was Jewish people. It was the faithful remnant of, of Israel who recognized that their Messiah had come. That is true. And at the same time. The, probably the majority, and especially the rulers and the leaders of the Israel, you know, the Jewish faith in the first century absolutely rejected him. And this is what I, this is what I think is wild, is I think sometimes we think that, um, the prophecies and the understanding of Christ and what the messiah, who the Messiah was to be and what to expect, we think of those as like super obscured and super hidden until Christ comes and then all of a sudden they're really obvious. Christ doesn't seem to treat them that way. Right? Right. He tells this parable and they rightly identify that, and this is a, this is such a thinly veiled parable. Like this is like, you killed the prophets. You're going to kill me. And there's going to be consequences. Like he practically says that outright. Um. He treats that as like they should obviously know this, right? The, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone, the builder rejected has become the cornerstone, right? This was the lord's doing. It is, and it is marvelous in their eyes that have you never read?  [00:34:06] Decree in Rejection [00:34:06] Tony Arsenal: That is a, that's a rhetorical question with the implied answer of, of course, you've read exactly like he's not, he's not teaching them something that he anticipated is new to them. He maybe is teaching them something that he anticipated they maybe you didn't recognize. But actually I think probably like, uh, there probably were many among them that were like, oh yeah, we are doing this. But then almost like we're powerless to stop themselves from moving forward in that.  [00:34:32] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:34:32] Tony Arsenal: Sort of like wicked plan. [00:34:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah. And I think we could extend that as well to say that this rejection of Christ by this Jewish leadership, which of course was a incredible failure, like you're saying, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't an unforeseen tragedy. So just like interestingly in Acts four in his sermon where Peter quotes from the same Old Testament passage about Christ being the cornerstone, you know, it was prophesied long before. And so the doctrine of God's eternal decree, I think finds v vivid illustration even here. This is all the Lord's doing. Yeah. And even the wicked rejection of the Messiah is serving this purpose, this sovereign purpose of God's great exaltation. And so it's fascinating, and we should marvel at the fact that, again, like God means what he says when he says like He uses what is weak to overcome that which is strong, or to embarrass the strong, he uses that which seems foolish. To make the wise themselves, the ones who are actually foolish in the same way.  [00:35:29] Cornerstone Unites Church [00:35:29] Jesse Schwamb: This very stone, which men in their malice cast aside on that day. God is in his wisdom setting as this chief cornerstone. And I love like that idea of this phrase, this head of the corner denoting that amazing preeminence of Christ, that Christ is not merely included in the building of the new Covenant church. He is its chief and constituent stone that joining together both like the Jew and the Gentile, finally into one structure. And that's really, I think to your point, that's the great mystery of the hidden ages from the past. That that's the thing which Christ is bringing to like this grand display, like out on the stage in the open, in front of everybody. He's drawing it up, he's calling it to account. And so in that way, the same Jesus that was rejected by men is in God's account of inestimable value. And that should be like, I think, familiar to most of us because like there a form tradition has always insisted that. The true theology always issues in doxology and the cross and exaltation of Christ are not merely these facts, which we give these intellectual ascent, but we, we confess them as mysteries which provoke us to adoration of who God is. It's the excellency of Christ expounding at length, like the wondrous conjunction of Christ's humiliation and his exaltation, which finds its pattern here, rejected by men, glorified by God.  [00:36:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:36:52] Works Covenant Failures [00:36:52] Tony Arsenal: And, and this is, um, we, we commented in our first, uh, episode on this par ball. This is not isolated to just the rulers of Israel at the time of Christ, right? This is in reality, kind of like a reflection of every failure of the covenant of works. In some sense, every failure to hold the covenant of works boils down to an attempt to make oneself, God. Right. This was Adam's failure in the garden. Um, Eve, Eve was the first person to eat the fruit, but Adam, Adam was responsible for that and he, he also ate the fruit and they, they did so in part because they thought it was useful to make them like God and, and in an illegitimate fashion. And they knew it was an illegitimate fashion. It's not as though Adam and Eve suddenly were like, maybe we can eat the fruit. Maybe like we actually are fine to do it. Like they knew it was still forbidden. Right. They did it anyways. And the Pharisees here, um, are in a real attempt. Um, they are trying to take the role of Messiah for the people. They're trying to be the savior of the people in sort of shepherding and guiding them into this like. Ultra legalistic Puritan, like puritanical in the worst sense, um, kind of approach to the law. Um, this is the, the story of Old Testament Israel, right? What is the first thing that the Israelites do? Um, at Mount Sinai? The first thing they do is try to fashion gods so that they have a tame God that they can control and that they can actually be God's over. So I think this is really key and, and this is where it becomes practical for us, is that. I think we always are faced with a choice, right? There's, there's obviously those who are Christ, who the son is set free. He's set free indeed, and they will never not be his people. Like you never become not justified. If you were justified, you always forever more are justified. Justified is a final. It's, it's the future judgment of God's people dragged and dropped into the present and applied. It's the righteousness of Christ applied. So there, there's never a time where that righteousness is like removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, uh, as the faithful, the sort of the implied faithful tenants that are going to be brought forward when the, the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves? And I think that's, that's really the thing. Like we're either gonna rep. Fruit of wickedness, or we're gonna reap fruit of righteousness. And the only thing to do with fruit of righteousness is surrender it to the Lord. But we often are faced with that choice, like, are we gonna reap our own wicked fruit and keep it all to ourselves right, uh, to our own detriment? Or are we gonna go ahead and be the faithful tenants that give the Lord what he deserves?  [00:39:46] Kingdom Transfer Explained [00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: We're seeing so much of the simplicity of God here that like you and I have said so many times before that his loving kindness, his long suffering ness is his righteousness, is his justice, is his wrath. And so I think it's helpful, again, to remind ourselves that we're, we are talking, or he specifically is speaking of the kingdom of God here. And again referring to this visible administration of the covenant of grace, not to the inward and invisible kingdom of saving grace, which as you just said, can never be lost from those who possess it, which by the way is a really important distinctive of reform theology. There are many that would disagree with that statement, and I think really much to their harm in, in disagreement with the scriptures themselves, this one in particular, but it is this external administration, the privileges, the ordinances, the oracles of God. That is being transferred from the Jewish nation as a corporate body to a new and broader people of God. And because I know that sounds very extreme, I did look up Calvin and his commentary on this and let me read what he says because this is interesting. I think even this could possibly mis be misunderstood. But here's Calvin who can say it better than I. He says, quote by these words, he means that God would deprive the Jews of the honor and the privilege of being his peculiar people and would call the Gentiles that out of them he might form a church end quote. And going back to what you said earlier, I'm with you. I, I. I mean, this is not, I think as some have wrongly concluded, like replacement theology in like a wooden sense. I, I see this still as like this historical redemptive transition from the typological administration of the old covenant to the eschatological fulfillment of the new. And the elect remnant of Israel is not cast off, but the national like typological privileges are being transferred to the Catholic church, gathered from all nations. And in that, I really do see this wonderful confluence of God's loving kindness, his, his fidelity to the promises that he's made and his wrath being manifested all at once. And somehow Jesus, of course, in complete perfection, can bring that all to bear in this tiny little story.  [00:41:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And and isn't it just like the master teacher to like, put all of this baked into this? I mean, that's right. We think of this as like a long parable, like I think,  [00:42:02] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:42:02] Tony Arsenal: I think like it's, it's amazing how we think of parables as, you know, like this is a short one. A short one is a couple sentences, a long one is like a half a dozen sentences. Like, and of course like Christ is teaching broader than this. He's teaching more than this. Just, this is what's recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what Matthews preserved for us.  [00:42:22] Stone Breaks or Crushes [00:42:22] Tony Arsenal: But you're right, there's so much baked into this little parable and I think, um, there's something to be said about this idea of like. Not only do those who smash against the, the rock, the, the cornerstone, those who smash against the rock, like those who who fall on the rock are broken to pieces, but also the rock falls on others and smashes them to pieces. Right? And, and there's something to be said about the fact that, and I'm not exactly sure how I wanna articulate this, but it's only those who like recognize the proper place of the rock and don't either let it fall on them or don't smash themselves against it. You know, we always joke about like running through a wall. Like this is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are, if you're not properly assigning the cornerstone it's placed, right? The cornerstone is, is the stone that's placed in the foundation of a building that all the other stones find their orientation and their proper alignment based on. [00:43:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:43:26] Tony Arsenal: You might think of this sometimes. I've heard this articulated as like the, the arch stone. I think it's a little bit different than that. Um, but it, the, the idea is the same, right? Like there's a stone in an arch. If you think of like a classic Roman arch, you have these piles of stones until you put the final arch stone in. That, in that stone is what makes the arch stable. Until that point, either side can fall, but if you don't properly set that arch stone where it's supposed to be, then the whole thing is gonna crush you. It's gonna fall down on top of you at some point. I think this is a little different. This is the cornerstone of a, this is more like the cornerstone of a building. This is the stone that the rest of the building, building is oriented against and is aligned with. If you get that wrong, then you have a, you have like a crooked wall, a wall that's not set, that's not straight. It's not stable. What this is saying and what this, this prophecy right from, from Psalm one 10, I think I should probably look it up, but I haven't yet. But this prophecy that Christ is referring to this, this prophetic statement in the Psalms that he's assuming the audience is familiar with, right? I think that's a really important point. Like he's not only assuming that they're familiar with it, there's rhetorical force of kind of like, of course you understand this principle that there is a cornerstone coming. There is something or someone who is coming that all other things will be measured against. And if you're either in alignment with this, with this person who is coming or you're out of alignment with reality, this thing is understood by them. It just is so critical and I think like the, the, a lot of the parables don't have explanations built into them. Some of them do. We've talked about some of them. A lot of them don't, this one does, but it's kind of like a really surprising way to explain it. And there's so much, um, the more that I look at this, the more we talk about it, this really is so similar to David and Nathan, right? Right. When with the, the affair with Bathsheba, he is saying to the Pharisees, look, you're the man. Like, you're the one here. You're the guy. You guys are the wicked tenants that are gonna, you've killed the prophets. Right? Um, I'm losing my, my timeline a little bit, but John the Baptist either had been executed or would be executed shortly at this point, right? So like the, the most recent prophet either was already killed or, or Christ knew of course he was going to be killed. Um, he's saying, look, you guys are the ones that are doing this and you're going to kill me. Right. And this is obviously what the prophecy is, that you think you're going to come against the cornerstone, but in reality you're going to shatter yourself upon me. You think you're gonna come against me, I'm going to crush you. And rather than say, you know, as ba, you know, as David does, where he repents, he, he fasts and he, he refuses to eat. He's, he's in mourning over both the loss of his infant, but, but more so over his own sin, I think is the picture the text gives us. Um, he's mourning trying to uh, sort of like reverse God's decision, but there's a genuine repentance to it, right? That's where we get Psalm 51, like creating, clean me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit in me. There's none of that for the Pharisees, there's none of that for the sadist of the chief priests. They just continue to smash themselves against this rock, not recognizing that it's actually the rock that is crushing them. [00:47:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's, it's a bit like, I'm gonna speak like a little maybe beyond my depth here, but there's a little bit of like that Nathan, like Strategem, and then this is where I'm outside my own experience. And then a little bit like maybe like WWE the rock in terms of like. If you want some come and get some, right? It's a little of both. And of course the passage ends very tragically, well ends humorously by them, you know, saying that at some point they were like, they understood in these parables, again, this is one of three of the same kind of topic of variety, but that Jesus was referring to them, which is funny. You wanna be like, yeah, it took a, took a long enough, I guess, guys, but you finally got it. But then that last sentence of like, they still sought to kill him. So to your point, even after all of this, there wasn't repentance. And we do get these, I think, two very distinct judgements that are depicted here, which you've already kinda led us into this first, like, whoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken. You know, to me, I think that's invoking this idea that in this life, there we are, we can be brought to brokenness through the gospel and to fall upon Christ. And repentance. And faith is to be broken in self, in pride and self-righteous. It's a breaking that does lead to healing. But this second judgment, you know the one, but on whomever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder, grind him to dust, I mean. Man, think about what a vivid image that is. I mean, that's like the more terrible of the two. That that's like the, yeah. Final Es logical judgment of those who persist in unbelief and it, it admits there's like no remedy. So there are only two ways to relate to Christ. You either fall upon him willingly in faith and repentance, which is painful, but it is saving, you know, to have him fall upon us in judgment is final in damning, and so that's what Christ presents here. [00:48:48] Psalm 118 in Context [00:48:48] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's both of these things and you're right, it is brilliant that he goes to Psalm one 18 even that as a setup, because as you've kind of already said, I love to think, of course that's, can you manner the tone in which this was said to these scribes and Pharisees? Because of course the, the secondary indictment here is like, listen, you guys who like your great pride is that, you know, the scriptures really well. Have you read this part is familiar to you. Yeah. Can you tell me where that is? So like, we, we should go there just, just quickly. This is Psalm one 18 because I think that here again is, as I'm hearing it in context. There are some verses surrounding this that I think we might be surprised that they come right on the heels of this idea of the stone. So just a couple verses. In Psalm one 18 being in verse 22, the stone, which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone. This is from Yahweh. It is marvelous in our eyes. Here's the verses that we might not recognize. Come right after it. This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Oh, Yahweh, save. Oh, Yahweh, succeed. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh. We have blessed you from the house of Yahweh. Yahweh is God, and he has given us light by the festival sacrifice with corns to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I give thanks to you. You are my God, and I exalt you. Give thanks to Yahweh for his good, for his loving kindness endures forever. And so this idea that there's rejoicing in which day, I mean, usually we kinda say that it's like, well, it's a beautiful day out. It's the Lord's day. This is the day that Yahweh is like that. That's true. But also here in particular, it is this blessed day of Yahweh giving the stone, which the builders reject and which has become the chief cornerstone. And that stone is some will run headlong into and shipwreck their lives and others will be crushed underneath it. And guess what? This is the day which Yahweh has made and we're gonna rejoice and be glad in that.  [00:50:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:50:43] Mark's Angle on Fear [00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: The other thing I think, you know, we. Should, um, maybe not spend any time on, 'cause we're at like, out, like minute 50 of a 60 minute podcast. But just going to, to Mark's version of this parable real quick. Um, starting in verse, uh, this is chapter 12, verse 12. It says, and they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people for, they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away. And the, the main difference here, the reason I'm reading this is Mark chooses a d. Concerning them. The verb is, or the preposition is Perry. So it's kind of like this idea that he was, he was sort of speaking around them. He was talking about them. Mark uses the, the preposition, proce, which is not, um, not against, in like the same, uh, direct sense. We might use the word against. That would be something like Kada. Um, but he's, he's speaking this parable towards them or to them, um, against them. He's, he's directing the parable at them. And this is, this is, we, we commented on this a little bit in the, the first episode here. Um, he is speaking to the crowds. But he's telling the parable about or against or concerning the Pharisees and the scribes, and they perceive this, right. The, the gospels here don't say that the crowds perceive this. Right. And I think that's key. Like the Pharisees basically look at this and say, uh, we better get this under control because he's talking about us. Right, right. Like, I'm just picturing Paul Washer's. I'm not trying to say Paul Washer is a Pharisee, although some people would probably make that connection. But like I'm, I'm just hearing Paul Washer's voice saying like, I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. He's speaking to the Pharisees here. And it's interesting because Matthew associates the, the, uh, Pharisees. Cowardice in acting against Christ, uh, because they fear the crowds and because the crowds believe Christ is a parable or is a prophet Mark associates. And again, both of these things are true, right? This is holy scripture. This is inspired, these are not contradictory accounts. This is facets of the same diamond. Mark associates this with, they fear the crowds. Um, because they had taken him. They, they understood that the parable was being spoken against them, right? So there's this element that the Pharisees are not only understanding that the, the parable is about them, they feared them because the crowds believe that Christ is a prophet and that prophet is speaking this parable against them, right? So like they're, they're recognizing full on that it's only a matter of time before the, the general population, the general people that are listening to Christ recognize that he's overturning. Not only the Pharisees, the entire geopolitical nation of Israel, he's overturning the ethnic based reality, the geopolitical based reality, that God's people have a zip code and that zip code is Jerusalem. That zip code is this little si, this little tract of land the size of like Vermont and New Hampshire in the Mediterranean, like off the Mediterranean Sea. He's overturning that. And the, the Pharisees, the educated people, the, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the rulers, they recognize it's only a matter of time before the people understand what Christ is doing. They, they follow him as a prophet and this is what he's prophesying. And

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Photobiomodulation Stroke Recovery: How Laser Therapy Is Restarting Damaged Brains After Stroke For seven years, a woman lived unable to remember faces. She had developed prosopagnosia, a condition that turned every person she met into a stranger, no matter how many times they had been introduced. She kept notes. She took photographs. She built systems to compensate for what her brain could no longer do on its own. Then she sat down for a single laser therapy session with Dr. Robert Hedaya. One session later, the problem was gone. “I can remember the face of the person I worked with this morning and his wife and the dimple on his face,” she told him, describing something she hadn’t been able to do in nearly a decade. What Dr. Hedaya witnessed that day and what he now works to replicate for stroke survivors, people living with aphasia, early dementia, and Parkinson’s, is the result of a therapy called photobiomodulation. And the principle behind it may fundamentally change how you understand your own recovery ceiling. Your Neurons May Not Be Dead. They May Just Be Stuck When a stroke occurs, conventional medicine draws a clear line. Tissue that is destroyed is gone. Deficits that persist beyond the early recovery window are considered permanent. Survivors are told, sometimes gently, sometimes bluntly, that they have plateaued. Dr. Hedaya challenges that directly. In his clinical experience, there is often a population of neurons that survived the stroke intact but are no longer functioning. They are alive. Their cellular architecture is preserved. But they have lost their energy supply, specifically, the ability to produce ATP, the molecule that powers every cellular process in the body. Without energy, these neurons go quiet. They stop firing. From the outside, this looks like permanent damage. But it isn’t. It is dormancy. This mirrors the concept of the chronic penumbra explored in hyperbaric oxygen therapy research, where viable tissue sits in a suspended state, waiting for conditions to change. Dr. Hedaya’s approach is different in method but identical in premise: the brain has not finished recovering. It is waiting for the right signal. Photobiomodulation provides that signal. What Photobiomodulation Actually Does “After the first laser treatment, the problem was gone. Gone. She told me — I can remember the face of the person I worked with this morning.” — Dr. Robert Hedaya Photobiomodulation, also called transcranial laser therapy, delivers precise wavelengths of near-infrared light to targeted areas of the scalp. The photons penetrate through the skull, meninges, and tissue to reach dormant neurons, where they act on the fourth complex of the mitochondrial electron transport chain, the site where nitric oxide accumulates and blocks ATP production. The photons dislodge that nitric oxide. The mitochondria resume normal energy output. The neuron now has what it needs to resume its function. The downstream effects are significant: new synapses form through a process called synaptogenesis, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is produced, inflammation decreases, and misfolded proteins associated with cognitive decline begin to clear. Given energy, the brain begins repairing itself, not because the laser forces it to, but because the cells already know what to do. They were just waiting for the fuel. How QEEG Makes It Precise Not every stroke survivor responds to the same laser parameters or needs treatment in the same regions. This is where Dr. Hedaya’s approach clearly separates from consumer LED helmets or generic light therapy devices. Before any laser is applied, he conducts a quantitative EEG, a brain mapping process that measures electrical activity at 19 points across the scalp. Unlike a standard EEG, which relies on a clinician reading scrolling waveforms visually, QEEG uses AI to analyse thousands of data points and reverse-engineer the source. The result is a functional map: which networks are underperforming, which are overactive, and where pathways between regions have broken down. This is paired with a neuroquant MRI that measures 30 to 40 distinct brain structures volumetrically. Together, they function as a GPS triangulating exactly where the laser should be directed, at what wavelength, power, pulse frequency, and joule delivery for each individual patient. These parameters are adjusted as the patient responds, session by session. This level of precision is what distinguishes clinical photobiomodulation from anything available over the counter. A half-watt LED helmet delivering diffuse light through hair and scalp is not the same intervention. Depression After Stroke – And the Whole-Body Connection Roughly 30% of stroke survivors experience depression in the aftermath. This is not simply an emotional response to a difficult event – it is a physiological outcome with identifiable drivers that conventional psychiatry often does not investigate. Dr. Hedaya’s model, which he calls whole psychiatry, treats post-stroke depression as a downstream expression of broader disruption: hypothyroidism, hormonal imbalance, B12 deficiency, elevated mercury from dietary sources, gut dysbiosis, chronic inflammation, and unresolved neurological stress all play measurable roles. In one of his current stroke cases, treating low thyroid function triggered seizure sensitivity because post-stroke tissue is more vulnerable to excitatory input. That kind of complexity is precisely why a comprehensive functional evaluation must precede treatment. For survivors too depleted to engage with lifestyle changes, Dr. Hedaya will now often begin with laser therapy directly. Once cellular energy is restored, the motivation and capacity to make further changes typically follow. The jump-start, he has found, enables everything else. Is Recovery Still Possible After a Plateau? If you have been told you have reached your ceiling, the core message of this episode is worth sitting with: the plateau is often not a biological fact. It is frequently the consequence of underlying conditions that haven’t been identified, and dormant tissue that hasn’t been activated. “The brain is incredibly plastic,” Dr. Hedaya says. “When you challenge it and give it everything it needs, nutrients, light, hormones, and remove the toxins, great things can happen. There is hope. There is so much hope.” His practice, the Whole Psychiatry and Brain Recovery Center, offers initial consultations via Zoom for those who cannot travel to New Jersey. For survivors with a local physician willing to collaborate, educational consultation is also available. Reach Dr. Hedaya at wholepsychiatry.com. If this episode opened something up for you, Bill’s book – The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened follows the full arc of what recovery can become when you stop accepting the ceiling and start questioning it. Find it at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. If the Recovery After Stroke podcast has supported your journey, you can support the show at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan. The Laser That Restarts Brains – Dr. Robert Hedaya on Photobiomodulation, QEEG, and Whole Psychiatry After Stroke A laser pointed at the right spot in your brain can restart neurons that stopped working. Dr. Robert Hedaya explains how and who it can help. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy – Dr. Amir Hadanny Highlights: 00:00 Introduction – Photobiomodulation Stroke Recovery 01:09 Dr. Hedaya’s Medical Journey 07:55 Transition to Functional Medicine 10:31 Photobiomodulation Stroke Recovery Applications 19:21 Understanding Laser Mechanisms 24:36 Jumpstarting Healing with Laser Therapy 29:48 Understanding EEG vs. QEEG 34:10 Addressing Depression Post-Stroke 39:38 Holistic Approaches to Recovery 46:20 Patient-Centered Care and Follow-Up 51:38 The Role of Spirituality in Healing Transcript: Introduction – Photobiomodulation Stroke Recovery Dr Bob Hedaya (00:00) After the first laser treatment, the problem was gone. Gone. She told me, she said, my God, I can remember the face of the person I worked with this morning and his wife and the dimple on the face. And I said, what are you talking about? She says, have prosopagnosia. I said, says, can’t remember faces. I have to write down everything that I do and take pictures of everything and every person. I said, my God, it’s gone, gone. that’s when I went home that night and I was like, this doesn’t make any sense. How could this be? There’s nothing about a neurological condition being turned around in one minute. It makes no sense. Dr. Hedaya’s Medical Journey Bill Gasiamis (00:41) Welcome everyone to the Recovery After Stroke podcast. I’m Bill Gasiamis and my guest today is Dr. Robert Hedaya, a board-certified psychiatrist, functional medicine practitioner, and the founder of the Hull Psychiatry and Brain Recovery Center in New Jersey. Dr. Hedaya trained at Georgetown and the National Institute of Mental Health. And over the course of his career, he moved from conventional psychopharmacology into functional medicine after discovering of what was driving his patient’s symptoms had nothing to do with their medications and everything to do with their biology. In more recent years, Dr. Hedaya has added a tool that very few practitioners anywhere in the world are using, QEEG, guided transcranial photobiomodulation. That’s laser therapy, precisely using a functional brain map to reactivate neurons that survived the stroke but stopped working. In this conversation, we get into the science behind photobiomodulation and what it actually does inside the cell. How QEEG brain mapping removes the guesswork from treatment, why post-stroke depression is so often mismanaged, the role of nutrition, hormones, and toxin load in recovery. and why Dr. Hedaya believes the plateau most survivors are told about is not the biological sealing they’ve been led to believe it is. Now, before we get into this episode, if you found this podcast helpful in your recovery, my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened goes deeper into the tools and mindset shifts that support long-term recovery and personal transformation. You can find it at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. And if this show has supported you, you can support it at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Now let’s get into it. Bill Gasiamis (02:38) Dr. Hedaya. Welcome to the podcast. Dr Bob Hedaya (02:41) Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Bill Gasiamis (02:43) It is a very good pleasure to have you here as well. The reason being is because I, what we’re going to discuss, but B the way that you came to be on my podcast was through somebody who listens to my podcast, reaching out and saying, need to have this gentleman on your podcast. And I get that a lot. And sometimes it’s like, thank you for the referral, but maybe that’s not for me, but this is definitely for me. Can you give me a little bit of. Dr Bob Hedaya (03:01) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Bill Gasiamis (03:13) background for people who are listening to understand how it is that you and I came to be on the podcast today, but more importantly, like your medical journey to today. Dr Bob Hedaya (03:26) Well, so first of all, I ⁓ was treating a woman who was, let’s say, about 50 years old. She had several strokes. And her husband looked me up, and they came here for treatment. in New Jersey. And ⁓ she had significant improvement in her ability to speak over a short period of time. That’s a little. kind of summary of the situation, but it was ⁓ profound. She still has work to do, a lot of work to do, but she’s doing it and she’s progressing nicely. So that’s, he basically, I guess, decided this needs to get out. And so he contacted you, et cetera, et cetera. In terms of my journey, ⁓ that could take a few hours. So let me try and summarize it. I will say I basically went to medical school, took off six months to study medicine on my own after two years because I really, lot of reasons, but one of them was I just was memorizing things and I didn’t really understand what I was doing. And so I took off six months and I really learned about the human body. I studied, I had a schedule, a very fixed schedule, about 10 hours a day of studying and exercise and eat. was very, you know, I was young and regimented. And I had six books, six subjects that I wanted to get through and I did. And I learned all about the body and different parts of the body, how they interact with each other. And also I was able to understand and predict even certain kinds of processes and problems in the body. So that was an integrative experience, which ⁓ later really served as the foundation for what I do. Fast forward, I was going to be a surgeon, decided to be a psychiatrist instead, because I was fascinated by by the human mind. And what happened was I was trained at Georgetown National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, DC. And then I was in practice for about a year. And I was treating a woman who had panic attacks. And they weren’t getting better after a year. And panic attacks are pretty easy to treat. And so I was like, what’s going on here? She paged me one night after a year, Saturday night. And I remember I had a little beeper, you know, and I went to find a phone booth and, hey, Joanne, what’s going on? It’s midnight, right? She’s talking to me, I’m having a panic attack. And I mean, I still remember the anguish in her voice. You know, it was really, really, really rough to listen to. So Monday morning, I went into the office very early and I’m like, I’m missing something. What am I missing? So I found I had one piece of blood work. had a blood count and the size of her red blood cells was large. and I had seen that and didn’t know what it meant and ignored it. Very little. It wasn’t very large. It was just a little bit out of the norm. And I was trained in hospitals. know, in hospitals, you don’t worry about the little things. You worry about the train wrecks, right? So you never really learn what the little things mean. So here was a so-called little thing and it was ruining her life. Meanwhile, I did some research. It was a B12 deficiency. I gave her B12 injection. And with the first injection, her panic was gone. Transition to Functional Medicine I mean, gone, gone, gone. And I was like, whoa, what else am I missing? Because psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, it’s a revolving door. You go to this doctor, you take these meds, you do this therapy. That works for a while, then you go somewhere else. I figured I’m missing a lot of stuff. And basically, ended up learning. I didn’t know it was called functional medicine, but I ended up learning functional medicine on my own. Wrote a book, got introduced. to Jeff Bland at IFM. contacted me and took formal training and then, you know, that was what I was doing. And I did that, ⁓ put out a second book ⁓ and that was a best seller. And ⁓ the book was called the Anti-Depressant Survival Program. But really it was functional medicine psychiatry or whole psychiatry, which I like to call it. But it’s functional medicine psychiatry, but the publisher wanted… you know, a nice fancy title that would, know, so they decided to call it the Anti-Depressant Program, you know, survival program. Anyway, the best seller and we had thousands of phone calls, we had a lot of publicity and I couldn’t obviously see everybody. So I picked people who had treatment resistant depression and people who had the resources and the motivation or the support to be able to do what they needed to do. And I just treated them with functional medicine. And at this time, you’ve got to realize I was a psychopharmacologist. I was also trained as a psychopharmacologist. So I was doing a lot of psychopharmacology. I mean, a lot. And now I’m doing functional medicine on everybody. And after about three years, I’m noticing that I’m not actually doing that much psychopharmacology anymore. And everybody’s getting better. And the diabetes is going away. and osteoporosis is going away and one woman’s MS lesion in her brain went away and I’m like, what’s going on here? You know what? I might be lying to myself. So maybe I’m paying attention to the positive cases and I’m ignoring the negative. So I hired a statistician to go over all my cases over the course of this period of time, it two or three years. Ended up in 23 cases of treatment resistant depression. ⁓ I wasn’t lying to myself. Every single person went into recovery, not partial remission, not 50 % better, fully recovered by 10 months, every single one. And I was just blown away that, you know, I mean, I was blown away before, but then it was like, well, you’re not really lying to yourself. So that’s what I was doing until 2014 when I retired. I had actually an inaccurate diagnosis. I retired and… turned out it was incorrect. So it was actually really good to be retired, although I missed it terribly, really missed medicine terribly. But it gave me some time. And this is where this kind of starts to relate more to your audience. ⁓ I’m sitting on a hammock for six hours reading a book. Well, you can’t do that when you’re in practice. Bill Gasiamis (10:07) Good thing to do. Yeah. Photobiomodulation Stroke Recovery Applications Dr Bob Hedaya (10:13) That doesn’t happen. So but I was you know in retirement, so I’m reading this book and put two and two together over the course of time and I learned about laser which which they were using in Russia in 1980s and learned how the laser worked and And I was like whoa this could really help the brain and Then I was thinking now. I’m not in practice right, but I’m then I’m thinking but how would I know where to? point the laser in the brain for a patient. And then I keep reading in the book, and then they start talking about in the next chapter about quantitative EEG. And I’m like, oh, that’s how I would know. So I spent the next three years or so actually studying these methodologies. And then in 2017, I want to say, or 2018, I treated my first patient who had early dementia. published this case actually. I was treating her for early dementia. And I had treated her for six months with functional medicine, know, hormones and treating infections, et cetera, et cetera. And she really was much better. And then I was ready to do my first quantitative EEG. And she’s doing much better. She still has some symptoms. And I do the QEG. And actually, if I could share my I don’t know if I can, Okay, so basically what I just sent you is ⁓ how her brain looked after six months of functional medicine, right? So I was shocked because I thought her brain would look much better. And then I said, okay, let’s do the laser. So I knew where to point it because the QEG and this was the shocker. With the first laser, she had a problem. before the laser treatment of facial blindness. I don’t know if you know what that is. It’s people who can’t remember faces. They just met someone, they can’t remember the face. It’s called prosopagnosia. She had acquired it seven years earlier. Bill Gasiamis (12:11) I do. Yeah. Dr Bob Hedaya (12:21) After the first laser treatment, the problem was gone. Gone. She told me, she said, my God, I can remember the face of the person I worked with this morning and his wife and the dimple on the face. And I said, what are you talking about? She says, have prosopagnosia. I said, what? What is proto-diagnosia? I don’t know what that is. She says, can’t remember faces. I have to write down everything that I do and take pictures of everything and every person. I said, my God, it’s gone, gone. that’s when I went home that night and I was like, this doesn’t make any sense. How could this be? There’s nothing about a neurological condition being turned around in one minute. It makes no sense. But then I realized, I reasoned it out, realized, well, she had a population of neurons that were kind of alive, but they were not really functioning. And then I kind of jump started them with the laser and they went about their business and did their job. Bill Gasiamis (13:19) I love it. So, that’s a contrast on what you’re doing as in psychiatry, because psychiatry from, you know, my understanding is, you know, if you, if you speak to somebody who’s been through psychiatry and you ask them, how’s your condition or how is your situation or what has improved, very few people can say, ⁓ well, I’m, I’m better. I’ve overcome it. We’ve moved beyond the resolve that Dr Bob Hedaya (13:27) Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (13:47) Nobody really does that. They kind of just continue to go through the motions of another appointment, another medication, another adjustment in the amount of medication, et cetera. And what you said also seems a little bit ridiculous and kind of too quick. How do you get that kind of a solution that’s meant to take ages? You’re supposed to go through the typical times and it’s supposed to be costly and Dr Bob Hedaya (14:06) Too quick. Bill Gasiamis (14:16) unattainable and all these things. And it makes people feel sometimes I know stroke survivors who come across promises like that from other ⁓ people who talk about ⁓ perhaps ⁓ non-studied, ⁓ no scientific background kind of solutions to stroke and then kind of give everyone a blanket. If we do this, we’ll fix your stroke deficits, which is not true. ⁓ And then And then it leaves people feeling like they got ripped off. If they paid money, it leaves people lost for hope that there is no hope, cetera. And we kind of find ourselves in a, okay, desperate, what do we do now situation, right? And that’s kind of why I got excited when your patient’s husband reached out and said that we should chat. And I had a bit of a look into the kind of work that you do. ⁓ Functional medicine, I’ve heard about heaps. Dr Bob Hedaya (15:00) Hmm. Bill Gasiamis (15:14) And I love that it’s merged with psychiatry because when I started my journey in 2012, overcoming the first brain bladed and the second brain blade six weeks later, I went into functional medicine study to find out not formally, but I started doing what I didn’t know at the time was studying functional medicine and understanding like how I can decrease the inflammation in my brain. and provide the right environment for healing. And the first thing I came across was a book by somebody that you’re gonna know, Mark Hyman. And the book was, ⁓ the book was, ⁓ Eight Fat Get Thin. I read it, not wanting to get thin, I read it ⁓ because it ticked the boxes for the diet that I was gonna use to reduce inflammation in my brain. Dr Bob Hedaya (15:54) Okay. Bill Gasiamis (16:12) And the side effect was I thin. I wasn’t going for that because I was taking medication. was taking ⁓ dexamethasone, which made me put on weight and made these like all these types of ⁓ terrible side effects, but it was helping reduce the inflammation in my brain. So I, I was happy to have it, but I needed to achieve the same outcome as dexamethasone. Dr Bob Hedaya (16:13) I’m kidding. Bill Gasiamis (16:41) or a similar outcome as dexamethasone on a permanent basis without taking dexamethasone to improve the situation in my brain. And then I started to realize that I had a lot of power and I was ⁓ only not guided properly because my physicians, my doctors weren’t able to offer advice in that space. And had I not been the curious kind of guy that I was, I never would have come across Dr. Hyman and some other amazing guys who wrote books at around about that time that were similar in nature. so you’re, and then, and then a little while later, I found there was a Tasmanian, ⁓ psychiatrist, forget her name, but I have her book on my shelf upstairs who wrote a book about, ⁓ psychiatry and food and, the link between food and a good psychiatric outcome. Dr Bob Hedaya (17:15) huh. Bill Gasiamis (17:39) in the brain. And I just thought, okay, there’s much, much more that needs to happen here. Now, this the connections, there’s a lot of connections here. So recently on my YouTube channel, somebody left a comment I wanted to know about red light therapy, and will it help their brain? And I’m like, I have no idea. But let me do some research. I went on to PubMed, I found some articles and wouldn’t you believe it, there is a whole bunch of ⁓ proper data that Dr Bob Hedaya (17:40) You know what? Come on. Bill Gasiamis (18:08) suggests that there is a benefit. The only challenge that I always have with all of these potentially beneficial interventions is there’s no diagnosis done in the first place to determine whether somebody actually is eligible for a particular intervention. And what it sounds like you’re able to do is the diagnostics part and determine their eligibility. Tell me a little bit about why that is important. Dr Bob Hedaya (18:35) Right. Okay, so let me back, I wanna back up, because you said something very important, then I wanna reiterate it. I just gave you before a case of a woman who in five minutes, her problem was gone, right? Not, people should not think that’s the norm, okay? Not the norm. Occasionally it happens, I have a guy who had a head injury and had light sensitivity and confusion in certain situations with light, and one treatment, boom, gone. Understanding Laser Mechanisms People, you know, I have cases like that, but most of the time this is a gradual process. So people should not think it’s a cure-all for everybody. We do have to know who it’s good for. So what we do diagnostically before we do this is I will look at their brain, you know, obviously take some history and all of that business, but we do a quantitative neuroquant MRI. So we look at the different structures inside the brain. You know, we look at… Bill Gasiamis (19:32) Lovely. Dr Bob Hedaya (19:32) 30, 40 different structures. And then we also do a quantitative EEG, which is an electroencephalogram. We measure the electricity in the brain in 19 different places. And then there’s this really AI that takes all this data and it reverse engineers it. It’s called the inverse solution. And you can actually see the pathways, all of the pathways in the brain and the surface areas of the brain. And you can look at that, correlate that with the person’s symptoms. with the neuroquant MRI, it’s like a GPS, right? A triangulation of information and then assuming there’s not a mass or an aneurysm or some reason not to do the laser like an overactive brain or something like that, then we could consider using the laser. And then we also know where we want to do it based on the symptoms, based on the QEG, based on the neuroquant. We will decide what we’re going to target. And then we combine that, sometimes, not always. Bill Gasiamis (20:05) Hmm. Dr Bob Hedaya (20:31) with neurofeedback so we can exercise the areas that we want to exercise or calm down the areas that we want to calm down. And sometimes with hyperbaric oxygen, things like that. And hormones, using hormones or things like that. Bill Gasiamis (20:42) Yep. Hyperbaric oxygen has been a topic that I’ve discussed as well on the podcast and the people that I spoke to about hyperbaric oxygen and guys, I can’t remember right now, but I’ll put a link in the show notes for anyone listening so that you can go and find that episode and have a listen to it. Basically, what I loved about their approach was that they did a massive amount of diagnosis beforehand to determine where the penumbras were and then target those penumbras while the person was in the chamber. by getting them to do certain exercises that would activate those areas and therefore be targeted. So it sounds like the laser therapy is similar. Tell me about the laser. What kind of a laser is it? How does it get targeted to a specific spot? And what does it do when it goes there? I mean, I imagine it just doesn’t point there and go, I’ll illuminate that and it’ll be better. How does it actually work? Dr Bob Hedaya (21:18) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, so the laser, there are a bunch of different parameters that we have to adjust for each person. So it’s the frequency, how fast is the wavelength? What’s the wavelength? How many times per second is it pulsed? 10 times per second, 40 times per second, 50 times per second. Is it a 8, 10 nanometer wavelength or is it a 1064 wavelength? How many joules are we delivering? you know, where are we delivering it? So there are lots and lots of parameters to adjust, right? ⁓ What does it do? So simple, the first thing that it does, it does many, many things, right? But the very, very first thing it does is it actually releases ATP, the energy molecule, from your mitochondria. So it basically, the photon goes to the fourth channel, the fourth complex in the mitochondria, bumps off the nitric oxide, and that opens the flow of ATP. Well, if your brain, if your neurons have energy, they say, ⁓ energy, ⁓ well, we know what to do with energy. Let’s fix the puddles. Let’s build the roads. Let’s make the connections. Let’s do whatever we got to do. So now you’re getting energy flow. You also get synaptogenesis. You build new synapses. You get production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Bill Gasiamis (23:01) Wow. Dr Bob Hedaya (23:05) You get reduction of inflammation, get reduction of tau proteins and misfolded proteins. ⁓ You get, subjectively, get cognitive enhancement. aphasia, you know, people can start to speak. I mean, I can tell you one story. We used to shave people before doing the laser because I wanted to… Remember, you got a skull, you got the skin, you got all this stuff, right? How are you going to get the light into the brain, right? So we know that only about Bill Gasiamis (23:31) Mmm. Dr Bob Hedaya (23:35) 2.6 % of the light goes through the skull and the meninges and all the layers, right? So we used to shave people because I want to get the hair out of the way, right? At least get rid of some of it. So I had this woman who came to me, this is probably seven years ago, I guess. And at that time, I would not use the laser until I had done functional medicine on the patient. Because I figured, you know, let’s get the terrain straight. the nutrients, the hormones, get rid of the infections, get rid of the toxins, then we’ll apply the sunlight to the brain, to the plant, right? That was my logic. I thought that made perfect sense. So this woman came to me. She was 70 years old, obese. The husband wanted me to give her the laser. She wouldn’t change her diet, not an iota. High blood pressure, obesity. She could not speak. She would not take a medicine. She would not… Bill Gasiamis (24:04) Mm-hmm. Mm. Jumpstarting Healing with Laser Therapy Dr Bob Hedaya (24:33) Like, you name it, non-compliant all the way. Maybe you could say a word or two, that was it. Her husband begged me. I said, listen, it’s a waste, okay? It’s just a waste. I can’t ask her to shave her head. It’s not gonna work. I’m not doing it. He did not stop. So finally, I said, okay, fine, I’ll do it. So I was in my office and I’m making the laser plan. And I’m just writing, and something pops out of my mouth, God, I need a miracle. So I go into the laser room, and I start doing the laser. She starts talking. I have tears. He has tears. She starts talking. So by the end of like 20 sessions, I’m sitting with her having a 45-minute therapy session, because it turns out she was really severely abused when she was young. ⁓ She’s having a whole conversation with me. Turns out she’s psychotic also now. She’s also a psychotic and we didn’t know. So she needs to take some medicine for the psychosis because in the middle of the night, she’s going around with a baseball bat and she wants to like do, and she wouldn’t take medicines, I had to stop the laser. But that was an amazing thing because that was one, but with aphasia, typically it’s more gradual, much more gradual. But I have had a couple of patients where, and a woman came from Chicago and she just started talking also. So everyone’s different. You can’t necessarily come into this expecting that kind of thing is wonderful when it happens, but you Bill Gasiamis (26:14) Yeah. I love the fact that you can intervene with a laser, but also people can intervene with all the things that you said that that patient wasn’t doing beforehand. And that you that’s the top of the hierarchy of how you approach healing the brain is you do all those things. And then you supplement with ⁓ with a therapy like laser or whatever. And you kind of combine that and you make Dr Bob Hedaya (26:25) Yeah, yeah, you got it. Bill Gasiamis (26:42) like the, you make a soup of amazing things that all come together at the same time to support you together. And laser is just one of those things, but all the hierarchy like is so important because Dr Bob Hedaya (26:48) Yeah. It’s all important, all important. But I will tell you this. I have come to the point now where I believe that like people come to me and they don’t want to do anything and I’m like, okay, because I can jumpstart you, assuming you’re a good candidate. I can jumpstart you with the laser. I could just jumpstart you and then once I’ve jumpstarted you, say, ⁓ yeah, okay, I’ll do this. ⁓ okay, I’ll do a little of this. I’ll do a little. Because I’m bypassing everything and I’m giving you energy. Right? And so if you have energy, then, you know, there’s a lot that you can do that you couldn’t do before. So I kind of switched my model, really, only because of the accident of this guy who insisted I give his wife the laser, you know. Bill Gasiamis (27:30) Yeah. That’s not a way to go. mean, ⁓ there isn’t one way to solve a problem. there’s probably many iterations of, know, like how you can put that particular, like intervention together for a person that could specify for that individual, we’re going to go down this approach for you. You were going to go down this approach to get you going. Since you have all these, ⁓ challenges and energy is difficult. Maybe we’ll go directly with the laser and then Dr Bob Hedaya (27:46) Bye. Mm-hmm. Bill Gasiamis (28:09) We give you the skills, the energy, Dr Bob Hedaya (28:09) That’s right. That’s right. Bill Gasiamis (28:12) the training, the coaching, the support to implement the rest of the stuff that you need to implement to continue providing the right ⁓ space for your brain to heal in ongoing so you’re not just relying on laser. Dr Bob Hedaya (28:14) Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, yeah Yeah, if someone comes to me post stroke for example and the laser is appropriate I’m not gonna say well, we’ll get around to laser in six months. I’m not gonna do that They need relief they need help if it can help them Let’s do that. Let’s jump on that and you know, and then is the other stuff we need to do will do it And there’s usually stuff to do ⁓ But I want to get the healing remember the laser is healing It’s clearing out proteins, reducing inflammation, increasing blood flow, synaptogenesis, doing all these good things over the course of time. So you really want to get that process going, I feel, as soon as you can. then, okay, now you can work on the diet that’s going to take some time, check the hormones, make sure there’s no infections, toxic element, you know, all that functional medicine stuff. Maybe you need some medication for depression, you know, it’s having a… a phaser or a stroke or a head injury or some of things like this, they turn your life upside down better than I know. It’s ⁓ incomprehensible, really. Bill Gasiamis (29:26) Yeah, really. Yeah, really challenging. With a laser, how much laser for how long, how often? Understanding EEG vs. QEEG Dr Bob Hedaya (29:37) Great question. So let me say a couple of things. First of all, we have laser and then we have the LED helmets, right? You’ve read about and read the helmets, right? So there are a lot of studies on the helmets. There’s a question of whether they’re really having a direct effect because for a few reasons. Number one, it’s LED, it’s not a laser. Number two, the voltage is so low, if you’re only getting 2.6 % through and it’s so low to begin with, what do you think you’re actually delivering into the tissue? know, it’s hard to imagine that you’re delivering much. there, know, Henderson, I think, wrote an article where he showed there’s no penetration into the brain. But the studies do show cognitive benefit. So it could be an indirect effect or, you know, all the studies are done by the companies that make the… the helmet, there could be some bias. I don’t know the answer there. The laser ⁓ itself is more potent, so we’re doing, say, 30 watts. So the equivalent of a 30-watt light bulb, right? They might be doing half a watt, a very, very, very dim light bulb. We’re doing 30 watts. Now, we’re targeting the area or areas that we want to hit. Now, it goes through 2.6. Bill Gasiamis (30:34) devices. Dr Bob Hedaya (31:03) 5 % of it goes through. And then of course it’s going to be diffused, right? And it’s going to hit the surface tissues more. 1064 will penetrate deeper into the brain, but you don’t really have to go that deep because there’s downstream effects that happen, right? So we really, and then we adjust the parameters depending on how someone does. for example, you know, I had a woman who I was treating And actually it was the patient who her husband contacted you. I was treating her with a certain amount of energy and then after about five sessions I went up, I doubled the energy and boom, she had a response. But we have no way of knowing that’s what she needed. It’s all a calculation. But she, you know… Bill Gasiamis (31:39) Yes. Dr Bob Hedaya (32:00) Whatever it is, the thickness of the skull or the membranes or whatever it is, that’s what you needed and that’s what worked. Bill Gasiamis (32:06) Yeah. Tell me about ⁓ QEEG. So let’s dive deeper into it a little bit because we kind of glossed over it. I think it’s important to discuss how it’s different from EEG, ⁓ what EEG is and then what the Q adds to EEG. Dr Bob Hedaya (32:24) OK, so the EEG, imagine somebody, you put a cap on, and it has all these electrical wires that are measuring the electricity that comes, that’s on your scalp. It’s coming from your brain, but it’s measured at the scalp. And each one is measuring the energy from that spot, comparing it to other spots. And then you might, your viewers might remember. all those squiggly lines, you’ll see like 19 or 20 squiggly lines and you’re like, what is this spaghetti? I don’t know what this is. And I mean, even in medical school, we looked at it and our eyes would glaze over because who knows what it is. So the neurologists look at it and they’ll scroll through it and look for certain patterns to see is there a seizure or is there area of damage where there’s a lot of slowing like the frequency of the electricity slows down if there’s tissue damage, right? And they look visually to see what they can find. But we know with AI, you can get the patterns that you can determine. There’s no way the human mind, the human eye, a trained eye, I don’t care how long you’ve been looking at EEGs, there’s no way you can extract this data that we now extract. So the quantitative is actually looking at the quantity of this, what’s going on here versus the quantity of electricity that’s here versus what’s here versus what’s here. And then all of that is calculated and they say, ⁓ well, if this is high and this is here and this is low here and this is this, well, that means they’re coming from this deeper place here and that’s under functioning. And, you know, that’s done over thousands, thousands of points in a very short order, very short order. It’s amazing. I can’t imagine practicing without this. So now I can look at the thalamus. I can look at the putamen. Addressing Depression Post-Stroke Bill Gasiamis (34:07) Mm-hmm. Dr Bob Hedaya (34:17) In my office, I can do these tests in my office. If a patient is my patient, I can send the QEG to their home and do it in their home. And I get this imagery that’s immensely better than a spec scan. It’s not an MRI, an MRI structure. This is function. Okay, this is function. It tells us how different parts are functioning. Bill Gasiamis (34:40) What’s lighting up? What’s not lighting up? What could be lighting up better? What’s not going to light up anymore? Dr Bob Hedaya (34:45) What’s the information flow? How is the flow going from here to here? How about this network? Is this network working? Is this network overworking? Is it underworking? How about the neuron populations that are firing when I’m relaxed? How are they doing? How about the ones when I’m thinking? How about the ones when I’m thinking fast? How about the populations when I’m emotional? We can look at all those populations and see what’s going on with those populations. And then we can actually target them. train them, et cetera. And then we have that data that we treat, and then we measure and see is it getting better? Do we need to change the protocol? It’s not helping, it is helping, et cetera. Bill Gasiamis (35:29) Yeah. with stroke, so many things come from stroke that people are not equipped to handle. You know, firstly, all of the, ⁓ the parts relating to, ⁓ simply the person discovering them, they’re, they’re immortal after all, you know, you become a mere mortal immediately and you kind of work out the most terrible thing that could have happened to me happened. My brain is injured and all these things go away. Right. And then. Unfortunately, like I think it’s 30 % the studies of people who experienced stroke will then also experience depression. Like as if recovering from stroke isn’t enough and all the deficits that you also have to recover from depression. What’s it like? How can that be supported with this particular method, this approach that we’re discussing here today? Dr Bob Hedaya (36:28) So ⁓ kind of separate from stroke, ⁓ treat treatment resistant depression with laser all the time. With stroke, we use the laser, but you have to watch the QEG to make sure you’re not getting overstimulation, number one. Number two, I learned this with the patient that referred me to you, ⁓ that after, put us in touch, there was actually a central Bill Gasiamis (36:44) huh. for us in touch. Dr Bob Hedaya (36:58) hypothyroidism, meaning the low thyroid function, right? And we had to treat that, but the problem was as we treated that, there was a supersensitivity and because the tissues after stroke are more vulnerable to seizures, the patient actually had a seizure. She was actually having seizures we didn’t know, mild seizures. And then when we treated the thyroid, then we actually ended up having seizures. now we have to support, you need thyroid function to be good in order to not be depressed, right? If you have low thyroid, you’re much more likely to be depressed in the face of a stroke or other stresses. So we were kind of a little bit of a bind there because we went and treated, but it’s too sensitive. So anyway, we’re actually threading that needle nicely and we’re moving slowly and carefully and keeping, there’s no seizure activity now. But you have to treat the depression because of the depression itself. Bill Gasiamis (37:29) Yep. Dr Bob Hedaya (37:55) is a big problem because you know to recover from stroke, man, you gotta work hard. You gotta keep a good attitude. gotta have your eye on the ball. There’s no room for like… I’m going to give up. There’s no room for that. I mean, of course you feel it and I mean, it’s all natural feelings, but you have to really be determined and that’s essential. so with depression that is ⁓ really can get in the way. So we treat it. The laser can treat it. Sometimes pharmacology, sometimes therapy, sometimes yoga, know, hyperbaric, all these things that we do with the nutrition, making sure the hormones are right. All these things work together, you know. Bill Gasiamis (38:14) Yeah. I love all of those things that you mentioned. And then all of a sudden you just throw in yoga. mean, it just, it’s so counterintuitive, isn’t it? When you have a conversation about all these acronyms and all these tests and lasers and all that kind of stuff, and then you just throw in yoga casually like that. It’s, and we underplay it, but it’s such a massive thing in the picture of what creates the environment for a good recovery, but also I love that you mentioned the thyroid in that conversation as well about depression and what can also be a trigger to depression and people may have depression, never check their thyroid and not know that it’s a thing. Now I’ve had thyroid surgery, have ⁓ half of my thyroid removed because I had a massive ⁓ goiter on one side and that was such a difficult thing to discover and have to go through 16 months after brain surgery. but they only discovered it after my brain surgery when they did a chest x-ray, because I wasn’t recovering properly and they found that I had this goitre which would have been there for a long, long time impacting my health and all sorts of things. And I make that point because often people who have had a stroke and can’t speak, for example, have aphasia, ⁓ or their arm doesn’t work or the leg doesn’t work properly, will say, I just wanna fix this thing. If I could speak, Dr Bob Hedaya (39:40) No. Holistic Approaches to Recovery Bill Gasiamis (40:09) everything’s better, but they’ve never looked at the other things that may be contributing to keeping the speech at a level which is not good enough for them, for example, to be comfortable with. And it’s like this one track mind, I’ll just get my speech back, I’ll get my speech back, you what do I need to do? Or make it go, get back for me. There’s often no looking into the other things that might be causing depression, for example. Dr Bob Hedaya (40:31) Thank you. Bill Gasiamis (40:38) After stroke, know for a fact that the gut gets impacted ⁓ very dramatically from a stroke and the gut is highly linked to ⁓ mood and how you feel. And nutrition is what supports the gut to feel better and taking out things from the diet that are ⁓ making the gut sluggish and not work appropriately will ⁓ improve your mood and how you feel. It’ll make a difference and Dr Bob Hedaya (40:59) Okay. Yeah. Bill Gasiamis (41:08) and it’ll add to one of those little tools that supports depression and makes depression less impactful and you have less swings, et cetera. And that’s kind of the point that you’re making is that you don’t just turn up and do psychiatry. We’re gonna do psychiatry, treat you pharmacologically and then send you on your way and then see you in six, 12, eight months again or whatever and then just repeat the process again. It’s a whole, know, holistic is the word that you hear, but it is a broader conversation that people need to be having. And that sounds like what you guys do. It sounds like the conversation doesn’t encompass, it encompasses everything. It doesn’t just focus on one intervention. Dr Bob Hedaya (41:56) That’s why I call it whole psychiatry. But it really should be whole neuropsychiatry or whole brain or, you know, but it’s whole body, whatever you want to call it. It’s really more than the body because obviously the social connections play a big role as well, you know. So yeah, everything you’re saying is 100 % true and it’s all real. Everything you’re saying is real. Everything you do. mean, simple things going back to the B12. You you need B12 to… Bill Gasiamis (41:58) Yeah. Dr Bob Hedaya (42:26) remyelinate your neurons. need to keep the mercury, by the way, got to keep the mercury levels low. know, the mercury, if you’re eating tuna fish or swordfish and you have high mercury levels, know, the mercury will actually prevent you from making new branches. The mercury actually will bind on tubulin, which is like a brick that you need to build new roads. And it will prevent the tubulin from building new roads in your brain. So here you are working hard trying to… Bill Gasiamis (42:28) Mmm. Dr Bob Hedaya (42:54) do things and you’re a can of ⁓ whatever tuna fish with loads of mercury two, three, four times a week. Well, that’s not working, you know. So that’s why you really want to look at the whole thing. It’s a lot. It’s really a lot. You know, it’s a big program, but you you take, take steps. Everybody has different needs or not everybody has to do everything. Bill Gasiamis (43:04) Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody needs to do everything to achieve significant results, but it’d be amazing to be able to find the things and target those, the ones that you’re to get the most bang for buck on. So you’re to putting time and effort into things that are not getting results. For example, an led hat from, uh, Amazon for $9 that you put on your head. And it’s basically just a red light hat. It’s not really doing the thing, right? Dr Bob Hedaya (43:32) Hmm. Ha ha ha. Bill Gasiamis (43:49) And that’s kind of why I started to have that conversation and do a little bit of research in what they, know, what’s medically known as or scientifically known as photo bio modulation, you know, the idea is great, but then it came to me from somebody who I imagine was looking at a seven or eight or $9, $10 cap with red lights that put on the head and they Dr Bob Hedaya (44:00) Right. Bill Gasiamis (44:15) paid money for a cap and hoping for an outcome and they didn’t get an outcome and then they’re wondering why. I suggest when people are looking into those topics, is gonna go and have a look at the science, what it says about the nanometers of the type of light that you need to be experiencing, how, where, who, and always do these things with medical supervision. It really challenges me when I find out people do things like, know, methylene blue was a thing. Dr Bob Hedaya (44:44) Right. Bill Gasiamis (44:45) uh, very recently and people will just go get a bottle of Methylene blue from somewhere and just start taking it and have no idea what they’re doing and, and, and, know, what they could hope for. They could be making things worse than for themselves and actually making themselves, um, like make things a lot harder for themselves. So, uh, my point is this all needs to be done under medical supervision. Typically when you, somebody reaches out to you, how do you begin the conversation and then how does that person engage with you? And then what happens after they’re treated? Because often I know from my experience with all my neurologists, et cetera, very rarely do I see anybody a second time, six months, 12 months, 18 months, five years down the track. You usually go in, they patch you up, they send you home, you get back to your life and then maybe you do one MRI. Dr Bob Hedaya (45:36) Really? Bill Gasiamis (45:44) ⁓ for a few years after brain surgery just to make sure that everything’s stable. But that’s about it. Nobody follows up with you. Dr Bob Hedaya (45:52) No, it’s a whole different ball game with us. No. So what we do first is ⁓ if someone will contact us through the website, which is wholepsychiatry.com, they will actually fill out a form. And if we feel that it looks like we might be able to be helpful to them, then we will send them a welcome letter. And then they will have the opportunity to meet with our new patient coordinator at no charge. Patient-Centered Care and Follow-Up and she’ll talk with them for 15 to 30 minutes and kind of tell them what’s going on and see if they, you know, the fit is good, et cetera. And then they have an opportunity if they want to meet with me on Zoom for 15 to 30 minutes and ⁓ I’ll figure out, can I help them? Can I not help them? Is it a good fit, et cetera? And then if it looks like, you know, green light and they decide they want to move forward and it makes sense, then we’ll schedule an evaluation. The time duration of the evaluation depends on what kind of patient. It could be a couple of hours, could be four and a half hours. But usually for neurological patients, straightforward, it’s a shorter evaluation. And before the evaluation, we’ll collect the neuro-quant and the QEG and the old records, et cetera. And then I will go through all of that data plus lab data that we collect. And I will then have an idea. Okay, what’s going on here? Now there’s all these things. There’s digestion, there’s nutrition, there’s immune function, inflammation, toxins, hormones, all the hormones, structural issues, chiropractic issues, traumatic brain injury, cardiovascular issues, et cetera. We look at all of that and then to see what are the players here and spiritual, social resources, connectivity. We look at all of this. And then we have a whole picture of what’s going on. And then we can figure out, okay, how do we want to approach this? And sometimes we approach it very lightly. Say we just start with the laser, that’s it. Or sometimes somebody says, no, I want to really get in there and fix everything that’s wrong. Okay, well, we identified these five or six things that need correction. So let’s stage this in order. And that’s what we’ll do. And everyone’s different. And then we have follow-up depending on what we need in two weeks, in a month, six weeks, not usually six weeks. Once things are stable, it could be every two, three months or four months. But in the meantime, I’m in the boat rowing, paddling with them. That’s the way I do it. I treat people, really, I try to treat people just like I would want to be treated myself, like I would want my family to be treated. I do the very best. I love what I do, you know what I mean? I just love what I do and I try to do the best, highest quality. And it’s not that I’m perfect, not that I don’t make mistakes, ⁓ not that I know everything because that’s for sure that I don’t, but that’s my approach. So I try to be in the boat with the patient. As long as the patient’s paddling, I’m paddling just as hard, if not. Bill Gasiamis (49:02) Yeah, it sounds like at least if things, if you don’t make the right approach initially, there’s a whole bunch of tools and resources and things that you can kind of focus on. And one of the things you mentioned, again, you glossed over it, but I love that you do this is spiritual. Like it might be a spiritual journey that the person needs to take. And it’s so overlooked because people, you know, do have… Dr Bob Hedaya (49:22) yeah. yeah, yeah. Bill Gasiamis (49:30) existential crisis after a stroke. it’s like a spirituality helps somehow for a lot of people ease, heal that, ⁓ help people move through, you know, the weeds and come out into the opening and then kind of see the opportunities and where they need to go next. And people don’t need to engage with somebody like you to go on a spiritual journey. That might just be something they’ve ever looked and they can just go, you know what, I’m going to pick up the Bible or ⁓ I’m going to learn about this particular ⁓ spiritual journey or whatever and go through it and do whatever it is that they need to do to kind of start beginning the healing journey in their own special unique way. It’s really important that spirituality gets addressed and it’s not glossed over. And I’m not saying that you did or I did or we do, but in the back of the minds, stroke survivors may not consider that being important. The Role of Spirituality in Healing Dr Bob Hedaya (50:31) Yeah, first of all, I’m passionate about spirituality. I mean, passionate because the truth, in my opinion, is that consciousness, your level of awareness is really consciousness is the foundation, the substrate of everything that exists. The material is an outflow from consciousness. So I could talk about this forever. Not everyone is oriented this way. So, you know, I just saw a businessman, very successful businessman ⁓ last week. He doesn’t want to just, you know, get me back online. OK, I don’t want to hear this mumbo jumbo and I just can’t. I don’t want to delve into it. Just get me better. know. But other people are like, I want to find the meaning, you know, and it’s very important. to find the when I think generally for most people finding the meaning in it is critical. And I’ll say one thing, my mother, may she rest in peace, was in the emergency room, probably 25, 30 years ago, I don’t know, something was wrong, she was in the emergency room for seven, eight hours or whatever, and some guy comes by and says, ma’am, can I get you a sandwich? And she says, oh yeah, please, please get me a sandwich. He gets her a tuna fish sandwich, whatever it is, right? He leaves. She’s so grateful. She’s so grateful that she volunteers in the hospital for 20 years. Okay? This guy has no idea what he did and all the people that he helped through her, right? So you’re, you you and you’re not just you, but we, each of us in our small minds, we have no idea. the impact we have on other people. So if it’s important to a person to have a meaningful life, understand that you don’t have to be running a company. You can smile at a stranger, change their day. There are things that you can do and you have an impact. Now, that’s a small consolation when you’re dealing with a stroke, obviously, but that’s when you kind of want to work to a meaningful ⁓ attitude and a good attitude. So yes, the spirituality is… many people very important. Bill Gasiamis (52:54) David who brought us together ⁓ wanted me to meet you so I could interview you. that part of the role that he played in what happened to his wife ended becoming something that helped other people. Isn’t it interesting? The whole journey started on. Dr Bob Hedaya (53:15) Exactly. Bill Gasiamis (53:20) He contacted me because he wanted to make something good come of what happened to his wife, which I’m sure his wife was also interested in. And he said, you need to get Dr. Hedaya on because we need to share more information, make this stuff aware. so, and I’m like, well, that’s perfect. Of course I do. Whoever comes to me with that kind of information because they want to help other stroke survivors because he’s hoping that other caregivers that are in his shoes have a better outcome. They have more support. They have more information. They have more tools. Dr Bob Hedaya (53:27) Mm-hmm. Bill Gasiamis (53:50) That’s the spiritual journey. You don’t have to call it ⁓ Christianity, Judaism. You don’t have to call it something. You don’t have to label it, but that is what spirituality looks like in practice. Dr Bob Hedaya (53:56) Right. Right. That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. And it gives me chills because, you know, I know his wife is suffering, you know, and ⁓ but she’s making really great headway, but it’s hard, you know. But look at look that he’s reaching out and he cares enough about other people and to and make her journey and what she’s gone through and what she’s learned be useful to other people. That’s it. That’s just beautiful. I mean, that that speaks volumes about him and her. Bill Gasiamis (54:32) It does absolutely and her and your work because your work is not unique. You’re not the only one doing this kind of work. I think there’s only kind of a small percentage of ⁓ medical professionals in the field that are practicing in this way. And hopefully that continues to grow. ⁓ If somebody wanted to, well, somebody lots of people are listening to this today. If anyone wanted to reach out ⁓ who thinks, you know, that they might be able to ⁓ benefit from or go down this kind of approach. How should they go about that? What questions should they be asking of you, et cetera? Like how do they begin? Because this is a different conversation than I have ⁓ neurological injury, have aphasia. It needs to be positioned differently, this conversation. Dr Bob Hedaya (55:29) Tell me what you mean. I’m not really clear what you’re saying. Bill Gasiamis (55:33) If somebody wants to find a clinician who practices the way that you practice, you guys, for example, you know, you know, who thinks about the brain in a different way. What, what should they be looking for and what. Dr Bob Hedaya (55:38) Aha, I see, I see. I would say that they should go to the website for the Institute for Functional Medicine. And there’s a tab. This is find the practitioner. And make sure you look for a practitioner that is certified, fully certified. And then investigate the practitioners who are in your area and see if they experience. in this area. there are not I’m not aware of, there’s a guy somewhere in the Midwest here who’s using a laser, I believe. And then maybe other people that I don’t know about using lasers, but I’m not aware of anybody that I could say, go see this person for this quantitative EEG guided transcranial photobiomodulation. I’m not saying that that is readily available. It’s not. But the whole functional medicine thing, there are a lot of practitioners. And I think that’s the way to go there. Just do your homework. Bill Gasiamis (56:48) Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Your organization is whole psychiatry and the brain recovery center. Is that right? Okay. So the psychiatry part of it, ⁓ people might be listening and going, well, that doesn’t apply to me, the specific word specifically doesn’t need to apply to an individual to engage with you because, we’re not just dealing with the psychiatry part of somebody’s recovery. Dr Bob Hedaya (56:56) Yeah. Right. Thank you. No, no, we’re dealing, we treat psychiatric, but we treat neurological. You know, I started as a psychiatrist. was, you know, certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, but I was doing psychiatry. then, you know, just following, you know, learning and whatever, I ended up, you know, doing some neurology here. And so, but we didn’t change the name to the whole neuropsychiatry and brain recovery. Maybe we should, or maybe the whole brain recovery center or something like that. So, you we do both, no, and if, and if, I can’t be helpful, of course, I’m going to tell people this, we really don’t want to waste people’s time, energy, money, et cetera. ⁓ But it’s, it’s been, you know, I have to say an amazing journey. And I would say when you follow for me, this is me, my life, following my passion of learning about the brain and understanding the brain and Bill Gasiamis (57:45) Yeah. Dr Bob Hedaya (58:14) looking for the fundamentals of how do things work and just there’s a common sense in medicine. I looked at the laser when I was reading that book and I was like, wow, ATP in the brain, that could really help the brain. How would I

Casaundra's insomnia first showed up in college. From then on, it would come and go during periods of stress. After getting married, insomnia showed up and this time it didn’t go away. Before long, Casaundra would notice a feeling of anxiety as soon as her head hit the pillow. Nights started to feel like a battle. In an effort to fix her sleep, Casaundra tried blackout curtains, headphones, melatonin, medication, no screens, less water, strict routines, and even six kiwis before bed. The more she tried to control sleep, the more sleep seemed to control her life. In this episode, Casaundra shares how things changed when she started making life bigger than insomnia. As sleep got less attention, her evenings opened up. Her days opened up. She reclaimed her identity — and sleep took care of itself. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. Transcript Martin: Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live. Martin: The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied. Martin: ​Okay, Casaundra, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Casaundra: Thank you for having me. I’m super excited. Martin: Great to have you on. Let’s start right at the beginning as always. When did your sleep problems first begin, and what do you think caused those initial issues with sleep? Casaundra: Yeah, it’s been a long journey. I feel like, you know, as a kid I slept fine for the most part, but then you get to college and I think my like first bout of insomnia was probably like stress induced, it was like I was TAing for a class, I was training for a marathon. I was trying to keep really high grades and, and doing all these things. Casaundra: I’m like, I think I was just at the max and like it was just leading to me not being able to sleep because I was about all these things and all these projects and things to do. And so I think the stress kind of built and then that just started this like evolving journey of cycles of insomnia. Casaundra: So it would like come in different waves. Right. I remember leading my first team at work and. Going into another insomnia cycle. And that was like the first time I ever was put on Trazodone. then, you know, it went away. I think it would kind of ebb and flow, right? Like, oh, I, I would figure it out and it would go back to normal and then it would come back. but I had some really big life changes in like 20 22, 20 23. my, my grandmother who had raised me, had, had died. I had a relationship end that I’ve been in for years. And from all that I was also moving back to my home state, Ohio. And so you cram all of those things into a month and any normal person would probably struggle with sleep, but to me it wasn’t normal. Kind of put me into like this really bad insomnia cycle, right? And so I went back on Trazodone and it was like a year on Trazodone, which is a really long time to be on something like that. Then I finally like, we, we probably can talk more about how that went and what happened in it, but it kind of resolved a little bit. Casaundra: And then I married and I just went into like the hardest cycle of insomnia. And you know, for me it was like we didn’t live together before marriage. And so like having a person in my bed after I had just gotten my sleep, what felt like back on track was really like stressful to my body, I think. And it just was like, he could sleep anything all night long from like 8:00 PM on. And I was like trying to go to bed with him and like, you know, be married and, you know. Not stay up alone. And it just led to me trying even harder to sleep. And so those are, I think it’s been an ongoing thing, but those are kind of the most recent things. Martin: So there were these ups and downs. Maybe then you either adapted or you pulled back a little bit and then sleep had the chance to get back on track. Martin: But it felt like as time went on, when the sleep disruption showed up, it kind of morphed into its own thing. Like it didn’t respond quite as well to the changes that you made, the, the adaptions that you made, the efforts that you made to get things back on track. And then it soon became the main problem rather than all the actual stresses which had once triggered it. Casaundra: Absolutely. Sleep was like the number one thing on my mind during those times in my life, despite like all the other craziness in my life which just made it even more consuming. Martin: Was there such a thing as like an average night back then? If there was, what was it like? Casaundra: When I had that second to last bout of insomnia, where it was after all of those life changes, it was like, that was different because I had just gotten off Trazodone, but I like stopped like. did a hard stop. I didn’t taper, which to anyone listening, please don’t do that. Casaundra: Talk to your doctor about how to get, you know, taper down on medicine. But it kind of sent me into like, I wasn’t sleeping at all. Like there were two nights straight. I was like, did not sleep. And now I can look back at it and know it was probably the medicine. And there was probably nothing wrong with me outside of the fact that I stopped taking medicine inappropriately without tapering. But that was really hard. And so was really extreme in which the average night was like not sleeping. Where like my most recent bout was when I, you know, just got married and adjusting to living together and sleeping in the same bed. An average night was like, okay, I’m really tired. My husband’s going to bed, and I lay down and immediately just wake up. Right. It was like the adrenaline or the fight or flight. Like as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was immediately stressed and anxious about what that night was going to bring based on everything that I had experienced every night before that. Martin: Would you find that as the night was approaching you, maybe you were downstairs watch TV or doing whatever you’re doing, and you felt like sleepiness showing up, you felt like really drowsy, really sleepy, and then you went off to bed and then suddenly you felt wide awake. Casaundra: Yeah, and it was kind of a mix. Like I would be anxious, but I could feel tired, like I knew I was getting sleepy. Mm-hmm. But as soon as I felt sleepy, I got anxious, and as soon as I felt like I could go to bed, I put down my head on the pillow and it was, yeah. Complete anxiety about sleep and stress. Martin: It was like that problem solving brain just fires up and it starts to predict what the night is gonna bring or it starts to prepare you for the battle or the struggle that experience tells you is about to show up. Casaundra: Battle is such a good word for that. That is truly how it felt like so many nights. Martin: Anyone listening to this is gonna be all too aware that insomnia isn’t just a struggle that happens at night, and it also affects the days as well. I’m curious to hear from you when you found yourself in this struggle, what, what were the days like for you at that time? Casaundra: I think the biggest issue for me during the days was actually like the anxiety and like consuming thoughts around sleep. So for me, I like, I think I was like in such a high fight or flight and like high adrenaline mode that I didn’t feel tired, like I felt wound up despite not even, you know, consuming a ton of caffeine or doing anything crazy. Casaundra: I felt on edge all day and like I kind of looked at it like a blessing, like, thank God I can get through my days, but my mind was constantly consumed with researching sleep. What else could I do? What are people, what’s the new fad for getting to sleep and how could I adjust to make sure that I could go to sleep that night? Martin: A phrase associated with people struggling with insomnia is tired but wired. So it’s like you feel a real sense of tiredness or fatigue during the day, but at the same time you’re, you’re just completely wired, really alert. And like you shared, it can help get you through the day and in other ways it can also work against you perhaps if you kind of harness that energy to engage in ongoing problem solving and research, which is completely understandable ’cause you’ve identified a problem that you want to fix. But as we’ll probably explore a little bit more as the conversation progresses, it ends up consuming your attention and the focus of your day is no longer on doing the stuff that matters. Martin: It becomes on fixing this problem. Casaundra: And that’s exactly what happened to me. So it started with just those consuming thoughts, but then it completely changed what my evenings looked like and what I did and how I prepared to do all those things that I was researching. Martin: So connected to that. Moving on from that, what kind of things did you try in an attempt to get sleep back on track to deal with all these thoughts and these feelings that were showing up? Casaundra: I really feel like I did everything, and I’m sure you know, someone said something different, but I truly felt like anything that I read or someone told me, I was like. Open to try anything. Like I was so desperate that I would do anything to get my sleep back on track. And so it started with like environmental changes, right? The blackout curtains. Very expensive noise canceling like headphones for sleep because I lived in an apartment and I swore, well, like if something, just like, if I couldn’t hear anything and nothing could wake me up, then for sure I would sleep. And you know, it started with melatonin, but I had been on Trazodone before and eventually after that, those like sleepless, like absolutely sleepless nights, it led to Ambien after going to a sleep doctor and specialist. And oh my gosh. I feel like one of my coworkers was like, Casaundra, have you ever tried Kiwis? Like my boyfriend, he eats Kiwis before bed, like six Kiwis, and makes him go right to sleep. I’m like, oh my gosh. Kiwis must be magical. No. It turns out they just have like, they, you know, help you produce melatonin. And after I knew that, I’m like, I shouldn’t even waste my time because melatonin does nothing for me. But there was like several nights I ate six Kiwis every night. I have not had a Kiwi since. I, I’ve tried different foods, not eating before bed, phones for like, no phone, tv, anything screen related for like three hours before bed. It was to the point where I literally would stop drinking water at 6, 6 30 so that I wouldn’t have to get up to use the restroom during the night because I swore that was keeping me up. Right. If I didn’t have any more water, then I would, you know, not struggle to go to sleep. And then, you know, I was. also impacted my social life, right? I had a bible study that we would meet on Wednesdays starting at seven, which even now, like even after all of this, I don’t love late plans, but I really got anxious about anything starting at seven because that’s when my nighttime routine needed to start. That’s when I needed to like settle and not be excited. Casaundra: So the fact that I went and get home until 10 and showered and ready for bed until 11 was really stressful for me. So yeah, if, if you can name it, I tried it and you know, in that first bout where I wasn’t sleeping at all, I did like a CBT-I app. But it kind of missed the mark on the control piece or like how you’re thinking about it. Like they obviously had some pieces of that, but it was just still felt more like controlling you know, just knowing that sleep will eventually come and the more I try to control it, the less it’s going to work. Martin: There’s something, all of those things that you just share with us, they all have something in common, right? And it’s just this understandable attempt to control sleep to make a certain amount or a certain type of sleep happen. And that completely makes sense because you identified sleep as a problem. Martin: You are a problem solver. You wanted to fix it. So you put effort into trying to fix it. And where it sounds like you noticed you were getting stuck was no matter what you were trying, no matter what you were doing, it just wasn’t having the desired result. So that just led you to doing more, doing more, trying harder, trying harder, and your actions just became dominated by serving sleep rather than serve you and the life you want to live. So not only did you find the actions were creating more struggle, they were also kind of pulling you away from who you are and who you wanted to be and the life you wanted to live. Casaundra: Absolutely. I felt like a different person even, and especially that being like the first year that I was, or like first few months of being married, like I’m sure my husband was like, Who did I marry? Because everything we did, everything I ate, everything was about how could I sleep? And, you know, he slept like a rock. And I know it’s this cruel thing that, you know, all of us just marry someone that, you know, can sleep when we can’t sleep. he would, you know, be sleeping in bed and he’s the type of person that nothing bothers him. He could be woken up and go right back to bed. And so, like there were nights where I would just wake him up, just sobbing, right? Casaundra: Just absolutely sobbing and so frustrated and so angry, like so, so angry that I couldn’t sleep and he would just scratch my back and, you know, try and help me get back to sleep. And, and two minutes later he’d be asleep and I would still be awake. And it was just all consuming my whole personality. My whole church group knew about it. Casaundra: Like I was just the insomniac. Martin: It’s like it takes over your identity, your sense of self, who you are. Casaundra: Absolutely. Martin: I’m, I’m curious to know, did you ever ask your husband at that time, like what he did, like what his secret was to just sleeping in the way he did? Casaundra: You know, I, I never really asked him then because it was just like, he just went to sleep. Like no matter what, he would just, you know, be on his phone, do whatever, and he just went to sleep. But now, like, after your course, someone’s like talking to me about sleep or telling me to try something, you know, if we’re talking about my history with insomnia, and I’ll be like, well, like, you know, you sleep well. Casaundra: Like, what do you do? Sleep? So I didn’t ask him, but now I ask people that all the time when they’re like recommending something, because a lot of times they’re like, oh, I don’t do anything. I just, you know, go to sleep. And so. But it was something like, through your course, I, I realized so much. I’m like, oh my gosh, the kid’s doing nothing and it just comes to him and he’s not a kid. Casaundra: He’s a six seven grown man. But yeah, it was infuriating, also hopeful. Like I knew if he could sleep doing nothing and I could sleep. just wasn’t, which really made me feel like something was wrong with me for the longest time until I worked through a lot of things in this course. Martin: That’s the insight right there, isn’t it? If we do know someone who is a fantastic sleeper. When we’re struggling with insomnia, it often tends to be a, a bed partner or a, or a spouse if we’re in that situation, and you just kind of get a, a blank look when you ask someone who doesn’t struggle with sleep, like what they do to make that sleep happen, because the answer is they don’t do anything. Martin: And that can reveal opportunity and a new way forward if we feel like what we’re doing at the current time is keeping us stuck or not working for us. Martin: I think you touched upon it a little bit earlier, but I’m curious to know, you know, as you were doing all this problem solving and trying all these different things to get your sleep back on track, especially these things that you, you know, read about online that is shared with such confidence that this is the thing that will fix your sleep. When you tried those things and it just wasn’t working for you, what was that experience like? Casaundra: For me it was really difficult because I’ve always been like happy and you know, optimistic and able to look at things like with a glass like half full. with sleep, it was the first time I had some of those really dark thoughts. Like I felt not only alone, but hopeless, but also like. A different length, like level of anger that I’d never felt before. Casaundra: But part of that like came to a head and like literally wishing I was in the hospital or wishing something so bad would happen to me that I had to go to the hospital to be like put to sleep. And, you know, it’s amazing what a lack of sleep and all this trying and all these things that you’re doing when they don’t work make you feel when you can’t get to the result that you’re wanting. Casaundra: Like I had never been more desperate in my life. And, you know, as someone who loves your life and, and wants to live it to the fullest and was really scary to have those thoughts of, well, if I could just put an end to this whole not sleeping thing. And that was really eye-opening too for me. Like, I was like, wow, like I, I need some help and I need a way out of here. Martin: It is really difficult and it’s. It’s not just about the problem of sleep, not happening as you want it to. It’s about all the stuff that gets added on top. You know, all the, all the trying to fix the problem and that, that repeated experience of, I’m trying this, this isn’t working, I’m trying this, this isn’t working. Martin: You can just feel as though you’re completely out of options and that there’s no way out. It feels just, it just feels like you’re trapped. Casaundra: Absolutely. And everything else in my life, I’ve been able to work hard enough, right? hard enough at school, get the scholarship, work hard enough at X, Y, Z, like get the promotion, like in life. So many things in life, like you’re able to control that way. And it was really hard for me for this to be. Something I couldn’t control. So it was, it was a lot of growth there for me as well, which I’m sure we can talk about later in terms of just kind of this being a process in which learning that control isn’t the best option in every situation. Martin: Since you had already tried so much at this point, when you came across my website or my work, what made you think that there was something different here or something worth trying? Casaundra: I can remember finding your podcast on Spotify. Like any person, like struggling to sleep. I was like, let’s get a puppy. And so, you know, I had a puppy. I wasn’t sleeping even more because of the puppy, and I was taking him on a walk and was just searching on Spotify for insomnia, you know, solutions. Casaundra: And I, I found your podcast and I had already done the other like CBT-I app before this. And so I kind of recognized some of the things that you were talking about within that. But then there was this like resounding piece that everyone who shared their stories was sharing and it was this like relinquish of control. Like it doesn’t have as much weight on my life. And that felt really like encouraging and like hopeful because it was consuming so much of my life that I’m like, this seems different. Martin: First of all, it felt different, but it was also in that context of, here are people talking about my experience, they’re describing the kind of things that I am going through, that I’m struggling with. So if this is something that these people found useful, maybe it’s something I’ll find useful too. Casaundra: Yeah, and it was like, oh my gosh, like I felt like I found like the Disneyland of people who struggle with insomnia, and it was like the first time I saw heard actual stories of people working through insomnia that. It sounded so much like myself, right? And you find like certain episodes and you’re like, wow, this person’s so much like me and like my story. Casaundra: And on those bad days I would just like replay it, right? And now to this day, you know, it’s amazing how quickly you forget. But I can’t remember the name of that podcast, but I remember the hope that it gave me on my really hard days that there was a way out and people just like me found that. Martin: What showed up for you when you identified this theme of relinquishing control? Because after all, you were so invested in trying to fix this problem, and now you’re hearing, well, maybe the way to fix it is to give up this control. Like what did that feel like as, as an option or as a suggested way forward? Casaundra: You know, it was actually so hard, like as the person that’s used control, not in a negative way, but just in a, hey, in our circle of control in our lives, we can get to places we’ve never been, accomplish things we’ve never done, escape generational cycles, and I had done all that, right? And so for me, this idea that if I just stopped controlling it kind of scary, right? Casaundra: Like it, it was just born to the brain for me at least, right? It was something I’d always, I just always worked hard and if I, I work hard, it, it, it gets the result that I need. But then there was the second piece of it, right? So the first piece was like a shift from how I usually think. the second piece was, what does that actually mean? Casaundra: Like, I think part of me was kind of like angry, like, okay, like. Just stop trying to control it. Sounds really easy, except when you consider the human brain and how we focus on things that are important to us and, and how we want to improve it naturally without even realizing it when it’s negatively impacting us or how our body wants to protect us, right? Casaundra: So this thought of, oh, I’ll just stop controlling it frustrating because I’m like, but how, do I control, how do I stop, you know, controlling this or trying to control? So a lot of mixed emotions. Martin: The two big ones being hope and fear at the same time. You raise a really good point. How do I do this? Like, how do I put this into action? How do I relinquish control? What do I do instead? Because I have to do something. I can’t just do nothing. So I’m curious to hear from you what kind of things you did to put this whole idea of relinquishing control or moving away from resistance. Martin: How did you put that into action? Casaundra: It takes a long time, right? And that’s something like even by the end of your course, I wasn’t like, healed, right? It was like I wanted to be, heck, week one. I wanted to be. But it’s just not how it works because I just had to keep doing little things each week to make my life outside of sleep bigger than the sleep issue. And so like, that’s what it started to feel like to actually stop trying to control it, was to build up my life outside of sleep so that it just got less attention. And by giving it less attention, it got less control and sleep could kind of move in. And so, know, a few things, you know, mindset was huge, right? Casaundra: Just realizing and hearing and seeing the facts about like, I’m not gonna die because I’m not sleeping like I will survive. Like, that was a big one for me. Like, just hearing that and knowing like, I’m gonna be okay. Like all of these, you know, statistics that I’m seeing like does not mean that I am not going to be well, and plenty of people live long healthy lives without, you know, eight, nine hours of sleep. Casaundra: And so that was part of the mindset, like realizing it wasn’t going to hurt me and so I, I didn’t need to fix it. realizing I could just. Go about my days, right? Like I didn’t need to think about it like sleep was going to come. That that simple sentence of our bodies are going to sleep when they need to provided so much rest for me it, I no longer was like, I’m not going to sleep. I’m like, well maybe it’s not tonight, but it will, it will come eventually. Like I can’t this up forever and so it will come. And so those were a few things or a couple things that stuck out to me in like the mindset shift and then you get into like what actions, right? Casaundra: So the mindset kind of made room for new actions to come into play for me which sounds like trying to sleep, but it was like all actions to actually stop trying to force sleep. Like, so the first one I think that gets introduced is the sleep window, right? And this was like life changing for me, right? Casaundra: And I had done sleep for, I just, I hadn’t had that mindset shift, so it didn’t mean anything, you know? And so you can first have that mindset shift, then these things can come in and actually be effective. And so the sleep window, like I remember the first night was like excited, right? Like I was like, I have so much time to get stuff done. Casaundra: Like I’m a maximizer, right? And that goes into the problem solving all this stuff. And so the idea that, you know, I could cook and clean and do a hobby and take my dog Teddy on a walk, and I could just keep doing all these things until like 9:00 PM because I didn’t need to start a bedtime routine at like 6 30, 7, whatever time it was that night. so. That sleep window gave me more time in my day and I felt like, wow, like this is exciting. And, you know, started doing more yoga in the evenings afterwards and I had more time for my Bible study reading and shows if I, you know, wanted to stay up and watch it. ’cause I was actually allowed to, like, there were no rules, like everything before was, you can’t do this and don’t spend any time in your bedroom. Casaundra: Like, I loved my bedroom. Like, it was so aesthetic and pretty, and I would never spend any time in it because of all these rules I had in place around the, you know, they say like, the bedroom can only be for three things. And that’s like, you know, sleep, we can all use our imagination on the second one and then sickness, right? Casaundra: And so now I could just hang out in my bedroom. I could sit on my bed, I could watch a show if I wanted to, if I was really like just really needing to rest because other people did that, right? Like my husband could literally be on his phone, watch a horror film, like the craziest things before bed, and then like fall asleep. So like I could now, I had permission to do that. so the first action was kind of that sleep window, right? And it gave me a lot of freedom and just like time and what I could do and when I could do it. And also just, I wasn’t spending three hours trying to go to bed. Like part of the thing with getting married to my husband is that he likes to go to bed early, which I do too, but like he is an extreme degree of like. Eight 30, he can get in bed. And for most of us, that’s not good. And if we still to this day, like he’ll be like, I’m so tired, I’m gonna go to bed. I’m like, I’m gonna read because I am not tired yet. And I know that if I try to go to bed before I’m even naturally sleepy, like it’s probably not gonna be a good thing for me, even though I don’t say I struggle with insomnia anymore. So that was kind of all things into the sleep window. And then, you know, I dropped all the behavioral and environmental things. Casaundra: Okay. I have, I lied a little bit. I still like use the earplugs, but only because now it’s just like a comfort thing. I don’t feel like I need them. If I forget them, it’s no big deal. It’s just like. I kind of imagine like a kid with a stuffed animal, it’s just like, oh. It’s like, okay, bed. so it’s like there’s no attachment to needing those, but I don’t take melatonin. Or I didn’t then. Right. It’s part of the change of knowing it wasn’t helping. Don’t take any of the harder, like Ambien that I was prescribed, and I just, I don’t have to eat six Kiwis and that’s really nice. So a lot of things have kind of let up on the behavioral and environmental changes and I can hang out with my friends, like, what a blessing in life. And so that’s kind of the environmental, behavioral and then you get to just like, well, everything wasn’t just fixed, right? And so what happens when I’m still awake at night and I can’t sleep even after that wake window ends and I’m allowed to, you know, go to bed. And there came in like. The just experiencing being awake. And so I, I took pieces from everything, right? I would go back to the mindset of sleep’s eventually going to come, I could use any of those, you know, tools or hobbies that I used to kind of relax during my sleep, like before my sleep window started. So I could do that if I wasn’t sleeping. But I could also just let the thoughts be and thank them for being there without them being so infuriating, right? I was no longer angry about being awake. I could just be awake. And I, I think one of my favorite things too, from the course was like, so much freedom in how you do these things. Like you would say, Hey, you can stay in bed if that’s comfortable still. And I love that because I hate getting outta bed when I am cold or it’s like. I don’t know. I just love being cozy in bed. So like the permission to just staying in bed as long as that’s still serving me mm-hmm. Really went a long way. Casaundra: So those were a few of the things. I think there were definitely other things but those are some of the big things that impacted my recovery. Martin: Something that really stood out for you. I think one of the first things you said was, which kind of encompassed everything that you shared, I started to make my life bigger than sleep. Those actions that we were talking about earlier, that when they’re so focused on serving sleep, serving insomnia, you took them back. Martin: Those actions started to once again serve you. So you were, you know, reading more, you were doing yoga, watching tv, doing your Bible studies. The sleep window helped with that because it was one of those actions that moved you away from the chasing after sleep. You recognized that the amount of time you were allotting for sleep each night wasn’t really serving you. Martin: It was kind of setting you up for long periods of being awake in bed during the night. So by compressing that down and more closely matching it with the amount of sleep you’re currently getting, there was more opportunity for you to do these things that mattered. It opened up all this additional time that you had available to do things that served you and the life you wanted to live, and that in turn helped reduce the influence of sleep in your life. Martin: It was still there, like sleep or insomnia was still there, but now it was one of many things rather than the only thing. And like you touched upon that didn’t mean that suddenly there was this miraculous transformation and that sleep was happening exactly as you wanted it to, or the, all these difficult thoughts, difficult feelings, stopped showing up. Martin: But it’s got you started on this new way forward where you were reclaiming your life, where life was becoming bigger and opening up again. And I’m curious to hear a little bit more about how you were addressing all the thoughts and the feelings that show up at night. You know, especially when sleep isn’t happening as you want it to happen. Martin: You said that something changed there, where you kind of gave permission for those thoughts to exist. You even thanked them for showing up and that in turn kind of reduced how they were affecting you. Martin: What would you say to someone that might be sitting here listening to this thinking I can’t possibly open up or accept those things ’cause they’re really difficult. And it’s just the idea of opening up to them in itself is really scary. Casaundra: It is really scary, right? Because you’re like, I have fought this so hard, like, why would I, and, you know, invite them in. But it, it takes the power away, right? And, and they can’t hurt you, right? The more you let them in, the less they actually hold over you. I, I, I remember my thoughts would just kind of swirl and ruminate and, and keep going, but when I would actually like. Let them in and observe them and see what they were telling me, which is that sleep is important. And of course I have important things coming up in my life. Or you know, I wanna sleep for a certain reason. Telling me all these things were important to me. I could just thank them because I was like, yes, this is important. Casaundra: Thank you for showing me that. It is important, but I’m gonna let you go now. Right. And I, I don’t remember if it was part of the course or, and I think it probably was, but I would just like imagine them like going out the window, right? Like the breeze would kind of pull them out the window. And I think maybe some people would do like, you know, flowing down water or something. And just that visual, even though it sounds really silly, helped me to just kind of watch them go, right? I let them come in, I let them stay. We had a good talk, but now they could go and they might come right back. Sometimes they just like come around the window and start knocking on the door. And you’re allowed to just do the same thing. I found like if I didn’t let them in, it actually made it worse. And I actually just kept ruminating over what I thought it was going to be. And this has helped me in like other areas of my life too, right? I can sometimes be anxious about, you know, driving on the highway, right? And what if something bad happens to me? Casaundra: And just like recognizing, well, okay, that’s a really small chance that would happen, and what’s the worst thing that could happen, right? I go to be with Jesus and my family’s taken care of because all the things I’ve put in place, okay, that’s actually not that bad, right? And so it’s helped me in other ways too, of like not just insomnia, knowing, oh yeah, I’m gonna be fine tomorrow. Casaundra: Like no matter how tonight goes, I’m going to be fine. I’m gonna do all the things that I need to do no matter what. Martin: It sounds like you found it helpful to recognize that your brain wasn’t working against you. That all these thoughts and these feelings that were showing up, many of which can be really difficult to experience, don’t come from your brain working against you. It comes from your brain, like reminding you of what’s important, reminding you of what matters, looking out for you. Martin: And that in itself just acknowledge being aware of that, that my brain isn’t an adversary can help support you in responding differently with less resistance. Casaundra: Oh yeah. Even like to this day, you know, if I have a rough night or I’m just not sleeping as easy as sometimes I do. It’s like, oh yeah, like I’m, I was so excited about this new podcast I found, or something at work that’s happening, and so it’s like, oh yeah, like I’m excited or I’m stressed. Like this makes total sense. And you’re like, okay, yeah, maybe I don’t sleep the best at tonight, but it’s just because of X, Y, Z, not because I’m broken, not because I need to change anything or I can’t sleep. None of that’s true. It’s just the things that are now filling up my life. Martin: The approach that you took that you found helpful, which, which to summarize, it sounds like it was, first of all, just kind of acknowledging what your brain was telling you. Maybe thanking it for looking out for you, then being more of an observer of whatever these thoughts and these feelings were. Martin: You shared that as you did that it kind of lifted the weight of them a little bit, but you did notice that sometimes they would drift off, but then sometimes they would also come back. How did you respond to that experience of them coming back? Because I think often what can happen is when we practice this new approach of opening up, reducing our resistance, and we notice, wow, these thoughts, these feelings are losing their power. Martin: They’re losing their influence. Oh, they’re disappearing. When they come back, suddenly it can feel like uhoh, the brain goes into alert. This is another one of those things that’s not working. Now we have to do something different. I’m just curious to hear what your experience was like with that and how you responded. Casaundra: Yeah, I would love to say that every time I came back, I just did it all again and it worked just fine. The reality is sometimes they come back and it’s, it’s even more scary, right? Because there’s a part of insomnia that when little pieces that remind you of it come back into your life or a thought comes back up and it’s not easy. It’s like scary, right? Like you’re like, is tonight gonna be that night? Or is, you know, you start. Can start having negative thoughts about it. And so that did happen sometimes, right? Casaundra: I didn’t spend as much time in that really dark place. Right. Which was a really scary place for me. Remember, because it’s not who I am. I was so much kinder to myself, right? It, it didn’t have as much weight. I, I didn’t feel like I was broken or that it was my fault. was just the nature of, you know, being human. Martin: Were there any other changes that you wanted to mention or share that you found helpful on this journey of moving away from the struggle with insomnia? Casaundra: Yeah, I think one for me that sometimes just kind of gets looped into like the sleep window thing was the buffer zone. So having that hour before bedtime to just do tasks that were not only just enjoyable and like full of life, but also more relaxing and the way of just like signal signaling to my body that I was preparing for sleep without controlling it. Right? Just doing a little bit more relax. And I honestly still use this like out of all the techniques. This idea of a buffer zone of, Hey, I know I’m a person that’s really sensitive to my environment, right? Casaundra: My husband to this day can, you know, do what he does, but I know I need like a half an hour, an hour to just kind of relax and let my body be as it kind of prepares to feel naturally sleepy so that I am going to bed tired. so that zone or the idea that you have a window of time right before bed to just kinda relax and do things to bring you joy, really helped me. Martin: Setting aside some time to unwind and just do things that you personally find relaxing and enjoyable rather than giving yourself a rule that I’ve gotta be home an hour before I go to bed, and I’ve gotta spend an hour making myself relax, making myself feel sleepy, and making myself have the best possible chances of making sleep happen. Casaundra: Oh yeah, absolutely. Like now, sometimes it’s like five minutes, right? I’ll be like, well, I’m just gonna like wind down and I open the book and I’m like, oh, I am so tired. Close the book and go to bed. And other times where it’s like, oh, I’m really finding that’s enjoyable and that turns into more time, but it’s never something that has to start at 9:00 PM and it’s, you know, never something. Casaundra: I feel like, oh my gosh, if I don’t have this, then I’m not going to be able to sleep. Martin: And, and that’s the difference there, isn’t it? Because as we talk about any of this stuff for example, a buffer zone or like a time to unwind, where we can set the stage for struggle is with our intention. So if the intention with something like a buffer zones to make sleep happen, that might be an action that doesn’t really serve us. Martin: If the intention with the buffer zone is to just set aside some time in the evening that might have once been filled with struggle and effort and trying to just be a period of time where we can do whatever we want, something that we find enjoyable, relaxing, pleasant, that can be productive, then that can be useful, then that can be a workable thing to do. Casaundra: The intent changed so much for me and like not trying to force sleep and at first you, you’re gonna kind of be lying to yourself maybe for, you know, some people I, I’ll speak for myself, but at first it was like, my intent is not to sleep. Like, not to force sleep, but my intent was definitely to go to sleep at first. Casaundra: But it, it involves and so you kinda have to lie and, you know, kind of trick your brain for a little bit occasionally to start actually believing that. And that might not be true for everyone, but as a control freak, like you might start off like just speaking a different truth over your body than is actually going on. Martin: Something we touched upon earlier was about, you know, how in the insomnia struggle isn’t just a nighttime problem, it it, it’s a 24 7 problem. It goes into the days as well. And a change that you made with your days was to just really focus your attention on actions that served you, that were important to you, that mattered to you, rather than what might make a certain amount or a certain type of sleep happen. Martin: Something else that can make these days more difficult too, are the thoughts and those feelings that can show up. You know, the anxieties, the worry and the time traveling that from the brain, like predicting what the night is gonna be like tonight or what previous nights were like, and that in turn could just make things. Martin: More difficult and it makes it harder to do those things that matter. I’m curious to hear from you if you practiced anything or had this way of dealing with all those thoughts and feelings that would show up during the day. What did you find was a workable way to deal with them at that time? Casaundra: It was kind of just like, you know, noticing and observing it. It was kind of like the abbreviated version of what I would do at night, right? Casaundra: Like, I would observe what was happening, kind of ground myself back to my day and then just move forward. And I, I can’t remember it as much because I feel like my life was so busy, like between work and everything, the moment that I stopped you know, being so consumed about researching what could make me sleep, it gave me a lot more freedom in my days. Casaundra: But that being said, like I definitely still had to redirect. And this is the same exercise when I was saying help me with like, being in the car and driving. It’s kind of that similar thing of like, notice what you’re feeling and let it be and observe it, and kind of grounding yourself and what’s actually happening around you. Martin: It comes down again to less resistance. And every time you got that opportunity to practice developing that skill of reducing your resistance it kind of strips them of their power and their influence. You are better able to refocus. So you are noticing, first and foremost whatever thought and feeling was showing up. Martin: Then you are opening up, dropping that resistance, allowing it to be with you, and then just noticing or refocusing on where you are. What you were doing or what you wanted to be doing, even when that thought is still there. So your goal isn’t to kind of get rid of it. Although sometimes when we lower that resistance, it does make it easier to flow, to come and go, but it was just to refocus your attention when those thoughts and feelings showed up. Martin: So they didn’t kind of jerk you around so much. Casaundra: And so many times I would be like halfway through the exercise and it would already start kinda working, right? I’d be like, oh yeah, and I’m, now, I’m gonna think about this without planning on it, right? Instead of it just like coming at me so hard with me trying to push it away, like I definitely am the person to like push away negative. Casaundra: And so these like exercises helped a lot with me not pushing it away, but allowing it to come even though it was scary. Martin: You make a good point there that this stuff can still feel scary. It’s not about trying to make something not scary or trying to make a thought or a feeling disappear. It’s just about acknowledging or accepting that your experience seems to suggest that these thoughts and feelings and emotions are out of your direct control. Martin: There’s no magic switch that you can flick to turn them off. So continuing to try might be making them more difficult. So how about we respond in a different way? And that different way is really easy for us to talk about. It’s certainly a lot easier than putting it into practice, but with practice, we can develop this skill in experiencing all this difficult stuff with less of a struggle so it doesn’t have quite so much power and influence over us. Martin: How long would you say that it took for you to get to a point where it felt like you weren’t just in this endless struggle with sleep, you know that you were out of the struggle, you could live your life independently of sleep, no matter what kind of thoughts, no matter what kind of feelings were showing up. Casaundra: Like I said at the beginning of the call, like I wanted it to be week one, and I’m sure everyone listening is like, man, I, I hope it’s week one of this course. But for me, it, it really took like a month or two after, like, I can’t remember the exact time or date because once it stops being so big, you kind of stop remembering it, and so. For me, it was like ending the course and letting it not even be that big in my life. Right? Like there were a lot of tools I needed to learn, right? And all the videos and the how-tos, like all of those were so important and I needed to have all of those in my tool belt. But after that, I just needed more time to, to use those without a focus on it. Casaundra: Right? And as soon as I, I didn’t have those things that I needed to watch or do every week, the less and less sleep became a big deal and the farther I got away from thinking about it as much as I was. And so I would say about a month or two, probably after I finished maybe a little bit more it really kind of start to settle and the idea of, you know, no night is ever perfect, but I really didn’t feel like I was an insomniac anymore. Casaundra: I kind of felt just like a human with sleep. Martin: What did progress look like for you? What were your measures of progress? What told you that you were heading in the right direction? Casaundra: I think for me it was like the weight on me about my sleep. Like, did I wake up thinking I didn’t get enough? Or how big of an influence is this going to have? So, like early on that was really big for me. Like the progress within your course was measured by how was I feeling in my day and could I go about my day without this being bigger than the rest of my life? Casaundra: And so that was it. And as much as I wanna say that I, you know, didn’t look at the amount of sleep I was getting as like tracker of progress, you kind of do it naturally, but it wasn’t like. I need more sleep. It was just like, huh, wow. Casaundra: Like I slept really well last night. I didn’t do anything. So I think you kind of just notice it throughout your life anyways without putting too much of an emphasis on it. It really just also let me be a different person, right? Like my husband got back the person that he lost when we were first married, and I was struggling with insomnia. Martin: It was interesting hearing you share what your markers of progress were because you didn’t really say in there, oh, the nights when I got like seven hours of sleep, I knew that was progress. Martin: Or eight hours of sleep or six hours. There was no number of hours of sleep. You didn’t even describe the type of sleep. And that’s insightful because I think that for as long as we are measuring progress based on sleep, which, our experience, if we’ve been struggling with it, probably tells us is out of our control. Martin: Then it sets the stage for that ongoing struggle. But your markers of progress, as you were reflecting were, you know, I was just noticing sleep wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t as big a deal. It was losing some of its power or some of its influence. It was more about what, what am I doing with my life? Like, what am I doing day to day? Martin: Are my actions serving me? Do they reflect my values? Do they reflect the life I wanna live? Are my actions moving me in the direction that I want to be heading? Martin: I think you summarized it as well towards the end. You know, I, I got my life back, you know, I am the person that I want to be and all of those things are a ction based. They’re all things that you can control. It’s so helpful to use things like that as measures of progress rather than what kind of sleep am I getting from night to night. Casaundra: Absolutely. And I think like, you know, even hearing on other people like them share on the podcast, it was, it was more about that too, right? Like it’s a beautiful thing of like, this is the power of not holding so much control over sleep. Martin: One more question about progress whilst we’re on that subject. Did you find that as you were practicing these new skills, that it was like every single day or every single night was just kind of like better than the previous one? Or about the same of, did you notice there were ups and downs? I’m just curious what the journey looked like for you in terms of progress. Casaundra: That’s probably two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. I, I, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, yeah, it was just smooth sailing from course on out. Like, that wasn’t my experience either, right? Every, every night looked a little bit different and some made me fearful that I was starting over at the beginning. Casaundra: But everything I learned taught me that, hey, that’s not the actual truth. Like this is normal and it will get better the more you keep working on these tools. So were definitely a lot of setbacks, but the mental mind shift, like the shift in mindset just makes it where it’s not as big of a deal. Martin: I’m curious to know what it was that kept you moving forward when those setbacks happened, especially those, the initial setbacks early on, you know, you’re noticing the progress. Then you have like your first kind of setback, or you notice you have that awareness that you’re getting pulled back into the struggle or that you are struggling again. Martin: How do you kind of reset or refocus and continue moving forward when that happens? Casaundra: It always would start with like the reminders. Like I, I would remind myself, I know sleep’s coming, like I know that this isn’t the truth over my life. But then comes like the motivation of like why I keep going, right? So what gets me to keep going, but then why is, is more of a, I just wanted my life back. Casaundra: Like, I hated being awake at night and wondering how the rest of the entire world had their lights off and were sleeping, and I just wanted to be that person with their lights off. And so I knew if I just kept putting one foot forward every day, I was bound to get there no matter if I had to go back a little bit every once in a while. Martin: It sounds like you found it helpful to remind yourself of why it’s important for you to respond in a certain way. Why this idea of reducing resistance, focusing on workable action actions that matter to you why that’s important, why it matters, and that’s what helped you stay focused on continuing to do the things that mattered and keeping you moving in the direction you want it to be heading. Casaundra: Absolutely. Martin: What would you say that you’ve learned from this whole experience and in what ways do you feel that you’ve grown from it, if any. Casaundra: Yeah, no a lot and summarize maybe two. So for me, like the perception of insomnia and, and what it actually is, and it’s, it’s shifted for me now. It’s not so much of a problem ’cause I know sleep’s going to come and if there is a disturbance in my sleep, it, it’s that, right? That word right there disturbance. Casaundra: It’s just something disturbing my sleep instead of insomnia or this like chronic thing that can’t be overcome. And so there’s a big perception change around what insomnia even is. And, then the second thing is just control, right? I, it has really helped me not try to control other things in my life. Just like with sleep, you know, there’s other things that kind of work the same, right? Stress or, I am trying to think of another good example, but stress is kind of the only other one I can think of that’s as similar. Like the more you focus on it, the worse it might get and sometimes you just have to let it go and it’s really helped me with that. Casaundra: Anxiety probably is another great example, honestly, better. So it’s really helped me with letting those things go and, and changing how I approach control. Casaundra: I wouldn’t wish insomnia on my worst enemy, but at the same time, I’m like so thankful for what I found and what I learned in your course and how it’s enabled me to react so differently to things that feel so impossible. Martin: I’m really grateful for the time you’ve taken at your day to come onto the podcast. I do have one last question for you, and then it’s this one. If someone with chronic insomnia is listening and they feel as though they’ve tried everything, they’re beyond help, that they’ll never be able to stop struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them? Casaundra: I would say, you know, our creator God, designed sleep, and it’s going to come eventually. And the more you can relinquish control of trying to get sleep by filling your life with joy regardless of what the nights look like and the more energy you spend bringing that effort and attention to those things that fill up your life, the less you’re going to be controlling your sleep, and then the more you will. Martin: thank you again for coming onto the podcast, Casaundra. It’s really appreciated. Thank you. Casaundra: Thank you so much. Martin: Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you're ready to get your life back from insomnia, I would love to help. You can learn more about the sleep coaching programs I offer at Insomnia Coach — and, if you have any questions, you can email me. Martin: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Insomnia Coach Podcast. I'm Martin Reed, and as always, I'd like to leave you with this important reminder — you are not alone and you can sleep. I want you to be the next insomnia success story I share! If you're ready to stop struggling with sleep and get your life back from insomnia, you can start my insomnia coaching course at insomniacoach.com. Please share this episode!

Chad Buchholz joins Ped & Burk for a fun episode! An intro full of all sorts of takes. What is the point of steeplechase? Pizza Hut Book-It is back! We have discovered another new wedding topic. Adam shares with Chad that he went all-in on rotational grazing. Is Mother's Day the corniest social media holiday? Chad doesn't enjoy our social media complaints. Adam shares about a new food he wants to make. In the meat, Mm!, of the episode we draft a 2000s NBA roster! The era we grew up with had some legends. Who will draft the best team?! Hut Hut! Love y'all.

In this episode of Cubs Out Loud, it's time for some self-love as the guys get hands on letting you all know how they spank the monkey. From tips to a press release for preventing cancer, listen as the guys choke out their feelings while they wrap their heads (and hands) around the potential benefits … Continue reading COL824: It’s Gotta Be… MM →

Hawk has some M&M's that the guys try and guess the flavor of, Tommy tries to get the guys to go to Grand View with himSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big things are on the horizon for Betsy! A book deal, a beach move, a birthday. Tune in to this Q & A to get to know the woman behind The Art of Living Big and The Navigate Method. With lots of laughs and a few tears, this one is a great one to watch or listen to. Check out the video version on YouTube. Transcript:  Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master, coach, and creator of the Navigate Method. Here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big  All right, I’m excited. I’m excited to do this. I’m excited, and Feels very official. actually am, um, nervous, which is weird, ’cause I d- I mean, I’ve had this podcast for how long? Like 10 years. But I’m nervous, because I feel like we’re not… Yeah, we’re not just ask- can’t believe I’m not nervous, but I’m just excited for it. All right, I’m excited too. Okay, so let’s tell everybody who you are that’s listening. So I’m, I’m Joy, and I am Betsy’s ops person, um, her virtual assistant, go-to person hopefully. And, uh, I Yeah. job. It’s been an honor and a privilege to work for someone so innovative and caring and, , I , I can’t say enough good things about Navigate. I’m an No. member myself. I am Yeah. be working for you now years later after I completed the program. But, , I love my job. Yeah. Oh, that makes me happy. And now you can add podcast host Yeah, a resume. I don’t know about that. We’ll see. So this episode is gonna be a little different than typical. My birthday’s next week, which I wanna say, like, I don’t care, whatever, but I do. I think I do kinda care. I think I’ve always tried to not care, but I think it’s kind of fun that my birthday’s next week. , I’ll be 55, and my birthday is on 5/15, and I feel like the numbers are all, like… I feel like it’s kinda magical, and I don’t know why. I’m not, , a numerology buff or anything , but , it just feels like 55 and then this. So I’m excited to kinda do this. And so I thought what we would do is, , we asked on Instagram just for, , questions of what people had. ready. Yeah, and you’ve got them ready. Okay, and then you had some other ones of your s- your own that I don’t necessarily know all of them, , so yeah. So we’ll… we can just dive in and see where the conversation takes us. I know. I’m excited. Okay. So also I wanna say about 5:15, that’s a special number for you, isn’t it? Yeah, well, uh, uh, I think because it’s my birthday, I always am looking for 5:15. Like, I’m always… I think it’s, like, a message from my mom. I do too, because we post your podcast at 5:15. Yeah. Yes, that’s right, yeah. We post it at 5:15 a- on Thursday mornings. Yeah, yeah. That’s, I like it, and I feel like it feels balanced and also, , I know this is a weird thing, but like 5-1-5, it feels balanced, and it feels like the one is, uh… It’s not a hyphen, but a what would go this way? Do you know what I mean? Up and down. So it feels like 5-5, which feels like a mirroring and- Like, , it’s not infinity, it’s not an eight, but it feels like that to me. Like, kind of chaotic, but also measured, you know? So anyway, I love the 515, yeah. Yeah, I, I like numbers too, but I’m a, I’m an even number person. Yeah. pump gas without ending on an even number. It’s so weird. Oh, really? Yeah. I know it’s weird. I love that. It is weird. So But thanks. love that ’cause it’s weird. Are you ready for your first question? Okay. Yeah, I think so. Okay. ., So this is a question that kind of encompasses everything that you do, so it’s a good starting point, I feel like. Okay. you help women decide whether to stay or leave, and you left. , So looking back, was there a single moment that you knew, or was it a slow build that you only saw clearer in the rearview mirror? Oh, okay. That’s a really good question. I’m so scared right now. Okay. So here’s what I think to answer this question. I wanna, like, zoom way, way out, and I’m gonna start with, like I’m gonna s- I’m gonna start, like, when I’m a kid, and you’re gonna be like, “Oh my God. Is she gonna tell her whole life story?” But for those of you that are listening that are fairly new, so I believe that we are always doing things, our actions are coming from a place of trying to keep us safe. Like, emotionally safe or physically safe, right? And so even if we’re doing things sometimes that is clear that that’s not helpful, it’s because our brains think that it’s keeping us safe, and part of the reason it thinks it’s keeping us safe is ’cause we’re alive, and it’s our, our unconscious mind’s prime directive is to keep us alive. So whatever we’re doing is hypothetically working ’cause you’re alive, okay? So when I was in high school, my mom died in a car accident, and pretty soon after that my dad got remarried. Now, he was married to my mom and, , f- by all accounts was happy enough, you know? And then he started dating somebody, I would say within, , eight or nine months of my mom dying, and then they got married very quickly. It wasn’t, , the best relationship. They’re all still alive, so I wanna be careful of how I speak about it. But it wasn’t… I, I, I was se- 17 by the time they got married, and it wasn’t a safe relationship for me, and so I think I did a lot of accommodating to- Feel safe. So I would get in trouble for a lot of things, and I had never been a kid that ever got in trouble. Do you know what I mean? , My, my mother was always so, so kind and , respectful of my sister and I. So that whole relationship, I think, really changed the dynamic of how I experienced relationships. And I think I was pretty, like when we think about attachment theory, like I think I was securely attached and then became anxious after my mom died in that whole experience. Okay. So now, when the question is, like, when you got d- divorced, was it all at once or was it a, a, you know, slow burn? I wanna say… I- I’m gonna tell you my journey of … Joy’s like, “This is a longer answer than I expected.” But the, , the jour- the journey of, of… Let me tell you why I am so chic. Because I have been married several times. And so to answer that question I’m like, “Well, which time?” Okay. When I was in college, I got married right after college, and, I got divorced very quickly. … We didn’t have kids. Like, there was no… And so I know that that was a marriage. We had a wedding. It… But in my brain it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like such a blip, and I was so young, and honestly, I was coming right off the heels of my mom dying, like five years before or something. Do you know what I mean? , It all feels very blurry. And so then years later I met my son’s dad, and that was my second marriage, but felt like my first. It operated like my first. And more importantly, my third marriage operated like my second. I sound very chic, Joy. I’m very chic. Um, so my first marriage, I think I, I, I… What I have found in my relationships in general, marriages or otherwise, is that I have chosen people that I could try and heal that relationship with my dad. Like, I’m gonna tell you something’s wrong, and you’re gonna ignore me and tell me I’m misreading it, which is what happened when I was young. And so I would find people unconsciously that I could play that out because that felt safe, because that was so familiar, right? And so I, I think that I did that with my first marriage, and I was not mature enough to recognize that there was something going on within me. And then I got divorced when my son, m- and I have a trans son, so when my son was four. And then again, you know, replayed stuff. Had some terrible relationships in between all of that. And then married my last, my last and final. I will never get the government involved ever again. So my, my most recent marriage, and that was a marriage that lasted… We were married for 12 years. We were together, like, 15 years. And I think I was playing the same exact thing out, but the difference this time, and what I teach inside the Navigate method, is that we can trust ourselves, right? That we can find the, our side of the street and heal our side of the street. That we can use the relationship as a mirror to figure ourselves out so much deep, much deeper. And so I think I knew almost immediately that my marriage wasn’t good, and for a lot of circumstances, I stayed for a long time. I think I didn’t wanna fail again. I think my , r- you know, relationship with my, then my daughter at that time was complicated, ’cause she was getting sick as a teenager, and there was just a lot of things going on where, , it didn’t… I couldn’t leave. And I say I couldn’t. I had options, but, , I, I didn’t feel like I could leave, and I didn’t want to. I wanted desperately for it to be good. And what I realize now is that going through that whole process and actually using it to heal myself, and now I would say I’m absolutely securely attached, earned secure, because I earned it back. But that relationship, although, , one of the most heinous in my life I think, I’m the most grateful for it. It changed me in such profound ways because I did the work, because I looked at it, because I paid attention and didn’t say, “I’m gonna let…”, I was like, “I’m not letting…” This is, it, to me, and I’m gonna say this too as we continue this conversation, in my relationships, any of them, I’m not the only one in them. And so, you know, if you brought my former husband, any of select one, any of the many former husbands, like they may have a totally different story, and it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It just means that’s our versions, and there’s a truth in there somewhere in the middle, right? But to me, I’m like, that relationship was so profoundly, , harmful to me that it forced me into change, and for that I am incredibly, incredibly grateful. So to answer the question, it didn’t happen all at once, but the clarity of, oh, I’m healed enough to do this on my own, I get it, sort of unraveled within, , I would say, like, the last six or eight months. If that makes sense. That is a very answer to that question. sense. and you needed the backstory to, to complete that, Yeah. Yeah. that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Okay. question. Okay. It’s okay, it’s okay. Okay. What’s something that you believed about your own marriage right up until the end that turned out not to be true? Oh, question. God, that’s a good question. Is that one of yours, or is that one that we got in? That’s one that was the myth. What is some… Say it again, something that’s true What is was true. about your own marriage right up until the end that turned out not to be true? That’s… That there was something I could have done to save it. I don’t think there was anything I could have done. I think lots of times we try and make sense of things, and we’re like, “If I could have done this better,” or, “Maybe if I had just learned how to cook dinner better,” or I had… Do you know what I mean? Like, we think of all the things, and now I recognize that what was happening, just like for him, none of what I was doing had to do with him. It was, had to do with this old story. The same thing for him. What he was doing and how he was responding and how he was interacting with me had nothing to do with me, and there was nothing I could have done, and I think that actually brings me a lot of peace. But it, uh, it took me a,, a long while, even after we were divorced, for me to get to that. Yeah. good answer. I think, I think that’s probably a common answer because as women, I think we feel like we maybe could try this, maybe we could try this, Yeah. and, and maybe there’s nothing else and I, yeah, and I think, not to interrupt you, I’m sorry. , That’s why we go to couples counseling, and I don’t have anything against couples counseling. But I think that what happens is we go, and then we talk about problems that have happened, and you’re talking about the problem, but the problem actually isn’t the issue. It’s the reasons that you got to the problem. So if everybody would just go their own way and figure out their own crap, you, y- you wouldn’t have to, like, rehash a situation for two months, you know? Like, I, I could have rehashed so many different situations, and we never, ever, ever… It’s clear we never could have come to a conclusion ’cause it was our own crap we were bringing in. I, I was responding to stuff because of me and who I was, and he was responding s- to stuff because of him. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. It’s okay. It’s okay, Bessie. you’re great. You’re doing really good. I know. I don’t know. Okay, people assume the woman who teaches this work has it all figured out. Mm-hmm. ending are you still making sense of? Oh, I think one of the biggest things, and I think if people follow me for a long time, I think they understand that I often will even say, people, like, “I’m on this path with you. I don’t think we ever have it all figured out.” And I think one of the biggest mistakes I could ever make as a leader or as a coach would be to make people feel like I had it all figured out. ‘Cause I never want anybody to, um, need me forever. Like I always say to my clients, “I want you to want me forever, but I don’t want you to need me. I want you to have your own tools and your own ways of thinking so I, I’ll never have it all figured out, and I think there’s always things to uncover. One of the things that I think I do really well is I will sit and think about stuff, and I won’t… Or I, I say I won’t. It’s not that I never, but I try. I do, not avoid hard thoughts. I make room for hard thoughts. And so as I come up against things I haven’t had, don’t have figured out, there’s always new things to uncover and I will figure them out. If that makes sense. So I know I’m not necessarily answering the question, but it’s just, like I don’t have the, to let, make a list of all the things I don’t have figured out. It’s everything. You know? Like there’s so much, ’cause I am not one that, that pushes the idea that I do. I think that’s– I mean, because we’re always evolving and, and changing and figuring stuff out as we Yeah. And you question, but… yeah, and you know sometimes when I get really overwhelmed, uh, with work, and then I’ll say like, “I’m just gonna go sit,” and you’re always like, you’re good at “What the…” Yeah, and you’re like, “What the hell? What the heck?” I’m like, “I’m just gonna go sit and just be quiet for 15 minutes and see what happens.” normal.” Yeah. “Let me do 800 things that Yeah, you always tell me. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so this is about your birthday. Oh, okay. um, okay. So you’re about to turn 55. Mm-hmm. that you thought you would have figured out by now that you haven’t, have you made peace with that? I think I thought I would- grow up and have, like, a family and, like, the father of the bride house and the white picket fence and a husband that adored me. I’ve never ever, ever, I’ve never ever had anybody in my life that adored me. I think I thought I would, have, uh probably more kids than just one. I think, you know what I mean? I think there was, I, I think there’s so much of my life that isn’t what I thought it was gonna be and I think it’s because what I thought it was gonna be was created before my mom died and when she died it, like, scrambled eggs, you know what I mean? And, and I really like where I ended up right now, you know? So I think it’s not… Martin adores you. Dean Martin does adore me but only See? wants to. He’s ve- he’s al- he’s taught me more about consent. Like, consent is, is a, a subject that comes up sometimes in the Navigate group, right? Like with your husband, like, you know, if he wants sex and I don’t want sex and how, can I say no and all of those things. I swear to God I learned more about consent from my freaking cat. Like, it makes sense. , You have to ask permission to grab at somebody. So yeah. Okay. Um, let’s see. Oh, I love this question. I love this question. , What is a pattern that you see in almost every woman who comes to you that she swears does not apply to her? . I know what it is and I’m just trying to formulate it. Um, I think, well, I think first of all every woman thinks that their husband’s behavior is their fault. Like if they could do something different then things could be different and I think that they take a lot of ownership of his behavior instead of letting him own it and that becomes really heavy. And you think that Yeah, I think- that at the time? Yeah. Yeah. I think they don’t realize it and then I think as we move through the program then they start to recognize it but I don’t think it’s just like if you’re listening and you’re like, “Oh yeah,” I think that’s not a thing you can just hear and go, “Oh okay.” I think you have to, like, internalize it and I think going through the program helps you, like, viscerally understand that and I think that’s like the shift, a big shift that happens for people Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, maintaining somebody else’s life is impossible. Okay, this is another question that pertains to the work you do in Navigate. , So you’ve been clear that you don’t push women towards staying or leaving Mm-hmm. the Navigate program. Um, has that ever cost you a client that you’d wish you’d been more direct with? Like where I wish they had left or I wish they had stayed? I know, I know personally, I can tell you that as a, a former Navigate person, hearing some of the stories, sometimes, you know, part of you, the girlfriend side of you wants to be like, you gotta get out of there.” Yeah. you, you’re very good about not, , Yeah. that on anyone and letting them arrive at those decisions themselves. So I guess, that is the question. — Has it ever cost you a client that you’ve y- you would– were more direct with? yeah. I, I’m gonna say no, and the reason that I’m gonna say no is because it’s not that I think, “Oh, they should leave,” but I left, and then I went back, and then I had to leave again a couple years later, which we can talk about that. But, like, that process was so important for me that I need people to have their own process because that’s the only way we trust ourselves. And part of this program is, is getting women to a place where they know themselves so deeply, and if I’m putting any pressure on any of that, then that whole foundation crumbles. Mm-hmm. is there part of me that’s like, “Give me his phone number”? Yeah, and sometimes I’ll say that. Do you know what I mean? Like, ’cause there is the girlfriend side of you that’s like, “Girl. Oh my God.” But, but also, , the overarching goal and purpose, and I… , and again, I’m gonna go back to, like, when I said I was so grateful for my former husband this last relationship because I feel like this is my purpose. This is why I’m here on this planet, and I never, ever, ever could have got here if I hadn’t had that relationship. Oh my God, I’m so grateful for that relationship. But that’s how come I know not to push anybody anywhere. Mm-hmm. Yeah. good answer. this is kind of a piggyback question,, what is a piece of your own advice that you’ve struggled to take? A piece of my own advice I struggle to take I, I’m gonna say this.  I don’t typically give advice unless I’ve lived it. I think that one of the things that anyone that’s worked with me would say is that I will say, I’ll even say, like, “Hey, I’m open to being wrong. You decide what feels right to you.” And even in my personal relationships, I’ll say, “I’m open to being wrong,” ’cause I’m open to learning. I’m really open to learning and seeing things in a different way. I love when I can see things in a different way., I think in my… If I were to say, is there something that, advice I should take, it’s just that I can’t control everything. Like, I, uh,, you know, we all have that desire to want to have some sense of control of the world and the universe, and you just can’t. You can’t make people do what you wanna, want them to do. You can only invite. You know, the you can’t lead a horse to water. It’s the same with me, I guess.  Like, I can know the things, and there’s gonna be days where I’m, I bypass myself just because I’m human. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good. Okay, let’s see. Hmm. Okay. You live alone. What does a hard night actually look like for you, and what do you do? A hard night. So, Is there any hard nights alone? yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I know, right? There’s been some debate on Instagram on any of my posts where I say I’m not lonely. I don’t get lonely. I get bored. I don’t get lonely. And so now I’m gonna say something, and I’m open to being wrong if this w- people were to label this as lonely. But one of the things that I found is that I had limited friendships when I was married, and those friendships- Sort of disintegrated, and I had to create all new friendships. And I think I had hard nights in the beginning in that that was really confusing to me. Nothing happened. I, I still w- I wouldn’t be shocked if somebody reached out to me and said, “Oh my God, I haven’t talked to you in so long. You wanna go get a coffee?” ‘Cause nothing happened, but there was just a shift, and I think there was an energetic shift to me, and that felt confusing because I… Nothing had happened. So, so there were nights, especially in the beginning, I think, where it was more like confusing of like, “How do I make friends? Like, what did I do? Why w- at this, , vulnerable moment did the people that were in my life disappear?” And I think there’s, again, it had nothing to do with me. And so, um, I think the hard nights were just that like, “How do I rebuild my life?” And kind of figuring that out. That makes And then the… And there’s ice cream for nights like that. But I think most of the time, like, I have pretty good nights. , I have my routines, you know? I, I work, and then I make dinner, and then I sit on the couch, and I like to watch YouTube videos. I, I have YouTube, like the subscription, so I don’t have commercials. And I love going down the rabbit hole of documentaries, and I watch all a bunch of stuff about the Gilded Age, and I’m into, like, uh, uh, you know, how they run stuff. Like, I watched this documentary the other day on how they run the Atlanta airport. It’s so fascinating. How they run cruise ships., So I, I’m into stuff, and I’m interested and curious. And then when I get tired, I get in bed, and you know, people have heard me talk about my evening routine with the bed. But like, I get in my BedJet heated up bed and crick it away while I read or watch TV. , .. and I have a lot of friends that I message with. , We use Voxer, and you and I use Voxer. But , we message about stuff all the time. Like, you’re having a glass of wine and you’re like say- You know, like, there’s a lot of interaction that I have with people now that’s friends that live all over., It does take up time and, and space in a good way.. And that is the part that’s like I’m never really lonely, ’cause I have all these structures around me that if I w- want somebody, I could just reach out. But I think in the beginning it was that, like, reorienting and how do I recreate my life. Mm-hmm. Well, I think every woman too that, , is watching will, feel like, you know, when they’re alone or their husband’s out of town, it’s almost like a Yeah, really. Yeah. cool. Yeah, yeah. I got a message from a friend the other day, um, and she reached out to me a couple months ago, and I hadn’t heard from her, like, in years. And I was talking to her, she lives in New York, and I was talking to her a lot on Voxer when we met, and,, she’s a business owner, too, and you know what I mean, we commiserated on all that stuff. Uh, and it was when I was living with my husband. We were married at the time. And anyway, the other day we were messaging and she said, “You know, Betsy, you need to go back and listen to your voice in the messages that you would leave me back in like 2023, 2024,” early 2024. She’s like, “You sound like a completely different person, like it doesn’t even sound like you.” And I was like, “Really? That’s so weird.” And she was like, “Yeah, like you’re… The joy, you’re way more excited, like you sound alive.” And she kept saying, “Go back and listen. Go back and listen.” So I scrolled back and I saw, like the last time we had messaged, like 2023, I think it was, October, and I couldn’t listen. I just was like, “I don’t wanna revisit her.” Like I, I looked at the message for a long time. I could see it, you know? And I just couldn’t hit play. I was like, “I’m just gonna let her rest,” you know? Yeah. It was interesting. Yeah, that’s interesting and, and profound really. It’s Yeah, yeah. like you’ve moved on from that person all the way. Yeah, yeah. And I just didn’t wanna like… It felt like digging up a grave, you know? It felt like, like a, I don’t know, like a betrayal. Like just let her be. So yeah, it was kinda interesting. Okay, this, this one may be a long answer, so Oh. ready? Need opposed to the other ones where I feel like I’ve talked. Okay. Okay. Okay, so, um- Tell us the moment that you realized it was time to leave in your marriage, your Yeah. Um, I think that in my marriage, I was very depleted, and I think I tried really hard. When I look back, and I don’t recognize this as much now, but I remember at the time, and even maybe like a year after I lived in my own apartment, if someone said, “Describe your marriage, give me one word-” It would have been frustrating and, like, frustrating. Like, it was very frustrating. It probably was for him, too. So again, I’m just gonna reiterate that this isn’t anything… This isn’t about him. This is about me. It was very frustrating, and I think that I had a moment when I… I’m gonna say something very strange, I think., I hired somebody to hypnotize me because some of the feedback that I would get online felt really crushing in a weird way, and people would comment on my clothes or my big glasses or whatever, but it felt very deeply injured me. And I was like, “What is that?” Now, if I had been in, , an incredible relationship where I felt, , supported and loved, like, maybe it wouldn’t have, but it did. And it got to the point where I remember one day I was laying on the floor in my home office, and I was like, “I don’t know if I can keep doing this.” Now, I started the Navigate method when I was still married, so that’s something we can talk about. But I, I was laying on the floor, and I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Like, this feels like such important work to me, but I… And was given to me, which we can talk about that. And so, “But I don’t know if I can do it.” And so a friend of mine was like, “You need to hire this guy, Joseph Cloth.” He and I were in a coaching group together, and she was like, “You should hire Joseph.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, I should.” So I reached out. It, it wasn’t cheap. I mean, it was thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to be hypnotized so that I could get rid of feeling awful when people commented. But we had to get to, like, the root cause, and the root cause was I am bad. Now, if somebody said to me, like, “What do you think is the root cause of your…” I would never, ever, ever had said I am bad. So he had me do this whole exercise. It took me, like, two weeks of, like, crying all night. Like, like I really sat with it. Like, what is this? And I… And, and I think because I’m a coach, I could get to, like, this deep, deep, deep root. And go back to the first story I told you. When, after my mom died and my dad started dating somebody, and when they got married, I would tell him, “This isn’t… This doesn’t feel right. Like, the things that are being said to me feel terrible. I… This isn’t good.” And he would say, “You’re misunderstanding. It- you’re wrong.” You’re misinterpreting that and, you know, stop trying to mess up my life. And I think I internalized that to, like, don’t trust yourself. You can’t rely on your own feelings. They’re not right. And, you know, uh, y- y- you’re bad. And so w- he hypnotized me, and I came out of that hypnosis with clarity, like, “Oh, I’m not bad.” And I… That means that I deserve good things and good people around me that love me. And, uh, and I, and, and it shifted. I n- I, I don’t g- give a rat’s ass about what anybody says online in the weirdest way. In fact, I love it. I’m like, “Well, that making you feel something, and that’s good.” You know? Um, but I think that was a big part in my shift of, like, what is it that I deserve? And that’s something that we work on in the Navigate method. Like, what is it that I deserve? Is it true that this is what I deserve? You know? And, and I’m gonna keep saying this just because I feel like it’s so important, my former husband deserved different than he had with me. It wasn’t the right match. Do y- do you know what I mean? And so, um, when I got that, I think that was a huge piece of my clarity. But again, it’s layers. You know what I mean? Like, you gotta, like, do the work and look at the stuff and, like, unpack it all. That’s good. Yeah. I have not yet been hypnotized. That’s why I wore my non-black glasses today because can’t handle the negativity. I think it’s funny. And then it’s funny ’cause people will be like, “I hate your glasses. I love your glasses.” And then sometimes they’re like, “Why do you dress in such big clothes?” That’s a big one I get. “Why are you dressed in such baggy clothes? You’re so little. Why are you in such big clothes?” I’m like, “‘Cause I don’t want you looking at my body.” how people feel like they can say whatever they wanna say. It’s so terrible. Like, It’s funny ’cause they, I don’t think they’d say it in real life, you know? But- they probably don’t. It’s all Yeah a screen and on a keyboard. Keyboard it, it makes it way more obvious if somebody loves my glasses and says, “Where’d you get those?” And somebody hates them, then it’s not the glasses. It’s the person that’s viewing the glasses. so true. Yes. So I just go, “Oh, whatever. I ain’t bad.” I actually was like, “Let me do these today,” because Yeah. no one will say, “Why sh- why are they both wearing black glasses?” Wait. Hey, I know. Freaking damn big g- black glasses, yeah. That one’s funny okay. Um, okay, so… Oh, okay, so you’ve… This is kind of an all-encompassing. So you’ve built a business, a podcast, a method, a book deal. Yeah. is the thing that you’re quietly most proud of that no one knows about? Um, so I will say, let’s see. And the book, let’s just comment on the book ’cause someone will be like, “She has a book?” Years ago, years and years ago, I wrote a book, but this isn’t the book that we’re talking about now. So we’re in the process of writing a book. I have an agent, and we’re writing a book., And we’ll know more about that around Christmastime, but it’ll be out next year. , So what is the thing that I’m most proud of that nobody knows about? Mm-hmm. I think my ability to be open to new ideas. I got divorced from my second husband, ’cause I’m very chic. Just a reminder, I’m very chic and I’m not afraid of change. , But I got divorced, you know, from my son’s dad, and we remained really good friends. And years and years later, I asked Oliver, I said, “Have you ever heard me say anything bad about Dad?” And he said, “No. Why would you?” And that made me so proud, because he was like, “Why would you say anything bad?” ‘Cause he had never, ever heard me say anything bad. And you know what? I love his dad. I love his dad. His dad is part of him, and I’m really proud of the relationship that we have. Is it perfect? No. Do I wish parts of it were different, especially over the past few years? Yeah, absolutely. But we have really been good partners and good co-parents in the best way that we could, and I think that’s because, uh, of him as well as because I am open and not afraid of being wrong. And when I say wrong, like, I’m not afraid of, of being like, “Okay, maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe I didn’t handle that right. Maybe I c- … I’m open to hearing other people’s experience of me and taking that into account and apologizing where I need to.” So I’ve always been really proud of that. When Oliver was little, we did holidays together with his wife, and then I’ve I mean, his kids have been to my house. Like, we’ve maintained a, a f- really friendly relationship, which I’m always been really grateful for. That’s awesome. Yeah. It’s awesome for Oliver. Yes. uh, something that’s just, uh, you Yeah stress away from the child of any Yeah. whether married or, or, you know, going through a divorce or a separation, just to take that away, that stress away from the, child in that Yeah. is awesome, so… we still have every Friday, every Friday at 3:00 we have a family meeting. Now Oliver is 24, but he’s got some challenges. And so every Friday we meet and talk with him, see how his week has been, where he struggled, where we can support him. And so, you know, that’s always been like a team effort. So I think that that’s like just an important piece of my whole journey, you know? Awesome. Okay, let’s see where we’re at. , Oh, this is probably my favorite question. It’s one of the– my favorite. So I have a,, I have a question that has nothing to do with Navigate Okay. Okay. Okay. that you wish someone would ask that they never ask? , What is something I could go… I should’ve… I, you mentioned this, this question to me earlier and I thought, “Oh, how would I answer that?” And I still don’t know. I wish they would ask that they never ask. it and come back to it? Well, you know, one thing I’ll say is I think, and this goes back to one of the earlier questions, is that I think lots of times people think, and I’m not gonna be answering the question exactly, but a roundabout way. I think lots of times people think, “Well, Betsy’s fine,” because I present as fine. And I think just I’m a human like anybody else, and I think there have been challenges. I know when I moved into my apartment, I had a lot of challenges in my nervous system when I moved and lived alone, not because I didn’t like being alone, but because I was so used to scanning to manage other people’s emotions, that the lack of knowing if I was, I’m gonna use air quotes, “in trouble”. But again, remember like I had this thing from when I was young, it had nothing to do with my husband. So, uh, is that I, I, I didn’t know if I was in trouble ’cause I wasn’t around anybody. And so I… So I think the thing that I wish, not necessarily people would ask me, but I think that people could recognize, was that everything that I share is truly because I have done the work. Like, I have walked through it. Like, I have thought about it deeply, and I think that if, you know, if somebody were to ask me something, I think it would just be like something totally different from anything that we talk about. Do you know what I mean? , Like what do you, why do you love the ocean so much? I, I’m gonna cry. Like, why do you love the ocean so much? Like, I think … Well, that’s weird. That’s gonna make me cry, Joy. We’ll, we’ll cut that out. Um think you should cut it out. By the way, I’m I mean, your audience already knows you’re looking to move to the Yeah. proud of you for making that decision and doing that. It’s so brave of you. And, Yeah. um, you clearly, you clearly love it so much that it’s emotional for you. So I’m Yeah. for you to do that. And I think that, like, for a long time the ocean was, like … When I thought about the beach, and if people have listened to the podcast forever,, That– I, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you tear up, so I, I think Yeah. something you shouldn’t cut out because it’s real Yeah. Yeah. I, I’m so happy for you because, um, like you said the other day, you know, we were talking with, um, a group of women that, that were s- that was saying like, “Uh, just wish I could get on the other side of this. Like, I wish I could take out all of the middle ground, the hard stuff.” Yeah. you said something so profound, which was, you know, that’s going to be the stuff that makes you that next person. That– Going through that is going to yield, you know, the, the person that you’re growing to be. So sometimes you just have to go through those hard things first. It’s like getting forged, you know? It’s like pottery, is like you mold it and then you stick it in the fire, and it’s the fire that makes it so beautiful. And so yeah, I think that trying to cut out the middle or t- not trying to go through the hard stuff, I think, like you don’t have to know what it’s gonna be like to get… Like, how long is it gonna be? How bad is it gonna be? You don’t have to know. All you have to know is today. All you have to know is, like, this moment. Can I handle this moment? Okay, I’m good. I’m good. What about this moment? Okay, I’m good. Like, I think we get so far ahead of ourselves, but it’s such important work to, like, move through. And, you know, I could go into the whole woo-woo, which I love to do, , i- which is like y- you know, you were meant to come here and go through this. You were meant to, like, have this experience. And, you know, I have a belief that… And other people can believe differently, but I think,, if I hadn’t gone through this, like, thing where I, I believe leaving my former husband this last time, becoming the person that I needed to become, and then leaving, was my life’s journey. I know that sounds so weird, but, like, that was a huge part of my life’s journey, and I think, I think, I would have come back in some other reincarnation and had to do it again. And now I get to, like, graduate from it ’cause I freaking went through it, you know? And I was… And we always say in the program, with bravery and integrity. Like, how do we move forward things with bravery and integrity? And I feel like I was able to do that. Did I do everything perfect? No, but I tried really hard to be in integrity with, with… And clear, you know, in, in what I wanted. Yeah. this question. What’s Okay. favorite movie? Okay, so my favorite movie ever, when you first w- asked me this question, like when you mentioned it yesterday, I think, um, I al- I loved Elizabethtown years ago. I have ADHD. it. Yeah, it’s really good. But, but I have, like, ADHD, so, like, I don’t remem- if you told me to tell you what Elizabethtown was about, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I, I’ll leave a m- a movie and I’ll be like, “That was so good.” And then outside the theater someone could be like, “Tell me about it,” and I’ll be like, “I don’t know, but I was entertained.” You know? So, uh, so but I will say my favorite movie ever, and I could tell you all about it, is Everything Everywhere All at Once. And when I… I’ve seen this movie like three different times. Every time I’ve seen it I wanted so badly to talk to somebody about it, like, in depth. Like, everybody in my life, I was like, “You know, you need to see that movie. Can we talk about it?” But it is a movie about the, like, the unis- universe, like collective consciousness, basically. And you get to see every piece of your life all at once as if you had made every decision differently than you did, and you, in the end, still recognize that this life matters, that this, where you ended up, was exactly right. Even with all the other metaverses in the world that could’ve happened, where you are is exactly right. And there’s also a greater story about a mother and a daughter, and it’s about her having, the mother having to see the daughter in every other universe to see all the sides of her before she could really love her in this one. And I just think it’s so profound. It’s such a good, it’s such a good movie. And, like, it’s the kind of movie you watch it once and you’re like, “What the fuck just happened to me?” And then you gotta watch it again and, like, every time I’m on a airplane I’m like, “Oh, let me see if they have it on there.” It’s so good. You know what else was a really good movie? And I’ve watched it twice, and the second time it didn’t hit the same time as the first time. But it was called, um, Nine Days, I think it was called. And it was about these souls that are auditioning to get to have a life, and they want it so bad. Oh. Oh, wow. and it’s, it makes you go, “Oh my God, I’m so lucky to be here.” Like, I’m, this is so fucking cool that I get to be here. And hard stuff. They want hard stuff. Like, they don’t just want fun, great stuff. Like, they want the hard stuff, too. Like, it is the range of emotion that is, like, the biggest gift that we have, and I think we- Try and stay so far away from anything that feels, like, uncomfortable or bad, but it’s part of the gift, ’cause when you do that, then, m- you know, like I cry thinking about going to the beach. Like, I can’t even say it because I g- had the fucking bad, and now I get to have the good, and I can’t even stand it, I’m so excited. It’s happy tears. But I think we move away from hard, and, and I see this in the program too, and I get it. Of like, I don’t wanna go through this, it’s gonna be hard. And I say like, “Let it be. What’s gonna happen on the other end?” Like, what if it ends up great? Like, I have this sign in my bathroom, and it’s in my bathroom only because, um, I see it every day, but sometimes on the internet people are like, “Why is that in your bathroom?” But it says, um, what if it’s great? What if it’s great? Like, we are really good at catastrophizing, being like, “This is terrible. My kids are gonna suffer.” Like, well, what if it’s great? What if your kids get to see you do something totally different? What if they get to see a whole new side of you? What if they get to experience you in real love or their dad having real lo- like, what if it’s great? I just, I, like, let’s spend as much time there, you know? Yep. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So I just realized by your movies that I, um, may need to try some different movies out, ’cause I was thinking about Steel Magnolias, Parenthood, and yeah. Yeah, totally. You need to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeah. think, well, I’ve r- Is that a book? ‘Cause I think I might have read the book. Oh, I know. yeah. But it’s a movie, like Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, and it’s really good. Yeah, watch that for I sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, we’re, we’re getting to the bottom of these questions. You’ve done a great job. Uh, let’s Okay. I have one. Um, so are you open to dating? Oh, no. Why? I know, that was so fast, wasn’t it? Okay, so let’s tell the story about, like, the… Okay, so I wanna say this. I feel whole and complete, and I would w- and I, I’m gonna make sure I’m not telling myself a lie. I feel whole and complete. I don’t feel like I’m missing anybody. The idea of having somebody and finally having someone in my life that actually likes me, like, I don’t feel like I don’t, I don’t feel like I have been in relationships in the past where people even liked me. So, the idea of having somebody like me, that actually would feel really good to have somebody like me. , I think I have had to fight my own ageism and really look at that from my own perspective. When I look outside of myself, I see women in their 50s and 60s that are beautiful, and I think absolutely they deserve love. And then when I look at myself, I immediately go, “She’s too old. I’m too old. Nobody’s gonna wanna date me at 55.” Like, I’m, I have gray hair. I… Do you know what I mean? Like, I do the, a little of that. So with that said, it would have to be a… I am s- I have such a filter now. , I s- smell, like, red flags. , It would have to really be someone that’s really spectacular. If you ever hear, if anybody listening ever hears of me dating, just know that they are, like, the freaking bomb. And I have joked that I would only date somebody if they had a yacht, which was very safe here in Atlanta ’cause nobody has a yacht. But now I’m going to the beach, so I feel like my v- my v- Venn diagram of overlap could be different. So with that said, I think that, yeah, I think it would have to be somebody great. There was one day that Joy and I were talking and w- I was like, “We’re gonna… I’m gonna get on a dating app.” And I had applied for, um, Raya, which is like which is, , for celebrities basically. But I was like, “I have enough followers. I think I could get into Raya.” But I didn’t. I- they put me on a wait list. And so then I was like, “Well, it could be my age. It could also be my content.” Do you know what I mean? Like, my content is gonna fil- filter out a, a lot of guys that wouldn’t be the right match, and so I feel grateful for that. So what did I get on? , I don’t– Was it? Hinge. It I got on Hinge. Oh, okay. Yeah. I lasted 24 hours, Mm-hmm. I asked for my money back and got it. It was a I got… 24 It was a whirlwind 24 hours. I was just disgusted by every freaking question. I, the… Men tried to introduce intimacy so quickly, and I am, like, I have a super filter for that. , Oh my God, was that funny or what? oh my God. hours, but it was s- I mean, I, I’m, I don’t mean to say it was funny, but It was funny, yeah. Betsy called me, she’s like, “I’m out, I’m off of it.” Yeah. joined it.” It was like, I joined it that night, and I was like, I think I had a glass of wine, and I was like, “I’m gonna do it.” And then by the next morning, I was like, “Screw this.” And somebody asked me out, and I said yes, and I liked that they were decisive. They were like, “Meet me here.” And then when I said, “I can’t do that on a Friday at lunch. , I run a company. Like, I don’t know what you think I’m doing.” And they wanted me to drive 40 minutes to meet them for lunch at like a cafeteria. And, and, and they were like, “I don’t know. The app says it’s 20.” And so I was like, “Oh, are you calling me a freaking liar? Are you try-,” like, I… And I got in the shower, and I was angry because some man was telling me what to do or telling me who I was, and I was like, “Oh, I’m not… This isn’t for me., I’m just not there yet.” And I, I don’t, I don’t know that there’s more evolving that I have to do, but I definitely think I need to, um, I wanna say like relax a little bit, but also, no. , I sensed that as like a… There was a rhetorical pattern there, right? Of like, “You don’t know what you’re saying. I know the truth, and you can- you’re gonna do what I say,” even though he didn’t say it in that way. That’s the… , and he gave this emoji of the what? I don’t know. You know, like, huh? my God, wow. And so I just was like, “I’m not doing that. I’m not… I am not ever playing that out with somebody else,” of like, “You know better than me.” I know m- the most about my life than anybody else. Like, I know me, and, and I know that’s too far for me to drive because I do important things too, buddy. But I was so… I, I mean, you can even hear it in my voice now. , I just… So no, I’m not dating ’cause I don’t want to. like a quick answer, a quick Yeah. tell you that’s probably the right answer. I was on a podcast recently, an, an interview. It’s not live yet. But she asked me like what d- what’s dating like, and I was like, I, I, I was almost confused by the question ’cause I was like, well, I… And I was like, I, I, I don’t know. I, yeah, I j- I was like, “I don’t know.” Like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Ask somebody else, not me. I have an a- amazing life, and to fit somebody else into that life… And you know, I’m moving to the beach, and I’m going down next weekend to look for my apartment, and I decided I’m gonna rent for a little while till I figure it out. The people who have come out of the woodwork to be kind to me, to… And, and actually, when people are listening to this, I’m probably on a airplane. So have come out of the woodwork to be kind to me, to offer to bring me out. You know, my birthday, I’m gonna be there on my birthday. There’s people bringing me out on my birthday that I don’t know, that know me from the internet, you know? Um, it- that ha- offered to help me find pla- that videotaped, like- These, this is one place you’d might really like at the beach. And, , took so much time to help me. I- it was a lesson in, like, you deserve to have people be kind to you. It’s okay to let people help you. , It was a moment, you know, where I was like, “Okay, this is a lesson in, , let people love you,” you know? And so maybe I’ll get there, and this is, like, the first piece, you know? That’s awesome. I’m excited for you. And, too. you I’m excited for you to come down and visit. least expect it. I’m talking about if there’s Yeah. a, you know, Yeah. partner in your future, it will yeah. least And like, it, I think. yeah. And like I’m, I’m g- I think I, I am a great partner. Like, I think I’m a really good partner, so I just gotta find the really good partner to partner with that. , I’m not afraid to have hard conversations. I listen. I’m a- available for new ideas. I like to try new things., I will do the things you’re into, but, like, I need the reciprocal, you know? So I will wait until I find that. Also, the yacht. Awesome. Yes. Got that. Well, we’ve gone through, um, a lot of these. Yeah. And we’ve been talking for an hour, which we could talk for two hours. It’s fine. But, I know. yeah. Are we done with all the questions? There’s one more, , it’s if the podcast ended tomorrow and you never coached another woman, would you feel like you did what you came here to do? Oh, you know what’s so weird is even when you said that, I was like, “No.” Like, I, like this is such, like, my purpose. I don’t know that I’ll ever not do it. Do you know, like, sometimes I think about retiring. My sister just retired, and I’m like, “I can’t imagine not doing this.” , It’s just so much of how I think and who I am. , Okay, so wait, what’s the question? If I ever don’t do it, then If, is. To do? I came here to do. Yeah. Years ago, I had this mentor when I lived out in the suburbs, and I had this mentor in my life who, you know, would give all these examples of things he had done or worked with people on or… You know, when we were working together, he would say, like, “I had this client once who…” And I remember saying to him, like, “You’ve, uh, I can’t imagine, like, having such a big impact on everybody. , you’ve had such a big impact.” And he said, “Yeah, if I died tomorrow, I know I would have given more than I took, and that feels good to me.” I, I think that only recently, like maybe in the last year, have I started to recognize Mostly because women on the internet are so incredibly kind to me. But only recently have I started to realize how much of an impact even just the podcast has made, or those videos that I do on Instagram. A- and I wanna mention something about that. But those videos, I think, , people are so kind to tell me how much that impacted them and changed their life, and changed how they thought about themselves. And so I think I could safely say that I’ve given more than I’ve taken, and, and I don’t know that it needs to be that way. I don’t need to give more than I get. That, I’m open to that being more of both. D- does that make sense? , Mm-hmm. like, I, I am open to receiving, and I think maybe for a long time I wasn’t. We talked about this in the group the other day of like, how open are you to receive, and to receive help, and to receive? And I think that I was closed for a long time ’cause I had to be so hyper independent. But anyway, so I would say yes, I, I think I’ve done what I came here to do, and I wanna keep doing it ’cause I think there’s more. Yeah. That’s a great ending. I think you are a phenomenal asset to women. I think that watching and working with you and watching you do what you do Yeah. it’s amazing. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I’m grateful to do it, and I’m grateful that you were able to help me today with all these questions. Yeah, we Thanks, Joy. Our first it. official podcast. May th- may there be more. Thanks so much, Joy. You’re welcome. Have a great day. Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

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Most agency owners know AI can write a first draft or clean up copy. Far fewer have figured out how to use it as the strategic sounding board they’ve always needed. In this episode, Chip and Gini explore how to use AI tools as a thought partner, not just a content machine. Gini's example is a client who asked her to map what a PESO model maturity ladder would look like for an organization. She described the situation and constraints to Chat GPT, and keep pushing the conversation forward. Six weeks of iterative back-and-forth surfaced ideas she wouldn’t have reached on her own, including finding the gaps when the AI was willing to poke holes in her thinking. Chip points out that for owner-led agencies, that 8pm Friday idea you don’t want to dump on your team now has somewhere to go. The tool doesn’t care what time it is, and it has no stake in whether your idea succeeds or embarrasses you. Both hosts advise to direct the AI to ask you questions rather than just answer them. It takes some coaching to get a tool that genuinely engages rather than validates everything you propose, but once you’re there, you start getting real value. One warning they have is that these tools are not always consistent. The same AI that helped you build a strategy three weeks ago might question it today with equally compelling reasoning. Stay in the driver’s seat, and treat AI-generated recommendations as input, not conclusions. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You now have this always-on thought partner that, when that idea comes to you when you’re watching some Law & Order rerun or whatever, you can ask, ‘Hey, I just had this idea and what do you think of it?'” Gini Dietrich: “AI has really helped me just kind of think through some things that I hadn’t considered, some things I probably wouldn’t have considered, and it also helped poke some holes.” Chip Griffin: “The gap analysis is something that the AI tools do exceptionally well. And part of it is just making yourself vulnerable to it and it’s not judging you, because it doesn’t care.” Gini Dietrich: “The AI knows it can’t get fired. So it doesn’t have the same experience as one of your employees.” View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think we need to talk to the robots today. Gini Dietrich: Yes, I love talking to the robots. Let’s do that. Chip Griffin: It’s a robot future, and we just, we need to, we need to figure out, I don’t know, some new ideas or something like that. Maybe we should have a conversation with our friendly neighborhood robot. Gini Dietrich: I like it. Let’s do that. You- Chip Griffin: Actually, that would be a, that would be a good episode at some point to actually- Gini Dietrich: It would be a, yeah … Chip Griffin: to, you know, we could have our first guest. We could have, like, Claude as our first guest on the show. Gini Dietrich: I love it. We should do that. That’s a good idea. Chip Griffin: And, and, and see how that goes. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, let’s. Chip Griffin: I don’t know. Maybe that’s not a good idea. Who knows? Anyway, we are going to talk about AI today, ’cause we haven’t talked about AI at all lately. Nope. And we won’t be talking about it soon when we have the Saga AI survey results to talk about, hopefully on the next episode. But we thought we would talk today about AI in more practical terms because we’ve done a lot of talking about AI in, in sort of high-level strategic ways and how important it is to agencies and how we need to be thinking about it and integrating it and thinking about the costs of it and all of that kind of stuff. But I think it’s helpful for us to have some conversations with and for our listeners about some practical uses of AI that, that we’ve used, that we’ve come across, that we use ourselves- Yep … in order to, to get the maximum value out of this new technology. And, a good place to start is how do you use whatever platform of choice you have, or maybe multiple platforms of choice, to help you as a thought partner to not just, you know, write things and spew stuff out more quickly or something like that, but really to hone ideas, to get advice, to have someone to bounce things off of. And I mean someone in quotes here because, yes, I know it’s not human, okay? So don’t- … don’t send me notes about how, “You know these things aren’t real.” I know that, okay? Gini Dietrich: I do know that. I got it. Yes. I am aware. Chip Griffin: So- Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s such a… First of all, it’s a good topic, and I think it’s something that’s fun for the two of us to talk about because I think we’re both, like, full-on in. For me, when I realized it could be a thought partner for me, it was two and a half years ago, and a client came to me, and they came to me specifically, and they said, “We would really like to understand what the PESO model maturity ladder looks like, especially inside an organization like ours.” And, at the time, I had an idea of what the maturity model looked like just generally, right? But being able to apply it to a really specific situation and a really specific organization and really specific brands, I hadn’t thought through yet. And of course, I can’t put the client’s information in there, right? But I can think about, I could… I, at the time I was like, “Okay, so how do I start to think about this with the constraints that I know they have and sort of how they run PESO now, which isn’t in a true operating system, but more sort of pick and choose tactics.” So I went into, at the time, ChatGPT, and I think Claude does a better work of this now, but I went into ChatGPT and I started asking questions. “So if you had to create… First of all, if you had to create a PESO model maturity ladder based on these seven sort of levels that I had already thought through, how would you do that?” And we just went back and forth, and we asked each other questions. And it would, it, it came up with some things where I was like, “Huh, hadn’t considered that.” So then I would sort of put those over to the side and we would continue. And then I said, “Okay, great. Now here are some some constraints, right? We know, we know it has these, the organization has these constraints. We know that it takes, you know, six, six to eight months to be able to do anything, like all of this stuff. How would you change it based on that?” And so we went back and forth on that. Now, granted, it took probably six weeks for me to get something usable to be able to take to the client, but I wouldn’t have been able to come up with that on my own. And I don’t think that even conversations with my team, we would’ve been able to come up with the, all of that on our own. And so it really helped me just kind of think through some things that I hadn’t considered, some things I probably wouldn’t have considered, and it also helped poke some holes. So then I said, “Okay, great. Here’s what I’m thinking. Poke holes in it.” And it was like, “This doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work.” And so it just helps you… It was at that point, which I think was two and a half years ago, it was, it’ll be three years in August, really think it, think through sort of beginning to end that I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a great discussion of your evolution on that, and in my case, I was, I was later to the AI party in terms of In-depth use of it. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm Chip Griffin: I, I was very early on to kick the tires, which may have been to my detriment, right? Because the very early incarnations of a lot of these tools was not the best. Gini Dietrich: Not good. Chip Griffin: And, so I, you know, I certainly was, you know, spending a fair bit of time using it for, you know, the basics. You know, some basic writing and editing, some basic image creation. Certainly, you know, transcription, speech-to-text, those kinds of things. But a lot of that, but not really as much in the in-depth strategic areas- Gini Dietrich: Sure, sure … Chip Griffin: until probably a little over a year ago when I started to realize that there had been this shift and that it, it was, at least to me, a lot more usable. And, really just, you know, opening my mind up to what you could actually do with the tools beyond the simple use cases. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And I think the more time you spend with it, the more you realize just how helpful it can be. And, and particularly in, you know, small owner-led agencies, the… You know, we’ve all sat there and we’ve had an idea at, you know, 8 o’clock on a Friday night or over the weekend, and we’re like, “God, we, I wish we could…You know, I can’t bother the team with this right now though.” Yep, yep. “But I kinda, I kinda wanna continue thinking this through.” Yep. And so you now have this- Yep … you know- Thought partner … always on thought partner- Yep … that, you know, when that idea comes to you, when you’re watching some Law & Order rerun or whatever, you’re like, “Hey, you know, I just had this idea and, you know, what do you think of it?” And, it feels weird the first few times you do it, this, to sit there and say to, you know, the chatbot, “Hey, what, what do you think of this idea?” And, but you learn so much from it because it is, it is able to ask questions, to poke holes, to find gaps. And so if you really treat it as, I don’t wanna say an equal because it’s not quite an equal with you. I mean, you still are the decision maker and you need to remember that you’re always retaining that. But someone who can hold their own in a conversation with you. Yep. Once you accept that, you can get so much from these tools. And it’s not like, you know, two years ago, three years ago when it said, you know, everything is, “Oh, we love you, Chip. This is… You’re brilliant.” I mean, there’s still, there’s still a little bit too much of that for my taste in there, although I’ve coached it into, you know, all of the tools have instructions for me to, you know, knock that off as much as possible. You know, you don’t want it to be fully contrarian where it just disagrees with everything, ’cause you can easily turn your chatbot into basically it just will say the opposite if you, if you go too hard with your instructions to, to not say nice things. But you want to get that, to that point where you’re able to just bounce these things around and say, “Okay, here’s my plan. What am I missing?” And that gap analysis is something that the AI tools do exceptionally well. And part of it is just, you know, making yourself vulnerable to it and allowing you… I mean, and you have to remember that, I mean, that is the best thing about these tools. It’s not human. It’s not judging you ’cause it doesn’t care. Right. It does not care. You know, this is not like having a conversation with one of your team members and they just sit there and they’re like, “Oh, no. Oh, Chip just really doesn’t get it. Why is he, why is he asking me this question?” Because the tools, they really don’t care. And so it is a great place to make yourself more vulnerable and throw some things out there and see what works or what doesn’t. And, and there’s really no limit to what you can ask of it. You obviously have to judge everything that comes back. Not everything is going to be useful or correct. But then, but push back and then say, “Okay, well, you know, I hear what you’re saying, but here’s why that doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.” And sometimes, in my experience, the tools will say, “Yep, okay, you’ve got a good point there,” or it’ll say, “No, I, you know, here’s why you should, you know, reconsider your point of view on it.” And if you’re not seeing that, then you probably need to adjust the instructions that you’re giving to make sure- Yes … that it is open to having a bit more of a substantive dialogue with you. But once you do that, you really have something here that can help you to navigate client strategy, business strategy. It can help you with how to handle HR issues. It’s not a substitute for legal advice or proper HR consultants and all that kind of stuff at this point, but it can help get you a lot of the way there if you’re willing to turn to it and say, Hey, you know, this should be my first port of call in a lot of cases and not the last resort. You know, the other, the other way that you can use it as a thought partner on some of those things too is say, “Okay, you know, here’s, here’s what I’m thinking about or here’s what I need to solve. Ask me questions.” Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and you know, we all think of this as we’re asking questions of the AI tools to give us the answers, but it’s also very good at asking you questions and- Yes … and drawing things out. Now, it, it does often need to be encouraged to ask questions. Gini Dietrich: It does, yeah. Chip Griffin: The, they are… The, most of the platforms are starting to get better at having the, their tools pause and ask questions for clarification, but that’s not quite as good as actually saying, “Hey, you know, ask me questions about this so that you can, you can help me think this through.” And it will do that for you and then do follow-up questions and that sort of thing if, again, as long as you’re telling it that’s what you want. And that can help as well because, you know, we’re,.. Even with our own teams, a lot of them won’t ask us questions, right? If you’ve got an employee- ’cause they know you sign the paycheck, and we’ve talked about this many times on the show. It’s really hard to get candid – not just candid advice, but candid questions. They’re not gonna push you in the same way- Yep … the tool will. ‘Cause again, the tool doesn’t care. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: It doesn’t care- Yep … if it hurts your feelings. Gini Dietrich: Yep. And it knows it, it can’t get fired. Like – right? So- Right … it doesn’t have the same experience. I mean, it’s not a sentient being, so it’s not it does, just doesn’t care, and it doesn’t judge you. I think that’s the other thing too. So I think there are so many different opportunities here for you to use it as a thought partner. I mean, the way that I have mine all set up is to do those kinds of things, and it’s to say, Okay- Well, wait a sec, I was thinking about it this way, what do you think about that? Or how do you think about this? Or, you know. And again, ask me questions because trying to figure this out. And I put all sorts of things in there, all sorts of things. I’ll say, “There’s something about this document that bothers me, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.” And it’ll say, “It bothers you because this, this, and this.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s right.” Or, you know, one of the things I think we’re starting to find is that the design work you can get from the AI is pretty darn good. But you have to be… With a human, you don’t have to be ultra specific about what you’re looking for because they’re creative. But with the AI, you have to be ultra specific about what you’re looking for. So I will say, “Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish. Here’s, here are our brand colors,” blah, blah, blah. “This is the vision. How do I describe that in a creative brief?” And I almost have it write its own creative brief, and then I feed that back to it and say, and make some changes, and then say, “Here’s what I’m trying to do.” And I get far better creative design from it when I do it that way, and it’s created its own creative brief. So I think there are lots of ways that you can use it in interesting ways that you’re probably not considering right now. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and I think, you know, maybe a future episode’s a good time to talk about, you know, the specifics of how you use planning and context and providing information to get better results, because I think that’s, that’s an area where a lot of people haven’t invested enough and don’t invest enough, and it’s really just kinda fire and forget. And, and that tends- Yeah … to be where you get the worst results. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: And, to your point, if you’re, if you’re sitting there and providing it with the information that it needs, I mean, simple things like what are my brand colors? What’s my brand philosophy? Yep. You know, what, what’s my own personal risk tolerance? I mean, you- Yep … you wanna make sure that you’re stockpiling that kind of information because otherwise you’re not gonna get useful feedback or useful questions from it if it’s assuming that you are one way and you are not. It’s the same as anybody else. If you… I mean, we’ve talked about this before, you really have to sort of start to act like these tools are human- Yep in that you can’t just expect them to run from a standing start and have a good result. Yeah. They really do need good guidance from you. Yes. I think the other thing we do, we do always need to be careful about with these tools is that, that they are, they do somewhat, you know, uh, float with the winds, if you will. And so they are not always consistent- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm … in what they might recommend. And so- Yep … so you do have to accept a little bit of that, that it’s, it’s kind of like having that employee who, you know, one day they’re very cheery and thinks this is the right direction, and the next day they’re kind of like, “Eh, nah.” So, you always need to keep yourself in the driver’s seat when you’re using it as a thought partner. And I know I’ve certainly had situations where, you know, I’ve fed it some things, and it’s come back with a recommended strategy, and then a couple of weeks later I, you know, I ask something about the strategy as if I’ve adopted it, and they say, “Well, I don’t think that’s a good strategy.” Ah. But it was, it was crafted by you. Gini Dietrich: It was your idea. Yes. Chip Griffin: But, so then when you dig into it, you can sit there and say, “Okay, well, I, you know, I see why it said it the first time because it backed it up, and I can see why it’s saying it this time. And so now my job is to reconcile that and decide which one I want to lean into- Yep … more than the other. Yep. I, I mean, you… And, and whenever you’re using it as a thought partner, it’s always a good idea to ask for supporting information for whatever it’s suggesting. Not to… And, usually they’re pretty good. I mean, actually my issue used to be that it provided too much, that particularly ChatGPT just loved to just spit out like a whole research paper for it. Right, right. Like, ” I think that your brand color should be green,” and then it’s like- Right … 200,000 words on why green is the right choice. Yes. I’m like- I don’t- … “Dude, just tell me green.” Yeah, yes. Okay? Like- Yes … if I want that detail- 100% … I’ll ask for it. Yes. So they are certainly more balanced than they used to be. But they will still generally provide backup. But if not, ask why, and that’s when it will start to provide, you know, either citations or facts or at least something around the reasoning of it so that you can then judge, “Okay, that does really make sense to me,” or, “No, that, that doesn’t really fit for what I want because…” Yep. And then always tell it back to it. Like, you can’t just, you can’t just get something back and say, “Oh, I don’t like this,” and then move on, close the chat, and go to another one. You’ve got to have that back and forth- Yeah … so that the tools can learn from what you are thinking and, and what you are feeling from the responses that they’re giving. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, there have been times where it’s late at night, and I’m still going, and finally I’m like, “I can’t…” I will literally say to it, “I’m about to die. My eyes hurt because I’m so tired. I have to go to bed.” It’ll be like, “Okay, good night, Gini. Sleep tight.” Chip Griffin: I can’t claim to be having conversations quite like that with the tools. That’s not quite my style. But to each their own. All right, well, I think with that we probably should say good night to our listeners now, and we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Alfred Crabtree, founder of Blade Repair Academy, and Sheryl Weinstein of SkySpecs join to discuss standardized technician training and risk reduction in blade repair. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: Alfred and Sheryl, welcome to the program. Sheryl Weinstein: Thanks. Allen Hall: So we’re in Dunlap, Tennessee, not too far from Nashville, uh, and also close to. Chattanooga Chattanooga, and we’re in the Smoky Mountains ish region. We’re Alfred Crabtree: no, we’re, we’re, you could consider it Appalachia for sure. Sure. Okay. Uh, we’re on the, in the valley called the Seche Valley, uh, which splits the Cumberland Plateau. So we’re, we’re in a valley and we have hills a thousand feet above us here. Yeah. Either way. It’s beautiful. Joel Saxum: Yeah. It’s a great drive in here. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. It’s a unique place. Yeah. Allen Hall: And we’re at Blade Repair Academy, which, uh, if you’re not familiar with Blade Repair Academy, you should be. Uh, because a lot of the good training that happens in the United States actually happens to play repair, repair Care blade, repair academy. Uh, yeah, it’s been a long week at uh, OMS this week and we got the introduction today. This is the first time we’ve been on site. That’s right. And, uh, we wanted to see all the cool things that are happening [00:01:00] here. And it really comes down to technician training competency. Working with blades, working with tools, knowing what you’re doing up tower when you’re on the blade, which is hard to train. It’s really hard to train, and both you and Cheryl have a ton of experience being up on blades and repairing blades and scarfing and doing all the critical features that have to happen to make blades work today. It’s a tough training regimen. There’s a lot to it and a lot of subtleties that don’t always get transferred over from teachers to students unless you have. Done it for a number of years. You wanna kind of just walk through the philosophy of Blade Repair Academy? Alfred Crabtree: Yes. The, uh, you’ve, you’ve outlined quite well some of the issues. The environment where we work is very hard to take a ti the time to put somebody through a training regimen. We’re so constrained by weather windows and then. You know, even if the weather’s nice, lightning can come, wind [00:02:00] speeds can cut off your workday. So production, production, production is what’s important. And Cheryl and I both come from the rope access method. And in the rope access method, 95% of the time you’re up there alone. And if you’re up there and you’re producing, you’ve got your blinders on. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: And you’re not ready to share with somebody else what to do. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: With the basket or platform, you can have two even three people up on Blade, but it still has all these constraints of get the job done, get the job done. There’s a lot of stress up there. And having the bandwidth to take on new information or to challenge some preconceived notions or try, that’s not the place to do it. So knowing that. Blade Repair Academy is built so that we have an environment that simulates all of the up tower stuff without being up tower. And you’re gonna have the time you need to invest in your learning without consequences. Right. So it’s a very much a [00:03:00] about creating the right environment to uptake the new information. And we have found a lot of help from. Manufacturers and suppliers in the industry to sponsor us because obviously it behooves them to have their materials in the hands of trainees. So we’re also able to help companies come up with, uh, new solutions, try new products. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: New, uh, you know, what’s the best practice. For this, if you’re up on Blade and you have a way of top coating and you get a new product and your way of top coating doesn’t suit that product, well chuck it down. I’ll never touch it again. Yeah. Because I did not perform well here we can, we can give you training. We have, of course, been trained by the suppliers about what’s the best product to use, what’s the best way to go about things, and then, and then we can disseminate it. So that’s the fundamental reason why the space is. Is [00:04:00] what it is. Joel Saxum: Yeah. And I think that that’s, that’s a good segue to be honest with you, right here, right behind these doors you have a classroom. That’s right. Right. So in this facility, all composed in one, we have a classroom here we have your additive and subtractive. I liked how you said that to us when you’re giving us the tour. Uh, but we’ve got a, a grinding booth basically over here and we’ve got, um, a layup area here where you can teach. 16 people at a time. Alfred Crabtree: That’s right. Yeah. That would be max Joel Saxum: for sure. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. Sheryl Weinstein: And in a vertical surface, so, ’cause all the stuff that you’re doing in the field, right, is always in a vertical surface. Mm-hmm. So there’s a, there is a big difference between working where gravity is sort of against you, especially with larger laminations and things like that. So being able to do your training and simulate the same, a similar way that you would work in the field is pretty critical, I would think. Allen Hall: And actually working on. Actual repairs. Simulated repairs, yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, don’t explain how you created them, because I know secret sauce. It’s a secret sauce. Yes. But I did look at the blade [00:05:00] damage. It, it looks exactly like a lightly strike. Yeah. Which a predominant amount of repairs are about, unless there’s, you know, serial defects, as Cheryl has pointed out numerous times, but. Being able to repair something that’s quasi real is critical because we’ve been to other places and the repairs are, well, I’ll take a hammer and I’ll hit this and, okay, sure you got a DA, you gotta repair that. But that’s not real. And getting, getting the people to use the tools in the right way, vertically Speaker 2: mm-hmm. Allen Hall: Is the key. Because although the, the, the article, the test sample isn’t moving around like you are up on a blade, it’s still difficult. And unless you have the proper techniques and the approaches, yeah, it’s gonna be dang near impossible. We explain some of the blade repairs that Joel and I have seen more recently is like. It’s a little rough and it shouldn’t have to be so rough because it is a skill that you have to learn and acquire over time. But you have to know the fundamentals. That’s what Blade Repair Academy is here to teach you those [00:06:00] fundamentals. Like, yes, it’s gonna take time, but if you work it this way, at least you’re gonna be successful. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. And if you’re managing a team of employees who are doing this, it, it would be great to have the insight of what your teams. Strengths and weaknesses are, yeah, you can figure out how to deploy people, but also how to, you know, maybe fix some of those problems. Mm-hmm. Our panels that you brought up are standardized. Everyone looks exactly the same. It’s the exact same makeup, and we standardize the damage. So when somebody has to repair damage here, the core removal size is the same on everyone. That way when we’re comparing the reports, you can actually have a apples to apples comparison of the, the trainees. Outcome. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: And now you, you know, in, in the model that you talked about where people will go to a, you know, their junkyard of blades and they’ll find spots on blades to put their eight guys on. Those eight people are not gonna be doing the same repair. And even if they are collecting data, what are you [00:07:00] comparing? It’s not Joel Saxum: apples to apples. Yeah. It’s not. Alfred Crabtree: So we really tried to start from the beginning, fresh with a whole new idea of how to approach this. Mm-hmm. By not being attached to an ISP, we don’t have to deal with. Oh, here, use all our leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. That’s your training budget. Yeah. Yeah. And oh yeah. We, you know, we’re an, we’re a owner operator, so yeah. Go work on that blade in the grass. Mm-hmm. That those limit what precious time we have available to train. Yeah. So this thing from the ground up is about. Making as much advance in the skillset and understanding that technician in the, in the week that they’re here. Joel Saxum: I think that was a really cool thing we touched on as well. Your, your team here as well, Cheryl. Thanks for traveling up to, to hang out with us. Offer some insights too. But you guys, because you’ve been in the people that have developed a curriculum yourself, Cheryl, your, some of your team sitting over here, uh, and, and people around the industry that have helped out with the place, you have the ability of like, okay, we have. Eight brand new technicians. Let’s make [00:08:00] sure we walk through how to measure from the trailing edge to the blade center up, mark this thing out, these kind of things all the way to some stuff that I didn’t really think about that much. Like I’ve used an angle grinder before, right? But I’ve never looked at five different ones and decided which one would be the best for my hands. Thinking about it up on the blade, how you’d handle it with your fingers, these kind of things like, I was like, man, that’s, those are real insights that you’re not gonna get to learn. Like why put someone up to let them have a whole season or a whole summer, two summers figuring out how to hold a grinder? Well, when they can learn from someone that’s been doing it for years and years and years and can teach them these things. So from advanced or from very beginners learning fundamentals to advanced training, you guys have gotta cover here. Alfred Crabtree: There’s something here to glean for everybody, and even if you are a well experienced technician, maybe what you’re gonna get most is learning how to talk the language of the new techs and the new hires who are getting the. Introductory course training. You know, our, our el our basic course is called support. It’s 40 hours [00:09:00] and it’s really about making, uh, an employee who can support a lead. And then if that person follows up with the lead training in a whatever interval of time of their choice, which is kind of another benefit here, we can train you any week of the year. That is where we start to really get this, we call it the retention vortex. Right where we layer up technician training and somebody who’s had level two now gets a level one with them. Now there’s some synergies. Now they’re getting some really efficiencies. A commonality of language, a commonality of process, you know, eliminating variables. Uh, and that’s how you’re gonna have to build new net capacity and build new teams Allen Hall: and that common language. Is really unique, but that comes from your experience in the field, mostly at rope partner, where you both really got your teeth in this industry. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Allen Hall: But communicating to one another correctly so you can pass along to the next crew or even explain what you did to the engineer, the. Properly [00:10:00] there is. There is a culture to it. There is a language to it, and you just don’t pick that up. By going from wind turbine to wind turbine. You pick it up in training from someone who knows how to do it. It’s really critical. Sheryl Weinstein: It’s pretty critical to have baseline training. I think it is also very important to follow it up with field experience and skills building because every blade model is different. Every repair is different. You’re always gonna encounter something that deviates from that like standard approach to your repair. You have to kind of know how to problem solve, and that kind of only comes with the field experience, but having a more standardized training to start with, it’s something that industry doesn’t really have and is really needed. I think across the board it also helps, you know. Owner operators or even OEMs kind of track their ISPs and understand what level of text do you have, what experience do they have and how, how does that differ across their different [00:11:00] levels? If we have one ISP training one way over here and another one training another way over here, and they have different sets of certifications. It’s really hard to keep that all together and evaluate it as an owner operator or an OEM, you know, using a vendor. So I think having a place like Blade Academy that’s agnostic and separate from like, you know, the actual ISP really helps to standardize that a bit more. Allen Hall: Yeah, because the key is we’re getting to, well, we’re gonna cross a hundred thousand turbines in the United States pretty quickly. Yep. Joel Saxum: Before 2030, or probably rated about 2030. Allen Hall: Right. That’s. Soon. Mm-hmm. How are we gonna manage that? And there’s a lot of new people coming into the industry, obviously. How are we gonna train ’em up properly? How are we gonna communicate to one another? And there’s just so much movement in the industry. I. It makes it hard, I think, because weirdly enough, I think ISPs develop their own little culture about how to deal with things, and then they hop to the next company and it’s a different language. Exactly. And that needs to go away. Yeah. There’s a, Alfred Crabtree: there’s a branch of business that’s [00:12:00] OEM centric and there’s a branch of business that’s asset owner. Yeah. Post warranty. And those are really two different things. And, and there’s a veil of secrecy between one and the other. Yeah. And we kind of feel here at Blade Repair Academy that we’re like this polyglot that can talk to everybody because we don’t have, we’re not an ip You’re not competing, we’re not an O You’re not competing. Yeah, we’re not competing. But we, we, you know, we have the, we wanna provide this data as a clearinghouse. You know, we talk about certification in the non standards. Well, the way we deal with it is we’ll give you a certificate. And it’s got our brand on it. But you know, what does that mean? Yeah. What? That And $4 will get you a Starbucks the way we do it, maybe not even then. Right? The way, the way we, not four bucks Sheryl Weinstein: for Starbucks, maybe 10 Alfred Crabtree: and a half hour wait in the line. But the way you know, what we do is we provide you with a deliverable. We knew, we knew that. Okay. Our certification is, you know, ether. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: But [00:13:00] this report. That everybody who comes through here generates that you can compare. Now you’re gonna have to go to work and study these reports when you get ’em as a deliverable. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: As a, you know, an employer, but we we’re giving you what you need. Mm-hmm. To make some decisions about what do I have to work on, what else do we need to improve upon? Allen Hall: Yeah. Not everybody’s built for this job, but you wanna be able to suss that out. Earlier rather than later. Yeah. Right. I mean, there’s other things to do with wind turbines that don’t evolve blade repair. And if they don’t necessarily have the skillset or the comprehension to do some of these more complex things, maybe blade repair is not it. Right. But rather know that now. Yeah. Right. And the Blade Repair Academy is a place to do that because there’s a standard there, right? Mm-hmm. And I, I, as Joel has pointed out, yeah, there’s a lot of erratic training that goes on. Mm-hmm. You can’t compare student A to student Z. Blade repair academy. You can. Alfred Crabtree: We can. Mm-hmm. Right. Allen Hall: And if, if I’m an ISP, I want that. Sure. I want you to tell me [00:14:00] who’s on top and who’s kind of the middle so I can make decisions about where to deploy ’em and who and who to put ’em with. Joel Saxum: Yeah. ’cause at the end of the day, every ISP, uh, every ISP that’s trying to grow and scale effectively is trying to do that at the end of the year, right? Yeah. They’re looking through, they’re grading their technicians, finding out who’s the next lead, who’s this, who’s that? But this is a great way to do that, sort them through in a controlled setting. I mean, we sat in, in your training facility in the actual classroom here, and you walked us through some of the online, the online training platform that you have built. Some of the things the students have to do before they get here, and then kind of how you walk ’em through things, and it’s impressive. It’s good stuff, right? So when you have that combined with the both sides of blade repair, subtractive, additive, right? You get to get this, this holistic view of what that blade technician can do. Yeah. Right? And that’s, that’s one of the things you guys offer here, which I think is fantastic. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. And we’re trying to constantly improve, you know, we’re talking with OEMs about dissemination of operating procedures or work instructions, share with us [00:15:00] work instructions. We’ll build analogs. That we can train to. Mm-hmm. And we can test off of it. We can verify skill sets. You know, we have a lot of serial flaw campaigns out there that are critical. And do we wanna unleash anybody on it or do we want to know that those people can do it? I think everybody wants to know that they can do it, whether they’re the. Technician themselves, or the person writing the checks. Speaker 2: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: Everywhere in that loop wants to Now not everybody wants to pay for it. Yeah. But we all need it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Alfred Crabtree: And so somewhere along the line, you’re paying for it in the forms of our favorite acronym, COPQ. That’s Joel Saxum: right. Cost support, quality. You know, speaking about the idea of serial defects or known problems in the industry and how to prepare people for those, how do you prepare people for those? Well, they gotta get the experience by just. Grinding away Top coat and getting into him. I walked in here and I looked at this blade sample we have here, and I was looking at it and I go, it looks like a 48.7 C Oh yeah. Buddy walks over you like our 48.7 C I’m like, [00:16:00] man, you guys did a good job on, you know, like, so, so I made a lot of money on 48.7, you know, so to walk in here and see these different tickets that you guys have built, you know, carbon plank and different things with carbon spars and hey, we’re gonna do a carbon spa repair. We have this boom, now we can work on it. Mm-hmm. You know, and we’ll Alfred Crabtree: work with you to solve your problem in a really quick, efficient manner. Mm-hmm. You know, I think one of the things that we have is operational readiness. Most people who are training in-house flip their hat around for a couple weeks and train composites. Mm-hmm. In a limited capacity in the warehouse or at the dock at the truck during January. During January, whatever. And then they flip their hat back on and they go deal with it. And I think the hiring situation is so tough. Like working at Height, you probably need to make sure somebody can tolerate working at height. Yeah. Before you invest in composite training, I mean. You have so many things you have to juggle in your particular situation. When do I put money in this person? We get that. [00:17:00] And so we’re open all the weeks of the year. So we can do this at any time. Of course, everyone wants it in the end of first quarter. Mm-hmm. You know, right before the season starts. So we have a, you know, you have to, you gotta schedule with us, but we can really do this anytime. And so you don’t have to one and done and live with it. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: You know, it. You can fit the training into your hiring schema wherever you feel fit, and you can hire people. And if there are stars, bring them in for their secondary, they’re execute their lead training whenever you want. You know, so you can, we can be very flexible and in the advanced stages we will make what you need, you know, obviously has to make business sense for us, but we’ll make blades to replicate the problems you’re facing. Sheryl Weinstein: And I think in terms of like what you were saying when you’re working on, you knows whether we wanna call them recurring issues or serial defects. A lot of it is awareness, right? It’s awareness [00:18:00] of understanding the blade structure, at least at a basic level. It’s awareness of understanding what you’re looking at. It’s, you know, we’re only gonna better inform the industry and the OEM if our technicians have a level of awareness to sort of bring up things that they see as they’re doing repairs. So if they notice that, for example, the, the fibers are misaligned, right? That could indicate that that was a wrinkle, and them having that level of communication or documentation will only help then inform the OEM. Like, is this the reason behind that problem? And so I think like. You know, with Alfred and, and the curriculum here at Blade Academy, them kind of, you know, setting a standard for how, how you know, the structure of the blade, the different types of blades you may see, whether they have carbon fiber in them, or you know, fiberglass, UD spars. Where those things are located, [00:19:00] what to be aware of as you’re removing damaged material. It’s really critical to the overall quality and just the awareness of the tech on the blade and that feedback loop that we’re lacking so much in this industry. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and we have our boilerplate products that come from, you know, like, uh, Cheryl was my mentor at RP and wrote partner, and she taught me a lot and a lot of the. The, the way we do things here comes from the rope, a rope access paradigm, which, you know, actually is backward compatible because if with rope access, you’re doing things alone. Speaker 2: Yeah. Alfred Crabtree: So if we’ve have ways and, and processes that allow that to happen alone, then when you’re on a basket or a platform with an extra person, you can only benefit Yeah. That much easier. Yeah. Um, it’s where we come from, you Joel Saxum: know, and, and that’s a good point, right? Like when we’re sitting here, rip Blade Repair Academy. Alfred, you’re here. Cheryll, you’re joining us today. These are two X blade technicians that have been on all kinds of blades. They have been up and down on ropes. So it’s training by [00:20:00] trainers who have been the technicians that’s important. Who have seen the problems. Yeah, yeah. You know, who have lived, have lived that road life. We talked, you’re joking about living in hotels, right? Mm-hmm. Like that have done, gone through that, right? So you’re learning from people that aren’t just like, oh, I hate the idea of going to a university and learning HR or something, whatever, from someone who’s never done it in the real world. Yeah. You know, uh, the trainers here have done it in the real world, um, and it shows. Alfred Crabtree: Thanks, man. And you know, the other thing too is our tagline is practical and contemporary. And the thing is, I’m no longer contemporary. Like I left the field years ago. I rely on folks like Cheryl, who’s still in the, in the Blade Services game over there at Skys Specs. She’s on, she’s got a full subscription to the cereal floss that are out there. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Probably the best one in the industry, to be honest with you. Alfred Crabtree: Well, you know. Uh, I think so. I don’t know anything about serial flaw, but it’s, it’s input from the rest of the industry that’s gonna allow this to continue. Otherwise, we’re gonna be, you know, [00:21:00] a 10-year-old standard that isn’t relevant anymore and that’s not what we want to do. So, outreach like Cheryl and I are talking about, Hey, what is it in your product line that should be in our product line? And I want to talk to OEMs and, uh. Owner operators, you know, what is it? What are your pain points? What in your fleet is needing attention? And of course, we’re gonna do all this with the business case, right? Mm-hmm. Like we wanna take LEP products and place them head to head and give a two day clinic or seminar to stakeholders, to purchasers. You know, we wanna give our, our two, our five day course condensed into two days. Where people who are stakeholders who are making decisions about where to place technicians, they should get out here and gr and grind a little bit and get a little empathy for their position. Hard work. The hard work of the Sheryl Weinstein: hard work that it is. Yeah. And then kind of understand Alfred Crabtree: from another side where the [00:22:00] communication breakdown is. ’cause it’s, it’s not all the texts, right? Mm-hmm. You know, they have a, you gotta understand how heavily loaded they are, you know, when they’re in the field. Mm-hmm. Um, so we’re, we’re at the place now where we’re really looking to do some outreach and talk to, uh, regulatory bodies that are starting to come up with standards, right? Like the IEC group met and pro produce a draft standard and they’re gonna work on the repair standard. And that’s a, a little bit of a ways away, but I can’t sit around and wait for, for standards to come to me. So we got this thing started. If you build it, they will come. You guys came, you know, Cheryl came and, um. We we’re really proud of where we’re at, but at the same time, it’s like, okay guys, the rest of the industry, now we’re here. Now you need to know, now you need to take advantage of us. Mm-hmm. And help tell us what you need. So I think the Sheryl Weinstein: LEP thing is a really good call out because I do see a lot of customers questioning what do I choose? How do I know [00:23:00] what to choose? Absolutely. Should my vendor be telling me what to choose? And that’s what happens in many cases, is that the ISP just kind of tells the owner operator. This is what you should use. Well, why, and, and what, you know, how have we ever really sized up like one against the other? Like in any true, I don’t know, study? No. And a lot of the, a lot of the like. Those different types of LEP, the, the companies that you know have these, they don’t have a lot of good documentation on showing like how their products stand up. I mean, it’s kind of, it’s more theory based than anything. I mean, they put ’em through rain erosion tests and whatever, but. It’s, I feel like that’s a tough space. It’s also a very, like, um, a very tough scope of work to have high quality at. So more training around it is necessary. You know, repair companies don’t wanna use their high skilled repair techs for the LEP because they need them for the more complex repairs [00:24:00] yet. The LEP is so susceptible to quality issues, and if you’re gonna pay an extreme amount of money to, you know, put the LEP to fix your erosion, put the LEP on blades, hope for a performance improvement, and then it fails in a year. I. That’s no help to anybody. So these different products, they also come with different price points. Like, can we really value the shell over the coating? I, I just find that this is a tough space. And so doing something like that and doing more training around LEPI think is probably pretty important. Yes. You know, unless the robots are gonna take it over and then, well, even then, I think it’s the only app. Allen Hall: The application, that’s the variable there. And not having people trained up for that particular LEP product is a huge problem because it’s super risky. You’re risking all that money and time and having to do it all over again and removing LEP that has been improperly applied. It’s a nightmare. [00:25:00] Nightmare. Total nightmare. You don’t want that to happen. And I’ve seen sites where that’s happened, getting technicians. Trained properly for the right material and doing that here up in Tennessee is, is the right approach. It’s risk reduction, which is what the industry is in right now. Risk reduction. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. Yeah, we, we’ve beliefs. That’s a great way to put it. You know, if you hire somebody. We were talking earlier how there are like two models. One is like the New York Yankees, where you’re going to be buying all the expensive free agents. You can poaching people from other, you know, trying to get experienced talent. You’re paying a premium for them, but you aren’t gonna know until halfway through that season how that person is performing. Yeah. You know, that is a lot of. That was, that is a lot of variability that you could control. Mm-hmm. And in a seasonal business, those weeks are really multiplied by two or three. Right. In terms of like the impact on your revenue and your opportunity to make money. It’s risk reduction, like Alan was saying. Yeah. It’s Allen Hall: all risk, right? Yeah. And the, [00:26:00] the way that the industry is moving and the pace at which is moving right now, risk reduction starts to move to the top five years ago. We do a lot of risky things because we’re making money. Interest rates are low and, but today we cannot afford to do that. And if you watch the industry change right now, it is gonna be more focused than ever in having proper technicians on site that they complete the job that they were intended to do. Precisely, accurately, and once, not twice. Once. Yeah. And that is gonna be the marker of the, whether this industry grows or not. Mm-hmm. And that’s why Blade Repair Academy is needed so much. Now, Alfred, how do you interface with the ISPs, OEMs, and the operators in terms of getting people out here? How do they, how do they push that button and say, Alfred, I’m gonna send you 40 technicians next week. How does that, how does that go? I don’t quite have that down Alfred Crabtree: yet. But, uh, you know, it, we talked earlier, it’s a small world. You know, blade repair is small. There [00:27:00] we mentioned if you, there’s a hundred people in the industry you need to know and then you’ve covered it. Um, our, I think we’ve been, we’ve been kind of riding this new wave of like, oh, who’s this new kid on the block? And, and we can kind of be quiet and still are mysterious. And I pop up at a conference and host a round table or whatever. Uh, so far. It’s mainly been our personal network, which is large enough in this gig to, to get people in. ISPs are much more likely to do it small is ISPs are much more likely to do it. Owner operators, they’re trying to build their training centers. They have a little different, that’s a different model though. It’s a different model. Um, they’re, they’re tougher to get. So primarily it’s been ISPs. We have definitely a, a, a curriculum for new hires, right? We call it support, but we’re [00:28:00] reluctant to go sell that to the street or to the public. Like, Hey, enter the industry here, because we don’t quite yet have that, you know, guarantee that people will recognize our certificate and. Use it to hire people. I don’t quite have that system in place. However, I have so much interest from the Department of Labor to support us in creating an occupation. They want us to build apprenticeship programs. We need corporate sponsor, we need a big employer or to to buy in, and then we can create an apprenticeship program. Then we can find public money for people to get some support to get into a new, a new industry. So, well, they Allen Hall: need to come out here. They need to come out to Dunlap. And visit the facilities, talk with you, understand what the philosophy is, see it up close. There’s a lot of them have been to other places. Sure. And see what the differences are here. And, and that’s gonna be the decision maker. They’re gonna see what the product walking out the door is and [00:29:00] go into the classroom and, and get the grinder, right? Yes. Get, get your hands dirty a little bit. Yeah. And realize, yes, this is what I was looking for to begin with. I just couldn’t find it. And I found it here in Tennessee. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah, I, I think you’re right. And, and we, we are slowly, you know, bringing people in that we know, like the reason why y’all are here and some other folks have visited us this week is because o and m was in Nashville. And I was like, come on, come on. We’re only two hours away. We’ll buy you lunch. Come on. Pretty place. Yeah. You have to see this place to understand it because we are sort of, you know, outsiders, right? I mean, we’re, we’re from the, the industry, but we’re not. We’re not a spinoff of any company. We’re not a division of an ISP. We’re totally organic and unique in a, in a part of the world that doesn’t have any wind. So, yeah. Uh, but once you get here, you get it. The economics make sense. You know, we couldn’t do what we’ve done anywhere else as cheaply as we’ve done, which means we feel like we’re super value rich for what you’re paying and for the amount of time that you’re spending [00:30:00] here. Allen Hall: Oh, 100%. Uh. Let’s give the ISPs, the OEMs and the operators, uh, where to go. What’s the website? Where can they find you on LinkedIn? Alfred Crabtree: We’re at blade repair academy.com. Uh, we’re located in Dunlap, Tennessee. We’re on Blade Repair Academy at LinkedIn. I’m Alfred Crabtree. You can find me there. Uh. Allen Hall: Yeah, that’s where you need to go because that’s how the process starts. If you want to have high level technicians that really know how to work on composites and are working with real materials on simulated, but. Pretty realistic damage. Yeah. Weirdly realistic. Yeah. Secret sauce. And to get some sort of validation and to kind of get graded. Mm-hmm. And so you have a, a, a sense of how they’re doing. You’re going to have to go to Blade Repair Academy. You need to get out to Tennessee and you better check it out because I, Alfred, I gotta be honest, this place is gonna get crazy busy [00:31:00] and I’m gonna have. ISPs calling me saying, can you get a hold of Alfred and get me inside? Can you get me in? No, I can’t because it’s Alfred’s deal and Alfred’s gonna run this thing. We’re very approachable and, but very approachable. Keep calling, he’ll answer and take care of you, but it’s gonna get busy because the philosophy here is the right one. Thanks. So congratulations for putting this together and thank you for the invite. Uh, it is been a pleasure to see it. It’s uh, it, it’s great to know that you are around and you’re helping the industry. Alfred Crabtree: Thank you. We appreciate it and you guys are a great clarion for the industry. A great voice. So, uh, those words, uh, right in the fields. And I wanna thank Cheryl too for coming out. I haven’t seen her for a while. It’s funny ’cause today I, on my phone, you know, five years ago today, she and I were here before this business existed as rope partner employees working on r and d week doing infusions. So, uh, Sheryl Weinstein: the space has transformed. It’s amazing. Yeah. You guys have done a, a [00:32:00] really great job. Like I, yeah, I think you’re definitely pushing the industry into a, like a new realm. Bringing something that, that it really needs, you know, that we don’t have at the moment or that we didn’t have. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah, well hopefully, uh, it improves everybody’s quality of product and the bottom line. ’cause uh, you know, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll affect your bottom line for sure. Allen Hall: So Sheryl and Alfred, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks guys. Right, Sheryl Weinstein: thank you.

Brett records an episode without Christina and Jeff and chats with Melissa Davis (The Mac Mommy) about her start as a mommy blogger and longtime Mac podcaster, her tech-support work, and the strange lack of closure when online friends disappear. They trade mental-health and chronic-illness updates, Adderall vs. Vyvanse, difficulty finding curious doctors, and being labeled “worried well.” Don’t worry, they nerd out on mechanical keyboards, Karabiner, and remapping keys. GrAPPtitudes include Bartender 6 Pro, Sortio for AI tagging, Sketch Party TV, and Karabiner. Sponsor OneSkin improves your skincare routine with science-backed skin care products. With over 10,000 five-star reviews and validation from clinical studies, OneSkin has made a name for itself in the skincare industry. If you’re interested in trying OneSkin for yourself, you can get 15% off your order with the code OVERTIRED at oneskin.co/OVERTIRED. Chapters 00:00 Meet Melissa Davis 00:56 Early Podcast Days 02:20 Tech Support Seniors 05:52 Digital Legacy Work 06:50 Sponsor: OneSkin 08:14 Mental Health Check In 08:34 Insomnia And Focus 13:19 Doing Time Tracker 16:04 Suspenders And Stenosis 20:18 Mobility And Home Hacks 22:10 Melissa Health Update 23:25 ADHD Meds And Mutations 25:25 Curious Doctors Matter 27:59 Vyvanse Vs Adderall 30:26 Tracking Mood With Data 32:27 Cane And Somatic Therapy 36:09 Somatics For EDS 36:50 Yoga Modifications 38:19 Polycystic Liver Shock 39:20 Fatphobia In Healthcare 40:56 Pole Dancing Reality Check 41:55 Mechanical Keyboard ASMR 45:56 Nail Art And Picking 49:09 Keyboard Layout Rabbit Hole 01:00:59 Shortcuts And Muscle Memory 01:03:12 GrAPPtitude App Picks 01:14:07 Karabiner Power Tips 01:17:30 Wrap Up And Thanks Show Links hEDS Doing Timing Royal Kludge Keyboard Gamakey Silent Linear Switches EPOMAKER Switch Benefit Section EPOMAKER AegisSil Keycaps Set SketchParty TV Karabiner Sortio Bartender Pro Day One Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter. Transcript Nails and Keys with Melissa Davis (The Mac Mommy) [00:00:00] Meet Melissa Davis Brett: Hey, this is Brett Terpstra. I am without my usual cohorts, Christina and Jeff. Um, so I, I wanted to, you know, get a, get an episode out for all of you listeners, and I reached out to Melissa Davis, known as The Mac Mommy. Um, I don’t, I, I don’t know if they’re still known as The Mac Mommy, but in m- in my lifetime they have been. Um, Melissa, why don’t you introduce yourself, let people know, like, M-Ma- long time, like Mac personality, podcaster. Tell us where you came from. Melissa: Where did I come from? Outer space. Uh, I came from being a mom. I, I, I will admit, this is hard to admit, But I will admit I started out as a mommy blogger. That’s, like, kind of a bad word nowadays. Brett: back, back, yeah, this is way Back when Melissa: [00:01:00] Yeah. Early Podcast Days Melissa: so we’re talking, like… Well, my oldest is gonna be 20, Brett. My oldest is gonna be 20 this summer. End of, end of June he’ll be 20 years old. So that’s about how long I’ve been doing podcasting. I mean, I started, I started, like, when… Well, you know what? I started listening to Adam Christianson’s The MacCast Brett: But you know what? I started Sure. Like one of the very first podcasts, Yeah. Melissa: still, I still listen to him on the Mac Geek Gab. Like, his voice is just so soothing to me. I used to… Like, that was the f- Back when I had, I had, I remember I had, like, an old G4, uh, Quicksilver Mac, and in the stinky little back room of our old house. And I used to, I used to download the podcasts, burn them on a CD, put them in my Walkman, ’cause I didn’t have an iPod yet at the time. I wasn’t that… I was never really that cutting edge. And I’d burn them on a CD, I’d put the CD in my Walkman, and then I would sit and nurse, I would nurse my baby. I, [00:02:00] and I would have to tuck the, uh, the headphones, you know, I’d have the ear- the, the wired, kinda like I have now, uh, and tuck it behind my back, like, behind my shoulder, because otherwise he’d, like, yank on the cord. And I would just listen to podcasts while I nursed. And I… And then, uh, then I met Victor Cajiao, and I started just kind of being, like, a serial podcaster, showing up here and there, and then it just kinda grew from there. Tech Support Seniors Melissa: Um, and I do… So I do tech support. I’m an IT tech s- tech support person. I… People call me their computer guru. I mostly work with, uh, the senior population, our, our vintage people, which I, I’m slowly becoming one of them. We’re all, we’re all gonna go that way. Brett: I feel like anyone who does Mac tech support deals with probably an, a, a population that skews older. Melissa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s actually, it’s actually more– I will say it’s actually more difficult to work with somebody younger. Like, especially people my age or people [00:03:00] that are like, say, in their sixties I consider pretty young, 70 even. Uh, yeah, so but it’s, you know, the people are so, so interesting. You can learn so much. I love working with this population because they’re like encyclopedias, and the stories they tell you and the things you learn, it’s pretty amazing. And I could just, I could just spend– I have actually spent all day with some of them. Some of us just have really great chemistry and, you know, it’s… They– I, I’m also– I have ADHD, that’s no secret. And I think when you get older, um, not– it doesn’t affect everybody, but I do see a lot of what could be either they, they have ADHD or it’s like a– Brett: they have Melissa: of creeps in and it’s just a natural process of aging, cognitive decline. So, yep. Brett: have a lot of patience. Sure. S- some of my, some of my most interesting relationships over the last 10 years have been with, uh, Mac users in their late 70s, [00:04:00] 80s. And, uh, like they’ve been– They’re very– Like, they’re definitely… The people that I’ve known have been technically capable and very interested in learning. That’s why they follow me. That’s how I meet them, right? They’re like, they read my blog, which is just all nerd stuff. And, and so they’re, they’re technically competent, and they’re doing things that I can only aspire to be doing in my 70s and 80s. Um, I had a guy who was writing his memoirs at, in between like mountain bike rides. And so here’s the thing, though, is when you, when you know someone online and they’re in their 80s and you stop hearing from them for a Melissa: Yes. Yes. Brett: you have to assume that they have passed on. and that is sad, and you never really get any closure because you don’t know their friends or family. You [00:05:00] never get like a notice, an obituary. You don’t, you don’t know where these people go, um, and you don’t know how to check in on them once your normal channels of communication are severed. Melissa: Yeah, we’re at that age where we probably start reading the obituaries. Like, I haven’t heard from so-and-so in a while. Let me check the obits." Brett: I had, I had– Before NVUltra went on for, what’s it, like five years now, uh, without a release, um, I had a project called BitWriter with David Halter. And Melissa: remember you mentioning that, yeah. Yeah, and you wondered. Mm-hmm. Brett: he stopped responding. Melissa: you find out any at all? Any, Any, concrete… Brett: Nothing. I have put feelers out everywhere I can think of. I have no idea what happened to him. Melissa: went Richard Simmons, huh? Brett: yeah. Yeah. With less Melissa: No contact. No contact. Aw. Digital Legacy Work Melissa: I, I’m lucky that, uh, in my line of [00:06:00] work, I do typically hear from the family if they’ve passed on, because I form kind of a bond with a lot of people. I, I typically don’t lose clients unless they die, so… Brett: and you have some, like, in real life connections to Melissa: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do, I do both. I do… I have some clients where I’ve never met them in person, I’ve only ever done remote. Uh, and then, but most of my clients are, are local, the majority of them. But I, I still s- see them remotely too, so yeah. I’ve, I’ve actually been hired by some people, um, mostly I’ve had two male clients who they got a terminal illness, they knew they were terminal, and they followed me online and they pretty much hired me to take care of their surviving spouse. So that, that was… that’s a difficult thing, but I’m just honored that they chose me to, to help them out with that. So I’ve kind of been a bit of a digital undertaker in that regard. Sponsor: OneSkin Christina: I want to take a moment to share something that has significantly improved my skincare routine, OneSkin. [00:07:00] So we all have those days when our skin doesn’t feel its best, and I’ve certainly been in that boat, especially recovering from surgery. And I was tired of navigating through endless products that promised results, but often fell short. And that’s when I discovered OneSkin. It was founded by scientists dedicated to longevity, and this brand stands out for its commitment to real science over marketing hype. They tackle the fundamental question of how to actually slow down skin aging rather than just masking it. And their groundbreaking ingredient is, uh, ZeroS01, and it’s a proprietary peptide designed to help deactivate the damaged cells that contribute to aging skin. Since incorporating OneSkin into my routine, I’ve actually been noticing some improvements. My skin feels smoother. It looks more vibrant. Um, it’s definitely more moisturized, and so this is benefiting from its focus on supporting collagen and strengthening the skin barrier. With over 10,000 five-star reviews and validation from clinical studies, OneSkin has made a name for itself in the skincare industry. If [00:08:00] you’re interested in trying OneSkin for yourself, you can get 15% off your order with the code OVERTIRED at oneskin.co/overtired. That’s 15% off at oneskin.co/overtired using the code OVERTIRED. Thank you for supporting our show by checking them out Mental Health Check In Brett: Um, so do you wanna do a mental health Melissa: Sure. Brett: I, I know, I know you’ve listened to the show before. I know you know how this works. Melissa: how this works. Brett: Would you like to start? Melissa: I think I would like to hear you start, and then I’ll, I’ll add on Brett: that sounds good. Insomnia And Focus Brett: Um, so sleep continues to be a major issue for me. Um, I actually for four days in a row last week, I got eight hours of sleep a night, which was insane. I felt so good. Um- The first night… So I take [00:09:00] Lamictal for bipolar, and if I miss my evening dose, I crash and I sleep in the next morning, and I sleep soundly. Like, it’s the best sleep I can get. And then I wake up and all of a sudden the withdrawal kicks in, and then I’m shaky and dizzy for half an hour after I take the dose. Um, but that’s after, like, a solid night of sleep, and it never works two nights in a row. And, like, I’ve tried, like, maybe if I take Lamictal in the mornings instead of the evenings, maybe I’ll sleep through the night. It doesn’t work after that first missed dose. Um, but then I just, without making any changes in my lifestyle, started sleeping, and I thought finally after, like, two years of insomnia, I had turned a corner, because I can’t remember the last time I got eight hours of sleep for more than two nights in a [00:10:00] row. And then it ended, and then I was up. I’ve been up since 2:30 today. Melissa: I wondered, yep. Brett: I mean, I went to bed at 8:00, so that’s still nine, 10, 11, 12, 11, Melissa: I actually dozed off on the couch around 8:30. Like, if only I could just be in my bed right now, just be, like, transported. Yeah. Oh. Brett: Oh, I, I wish. If I could go back to bed… Like, sometimes I’ll, I’ll lay back down around 7:00 or 8:00 and get, like, another half hour of sleep, but it’s really that, like, uninterrupted block of deep sleep that I need, not… I take naps during the day, and I can usually fall asleep for half an hour, um, given that I’m usually functioning on five hours of sleep anyway. But anyway, um, I– That, that’s just kind of par for the course for me, so, like, any, any of our listeners know that that’s gonna be the first thing I report. Melissa: are you, [00:11:00] like, kinda competing? Like, are you trying to get eight hours because that’s what’s prescribed? Have you ever thought about Brett: be- actually, what works eight and a half, like I’ve, I’ve… Back when I had the option to sleep more than five hours, like, I did a lot of kind of experimentation and Melissa: know where your sweet spot is. Brett: Well, it… See, the sweet pot- spot changes as you age, though, and you need less sleep as you get older. So, so I can’t say for sure that eight and a half hours is still my sweet spot. Um, and I think honestly, if I can sleep seven hours, I feel pretty good, and I consider seven hours a good night’s sleep. Melissa: Yeah, ’cause mine’s like between four and six. Brett: really? Yeah. See, Melissa: feel Brett: I don’t function well. Oh, I don’t function well on anything less than seven hours. Melissa: I just have a love-hate relationship with sleep. I just don’t– I just hate to sleep. I just would rather be doing other things. Life is [00:12:00] just too interesting. Brett: I get that. I– get that. I– as someone who’s bipolar and has had like manic episodes where I’m up for five days straight, like I, I love not sleeping. Um, w- when, when I have the mania to give me energy and back it up. It’s when I’m just dragging all day and feel like a zombie. The thing– The, the plus side to it is the more tired I am, up to a certain point, the better I can focus. Like my brain slows down and it’s really easy for me to get into hyperfocus. And like most mornings I’m up at, you know, 2:30, 3:00 and I just start coding. And I can not only hyperfocus, but I can switch focus between three or four different projects like simultaneously. I hit compile on one, I move on to the next one, and I can rotate [00:13:00] through them and like keep track of all of it. And then right around 10:00 AM, my ability to do that ends and suddenly I like flip to a project and I cannot for the life of me remember what I was doing, which is why I’ve spent my life building note-taking apps and, and time tracking tools. Melissa: Yep, same thing. Doing Time Tracker Brett: dude, h- d- I don’t… You might not be familiar with my project Doing. Melissa: N-no, but I– you alluded to something. that’s not what you’re working on with Dan though, is it? Brett: No, no, that’s gonna be Melissa: Dan on that too. I, I, don’t know what it is yet, but yeah, I’m, I’m Brett: Oh, it’s… Yeah, it’s gonna be cool. Melissa: that’s so exciting. Brett: no, Doing is a command line tool where you can type things like, “Doing now podcasting with Melissa,” and it starts a timer for like what I’m doing now, and then I can ask it if I leave and come back, I can say, “What was I doing?” And it’ll tell me, [00:14:00] “You’re podcasting with Melissa.” Obviously, that’s a weird example ’cause I’m not gonna leave in the middle of this. But then it can give you like totals, time, tag-based time totals, uh, for your week and everything. It can show you like what you finished yesterday. Um, it’s not so much a task tracking app as it is a tool for keeping track of what you’re doing in the moment. Um, for, for people like me who switch between four projects at once, it’s really handy. And some guy, some fucking guy Melissa: Some fucking guy. Brett: it, rewrote it in Rust, and it is really good. it is really good. Uh, he like, I- Oh yeah, I use Melissa: Okay, ’cause Brett: This is, this is separate. this is this is a little more ‘ intentional than Timing. Um, I use both. They kind of work together, and Doing can actually import Timing’s JSON exports. So you can turn your, you can turn [00:15:00] all your Timing data into command line, uh, readable Doing files. Um, but anyway, this guy rewrote it in Rust with my permission, and he gave me full credit on the page. And I think I’m switching ’cause Doing is written in Ruby, and Ruby is slow, and Rust is fast. And like my Doing file where it stores all of my current projects, like my Doing items, gets so big that it can take Doing like up to five seconds to respond when I ask it, “What was I doing today?” Which is five seconds is a long time on the command line. Um, and his Melissa: pretty instantaneous. Brett: his version is like 100 milliseconds. Boom. But anyway, Melissa: It’s almost like you built your own little AI thing. Like, what was I doing? What Brett: kinda, kinda, yeah. Melissa: you doing, Dave? Brett: This is, this [00:16:00] was built long before AI was a common thing, but the other thing that’s contributing to my mental health Suspenders And Stenosis Brett: is suspenders. Melissa: Ah, yes. Brett: So I have I have gained 100 pounds, um, not, n-not of my own choice, but like I had rapid weight gain and I recently got a stenosis diagnosis, which I hate the Melissa: telling you, I’m telling you, we’re like 23 and me here. I’ve got that too. Brett: apparently during one of my, like when I gained 50 pounds in like six weeks, my body was looking for places to store all the new fat and decided my spine might be a good place for that. Um, so I have fat in my spine and I have degrading discs. This is separate from my love of suspenders, so I’ll get back to [00:17:00] that. I, um, Melissa: Wait till you get it in your eyeballs. Brett: Oh, for real? Melissa: Yeah, you can have… I have, um, what’s it called? Cholesterol. Yeah, if you look at your eyes really close, if you see like a white kind of w- ridge around your irises, that’s cholesterol. Brett: Oh, wow. Yeah, I hope, I hope that hasn’t happened yet, but who knows? Um, Melissa: Brings out Brett: I– So I have all this, I have all this extra weight and I had a lot of trouble with belts. A, belts hurt ’cause they dig into my, my gut, and they don’t really work. I, every, every time I stood up, my butt crack showed and I had to like wiggle my pants up. And then I I tried a pair of suspenders and it was like a l- a switch had been flipped. All of a sudden my pants just stayed up without any constriction around my waist, just like they just stayed with me wherever I went. And now I can, [00:18:00] I can tuck my shirts in and it actually looks kinda cool when you got the suspenders look going on. Which means, so like for a long time I only wore one brand of shirt, um, and because they, it was, it fit my belly and it was long enough and like it wasn’t, wasn’t baggy around the top and didn’t hang off my belly like a muumuu. Melissa: Mm-hmm, Brett: And like, so I, I, I only wore this brand of shirt and I own like 15 of them, and I would just cycle through Melissa: dresses, they’re just your Walmart $10 cotton tank dress. Love it. Brett: Yeah. But now that I can tuck my shirts in and feel okay about it, I can buy those extra large nerd shirts, ones with funny slogans and stuff on them. And normally those would hang straight down off my belly, and I hate the way that looks. But now I can tuck those in, which means I can get back to wearing funny, [00:19:00] ironic T-shirts, and it, it’s like opening up a whole new world of possibilities Melissa: That is a bonus for mental health. Brett: every day now I put on my suspenders and it makes me happy. Um, Melissa: wonderful. It’s almost like a, like a mobility aid. Brett: Kinda, yeah. Melissa: yeah. Brett: of, I– So I, I have a monopod, um, like a tripod that folds up into a walking stick, and it’s nice and light and it is an adjustable height ’cause it’s designed to be used as a camera tripod. Um, and I’ve started walking with it Melissa: yeah. kinda like you’re Brett: I c- yeah. Yeah. Like one of my fat friends has s- literal like ski poles. They’re like half height ski poles and they walk with them and it helps them a ton, and I Melissa: Yeah, hikers use those. Brett: try that out. But a walking stick [00:20:00] really does help with my stenosis, but I can still, even with a stick, I can only walk for about five minutes, which is about .3, Melissa: Yeah. Brett: 3, .3 miles. Um, and then I have to stop and sit, and it’s been a real pain, literally. Mobility And Home Hacks Melissa: And is standing difficult, too? Brett: standing is worse than walking. Melissa: thing, yeah. Standing’s worse. Brett: Yeah. Like if I am in the kitchen and I’m at the stove cooking, before the onions start to brown, I have to sit Melissa: Yeah. Yep. Brett: Uh, so we now have a stool in our kitchen, Melissa: Do you have one in the shower? Brett: yes. Well, our shower, our shower has a nice, like the back of the tub is a seat. Melissa: Oh, okay. Yeah. Brett: I don’t know if this house was designed by old people or not, but, um, but it’s certainly everything is relatively [00:21:00] accessible in that way. Um, but the stool in the kitchen means I can cook dinner. Emptying the dishwasher is the worst for me. That just like bending over, picking stuff up, and then just moving back and forth, like the five feet across our kitchen. My– I, it takes me three stops, three rests to get a dishwasher emptied. Um, and then I’m kind of ruined after that. I hate it. And I hate that I Melissa: stress mat? Brett: What’s that? Oh, you mean Melissa: mat to stand on? Gotta get, gotta Brett: think that would help? Melissa: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have Brett: used to have one Melissa: and one in front of the kitchen, and I don’t even, I don’t even, do the cooking. Brett: Ha. I used to, I used to have one of those in front of the stove when I w- when I didn’t have pain, but just because I was really getting into cooking and I was spending a lot of time, and I was starting to feel it in my knees. Um, yeah, maybe I should do Melissa: I think it’s a fatigue [00:22:00] mat, I think they call it. Brett: Yeah. Melissa: Yeah, Brett: That sounds Melissa: plus they look cool if you get little designs on them and stuff. Yeah. Oh, we could spend the day talking about just mobility aids and ergonomics and all that kind of stuff. Melissa Health Update Brett: Well, it’s your turn. Talk about whatever you like. Melissa: Yeah, you give me some ideas to talk about. Um, yeah, I struggle with a lot of the same things that you do. Um, I’m always like kinda comparing notes every time you post something. I’m like, "Oh No, ‘Cause you talked about Have you … You haven’t started the injections yet, have you? Brett: No, and they just delayed those. I don’t get them until like June 20th or something. Melissa: nervous about those for you, because I’ve had those and I’ve decided to just swear off them, so I’ll just kinda give you just a heads-up. I mean, it does raise your blood sugar, so that’s not great, and, um, it can give you the roid rage, kinda make you angry, so that’s something to watch out for, and more weight gain, so …But it’s like one of those things where you just have to kinda try [00:23:00] it and see if it works, because if it does work, then you could be more mobile and then maybe drop a few pounds and get some of that weight off of your spine. But if it doesn’t work, just know that that can happen, Brett: my doctor did not mention any of those side effects, so good to Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s the chronic life, so that’s, that’s what, that’s what, uh, affects my mental health, so I’m, I’m really good at faking it. I am actually … I will say I’m actually feeling a little bit more even. ADHD Meds And Mutations Melissa: I’m on, uh … I love when you talk about different prescriptions and stuff. Uh, I just mentioned, so I’m taking Adderall. That is, ugh, it’s a mixed bag. Um, I wanted to ask you about Vyvanse, cause that’s the next thing for me, but it’s, like, super expensive, so I’m trying to make Adderall work as best I can, but I’m, I’m in the process of playing with the dosage. But I think she told me, like, the highest was 30. The thing is, uh, I’ve had genetic testing done, and [00:24:00] I have this condit- not a condition, but it’s a I’m a mutant. It’s a genetic mutation called, it’s, it’s just initials. It’s MTHFR, lovingly known as Brett: you process your, your, chemicals twice as … fast. I have Melissa: Yes, faster processing in the liver. So that’s when she told me, ’cause she started, uh, me out on methylphenidate, and I was like, “Well, what about Adderall?” Because it, I see it work for my kids, you know? The kids are chip off the old block, right? And so I’ve had them tested too, and all three of us are positive for that. It’s lovelin- lovingly known as the motherfucker gene mutation. Um, yeah, so, and it is. It’s, it’s quite a bitch, um, ’cause it causes a whole bunch of other problems. And of course, we’ve talked about Ehlers-Danlos, so I have, uh, hypermobile Eh- Ehlers-Danlos. I’m having a hard time … I’m just having a hard time with that in general, mental health wise, because there’s just not enough awareness about it, enough people, and doctors, doctors and nurses. And you know, I’ll, I’ll say I wanna, I would love to be able to get [00:25:00] to a point where I can just say, “I have H-E-D-S,” or heads or what- however they’re gonna pronounce it, and, like, somebody know what that is when I go in for an appointment. But I still have to explain it, you know? And then that, that cuts into my time. ‘Cause they only … When you’re, when you’re our age, they only give you, like, 15 minutes, if that. When you’re much older, ’cause I’ve had to take, I’ve had to take family members to the doctor, they get a whole lot more time. But, uh, you know, it’s like, "Oh, you’re, you’re too young to be this sick. You’re too young to be this old," Brett: Right. Yeah. Curious Doctors Matter Brett: Um, I did– I found that doctor for me that knew exactly what all those acronyms meant, knew exactly, like, not only did they know what POTS was, they knew like seven different kinds of POTS and what tests to use to narrow it down. And then she got called up to National Guard Melissa: Oh, I wondered, I wondered, what happened to that doctor, ’cause it sounded so Brett: I waited. I was on a, I was on– I w- I had an appointment scheduled that was gonna be six months from the time she [00:26:00] left. Um, and I had it scheduled, and it was on July 7th. And then I got a letter in the mail saying that her Guard duty had been extended, and now I can’t see her again until September. And, like, I’ve, I’ve tried seeing other doctors that work with her, but none of them have the knowledge she has, and it was such a relief Melissa: Is this the curious one? Okay. I always think about you whenever I’m either looking for a provider or in the, in the midst of, of getting, you know, shuffled around to a new provider. I’m like, “I hope they’re curious,” ’cause that made– that meant so much to me when you explained about how a doctor needs to be curious. I’m like, “That’s what I need.” I need somebody… Or even just my therapist. I have a new, a new therapist that I see, and she’s really curious, and I really, really like that about her. That’s something that helps with mental health, is when somebody’s curious, ’cause I’m Brett: it goes h- it goes hand in hand with credulousness. Like, [00:27:00] first they have to be willing to believe you, and like, especially when it comes to invisible issues like EDS. Like, you have to be willing to believe a person and then be curious enough to look for answers. Like, the first step is believing, and the second step is curiosity. Melissa: Yes. I’ve already had my patient record marked as… Have you ever heard this one? Worried well. Brett: No. Melissa: I looked it up. It’s basically hypochondriac. Brett: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna guess. That Melissa: Yep. I actually– I was proud of myself because I actually did confront the doctor about it and I said, “What does this mean?” I said, “I, I looked it up and it kinda concerns me ’cause it makes me look like a hypochondriac.” And she said, "Oh, no, no, that’s just a, a code that we use when we don’t have something else to assign to it so that insurance will pay." Bullshit. Brett: Yeah, right? I feel like that’s exactly the kind of [00:28:00] thing insurance doesn’t pay. Melissa: Mm-hmm. so Vyvanse Vs Adderall Brett: what do you wanna know about Vyvanse? Melissa: Um, a- and I know it’s different for everybody, but I just kinda wondered what your take was on it. Um, how– can you compare it to Adderall at all for me, Brett: Yeah. Melissa: no comparison? Brett: it’s basically a non-abusable, I would call it lower lying version of, of Adderall. Like, it’s in the same family of stimulant as Adderall, but it can’t– It isn’t processed or it’s… I don’t remember how the mechanics of it work, but you can’t snort it basically. Like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t do anything Melissa: Which I wouldn’t wanna do anyway ’cause there’s nothing up here. Brett: Sure. Sure. And then, yeah, I’m not suggesting that was gonna be a problem for you. Um, but it’s also, like, it’s way, um, for me anyway, it’s way calmer. [00:29:00] Um, and there are people that say it doesn’t do anything at all. Um, especially a lot of people, a lot of people say the generic version doesn’t do anything, um, and that the name brand version does, but I haven’t found that to be true. Like the generic, which you’re correct, still costs like 200 bucks a month, um, for the generic. Um, but it is– It’s not my favorite. Melissa: I wondered why– what made you stop taking it. Did it just not work for you? Brett: No, I still take Vyvanse. Um, yeah. Um, I used to take, um, Focalin, which I loved. Melissa: That really worked for my kiddo, yep. Brett: but it also triggered my mania, Melissa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brett: so I was always walking this line of like, do I wanna be super productive and manic with like weeks of depression in between, [00:30:00] or do I just wanna be somewhat productive and stable? Um, which is why I’ve stuck with Vyvanse, and my doctor loves it enough for me that she won’t, she won’t prescribe anything else for me at this point. Like, I’ve asked about switching. I’ve asked about moving back to Adderall and things like that, but, Melissa: It seems like you’re, like you’re kinda on an evening out. Brett: Yeah, I haven’t had a manic episode for a couple years now. Tracking Mood With Data Melissa: Do you track it? Do you– Like, have you ever seen those– I keep seeing these ads for it ’cause, you know, the algorithm feeds us the stuff for wearables that are, um, called– I think it’s called Visible, so it makes your symptoms more visible instead of invisible. Like, do you track it? Do you Have you nerded out on your own data? Brett: like my mania and depression? Melissa: Yeah, like do you track it and look at graphs or anything like that to Brett: See, I’ve never had to use an external tool because I can just look at GitHub contribution graphs, and I can look at [00:31:00] my RSS feed, and I can see exactly, like for a period of like eight years, I can pinpoint exactly where my manic episodes were, um, because that data is historically preserved out there on the internet for all to see. Um, it’s, yeah, it’s– Well, and that’s, like I built tools that gathered that, those various sources of data. Um, and then there was a, a tool called, um, I forget. Melissa: cool, though? Hmm. We’ll think Brett: But it could pull, it could pull in all that data. Um, Bell Beth Cooper, Hello Code, I can’t remember the name of the app. Melissa: Yeah, it’ll come to you eventually. Brett: sure. Uh, but it could pull in like your GitHub, uh, commits along with like what the weather was at the time, how many songs you listened to that Melissa: Oh, day one sorta does that, yeah. Brett: Does it now? Melissa: A little bit, yeah, your locations, [00:32:00] um, if you turn on some of those things. Like not– I don’t think it does the music and things like that, but Brett: I haven’t used it for a while. I haven’t used it for a Melissa: I was gonna switch to the journal app. I was actually really… I held off on upgrading to Tahoe for the longest time, but that one kept nagging at me ’cause I thought, oh, you know, maybe. I mean, as much as I love Day One, I, I thought about, I thought about actually switching over, but no. I tried it. I’m, I’m gonna stick with Day One. Brett: Cool. All right. Cane And Somatic Therapy Brett: Um, so did you have, did you have more to add to your Melissa: Oh, I was gonna, I was gonna add on to what you were talking about with the suspenders. I did start… I think you probably… Well, yeah, you commented on it. Um, I started using a cane, and that I have mixed feelings about that. Um, I should have brought it in here so I could show you. I’ll show you later, ’cause, uh, anyway, it’s, it’s purple. I did get a pimp cane. That’s what my husband calls it. I thought, damn it, if I’m gonna use, like, a cane, then it’s gonna be [00:33:00] purple, and I’m gonna like looking at it, as much as I hate to use it, so. So I’ve been trying to use it. I… What you were talking about with, uh, with finding a curious doctor, I do have new physical therapist, um, so I’m really happy about that. Same kind of thing where she’s super booked. I think that’s just how it is. Like, the really good ones, they’re good, and, you know, it shows because it’s, it’s hard to get in to see them. So yeah. So I’m, I’m looking forward to that. We’re gonna be doing… Have you heard of somatic therapy? Brett: Yeah. Melissa: Yeah. So ha- have you tried it? Do, do you like it? Okay. That’s, that’s what I’m embarking on. Brett: I actually have a friend who teaches classes in it. Melissa: Oh, Al probably knows about that. Brett: y- yeah, Melissa: Yeah, I’ll, I’ll Brett: and it is, it is amazing how hard just doing things, doing motions you’re used to, but doing them very slowly and intentionally. It is like you– Just like, Just like, doing y- like a clamshell where you drop your knee, you’re [00:34:00] on your back and you drop your knee down to the side and bring it back up. Like that motion, most of us, even infirmed people can do that okay. You try to take… You try to do that and take like five breaths in each direction, and you’ll start shaking. It’s very Melissa: Ah, uh-huh. Yep. Brett: Yeah, but it’s good. Like it’s g- it really retrains your muscles. It really, it strengthens, retrains, and helps with, uh, finer motor control. Melissa: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I, I’m, I’m a little bit on the skeptical end of it, so that’s why I’m, I’m glad that, that you, you vouch for it too. It’s like I know that it works, but I just… I guess I wanna understand the science of it a little bit more. Like, for example, I’ve tried, uh, acupuncture, and I just didn’t feel like it did, did anything for me. I think you have to be, like, a believer, and I just Brett: think so. Melissa: I, I, I even did that on purpose knowing that I kinda felt like it wasn’t gonna work. I was like, well, what if I just go into this? ‘Cause, [00:35:00] ’cause I talk to people and they’re like, "Well, you have to believe in it." I’m like, but what if I don’t? I just don’t, you know? I’m, I see it Brett: it’s not medicine if you have to believe in it. Melissa: Yeah. I mean, I see it work for other people. I know there’s, you know, such a thing as placebos and things like that, and I don’t know, it’s, it’s woo-woo and I, I, I like woo-woo stuff. I, it just, it didn’t do anything for me, so… It’s not to say that it doesn’t work for other people, but it just did not work for me, and I, I kind of, I, maybe I just, uh, did that on purpose when I, I try- probably just tripped myself up going into it thinking, well, I just don’t believe it, so if it works, then there must be science behind it. And then, then, I’ll believe. But it didn’t work out, so. So the, I’m a little bit on the fence about the somatic thing, but the, the, the gal that I’m working with is just so, she has EDS herself, and like, like what you were saying, like, she, she knows all about it and she could even, you know, tell me the, the type that she has, and I was like, I met, I met, actually last week I met two zebras in one week. [00:36:00] You, you’re familiar with the, the zebra mascot? If you, uh, the saying goes, if you hear hooves, think horses. But we’re not horses, are we? Yeah, so Yeah, so that’s, that’s our, our Somatics For EDS Melissa: EDS Brett: somatic– somatics you don’t have to believe in for them to work. Melissa: Okay, that is Brett: it’s an actual physical therapy method that trains the finer muscles, um, that surround your larger muscles and, and strengthens those, and it– Yeah, it’s for real. It’s, yeah, it’s not like a… It’s soma- I think, Melissa: w- totally Brett: ’cause I I had the same reaction when someone said somatics, ’cause I think, “Oh, that’s some holistic idea of the body, um, of soma,” and it’s… No, it’s, it’s got legit physical therapy behind it. Melissa: And, Yoga Modifications Melissa: you used to do a lot of yoga too, so that probably makes Brett: I still do. Melissa: Yeah? That’s [00:37:00] wonderful. Brett: it’s gotten really hard. Um, I can’t, I can’t– So I get dizzy Melissa: Yeah. Brett: going from sitting to standing, um, and my back gives out if I am in, like, horse or warrior two for more than a couple minutes. Um, and I can’t do cobras because I have a belly like a nine-month pregnancy. Um, so I have to do, like, prenatal yoga, um, which is actually a thing. Melissa: that’s a good idea. I’m glad you brought that up. I should look Brett: a- and I do chair yoga, um, where I I take the class that everyone else takes, but I modify it to work with… Like, there, there are defined moves that you do with a chair instead of. Instead of doing down dog, you do, like, a 90-degree down dog holding the back of a chair. Um, and you put, like, a knee on the chair to do warrior two, so you’re actually [00:38:00] resting. And Um, and you can do it fully seated too and get at least the arm exercises out of it. So I’ve been trying to maintain, maintain flexibility and some endurance. I’m not doing yoga the way I used to do it, but I am still Melissa: I’ve seen some of your poses. It’s pretty impressive. Brett: Yeah, back in the day. Melissa: W- when you could be upside down. Polycystic Liver Shock Melissa: I should look into that because I, you know, although I’m done having babies, like far done having babies, I have… You probably know about this too, I have polycystic liver disease, which is a really rare type of liver disease, and it’s not fatty liver. Oh my God, I have to keep telling doctors that. That’s the other thing. It’s like, it is not fatty liver. It is not. It- they’re cysts. It’s a totally different thing. I’m basically full of bubbles. So I… But it feels like that’s why I went in to get it. I didn’t actually get that checked. I found it accidentally when I went in for an heart, for a heart CT. That’s when they found it, and for a, a breast MRI, so [00:39:00] both those, those types of scans caught it. The other parts were fine, so my heart’s fine, so that’s a relief. But yeah, so this was a bit of a shock. And so I don’t know exactly what it means moving forward, um, but my entire liver is, like, engulfed in cysts, so. Right? But my blood work is, is fantastic right now, so I’m just gonna keep Brett: That’s good. Melissa: hoping it stays that way. Brett: That’s something. Fatphobia In Healthcare Brett: Um, I I have heard for a long time about, um, doctors being fatphobic and, and always assuming that, um, always assuming that your health i-issue is because you’re fat and not even looking for underlying issues, which has been an interesting experience for me because that really never happened to me. Melissa: Mm. Brett: Um, at least not once I switched to Gundersen from, like, a local clinic. Then I realized that it’s not just being fat that gets you [00:40:00] stigmatized, it’s being a fat woman. Melissa: Mm, I was gonna say try having a uterus and being Brett: yeah. Yeah. Um, like I talked to one of my best friends, April, who he’s, has been on Melissa: by, women doctors. Brett: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s what April tells me. She tells me all these horror stories. Even after finding care she trusted, she still has to deal with people saying, “Well, if you just lost some weight.” Like, she’s been fat her whole life. She’s in better shape than most skinny people Melissa: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Brett: I mean, she does sit-ups with 50-pound plates and does, like, five, 10 miles at a time on her, like, on her bike and, like, she’s in great shape and still has to walk with the ski poles, and she’s getting her second knee replaced this week. And, like, it, it’s just infuriating to hear the way that doctors dismiss Melissa: You know what the problem is, Brett? Brett: goes through [00:41:00] when Pole Dancing Reality Check Melissa: Not enough doctors have watched fat pole dancers. That is the problem right there. They need more education. Brett: Um, yeah. There’s, there are a couple of, um, queer burlesque shows Melissa: shows, yes. Brett: in my area that almost always include a plus-size pole dance, and it is amazing to Melissa: Oh, it’s mesmerizing. It should be an Olympic sport. Remind me to send you the, the link to, unless you’ve already seen it, have you seen the Deadpool pole dancer? Brett: No, I don’t think Melissa: you are in for a treat. We might just have to put that in the show notes, but I don’t know, I don’t know if your listeners are that, are into that It’s fully clothed, but it’s, there’s even blue Crocs involved. Brett: So this is nobody that you’re seeing on the Melissa: I wondered, yep. I wondered, yeah. Aw, he looks so soft. Mm. Mechanical Keyboard ASMR Brett: So you’ve [00:42:00] gotten really into mechanical keyboards. Melissa: have, I have. In fact, uh, I was gonna, I was gonna see how this might sound, but I, I brought my little box of key caps to show you so that I could say, welcome to my ASMR channel. Brett: That would… is is that a thing? I bet there are ASMR, like, key switch testing. Melissa: yeah, yeah. I’ve run across a couple of videos where, you know, they’ll have a hashtag ASMR in there, and that’s, that’s what it is. Do you experience ASMR yourself? Brett: No. Melissa: No? So when you listen to those videos you don’t get like the s- the tickling of the spine and stuff? Brett: No. Melissa: I do. It actually, it goes, it… I forget. I always forget what the acronym stands for, but it, you know, has something to do with the meridian. So if you can i- imagine your brain like split in half, and I feel it right on this side. It goes, it goes like the, down the back of my head, behind my ear, and down into my shoulder. It [00:43:00] is the funkiest feeling, and I love it. I love it so much. Even when we were talking about animals in the, in the beginning and I even had a cat that would come and just like kind of lick my ear and, oh, I just, I love that. Most people cannot stand that sound. They have the opposite condition where they can’t handle somebody chewing gum. My grandfather had that. Um, some, some kinda, it ends in a tonia. Misatonia or something like that, um, where… I don’t know. Do you have any of those like sound sensory issues? I have a lot of Brett: really don’t. I’m very, I’m very, like, sound Like, I like loud, heavy music. Like, that does something for my psyche. Um, but general sounds, they neither bo-bother me nor stimulate me. Melissa: imagine what that’s like. I just can’t. I’m So bothered, and my kids too, and you know, ugh, God, Brett: So El Melissa: has been problematic. Brett: El is, El is, definitely sensitive to sound, um, in a way that Like, even my [00:44:00] mechanical keyboards can’t be, can’t be on the same floor of the house as Elle. We pretty much live in silence, and that’s fine for me most of the time because, like, it just doesn’t affect me either way. So, like, keeping things quiet is easy, and I focus well in silence. And then when Elle’s gone, I blast my music, and w- when I’m in the car, I blast my music, and then the rest of the time I live in the quiet place. Melissa: Mm-hmm. In The Quiet Place. Brett: Yeah. Melissa: Yeah, we have- something a little similar, but m- my husband and I have, uh… We have our his and hers kind of setup here in, in the, in our den, in our inner study. So he’s got his side and I’ve got my side. So we’re together, and he does a lot of grading papers, and he’s really good about putting his, his earbuds in and just tuning the whole world out. He’s… It’s fascinating to watch that man just [00:45:00] execute. I mean, I just am so envious of people who can just execute. But the, the, the, yeah, the sensory, it’s all about the sensory stuff for me when it comes to keyboards. I actually thought about… I don’t know how popular it would be, but I also thought about making a podcast, a video podcast, that would highlight the intersection of nail art and mechanical keyboards. Because I’ll tell you, that’s actually what… I’ve always loved mechanical keyboards, but yeah, the, the one that I had, someone had given me a, a Matias, and oh, it’s, it’s so loud, but it’s like high-pitched. It’s kinda sharp. And it was even kind of annoying to me after a while. And then it does not, it’s not a mechanical keyboard in that you can’t pull the switches out, so you’re kinda stuck with what you got. Like, you might be able to change the key caps if you could find them, but couldn’t change the switches. And something happened to the S key, and I was like, “All right, it’s over,” so. But I can’t get rid of them either, so one of these days I wanna have like a display of, of keyboards. [00:46:00] Nail Art And Picking Melissa: But what got me, what got me into saying, “Okay, I’m finally, I’m just gonna invest in a keyboard because it’s ergonomically important to me,” is I have… And I can’t pronounce it, so I’m not even gonna try, but there’s a condition, and it’s a self-diagnosed thing. But I, I am a picker. I pick my skin a lot. Um, I think it’s called derma something Anyway, so I wasn’t gonna try to pronounce it. But, uh, I’ve always had that condition since I was a kid. I didn’t even know it was a thing. I just thought everybody get, uh, picks. But then during the pande- during the pandemic, it got super bad. Like, I had, I had, um, some panic attacks and, you know, as a lot of probab- people probably did. But it got so bad to the point where I had picked my fingers and they were bleeding and they were throbbing and they were hurting. And I said to one of my kids, I said to my youngest, I said, “Can you just, like, if I, if I’m picking, can you just let me know?” And then I regretted doing that because then he took it on as this, like, full-time job, you know? And it kinda [00:47:00] gave him anxiety, and I thought, “Oh, okay, that, that was a bad thing to do.” So I s- I let him off the hook. I said, “No, you don’t have to tell me anymore.” Um, because, yeah, ev- even if I went to, like, just kinda, like, clean under my nail or something. So it was actually causing a real problem for the family that I was just picking so much. And it’s not just my fingers, it’s, like, other parts of my body. So I thought to myself, “Well, what can I do about this?” And so I started putting fake nail tips on. And I hate to be all, like… I don’t know, I’m not, I try not to be, like, a very vain person, but I really started kinda falling into the nail art side of things, and I, I just recently learned how to do gel and work with, um, uh, what’s it called? Uh, not resin. So I… Oh, that’s another ASMR thing. Do you like to watch resin pours? Brett: I do, actually, yes. Melissa: that’s… Okay, so if you like resin pours, if you like to watch the viscosity and the way the, the chemicals, like, form together and when they, when they mix colors in and stuff, [00:48:00] that’s what it’s like with nail art but on more of, like, a macro level because it’s, you know, you’re working with small stuff. Like, just, just recently I learned how to do… So I’m showing Brett this on, on camera, but I recently learned how to do the kind of nail polish that you take a magnet and you run the magnet along it, and it makes this, like, a cat’s eye. Brett: Yeah, that’s cool. Melissa: I love it. So, so that, so combining nail art then, and I thought, “Well, now I’ve got these long nails,” but all of my keyboards have been these flat, really low-profile keyboards. And, you know, I just, I started to dread it. So then I was kinda caught between a crossroads. Like, either I leave nails off and I can type really, really fast and have high accuracy with no nails, but then as soon as, as soon as I get, like, a little snag or something, then I start picking and then it’s just, it’s all over then. Or I try to find a way to work with these nails. So that’s what I started thinking, “Well, maybe if I had higher keys.” And so then I just, yeah, rabbit hole. [00:49:00] Went down the rabbit hole, and I’ve, I’ve just kinda been there ever since. And, uh, it really, I think, uh… Let’s see. How long ago did this start? It’s only been about maybe like six months or something like that, so. Keyboard Layout Rabbit Hole Melissa: But in that time so I’ve started, um, building a collection of switches. So I’ve been really interested in both the key caps and the switches. Um, I’ve got my baseboards. I like my Royal Kludge the best. This is… I’m gonna show Brett my Royal Kludge. So, so this is what it’s looking like right now. Brett: Yeah. Melissa: It is very purpley. Um, I did post some pictures. I can… I don’t know if you do pictures in show notes, but I could take some pictures for you It’s got a knob. It’s got, um… Let me see if I can do it real Brett: Do you use the knob. I have a couple keyboards with knobs and even a joystick, and I never actually use them Melissa: Good question. Um, I, I use it, I try to use it for volume at [00:50:00] times, and that’s probably what I use it for the most. But this one does have a… Let’s see if I can get this into focus here, backwards and upside down. It’s gonna be upside down, but you see how you can put, you can put your logo Brett: Oh, yeah. Nice. Melissa: got my The Mac Mommy little logo on there. Otherwise, it gives you the time in military format, so that’s kind of handy to have. Um, but yeah, it’s… To be honest, I, I love the, I love this Royal Kludge because it’s nice and heavy, and I love the form factor. It’s got a number pad, um, because I’m, because I am a grown-ass adult and I need a number pad. Um, but it’s nice and heavy. It doesn’t, it doesn’t move around my desk a lot. I kind of have to type, like, kind of crooked, ’cause that’s just the way my neck goes to the wrong way and stuff like that. So I like being able to fit it on my desk. I have a, I had a larger one made by Red, uh, what is it? Redragon. This is the one that I started [00:51:00] out with. Gonna make lots of noise here. But as you can see, this one is way bigger. And it was, as much as I liked it, I mean, I fell in love with it, but what was happening was my accuracy was, like, really thrown off because I fe- I kept feeling like it just needs to be, like, a couple centimeters to the right or a couple centimeters to the left. It just wasn’t centered very well. So this one, my husband gets all the hand-me-downs, so that one went over onto his desk. Uh, and then I also have a baby keyboard here, and this is another Redragon. This is my little mini one. Brett: that’s, that’s the kind of keyboard I mostly use, like a 70% keyboard. Melissa: Yeah, I think this one’s even 60. Um… Brett: My– The one I’m using right now is, uh, 60. There’s no, there’s no function row, there’s no arrow, there’s no keypad or, like, arrow pad. Um, Melissa: No [00:52:00] arrows? How do you live without arrows? Oh, do you, you mapped your keys to something Brett: so it looks like this, Melissa: nice. I love the Brett: that the, the space bar is split in two. Yeah, my, my, my partner says it looks like, uh, gay ’80s. It’s all pink and blue and purple. Um, but the, the space bar is split, and the right half of mine functions as something called a mod key, and when I hold that down, then my I, J, K, and L keys become arrow keys. Melissa: Oh, wow. Brett: once you get used to it, you never have to take your hand off the home row. Melissa: Oh my God, that must be amazing. Brett: It– Yeah, once you get used to it, it, it’s so… Like, g- moving to a keyboard that doesn’t have that is kind of tortuous. On my MacBook Pro, I have remapped it using Karabiner so that Melissa: [00:53:00] That’s what I’m using. Brett: if I hold, the semicolon down with my pinky, then H-I-J-K-L become, Melissa: Oh, nice. Brett: become arrow keys, so I still don’t have to move my hand all the way down and to the right. Like, that’s such a inefficient movement that then I have to, like… Because I don’t have great feeling in my fingers, so finding, on a low-profile keyboard, finding the, the homing buttons again Melissa: Oh, do you use the humming buttons? See, that’s the thing, I was never taught that. I mean, I took like a ty- I took like a typewriting class back in high school, and I just didn’t like it. I, I just taught myself. I just… I’m an autodidact that way, so I just taught myself. Brett: my dad, back in 1984, we had a typing program on our PCjr, and I Melissa: It wasn’t Mavis Beacon, was it? Brett: remember. I don’t remember. All I know is, like, It taught you touch typing, and it would give you [00:54:00] these lessons, and you would basically just mirror what was on screen. And at the age of seven, I was typing at about 68 words per minute on an, on an old IBM PCjr keyboard. Um, got a lot faster through high school and everything. But yeah, I was, I was, from day one, I was raised to be a touch typist, and, and I took all the classes they had in school. Melissa: But you still touch Brett: labs. Yeah. Melissa: Uh-huh, yeah. So you don’t do the home rows. Brett: No, that is touch Melissa: Oh, touch typing, so you do feel… for the bumps. Brett: Yeah, I feel for the bumps, and then I just, like, my f- my key, my fingers never really leave the Melissa: Oh, yeah. See, I wish I could do Brett: centered home row. Yeah. It’s, it, it’s good. Um, Melissa: And you’re using the split, so my gosh. Brett: What– You get used to that too. Um, like, [00:55:00] I can’t do it with the split far apart. I’ve seen people use, like, splits, like, way out to the sides, and I can’t, my, my brain doesn’t do that. Like, my hands have to be within, like, six inches of each other. Melissa: I always thought, it would be so cool to have something where you could have it, like, raised up like this, right? And use your hands sideways. Brett: Yeah. Well, that’s I mean, that’s essentially, I have, on the bottom of this keyboard, I have these risers. Melissa: Oh, uh-huh. Oh, Brett: So it sits, right now I have it at about a 45-degree tent, tent, tent. Um, but it can go up to more like an 80-degree tent, where you’re actually Melissa: Wow. Brett: uh, almost like you’re clapping, you’re typing. Um, I don’t Melissa: of that. I have a, a, handshake mouse. Brett: Vertical mouse. Melissa: You like… Is that what you have for a mouse too? Brett: no, I, I love Melissa: Trackballs. Oh, trackpads. Oh, okay. Brett: Apple’s Magic Trackpad changed my life. I’ve never used– I’ve never gone back to a [00:56:00] mouse since the first Magic Trackpad came out. Melissa: So you’re all about the gestures then? Brett: yeah, Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Brett: Bet- bet- better touch tool for the win. Melissa: You know what it is for me, is because of the type of work that I do, and this is very much true for both of us, you do these things because of the type of work that you do. The type of work that I do, I’m in everybody’s homes, so I have to ty- I have to be able to type and use their mouse and, I mean, it’s actually a very dirty job. So I keep hand wipes with me everywhere. Um, that, that was why during the pandemic I was like, “I am not coming to your house and I am not touching the stuff that you just picked your nose and…” Yeah, mm-mm. But, so, so i- it’s been kind of keeping me almost like a purist in a way as far as keyboards have gone all these years. I, I finally just kind of let go and embraced this recently, th- which is why I’m so excited and why I’m just kind of nerding out on it, because when, when I worked [00:57:00] in, like, I’ll call it the industry, um, I got my f- my start in prepress. So I worked in prepress, I was a typesetter, and we had… That’s what I kind of miss. We had the old clunky beige keyboards, and I had my muscle memory such that I think my o- my Option key would have, like, the indentation of my nail on it. You know? ‘Cause I had, just like you have, keys that are programmed. I could… I was a Quark queen. I don’t know if you’re familiar with QuarkXPress? Brett: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was a graphic designer. I I know Quark. Melissa: Yeah, I loved it. I was… And, and I used it back in the OS 9 days, OS 7 really, is when I started out. Uh, I did not like the OS X vers- OS 10 version of Quark. Did not like it at all. Brett: No, but that’s Melissa: it was slow. Brett: Adobe came out with, what was, what was Adobe’s… InDesign. Yeah. By the time I had started, by the time I had started my own ad agency, we were all InDesign. Melissa: Oh, [00:58:00] nice. Okay. I mean, it was a Brett: and none of the, none of the print shops expected Quark files Melissa: Yeah. Oh, it was so expensive. I remember I had to buy it when I was in college, and I remember it cost, like, $800. I’m probably still paying for that, damn it, in interest. Yeah, so that, that’s how I got my start originally, and that’s how I was doing… I, I went to… So I have, I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I went to college in order to be a designer. I wanted to be a designer designer, and that’s what I, what I thought I was good at and thought that I liked doing, ’cause, you know, “Oh, you’re a girl. Go to art school. You like to draw.” You know? I’m always bitter about that because I really wish that I would’ve been able to go… I mean, this was, you know… I’m, I’m 51, so this was back in the day where girls, girls don’t do computers and girls don’t do coding. G- girls don’t do computer science. They didn’t even call it computer science. They didn’t even call it graphic design back then. It was commercial art. Um, so I studied that and, you know, I liked it ’cause I thought, “Well, this is what I could, I could take my art and make [00:59:00] a living into it.” And then fast-forward, um, I just started to fall in love with the technical troubleshooting side of things. So as, as good as I was at the technical typesetting and the technical, like, putting prepress things together, you know, um, uh, key sheets and s- you know, things like that. Do you remember, was there, uh, did you ever use a program called Quick Keys? That was one of the ones Brett: familiar. Melissa: you could map your own keys to things. So w- when I was in prepress and doing typesetting, I used that program and I, I mapped all my keys, and I had all these quick keys and stuff so I could go really, really fast, you know? So when they wanted something done fast, they gave it to me, and I could just fly through documents with this. But then as people learned that I was good at this kind of stuff and troubleshooting, they’re like, “Oh, hey, Roger needs, you know, has a problem. Can you go help him?” So I’d go over to his cubicle, I sit down, and he’s got nothing. You know, he’s got [01:00:00] no quick keys, no nothing, and you just kinda get lost because your muscle memory just adapts to it. And I couldn’t help people the way… And, and that was what it was about for me. I really liked more helping people and troubleshooting and the technology side of things than the actual design process. So I kind of went to the other side with it. And so I just kind of, like, vowed that, okay, I’m not gonna do any kind of, like, customization on my own workstation because then I’ll, my, my muscle memory will map to it, and then when I go to sit down to help somebody else, I won’t… You know, I’ll be so much in my own world that I won’t be able to help them. And so I just kind of, like, remained a, a pu

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Ever feel like money is disappearing from your practice? Tiff and Dana share where practices tend to find that missing money, as well as how to trim down those expenses. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I always want to say on that opening, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and I have to really think about it. Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back here. Dana and I have been on a podcasting frenzy we love these days and then we're like out of breath and I also love that because it feels like productive and anaerobic. So I'll take it. I've got Dana here with us today. Dana, thank you so much for riffing with me today, for being here, for blocking out your morning, for podcasting and just   All awesome, awesome. Thank you for being an awesome part of this team. We were literally just talking about how my brain just is like ping pong, ping pong, and then I won't finish a statement. That was it. That was me proving to you that that really happens real life. So, and don't cut that podcast team, whatever. Dana, how are you today?   DAT-Dana (00:38) you   doing really good. am honestly and truly, I feel like today we've rift a lot and we've come up with some really great, I think, content ideas for doctors and teams. And so, so far, I'm super proud of us today.   The Dental A Team (01:01) I agree. I agree. think the marketing one, if you guys haven't listened to the marketing matters, I believe that's what they're calling it. But there's a marketing one that Dana and I just did. I actually, I think that was one of our best podcasts. That was so good. So good. And KPIs again, I know we talk about KPIs a lot, but we really went on a very good tangent of inspiration versus motivation for those KPIs. So I agree. I think it's been fun. And I love talking profit now.   Dana, I think you and I have grown to love profit. Not that we didn't love profit before, but I think we've grown to really, really see some high value in the profit side and just love finding it and talking about it more than we ever did before. So I want to talk about profit today. And we talked about it a lot. It's a huge piece of Dental A Team's Magic Sauce is really, really working systems and   logistics and business and leadership to turn into profit because at the end of the day, that's the only way the business is going to survive. And Dana, when we talk about profit, think teams tend to be like, okay. And I think doctors think teams hate it, that they don't want to hear about it, that they don't want to know that it's like, yeah, that's going in your pocket. But the reality is most teams want to know that their business is profitable because most teams   want a place to work, if nothing else. They want a profitable company because it guarantees that they get to stay where they're at. And if you guys have, you know, we talked about that inspiring why earlier, and if you've got a really inspiring place, you've got a place that people want to work, they want you to be profitable so that they can keep working there.   DAT-Dana (02:44) I agree with you. And doctors, if you feel like your team doesn't care about profit, then it's because they don't understand what profit means to them. And so I think that instead of so often, doctors just shy away from it. And I think instead of shying away from it, make sure that they know what that profit means to them. Because Tiff and I can say, hey, we know and hands down, you're right, Tiff, like people are going to pick job security, right? They're going to want to be in an office that has job security. Do they know that that's profit? Probably not.   The Dental A Team (03:09) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (03:13) Right? And so somebody says something about that or like that. Do they want to grow in their position? Yep, they probably do. Do they know that that comes from profit? Maybe not. And so I think sometimes it's just like, hey, my team. Well, if your team doesn't want to talk about profit or you think they don't care, it's probably just because they don't understand that profit drastically impacts their lives too.   The Dental A Team (03:35) Totally agree. That was massive, massive. And that's the space of really understanding the intentionality behind what you're doing. So if you intend for the team to understand profit, then they will. You'll say the words and they'll understand it. profit turns into not only job security, but it also turns into being able to invest in more tech, more, I don't know, chairs. Oh my gosh, do know how many times as a front office team member I was like, can I just get a new chair? My back hurts so bad.   And they were like, well, let's look at the budget. I'm like, cool, what do I have to do to get a new chair? But those things all come from that profit because we can't spend what we don't have. And so teams really understanding what that turns into and also like how can we impact the community? We've got kids sports teams coming in saying, can you ⁓ sponsor our team? Can you do night guards? Can you do this? Like we wanna be able to say yes to all of those things and that comes from the profit.   Now you know our stance on profit, but Dina, what about disappearing profit? I've had actually, I've had this come up a couple of times. I've had a couple of emails from doctors that they're like, I can't find the money from 2025. I don't know where it went. I should have had X amount of dollars, 400, $600,000 and it's gone. I'm like, okay, well let's look for it. And Dina...   Love those and I hate them because I'm like, well, what do we do for a year? Where what were we doing here? Okay, so I have you know, I have my ideas on where it goes and and we dig and we find it we usually find it but Dana Where do you see the biggest question marks on when doctors say where's the profit? Like where the biggest question marks? Where do you start digging and where are you usually finding it?   DAT-Dana (05:01) Yeah, it usually leads to a rabbit hole, but...   Yeah, typically I am digging first and foremost into just like expenses, right? Like where did expenses fluctuate? Did we spend more than we needed to or did we spend in arbitrary areas just because we weren't keeping track of it? So honestly and truly, do you know what your BAM is and can you assess very easily or quickly like months where it is?   well below well above right so that you can kind of watch those flexes. just worked with an office on this not that long ago and I'm like hey from January to March expenses swung by $100,000 right like what happened let's dig in here because those giant fluctuations to me are a red flag of like hey we're not watching something or something got overcharged double charged things like that so I think the first place to tackle is just like knowing those things like knowing what   the profit should be, knowing what the expenses should be and are you, do you have a cadence where you are looking, reviewing? Because I think what happens is we hire a CPA, we get into QuickBooks, everything auto syncs into QuickBooks and we just kind of like set it and forget it.   And I think that like we don't know that sometimes hey things can swing that Gigantically if we're not looking at those things and we're not looking at those prior to making decisions, right? We're not looking those before we're like, hey, yeah, you can have a raise or hey Yeah, I want that cvct writer. Yep. Let's it's time to mill same-day crowns and we didn't look at that now We're in a big swing of expenses   The Dental A Team (06:51) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (06:52) So I do feel like making sure that all of that is to say, making sure that you know what your numbers are when it comes to expenses every month where they should sit roughly and honestly and truly what you're spending all your money on.   The Dental A Team (07:06) Yeah, I have practices Dana that have Amazon Prime. I think everybody has Amazon Prime. My sister and I canceled Amazon Prime actually, and we just have Amazon, which is wild. And every time you try to purchase something, they try to sign you up for Amazon Prime. But it's kind of like, it honestly reminds me of all of the financial stuff you've done with all of the companies we don't have to name. But ⁓ it reminds me of those because you really second guess the purchase.   And then you're like, okay, well, let me let it sit in the cart for a minute. And then you go back in, you're like, why did I even have this here? Or I'll throw stuff in the safe for later because I'm like, well, it's not on sale right now. And I'm not gonna get it today. So do I really need it? So I'll put it in the safe for later. But I have practices that are so Amazon Prime ready that they're like, we need paper. I'll just order it real quick.   we need pens. you like those pens better? You like the Sharpie pens? I'll order those on Amazon real quick and we'll have them here tomorrow. Right? So they're just constantly processing these Amazon orders. And then what happens, I have a practice that was like Amazon galore. I'm like, where is all of this money? Like what is happening here? And then what happens is you've got some demo supplies, some front office supplies. It's impossible to like see the difference because of how you're placing the orders. It's just this constant running battle or Walmart. I'll have   practices that are like, we have a list. So I just sent Joanna to Walmart and I'm like, okay, but why aren't these on orders? And we say, we watch the dental supply budget and ordering really closely. And we'll say order two times a month. Once is phenomenal, two times a month max order your dental supplies.   but then we forget those front office supplies and they're sneaky or the paper towels or the toilet paper or just those like paper supplies, they're sneaky. And I have seen that happen where the practice literally had to be like, okay, we're revoking Amazon and you're gonna send in a list just like you do for dental office supplies. And we will both order the same as we do for dental office supplies.   DAT-Dana (09:08) Yeah, you're so funny that I have an office where it was like, okay, well, you hit your you hit your dental supplies, you hit your office supply budgets. But like, what is this? ⁓ that's Amazon. And I'm like, Okay, but what did we order from Amazon? Like, how much of that was dental supplies, office supplies, like stuff for the team? Like, where do we need to that? then I know that's just Amazon. I'm like, No, but that's money spent. And it's spent in one of these categories. And it should be part of your budget for those guys. Like   If you need an Amazon budget, right? If that has to be a thing, fine, we can set one up, but understand that that's coming out of all these other buckets.   The Dental A Team (09:40) Crap.   Correct,   yes. Or if your Amazon is your personal Amazon too, and it's getting run through the same and whatever. Yes, I agree. I agree. I have a couple of practices too that I have like a small equipment budget because they'll add that into their supplies. And it's like their supplies are 18 % one month. And I'm like, what the heck? I'm like, you can't just, if you need hand pieces.   We need a budget for handpieces. You can't just order Cabotron tips because we need Cabotron tips. We've got to look at it and we've got to budget that in and make sure that we have the cash for it. So I totally agree. Another one, think, are subscriptions. So the Amazon Prime is a subscription, so make sure that that's in there as well. But we get hit with a lot of subscriptions. I remember this is like an update.   me mostly, but I remember magazine subscriptions, right? And it was like, what the heck? We would pay monthly for magazine subscriptions and then you found out like they're gonna send them to you anyway, so cancel the subscriptions and they're gonna send you the magazines no matter what and I don't think anybody's reading magazines. So those kind of subscriptions, gosh, a lot of people will have like a Uber Eats subscription for the practice or a DoorDash subscription for the practice. Are those necessary subscriptions?   And what are we paying out of convenience that's getting used sometimes that doesn't need to be there? So I think subscriptions and then allocating supply orders correctly.   DAT-Dana (11:05) Yeah, and I even think office tech subscriptions too, like how, you know, patient communication and then like review requests and then, and sometimes like we can bundle those and get a better dealer. Sometimes it's like, hey, well, this does this, but this also does part of that. And like, we're just overlapping a lot of those things. And so can we condense them into one thing? So I think even just looking at like your office tech, because oftentimes like those are a big chunk of budgets and I'm like, Hey, but are you utilizing that? Like, yes, you've got this, you've got this   The Dental A Team (11:09) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (11:33) review subscription, is great. But like if we're asking in person and we don't feel like, I just think sometimes we have these things just because they sound fantastic, but we're only using a very, like a small fraction of it. And there's oftentimes a workaround on that small fraction that like, again, we can just reduce because we don't necessarily, we aren't using it consistently or it overlaps with something else that we have.   The Dental A Team (11:46) I agree with that.   Totally agree. That makes me think of like some of the analytics companies, you know, high cost that also have patient communications, right? So, but then we've got a patient communication platform, like maybe Weave or something. We're like, well, but like Weave doesn't connect with this piece well, or it doesn't pull this report, right? So we have this one that's pulling the reports, Weave that I can do text messages and emails from. So I don't use it over here, but I don't use that over here. And we're paying thousands of dollars between two.   two models, well, is there a third model that maybe encompasses both or can we, what can we shift around? So I totally agree. That happens a lot actually. Or people will have the dental intel or the Adit. love Adit. So they'll have Adit and they're like, okay, well I get my reports and I can pull all my data. Should I sign up with whatever company for text messaging? And I'm like, well, what Adit does that.   DAT-Dana (12:34) Mm-hmm. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (12:56) Right, like most of the analytic companies these days, it wasn't that way. When I was in practice, it wasn't that way. So it's been pretty recent within the last, I would say three to five years that the analytics companies started piecing all of those things together or vice versa. The communication systems are now doing analytics too. So I think they don't know, but it's a huge space of savings, especially because those analytics, they're expensive.   DAT-Dana (13:19) Yeah, I agree with you. And, and all those platforms are great. It's just which one works best for you. And which one will you get the most bang out of for what you're paying in that monthly subscription? Because yes, they all do the same thing, but yet also a variety of other things. And so like which package best fits your office. And I think just even annually assessing that and annually looking at your tech bundles and like, are we utilizing it? Is it a better platform? Because they're all fantastic platforms. It's just what you're going to use within your practice.   The Dental A Team (13:25) cracks.   Totally agree. It's like the cable subscriptions, right? We used to get hit with those with the wifi and the cable and the phone and these bundles. And the next thing you know, you're $30 more and you didn't even realize that it had changed. I totally agree with you. Yeah. So subscriptions, supply costs, something that I find. And I think a lot of people tackle this one first. They'll look at like employee costs. So what's my staff cost? And totally yes. Watch for overtime. I also like to caveat.   Overtime typically means that there's a systems failure because we should be able to get the work that we need done and the amount of time that we have. And so, Dana, I often see overtime as understaffed or incorrectly staffed. maybe our job descriptions aren't clear. Maybe there's someone that's doing everything. Everybody else is leaving at 4 p.m.   when the patients are gone and then that person's there till six cleaning things up. So over time, definitely, I definitely watch that and I look at staff costs, but it honestly is one of the last places that I look because we need the people there to produce what we're producing. And then, ⁓ Dana, taxes, taxes. You guys, I have a practice that I love so much. I have got a two or three practices this year that is like, my gosh, where'd the money go? And I'm like, well, you...   had $600,000 of taxes last year that you paid for 2024, and then you also paid your 2025 taxes. So you made up for what you were lacking the year before. But remember that auto email that I've got going out, or remember how many times we talked about, did you put the savings aside for your taxes? If you put the savings aside for your taxes and you paid out of that savings, it is still going to show up on your P &L. That does not mean that that money is gone. It just means that it was used over here.   and you should still be saving for your taxes. But Dana, I think that is one of the biggest spaces that doctors or business owners in general, because I've seen even, we've worked with non dental offices that they quote unquote lose their money because they had to pay taxes.   DAT-Dana (15:55) Yeah, and I will say too, an even something that I think I noticed in a trend in that is like taxes on their personal distribution, right? Because it's like, ⁓ I pay payroll taxes and and like they know they have to pay business taxes, right? But depending on how they structure paying themselves, we kind of forget that we   The Dental A Team (16:05) ⁓ yes, yes.   DAT-Dana (16:15) to pay taxes on our own personal distributions or how we pay ourselves because, for team and all those, they're just like auto deductions and auto things that come out on our P &L and we see our pay, right? We see our pay come out, but what we don't see come out and we sometimes forget is that we are taxed on the money that we pay ourselves. So doctors, that's just like also I see that.   The Dental A Team (16:16) Yes. Yep.   Yep.   DAT-Dana (16:38) having a lot, but it's like, oh, well, I was prepared for taxes, but we forgot. Like, yes, we were prepared for the business taxes, but we weren't really prepared for the taxes on our personal income that came from the practice.   The Dental A Team (16:50) Yes, or vice versa. Karen and I were literally just talking about this on Friday, we went for a walk after summit and she was like, gosh, like CPAs, like just need CPAs to like get it all. And I'm like, well, I think CPAs are either like thinking of the business or they're thinking of your personal taxes. And it kind of, does suck, but you can't rely on one person or one entity to do it all for you. You know, you've got, we've got multiple people looking at it and you've got to be responsible to your money. So a lot of CPAs are like,   you know, yes, you've got your personal taken care of. And then you get hit with $400,000 of business taxes. Or they're like, awesome, we've got your business taxes taken care of. And here's your $200,000 of your personal taxes. And that's like, no matter what, something's going to come up short. So just know, this is what I need to save for. I'm going to save 40 % on the side. And if I don't have to pay 40%, cool. I've got savings for next year, or go spend it. I don't care what you do with it, but you've   you've prepped and you've saved for those taxes because that is the biggest space. Legitimately, I have an office that was missing X amount of dollars. And when we looked at the tax payments, it was X amount of dollars. It literally equaled out. It's like there was your profit because you weren't prepped for those 2025 taxes. Now it's 2026. You know, we're we're backlogging. So, yep.   DAT-Dana (18:06) Yeah. And I think we   hire like we bring on CPAs, we bring on financial advisors, we bring on all these things, but the end of the day, like they don't know you as a human. And so it's your responsibility to to like share like what kind of human you are with them. And so like if they're setting up that you take individual distributions, and you know that like, if money gets tight, you're not going to sit that aside, and you're not going to put it in a savings account for taxes, like, say that I think that sometimes like   The Dental A Team (18:31) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (18:32) Yes, they're going to give you advice based on like what our best practices or what they feel like will set you up for the most tax savings or the most tax success. But you know you as a person too. And if you know that you're not a great saver, maybe a personal distribution really and honestly and truly isn't the best thing for you, even if that's what they advise. So I think also to like know yourself, be able to communicate those things and make sure that the advice that they're giving you or the directions that they're giving you is something that you will truly do too.   The Dental A Team (18:50) Totally.   Yeah, I totally agree with you. Totally. we can't see. Maybe they can. But that's not their job to check and see did you move that money. I know a financial advisor that gets asked a lot that they're like, well, shouldn't my savings be those? He's like, I don't know. I don't know what you're doing with your savings. I advise you on what you should do. I'm not the one that's moving the money. I'm not your money manager.   And so we do the same thing. We advise you on what you should be doing, but I'm not in your accounts nor do I want to be in your accounts seeing what you're actually doing. I'm trusting that you're taking the advice and you're moving forward. And when I ask, did you do the thing and you say yes, I'm trusting that you did it. So huge caveat, I love that. And then honestly, last but not least, and this is why I do not tackle employee cost first is collections.   Oh my gosh, I have so many practices that are like, Tiff, where's my cashflow? And we look at it and I'm like, well, where are your KPIs? Because your collections right now is less than 90%. Like where, where's that? And your month's fluctuating is going to, can create cashflow like month by month stretches, like a little skimping here or overflow here. But on average, you should be at 90 % or higher collections. And Dana?   I think collections is a very overlooked space when it comes to the P &L because we're thinking they don't think about the collections. They just think about, okay, this is my P &L and it's like it's a separate entity. At that point, they get the P &L and it's totally separate from the practice. Like that doesn't, the practice doesn't matter anymore. This is the P &L, but they have to be smashed together.   DAT-Dana (20:20) Yeah.   Yeah, they do. I think too, like collections, feel like doctors always tend to just like look at production because it's the one thing they can control, right? It's it's the thing that they can really control, tackle, push for. And so I feel like that's a number that they look at heavily. And then I think collections, right? Yes, which doctors understand that collections is the money in the bank, right? I think we understand that concept, but we don't necessarily look at the health.   The Dental A Team (20:44) Yeah. Yep.   DAT-Dana (21:02) of the collections within the practice. And you're absolutely right that like, can we cut all over time? Can we look at team and say, look, no more over time, right? But if the overtime is what they were using to get the collections to 98%, right? Versus 87 % without it, right? Then maybe that's not the thing that we've got to tackle. We've got to look at that collections network.   The Dental A Team (21:18) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   DAT-Dana (21:26) Or we can say, like, yeah, we can cut our supply budget and you can take a supply budget from 6 % to 5%. But is that gonna move the needle as much as taking your collections from 85 to 98?   The Dental A Team (21:33) Pressure.   Correct. I love that. with that, go look at your collections. That was massive, Dana. Thank you. I love when I can get you on a soapbox and you're like, just go do the thing. And that was beautiful. Thank you. So disappearing profit, is a thing. Not having cash flow, it is a thing. Is it normal? Normal? Like, yeah, we see it. Is it what you should have? No, no. You should know your numbers forwards and backwards. If you're at summit.   You know that if you were not at Summit, you should be at our virtual events. They're freaking awesome. Our in-person events are amazing. We literally go through line item, PNLs at most of our in-person events for this reason, because there's always just something hidden. There's just like when you comb through your personal bank account and you're like, my gosh, or when you use Apple credit card to pay for everything. And then you're like, my gosh, now I got to pay my credit card off. And how did I spend $2,000 this month? Because it was easy.   It's easy to say yes to Amazon Prime and just order it right now instead of waiting and saving. So go through, comb through. You should do this quarterly. Make sure that at least yearly, I would do it quarterly. Make sure that things make sense. There's nothing that's been hidden in there. There's nothing that's orders are duplicated. There's not subscriptions that you shouldn't have and that your collections, you should be looking at that constantly. And you should be looking at that with your KPI.   reports, your scorecards with your consultant. If you're a client of ours and you don't know what I'm talking about, get on your consultant because you should. Especially Dana and I's clients. If you're out there, we love you and you just let us know. I think.   Action items, pull your P &L. It's where out of Q1, you've got a whole quarter to look at, you've got a quarter and then some at this point to look at, and we're coming up on the end of Q2, so it comes up really quickly. Go look at it, look to see, are there things that you can bundle? Or do you have a bunch of subscriptions that, you know, you've got multiple different companies overlapping that you can use one or two rather than five? Are you using the scanner that you're paying the monthly subscription for? Are you using all the things that you're paying for?   Is there anything that you can reduce and what is your collections at? If you can say yes, you've done both of those things and your collections is where it should be. Now we're going to take a look at, is your schedule full? There's so many layers. Like we're going to take a look now at production, team, like really how big is your team and do you have enough production to support the team that you have? So Dana, anything you'd like to add?   DAT-Dana (24:10) this, I think just like you said, know those numbers inside and out, look at these things regularly, evaluate expenses on a quarterly basis, ⁓ and take a look at those subscriptions because they can hit us hard as well as those taxes.   The Dental A Team (24:26) They're sneaky. Both of those are sneaky. Awesome. Thank you, Dana. All right, everyone, go leave us a five star review. You know, we love to see those. We love to know that this content was awesome for you. Let us know any tricks or tips that you have as well or things that are working well for you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. When you're ready, if you are not yet a client and you're ready to find that disappearing profit, reach out. You guys, we are like hounds when it comes to this stuff and really freaking good at our jobs. So the systems behind the numbers and the systems behind the money,   We will help you figure out what's working, what's not working and get you in the best shape of your life. Dana, thank you so much for today and everyone, we will catch you next time.

What Books are Healthiest for Your Tween or Teen an Interview with Betsy Farquhar and Hayley Morell (Episode 293)   *Disclaimer: Some of this content is not intended for young audiences. Please use discretion.   Proverbs 4:7 NIV “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.”   *Transcription Below*   Betsy Farquhar holds Masters degrees in Children's Literature and Information and Library Science. She taught middle and high school English, homeschooled her three children, and has served on many book award committees.   Hayley Morell loves reading, writing, trying new recipes, knitting, or chatting with her parrot. Hayley loves traveling and lived abroad in Europe and Asia. She and her husband and infant live in Wisconsin in an old house overflowing with books and are active in their local community.   Their Website, Book, and Social Media Handles: Instagram @redeemed_reader and Facebook: @redeemedreader   Thank you to our sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka   Questions and Topics We Cover: What are some benefits of reading and why is it worthwhile to devote our time to curating a healthy diet of books? Can you elaborate on why the Young Adult or YA category is the most controversial? What is on your radar for genres or books that will require even more discernment in the future?   Other Savvy Sauce Episode Mentioned: 21. Promoting a Family Culture of Reading with Megan Kaeb 22. Inspiring Your Children to Become Readers, Part Two with Megan Kaeb 253. Low Tech Parenting with Erin Loechner 273. Wise Living: Why to Get Outside, and Travel, and Read Aloud with Amber O'Neal Johnston   Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website   Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”   Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”   Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”    Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”    Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”    Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”    John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”    Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”   Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession- to the praise of his glory.”   Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”   Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“   Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“   Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”   *Transcription*‍   Music: (0:00 – 0:11)   Laura Dugger: (0:12 - 1:46) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.   The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today over 55 years later at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka.   Owned and operated by the Bertschi family, Sam Leman and Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over Central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at lemangm.com.   My guests for today are Betsy Farquhar and Haley Morrill, two of the four authors of this book, The Redeemed Reader, which is also the name of the website that they run together where they have thousands of book reviews for children and tweens and teens.   We all know that books are so powerful, so it's vitally important that we're discerning both for what we're intaking and the filters that we use to allow our children to engage with books in our home. We're going to sprinkle book recommendations throughout this episode, and you're also going to learn some surprising things, such as more details about the YA or young adult category. Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Betsy and Haley.   Betsy Farquhar: (1:48 - 1:49) Thanks. It's good to be here.   Laura Dugger: (1:50 - 1:57) I would love to just start out hearing the way that the two of you found your way into the work that you get to do today.   Betsy Farquhar: (1:58 - 2:42) Mine started way back in the 1900s when I was in college. I did my senior thesis on children's literature, George MacDonald, and that led to a children's literature class my last semester, which led me to grad school with one of my now co-workers, but at the time fellow students and friends, and we got our master's in children's literature. And then rabbit trail, lots of detours, children, marriage. She and I started a blog back when those were cool and hip, and it was reviewing children's books and that was just for fun. And then we connected with Janie and Emily from Redeemed Reader. Through that blog venue, we were commenting on each other's blogs, and they brought us on board. And so here we are 15 years later.   Hayley Morell: (2:43 - 3:38) And for me, I was a high schooler. I was homeschooled. I loved reading.   So, I started my own blog back in the teenage years and I was always looking for book recommendations and came upon Redeemed Reader in the early days. I turned out they were looking for an intern. I started interning and at the end of my internship, Emily Witten, who was our founder, asked if I'd like to stay on.   And that was 14 or 15 years ago now. So, I was younger. And so, I had a period at college.   I studied at Boyce College. I worked in children's ministry and worked as a private tutor. So, a lot of interactions with children.   I was known as the babysitter with the book bag for a number of years. And now I've got my own little, and so I'm in the land of board books and happily working at Redeemed Reader.   Laura Dugger: (3:39 - 3:49) I love hearing that. And if people are watching this through video, can you both just say your name, so we know who's Betsy and who's Haley? I'm Haley.   Betsy Farquhar: (3:50 - 3:51) I'm Betsy.   Laura Dugger: (3:52 - 4:07) Okay, wonderful. Thank you for that. And at Redeemed Reader, I'm assuming you have so many book recommendations to try and read and review.   So, how do you even determine which books you are going to review?   Hayley Morell: (4:08 - 7:49) So, right now we are wrapping up one of the things we love doing, which is providing award coverage. In January is when the American Library Association announces their awards, and they like to recognize the best middle grade with the Newberry, the best picture books with the Caldecott, and then a number of other awards. We know that those books are going to be going into lots of libraries and schools.   And so, we like to provide coverage of that and review those books that we know parents are going to be seeing on shelves and wondering, is this a good book? Should we be reading this? What do we want to check out?   We also like to watch what is popular. What is causing discussion? So, several years ago, that was The Hunger Games.   And there was a lot of questions about dystopia. Should we be reading this? Is this helpful?   Do I want my teen reading The Hunger Games? More recently, some popular middle grade series like Keeper of the Lost Cities have had a lot of parents asking, what is this series? Is there anything I should know about?   And so, we try to have a balanced review. We review books that you're going to find at the library. We also like to review books that maybe you wouldn't know about.   So, a smaller Christian imprint, for example, we like to review that type of book to encourage readers to read widely, to read Christian authors, to read secular authors. We like books. And so, we each bring our own specialty to the team and experience.   Janie, who's our senior editor, is a children's author. She loves history. And so, as the community relations manager, I tend to handle review requests.   So, when somebody asks us, can you review this book? It's popular. Or I'm an author.   I wrote a book. Can you review it? I'll look at the book.   I'll look at how hard is it to get? We do try to review books that are easy to find, that you might find in your local library. But then I'll look at our team.   So, for Janie, if it is going to be a nonfiction history, let's say for a 10 to 12-year-old, I know that's going to be up her alley. Meanwhile, Betsy loves poetry. She loves nature, nonfiction.   Betsy is a very, I'd say you're one of our Renaissance people. And so, I know Betsy is going to be inclined towards maybe a novel and verse. And she also likes dealing with high school books.   You've got that teacher education background, where if it is an epic poem, Betsy is going to be our reviewer. Megan is our amazing picture book author. She's super creative, loves picture books.   Megan is who I turn to when I find a picture book. Meanwhile, I used to handle as I was the team member of the team and then turned into my 20s. So, I gravitated toward YA, and I still love a good YA fantasy.   But I am now in board book land and picture books. So, I have been expanding my reach. I do serve on our middle grade fiction, so I can help out with middle grades.   But each of us will flex in, flex out. Megan has a large family of boys. And so, if it's a boy book, she is a great person.   We love to send those to her to see if her boys like them. And that's, I could keep going because we love books, but that's a big snapshot.   Laura Dugger: (7:50 - 8:09) That's so helpful because you cover such a wide variety of books throughout your team. And as curators of book reviews, what questions are you most commonly receiving, both from young people and maybe their parents as well?   Hayley Morell: (8:12 - 9:22) I think we often get questions like, is this book clean? Is this book safe? And we like to kind of change that question.   And we like to say, why is the content in this book? Because that can be different, you know, depending on something that is in a picture book, which wouldn't be appropriate for an age, could be very appropriate for a YA book and a great discussion starter. So, it definitely depends on the content and what audience and what age of the audience we're dealing with.   So, we try to, as people ask us, well, is this safe or is this clean? Should I read this? We want to build discernment and encourage parents to interact, parents and educators to interact with our reviews.   And they know their reader. They know how their reader is going to receive a book. And what questions might come up.   And so, we like to help interact with that conversation. And then there's another kind of question we often get, which I'm going to let Betsy answer.   Betsy Farquhar: (9:23 - 10:10) The other question is, my kid likes blank kind of book or is blank kind of reader. What do I get for him or her? And so that, of course, can vary widely.   But people love to know what book is right for my family or my classroom or my child. And so, we try to write our reviews with that question in mind, not to make a blanket statement, you should all read this book, or nobody should read this book, but to give parents and educators enough information to make that decision for themselves. And then we started doing these reels on Instagram, where we're pretending we're answering a customer service phone call with questions we've been asked, right?   My son only likes video games, or my daughter doesn't want fantasy, but she reads these kinds of books. And so, we try to help people think that through.   Laura Dugger: (10:10 - 10:14) So, that's really how we continue.   Hayley Morell: (10:15 - 11:09) Sorry. And one more question that we often get because we are book reviewers is, will you review my book? And so, at that point, we do have a process.   We encourage people to submit a request. And it could be maybe a book they're curious about and would just like a review from us, or they're an author or a publisher. And so, in that case, we direct them to our review submission form.   And like I said before, we are definitely looking for books that are easy to find. That will encourage us to review a book, because while we love books that are like smaller imprints, et cetera, and we do try to provide coverage for that, we also are aware that a lot of our audience only has their library or their school library. And so, we are trying to do books that are easy to find and accessible for our readers.   Laura Dugger: (11:10 - 11:40) Okay, that's really helpful to hear what people are writing in and asking you about. And so, hearing the sweet spot from each team member, and then Betsy, how you mentioned people love to know what's right for my family. So, no, this won't fit every situation. But can you give examples of maybe books that the four of you find yourselves recommending quite a bit because they are ones that fit a wide range of people?   Betsy Farquhar: (11:41 - 13:39) Of course, we put a ton of recommendations in our book that came out in the fall. And those are sort of our most common recommendations. We have a place on our website called Starred Reviews.   And those are the best of the best in our mind of their genre. So, if you're looking for graphic novels, and you see a star on a graphic novel, it's because we think this is an amazing graphic novel. So, that's just a helpful framework, because of course, people are all over the map, right?   We're in the midst of whittling down our Book of the Year for this year. And we also have our Reader's Choice Book of the Year. And those books are ones we tend to recommend all the time.   So, I'm going to give you just some samples of what are on our Reader's Choice list, because that is a public list. And I can't reveal the 2025 releases we're considering for the other one. But for our Book of the Year for the Reader's Choice this year, we have The Found Boys by S. D. Smith.   We've got, I've got them all right here, Olivetti by Allie Millington. There's The Hiding Place: A Graphic Novel and the Watership Down: The Graphic Novel that are both really fun. People have really enjoyed them.   We've got the first book in The Dream Keeper Saga by Kathryn L. Butler. That's a Christian fantasy series. We've got Enemies in the Orchard, which is the novel in verse about World War II.   One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline-Ransome, which is another novel in verse about some Black pioneers going west on a wagon train. And that might be, oh, The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo. Kate DiCamillo is a super prolific author, and we do recommend her books often.   Her book, Ferris, was our Book of the Year last year. So, there's just a quick sampling of some middle grades' books. And middle grades, for people who don't know, that's the broad fourth through eighth grade age range.   You think of like ages 8 to 12. And they tend to be the broadest in audience. You can usually read those aloud to a younger audience, or even teenagers might find them enjoyable.   So, that's a good start.   Hayley Morell: (13:40 - 14:29) I do think one of the beauties of our team is that we've worked together for a long time. And we trust our team. And so, I will happily recommend a book that I haven't seen, but I know Betsy loved and reviewed.   And it's so fun reading the same books. So, like right now, since we're on award committees, we are seeing a lot of the same books and getting to talk about them. But I think it's one of our strengths that we each bring something to the table.   And I would say if someone really likes history, I'm going to look at what Janie has loved recently, because I know she is looking for those good new history books. And its so fun recommending books and getting to play to our strengths.   Laura Dugger: (14:31 - 16:16) And that comes out in book recommendations. When you're passionate about what you're reading, it's naturally contagious, I think. And now a brief message from our sponsor.   Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi family for over 25 years. 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Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you, and they appreciate your business.   Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com or visit them on Facebook by searching for Sam Leman Eureka. You can also call them on 309-467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship.   I'm curious, over the years, what character qualities have you noticed in people who are now adults, but they originally fell in love with reading in childhood?   Betsy Farquhar: (16:17 - 17:39) So, that's a pretty broad question. I would think, I'm just going to paint this with broad strokes. People who read typically are people who think, and especially in a day and age where we're bombarded with screens and soundbites all the time, if somebody can actually read an analog book from start to finish, then typically they're going to be able to think about ideas in a different way than people who are just existing on soundbites.   So, the ability to think is pretty critical. There's been a lot of studies that show that people who read also have better empathy. It's just a way we can sort of step into somebody else's shoes, especially if we're reading a story about somebody who perhaps lived in a different time period, or they're from a different ethnic background, or even if there's just a different socioeconomic level, it helps us understand the people on the other side a little bit better.   So, that kind of, this twin characteristics of empathy and thoughtfulness, I think are pretty common. We all go through seasons where we don't read as much, whether we're stressed or perhaps, my kids are in college and they were avid readers in high school, and they're not doing a lot of reading for fun right now, but they know how to read and they enjoy it. So, they'll probably come back to that in the future.   So, I think that's a helpful thing to remember, just because your eight-year-old loves reading, when he or she is 18, they may not be reading as much, and that's okay. They'll probably come back to it.   Hayley Morell: (17:40 - 17:53) And I've definitely seen that with younger siblings too, burning out and then all of a sudden back, asking for book recommendations. And it's fun to know that reading habits stick around.   Laura Dugger: (17:55 - 18:38) That's well said. And yet, even if they lie dormant for a while, they may be reawakened in adulthood. But I think I find it's less common for someone to fall in love with reading for their first time as an adult.   So, I think it's very beneficial as parents to cultivate or instill this love of reading in our children. And you two are the experts. So, I'd love to hear your take on this.   What are some of the benefits of reading? And why is it worthwhile to devote our time to curating a healthy diet of books, both for ourselves, but especially for our children?   Hayley Morell: (18:39 - 20:06) Betsy, I think you might've said this once, but I think it came up as we were talking about writing our book. As I have a small child who's just starting to notice pages and we're reading board books and he's trying to reach for it. I remember someone once said that reading to a very young child, they're not registering the story yet.   They might be registering the pictures. But the time that we're taking reading, when I read to him or when my husband gets home from work and they read one board book together, he's not really looking at the book as much as he's looking at our face and hearing our voice. And books are becoming something that we do together and that we do as a family.   And it's a way that we're building relationships. And I think that's a great encouragement to me to keep reading. And I have nieces and nephews who loved books.   And then that's something that we enjoy the story together and we'll laugh over silly stories and we'll read. But I think that it's something that as we want to like curate our collections but also think about how are we encouraging children to love reading. It's if they see us reading too and see us enjoying books and still picking up a book ourselves.   I'm not sure, Betsy, if you have anything that you would add to that.   Betsy Farquhar: (20:07 - 20:41) Well, I just think the better we read anything, the better equipped we are to read the story in the Bible because God revealed himself to us in a written book. And so, we're sort of flexing those muscles when we read. And the more we can engage with what we read, even if it's a picture book with a five-year-old, we're beginning that practice of developing discernment.   And that's part of discipling our children. So, I do think it's all part of the same picture. It's not going to look the same for every family but just working on developing those muscles of discernment and reading intelligently, that's going to go a long way.   Laura Dugger: (20:43 - 22:07) I love how you bring in the Bible that is so important. And I found myself even just this week at bedtime praying over our daughters that they would have a love for the written word because that is what God has gifted to us. And I love how the word became flesh and dwelt among us, but he is the original storyteller and has instilled that in each of us.   And I think just a very practical way at any age to help our children cultivate this love is by reading aloud. And we recently were on a family vacation and had a rental vehicle and we had a long drive-in front of us and listened to the radio for a while. But we also like this tradition of reading one book aloud on a vacation.   So, we remember our time in Florida from one year was a place to hang the moon and it was a different book this year, but I get car sick while we're driving. So, I couldn't read it aloud. So, our oldest daughter read it aloud for all of us.   And I realized how much attention and focus is required and imagination to paint these pictures of the characters in your mind. And I just thought, wow, there's so much learning that's going on even as the one listening to the book, not reading the actual words.   Betsy Farquhar: (22:09 - 22:15) And a place to hang the moon was our reader's choice favorite last year. So, lots of our readers have read that one.   Laura Dugger: (22:16 - 22:36) It's such a good one. And as wonderful as books are, they're also powerful and influential. So, as you've reiterated, discernment is required.   And I'd love for you to elaborate on why the young adult, or the YA category can be the most controversial.   Hayley Morell: (22:38 - 25:12) Young adult protagonists are often upper teenage years. And so, we like to say, as we mentioned in our book, no topic is out of bounds. And this means that there can be a lot going on and a lot of messiness.   We like to use that word as we're talking about that. And sometimes the messiness can be thought provoking. Sometimes it can be provocative.   And we have noticed often YA deals with questions of identity. Who am I? How do I relate to the world?   And that can look like lots of different things. It can include sexual identity, which can lead to a lot of conversations. But something that we like to lean into as we look at the YA genre is that in a world where everything is constantly shifting, as you have a teen and they're encountering conversations at school, conversations with peers, or using social media, having an ever-changing feed that I can look at my Instagram feed and it's going to look nothing like a teenager's Instagram feed.   Even if you're looking at the same account, the way that reels are coming, they're getting bombarded with messages. The messiest of books is static. And you both can look at that and read the cover, read what's going on, and talk about it.   And you both have the same place to have a conversation. And so, we like to lean into that when we're looking at YA books and realize they are powerful, but they're powerful conversation starters. And books like, Betsy recently read a book, and it's called Bright Red Fruit.   And it's a cautionary tale about a teenage girl who has a relationship with an older man that's predator. And he is taking advantage, trying to separate her that is an excellent conversation starter. It's not an easy book to read.   You're reading it, getting worried for this girl, but it's a great way to say, let's read this book and let's talk about what a healthy relationship looks like, because this is not healthy. So, we love YA books that can provoke conversations. And sometimes it might be you both looking at a book and going, you know, this doesn't seem helpful.   We don't need to finish this book. It's okay to stop reading a book and return it to the library.   Laura Dugger: (25:12 - 26:11) I completely agree. And even with that YA section, one of our daughters was just saying, when I go through that section of the library, it seems like every single book is about death. And it did provoke a good conversation from that.   But I think it was Sarah McKenzie who was the first person that I heard explain the difference between a middle grade novel or YA because from my understanding, middle grade isn't just for those grades. You even said younger ages can enjoy that and older. I have friends that only read middle grade novel now as adults.   So, it's not just your reading level, but YA has different rules on it where I think you said anything goes, any topic is allowed. So, it doesn't mean that YA is necessarily what you have to graduate to once you enter high school. Is that right?   Hayley Morell: (26:11 - 27:06) But yes, it's typically and the funny thing that you kind of leaned into it, some middle grade books definitely deal with coming of age or might even have a teenage protagonist, but it's written in a way that a 12 year old could read it and enjoy it. When you get into like the higher YA, it is more like young adults, people starting their own lives, having adventures, leaving home, going on quests. And like you said, bringing in some heavier topics.   Now we have seen since like in the last five years, a lot of books dealing with death and grieving that are hitting that middle grade genre too, which can be helpful. But at the same time, if you're just reading sad books, you might want to change your diet and find a fun, happy book too.   Laura Dugger: (27:07 - 27:31) Again, in a conversation like this, it has to be more general of a recommendation, but there's such a difference, I'm sure in YA for your 13-year-old versus your 18-year-old. So, for someone who does want to dip their toe into some YA books, do you have anyones that you find yourselves recommending again for that age group?   Betsy Farquhar: (27:32 - 28:42) I'll jump in here. We've got a couple of book lists on our site that are, have actual number ages attached to them. Thirteen books for 13-year-old boys is a great one for that younger teen audience.   But those tend to be, they're grappling with some coming-of-age issues, but they tend to be more adventure based in a sense and more fun. I think of the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. There's a little bit of language.   There's a little bit of romance, but it's very teen, young teen friendly. And its actually kind of a good picture of men being heroes and women are heroes in very, like the men are men, they're very masculine. And the women, even if they're part of the army, so to speak, they're still doing it in a feminine way.   So, it's just kind of a nice sort of entry into some of those conversations. But then if you fast forward, by the time teens are in their upper teens, they should be able to read adult books too. And so, you might find yourself reading something like Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, which is very much written for an adult market, but very accessible to teens if they're willing to grapple with some of those ideas.   But that book's going to be a lot heavier than a book for a 13-year-old.   Laura Dugger: (28:44 - 29:05) That's helpful just to have examples. And I think it's also helpful to put this into context by reflecting back through time. So, just in America, what have you learned about the trends and the changes in libraries, specifically over the past 75 years?   Betsy Farquhar: (29:06 - 31:30) So, I have a library degree too, so I love talking about libraries. In library science, we have a rule, it's called Ranganathan's Law, and it simply says every book is reader, which means that for every book out there, there's a reader out there. And libraries take that very seriously.   No book is off the table for a public library. We had an entire class on serving our community. So, the goal behind a public library has always been to serve the community in which it's placed.   Now that's changed a lot as our society has changed a lot. So, before World War II, most libraries were funded very locally, local taxes, they may have even been subscription-based, but after we have all these army vets coming back after World War II, they're going back to school later. We have this explosion of information access for people who can't get it.   So, the Library Services Act was the first one. We've had lots of iterations since then. Now it includes technology.   It started with giving federal dollars to rural libraries, and it's continued even to big cities now, but the focus is still on services for people who can't access them as easily. So, free Wi-Fi was a really big one before Wi-Fi was as broad spread. There are services for the blind and for other communities that might not be able to read as easily.   So, it's still sort of an information hub, but I think that makes us uncomfortable sometimes as Christians because our society has changed so much that we go into a library now and we're like, I would never read this book to my kid. Well, but your neighbor might, and the public library is not the parent of your child. The public library is serving the whole community.   So, go ahead and request them to stock some Christian books. A lot of them will buy the Christian books that you request because they want to serve you. You're part of their community.   So, I think we just have to remember that their goal is broader. My goal as a parent is far more niche than my public librarian's goal to serve her community. She's not my enemy.   Even if she's picking things for story time that I would never read to my children, it doesn't mean I have to ignore the library. I can love that those are image bearers. I can respectfully bring up my concerns, and I can suggest books and I can build a relationship with this fellow image bearer in my community.   It can be a great mission field. So, yes, libraries are continually evolving. That's why they now offer you can even check out sports equipment.   They're still trying to provide information and resources for the community.   Hayley Morell: (31:32 - 32:01) I just recommended or requested two books that were Christian picture books that aren't in our system. And one of our librarians helped me fill out the form explaining why I wanted them. And I just got a notification yesterday. Both are on hold for me and have been added to our library. So, it's exciting. If you don't ask, you don't know if you're going to get it. I honestly was surprised. I was like, oh, they actually got the books I wanted.   Laura Dugger: (32:02 - 32:56) It is so exciting when they do that. I love our local library, and the staff is just wonderful to work with. So, that's great encouragement for us to get to know them by name and have a relationship with them.   And just to zero in on that one piece after World War II, I think that's tied to what so many people call is it the golden age of children's literature where some people will say we only read books before a certain year, like mid-1900s. But I love that you guys review even modern books because it's not that it was all better back then. But I do think there's a piece of truth in it that libraries had to be so discerning back then with less funding.   And so maybe they had the best of the best available and then funds came in and we can have a wider range.   Betsy Farquhar: (32:56 - 33:40) There's so many factors here historically because we could really nerd out, but I won't. But what's also being reflected is simply printmaking technology because the ability to print paperbacks, paperbacks as like a thing weren't a thing until the 20th century. So, books were incredibly expensive.   You've got all those factors playing in too. So, not only are they getting different funding, but there is an explosion in printmaking technology that allows publishers to produce inexpensive books. And that allows families and libraries to buy more books.   It's not dissimilar to the way we have digital media now that's got its own sort of technology behind the distribution of the digital books. So, there's a lot of factors involved in that.   Laura Dugger: (33:41 - 34:03) That is fascinating. I'm glad you brought that up. And like I said, so helpful to look back.   But now if we're also looking forward, I'd really appreciate your perspective on where we're headed. So, what's on your radar for genres or books that may require even more discernment in the future?   Hayley Morell: (34:04 - 37:18) So, right now, romanticy is having a moment and that's a genre that is getting a lot of attention. There's a lot of marketing using that language. And I think it's really helpful to realize this is a marketing term.   So, Fourth Wing became very popular. That is a book that is for adults. It has a lot of explicit sex.   But it used the term romanticy and it sold very well. And so suddenly all books that are fantasy and have some romance are being called romanticy. And that could mean a lot of different things.   So, what we're seeing is this term that if it's used in the YA genre, we don't know what it means going into a book. It might mean a lot of focus on romance and some unhelpful sex. It also could mean a really fun fantasy that happens to have a romantic angle.   So, I recently gave a starred review to A Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim. That's a Chinese fairy tale, beauty and the beast type story. And it is excellent.   One of the marketing terms that used was romanticy. And it just is a wonderful fantasy story that has this thread of romance perfectly appropriate for teen readers. But that is a term that we're currently aware of.   And this is a genre that we want to notice and take with a grain of salt. It's kind of a contrast on the other side. It's differentiating between romanticy has romance and then there's cozy fantasy, which is more cottage core, comfortable feeling.   It also could have sex. So, there's, as we run into this fantasy genre, there's a lot of things going on, but it's definitely having a moment. And it's just nice to know what's going on and what cozy fantasy is going to be focused on character development, like very like a shopkeeper who inherits a cottage with a garden and grows mushrooms.   That's cozy fantasy. Romanticy is a chosen one motif who's at some dramatic school. Dark academia is also having a moment where it's a lot of angst, a lot of little bit of horror.   And some of it can be done really well because it's popular. There's a lot of it out there. And so, some discernment is required as you're figuring out, is this a book for adults or is this a book for teens?   I think I would be cautious with books that are being marketed for adults as romanticy because you could run into some things that are meant for an adult audience and might not be helpful for that teenage reader of yours.   Betsy Farquhar: (37:18 - 38:06) The only other thing I'll add, and this is sort of a different approach, but we're seeing a lot of genre blending. It's getting harder to say this is a mystery or this is a fantasy, even this is a historical fiction story. So, I think genre fiction in general is kind of having a moment.   And when we say genre fiction, we really mean things like mystery, science fiction, romanticy, these sort of sub genres that are underneath the broader terms of realistic fiction or speculative fiction is an umbrella term that includes fantasy, dystopia, science fiction, magical realism, all the little niche downstream sort of sub genres. But we're seeing some really interesting things. It's going to be harder to automatically decide I like that genre, or I don't because they're just mixing and matching elements from all over the place.   Laura Dugger: (38:08 - 39:15) Mm-hmm. That is helpful. I had never heard of some of those things that you just mentioned, but also I'd love for you to respond after I shared this story.   I had a previous guest, Megan Cabe, who used to run a blog. It was called Young Book Love and she would review, I think, middle grade novels, maybe a little bit of YA, but she would say most topics are beneficial to read, even if they're difficult, what you all refer to as messy books. But she did provide extra caution and just said she strongly advised against explicit sexual content because those mental images have a way of sticking with us.   And I agree with her. I would also add sometimes what's not appropriate for our children is not appropriate for us either. And just a funny way to remember this, I had a loved one recently who just said, “You can't sugarcoat a turd. I'd love your take on all of that.”   Hayley Morell: (39:17 - 41:54) So, we like to use the term beyond ever after when we're dealing with this idea of what romance is helpful, what is not helpful. And like you said, the age of the reader comes into play because something that might be a good conversation point with your teen, let's say dealing with a first kiss, that is something that is good to be thinking about and be talking about having healthy conversations about what is God's design for sexuality. And as you are starting to notice the opposite sex and have feelings, what do we do with those?   And again and again, it's been shown that it is helpful to have these conversations because if we're not having a conversation about what is God's view and what does God want us to do with this, our young people are going to turn to the world, which is very happy to give them a lot of talk about sexuality, but some very different perspectives and answers that are focused on yourself, let's you do you versus no, what has God given us and how are we going to steward this?   So, one of the things that I like to, that we like to be aware of as we're reviewing at Redeemed Reader is, is this a 12-year-old reading this book? And if a 12-year-old is reading a book and in the book, a 12-year-old is having a crush and it's kissing, we don't want our 12-year-olds kissing. That's not that helpful yet.   I mean, that's, that's quite young and yes, in some cultures you might, but not yet. However, if this is a book about an 18-year-old on a high school trip, like Becky Dean has some really fun YA romances that are appropriate for teens, then dealing with what is it like dating? What is it like dealing with these emotions and chemistry that can be really well done for an 18-year-old?   But like you said, we want to be aware of our imaginations. We want to be aware of what we're able to handle. And for someone, maybe reading those romances is fun and helpful.   For another, it might be unhelpful. And I think that comes down to as a reader growing discernment and knowing what you are able to read that will still be edifying.   Betsy Farquhar: (41:56 - 42:55) I'm going to piggyback a little bit. I, I agree that there, we look to scripture for what the standards are, and the Bible is not describing sexual activity in sordid detail. So, it's probably a good idea for us not to be wallowing in the same sorts of things.   And I think the same thing is true for language. In fact, it's easier to ignore profanity in a book you're reading versus listening to it. I mean, if we immerse ourselves in audio books that have, that are littered with profanity, it's going to stick in our head differently than if we're just reading it on the page.   And I think sexual activity; there are some similar dynamics at play. Obviously, a visual scene is going to be probably stick with us even more than a written scene. But either way, you know, that's part of discernment is what is my imagination doing with this?   And the overall picture of my reading diet. Is this all I'm reading? Is this what my thoughts are going towards?   Are they pointing me back to Christ? Are they promoting some helpful conversation? Or is it just sort of my guilty pleasure? Well, that should be maybe a sign.   Laura Dugger: (43:21 - 43:45) Some love stories are described as squeaky clean. But when it comes to the world of Christian romance, what are some helpful questions that we can be asking our tween or teen? And what are some healthy considerations for filtering books that we're going to allow to be consumed in our home?   Hayley Morell: (43:47 - 47:15) So, it's interesting. I think each genre of romance can have its own pitfalls. And I know I really appreciate the authors who are writing clean, squeaky-clean stories.   And as I've read them and consumed them, one of the things I've noticed is that it is clean. There's no question of something being clean. But at the same time, if the only thing we're reading, going back to having a balanced book diet, is a squeaky-clean story, I don't think that's helpful because it doesn't show an accurate view of the world.   And we want to be preparing our tweens and teens for a world where, yes, there is a happily ever after. Yes, we have the fairy tale wedding, or we have an imagination that is sparked by boy meets girl. But then what happens next?   And we live in a fallen world. And so, we have to work on relationships. We have to work on communicating.   And sometimes squeaky clean can lean so far into being safe that it doesn't actually show what it is like to have a relationship with the opposite sex. I think of one story I read and it's very superficial, playful. Snarky is often something I've noticed in the squeaky clean because we don't, we have to have some form of banter.   And so, it's perpetual sarcasm and no physical touch. But then suddenly our protagonists marry and now they're still being snarky and not touching. And as an adult, I look at that and go, that is not an accurate portrayal of what it looks like to have a romance and to have marriage.   And so, we love to ask, what are the relationships like in this book? And if that's in a middle grade novel, one of the things we love seeing is are they showing a healthy family? Are they showing parents that like being together?   Because that's at a middle grade level is you're sparking that imagination. What is our protagonist seeing as the adults around them are having relationships? Do the adults like to be together?   I just was reading a really sweet, Betsy, I think you read it. But Will's Race for Home is a story about this boy and westward expansion. And so, it's when the Oklahoma, Oklahoma land rush opens up.   And there's the sweetest time where he talks about how he knows his father loves his mother because his father will look at his mother and she will blush. And it's the sweetest age-appropriate picture of what romance looks like when you're a 12-year-old looking at your parents. And I think that type of thing can be a really healthy way of having these conversations versus having a diet that is just squeaky clean and yet might actually be showing an inaccurate portrayal of what it's like to have relationships in a fallen world.   Laura Dugger: (47:16 - 47:30) Well, let's get specific on another type of book as well. How do you advise parents to think critically on what age is appropriate to consume what you mentioned earlier, the Hunger Games or a book like that?   Betsy Farquhar: (47:31 - 49:44) Ooh, pick me. I love these kind of books. I'll read anything.   And I tend to get tasked with books that are difficult sometimes. Although many of us on our team read them and we do talk about these behind the scenes. So, when you're thinking about the age your child is and when they're ready for any book, but especially a popular one, I think part of that is our job as parents is always to be watching our children, to be students of our children.   How are they consuming media in general? What kind of video games? What kind of movies?   Are they on social media? What is their media diet like? And how are they handling that?   And if they're showing discernment in general, and they're kind of grappling with issues and ideas, then they're going to be ready for a book like the Hunger Games sooner than a child who's just blindly taking it all in. There's no magic age where you say, ooh, you're 12, you can read the Hunger Games. A lot depends on what that child's already displayed.   And I think dystopia are the books where there's some apocalyptic future and there's usually an autocratic governor or government system or it's futuresque. But they're really great books about bringing up big questions about how society works and the nature of authority and even the nature of anarchy. And they're just such great discussion starters.   But if your child isn't able to have those kinds of conversations yet, they're going to miss the forest for the trees and it's going to be all shock value. But I'm going to add a big caveat. If it's really popular and you think your child is maybe ready, maybe not quite, I would probably go ahead and read it with him or her if all of the peers are reading it.   Because I would rather my child have that conversation with me than with their friend. Or at least have it with me first before they read it with their friends. Even if we skip parts, maybe it's a book that you feel like we can't read chapter 12 for whatever reason.   Be honest with your child and say, you know what? This book has a scene I'm really uncomfortable with. Maybe give a brief summary.   We're going to keep going. But engage with your children over what is popular. I think that is the number one takeaway because they're going to find answers somewhere.   We want it to be from us.   Laura Dugger: (49:46 - 50:52) That is good. And that's why I appreciate the redeemed reader because you're putting in all this work for us because we can't pre-read everything. But when we're faced with a situation like that, it is helpful that we can choose to read some with them.   And another angle, I just love a few of your quotes in the book. First, on page 76, you write, If Genesis were made into a true-to-the-book movie, the Redeemed Reader team would not allow our children to watch it. We might abstain as well.   And then you go on for page 111 and you say, the best tool we can give our growing readers is God's word. The more they know and understand the Bible, the better equipped they will be to think discerningly, to recognize error, and to know how the Bible handles the same issues. So, will you just elaborate on this wisdom and advise us on how and why to encourage our children to read the Bible, even though it is messy?   Betsy Farquhar: (50:53 - 52:58) Well, it is a messy book, but thankfully, it's not only a messy book. I mean, if it were a movie, we have nudity very quickly. Then we have rebellion against God, and then we have murder.   And before you know it, six chapters in, the world is so bad that God is sending a flood to destroy it. So, it must have been really bad. But the Bible isn't giving us all those details.   And I think that is a big piece of the picture when it comes to discernment in literature. The Bible is not shy about telling us that people sinned. I mean, our heroes, David, infidelity, murder, you know, most of the famous people in the Bible did something egregiously wrong and sinful.   And yet the whole story of the Bible is God redeeming his people. We're all sinners. And there is hope because of Christ.   None of us can make it without Christ. And so, in the Bible, you're seeing both the mess and the hope. You're seeing God's answer to this problem.   And so, as we read scripture with our kids, one of the things that is helpful is we know what sin is. It's rebellion against God. It includes everything from sexual activity outside of marriage to gossip and pride and sort of the easy sins, right?   They're all sin. So, I think that's one thing that comes across when we're studying God's word. We also see Christ.   And when we then turn to a book, just a regular fiction book or even a nonfiction book, is the book also labeling sin as sin or at least a mistake? Or is it glorifying it? How is it handling it compared to how we know scripture handles it?   Is there any hope in the book? And where is that hope found? Are they just praying to the universe?   We're seeing universe capitalized all over the place now as sort of this amorphous deity. Well, that's not hopeful. I don't want to pray to Jupiter.   You know, we have a God who cares about us. And so just getting your kids to sort of reckon with the differences between how a book is portraying hope and judgment versus how scripture portrays it, that's going to take them a long way.   Laura Dugger: (53:01 - 53:23) That's fantastic. And your book lists at the end of each chapter are reason enough to purchase the book. But I'm sure that you've encountered additional titles since your publication date that you also enjoy.   So, will you share a handful of book recommendations, maybe some from each of those sweet spots again from your team?   Hayley Morell: (53:24 - 54:03) For young adults, we've actually mentioned both of the ones that I would add. They both have received starred reviews. A Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim.   Excellent fantasy for young adults. And then Bright Red Fruit by Sophia O'Heo. And that one is a discussion starter.   It is a messy book, but it's an excellent book for its audience. Those would be two young adult fantasies. We see a lot of young adult fantasies.   So, but I would have loved to include those in the book. We just read them later.   Betsy Farquhar: (54:03 - 55:03) So, quick correction, Bright Red Fruit's not a fantasy, but it is it is. Oh, I apologize. That's fine.   It's a discussion starter. And that usually means that there's something in there you need to know about before you read it. As a parent, I would recommend doing your homework on that book.   It's a really good book to read with your daughters, but you might want to pre-read it first. Middle grade, that's our biggest bucket. Because it's the most it's got the widest audience reach and it's just so fun.   So, some of the ones that we've really liked, The Teacher of Nomadland by Daniel Nayeri. He is a Christian author. He won the National Book Award for this book for young people's literature and a Newbery Honor.   It's fantastic. It's a story about World War II. Benny on the Case by Wesley King is a really lovely mystery that features the protagonist has mosaic down syndrome, and it's just not very common to read books with different disabilities represented.   So, that's just a really sweet story. Lots of fun.   Hayley Morell: (55:04 - 55:05) It's a great audio book too.   Betsy Farquhar: (55:06 - 56:40) Yes. Song of the Stone Tiger, another Christian author, Glenn McCarty. It's a kind of a mix of realistic fiction and fantasy.   So, it's fun. A new one that we like. And then I'll leave you with one more.   I actually have it right here. So, for those who are watching this, they can see it. It's called Radiant by Vonda Michaud-Nelson.   And it's a novel in verse, but a beautiful picture of what it means to love your neighbor. So, The Sword by Marty Murkowski from New Growth Press. It's kind of a family devotional resource.   It was the World Magazine Book of the Year. We gave it a starred review as well. The Amazing Generation is a book for kids by the same author as The Anxious Generation.   So, that book is like a super bestseller for adults. This is kind of taking that idea and helping kids know how not to be the anxious generation, right? How they can be the amazing generation.   The World Entire is a nonfiction, maybe technically a picture book, but it's really long. And it's for this audience. And it's a true story about World War II, about a rescue.   I think it was set in Portugal. And then a graphic novel that's nonfiction. I'm trying to cover all your different genres here.   This is How to Say Goodbye in Cuban by Daniel Meadez. It's about his father and how he emigrated or escaped from Cuba. But it's a graphic novel.   So, there's a lot of visual interest. So, that's a really interesting background for kids who are hearing a lot of headlines about places like Cuba. And they're like, what's really going on?   A book like that can help them understand just some of the nuance behind the headlines.   Hayley Morell: (56:41 - 58:51) One of the things about middle grades as we talk about books is that middle grade is the age where readers are just exploding. And while you might have been able to keep up with your reader, then they hit 10 or 12 years old, and you give them a stack of books and they're reading them and asking for more. So, we definitely have a lot of middle grade reviews.   Picture books, though, are another place that we just love. And there's been some recent ones that we looked at and got, oh, this would be so good for the book. Something like Tuesday's Bear by Alexander Davis.   It's this beautiful story based on a true historical event. Unclaimed luggage is where, you know, if a suitcase gets lost, what happens to the contents? Well, one family had an idea, and Alexandra tells it through the story of this little bear who gets lost and then is found.   It's the most beautiful story. As a Christian, you can see a lot of very true themes running through it. And it's a delight to read aloud.   Wild Honey from the Moon by Kenneth Craigel. It's a story about a mother shrew whose little boy is sick, and she is going to do anything, even if it means traveling all the way to the moon to get some wild honey. It's a very imaginative story.   Beautiful pictures. A couple sneak peek that are going to just, these reviews are just going up. Iguanodon's Horn by Sean Rubin.   We've loved Bolivar, it was a graphic novel he did about a dinosaur. You can tell he likes dinosaurs. This is an amazing nonfiction picture book.   And for our Christian readers, this is a book about dinosaurs that doesn't have evolution. And I think you're going to love it. One more. His Grace is Enough. This is like Dr. Zeus type rhyming. Melissa Kruger wrote it.   It's a Christian book and it's a wonderful reminder for children. When you are dealing with sin, God's grace is enough. And I think you'll find if you read this, you'll be repeating the stanzas to yourself and encouraged as you read.   Laura Dugger: (58:54 - 59:41) I love having book lists. And if any other listeners are like me, we'll finish this episode and go ahead and put a bunch of books on hold at the library, which is always so convenient. And I'm sure a lot of people aren't able to take notes right now.   Maybe they're driving or working out as they're listening to this. But I love that every episode on The Savvy Sauce now has a transcript available. So, if anybody wants these book lists, you can go to the show notes page, either on our website or click on your podcast app and the transcript is available there.   So, thank you for all those wonderful recommendations. And do you have any other helpful tips to give us as parents if we're trying to navigate this well?   Betsy Farquhar: (59:42 - 1:00:26) Yes, start at birth and start not just reading with your kids, but asking them questions. They don't, it doesn't have to be a lengthy discussion. Is Piglet a good friend to poo?   You know, if you're reading Winnie the Pooh or if you're an Elephant and Piggy fan, like my kids were. Do you think Gerald should share his ice cream with Piggy? You can just pause in the middle of the story and just get them thinking, right?   So then when you get to the Hunger Games, you can say, what did you think of the ending? Would you have liked it to end differently? Those are great open-ended questions that get people talking and engaging and that you're often running.   If you can just think, I need to engage with my kids over what we're reading, then almost any book can be a discussion starter.   Laura Dugger: (1:00:27 - 1:00:33) Well, where can we go after this conversation to find more of your book recommendations?   Betsy Farquhar: (1:00:35 - 1:01:29) I'll do this one. Redeemedreader, alloneword.com is our website. And then we're super creative.   Our Facebook is exactly the same. Redeemedreader, alloneword. Our Instagram is redeemed underscore reader.   That's kind of a long story. But if you Google Redeemed Reader, you'll find us. And then the best way, oh yes, of course our book, which is also called The Redeemed Reader.   We're so original. But the best way to experience Redeemed Reader, other than the book, is through our weekly newsletter, which Haley curates and she does a fantastic job. But there's where you'll get the latest reviews.   We put in links for other places around the web that you might find interesting, different bookish news. Haley does a really fun book trivia with picture books. So, we like to think that it's going to make your inbox a happy place.   It's not a marketing email.   Laura Dugger: (1:01:30 - 1:01:50) I love that. We will provide links to all of that in the show notes for today's episode. And you two are already familiar.   We are called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so, as my final question for both of you today, what is your savvy sauce?   Betsy Farquhar: (1:01:52 - 1:03:03) So, as a business owner and a mom and a wife, it's probably not a surprise that I love my planner, but I've been through a lot of planners in my day, and I have very specific requirements. It needs to be bound, not coil bound. There's a certain size.   I mean, I have issues. I should say I have high standards for my planner. The single best feature in my current planner is that it forces me to break down my to do list between my life to do and my work to do.   And that was a game changer for me because I am wearing a lot of hats as most women are these days. And so, I limit myself to the number of bullet points that I'm given in the planner so that my work doesn't overtake my family life. It tends to be that way, sadly, more than the other way around.   Usually, my family life is not overtaking the work life, but it just it just gives me a chance to articulate each week. You know, I've got a birthday coming up that I need to plan for or I need to make sure my I mean, I graduated my youngest last year from high school, but the senior year in high school has a lot of deadlines. And so, it just helped me prioritize those milestones for my family and not let work get in the way.   Love that.   Laura Dugger: (1:03:03 - 1:03:04) What's the name of your planner?   Betsy Farquhar: (1:03:04 - 1:03:17) It's called the commit 30. I know there are other planners that do the same sort of thing, but I love having a weekly spread and I just love breaking it out between life to do and work to do.   Laura Dugger: (1:03:18 - 1:03:20) Absolutely. That sounds amazing. I love it.   Hayley Morell: (1:03:21 - 1:05:10) And my savvy sauce, I was going to say, Betsy is the planner and Betsy, I know you wouldn't appreciate this is spiral bound. So, I echo having a planner is a great way for me to just sort through all my thoughts, put them down and organize what needs to get done. But my savvy sauce is related to tech habits.   And as we were getting ready for our first, my husband and I were talking about how could we be mindful with our phone usage? And I have to thank Betsy for recommending Andy Crouch's, The Tech-Wise Family. Love that book.   And one of the things that we decided to do was to create a charging station downstairs in our house. And when I am not working where I need my phone for authentication or sending a voice message or being on the phone, if I'm not actively working, my phone lives on its charger. And that's been a struggle for me.   I have to admit the moment I had a child, anxiety kicked in. And for the first month, the phone was on me because that's what I needed to have a little security blanket. But I've been learning to leave my phone behind.   And then I'm not tempted to pick it up and scroll. And I feel like a child again because I get to the middle of the afternoon. And since I haven't been distracting myself, I've been getting things done. And all of a sudden I'm like; it's two o'clock and it's not dinner time yet. I have all of this time because I've created some more time by using the phone as a tool. But not having it right present and honestly, just distracting myself with it.   Laura Dugger: (1:05:12 - 1:05:48) That is a good, savvy tip. I love both of those. And you two have such warm and engaging personalities.   And I love those benefits that you were talking about for people who are readers. I experienced all of that through both of you today. And you're so wise and discerning yourselves.   And I am just beyond grateful that the Lord gifted you with your intellect, but also this passion for reviewing these resources. You're benefiting so many parents and children alike.   So, thank you for the work that you do. And thank you for being my guests.   Betsy Farquhar: (1:05:49 - 1:05:57) Thank you for having us. It is all from the Lord. Anything we have that's wise and worth taking away.   The credit should go to him, of course.   Hayley Morell: (1:05:58 - 1:06:00) Ame

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deep into Matthew 21:33-46, examining Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. The hosts unpack how Christ masterfully draws the Pharisees into pronouncing their own condemnation, revealing not merely theological error but intentional usurpation of God's authority. Through careful exegesis, they explore the shocking setup of the parable—where the landowner does all the work while the tenants contribute nothing—and how this mirrors God's sovereign initiative in salvation. The discussion touches on confession, the value of full-time ministry, and the scandal of rejecting the Messiah despite recognizing His authority. This episode challenges listeners to examine whether they, like the Pharisees, attempt to claim God's work as their own. Key Takeaways God Does All the Verbs: The parable emphasizes that the landowner planted, built, protected, and prepared everything—the tenants contributed nothing yet claimed ownership of the fruit. Self-Pronounced Condemnation: Jesus draws the Pharisees into declaring their own judgment, demonstrating that even the unregenerate conscience bears witness to divine justice (Romans 2). Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error: The Pharisees weren't well-intentioned but misguided; they recognized Christ's authority as the heir and deliberately murdered Him to seize His inheritance. The Scandal of Grace: The parable's shocking element is that the landowner prepared everything before leasing the land—far exceeding normal agricultural arrangements and illustrating God's unmerited favor. Ecclesial Support for Ministry: The OPC presbytery's decision to fund a full-time call demonstrates how church structure can honor the ministry of Word and sacrament by freeing ministers from worldly distractions. Particular Repentance Matters: Westminster Confession 15.5 teaches that believers should not content themselves with general repentance but "endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly." The Stone Rejected Becomes Chief: Christ's citation of Psalm 118 reveals that the very rejection by the builders (religious leaders) was God's plan to establish the cornerstone of salvation. Key Concepts God Does All the Verbs The concentration of action verbs attributed solely to the landowner in Matthew 21:33 is theologically significant. The landowner plants, builds, digs, and rents—creating a fully functional, productive vineyard before the tenants ever arrive. This arrangement differs radically from typical first-century agricultural practices, where tenants would lease raw land and develop it themselves, sharing profits with the landowner. Jesus deliberately presents an extraordinary scenario where the tenants receive everything prepared and ready, requiring only stewardship of what already exists. This parallels God's sovereign initiative in election and salvation: believers contribute nothing to their standing before God, receiving instead a fully accomplished redemption. The Pharisees' rebellion wasn't against burdensome requirements but against simply acknowledging God's rightful ownership of what He alone created. Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error The hosts challenge the common sympathetic reading of the Pharisees as well-intentioned legalists who simply got sidetracked. Instead, verse 38 reveals the tenants explicitly recognize the son as heir and plot to murder him to "seize his inheritance." This isn't accidental rejection but calculated rebellion. The Pharisees weren't confused about Jesus's identity or authority—they understood precisely who He claimed to be and deliberately chose to destroy Him rather than submit. This interpretation carries significant weight for understanding the nature of unbelief: it's not primarily intellectual confusion but volitional rebellion. The religious leaders didn't need more evidence or clearer teaching; they needed transformed hearts. This same dynamic appears whenever humans recognize divine truth yet choose self-sovereignty over submission to God's rightful claim on their lives. The Scandal of Grace The parable begins with a scandalous premise that would have startled Jesus's original audience. Unlike normal tenant farming arrangements where landowners simply provided land in exchange for a share of whatever the tenants produced through their own labor, this landowner invests everything. He doesn't just own the property—he plants the vineyard, constructs the protective wall, digs the wine press for production, and builds the watchtower for defense. The tenants receive a turnkey operation requiring minimal effort. This extravagant preparation mirrors God's unmerited favor toward Israel and, by extension, the church. God didn't merely create humanity and wait to see what we would produce; He established covenants, sent prophets, preserved His Word, and ultimately sent His Son—all before requiring any response. The only "payment" demanded is acknowledging His ownership of what He created. The parable thus exposes the absurdity and ingratitude of claiming God's work as our own achievement. Memorable Quotes God does all the verbs. All of the verbs are done by the landowner. There is nothing expected of these tenants—they really add nothing to the landowner's land. Christ is not painting the Pharisees as well-intentioned but ultimately wrong. He's painting them as usurpers who recognize the proper authority and rather than submitting to it, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession 15.5) Transcript Welcome to episode 491 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:17] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Parable of Tenants [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picture this, Tony, your landlord. You've built the perfect vineyard. We're talking wall watchtower, wine, press, the works like what everybody says. Everybody knows you need all those things. You've got it all set up, and then you hand the keys to some tenants. You take a long trip, you go enjoy yourself. And when the harvest rolls around, you send your servants to collect the rent. And shockingly, your tenants, they beat. Stone. Another, the kill a third. So naturally you think, you know what? I'll fix this. Lemme just send more people. That's obviously the problem. There's some kind of just profound misunderstanding about what's going on here and about our relationship in this business. And then when that doesn't work, you send your son now loved ones. If this were a business strategy, we would already be calling hr. But of course it's not a business strategy, it's a parable. And Jesus is telling it to the very people about to prove the parable true. So welcome back to the Reformed Brotherhood because we're in Matthew Chapter 21 and we're gonna be actually getting all the way into the parable of the Vine growers where the patience of God looks, I would say, to almost anybody else, to humanize at least almost reckless until you realize that's exactly the point. So yeah, grab your beverage of choice, grab your Bible, pull the car over, will you? Because this is gonna get real and we're going to reason together. But before we do all of that, let's do a little affirming with or denying against, what do you got?  [00:02:41] Inside Baseball Affirmation [00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: So this is a sort of inside baseball, uh, affirmation. Um, I'm not sharing anything, although it may feel like I'm sharing something that is private and like, uh, like confidential. It's not No, this is good. Um, so I had the opportunity to visit. Um, my presbytery, um, for those who are listeners of the show or people who like, have been with us a long time, um, I was part of a Baptist church. Uh, I've always kind of been a Presbyterian at heart, but, um, our church closed, uh, a little over a year and a half ago now. And, um, uh, I've joined an OPC congregation in membership now. We've been members there for about a year. And, um, so I've been visiting Presbytery, which is the, the meeting of all of the leadership of all of the churches. So we won't do a polity breakdown here, but basically like, it's, it's the regional meeting. It's the regional business meeting or church meeting for a group of churches in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of the meetings, you know, have the normal kind of business type stuff. You have reports from different committee committees and stuff. Um.  [00:03:48] Presbytery Call Debate [00:03:48] Tony Arsenal: Where this is affirmation is coming in here is at this most recent presbytery meeting, um, was pretty heavy on, um, licensing or, or, uh, not licensing on approving men who had received a call to formal ministry within the presbytery. And so in the OPC, and I would imagine that other Presbyterian bodies are not like super different, although I'm sure there's some variation in the OPC. Um, when a church intends to extend a call to a pastor, to a teaching elder, um, to a minister, they must have the call, which is. Is both theological but is also eminently practical. Like the call is a physical piece of paper that details, you know, what the pay is, how much vacation time. So it's kind of a combination between like a theological call and also a contract. Um, the presbytery has to approve that call. And so at this most recent one, there was a couple calls that were more or less uncontroversial. There was no question about them, and they were approved pretty quickly. But there was one call, um, one call to ministry that took, I, I, I didn't time it, but it was probably like four or five hours of debate and discussion in various fashion in order to get to a point where the presbytery could approve the call. So this was a call to a minister who is being called part-time, which is unusual in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, the OPC uh, acknowledges the fact that bivocational tent making ministry is sometimes a necessity, but really views the ministry of the word in sacrament as something that should not have. Distractions. And actually our book of church order talks about, doesn't use the word distraction, I think, but it talks about a, a properly ordered call to a full-time minister includes phrasing that the congregation promises to compensate them in a way that allows them to be free of worldly burdens and cares. And I might have not, not have gotten that wording exactly right. But that's the idea. And so this call was. Explicitly, um, not a full-time call it, they actually took the language out of promising to pay him in a way that he's able to ignore or to not be distracted by worldly care. And that was intentional, but there was a lot of question in discussion at presbytery level about the fact that the call did not include the phrase or the wording of part-time or bivocational. So the conversation started out of like, can this call be modified to include that? So it's explicitly known in this man's call that his calling is part-time, which is both theological, to make sure that the call is properly formatted, but also like very practical that the congregation should acknowledge explicitly that they recognize that this person is not, not going to be putting, you know, 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week towards this position. [00:06:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:06:34] Tony Arsenal: Um. What I'm affirming is where it got to, right? So there was lots of discussion about that. There was some finagling about the retirement package. The OPC recommends that a, a minister be given a retirement contribution of no less than 5% a year of his salaried package. Um, which there's a couple line items that go into that, but 5%, and this was a little bit less than that. And this is what I'm affirming and this, I, I don't know that this is a super widespread thing that would happen all across the, um, the OPC, but it happened in the presbytery of New York and New England this past week, and it's just amazing. And I just, I just want to lay it out there and then I want to hear your reaction. [00:07:13] Funding Full Time Ministry [00:07:13] Tony Arsenal: And I, I wanna hear your reaction as the son of a minister who labored his entire adult, more or less, his entire adult career in ministry, working two or three additional jobs on top of his ministry, the presbytery decided. That because it did not like the idea of a part-time minister. They didn't think that was appropriate. They didn't think that that was good or that that was really the right goal. The presbytery allocated, I'm not gonna say the figures 'cause they're not super germane, but allocated a significant amount of money to be dis to be dispersed to the church for the next three years in order to take what was a part-time call and enable it to become a full-time call. [00:07:54] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.  [00:07:54] Tony Arsenal: And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of church bodies that would say, yeah, we don't love the idea of bi-vocational ministry. You know, we really think it's ideal that a minister could be full-time. Um, they may even put some, some theological freight behind that. Um, I have never encountered a body, um. That was willing to put a sizable amount of money towards essentially supplementing a part-time call to make it full-time. Um, this was just amazing to me, and the candidate was there. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I would love to talk to him about what he felt. I, I can just imagine the phone call to his wife who was not, not at presbytery, but to his wife, following the outcome of this to be like, you are never gonna believe what just happened. Right? This is a family who was intending to move across country. Right. He's currently a student at Westminster, California in seminary, uh, California, Westminster Seminary in California, finishing his M Div. They're planning a cross country move into a part-time position where she's probably gonna have to find a job, and then also he's gonna have to find a part-time job. He had the ability to call her on the break and be like, you're never gonna guess what just happened? You're never gonna,  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: it's wild.  [00:09:09] Tony Arsenal: Uh, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional here. You're never going to. Believe how faithful God is in this. Right. So I'm interested to hear your reaction to that as the son of a, of a try and quad at times Quad vocational. Yeah,  [00:09:23] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.  [00:09:23] Tony Arsenal: Minister who labored his entire, more or less, his entire adult career, um, working full-time in a call as a part-time, part-time minister. You know, like that's a, that's a crazy situation. So I'm just affirming that again, I don't know how common that kind of thing is in the OPC. I don't wanna make it seem like that's the norm. Um, I actually get the sense that this is probably not the norm, but it was amazing to see and it made me in intensely like. Proud in the right way of being a part of this broader body that would, would so emphasize and so value the ministry of the word and the sacrament, and the importance of a man being able to dedicate himself to that without distraction. That they would put forward this amount of money and this kind of money. They had no reason to do so. And there's no real direct benefit to the presbytery for doing this. I mean, there's an indirect benefit of like not having a church with a part-time minister, but like there's no direct benefit to this. There's no direct return on investments that's gonna come out of this. Um, it was pretty amazing to see. It was, it was, it was super encouraging.  [00:10:28] Jesse Schwamb: That is really encouraging. I, I think it's, there's no doubt that for the called pastor, their heart is in the ministry of the word. That's what they want to be doing. They wanna be doing it all the time and as much time as they possibly can, and they wanna be able to have all of their intentional focus on it. So I. I'm excited for that guy. I mean, that's just an incredible blessing to go in hoping for funding, essentially for a part-time role and to basically be told, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not enough. We want you to be committed to this fully as we know your heart is committed. As we validated that call.  [00:11:00] Why Structure Matters [00:11:00] Jesse Schwamb: I do love being a part of churches, well, lemme say it this way. There is, I think, a benefit of being part of congregations that have like a wide resource network that has like appropriate hierarchy and structure and that can be one of them. I've seen something similar in the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is the church that I'm in, not exactly the same, but I've seen some surprising allocations of resources where they basically said, you know, this is important. Like, it even trumps we're, we're gonna. Allocate or resource something so that this can move forward because it is important in a way that was like better than the person who was bringing it before them could have hoped for. Yeah. And uh, suddenly it's as if everything aligned. And it was really in part because there was this structure to come alongside, to validate as you're saying, and then to authenticate and then again to resource assets that could be used. There's, there's something to be said for that interdependency where there is kind of this hierarchical structure in which all that's happening at a level where things are codified. And again, like there's a structure and a way in which we move through those decisions to make sure that they suit the objective of the entire movement. So I guess there's nothing I'll say, but that's a beautiful thing, isn't it?  [00:12:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:12:15] Generosity in Action [00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: It was, it was, it was cool because it was like this, it was like this real. Actualization of the principle of outdoing one another and showing honor. Yeah, sure. Because you know, like the initial debate was like, Hey, you know, I'm not sure we can approve this call because the, the OPCs guidelines tell us not to approve a call that has less than 5% of the retirement benefit. And there was a lot of discussion of like, well, the presbytery can't modify the call, but we don't wanna delay this guy coming in and like, we don't wanna delay his ordination, his installation. And so the initial proposal was a, a. What feels like a large amount of money to me. But after I understood more about the, the budget of what's going on in, in the presbytery was actually a very small amount of money. Started with a very tiny, very modest proposal of basically like supplementing the retirement fund to make sure that like we could, they, I say we, like, I was part of this, I was just observing, but to supplement the retirement fund in a way that allowed the church to still proceed with the call as written, but still also make sure that this person had the appropriate retirement fund. And then that just basically was like, there would be some instruction given to the church that like, you've gotta bump this up in the next budget cycle. Like you've gotta get to the 5%. That's, that's the expectation. It went from that. And like I said, I won't give you the specific numbers, but one of the presbyters and I, I'm, I, um, I, I've known this presbyter from a distance for quite a long time and, and I have an immense amount of respect for him. He stood up and he's like, well, if we're gonna give X, why don't we just give 10 times X instead? And then actually, like the discussion was like, well, is, are we sure that 10 times X is even the right amount? Why don't we have this particular group meet over the lunch break and figure out whether that's the right number and then come back after lunch and we'll vote on it. And then they came back after lunch and it was actually a number that was even greater than 10 times X. So it was like this exercise in like. This very small proposal that was still imminently generous, right? The presbytery has no obligation to do this. There's no obligation from any of the presbyters to stand up and say like, we should. We should supplement this fund. They would've been well within their right, and no one would've looked, I think. I think some people would've been frustrated by it, but I don't think anyone would've looked sideways at it or thought it was sinful. If the presbytery just said like, we can't approve this call. You guys are gonna have to come back with it and we'll vote on it at the next presbytery. Like that would've been problematic. This, this kind of poor guy who's coming outta seminary, his call and his beginning of employment would've been delayed, but like. That would've been good and orderly, but instead they were like, one, we don't want this pulpit to stay empty longer. We don't wanna disadvantage this guy who's just getting done with seminary. We want him to get started. We don't wanna discourage him. So here's a small proposal, a very modest amount of money that we can put forward for this purpose. And then it was like, let's just keep seeing how much closer to a real full-time call we can get. And they finally came back and said like, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this in a wise fashion. They structured it. So like the first year he gets more, the second year he gets a little bit less. The third year the church gets a little bit less with the idea that like each year the church should be adjusting their budget to compensate and get this guy to that with the, the hope that like with a full-time minister, they're able to grow their congregation to the point where they can support a full-time minister. So it was just this really cool, super encouraging exercise. And what I loved about it is the only real debate that was going on was about do we need to do more? There was no one being like, wait a second, why are we, why are we putting more money to this? The whole thing was like, is this actually enough to accomplish what we think God wants to do with this person's call? Because if, if God is truly calling this man to this, this particular church, and we believe that he is. Then what do we as a, as a people of God need to do to enable that call to look like what we actually believe calls to ministry are supposed to look like, which is a full-time call to ministry that is undistracted by the cares of the world. What do we need to do? The answer in this case was like, I think we need to put a sizable amount of money to it. Um, it's a, I mean, and again. I'm not gonna say it on the air. It was not a small chunk of change. Um, it was, it was a, it was a large amount of money that was devoted to this cause and that just goes to show how much this body values the importance of a full-time minister of the word, so. [00:16:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:16:51] OPC Love and Recommendation [00:16:51] Tony Arsenal: That's enough about that. I, I could gush about how proud I am to be a part of this body and how encouraged I am and how amazing it was and how awesome this, this guy, how, how much this guy must be thanking God for the providence and like, this is the last thing. I'll say this, this young man younger than me, I think he's graduating seminary. I saw him across the room. He looks like he's probably in his mid twenties, right? Young guy. He's got a wife doesn't have kids yet coming into this ministry, not only is he coming into this ministry, but as a Presbyterian minister, when he's installed as the minister of this church. He will be joining this body of presbyters as the, as his brothers like. He is not a member of the local church. He's a member of the presbytery, which is the regional church. So now he's coming into this fully supported by his brothers in the presbytery that he saw go to the mat to make sure he was properly taken care of, that the congregation was not unintentionally taking advantage of his labor, but also that he knows that all of these men are willing to do what they need to do to make sure that his ministry is successful and edifies the church like that is. Uh, I don't want to gush on Presbyterianism too much, but like that is Presbyterianism at peak form, right? This is the body of elders making sure that every church in the region, even the ones they're not directly ministering in, has what it needs to succeed and to honor God and to do what needs to happen. So I'm affirming the presbytery of New York and New England and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, I have been so blessed by knowing many of these presbyters. I've been so blessed by being a part of the congregation that I am. There are lots of really great churches and really great denominations out there. If you are looking for a church and there is an OPC congregation in your area, absolutely go check it out. I know it feels stuffy sometimes, and I will admit, like sometimes it feels a little bit overly traditional in terms of like just the vibe of the congregation,  [00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:18:52] Tony Arsenal: But press past that because I don't think, I don't think you will find, um. You may find lots of congregations that are as faithful. I don't think you're gonna find many that are more faithful than your average OPC congregation. So I could be wrong. I just, I just love the OPC. I just really, really love it. So that's my affirmation. What do you got for us, Jesse?  [00:19:18] Denial Catholic Confession Math [00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: I think I got denial, which is maybe a little bit unusual for me. [00:19:21] Tony Arsenal: As long as you're not denying the OPCI think we're fine.  [00:19:23] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's, it's not, it is church related and I, I'll try to keep it short 'cause I think I can make this way longer than it, it probably should be, but lemme think how to phrase this. So, I don't know with a devil negative, I guess when I'm a denying against is maybe not enough confession by your own standard. So the, I'm gonna try to make this so brief. I, I just happened to be out with my wife this afternoon and we had to run errands. We got stuck in traffic and this gave me longer than usual to sit in front of our. Very local and very large Catholic church. So I happen to be looking at their sign. It's a very large congregation. I've been actually been in this one on a couple of occasions for funerals. So not only do I know its size and scope, but again, if you get, if you get on this road at the wrong time on the Lord's day, you're gonna be stuck for a long time because there are so many people that attend. I say that because I noticed on the sign that there were three times for mass on the Lord's Day. So that also says something about the number of people coming through. And then on the sign though, underneath it said for confessions, go to our website. Mm-hmm. So I was like, man, I gotta lick this up because I can't tell if they're telling me I can confess on the website or if it's go to the website for the times. And I said to my wife, only half jokingly, if I can confess online, I'm gonna confess something. So I went to, I went to the website and, and sure enough it was almost disappointingly. It was just the times.  [00:20:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:46] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I've found interesting, which just launched me into this like deep rabbit hole. There were three times for confession. Two of those times were just a half an hour, and the third time was an hour. So, uh, what I did was I went through, actually, I think what they had on there was, was three full hours a week. It was a little bit confusing, but I think it was three full hours. Now I think about it. So I went back, I just couldn't help myself, Tony. So I started to think, alright, let's say. I think it's fair to assume  [00:21:15] Tony Arsenal: math, Jesse is kicking in right now. Yes. You're gonna calculate how many minutes per, per person is what you're doing. I'm thinking, ah,  [00:21:22] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it's something like that. So what I thought was, I don't think it's, uh, I was gonna be conservative. I wanna be fair. I wanna be fair. So, and now we should say like, I think most people realize that the Catholic understanding of confession and the Protestant one is, is very different. The Catholic sacrament of confession is the right through which Catholics are gonna confess their sins to a priest receive absolution, and it's gonna restore the relationship with God in the church. And, and they're gonna believe that the priest acts as a person of Christ and is bound by the seal of confession and an absolute kind of obligation. Uh, of course never to reveal what was disclosed during that process. So, by the way, the website that I went to, lovely instructions. I mean, I was like, wow. I was reading it to my wife who was, uh, not familiar with this at all, and she was like, they can make you do stuff. And I was like, well, yeah. I mean, obviously like there's, there's a portion of this where there's contrition or penant penance. It could be a prayer, it could be act of charity, like all kinds of stuff. So I went back and I thought. I don't think it's unreasonable that there's 350 persons that would say, let's say an average, uh, that would wanna take part of confession. Now, let's say that they did that at, at least monthly, just once a month. And, and I don't know how people's conviction is on that, but I'm gonna say conservatively once a month. Let's say that, and I don't think this is unreasonable, Tony, but you tell me. Let's say you're, you're trucking, you're moving through confession. Let's say it's five minutes a piece. So we're up to 1,750 minutes, uh, per month. That's the demand on the priest because I was, I was looking at this time and I was thinking something is strange here to me, so. That was the demand then, and I'll spare you the other math, which could be very long and un uninteresting. I'm coming up with, you'd need 2.24, two and a quarter priests, which of course you can't have a quarter priests or a quarter person for any reason. So you'd hire, you'd hire three priests, which satisfy the demand if, and the major assumptions here, that is like everybody can't show up at the same time. Obviously, I'm assuming that like everybody has their own time, they're spreading it out. So everybody gets the confession, but it's just five minutes. And I, I have no idea. I mean, if you're a Luther, that's certainly not sufficient time.  [00:23:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:23:20] Jesse Schwamb: And you would need three priests. Now here's the thing that I just kind of backed into that, besides like three being like, okay, that, that's, you would need three priests just to satisfy this congregation. If they're confessing for five minutes, once per month. Uh, by the way, if you said, well, half the congregation is going to go weekly, uh, then you, you would double the number of priests you need to 5.98 or six. But here's, here's the bottom line for me. This is why the denial comes in about maybe not enough, is. If you were just to distill that down to like, if you could have one priest cover that time, that there's a demand for like 779.4 hours, or excuse me, minutes of confession, that priest would only be allocating approximately like seven and a half percent of their working hours, their work toward handling confession. This seems like not enough confession given the standards of confession in the Catholic church. And again, I know that I'm, I'm now allocating that to one priest and I just told everybody you need three. That's true. So if you had these three now, if you hired three just to meet the demand, that would only be about like three and a half or a little under three and a half percent of their combined time. So the denial is Catholics, I think, unless I'm way off in some of my assumptions here, you might not be confessing enough by your own standards because  [00:24:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:24:34] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, that seems like not enough time.  [00:24:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:24:39] Ritual Faithfulness Explained [00:24:39] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, um. I don't want to be too bombastic here, but I think,  [00:24:46] Jesse Schwamb: I think I already started this on this  [00:24:48] Tony Arsenal: path. Maybe this, maybe this isn't all that bombastic. Um, because this is so much about ritual and actually I say this is gonna sound really, we, we go, but trying to think from the Roman Catholic perspective, it's actually not, and I'll I'll tell you a brief story, uh, to explain it. Um, a lot of Roman Catholics are just going through the motions. [00:25:13] Jesse Schwamb: That's true.  [00:25:14] Tony Arsenal: But the point, the, the, the point of contention actually is that going through the motions is valuable for the Roman Catholic, right? So I, I knew this, uh, this young woman when I was in college who was a Roman Catholic, and we had many discussions about, about the differences between Protestantism and and Roman Catholicism. And what I came to understand is that going to mass for her. Itself was an act of faith. And so for the Roman Catholic, the concept of, of faith is different than the concept that Protestants operate under. So for the Roman Catholic who, um, goes to mass, even when they feel like they're, like, when they think they're just going through the motions, going through the motions is itself the act of faith. And that's because for most of Roman Catholics, most of Roman Catholicism, faith really equals faithfulness, right? So, so doing the act is the act of faithfulness. Doing the act is faith. Where for the Protestant, like faith is about belief and trust and knowledge. Like it's, it's an. Not entirely intellectual, but it's, it's an inward thing for the Roman Catholic faith is an out is primarily an outward thing. It's what you do, it's how you act. It's faith formed in love. It's faith formed in charity.  [00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:26:37] Tony Arsenal: So I think most Roman Catholics going to obligatory confession first. I think once a month is probably like, probably more frequent than most Roman Catholics go to mass or go to confession. Um, I thought I read a stat that it was like every six months is, is pretty average and I think that's what's required by the church maybe even once a year is, is required by the church. Um, I think like most Roman Catholics go into the, the confessional booth and like father forgive me for I've sinned. It's been such and such a number of days since my last confession. Right. And they may bring up a couple particular things that they've done and, and then I think the priest commonly absolves them of all of their sins. Like, almost like in an omnibus fashion and then prescribes their acts of penance, which is it, it like, honestly, it's probably things they should already be doing as a faithful Catholic saying Hail Marys and doing our fathers and acts of charity and things like that. So I think your math is probably right. [00:27:39] Protestant Repentance Particular [00:27:39] Tony Arsenal: I think your, your theory that more confession is probably like, I'm gonna read this from, uh, the Westminster confession, just to, just to say it here, is, this is chapter 15, which is titled of Repentance Under Life. And this is, uh, this is section five or paragraph five. It says, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but is every man's duty to endeavor, to repent of his particular sins, particularly. And I think that's just such a beautifully phrased sentence like. Not only is it like potent theologically, but like, it just, it just feels good, like in terms of like the English language to repent of your particular sins, particularly. And like the idea is yes, Protestant reform, Christians affirm a general repentance from sin, right? We repent of our sin before the father, uh, as a result of our, of our coming to faith in Christ. And as part of our sanctification, we mortify our sin and we, Viv we are vivified by the spirit and repentance falls in that ongoing sanctification process. And there is this general repentance of like, I repent of the fact that I'm a sinner and that I commit sins, but there is this element in the reformed faith of like, I should be confessing to God. And I think by extension, like we should be confessing to our fellow Christians, our particular sins, our individual sins, and we should be doing that on particular occasion. And I think like. The Luther style confession of like going into the confessor and confessing like every particular sin. Particularly I think most Roman Catholic priests would, priests. Priests would probably have the same reaction Tobits did where he was like, get outta here. Like, come on dude. Like just go live your life and like deal with it. I think that's probably the reaction most Catholic priests would have. But yeah, I think you're right. Like if we're really talking about like. Five, five minutes of confession once a month and that somehow having some sort of spiritual efficacy. I'm not sure I buy that math. Like I think you're, you're probably spot on.  [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:29:47] Confession Hours Oddities [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: I just was curious about how many priests would be required and then the allocation of the duties. By the way, you are right. So I, because I had to check on this, the, the fourth letter in council of 1215 does say that the church requires confession of any grave or mortal sins at least once a year. But the church, yeah, strongly encourages more frequent confession as a spiritual practice, even for, of course, like the venial or the less serious sins in their eyes. So yeah, my thought here was just that. I think it's actually undervalued by way of the math. Like the, as the kids say, the math just isn't math thing for me on this one. But I was more curious about, since this is one of the seven sacraments, even if you just said like, well, it should have at least one seven of the allocation. That's like, what? Like something like 14%. And so this is, um, almost half of that. I just found it a little bit, a little bit odd and yeah, I think you'd have to be, uh, so in other words, when I looked at the, basically, here's the bottom line. When I looked at the hours for confession one, there were weird times and uh, two, I was like, that doesn't seem like enough hours. Like, it was just more like that. Like how that's like saying like, Hey, the post office is open three hours a week, and by the way, one of those hours is from seven to eight o'clock on Friday. Like they had some hours. One hour just on Friday was like, I guess that's the way you wanna start your weekend is like, let's get all of this off my chest. Yeah. And, and do it. Right. And the last thing I'll say by the way, is you're correct. When you look at the instruction they give you, and this is common of course, toward the end, when they say like, here's how you like wrap up your part. Actually everybody should go read, go to the local, local Catholic church website and read the instructions. 'cause in some ways they're just interesting and kind of, um, I don't wanna say funny 'cause I'm not making fun. I'm just saying like, they have to give you instruction if you've never done it before. And so most of us are not really probably familiar with the process and they give you explicit instruction and toward the end it's like, here's how you kinda like hang up the call with the priest. And it's like you said, you know, these are my sins and all others, would you be willing to forgive? So you're right. Right. They just kinda wrap them all up because it's sins of omission, sense of commission, it's all to be together. But I, I wonder, you gotta think there's people in there that are like. The priests are like, okay, man, just yeah. Wrap, come on, wrap, wrap it up.  [00:31:55] Confession Timing Talk [00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: And other people that come in are just like, you know, forgive me father. And uh, lastly to your point, when they give you instruction about how you should start, of course you're always to signify how long it's been since your last confession. Right. Confession. And they say parenthetically, like, reference the days, weeks, months, or years. So you're right. There are gonna be people that probably do it very frequently and probably people who do it infrequently still, I would say I just couldn't believe for a church this large, that there was just three hours a week.  [00:32:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: For everybody else.  [00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:23] Vance and Papal Authority [00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: This leads me to two very brief sub, uh, denials slash affirmations. Uh, I don't know if you saw this, um, this is not a political statement, right? I, I have lots of feelings and thoughts about the current administration and I think most of my feelings and thoughts would surprise. Everybody. But I thought it was hilarious because JD Vance, who is a Roman Catholic, uh, confessed Roman Catholic part of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, he ha I, I'm not sure if I'm affirming or denying this, there was this funny, uh, funny exchange. I think he was at doing like a, doing like a TPU, I don't know, speech. He was doing a speech at some conservative event and he said something like, I think that the Pope should be more careful when he makes theological statements. I'm wanna be like, do you understand what the pope is in your religion? That was one of my sub denials. Uh, I don't remember what the other one is, so it must not have been that important. It'll come back to me at the worst possible moment and I will try very hard not to interrupt our show for it, but I probably will fail.  [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:33:25] Reading Matthew 21 [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we, we gotta get to some scripture because. We're, we're doing this old school style where we take like half the time and just talk about affirmations. It's true in house. It's true. Which is great fun. But let's, let's get back to Matthew 21. And I, I know we did this last time, but I am gonna rock through the passage 'cause of course, that's the best part of any of our discussion, is actually hearing from, from the Holy Spirit through the scripture, uh, which he's given to us. So this is, uh, Matthew 21, starting in verse 33. And you're gonna hear the, the whole thing right here. Uh, this is Jesus speaking. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey. Now, when the high risk time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit, and the vine growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son. But when the vine growers saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you ever read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they're regarding him to be a prophet. [00:35:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:35:30] Pharisees Condemn Themselves [00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: This is like a super heavy parable. Right. And we talked a lot last week about how like the point of this parable is not necessarily to try to instruct the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Like it's not to instruct the people who were going to reject Christ, uh, the, the builders who would reject the cornerstone. It's really a parable to teach those. Who are observing this process happening. But I think it's, I, I think it's really interesting just listening to you read this and reading through it, and I guess this is a question I haven't asked and I, I need to study a little bit more. It's crazy to me in verse 41, um, Christ seems the, the, the, um, Matthew seems to say here, and maybe I need to do a little bit more Greek study, so bear with me and, and have grace if I'm wrong here. Matthew seems to say that like Christ asks the people he's speaking to, the Pharisees he's speaking to, what is he gonna do to these people? And the Pharisees answer, he's gonna put those wretches to a miserable death.  [00:36:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:36:37] Tony Arsenal: Like the people listening to this parable understand the outcome, like they understand the. The consequence that the, the, the vineyard owner or the vineyard tenant tenants are facing based on their lack of faithfulness to the covenant. To me, that is like a really striking part of this parable. And, and it's not even like the parable proper, but like the striking element of the context of this is that nobody listening to this parable, including the Pharisees that this parable has basically spoken against, nobody fails to see the gravity of the consequence of rejecting God's emissary, like rejecting the Messiah. That to me is like a really, I dunno, paradigmatic. Portion of this that I think we need to grapple with. This is not an unclear, an unclear outcome. This is not, this is not masked or vague or OPA opaque. Like everybody understands, the people who reject the Messiah are going to face dire and eternal consequences for that act. [00:37:48] Jesse Schwamb: That does make this really interesting, doesn't it? Because it's not just entirely like Romans one adventures or even Romans two. It's that this is what Jesus does and he does it in a profound way that's not trickery like I think kinda like you're saying like the lead up to this isn't as if he's even leading the witness. He's making it very clear, all like the parameters of the story and the characters involved and what should be the proper judgment. And it's not as if like they start saying, they're like, oh, we shouldn't say anything more like we, we plead the fifth because it's gonna condemn ourselves. He draws his audience in to producing and pronouncing like their own sentence. It's very much like, I think I mentioned this last time, the prophet Nathan and David, isn't it? It's the exact same. Yeah. And the verdict is unanswerable, like even in its own terms. These other, like these other vine growers, prefigures of course like the inclusion of the Gentiles and the apostolic office. But I like that what Jesus does here, even before he gets to that point, is he extorts from them an acknowledgement of the punishment which awaited them. And so in this way there's like, I think the Puritans use this passage a lot actually to demonstrate that the natural conscience even of like the unregenerate, still bears witness to divine justice. That's Romans two. Like they, they can't get out from underneath it and Jesus isn't using any trickery on them to get them to say this thing. They are compelled in their own way, even being unregenerate to, like you said, even as they're rejecting the Messiah to recognize that punishment is due these characters in the story, even as they perceive at the end that they are those characters. [00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Saying we'll receive the judgment.  [00:39:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:25] Usurpers Not Misguided [00:39:25] Tony Arsenal: And I think too, like, um, this is kind of one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, right? Like Christ is both recognizing the intention of their heart as well as prophesying. And, and not just prophesying, but like inception level prophesying the, the outcome of the intention of their heart. And so like, again, like we've, we spent a whole week kind of like leading into the parable and now we spent a whole week, we're gonna spend a whole week again kind of leading into the parable. This is such a deep parable, and that like Christ is not just laying bare. The fact that the, the people who were going to reject him were doing so out of this sort of like attempt and intention of usurping the kingdom of God for their own purposes. I think that brings a layer to this that we don't often appreciate in. Christ's interaction with the Pharisees. I think sometimes, and maybe this is because I just listened to an episode of where Matt Whitman on the 10 minute Bible hour talked about this. I think sometimes we actually have a tendency to sort of be sympathetic to the Pharisees where we think, you know, they were, they were just trying to obey God's law and they got a little sideways on it and you know, they were putting these boundaries in place, but they were doing it in this sort of like misguided attempt to protect the people. Christ actually here seems to contradict that in that the comparison he's making is not to a, a well-intentioned group of people who just get it wrong, but he's painting the Pharisees, the, the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the chief priests. He's painting them as these usurpers who recognize the proper authority of right. The master and his emissaries and ultimately of his son, they recognize this proper authority and rather than submitting to it and submitting to the covenant obligations that they, they already actually agreed to, instead of doing that, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own right. It's not just that they do the wrong thing, it's that they recognize the heir, which is Christ. They recognize this heir and they kill him to try to take his place. That is a really heavy element of this parable. Christ is not painting. Um, the, the, the Pharisees here, the, the religious leaders. He's not painting them as um, well-intentioned, but ultimately wrong, which is I think a lot of times, and I think there's reason to do this right. I'm not being overly critical and I've done this, I've actually done this myself, and I think there's some. Space for it. Like the Pharisees were wrong, but they were wrong, kind of in the right direction sometimes. Um, Christ is not really on board with that, at least in this parable. Right. This isn't about them thinking that the heir was a threat, and so killing the threat in, you know, inadvertently this is them absolutely seeing who the hair, who the heir is, and intentionally deciding to reject that heir and to murder him and to try to take his inheritance. Mm-hmm. That's an affront to not only the heir who they murder, but an affront to the owner of the vineyard himself, which of course in this parable is figured to be God the father primarily. But God in sort of general terms, like the whole Godhead, um, with Christ as the second Adam has, as his representative, as his heir. This is a really heavy parable and I think where this comes into play for us in our own Christian life is. Are there times where we. Sort of do the same thing in refusing to, maybe it's tie into your denial a little bit. Like refusing to acknowledge our own sinfulness, refusing to acknowledge the ways that God has provided for us. Um, do we at times look at what we have and lay claim to it as though it is our own inheritance that we've taken? Um, right. Do we kind of crucify the son of God anew in, in refusing to repent of our sins particularly? I dunno. I think those are some open questions for us to kind of explore as we dig into this a bit more. [00:43:54] Jesse Schwamb: And that may relate as well to, well eventually at some point, I dunno, like 2040, get to like the parable of the talents. There's some similarity there with a little bit, right? You're saying? I think you're right.  [00:44:06] God Does All the Verbs [00:44:06] Jesse Schwamb: And where I think we can anchor some of that is in those first couple of verses. I'm really always impressed by really the number of action verbs that are packed within, like that just initial statement of Jesus explaining the situation. [00:44:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:44:19] Jesse Schwamb: So he sets it all up and he's saying there's a planting that goes on, this landowner puts up a wall, digs a wine press. Builds a tower and then RINs it. So there's all these like amazing things being done, all this action verb. And I, I think in part why he comes against the Pharisees so hard in the same way that we're looking at like the parable that, uh, the, uh, talents for instance of saying like, what did you do with that was entrusted to you was like this great treasure which Christ has entrusted or God has entrusted to his people, which is, is the gospel essentially is, is all a prophetic witness, is like the truth of who God is and his revelation of himself. And so I think. The first thing we gotta see in those verbs is that there's this emphasis that the vineyard was God's sovereign creation. You know, he plants it, he chose it, he established it. Israel didn't plant herself. She was planted. And that sovereign initiative is foundational, I think in, like you're saying, the parables indictment, because these vine growers, they don't possess anything that they did not receive. Right. You know, they did not find a vineyard already planted, but God himself made it from the wilderness that all his glory, all the glory might be his. So. I think it's helpful for us to observe that the church is always the planting of the Lord and that no congregation flourishes that is not first planted by God. And so there is a major offense here when those who are to care for it, who know, like you're saying, that they ought to care for it, who understand something about the hierarchy and the way it has been entrusted to them. Not to only break that covenant, but then seek to try to usurp the power in the roles of those whom they should be, quite frankly, in our own language, like under shepherds too. And so it starts with all, all those verbs. Like I think we could probably spend a. A lot of times just speaking about what does it mean? Why? Why is there all this explicit in particular language about the fact that there's a hedge and there's a press besides just these are part in piece mail or part and parcel of what it means to have a vineyard, apparently, but that they're all part of this narrative of God talking about how he protects and cares for his people and sets them in a place and chooses them and is particular about the construction and does so with great volition and authority and care and concern and creative ability. And then again, you have those who are meant there to do the very job that he's entrusted them with. And not only are they not doing that, and of course you're right. Jesus elsewhere, comes in, comes in hot, right, with a Pharisees saying like, listen, you set burdens on people's backs that you yourselves cannot lift. You're twice as in the hell as anybody else, and that's who you are. Yeah. It's not just hypocrisy, but you're literally setting people up to fail in this. So you can see how you're right. It's not just like, guys, I appreciate that. Like you wanted to set up some additional boundaries and maybe you took it a little bit too far. This parable is just scorched earth. It's, it's nuclear. Yeah.  [00:47:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:47:11] Scandalous Vineyard Setup [00:47:11] Tony Arsenal: And you know, I think, um, we are obviously gonna spend another week on this 'cause we still have not really addressed a single verse in this parable. I, I think like a lot of ink has been spilled on explaining sort of like the feal agricultural arrangements of this passage. What it represents. M my understanding is. A typical arrangement would be that a, a landowner would basically just lease out land and the tenants would be responsible for the planting, for the development. Right. And the, the, the landowner would essentially just collect a portion of whatever they produce. Right. This parable is actually taking this a step further. Exactly. That it's not as though the landowner just says like, all right, you can use this land. Right. And I own the land, so I get a portion of the pro, the profit. He's actually done all the work. Yes. And all that. The, all that the, the tenants need to do essentially is reap the harvest and then provide the portion of the harvest that belongs to the landowner, and so there is a greater investment. Of the landowner into this land than would be expected. We've commented in the past about how a lot of times the, the parables start on sort of a premise of shock. Like there's a, there's an element of the setup of the, of the parable where the audience would kind of like sit back and gasp or kind of be like, wait a second. Like that's not normal. Right. In the parable of the, the, um, lost son, it was the idea that like the son demanded his inheritance. And that wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the father just granted it. Right. Or, um, the lost sheep, like the, there's actually a sort of a shocking element to the fact that like the, the land, the like sheep owner would just go get this other sheep. So we've, we've commented on there's kind of like. There's sort of like a scandalous setup. The scandalous setup in this is not that the land has been leased to tenants, right? It's that the land has been prepared for the tenants before it was leased out in the first place. And I think that's something we might miss if we read over this too quickly, is. The landowner has prepared everything for these, these tenants.  [00:49:30] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So the, the, at the, the punchline of the parable where they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of, um, sovereignty and maybe a lowercase s in the, in the context of the parable, they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty and the rightful claim of the tenant or of the landowner on the, the profit of the land. And sort of like highlighter emphasized by the fact that they actually didn't do any of the work. There's a certain kind of like Amer, like American rugged individualism where we're kind of like, yeah, like if I planted all the crops, then it's kind of lame that this guy's coming in expecting to take a portion of it, right? Like, yeah, I guess he owns the land, so maybe he gets a little piece of it, but like, who does he think he is? All of that already is already short circuited. Like I. The, these tenants are not actually, um, portrayed as doing anything in this parable. That's right. Like they just lease the land. They, they, um, and leased is not really like the right. The right word, the, the Greek word is omi, which is like he gave over the land to them. Um, when we say leased, we have this idea that like the tenants pay to use the land and then like part of their contract is that whatever profits they reap, uh, off the land goes back to the, to the landowner. This is really more like the landowner graciously allowed them to live on this land, and the only payment he required was that they would eventually provide him part of the profit back. Like he's planted the land, he's put up the fence around it. He dug the wine press so that they could make a product out of it. He built the tower so it would be defended. Yes. And he gave it over to them essentially just to like live on until it was time for the harvest. And all he is asking for is basically like, alright, so this is my land. I've planted the vineyards, the profit is mine to have. And so when the time came for him to come claim that that's where they have now rejected him. Yes. That's where they've now said like, I know you did all the work and really graciously allowed us to live in this land, but we're gonna keep all of it for ourselves. That's the scandal of this. That's what I think like the original audience would've set up and like, wait a second here. Like, hold on. They didn't even plant the vineyards themselves. They didn't even build the tower themselves. That's really the force of this that I think we miss when we, when we overemphasize, trying to think through like what the original agricultural arrangements were. 'cause this is painted. Very different than what the original arrangements would've been typical for. Like this is a different scenario and I think intentionally so,  [00:52:09] Jesse Schwamb: and we need those words like rented, at least in English, to help us understand that it didn't belong to them. It wasn't a gift, right? It wasn't as if like it was just turned over in the sense that it belongs to you now do with it what you will. And it's very clear in the passage one, like you said, that the landowner does all those things. So it was a, you know, he completely set it up. I mean, this is just such a beautiful, I think, depiction of the hold of prophetic, you know, understanding of God's word here, but it's very clear that says the, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. So you're right. The scandal is that they're like, well, obviously. They need to give him his fruits, like  [00:52:48] Tony Arsenal: right.  [00:52:48] Jesse Schwamb: It was all set up before he left on this long journey. He then turned it over to them to care for, and that was really all that they were supposed to do. They had no role in this. And so it does like lead us in into this weird space where it's like, well, well what, what did the Pharisees think they were trying to do themselves? What does actually Jesus commenting on, on their own, like licit on their own initiative here, is he basically saying that not only are they not respecting his sovereignty, but they were trying to claim for themselves what only rightly belongs to God that even their position right. Society in culture as their representatives, God himself, they wanted to take that over for themselves, which he does bring that condemnation upon them in other parts of the scripture. So again, this is really hot. I think it's a, it's both heat and light, but there's no doubt that there's fire to this, right? Because it's a direct indictment that God the father set all of this up. You yourselves are on rented property, but guess what? Even the property that you've rented, I'm not exacting a tax from you as if like you have put forward and grown or supplied or created some kind of profitable outcome here. And I just want a piece of that. He's not even talking about tithing in that sense. What he's basically saying is, none of this belongs to you. Like how? Right? How dare you? None of this is yours. I set all of this up and in fact, because you've done so poor poorly at this, I'm gonna take it away from you and give it to those who actually produce fruit and guess what's gonna be the Gentiles? So it's, there's a wild. Amounts of condemnation packed into a very small story.  [00:54:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It really is.  [00:54:22] Tenants Add Nothing [00:54:22] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is nothing expected of these tenants. Right. There's no contract, like there's no terms, they, they really add nothing to the, the landowner's land, except I guess maybe they're the ones harvesting these, this fruit. Right. But even that's not explicit in the parable.  [00:54:43] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:54:43] Tony Arsenal: Right. Right. He, he does all just to steal your thunder, like he does all the verbs. Yes. All of the ves are done by the landowner.  [00:54:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Right  [00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: on. There is an implication that the, the tenants are somehow like the ones harvesting this, or they're the ones producing the wine, I guess, in the wine vat or the wine press. But at the end of the day. A normal tenant landowner agreement would be, I'm, you're, first of all, you're probably gonna pay me to use this land, right? You're paying me to use this land, and the way you pay me is you're gonna plant the, the gr the crop. You're gonna harvest it. You're gonna make the produce, and all I'm gonna do is let you live on this land. I'm gonna take the pro, like the profit, you're gonna pay me outta that profit. There is nothing asked or expected of these, th

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deep into Matthew 21:33-46, examining Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. The hosts unpack how Christ masterfully draws the Pharisees into pronouncing their own condemnation, revealing not merely theological error but intentional usurpation of God's authority. Through careful exegesis, they explore the shocking setup of the parable—where the landowner does all the work while the tenants contribute nothing—and how this mirrors God's sovereign initiative in salvation. The discussion touches on confession, the value of full-time ministry, and the scandal of rejecting the Messiah despite recognizing His authority. This episode challenges listeners to examine whether they, like the Pharisees, attempt to claim God's work as their own. Key Takeaways God Does All the Verbs: The parable emphasizes that the landowner planted, built, protected, and prepared everything—the tenants contributed nothing yet claimed ownership of the fruit. Self-Pronounced Condemnation: Jesus draws the Pharisees into declaring their own judgment, demonstrating that even the unregenerate conscience bears witness to divine justice (Romans 2). Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error: The Pharisees weren't well-intentioned but misguided; they recognized Christ's authority as the heir and deliberately murdered Him to seize His inheritance. The Scandal of Grace: The parable's shocking element is that the landowner prepared everything before leasing the land—far exceeding normal agricultural arrangements and illustrating God's unmerited favor. Ecclesial Support for Ministry: The OPC presbytery's decision to fund a full-time call demonstrates how church structure can honor the ministry of Word and sacrament by freeing ministers from worldly distractions. Particular Repentance Matters: Westminster Confession 15.5 teaches that believers should not content themselves with general repentance but "endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly." The Stone Rejected Becomes Chief: Christ's citation of Psalm 118 reveals that the very rejection by the builders (religious leaders) was God's plan to establish the cornerstone of salvation. Key Concepts God Does All the Verbs The concentration of action verbs attributed solely to the landowner in Matthew 21:33 is theologically significant. The landowner plants, builds, digs, and rents—creating a fully functional, productive vineyard before the tenants ever arrive. This arrangement differs radically from typical first-century agricultural practices, where tenants would lease raw land and develop it themselves, sharing profits with the landowner. Jesus deliberately presents an extraordinary scenario where the tenants receive everything prepared and ready, requiring only stewardship of what already exists. This parallels God's sovereign initiative in election and salvation: believers contribute nothing to their standing before God, receiving instead a fully accomplished redemption. The Pharisees' rebellion wasn't against burdensome requirements but against simply acknowledging God's rightful ownership of what He alone created. Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error The hosts challenge the common sympathetic reading of the Pharisees as well-intentioned legalists who simply got sidetracked. Instead, verse 38 reveals the tenants explicitly recognize the son as heir and plot to murder him to "seize his inheritance." This isn't accidental rejection but calculated rebellion. The Pharisees weren't confused about Jesus's identity or authority—they understood precisely who He claimed to be and deliberately chose to destroy Him rather than submit. This interpretation carries significant weight for understanding the nature of unbelief: it's not primarily intellectual confusion but volitional rebellion. The religious leaders didn't need more evidence or clearer teaching; they needed transformed hearts. This same dynamic appears whenever humans recognize divine truth yet choose self-sovereignty over submission to God's rightful claim on their lives. The Scandal of Grace The parable begins with a scandalous premise that would have startled Jesus's original audience. Unlike normal tenant farming arrangements where landowners simply provided land in exchange for a share of whatever the tenants produced through their own labor, this landowner invests everything. He doesn't just own the property—he plants the vineyard, constructs the protective wall, digs the wine press for production, and builds the watchtower for defense. The tenants receive a turnkey operation requiring minimal effort. This extravagant preparation mirrors God's unmerited favor toward Israel and, by extension, the church. God didn't merely create humanity and wait to see what we would produce; He established covenants, sent prophets, preserved His Word, and ultimately sent His Son—all before requiring any response. The only "payment" demanded is acknowledging His ownership of what He created. The parable thus exposes the absurdity and ingratitude of claiming God's work as our own achievement. Memorable Quotes God does all the verbs. All of the verbs are done by the landowner. There is nothing expected of these tenants—they really add nothing to the landowner's land. Christ is not painting the Pharisees as well-intentioned but ultimately wrong. He's painting them as usurpers who recognize the proper authority and rather than submitting to it, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession 15.5) Transcript Welcome to episode 491 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:17] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Parable of Tenants [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picture this, Tony, your landlord. You've built the perfect vineyard. We're talking wall watchtower, wine, press, the works like what everybody says. Everybody knows you need all those things. You've got it all set up, and then you hand the keys to some tenants. You take a long trip, you go enjoy yourself. And when the harvest rolls around, you send your servants to collect the rent. And shockingly, your tenants, they beat. Stone. Another, the kill a third. So naturally you think, you know what? I'll fix this. Lemme just send more people. That's obviously the problem. There's some kind of just profound misunderstanding about what's going on here and about our relationship in this business. And then when that doesn't work, you send your son now loved ones. If this were a business strategy, we would already be calling hr. But of course it's not a business strategy, it's a parable. And Jesus is telling it to the very people about to prove the parable true. So welcome back to the Reformed Brotherhood because we're in Matthew Chapter 21 and we're gonna be actually getting all the way into the parable of the Vine growers where the patience of God looks, I would say, to almost anybody else, to humanize at least almost reckless until you realize that's exactly the point. So yeah, grab your beverage of choice, grab your Bible, pull the car over, will you? Because this is gonna get real and we're going to reason together. But before we do all of that, let's do a little affirming with or denying against, what do you got?  [00:02:41] Inside Baseball Affirmation [00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: So this is a sort of inside baseball, uh, affirmation. Um, I'm not sharing anything, although it may feel like I'm sharing something that is private and like, uh, like confidential. It's not No, this is good. Um, so I had the opportunity to visit. Um, my presbytery, um, for those who are listeners of the show or people who like, have been with us a long time, um, I was part of a Baptist church. Uh, I've always kind of been a Presbyterian at heart, but, um, our church closed, uh, a little over a year and a half ago now. And, um, uh, I've joined an OPC congregation in membership now. We've been members there for about a year. And, um, so I've been visiting Presbytery, which is the, the meeting of all of the leadership of all of the churches. So we won't do a polity breakdown here, but basically like, it's, it's the regional meeting. It's the regional business meeting or church meeting for a group of churches in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of the meetings, you know, have the normal kind of business type stuff. You have reports from different committee committees and stuff. Um.  [00:03:48] Presbytery Call Debate [00:03:48] Tony Arsenal: Where this is affirmation is coming in here is at this most recent presbytery meeting, um, was pretty heavy on, um, licensing or, or, uh, not licensing on approving men who had received a call to formal ministry within the presbytery. And so in the OPC, and I would imagine that other Presbyterian bodies are not like super different, although I'm sure there's some variation in the OPC. Um, when a church intends to extend a call to a pastor, to a teaching elder, um, to a minister, they must have the call, which is. Is both theological but is also eminently practical. Like the call is a physical piece of paper that details, you know, what the pay is, how much vacation time. So it's kind of a combination between like a theological call and also a contract. Um, the presbytery has to approve that call. And so at this most recent one, there was a couple calls that were more or less uncontroversial. There was no question about them, and they were approved pretty quickly. But there was one call, um, one call to ministry that took, I, I, I didn't time it, but it was probably like four or five hours of debate and discussion in various fashion in order to get to a point where the presbytery could approve the call. So this was a call to a minister who is being called part-time, which is unusual in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, the OPC uh, acknowledges the fact that bivocational tent making ministry is sometimes a necessity, but really views the ministry of the word in sacrament as something that should not have. Distractions. And actually our book of church order talks about, doesn't use the word distraction, I think, but it talks about a, a properly ordered call to a full-time minister includes phrasing that the congregation promises to compensate them in a way that allows them to be free of worldly burdens and cares. And I might have not, not have gotten that wording exactly right. But that's the idea. And so this call was. Explicitly, um, not a full-time call it, they actually took the language out of promising to pay him in a way that he's able to ignore or to not be distracted by worldly care. And that was intentional, but there was a lot of question in discussion at presbytery level about the fact that the call did not include the phrase or the wording of part-time or bivocational. So the conversation started out of like, can this call be modified to include that? So it's explicitly known in this man's call that his calling is part-time, which is both theological, to make sure that the call is properly formatted, but also like very practical that the congregation should acknowledge explicitly that they recognize that this person is not, not going to be putting, you know, 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week towards this position. [00:06:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:06:34] Tony Arsenal: Um. What I'm affirming is where it got to, right? So there was lots of discussion about that. There was some finagling about the retirement package. The OPC recommends that a, a minister be given a retirement contribution of no less than 5% a year of his salaried package. Um, which there's a couple line items that go into that, but 5%, and this was a little bit less than that. And this is what I'm affirming and this, I, I don't know that this is a super widespread thing that would happen all across the, um, the OPC, but it happened in the presbytery of New York and New England this past week, and it's just amazing. And I just, I just want to lay it out there and then I want to hear your reaction. [00:07:13] Funding Full Time Ministry [00:07:13] Tony Arsenal: And I, I wanna hear your reaction as the son of a minister who labored his entire adult, more or less, his entire adult career in ministry, working two or three additional jobs on top of his ministry, the presbytery decided. That because it did not like the idea of a part-time minister. They didn't think that was appropriate. They didn't think that that was good or that that was really the right goal. The presbytery allocated, I'm not gonna say the figures 'cause they're not super germane, but allocated a significant amount of money to be dis to be dispersed to the church for the next three years in order to take what was a part-time call and enable it to become a full-time call. [00:07:54] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.  [00:07:54] Tony Arsenal: And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of church bodies that would say, yeah, we don't love the idea of bi-vocational ministry. You know, we really think it's ideal that a minister could be full-time. Um, they may even put some, some theological freight behind that. Um, I have never encountered a body, um. That was willing to put a sizable amount of money towards essentially supplementing a part-time call to make it full-time. Um, this was just amazing to me, and the candidate was there. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I would love to talk to him about what he felt. I, I can just imagine the phone call to his wife who was not, not at presbytery, but to his wife, following the outcome of this to be like, you are never gonna believe what just happened. Right? This is a family who was intending to move across country. Right. He's currently a student at Westminster, California in seminary, uh, California, Westminster Seminary in California, finishing his M Div. They're planning a cross country move into a part-time position where she's probably gonna have to find a job, and then also he's gonna have to find a part-time job. He had the ability to call her on the break and be like, you're never gonna guess what just happened? You're never gonna,  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: it's wild.  [00:09:09] Tony Arsenal: Uh, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional here. You're never going to. Believe how faithful God is in this. Right. So I'm interested to hear your reaction to that as the son of a, of a try and quad at times Quad vocational. Yeah,  [00:09:23] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.  [00:09:23] Tony Arsenal: Minister who labored his entire, more or less, his entire adult career, um, working full-time in a call as a part-time, part-time minister. You know, like that's a, that's a crazy situation. So I'm just affirming that again, I don't know how common that kind of thing is in the OPC. I don't wanna make it seem like that's the norm. Um, I actually get the sense that this is probably not the norm, but it was amazing to see and it made me in intensely like. Proud in the right way of being a part of this broader body that would, would so emphasize and so value the ministry of the word and the sacrament, and the importance of a man being able to dedicate himself to that without distraction. That they would put forward this amount of money and this kind of money. They had no reason to do so. And there's no real direct benefit to the presbytery for doing this. I mean, there's an indirect benefit of like not having a church with a part-time minister, but like there's no direct benefit to this. There's no direct return on investments that's gonna come out of this. Um, it was pretty amazing to see. It was, it was, it was super encouraging.  [00:10:28] Jesse Schwamb: That is really encouraging. I, I think it's, there's no doubt that for the called pastor, their heart is in the ministry of the word. That's what they want to be doing. They wanna be doing it all the time and as much time as they possibly can, and they wanna be able to have all of their intentional focus on it. So I. I'm excited for that guy. I mean, that's just an incredible blessing to go in hoping for funding, essentially for a part-time role and to basically be told, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not enough. We want you to be committed to this fully as we know your heart is committed. As we validated that call.  [00:11:00] Why Structure Matters [00:11:00] Jesse Schwamb: I do love being a part of churches, well, lemme say it this way. There is, I think, a benefit of being part of congregations that have like a wide resource network that has like appropriate hierarchy and structure and that can be one of them. I've seen something similar in the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is the church that I'm in, not exactly the same, but I've seen some surprising allocations of resources where they basically said, you know, this is important. Like, it even trumps we're, we're gonna. Allocate or resource something so that this can move forward because it is important in a way that was like better than the person who was bringing it before them could have hoped for. Yeah. And uh, suddenly it's as if everything aligned. And it was really in part because there was this structure to come alongside, to validate as you're saying, and then to authenticate and then again to resource assets that could be used. There's, there's something to be said for that interdependency where there is kind of this hierarchical structure in which all that's happening at a level where things are codified. And again, like there's a structure and a way in which we move through those decisions to make sure that they suit the objective of the entire movement. So I guess there's nothing I'll say, but that's a beautiful thing, isn't it?  [00:12:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:12:15] Generosity in Action [00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: It was, it was, it was cool because it was like this, it was like this real. Actualization of the principle of outdoing one another and showing honor. Yeah, sure. Because you know, like the initial debate was like, Hey, you know, I'm not sure we can approve this call because the, the OPCs guidelines tell us not to approve a call that has less than 5% of the retirement benefit. And there was a lot of discussion of like, well, the presbytery can't modify the call, but we don't wanna delay this guy coming in and like, we don't wanna delay his ordination, his installation. And so the initial proposal was a, a. What feels like a large amount of money to me. But after I understood more about the, the budget of what's going on in, in the presbytery was actually a very small amount of money. Started with a very tiny, very modest proposal of basically like supplementing the retirement fund to make sure that like we could, they, I say we, like, I was part of this, I was just observing, but to supplement the retirement fund in a way that allowed the church to still proceed with the call as written, but still also make sure that this person had the appropriate retirement fund. And then that just basically was like, there would be some instruction given to the church that like, you've gotta bump this up in the next budget cycle. Like you've gotta get to the 5%. That's, that's the expectation. It went from that. And like I said, I won't give you the specific numbers, but one of the presbyters and I, I'm, I, um, I, I've known this presbyter from a distance for quite a long time and, and I have an immense amount of respect for him. He stood up and he's like, well, if we're gonna give X, why don't we just give 10 times X instead? And then actually, like the discussion was like, well, is, are we sure that 10 times X is even the right amount? Why don't we have this particular group meet over the lunch break and figure out whether that's the right number and then come back after lunch and we'll vote on it. And then they came back after lunch and it was actually a number that was even greater than 10 times X. So it was like this exercise in like. This very small proposal that was still imminently generous, right? The presbytery has no obligation to do this. There's no obligation from any of the presbyters to stand up and say like, we should. We should supplement this fund. They would've been well within their right, and no one would've looked, I think. I think some people would've been frustrated by it, but I don't think anyone would've looked sideways at it or thought it was sinful. If the presbytery just said like, we can't approve this call. You guys are gonna have to come back with it and we'll vote on it at the next presbytery. Like that would've been problematic. This, this kind of poor guy who's coming outta seminary, his call and his beginning of employment would've been delayed, but like. That would've been good and orderly, but instead they were like, one, we don't want this pulpit to stay empty longer. We don't wanna disadvantage this guy who's just getting done with seminary. We want him to get started. We don't wanna discourage him. So here's a small proposal, a very modest amount of money that we can put forward for this purpose. And then it was like, let's just keep seeing how much closer to a real full-time call we can get. And they finally came back and said like, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this in a wise fashion. They structured it. So like the first year he gets more, the second year he gets a little bit less. The third year the church gets a little bit less with the idea that like each year the church should be adjusting their budget to compensate and get this guy to that with the, the hope that like with a full-time minister, they're able to grow their congregation to the point where they can support a full-time minister. So it was just this really cool, super encouraging exercise. And what I loved about it is the only real debate that was going on was about do we need to do more? There was no one being like, wait a second, why are we, why are we putting more money to this? The whole thing was like, is this actually enough to accomplish what we think God wants to do with this person's call? Because if, if God is truly calling this man to this, this particular church, and we believe that he is. Then what do we as a, as a people of God need to do to enable that call to look like what we actually believe calls to ministry are supposed to look like, which is a full-time call to ministry that is undistracted by the cares of the world. What do we need to do? The answer in this case was like, I think we need to put a sizable amount of money to it. Um, it's a, I mean, and again. I'm not gonna say it on the air. It was not a small chunk of change. Um, it was, it was a, it was a large amount of money that was devoted to this cause and that just goes to show how much this body values the importance of a full-time minister of the word, so. [00:16:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:16:51] OPC Love and Recommendation [00:16:51] Tony Arsenal: That's enough about that. I, I could gush about how proud I am to be a part of this body and how encouraged I am and how amazing it was and how awesome this, this guy, how, how much this guy must be thanking God for the providence and like, this is the last thing. I'll say this, this young man younger than me, I think he's graduating seminary. I saw him across the room. He looks like he's probably in his mid twenties, right? Young guy. He's got a wife doesn't have kids yet coming into this ministry, not only is he coming into this ministry, but as a Presbyterian minister, when he's installed as the minister of this church. He will be joining this body of presbyters as the, as his brothers like. He is not a member of the local church. He's a member of the presbytery, which is the regional church. So now he's coming into this fully supported by his brothers in the presbytery that he saw go to the mat to make sure he was properly taken care of, that the congregation was not unintentionally taking advantage of his labor, but also that he knows that all of these men are willing to do what they need to do to make sure that his ministry is successful and edifies the church like that is. Uh, I don't want to gush on Presbyterianism too much, but like that is Presbyterianism at peak form, right? This is the body of elders making sure that every church in the region, even the ones they're not directly ministering in, has what it needs to succeed and to honor God and to do what needs to happen. So I'm affirming the presbytery of New York and New England and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, I have been so blessed by knowing many of these presbyters. I've been so blessed by being a part of the congregation that I am. There are lots of really great churches and really great denominations out there. If you are looking for a church and there is an OPC congregation in your area, absolutely go check it out. I know it feels stuffy sometimes, and I will admit, like sometimes it feels a little bit overly traditional in terms of like just the vibe of the congregation,  [00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:18:52] Tony Arsenal: But press past that because I don't think, I don't think you will find, um. You may find lots of congregations that are as faithful. I don't think you're gonna find many that are more faithful than your average OPC congregation. So I could be wrong. I just, I just love the OPC. I just really, really love it. So that's my affirmation. What do you got for us, Jesse?  [00:19:18] Denial Catholic Confession Math [00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: I think I got denial, which is maybe a little bit unusual for me. [00:19:21] Tony Arsenal: As long as you're not denying the OPCI think we're fine.  [00:19:23] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's, it's not, it is church related and I, I'll try to keep it short 'cause I think I can make this way longer than it, it probably should be, but lemme think how to phrase this. So, I don't know with a devil negative, I guess when I'm a denying against is maybe not enough confession by your own standard. So the, I'm gonna try to make this so brief. I, I just happened to be out with my wife this afternoon and we had to run errands. We got stuck in traffic and this gave me longer than usual to sit in front of our. Very local and very large Catholic church. So I happen to be looking at their sign. It's a very large congregation. I've been actually been in this one on a couple of occasions for funerals. So not only do I know its size and scope, but again, if you get, if you get on this road at the wrong time on the Lord's day, you're gonna be stuck for a long time because there are so many people that attend. I say that because I noticed on the sign that there were three times for mass on the Lord's Day. So that also says something about the number of people coming through. And then on the sign though, underneath it said for confessions, go to our website. Mm-hmm. So I was like, man, I gotta lick this up because I can't tell if they're telling me I can confess on the website or if it's go to the website for the times. And I said to my wife, only half jokingly, if I can confess online, I'm gonna confess something. So I went to, I went to the website and, and sure enough it was almost disappointingly. It was just the times.  [00:20:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:46] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I've found interesting, which just launched me into this like deep rabbit hole. There were three times for confession. Two of those times were just a half an hour, and the third time was an hour. So, uh, what I did was I went through, actually, I think what they had on there was, was three full hours a week. It was a little bit confusing, but I think it was three full hours. Now I think about it. So I went back, I just couldn't help myself, Tony. So I started to think, alright, let's say. I think it's fair to assume  [00:21:15] Tony Arsenal: math, Jesse is kicking in right now. Yes. You're gonna calculate how many minutes per, per person is what you're doing. I'm thinking, ah,  [00:21:22] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it's something like that. So what I thought was, I don't think it's, uh, I was gonna be conservative. I wanna be fair. I wanna be fair. So, and now we should say like, I think most people realize that the Catholic understanding of confession and the Protestant one is, is very different. The Catholic sacrament of confession is the right through which Catholics are gonna confess their sins to a priest receive absolution, and it's gonna restore the relationship with God in the church. And, and they're gonna believe that the priest acts as a person of Christ and is bound by the seal of confession and an absolute kind of obligation. Uh, of course never to reveal what was disclosed during that process. So, by the way, the website that I went to, lovely instructions. I mean, I was like, wow. I was reading it to my wife who was, uh, not familiar with this at all, and she was like, they can make you do stuff. And I was like, well, yeah. I mean, obviously like there's, there's a portion of this where there's contrition or penant penance. It could be a prayer, it could be act of charity, like all kinds of stuff. So I went back and I thought. I don't think it's unreasonable that there's 350 persons that would say, let's say an average, uh, that would wanna take part of confession. Now, let's say that they did that at, at least monthly, just once a month. And, and I don't know how people's conviction is on that, but I'm gonna say conservatively once a month. Let's say that, and I don't think this is unreasonable, Tony, but you tell me. Let's say you're, you're trucking, you're moving through confession. Let's say it's five minutes a piece. So we're up to 1,750 minutes, uh, per month. That's the demand on the priest because I was, I was looking at this time and I was thinking something is strange here to me, so. That was the demand then, and I'll spare you the other math, which could be very long and un uninteresting. I'm coming up with, you'd need 2.24, two and a quarter priests, which of course you can't have a quarter priests or a quarter person for any reason. So you'd hire, you'd hire three priests, which satisfy the demand if, and the major assumptions here, that is like everybody can't show up at the same time. Obviously, I'm assuming that like everybody has their own time, they're spreading it out. So everybody gets the confession, but it's just five minutes. And I, I have no idea. I mean, if you're a Luther, that's certainly not sufficient time.  [00:23:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:23:20] Jesse Schwamb: And you would need three priests. Now here's the thing that I just kind of backed into that, besides like three being like, okay, that, that's, you would need three priests just to satisfy this congregation. If they're confessing for five minutes, once per month. Uh, by the way, if you said, well, half the congregation is going to go weekly, uh, then you, you would double the number of priests you need to 5.98 or six. But here's, here's the bottom line for me. This is why the denial comes in about maybe not enough, is. If you were just to distill that down to like, if you could have one priest cover that time, that there's a demand for like 779.4 hours, or excuse me, minutes of confession, that priest would only be allocating approximately like seven and a half percent of their working hours, their work toward handling confession. This seems like not enough confession given the standards of confession in the Catholic church. And again, I know that I'm, I'm now allocating that to one priest and I just told everybody you need three. That's true. So if you had these three now, if you hired three just to meet the demand, that would only be about like three and a half or a little under three and a half percent of their combined time. So the denial is Catholics, I think, unless I'm way off in some of my assumptions here, you might not be confessing enough by your own standards because  [00:24:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:24:34] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, that seems like not enough time.  [00:24:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:24:39] Ritual Faithfulness Explained [00:24:39] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, um. I don't want to be too bombastic here, but I think,  [00:24:46] Jesse Schwamb: I think I already started this on this  [00:24:48] Tony Arsenal: path. Maybe this, maybe this isn't all that bombastic. Um, because this is so much about ritual and actually I say this is gonna sound really, we, we go, but trying to think from the Roman Catholic perspective, it's actually not, and I'll I'll tell you a brief story, uh, to explain it. Um, a lot of Roman Catholics are just going through the motions. [00:25:13] Jesse Schwamb: That's true.  [00:25:14] Tony Arsenal: But the point, the, the, the point of contention actually is that going through the motions is valuable for the Roman Catholic, right? So I, I knew this, uh, this young woman when I was in college who was a Roman Catholic, and we had many discussions about, about the differences between Protestantism and and Roman Catholicism. And what I came to understand is that going to mass for her. Itself was an act of faith. And so for the Roman Catholic, the concept of, of faith is different than the concept that Protestants operate under. So for the Roman Catholic who, um, goes to mass, even when they feel like they're, like, when they think they're just going through the motions, going through the motions is itself the act of faith. And that's because for most of Roman Catholics, most of Roman Catholicism, faith really equals faithfulness, right? So, so doing the act is the act of faithfulness. Doing the act is faith. Where for the Protestant, like faith is about belief and trust and knowledge. Like it's, it's an. Not entirely intellectual, but it's, it's an inward thing for the Roman Catholic faith is an out is primarily an outward thing. It's what you do, it's how you act. It's faith formed in love. It's faith formed in charity.  [00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:26:37] Tony Arsenal: So I think most Roman Catholics going to obligatory confession first. I think once a month is probably like, probably more frequent than most Roman Catholics go to mass or go to confession. Um, I thought I read a stat that it was like every six months is, is pretty average and I think that's what's required by the church maybe even once a year is, is required by the church. Um, I think like most Roman Catholics go into the, the confessional booth and like father forgive me for I've sinned. It's been such and such a number of days since my last confession. Right. And they may bring up a couple particular things that they've done and, and then I think the priest commonly absolves them of all of their sins. Like, almost like in an omnibus fashion and then prescribes their acts of penance, which is it, it like, honestly, it's probably things they should already be doing as a faithful Catholic saying Hail Marys and doing our fathers and acts of charity and things like that. So I think your math is probably right. [00:27:39] Protestant Repentance Particular [00:27:39] Tony Arsenal: I think your, your theory that more confession is probably like, I'm gonna read this from, uh, the Westminster confession, just to, just to say it here, is, this is chapter 15, which is titled of Repentance Under Life. And this is, uh, this is section five or paragraph five. It says, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but is every man's duty to endeavor, to repent of his particular sins, particularly. And I think that's just such a beautifully phrased sentence like. Not only is it like potent theologically, but like, it just, it just feels good, like in terms of like the English language to repent of your particular sins, particularly. And like the idea is yes, Protestant reform, Christians affirm a general repentance from sin, right? We repent of our sin before the father, uh, as a result of our, of our coming to faith in Christ. And as part of our sanctification, we mortify our sin and we, Viv we are vivified by the spirit and repentance falls in that ongoing sanctification process. And there is this general repentance of like, I repent of the fact that I'm a sinner and that I commit sins, but there is this element in the reformed faith of like, I should be confessing to God. And I think by extension, like we should be confessing to our fellow Christians, our particular sins, our individual sins, and we should be doing that on particular occasion. And I think like. The Luther style confession of like going into the confessor and confessing like every particular sin. Particularly I think most Roman Catholic priests would, priests. Priests would probably have the same reaction Tobits did where he was like, get outta here. Like, come on dude. Like just go live your life and like deal with it. I think that's probably the reaction most Catholic priests would have. But yeah, I think you're right. Like if we're really talking about like. Five, five minutes of confession once a month and that somehow having some sort of spiritual efficacy. I'm not sure I buy that math. Like I think you're, you're probably spot on.  [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:29:47] Confession Hours Oddities [00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: I just was curious about how many priests would be required and then the allocation of the duties. By the way, you are right. So I, because I had to check on this, the, the fourth letter in council of 1215 does say that the church requires confession of any grave or mortal sins at least once a year. But the church, yeah, strongly encourages more frequent confession as a spiritual practice, even for, of course, like the venial or the less serious sins in their eyes. So yeah, my thought here was just that. I think it's actually undervalued by way of the math. Like the, as the kids say, the math just isn't math thing for me on this one. But I was more curious about, since this is one of the seven sacraments, even if you just said like, well, it should have at least one seven of the allocation. That's like, what? Like something like 14%. And so this is, um, almost half of that. I just found it a little bit, a little bit odd and yeah, I think you'd have to be, uh, so in other words, when I looked at the, basically, here's the bottom line. When I looked at the hours for confession one, there were weird times and uh, two, I was like, that doesn't seem like enough hours. Like, it was just more like that. Like how that's like saying like, Hey, the post office is open three hours a week, and by the way, one of those hours is from seven to eight o'clock on Friday. Like they had some hours. One hour just on Friday was like, I guess that's the way you wanna start your weekend is like, let's get all of this off my chest. Yeah. And, and do it. Right. And the last thing I'll say by the way, is you're correct. When you look at the instruction they give you, and this is common of course, toward the end, when they say like, here's how you like wrap up your part. Actually everybody should go read, go to the local, local Catholic church website and read the instructions. 'cause in some ways they're just interesting and kind of, um, I don't wanna say funny 'cause I'm not making fun. I'm just saying like, they have to give you instruction if you've never done it before. And so most of us are not really probably familiar with the process and they give you explicit instruction and toward the end it's like, here's how you kinda like hang up the call with the priest. And it's like you said, you know, these are my sins and all others, would you be willing to forgive? So you're right. Right. They just kinda wrap them all up because it's sins of omission, sense of commission, it's all to be together. But I, I wonder, you gotta think there's people in there that are like. The priests are like, okay, man, just yeah. Wrap, come on, wrap, wrap it up.  [00:31:55] Confession Timing Talk [00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: And other people that come in are just like, you know, forgive me father. And uh, lastly to your point, when they give you instruction about how you should start, of course you're always to signify how long it's been since your last confession. Right. Confession. And they say parenthetically, like, reference the days, weeks, months, or years. So you're right. There are gonna be people that probably do it very frequently and probably people who do it infrequently still, I would say I just couldn't believe for a church this large, that there was just three hours a week.  [00:32:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: For everybody else.  [00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:32:23] Vance and Papal Authority [00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: This leads me to two very brief sub, uh, denials slash affirmations. Uh, I don't know if you saw this, um, this is not a political statement, right? I, I have lots of feelings and thoughts about the current administration and I think most of my feelings and thoughts would surprise. Everybody. But I thought it was hilarious because JD Vance, who is a Roman Catholic, uh, confessed Roman Catholic part of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, he ha I, I'm not sure if I'm affirming or denying this, there was this funny, uh, funny exchange. I think he was at doing like a, doing like a TPU, I don't know, speech. He was doing a speech at some conservative event and he said something like, I think that the Pope should be more careful when he makes theological statements. I'm wanna be like, do you understand what the pope is in your religion? That was one of my sub denials. Uh, I don't remember what the other one is, so it must not have been that important. It'll come back to me at the worst possible moment and I will try very hard not to interrupt our show for it, but I probably will fail.  [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:33:25] Reading Matthew 21 [00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we, we gotta get to some scripture because. We're, we're doing this old school style where we take like half the time and just talk about affirmations. It's true in house. It's true. Which is great fun. But let's, let's get back to Matthew 21. And I, I know we did this last time, but I am gonna rock through the passage 'cause of course, that's the best part of any of our discussion, is actually hearing from, from the Holy Spirit through the scripture, uh, which he's given to us. So this is, uh, Matthew 21, starting in verse 33. And you're gonna hear the, the whole thing right here. Uh, this is Jesus speaking. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey. Now, when the high risk time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit, and the vine growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son. But when the vine growers saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you ever read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they're regarding him to be a prophet. [00:35:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:35:30] Pharisees Condemn Themselves [00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: This is like a super heavy parable. Right. And we talked a lot last week about how like the point of this parable is not necessarily to try to instruct the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Like it's not to instruct the people who were going to reject Christ, uh, the, the builders who would reject the cornerstone. It's really a parable to teach those. Who are observing this process happening. But I think it's, I, I think it's really interesting just listening to you read this and reading through it, and I guess this is a question I haven't asked and I, I need to study a little bit more. It's crazy to me in verse 41, um, Christ seems the, the, the, um, Matthew seems to say here, and maybe I need to do a little bit more Greek study, so bear with me and, and have grace if I'm wrong here. Matthew seems to say that like Christ asks the people he's speaking to, the Pharisees he's speaking to, what is he gonna do to these people? And the Pharisees answer, he's gonna put those wretches to a miserable death.  [00:36:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:36:37] Tony Arsenal: Like the people listening to this parable understand the outcome, like they understand the. The consequence that the, the, the vineyard owner or the vineyard tenant tenants are facing based on their lack of faithfulness to the covenant. To me, that is like a really striking part of this parable. And, and it's not even like the parable proper, but like the striking element of the context of this is that nobody listening to this parable, including the Pharisees that this parable has basically spoken against, nobody fails to see the gravity of the consequence of rejecting God's emissary, like rejecting the Messiah. That to me is like a really, I dunno, paradigmatic. Portion of this that I think we need to grapple with. This is not an unclear, an unclear outcome. This is not, this is not masked or vague or OPA opaque. Like everybody understands, the people who reject the Messiah are going to face dire and eternal consequences for that act. [00:37:48] Jesse Schwamb: That does make this really interesting, doesn't it? Because it's not just entirely like Romans one adventures or even Romans two. It's that this is what Jesus does and he does it in a profound way that's not trickery like I think kinda like you're saying like the lead up to this isn't as if he's even leading the witness. He's making it very clear, all like the parameters of the story and the characters involved and what should be the proper judgment. And it's not as if like they start saying, they're like, oh, we shouldn't say anything more like we, we plead the fifth because it's gonna condemn ourselves. He draws his audience in to producing and pronouncing like their own sentence. It's very much like, I think I mentioned this last time, the prophet Nathan and David, isn't it? It's the exact same. Yeah. And the verdict is unanswerable, like even in its own terms. These other, like these other vine growers, prefigures of course like the inclusion of the Gentiles and the apostolic office. But I like that what Jesus does here, even before he gets to that point, is he extorts from them an acknowledgement of the punishment which awaited them. And so in this way there's like, I think the Puritans use this passage a lot actually to demonstrate that the natural conscience even of like the unregenerate, still bears witness to divine justice. That's Romans two. Like they, they can't get out from underneath it and Jesus isn't using any trickery on them to get them to say this thing. They are compelled in their own way, even being unregenerate to, like you said, even as they're rejecting the Messiah to recognize that punishment is due these characters in the story, even as they perceive at the end that they are those characters. [00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Saying we'll receive the judgment.  [00:39:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:39:25] Usurpers Not Misguided [00:39:25] Tony Arsenal: And I think too, like, um, this is kind of one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, right? Like Christ is both recognizing the intention of their heart as well as prophesying. And, and not just prophesying, but like inception level prophesying the, the outcome of the intention of their heart. And so like, again, like we've, we spent a whole week kind of like leading into the parable and now we spent a whole week, we're gonna spend a whole week again kind of leading into the parable. This is such a deep parable, and that like Christ is not just laying bare. The fact that the, the people who were going to reject him were doing so out of this sort of like attempt and intention of usurping the kingdom of God for their own purposes. I think that brings a layer to this that we don't often appreciate in. Christ's interaction with the Pharisees. I think sometimes, and maybe this is because I just listened to an episode of where Matt Whitman on the 10 minute Bible hour talked about this. I think sometimes we actually have a tendency to sort of be sympathetic to the Pharisees where we think, you know, they were, they were just trying to obey God's law and they got a little sideways on it and you know, they were putting these boundaries in place, but they were doing it in this sort of like misguided attempt to protect the people. Christ actually here seems to contradict that in that the comparison he's making is not to a, a well-intentioned group of people who just get it wrong, but he's painting the Pharisees, the, the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the chief priests. He's painting them as these usurpers who recognize the proper authority of right. The master and his emissaries and ultimately of his son, they recognize this proper authority and rather than submitting to it and submitting to the covenant obligations that they, they already actually agreed to, instead of doing that, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own right. It's not just that they do the wrong thing, it's that they recognize the heir, which is Christ. They recognize this heir and they kill him to try to take his place. That is a really heavy element of this parable. Christ is not painting. Um, the, the, the Pharisees here, the, the religious leaders. He's not painting them as um, well-intentioned, but ultimately wrong, which is I think a lot of times, and I think there's reason to do this right. I'm not being overly critical and I've done this, I've actually done this myself, and I think there's some. Space for it. Like the Pharisees were wrong, but they were wrong, kind of in the right direction sometimes. Um, Christ is not really on board with that, at least in this parable. Right. This isn't about them thinking that the heir was a threat, and so killing the threat in, you know, inadvertently this is them absolutely seeing who the hair, who the heir is, and intentionally deciding to reject that heir and to murder him and to try to take his inheritance. Mm-hmm. That's an affront to not only the heir who they murder, but an affront to the owner of the vineyard himself, which of course in this parable is figured to be God the father primarily. But God in sort of general terms, like the whole Godhead, um, with Christ as the second Adam has, as his representative, as his heir. This is a really heavy parable and I think where this comes into play for us in our own Christian life is. Are there times where we. Sort of do the same thing in refusing to, maybe it's tie into your denial a little bit. Like refusing to acknowledge our own sinfulness, refusing to acknowledge the ways that God has provided for us. Um, do we at times look at what we have and lay claim to it as though it is our own inheritance that we've taken? Um, right. Do we kind of crucify the son of God anew in, in refusing to repent of our sins particularly? I dunno. I think those are some open questions for us to kind of explore as we dig into this a bit more. [00:43:54] Jesse Schwamb: And that may relate as well to, well eventually at some point, I dunno, like 2040, get to like the parable of the talents. There's some similarity there with a little bit, right? You're saying? I think you're right.  [00:44:06] God Does All the Verbs [00:44:06] Jesse Schwamb: And where I think we can anchor some of that is in those first couple of verses. I'm really always impressed by really the number of action verbs that are packed within, like that just initial statement of Jesus explaining the situation. [00:44:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:44:19] Jesse Schwamb: So he sets it all up and he's saying there's a planting that goes on, this landowner puts up a wall, digs a wine press. Builds a tower and then RINs it. So there's all these like amazing things being done, all this action verb. And I, I think in part why he comes against the Pharisees so hard in the same way that we're looking at like the parable that, uh, the, uh, talents for instance of saying like, what did you do with that was entrusted to you was like this great treasure which Christ has entrusted or God has entrusted to his people, which is, is the gospel essentially is, is all a prophetic witness, is like the truth of who God is and his revelation of himself. And so I think. The first thing we gotta see in those verbs is that there's this emphasis that the vineyard was God's sovereign creation. You know, he plants it, he chose it, he established it. Israel didn't plant herself. She was planted. And that sovereign initiative is foundational, I think in, like you're saying, the parables indictment, because these vine growers, they don't possess anything that they did not receive. Right. You know, they did not find a vineyard already planted, but God himself made it from the wilderness that all his glory, all the glory might be his. So. I think it's helpful for us to observe that the church is always the planting of the Lord and that no congregation flourishes that is not first planted by God. And so there is a major offense here when those who are to care for it, who know, like you're saying, that they ought to care for it, who understand something about the hierarchy and the way it has been entrusted to them. Not to only break that covenant, but then seek to try to usurp the power in the roles of those whom they should be, quite frankly, in our own language, like under shepherds too. And so it starts with all, all those verbs. Like I think we could probably spend a. A lot of times just speaking about what does it mean? Why? Why is there all this explicit in particular language about the fact that there's a hedge and there's a press besides just these are part in piece mail or part and parcel of what it means to have a vineyard, apparently, but that they're all part of this narrative of God talking about how he protects and cares for his people and sets them in a place and chooses them and is particular about the construction and does so with great volition and authority and care and concern and creative ability. And then again, you have those who are meant there to do the very job that he's entrusted them with. And not only are they not doing that, and of course you're right. Jesus elsewhere, comes in, comes in hot, right, with a Pharisees saying like, listen, you set burdens on people's backs that you yourselves cannot lift. You're twice as in the hell as anybody else, and that's who you are. Yeah. It's not just hypocrisy, but you're literally setting people up to fail in this. So you can see how you're right. It's not just like, guys, I appreciate that. Like you wanted to set up some additional boundaries and maybe you took it a little bit too far. This parable is just scorched earth. It's, it's nuclear. Yeah.  [00:47:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:47:11] Scandalous Vineyard Setup [00:47:11] Tony Arsenal: And you know, I think, um, we are obviously gonna spend another week on this 'cause we still have not really addressed a single verse in this parable. I, I think like a lot of ink has been spilled on explaining sort of like the feal agricultural arrangements of this passage. What it represents. M my understanding is. A typical arrangement would be that a, a landowner would basically just lease out land and the tenants would be responsible for the planting, for the development. Right. And the, the, the landowner would essentially just collect a portion of whatever they produce. Right. This parable is actually taking this a step further. Exactly. That it's not as though the landowner just says like, all right, you can use this land. Right. And I own the land, so I get a portion of the pro, the profit. He's actually done all the work. Yes. And all that. The, all that the, the tenants need to do essentially is reap the harvest and then provide the portion of the harvest that belongs to the landowner, and so there is a greater investment. Of the landowner into this land than would be expected. We've commented in the past about how a lot of times the, the parables start on sort of a premise of shock. Like there's a, there's an element of the setup of the, of the parable where the audience would kind of like sit back and gasp or kind of be like, wait a second. Like that's not normal. Right. In the parable of the, the, um, lost son, it was the idea that like the son demanded his inheritance. And that wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the father just granted it. Right. Or, um, the lost sheep, like the, there's actually a sort of a shocking element to the fact that like the, the land, the like sheep owner would just go get this other sheep. So we've, we've commented on there's kind of like. There's sort of like a scandalous setup. The scandalous setup in this is not that the land has been leased to tenants, right? It's that the land has been prepared for the tenants before it was leased out in the first place. And I think that's something we might miss if we read over this too quickly, is. The landowner has prepared everything for these, these tenants.  [00:49:30] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So the, the, at the, the punchline of the parable where they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of, um, sovereignty and maybe a lowercase s in the, in the context of the parable, they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty and the rightful claim of the tenant or of the landowner on the, the profit of the land. And sort of like highlighter emphasized by the fact that they actually didn't do any of the work. There's a certain kind of like Amer, like American rugged individualism where we're kind of like, yeah, like if I planted all the crops, then it's kind of lame that this guy's coming in expecting to take a portion of it, right? Like, yeah, I guess he owns the land, so maybe he gets a little piece of it, but like, who does he think he is? All of that already is already short circuited. Like I. The, these tenants are not actually, um, portrayed as doing anything in this parable. That's right. Like they just lease the land. They, they, um, and leased is not really like the right. The right word, the, the Greek word is omi, which is like he gave over the land to them. Um, when we say leased, we have this idea that like the tenants pay to use the land and then like part of their contract is that whatever profits they reap, uh, off the land goes back to the, to the landowner. This is really more like the landowner graciously allowed them to live on this land, and the only payment he required was that they would eventually provide him part of the profit back. Like he's planted the land, he's put up the fence around it. He dug the wine press so that they could make a product out of it. He built the tower so it would be defended. Yes. And he gave it over to them essentially just to like live on until it was time for the harvest. And all he is asking for is basically like, alright, so this is my land. I've planted the vineyards, the profit is mine to have. And so when the time came for him to come claim that that's where they have now rejected him. Yes. That's where they've now said like, I know you did all the work and really graciously allowed us to live in this land, but we're gonna keep all of it for ourselves. That's the scandal of this. That's what I think like the original audience would've set up and like, wait a second here. Like, hold on. They didn't even plant the vineyards themselves. They didn't even build the tower themselves. That's really the force of this that I think we miss when we, when we overemphasize, trying to think through like what the original agricultural arrangements were. 'cause this is painted. Very different than what the original arrangements would've been typical for. Like this is a different scenario and I think intentionally so,  [00:52:09] Jesse Schwamb: and we need those words like rented, at least in English, to help us understand that it didn't belong to them. It wasn't a gift, right? It wasn't as if like it was just turned over in the sense that it belongs to you now do with it what you will. And it's very clear in the passage one, like you said, that the landowner does all those things. So it was a, you know, he completely set it up. I mean, this is just such a beautiful, I think, depiction of the hold of prophetic, you know, understanding of God's word here, but it's very clear that says the, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. So you're right. The scandal is that they're like, well, obviously. They need to give him his fruits, like  [00:52:48] Tony Arsenal: right.  [00:52:48] Jesse Schwamb: It was all set up before he left on this long journey. He then turned it over to them to care for, and that was really all that they were supposed to do. They had no role in this. And so it does like lead us in into this weird space where it's like, well, well what, what did the Pharisees think they were trying to do themselves? What does actually Jesus commenting on, on their own, like licit on their own initiative here, is he basically saying that not only are they not respecting his sovereignty, but they were trying to claim for themselves what only rightly belongs to God that even their position right. Society in culture as their representatives, God himself, they wanted to take that over for themselves, which he does bring that condemnation upon them in other parts of the scripture. So again, this is really hot. I think it's a, it's both heat and light, but there's no doubt that there's fire to this, right? Because it's a direct indictment that God the father set all of this up. You yourselves are on rented property, but guess what? Even the property that you've rented, I'm not exacting a tax from you as if like you have put forward and grown or supplied or created some kind of profitable outcome here. And I just want a piece of that. He's not even talking about tithing in that sense. What he's basically saying is, none of this belongs to you. Like how? Right? How dare you? None of this is yours. I set all of this up and in fact, because you've done so poor poorly at this, I'm gonna take it away from you and give it to those who actually produce fruit and guess what's gonna be the Gentiles? So it's, there's a wild. Amounts of condemnation packed into a very small story.  [00:54:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It really is.  [00:54:22] Tenants Add Nothing [00:54:22] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is nothing expected of these tenants. Right. There's no contract, like there's no terms, they, they really add nothing to the, the landowner's land, except I guess maybe they're the ones harvesting these, this fruit. Right. But even that's not explicit in the parable.  [00:54:43] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:54:43] Tony Arsenal: Right. Right. He, he does all just to steal your thunder, like he does all the verbs. Yes. All of the ves are done by the landowner.  [00:54:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Right  [00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: on. There is an implication that the, the tenants are somehow like the ones harvesting this, or they're the ones producing the wine, I guess, in the wine vat or the wine press. But at the end of the day. A normal tenant landowner agreement would be, I'm, you're, first of all, you're probably gonna pay me to use this land, right? You're paying me to use this land, and the way you pay me is you're gonna plant the, the gr the crop. You're gonna harvest it. You're gonna make the produce, and all I'm gonna do is let you live on this land. I'm gonna take the pro, like the profit, you're gonna pay me outta that profit. There is nothing asked or expected of these, th

Send me a one-way text about this episode! I'll give you a shout out or answer your question on a future episode.I'm back with some more spring cleaning motivation for you today. So far we've covered some spring cleaning history, tools, surfaces overhead, walls and vertical surfaces, and linens & curtains. This week we will discuss furniture, appliances and the forgotten. The entire transcript of this episode (and all the other spring cleaning episodes) will be on the blog for you to refer to later. The blog posts also have links to helpful tools and resources for each of the topics we've discussed in this series. SHOW NOTESBlog Post with transcript and notes, click below or go to theartofhomepodcast.com/blog and search "MM 57"https://www.theartofhomepodcast.com/post/spring-cleaning-furniture-appliances-the-forgottenBe Our Guest! I'm looking for guests for our Spring 2026 season. Apply or Nominate Through 02.15.26 or before all spots are filled. theartofhomepodcast.com/guestSupport the showHOMEMAKING RESOURCESHomemaker's Journal, AoH Seasonal Magazine (Coming May 2026!)Private Facebook Group, Homemaker ForumJR Miller's Homemaking Study GuideSUPPORT & CONNECT Review | Love The Podcast Contact | Text/Voicemail-use the link at top of description | Website | Email  Follow | Follow The PodcastSupport | theartofhomepodcast.com/support**Buy | as an Amazon affiliate, AoH receives a small commission at no extra cost to you when you use our links to purchase items we recommend

It's an all M&M episode on You Tried Dat?? as three new M&M flavors face off against one another: Honey Roasted Peanut, Peanut Butter & Jelly, and Cookies & Creme.  The gang also discusses someone making a questionable decision while driving before holding a tournament of all things related to the letter M. Follow us on Instagram to see pictures of the snacks @youtrieddat.

Is AI really the end of creativity, or the biggest emancipation of creative energy we've ever seen? How can authors thrive in a time of super abundance, when anyone can make anything? What happens when publishers become technology providers, and agents start shopping for books on our behalf? With Nadim Sadek. In the intro, my AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Nadim Sadek is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Shimmr AI, an AI-powered book marketing company, as well as the bestselling author of children's books and non-fiction books, including Quiver, don't Quake: How Creativity Can Embrace AI. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Using AI as a research partner, editor, and constructive critic when writing a book The ratio of dreaming to execution Why publishers still draw red lines at AI-written words, and why that may change Inside Shimmr's three-engine advertising system: Strategizer, Generator, and Deployer Multimodal interactivity, agentic purchasing, and the idea of the Panthropic You can find Nadim on LinkedIn or at NadimSadek.com. Transcript of Interview with Nadim Sadek Jo: Nadim Sadek is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Shimmr AI, an AI-powered book marketing company, as well as the bestselling author of children's books and non-fiction books, including Quiver, don't Quake: How Creativity Can Embrace AI. So welcome to the show, Nadim. Nadim: It is lovely to be here. I feel very privileged to be invited onto this. Thank you. Jo: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you today, and we're really talking about AI. I wanted to start with the fact that you do seem to have a sort of relentless optimism. How do you remain so optimistic about AI when the publishing industry that we both work in seems so overwhelmingly negative? Lift our eyes to the horizon—what is the bigger picture? Nadim: Oh my goodness. That is a big one. I think my optimism is quite confined actually in the area of publishing. If you were to ask me to speak about AI more broadly—which you're not, but I'm going to give you a little bit of it—I've got lots of concerns. That includes the advent of autonomous weapons and economic singularity, where the wealth from AI as an industry is going into just a few hands, and energy usage, and cultural homogenisation, I suppose, and the potential for brain rot. There's a whole pile of stuff which is really not very good about AI, and all the normal things about fraud and theft and so on. However, if you recognise that and then you say what's going on in publishing, then the obvious thing that you first have to deal with is what did happen with copyright. Is it appropriate to say that things have been stolen and taken without permission and so on? It is. It's going through the American courts at one pace. I saw that Penguin Random House have started a case against OpenAI in Germany, where there will be a much faster legal conclusion—a judge's conclusion, I think. This will begin to put parameters on how copyrighted materials can be used, and possibly also some retrospective judgment about what has happened to this point and what can be done about it. So it's good that you've asked questions so early in our conversation, because I think —  It's important to contextualise my optimism. It is whilst noting with regret the behaviour of the AI industry—the models themselves—in not dealing with copyright in the most generous or appropriate fashion. I think we should also recognise that copyright probably wasn't designed for machine learning in the way that it is. Probably the industry wasn't terribly well prepared to note, negotiate with, and navigate the very fast-moving technological culture of AI companies. So I think lots of mistakes have been made on both sides. When you put all that to one side, what's left for me is an amazing emancipation of creative energy and also a huge efficiency being brought to the publishing industry. We can talk about both those things further, but for me that is what's going on. The efficiency of bookmaking and publishing generally—the whole workflow of getting a book out of somebody's head and into a reader's hands—I think is immensely streamlined and improved by AI. Actually, if you talk about it carefully, which I'm sure we will do, the ability of creators to share and let others experience their creative endeavours becomes so much better, so much fuller, so much richer. So that's why I'm excited about it. Jo: Well, let's get into those two things then. You mentioned the emancipation of creative energy, and you've worked with various AI tools as part of your creative and business processes. You've said that AI can be a creative companion. So specifically when it comes to Quiver, don't Quake, for example— How are you using the various tools in such an emancipated way? Nadim: Well, just to put a bit of a broader context on it, we're an AI-native company at Shimmr, and separately I wear a hat as an author. You mentioned the AI books and the children's books. I'm also writing a book about the psychology of motorcycling. So it's a very odd authorial footprint, but it means that I kind of tramp around the place and learn different things. What I've noticed, even within Shimmr, is that the whole team has been using AI tools very differently. Lots of people are very bright in the company. They're all brighter than me, and I salute them and love them. But they've all used AI to become more creative in their own ways. For example, our Chief Commercial Officer is very numerate and logical, and not loquacious. She prefers to say things straight and simply. She has become an unbelievably creative financial modeller and analyst because she uses AI in lots of different ways. So she has flourished and grown so much, and is creative in a way that she never could be before—not only around numeracy and financial matters, but in thinking through new concepts for sales and marketing and for our commercial development. I've just noticed all around me this going on. When it comes to me, I prefer to express myself through writing. I talk a bit as well, as you can tell, but my favourite means of communication is just writing. When I was writing Quiver, don't Quake, I would use AI in a number of different fashions. One would be for research. One of the chapters is about the psychology of creativity. I'm a psychologist, so I tend to come at things from a psychological perspective. What is the psychology of creativity? Well, here comes a million-word answer from an AI—this person said this, this person said that. Then I kind of focused my research in particular areas and assembled them by drawing from the outputs of several AIs about what has been said about AI, what the science says about it, what sociology says about it, what particular creatives that we're all aware of say about it, whether they're in the advertising industry or musicians or artists or whatever. So that was a very rich way of researching things. I would often put a chapter in—this is a slightly different use—a manuscript that I'd written and say, “Read this as if you're somebody just coming across my book, and tell me where the reader might struggle between one paragraph and another, or where there's a logical fallout, or where the concept isn't really very fully excavated and developed.” It would occasionally prompt me to say, “You could probably do with a line that brings the reader from this point to that point.” And usually I listened to that and then wrote something new. In another use case, I eventually gave it the whole book and said, “I think I've done an okay job here and I quite like the flow and I'm sort of satisfied enough, but before I send it to the publisher and say, ‘there you go,' what do you think? Are there any ways in which this book could become a better and more interesting read?” It came back fairly promptly and said, “Well, what you haven't really done is considered what all the naysayers would say. You've done your dark moments of militarism and all that stuff, but what about some of the other stuff closer to publishing or creativity?” So off I went on a new round of research, and did some myself and used the AI for other bits. The funny thing, really the ironic thing here, is that the book is much better, and most people salute the book for the eighth to ninth chapter that talks about the constructive critics. I assemble them all and articulate all their arguments and say how hideous AI is and how terrible it is for the world and all of us. And then I try to repudiate some of them, not in a defensive way, but just to say, actually, yes, that's one perspective and here's another one. That chapter, ironically, about how AI is terrible was prompted by AI. It said, “You should really have a go at me.” And so I did. So that was another use case. Then finally—perhaps I'll say this—I have a friend who is, I think, the Editor-in-Chief of Penguin in India. I got to know her at a book fair or something. We started chatting, and I told her about my kids' books. I said, “I could really do with an editor on these ten books that are due to be published.” She very generously, amiably, and very constructively gave me feedback on each individual book and then on the whole set. I was really happy with it. I said to her, “That was a delight.” She said, “You'd be much better off working with Editrix.” I said, “What's Editrix?” She said, “Well, it's an AI platform I've created where you can go and self-edit.” I said, “You must be kidding. I'd much prefer chatting to you and our interactions.” She said, “Yes, well, go and try it.” So I got an account for the Editrix AI. Off I went, gave it my books, and lo and behold, it came up with some incredibly sophisticated and subtle observations on the books that neither Meru nor I had seen. For example, there's a story where a boy who lives in a house on a hill meets another boy on a bridge, and they end up in a silly confrontation. They're young and foolish, and it sort of transpires that the other boy lived in a local village. Now, I suppose in retrospect, it's pretty obvious that this could be seen to be colonialist, imperialist, and a sense of entitlement from the boy at the top of the hill crossing the bridge first and so on. Hadn't crossed my mind. The AI said, “I can tell from the rest of your writing that you don't really have a sort of racist or imperialist or superior attitude to things, but in this story, there could be a misapprehension that you do.” I thought, wow, what a great warning. So I changed it. There are almost endless ways—and I can tell you others, because I'm writing a book about clouds at the moment—in which AI can help you as an author. I've just shared some of those with you. Jo: Yes, well, I love that. I also use it for research. I definitely use the “give me feedback as a reader avatar, as a reader of this type of genre” or whatever. Nadim: Yes. Jo: I use different tools as well, so I agree with you. All of that is, I think, what a lot of people are doing. You also said you did a lot of the writing and rewriting, so the human was very much there. This was not an AI-generated work in any way. It was using an AI as a sort of collaborator—a creative companion, to use your words—which I think is great. One of the things that AI-positive people like us are finding is that there's so much negativity around the traditional publishers, around other authors, around supposedly negative backlash from readers. I think there's a lot of very noisy people who are probably making this sound worse than it is. Since you are so embedded in traditional publishing in so many ways, how are publishing people thinking about this? Do you think it's just different in terms of the creative side versus say the marketing side? What is happening there, and what do you recommend for authors? Nadim: What I'm observing is that there is increasingly confident adoption of AI for corporate efficiency, which is a polite way of saying where one can see profitability being improved. Could you streamline legal contracting? Yes. Can you manage royalty payments better? Yes. Are there better sustainability prospects with managing a warehouse and distribution and so on with AI? Yes. Could you improve your marketing by looking at competitive titles and trends, and optimising your metadata and your SEO and now your GEO, all using AI? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All of these things can be assisted. Can you manage much more of your backlist, where you don't have the human or financial capital to manage all of those titles in a truly respectful and invested way? Yes, yes, yes. So wherever there's corporate efficiency, I see publishers being increasingly bold about saying they have integrated AI into their workstreams. What's much more tentative and hesitant is where there's discussion of authors—and I do hesitate to use the right words here—being assisted by, employing, working with AI. I kind of shorthand it as creative emancipation. It really means very many different things. Let me give you the example that I referred to briefly a second ago of Cloud Land, which is probably my first real novel. I'm very lucky. I sit working every day at a desk that's got three windows, and I look at the sky, and every day it's different, and I'm fascinated by it. I've been flying around the world since I was very young—my father worked for the World Health Organization, we moved between many countries—so I've also seen clouds from the sky a lot. I've noticed that in different parts of the world there are different cloud formations. It came to me one day that it would be very interesting if the clouds were somehow sentient, and that there is a cloud society, and that Cloud Land lived above human land and absorbed and observed us. Actually, the more I started thinking about it, the more I thought, well, we kind of evaporate. We give off vapour all the time and it rises up to clouds and maybe we're sending DNA signals to it, and it condensates and sends rain and storms and winds and lightning and thunder and all. There's a huge amount of interaction between Cloud Land and human land if you think about it. So I went into an AI. I said, “Hey, I've been thinking about this, blah, blah, blah. Any observations on what I've been saying so far?” I think one of the first things it said to me was, “You are actually playing with quantum physics.” I had no idea what quantum physics were really. I thought, well, this is interesting. I went and researched quantum physics, and actually there is some of that in it. If you count Cloud Land as a creative notion— The original idea, the creativity, came wholly from me, and then the development of it has been assisted by working with AI. I as a creator have spent much more time originating ideas about a story than would historically have been true. I probably would have gone to a library, tried to find the right geography textbook, read up about clouds, discovered what the nomenclature is, thought about whether I could put characters to cumulonimbus versus stratus something or other, and kind of worked my way gradually through it. There is something that I refer to in Quiver, don't Quake, which is what I call the ratio of dreaming to execution. I think previously, without AI, creators would probably spend 80% of their time researching and trying to get information and assembling things and editing documents and spell-checking and doing a whole pile of different tasks None of which I actually dismiss, because I think sometimes those difficult and “menial” tasks give you time to let ideas percolate and flourish and grow. It's just part of the process. But whereas before, I think we probably spent 20% of our time originating and 80% of our time assembling, I think it's inverted now. You can probably do 80% of the time you want creating and 20% of the time fiddling about getting your act together. So I feel that that's a huge emancipation of individual creativity. There's also—and we can talk about this if you wish—I think a much broader sociological phenomenon going on, which is really about every person in the world, all 8 billion of us, being creatives. That's the way I see the world. I think that only a minority of that 8 billion have the gift of craft that we recognise—of writing or drawing or making music or being an architect or a biomedical scientist or something that's creative and assembling things. And AI gives you courage and helps you to identify what you wish to make. I really don't mean creating the artefacts. I don't mean painting or making a song or writing a book. I just mean helping one to express and articulate oneself so that one's creative idea is shareable and experienceable by others. Jo: Well, it's interesting. I mean, everything that we've discussed, you're really saying that the main line is the actual writing of the words, because none of us can articulate how ideas come. Especially with Claude, we might have a creative spark, but I'm sure you've found the same: if I go to Claude, which is my favourite, with my creative spark, by the time we've discussed it, possibly over days, I've lost track of who said what. The idea definitely started with me, because the AI at the moment doesn't have its own creative spark in terms of its own drive to write a book, for example. So it starts with me, but then it goes back and forth, back and forth—sparks new ideas, something it wrote makes me think about something else. I think the difficulty with how publishing seems to be doing this at the moment is that it is just the written words on the page that is their red line around “have you used AI to generate a book?” But even that, I just think, surely that will change. For example, in the publishing industry, ghost writing—or writing dead authors, like Wilbur Smith—I was going to say Wilbur Smith is a good one. I mean, we've seen them, just different dead authors essentially writing in the voice of those people. So I just see that there are many possible places where publishers might want this kind of tool. I don't know— Do you see any openness to the actual words themselves? Nadim: I think you're right to identify that that is the place that it gets stickiest. What you kind of do in your private time—imagining and dreaming things up and interacting—it's a facsimile for talking to your friends or another author or something. It's just an AI companion. So I think that that is, you're right, less scrutinised. It is when one examines the words on the page. It's funny—it's almost as if it's a measure of how hard did you work to do this? Or did you just splatter it down on the page by pressing a button somewhere? It's almost as if, as creatives, we have to evidence that we have suffered, you know? I think there's a different form of suffering when you write with AI. It's true that if you command AI in some way to write for you, the default writing will be pretty anodyne, pretty bland, pretty mundane. It is deliberately so. AI is created and it is tuned to be inoffensive, to please most people, to be accessible to most readers and consumers of it. So it's another thing that I encourage people to do: don't approach AI with a kind of Google mindset where you just do a question and answer—”what time is it in New York now?” “Well, it's five hours behind” or whatever. Instead you say, “Hey, listen, I'm thinking about clouds, but I want a bit of spittle going up and down between the two, and I'd quite like a crazy cloud that harasses us.” Well, now I'm putting in some of my idiosyncrasy and my eccentricity and my personal perspective. The more you do that, the more that even if you did press a button and say, “Command, I want you to write this book,” that will no longer be a bland and mundane bit of output. It'll be very tuned by your interactions, and it'll exhibit some of your nature. So I think there probably are factories—there's always factories. They're probably—and actually I know this—writing a lot of romance, writing a lot of porn, things which are fairly well parametered. You know what happens in both of those genres more or less, so it's pretty easy for a machine to emulate what an author might write there and go and do it. But if you get into something like, “a sand dune was my cousin”—like, okay, well that's a bit different. What do you mean? And there it becomes a much more interesting bit of writing. So I think we're going to see a spectrum. To come back to your question about where publishers draw red lines, I think it's where they just see straight away mundane output that doesn't feel like it had a lot of craft or ingenuity or hard work to it. But I believe that as we go on, that's going to become harder and harder to establish. As we become more sophisticated users of AI, and AI's capabilities to understand us and to work with us become better, then I don't think it'll be such a big question where the words came from. What we'll feast on with each other is our creative ideas and how they're expressed, but not how they were produced. Jo: I mean, I always say to people, I'm not a word generator. That's not what makes me or my books worthy. It is what I do with it. It's the stories I tell, or it's the personal things behind it. So generating millions and millions of words, whether you generate them by typing or handwriting or AI or whatever, it isn't the word generation that is the point. It's all of the things that make that finished thing what it is. So anyway, let's come back to the other thing, because you mentioned that publishers seem very happy around corporate efficiency, anything that drives profitability. You also mentioned that Shimmr is an AI-native company. Now, I, and many people listening—we are a one-person company. So I run my own company. It's a publishing company. I do all my publishing, I do all my marketing, I do all my business as just me. So I also use AI for a lot of this stuff. I wondered— How do you see publishers changing to become more AI-native? How can we as individual author-publishers do that too? Because it feels like a massive mindset shift, not just plug in Opus 4.7 here. Nadim: I have been found saying at various publishing events—and it is deliberately a little bit provocative—that I believe that publishers have always been technology providers to creatives. It's not only what they do, but it is a part that they don't seem to embrace very hard. Even if you just go back to Gutenberg—I mean, here's a printing press, it's a bit of technology. “I'll make your book, I'll make your words into books.” It started there, and it's always been. That applies to distribution and e-commerce and audiobook manufacture and all sorts of other things along the way. So I encourage publishers to accept the notion that what they should do to attract authors in the future is partly—only partly—develop their own house AIs. It can be as ethically trained as that house wishes to deal with the copyright furore. It can be tuned to do editing in a particular way. It can have a specific way of copy editing. It can have a collaborative notion. It can have an assistant that helps you understand genres and hotspots and competitive titles. It can help you to think about, as Americans might say, what's hot and what's not in the world at the moment. So you might be more attuned to what the market demands, if that affects you at all. Some writers don't care, and that's fine. It can certainly help with all the marketing then. How can you produce social media content that's appropriate to your book, and all the rest of it. So I think there's a way in which publishers could massively enable authors. I talk to tons and tons of authors clearly about Shimmr, and what they all resent, I would say, is finding their time stolen by trying to flog their work rather than make it. Jo: Yes. Nadim: So the marketing process is just theft of creative time for most authors, and they hate doing it, and they're often not very good at it, because it's a completely different skillset from creating great stories or writing non-fiction books about particular subjects. So I believe that authors should be embracing the notion that publishers will create their own house AIs. And goodness me, we might even decide which publisher we prefer to go to on the strength of their AI position. Wouldn't that be interesting? But that is what I see the future being. Jo: Yes. I mean, definitely there's some quite significant authors—Dean Koontz, probably one of the biggest—who went to Amazon because of their technical ability around publishing and marketing. He was like, “Yes, I want this because of this.” Not that he'd be in bookshops or whatever—of course Dean Koontz is—but yes, so I think you're right there. For individuals also, as you know, we can use AI to help us market. I upload my books to Claude when they're finished, and I've just been marketing today. I'll say, “create 10 Midjourney images based on this book and give me all the marketing copy.” So I think we can use it now to help us be more efficient. On the other side of that, I think the bigger thing that's starting to happen is marketing is now much easier in one way. Nadim: Yes. Mm-hmm. Jo: So it's getting fuller, or even more. Nadim: Yes. Jo: So how do we deal with this? Because Shimmr is an AI marketing company. How are you thinking about the predominance of very, very good AI marketing now? Nadim: Yes, and it gets better all the time. It's a great question. Obviously, strategically, as an enterprise, we've really had to think about this one. If I go back one step, I always believe that innovation succeeds when it starts in a narrow space. So when Shimmr launched, we put ourselves forward and were quickly embraced, I have to say, as automated advertising that sells books. Nothing particularly more complicated than that. “Okay, you do ads, you automate it for me, and it'll help flog my books. Yes, that's it.” We had a rush. We've worked with about 250 publishers. As you might anticipate, it started with smaller ones, then got bigger. We now work with the biggest as well. That notion of automated advertising selling books was successful. Actually, that was about three years ago—a bit shorter than three years ago. What's happened in that time is that we have now collected a ton of data, and meanwhile the AI models have become more sophisticated and competent. Maybe I should just pause briefly and say what Shimmr actually does. We've got three main engines that are all chained together, to use pretty old language. The first one is what we call the Strategizer. It reads the book, it understands what we call its book DNA. So it's the structural elements of what the narrative is, who the protagonists are, and all the rest of it. It's also a psychological study of it—what's going on, what are the emotions or the values, what are the interests, how they intersect, where are the tensions, all those sorts of things. The Strategizer decides, “Well, reading everything between the covers of this book and understanding the author's intent, this is the best way to put this book forward because here are its strong points.” It hands that off to the second machine, which we call the Generator, which says, “Thanks for the creative brief. I'll make you the ads now.” It does videos and music and captions and all the rest of it. Then it presents its newly baked campaign to the third machine, which is the Deployer, that says, “Okay, well, I know where to find the audiences for this. If that's the DNA of the book and this is the campaign that manifests it, then I know where to find these people.” It goes and autonomously deploys it in various media channels to specific audiences who might be interested in that content. So that's what we started doing, and that generated a huge amount of data. Where we've got to recently—really in the last six months—is understanding that, as you've just said, most people can generate their own stuff. So in some ways they can look just like a mini Shimmr. The thing that differentiates the content is always the strategy. What we have learned to do now—and it's because of an agentic framework—is we've moved beyond what's between the covers of the book to look at life. We look at culture, what's going on, what are the trends, what's in and what's out. Even if you take a particular trend—let's say, fascism—what's the language associated with it that's being treated positively and respectfully, and what's the stuff that leads to it being dismissed straight away? All those sorts of nuances around everything. But equally, as well as going deep with a set of agents on what fascism might be in today's culture, we also go wide and say, “Well, how does that sit next to loyalty or hedonism or ambition or something else?” So we get this very, very circumspect analysis of the market. Then, indeed, if you do write a book about—I'm really going off-piste here, but you know, the hedonism of fascism, like, God, that would be a weird book—you discover that actually you're not really competing with another book, but you are competing with that specific podcast and this movie that came out, and another movement that's born in Italy but it's moving across Europe now or something. So we were able to produce strategies which now lead to a much broader offer, one which is much more sophisticated and much more likely to drive success in a book or in a creative enterprise. It informs product listings, metadata, author communications, PR, SEO, GEO, and of course the thing that we started with, advertising. So things that you see made by Shimmr should be much more resonant and much more attuned to the world, and commercially much more likely to drive success, than simply saying, “Here's a book, make ten Midjourney images out of it.” Jo: Mm-hmm. Nadim: It's really about the quality of the briefing and the quality of the assets that you're able to produce by having a much more sophisticated Strategizer. So we've gone back into the intellectual property and the human analysis, in a way, of the world. To understand where a specific piece of creative work sits in culture and society has become a much bigger proposition. Jo: Right. So you did mention podcasts there. So as in, you might present to a publisher “these are the podcasts that they should pitch” for example? Nadim: There's that, of course, but it's also, don't think that this book is competing with these three titles which your team put together. It's more that, if people want to listen to hedonistic fascism, they can listen to that podcast before they read this book. Jo: Okay, that's interesting. Interesting times. So we don't have much time left, but I think one of the biggest questions that people have—even if they're AI-positive, as I am and many people listening are—it's not that we're worried about AI replacing us, because we know we're individuals and all that, but we are slightly concerned about the volume of books in the market. And not just books, but TV shows and YouTube and TikTok. It's very hard to stand out. You do say in the book: “When anyone can make, maybe creativity lies not in the making, but in making others care.” How can I move up the value chain? So for many of us who make an income this way, what are your recommendations? Nadim: Great question. And actually I think it's really central. My latest catchphrase is that in a time of super abundance, we need super discoverability. So it's exactly as you just said—tons of work, tons of movies, tons of podcasts, and tons of everything. If you believe in what I've been saying, which is that we're emancipating the creative spark of 8 billion people, there's going to be even more. So I believe that the solution is what I call multimodal interactivity. That doesn't mean multimedia—it means multimodal. Multimodal means you can engage with an experience in different modalities—the same idea. So my conviction is that if you write a book or make a painting or have a piece of music that you've come up with—or anything really, creatively—and you wish it to both survive the first six weeks of its birth and then thrive in a more perpetual way in society and culture, then people have to be able to experience and engage with your idea in multiple modalities. I would always write a book, because that's what I do. Others produce a podcast or write a piece of music—whatever the same sort of things. Any one of us needs to make sure that that reappears and is experienceable and interactable with in different modalities. So my book should have some Instagram reels. There might be YouTube shorts, there might be a podcast, there might be a piece of music associated with it, it could be a movie. It could be a game, it could be an app. You really have to think about allowing your creative idea—more than your creative artefact—to live in culture. Sure, you want to make an income from the artefact that you are good at producing. As many of your listeners, and I, would be writers of books, we want that to persist as a revenue stream, and it should do. I would simply argue that making sure that whatever you've produced in your book is manifest, and people can interact with it in other modalities, is the surest way to get it seen and discovered. Jo: Yes, it's interesting. I've actually started looking at making my non-fiction books into skills. Nadim: Yes. Jo: And also making markdown MD files—books as markdown files for agents to buy. Nadim: Very good. You are way ahead of the curve. Jo: Well, I sell on Shopify, as do many listeners, and Shopify, as I'm sure you know, is now enabled for agentic purchasing. We are in ChatGPT. So it's really interesting to think, well, if the agents go shopping for people now and in the future, what you want is to be able to find it. Also, I haven't actually put an explicit licence, but people email me and say, “Can I upload your books into an LLM?” And I'm like, “If you buy a copy from me, then yes, you can.” Nadim: Yes. Jo: So I think it's changing. And as you say, I do think that people are more and more going to want to say “buy the PDF and put it in NotebookLM” or use it as a skill. Nadim: That's right. Jo: That kind of thing. Nadim: Yes, and then they go on a walk with their dog and they listen to the podcast about your book, which they've created on NotebookLM. It's exactly that. I think my worst fear for publishers is that they lose so much of the value chain—distribution, creative collaboration, all sorts of things along the way—that the worst position they could end up in is simply as book manufacturers, which would be just one small manifestation of a creative idea. Jo: Well, I'm excited about the future. I hope you are too. I think you are. What are you particularly excited about in terms of the changes coming? Nadim: Well, if I can be my most extravagant now, my greatest excitement about AI and the changes that are coming are that it'll produce what I describe as the Panthropic. The Panthropic is a way of seeing AI not as a companion or some anthropomorphic being, but instead the repository of everything that humans have ever thought or felt or created or shared, accessible to us all in an anonymised way. It's just a repository of interactable information. My excitement about it is that the liberation that that gives to information—which becomes knowledge, which of course we all know leads to some power—should result in truly new thinking, new philosophy, new spiritualism, possibly new questions about what it is to be a human being and what life on Earth is all about. New economics, new employment, new education. I think one can too easily underestimate the massive liberation of intellectual consideration and creativity that's about to surf across the globe, and I'm so excited by it. Jo: Mm-hmm. Yes, me too. Very interesting times ahead. So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Nadim: I think the easiest thing is just to go to LinkedIn and find me there as Nadim Sadek. You can also go to my personal website, which is NadimSadek.com, and that'll take you wherever you want on different journeys and different parts of my career. It'll also give you links to books. Of course, they're available in all formats—audio, paperback, ebook—and in many different languages, all through Amazon and other platforms, and Spotify and Audible and all the usual things. Jo: All the usual things. Well, thanks so much for your time, Nadim. That was great. Nadim: It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.The post AI, Creativity, And The Future of Publishing with Nadim Sadek first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloud Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -AUTO GENERATED TRANSCRIPT: Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, sixth of May. I'm Holly Wainwright and the first thing I'm going to do, the first order of business, very simple out louder is if you love your show, please vote for us in the upcoming Australian Audio Awards as a People's Choice category. It's really straightforward. We're going to put a link in the show notes, We're probably going to put it on social We're going to put it everywhere. We would love your support to help us get there. That is the end of my manifesto for the day. Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I just would like to say as a lazy girl that there are all these things to fill out. Speaker 3: You only have to fill us out. Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to do everything is just tick Mama Mia out Loud. Speaker 3: So important for the lazy girls out there, and as as a bossy girl, I just concur with Holly. I know you can make that ask of people, and I think that's a great step towards greet our self assertive. Speaker 1: I'm growing, I'm growing, Amelia Growing. I'm Amelia Lester and I'm Claire Stephen and here's what's made our agenda for today. So now that it's all over and many damning text messages scatter the ruins of what was the biggest celebrity story for a couple of years, Just who did win in the whole? Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni court case drama. Speaker 3: Plus Cameron Diaz is a mother again at fifty three, and Holly has some thoughts. Speaker 2: And veteran broadcaster James Valentine filmed the last year of his life for the ABC, and between a living wake and his openness around voluntary assisted dying, he's opened a conversation around what it means to die a good death. Speaker 1: But first, Amelia Lester, the Mecgala. Speaker 3: Did it feel different this year? A lot of people said that it did. Amy Odell, a fashion writer, wrote in her background newsletter that the Metgala was all money, no soul, and she wasn't alone in this criticism. Basically, people are saying that because Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos sponsored the event, it just started to feel a little craven, a little gross, and less fun than it used to be. So there were a lot of protests in New York. In the lead up to the event, they were all centered around Amazon's labor practices, its environmental damage. And then there are those who say, no, that's not true. The mech color's always been about rich people giving their money towards a good cause, which is the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute. And look, they did raise a lot of money on Monday night. The Bezos has bought the event for about ten million dollars, but then the event itself raised about forty one million. This is US dollars, which is a lot for this event. It's apparently kind of record breaking. So are we just complaining about nothing, Holly? Do you feel like celebrities stayed away? Did they agree that this was a sort of off event this year? Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a list of the celebrities who people say boycotted, because none of the people so far who everyone is saying has boycott had actually verbalized that they were boycott. Speaker 3: Well, we are boycotted, which we just had to take a stand because. Speaker 1: I do feel a little bit like what soul when you said it's all money those salt like, I do feel a bit that I don't think this is the first year. It has been pointed out in the culture, particularly since trump Ism and all those things, that this feels very hunger games. Yes, yes, and I know although there's a more direct link here, you know, with the Bezos is buying it. I do feel like Jeff sort of bought it for Lauren as a gift, which is a nice gift. Nice, but it feels more avert. So anyway, let's look at this because when I was watching it on Tuesday and then I did a subscriber episode with me as straight afterwards, I was like, well, all the celebrities are there, like Beyonce's there. All the famous people I was expecting to be there were there. Speaker 2: Well, actually a lot of famous feom we didn't expect to be there were there. Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it was pointed out to me who was not Billie Eilish. Now that tracks because she doesn't like billionaires, and she remembers she gave a speech a while ago where she said, you lot give more of your money away. So I don't think she would have been either welcome or willing to go, because Jeff might have worried that she was going to shake him down in the bathroom to share more of his money. Zoe Saldana, she is somebody who is usually there. She was not there. She is almost as rich as the billionaires. She is an unbelievably well paid actress because of her Marvel and Avatar connections. So Zoe's at home count of dollars. Olivia Rodrigo that tracks too. She is political, That would not be surprising. She's in the middle of an album promo, so you might have usually expected her to be there. Lady Gaga an interesting one because she could have been expected to be there because she's in The Devil Wears prior of Too and the rest of the Well. Meryl wasn't there, but Meryl never goes, so that's not surprising. But Anne Hath the way Emily Blunt Stanley Tucci were all there. Speaker 2: Stanley Tucci with Emily blount sister, it's always fun. Speaker 1: So maybe Gaga, but also she's kind of said lately that she's going to focus on promoting things she wants to promote rather than just being around. Lewis Hamilton come on, like he's literally dating Kim Kardashian, who's extremely bezos adjacent. I don't think that was a political. Speaker 3: Let's get to the big guns. Some were missing, right, some who we might have realized. Sarah Jessica Parker. Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Sarah Jessica I reckon. That is probably I would say that's almost definitely a boycott. But she went to support Anna at a dinner, but she didn't. Speaker 3: Go to the There was a dinner on the weekend before the gala. It probably would have been more fun. Speaker 1: Anyways, she said anything, No, she hasn't, but she I think she was in support of the New New York mayor. Right, And obviously he didn't go, but then I wouldn't have expected him to go, and he did post about it. They posted a series of let's sell a the real heroes of fashion and you know, celebrated workers behind the scenes and particular designers and things. So yes, so Sarah Jessica Parker I reckon could be a boycott. But then they're saying, you know, j Lo, I don't think Jalo was boycotting. I just think she's tired. Speaker 3: Harry Styles. Speaker 1: Harry Styles is in the middle of record of rehearsing for his tour. He's in a studio in bethnal Green running through it. Not that I've been stalking him. Justin Bieber, he's just done Coachella. Boy needs to lie down. Miley Taylor Swift, she never goes, and I don't think she's so. I think that some of the boycott cots are not boy I. Speaker 3: Think that's right. But it's interesting that some of the tech billionaires it clearly got to them a little bit. So it's interesting that Jeff did not walk the red carpet with Lauren. That's very unusual. They do everything together. We've learned this from various pieces about them and Lauren's dress being very boring. Do we think that was intentional. Speaker 1: A little bit understated for Lauren, Yeah, but I think it was had a very specific art reference. It was the same dress as someone called Madame X and it's like scandalous women. Speaker 3: Yep. It's interesting though, because Jeff did walk the carpet in twenty thirteen when Amazon sponsored the event. There was no outrage back then when Amazon sponsored the event and he walked with Mackenzie then Mackenzie Bezos his wife at the time. Mark Zuckerberg also made his Met Gala debut with his wife, Priscilla Chan, and they also didn't walk the red carpet, which I thought was interesting because it's kind of like, well, you want to be at the glamorous event, but you don't want the attention of being there. Speaker 1: Do you think they might have been encouraged not to. Speaker 3: I don't think anyone encourages Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to do anything would have worked exactly. But there were some tech willionaires who did walk the carpet. Google founder Sergei Brinn. He showed up on the red carpet with his girlfriend. Her name is Gaylyn Gilbert Soto. The New York Times describes her as a con conservative gut health influencer. Speaker 1: That is one of the six job title Claire. Speaker 3: Do you think that there's something inherently conservative about gut health? Speaker 2: Yeah, because gut health is very don't take antibiotics and don't take antibiotics is very That's what it's. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which used to be a sort of crunchy hippie vibe, but these days has come back around it. Speaker 3: I thought it was just you know, drink your com your chart, but no, it means it can. Speaker 2: Be very I feel like there's it's a short road from like gut health gut health to to anti vacs. Don't ever give your children antibiotics with my sour crow. Speaker 3: And of course I'm AROUNDA was there. I just have to add she was there with Snapchat founder Evanstein on the carpet, of course. Speaker 1: Possibly the biggest gun that I haven't mentioned though, is Zendaya. She does always go. Usually she didn't go, and that read like a boycott. And some people are saying, if your boycotting, say you're boycotting. I don't think so necessarily. You don't want to necessarily make everything about your politics. But I just have one question. I think that big charity galas of all types have always been, have always reflected the moment therein and they've always been a path to accessing status in a particular society. Watch the Gilded Age, It's all about that. Speaker 3: And Nixon notably said that she thought it was great that the mayor didn't go. Speaker 1: Yes, but like you know, you're reflecting the time. So you're going a big gala ball is the way you get all the fancy people together. This being a tech bro billionaire ball is very reflective of the moment we're living in, right, So is it surprising in any way in the nineteen eighties New York society. It was all about glitz and flash and Donald Trump, and now we're like again, I don't know. I kind of feel like, what did we expect to happen? Speaker 3: No, that's right, But I think that the group that people are most angry at it's not the people who went in their pretty dresses. It's not the people who didn't go and stay quiet about it. It's the people who went but then tried to have their cake and eat it too. See. Speaker 2: I'm not as frustrated about this because Sarah Paulson is getting a hole at a crap because she wore a dress that then and then had a blindfold that was a dollar bill, and it was people like it's making a statement about about like eating the rich. Speaker 3: Well, she herself said that it was a statement about the one. Speaker 2: Besides yes, and and I thought that was like a far swing. But the dress is actually called like the one percent by the artist, the designer who designed it, and the mask was called blinded by Money, and it was a statement on greed and corruption that comes with extreme power. I think it's a little bit unfair to look at her and say, well, you've got a net worth of twelve million dollars at which how does anyone calculate anyone's net worth on the internet? But you have a net worth of that you're at this event, how dare you then make a protest when it's like, well, isn't that exactly how how you do it? Speaker 3: Don't you go in? And well, people do have a history of using that platform. So Alexandra Ocazio Cortez, who is a Democratic congresswoman from New York, famously wore a dress on the Megala red carpet a couple of years ago which said tax the rich. But people actually have the same criticism for her. To your point, Holly, the met Gala in some corners has always been seen as a kind of repulsive show of excess and decadence, and she got a lot of aoc got a lot of flak for even attending the event back then, reading the canapasey while saying. Speaker 1: You guys are discussing while Charlie free directions. Speaker 2: But if you're not there, you don't have a microphone to say anything about the event, do you know? Well, I guess you do. I guess like Vende could opposed to something on Instagram. Speaker 3: If you want Zendaya not going definitely took the air out of the room when that announcement came out, And I guess it wasn't an announcement so much as a news update. Everyone kind of went, that's big. When Zendeia's not there, it's big. Speaker 2: Because she's always one of the coolest on the carpet. Does something really original, remember that, like bloody light up dress and she. Speaker 3: Oh, but there was a bathroom selfie. Some things always stay the same, right, and you saw this by Yes, it's always an iconic bathroom selfie. It's always the thing you want to look for. And there was an amazing one that had you know, the Margo Robbie all the people in it. But one of the things that was most striking about that And so I saw that in the wild last night and I was like, why is there an exceptionally beautiful woman in the middle of that who is wearing a quarter zip sweatshirt? I was like, was she at that party? Speaker 1: And then it's having a lot of headlines today because she is actually a very famous model. Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually love the story behind this. Her name is Bavitha Mandava and she that what she wore was a quarterzip jumper essentially and what looked like jeans. It turns out they weren't just any jeans. The jeans were made with silk muslin and had a blue denim effect. My jeans today have a blue denim effect. And it's a very important iconic look because she opened Chanell's show in December, which was on the New York City Subway, wearing essentially that outfit, and the fashion world lost their mind. That show was like considered extremely groundbreaking, and she was the first Indian model to open a Chanel show and she is now the first South Asian ambassador for Chanel. And incidentally, did you notice that Margot Robbie, who was also Chanel ambassador, It was right next to her in that photo. So Chanell must have been just so happy about the whole thing. Speaker 1: I know, but it just she just looked so out of place. Speaker 3: But that's what made it so good. Speaker 1: Yeah, but I was like wandered into the shop. But she also read all about it and I was amazing. Yet she didn't have to have a bubble machine boobs. Speaker 3: And then that look that she wore on the Chanel catwalk was actually a nod in turn to how she was discovered. I love this so much. She was a grad student m YU and she was discovered on the New York City subway waiting for a train. One would imagine probably wearing a similar outfit to the one she is now wearing in a much more fabulous incarnation at the metgala. Speaker 1: But you were obsessed with another red carpet walk. Speaker 2: Yes, because I am a basic bitch. If, like I swear, if there was like a thermometer for like, what's what does the basic bitch think about anything that's happening in the world right now? It comes over me and it's like bing bing bing bing bing because I saw the red carpet photos of Hugh Jackman in Suton Foster and I think I was sitting opposite you and Holly and I. Speaker 3: Said, oh oh, was like I don't and I'm like, howm my. Speaker 1: Here has it been? Speaker 3: Now? Not that many at least well he was. Speaker 2: Hugh Jackman was on the Red carpet with Debory Furnace in twenty twenty three. Speaker 3: My group chats are very divided on this. Some love the two of them together and some are talking about deb Prowley. Speaker 1: Do you have to not debut your relationship after a divorce five years, ten years? What do we want? Speaker 2: There are no rules, but I am allowed to go oh poor deb Oh, no, I hate that I am allowed. And then the tabloids, because again I'm a basic bitch. The tabloids were like, hey, basic bitches, We've made up a story for you. So there are sources in Inverata commas who say that Debrale Furnace was a huge fan of the event and the decision to bring Sutton Foster was a final blow to deb And what I didn't realize when I went really deep on this was some Foster's wearing a ring, like they think that you proposed in January and they think they're going to have some trend in your wedding. Speaker 1: And is that all are not allowed? He's not allowed to marry again, not ever, not ever. Speaker 3: I I don't know about that. Speaker 1: How do you know that, Deborah Lee Furness. This is what I don't like about this narrative is it victimizes a woman who maybe is totally done with that, you know what I mean. She obviously she made up some statements that made it clear she was not happy when that relationship broke down, But again three years ago, so now she might be living her absolute best life. Thank god I don't have to go to the met gala with that guy. Speaker 3: She disagrees politically too. We don't know anything about it, like she was kind of famously a conservative political voice because he is the godparent of Rupert Murdock and Wendy Dang's children. Also, he's very close with Avanka Trump. So no one was surprised to see Hugh at the slightly maga codd metgala. Speaker 1: Oh wow, he's unfair, And I know no one's crying for the celebrities, but I think it's unfair to brand everybody who was at that red carpet as maga. Speaker 3: Co Oh no, no, no, I did too, But I just I'm saying that he's not exactly Alexandra Orcasio Cortez. No one would be expecting him to make a big political statement about the taxing the rich. No, he's very like to promote. Speaker 1: In a moment, what the heck was all that Baldoni Lively business about? If we've both basically ended with nobody winning and no money changing hands. So moments before one Blake Lively swept onto the met gala carpet looking a bit like Cinderella, very trademark minus the bluebird. She didn't happen. She always said exactly body, She's pretty good all that stuff. But moments before that, a statement dropped into the inboxes of major press outlets, including People, New York Times and so on, and it read the end product the movie. It ends with Us is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. And with no context, Everyone's like, why are we reading this? Raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors and all survivors is a goal that we stand behind. It becomes clear this is a joint statement from Blake Lively's team and Justin Baldoni's team about the court case we've all been obsessed about for years. We acknowledge the process, presented challenges, did it. Speaker 3: Recollections and recognized concerns raised by mes Lively deserved to be heard. Speaker 1: We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. This is one of those statements that so many lawyers were involved in drafting that it. Speaker 3: I hate an unproductive environment and I'm with that. Speaker 1: That's fair. It is our sincere hope that this statement brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online. And in the hope of moving forward constructively and in peace, Blake goes to the met gal Yeah, yep. Now we'll get to whether or not they got their respectful environment online, But just a very quick catch up, because we would be here for a year if we went into all the ins and outs of what's been going on here. But it all started when Blake Lively. Do I need to explain who she is? Significant star actress, possessor of wonderful hair, one half of a very powerful Hollywood power couple, made a movie called It Ends with Us, based on one of the best selling books in the past decade by Colleen Hoover. Speaker 2: And you guys are weird about it because I said this morning that it's objectively one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And you guys, it's fine. You guys were so mad well. I didn't stop you so mad well. Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to that in a minute. The thing is is that making a movie based on one of the best selling books of the decade is smart business and lots of people wanted to do it. But the man who owned the rights was Justin Baldoni, who's a lesser known dude. He's an actor, producer, self proclaimed feminist. Done. Some Ted talks about it. Speaker 3: Everything I know about this man I've learned against my will exactly done. Speaker 1: Some Ted talks about it podcast with Liz Plank something something something. Anyway, the movie itself is about domestic balance. That is not a mystery or a surprise at his front and center in the plot. The movie got made, and the movie was a huge hit, proving Claire Stephens wrong. Speaker 3: All I need to say. Speaker 1: Against the modest production budget of twenty five million, it grossed around three hundred and fifty one million dollars. Huge movie, right, But before the hit part happened, obviously, it was obvious that things were for apart. Behind the scenes, everything had gone very very wrong. We're not going to take you through because again I know Klas Stevens has a PowerPoint on this somewhere. You It went very deep at the time. You were a great source of it. Speaker 3: It was great. A lot of this was going down. Speaker 2: I think maybe just as I submitted my books, and my reward to myself was finish your book and you can read all the legal poculars. Speaker 1: Yes, and there was this press tour that was like separate red carpets and warring factions and all this stuff. And then in December twenty twenty four, Lively sued Baldoni, accusing him of harassment, sexual misconduct, and a smear campaign on the set of their movie. She claimed that Baldoni conspired with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation, hence the dodgy press tour after she privately accused him of sexually harassing her on the movie set. There were a lot of damning texts released, all hell broke loose. Then Baldoni countersued. He basically alleged that Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds always wanted to take over this movie, the control of the script, to the edit, all the things that they had it in for him, and they used their very famous friends to intimidate and harass him. Speaker 3: I'll never forget the email that when unanswered, that she sent to Matt Damon. Speaker 1: Oh, I know. There were a lot of damning texts revealed. Speaker 2: Again, sorry, the one to Ben Affleck where she like, oh, she just made an awkward joke about how she had sent the email to Matt Damon and how great Matt Damon was, and I was like, honey, that's like Ben Affleck's biggest point of in security is comparing himself to Matt Damon and you don't know the idiots and your correspondence with Ben. Speaker 1: And so here we are suddenly, just weeks before this mess was all going to go to court, all these cases have been it. Speaker 3: Hadn't even gone to court. Speaker 1: No, some things had been dropped dropped. So first of all, Baldoni's case against Lively got dropped, and some elements of Lively's case against him got like so there was all that was stuff, but it was it was meant to go to court I think on May eighteen, so soon. Wow, And days before it's been disappeared. Lawyers have made millions, reputations have been trashed and nobody apparently no money exchanged hands between the two parties, and no one, as you as evidenced by that really confusing press release, nobody is saying that they've won or not. Claire does the fact that Blake Lively stepped onto the met Gala carpet the minute that happened signaled that she sees this as victory or that she'd liked to pretend the whole thing didn't happen, And how the hell does she move forward? Speaker 3: Yeah, Claire, what does that mean that she shot up at the Metgala? Speaker 1: One? Speaker 2: I think it's genius. I always think that the best publicity in response to this stuff is to be around and change the narrative, like changing a different direction. Celebrities are so clever that it is no coincidence that this statement came out when it did and that then she was on a red carpet, because you just you know that there's so much going on in the world. People are going to be all the celebrity reporters are going to be distracted, just like the zones. Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And. Speaker 2: It's the same reason it always happens. When I was editor in chief, the local Australian celebrities would always announce their breakup at like five pm on a Friday, and it's like, you know. Speaker 3: The journals have gone to drinks or boxing day. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, we've gone to drinks, you know that West Skeleton stuff on the weekends. Speaker 3: We're not going to go as hard on this story. Speaker 2: So I think it was smart that it was released when it was, and it was smart that she turned up at the met gala and that she reminded everyone I look really good in address. Speaker 1: You to figure but disagree because what immediately happened the minute she opened her mouth. Speaker 2: Well, this is what's interesting that depending on your algorithm, and depending on what side of the Internet you're on, there are two very different stories. So on certain apps, the story I'm saying is this was a win for Blake Lively that, for example, the line at the end of that statement including a respectful environment online, that that was very much acknowledging what had happened to her, which was all the allegations about manufactur orchestrated campaign. Speaker 1: Because that is the thing that I will take away from this mess the most, is that seeing the messages between Baldoni's press people and him about ways that you can use and manipulate social media to dent somebody's reputation is not just like when you see suddenly start seeing everywhere lots of tiktoks around of like, look at this interview with this person, doesn't she come across a bit like this but there can be a lot more behind it. And this is also things that we pointed out about amber Hood joining the amber Hood Johnny deppcayse that there can be a really orchestrated dark arts going on there, and certainly the examples that were pinging back and forward between Justin Baldoni and his reps suggested that I knew that. Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there's there's a lot of arguments that that line in particular is about what she went through, because she really has been torn apart on the internet. However, I couldn't believe that she turns up at the met Gala. She there's she clearly you could actually tell from her speaking when she was interviewed that she was nervous, that she was trying, like, I can't put my foot in it. Speaker 3: I can't like that. Speaker 2: There have been viral interviews of her for a couple of years now all over the Internet of her just saying slightly the wrong thing in an interview, and it becomes that she's an awful person. Blake Lively did an interview on the met Gala red carpet and it has been analyzed to death, and people think she was rude to the interviewer in this instance, well, you look gorgeous. Speaker 4: I am wearing Jackson weederhot gorgeous, thank you beautiful hair. She yeah, you look studying. And this is archival versace, but they met a fid it by adding a big beautiful train. So it's a piece from two thousand and six. And it was just such an honor to be able to wear this gorgeous, gorgeous gown. It looks like a sunrise and a sunset and watercolor and gorgeous range shworts, jewelry. But this this, but these, this is a Judith leberbag. And we were trying to find a piece of famous iconic art to put on and make it look like it was in a frame. And then I said, would you actually, if you're gonna make it custom, would you do my kid's art? So my kids each painted a painting, a watercolor painting. So each of my four kids did this. Speaker 1: That is so spoo especial. Speaker 4: So I have them with me. Speaker 2: And that has been interpreted as her being a bit, as her being dismissive, as her being self scentered. The other thing that's been I think we want to know what this is. Speaker 1: So here's my challenge to your strategy, be public, give them things to talk about, because she can't get away from this narrative now for some time, it's been years of her lit like every time she opens her mouth. There's a lot of people invested in you're a terrible person, as you say, so they're just going to find ways to say that over and over again. In the way that the Internet is now very invested in hating Blake Lively a certain so, just in the way that the internet's very invested in hating Megan Markele. It doesn't matter what she does, what she says, where she goes. You can't win that game. Speaker 2: One of the great arguments was it costs one hundred k for a plate at the Met gala, and part of her claim was the financial stress caused by Baldoni smear campaign. And it's like she's not paying for that one hundred k plate, neither is anyone people being like I thought you were arguing you were locked out of Hollywood. Speaker 3: Doesn't look like you're locked out of Hollywood. Speaker 2: And she had a bag where her interpretation of the art theme was that she got her four kids to draw a picture on each side of the back no self centered, made it about you. Speaker 3: You wanted to. Speaker 2: Claim authorship over this event, So there are people. Speaker 1: This is why I think her best strategy is to go away for a few years. Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think the weird thing is I think if Justin Baldoni had turned up, I think there's something, there's an anonymity that we give men that we just don't give women like I just don't think he is going to be plagued in the same way. And I think it's Marina Hyde who says he'll probably do some low budget it. Speaker 1: Will definitely have dented his possibilities of becoming a big name. I think that because, as Marina Hyde says in that story in The Guardian, she wrote a column about this, saying that the overarching lesson of this whole thing is never ever go to court, never ever ever. And they didn't actually end up in court, but still is that for the rest of time. Their names are now linked, every interview, every pro file, every project they do. This will always be part of the story in a way that it wouldn't if it hadn't entered the courts. But when I say I think go away free, I don't mean disappear like I don't mean silencing women. I mean work on projects, work on producer projects, hustle behind the scenes, do all your hollywoody stuff until you can come back to address this with more nuanced Look at Lena Dunnan. We've been talking about that a lot lately. Famously one of the most hated women on the internet for a period of time, couldn't put a foot right, couldn't do anything right, opened her mouth, everybody jumped on her. We know how the culture treats women who speak out about all kinds of things. There are local examples of this too. In a way. You've got to like let the air out of it and then come back when there's some nuance and distance. Speaker 3: You know what I mean That her while best friend Taylor Swift would have told her that too, because Taylor, of course also famously disappeared and was getting around in large boxes for a while just to stay out of the public eye. That comment of Marina Hides about never go to court is interesting because a few years ago, someone in a professional context did something to me that made me want to take them to court, and so I went to talk to a lawyer about it, who have been recommended to me, and the lawyer heard me out. I was very grateful for the advice she gave me. She said, look, I think you have a strong case, but if you did this, everyone in your field would say that you were a nightmare, no matter what happened in the court case, no matter how right you are, and I do think you're right, it would affect you professionally and it would follow you professionally for the rest of your life. And I think getting that advice from someone who had kind of a monetary gain to taking the case on was something I really appreciated. And I just wonder if Blake Lively's legal advice turned out to be deeply misguided. Speaker 1: I know. The sad thing about this argument I've never taken to court is, of course, that women putting up with sexual harassment at work are just always this guy from ever doing anywhere with it, because you're going to get your character smeared. And it might be on the scale of a Blake Lively, or it might be just the local gossip at the football club, like whatever it is, and that it's like we've seen this play out in massive letters across the sky that watch out, women will get you one way or another, and whether or not Blake Lively is particularly likable, is always nice to everybody? Blah blah blah, isn't the point? Speaker 2: Yeah, it is quite scary for women knowing that if you pursue, which is what an element of what Blake Lively was pursuing, a sexual harassment claim, that all your texts will be looked over and mocked and made fun of. Like, that's a really scary cost to pay. After the break James Valentine and why everyone's talking about the concept of a living wake. On the twenty second of April of this year, cast out musician and author James Valentine died age sixty four, leaving behind his son, his daughter, and his wife. The ABC veteran had terminal cancer, and he was widely loved by his audience, who had been listening to him for three decades. He had been transparent over the last two and a half years about his health. He was a very talented saxophone player and anyone who grew up in the eighties in Australia probably knows him as part of the band The Models and their iconic songs Barbados and Out of Mind, Out of Sight, and he was a Sydney radio presenter. Emilia and Holly, what was your connection to James Valentine as a radio personality? Speaker 3: He was a really important figure in my childhood. He hosted a thing called the Afternoon Show on ABC when back when there were forty TV channels in this country. I remember those days, and he would host and it was cartoons, it was variety. And I never really listened to him on the radio, but I have such you know, in the way that those childhood figures loom large for you. I've always held such fondness and affection for him. And how about you, Hollie. Speaker 1: He's clearly just an incredibly skilled communicator. I mean, I would be lying if I said I listened to that show. But anyone who knows how radio works, how the ABC works, so many people I know who know him. He was just clearly exceptionally good at what he did and very loved. Speaker 2: It's a reminder I think that parasocial relationships have existed long before the Internet. The fact that when the news of his death came out there was a widespread kind of public grieving and a lot of listeners who called in the next day, and his wife and his kids were kind of saying how much that meant to have people remember their dad through sense of humor and his energy. So two and a half years ago he was diagnosed with esophagal cancer and he was given two different treatment options, and he chose the one that was a bit less invasive and would preserve the things he loved in life, which were presenting radio, playing saxophone and enjoying food. Then in January of this year, he's given a terminal diagnosis and his response to that diagnosis and what he planned to do next was documented in Monday's episode of Australian Story, presented by Lee Sales, and it started a huge conversation about the concept of a living wake, which he very fittingly held on Valentine's Day of this year. Here's what he said on the show stage. Speaker 5: Four, terminal, inoperable, uncurable. I don't want to hear any of those words, let alone in the one sentence. So a friend suggested Tommy, maybe you should do a living wake, and oh, that sounds like fun. I will know the time and the day and so it'll be the last weekend. What do you do on that last weekend's dinner? Before? What do you think is that the last meal, I will probably know exactly when I'm going. Speaker 1: That's so moving. So seeing the footage of his reference at the end there was due to the fact that he ultimately chose the time he was going to die, right. Speaker 2: Yeah, he chose voluntary assisted dying and was very transparent around how he made that decision and what that decision entailed. For context, voluntary assisted dying is legal in all states in Australia and the Act except the Northern Territory, and obviously it's an incredibly complex and incredible, incredibly personal decision that has sparked. It's sparking more and more conversation the more we have and aging population and the more people are getting certain diagnoses that may keep them alive for a very long time, but the quality of that life may be poor, and him kind of taking people through that decision was a huge part of the Australian story. But it meant that he got to plan this living wake and there's footage of it, and he's got his family and friends there and there are so many familiar ABC faces and he's really good friends with Norman Swan, who he had on radio to discuss his diagnosis, like what all the different parts of the body were and what they did. And there was something so moving about seeing him on stage with a microphone at his own wake, basically saying, please come up to me and tell me stories and memories about us, because they are what's going to carry me through the next few weeks. And I guess I thought it must be such a relief for his family that then when you do a funeral, he's heard all the beautiful things that you're then going to say about him. I think this is really something we should we should all be looking at. Speaker 1: If it's possible, this episode of Australian Story is really recommended viewing. I think, whether you know who James Valentine is or not, in a world where we hate to talk about death, and yet it touches everybody obviously, I mean that's a ridiculous thing to say, but it does touch everybody. I'd lost a friend to this same cancer when he was only forty six. It's like all cancers. It's a it's it's cruel and the idea that we're also we don't like talking about illness, we don't like talking about death, and seeing somebody such a skilled communicator like James Valentine in this episode talking about why he wanted to do the things he did, and they document the year so very like him talking about how very much clarified for him that he loved his work, so he didn't want to stop working. He loved playing his saxophone, so he wanted to try and avoid procedures that were going to stop him from doing that. That he really wanted to work, play and be with his family, and those are the things he wanted to spend his last year doing. It's just it's very powerful, it's very clarifying. And then to see him at his living way and he says, you know, it wakes People always say, oh, he would have loved me there, and he says, so I wanted to be there, And I just think it's very refreshing. I think, you know, I, as I said, I didn't have a direct listenership with Joe's Valentine, but people who do, and people I know who've worked with him said he brought joy all the time. And it feels like a gift to give be so honest and so open and so clear eyed in talking about this thing that nobody wants to talk about. Is like the last incredible gift that a great communicator could give, and his family is so amazing in it. I really recommend watching the show. Speaker 2: There's a great quote in one of the ABC articles about his kind of decision making towards towards the end, where I think, as a psychologist says, dying people are not the actual act of dying is not the thing they're most scared of. They're scared of the invisibility and the absence of conversation around it. They're scared of people turning away and not wanting to be around them because of how confronting it is. And this was just such a reminder to look it straight in the eye and have the existential conversations with the people around you. The way that he spoke to his kids, and his kids were able to say, what do you think is going to happen afterwards? Speaker 3: And I bet that that's so much harder to do than even it looks. It doesn't look easy, but I bet it's even harder to actually enact these principles that we can all agree are worthwhile. Speaker 1: I love that his kids say that this was perfect for him in particular, this living weight, because he loved being center of attention. He loved a party, He loved being told I'm brad he was. I love the way they you know that families are really kind of I mean, I'm sure no families are perfect, but they're really healthy and loving when they can just call out that stuff about you and be like, he would love this because he just loves everybody tell him how great he is. Speaker 3: So good. Speaker 2: Yeah, And I loved that it wasn't a sanitized version because I think something I always bristle at is when you hear of somebody getting a terminal diagnosis or of you know, knowing that they're going to die. I bristle at the narrative of I guess almost toxic positivity that they're just like, well, I'm completely grateful and joyful. And then I feel for the people who don't have that response, which is completely bloody normal. But I loved there was a lot of light and shade in this. They talked about they went on a holiday, a family holiday to Bali, just before he was meant to get the surgery for his esophagus, and that the whole family's like, oh so bloody terrible holiday. Everyone was sick, everyone had covid Dad. Speaker 3: Had BALI belly like. It's sort of I like that. Speaker 2: In documenting this time, they've been able to show the highs and lows of what happened. But the nort Yeah, how normal it is. But the fact that he was able to do it his way, and that those conversations around what you want, what you don't want, they give so much empowerment in those in those final months and final days. Speaker 1: Something completely different. There was celebrity baby news this week that I must mark because it was interesting. Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden just welcomed their third child. And it's interesting because Cameron is fifty three. Now. When I say that, I don't mean it's interesting in that way of like, oh, miracle baby, how did she do that? Why did you do that? Cameron Diaz. They announced that their little boy had come. They announced what his name was. His name is Nortous and he joins Raddix and Cardinal, which are all just the most rock star names of all time. They announced it. They didn't give any more details than that. It is safe to assume just because Cam's been on a press tour lately, she's been quite visible on a tour for a movie called Outcome, So she's been very visible, and it's safe to assume possibly that she wasn't heavily pregnant during that time, so likely that a surrogate was involved, but none of our business. But the thing that I found really interesting and refreshing that I wanted to unpack a little bit here is I wrote an essay a while ago when Sienna Miller was on the Red Carpet with her beautiful baby bump at I think forty three, and saying how we're entering a bit of an era of agelessness because perhaps of fertility technology, because of the different options that are open to us now, because of Hollywood and the wellness world's obsession with longevity, that we're in a different era now when it comes to age and women and kids. And I think nothing illustrates that more clearly than the fact that there haven't been a whole waterfall of stories about like, oh my god, a mom at fifty three and how could she and why would she? And da da da da. Is that now we're much more kind of like in the way that we might be about a man becoming a father at fifty three, because if you remove the biological complication from the advance for chility technology and all those things. It isn't really any different than the guy who's been doing that forever. Yeah, am I right? Yeah? Speaker 2: No, I think so too. The interesting thing is, as well, when I've looked at this story, how old Benji Madam? Well, nobody ever, as I don't know, I don't know, why didn't I. Speaker 1: Google similar age? I think, well, let's find it happen. Speaker 2: Yeah, because you're seven, so being a little bit younger Benji's forty seven, bloody spring chicken. But I it's interesting because whenever I see pregnancy baby news, it's obviously the life stage. Speaker 3: I'man, I always google. Speaker 1: How old is how? Speaker 3: How old is that? Speaker 1: Money is she? Speaker 2: And you're right that we don't when we wouldn't blink an eye at a man having a child at fifty three. And obviously, if you want to think about any of the things that make rearing children. Speaker 3: Difficult, the older you get. Speaker 2: I mean, Amaran Diaz looks like a bloody pillar of health. She's gonna live forever, She's gonna live till she's undred. Speaker 3: Well, I think what's interesting is that you said no one will blink, and I about a man. I wonder if, now, because women are also having babies older, all of a sudden, we're starting to blink her eyes at men having babies older. Men were allowed to do it for all of human history, but now that women are starting to do it, we're starting to revisit the whole idea of older parents because. Speaker 2: We are interested, and there is actually more and more scientific research going into the health impacts of older because you know how, I'm called geriatric. Just for the record, I'm a geriatric mother. What age, I'm thirty five years old. No, they don't. They call it advanced material. Speaker 3: They definitely call it just it's kind of coolrophistic. Speaker 1: They definitely did call it geriatric though, when I had my second child at forty, I that's interesting. Speaker 2: But if they call Brent geriatric, no, but they should have done it because he's elderly, I think. Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. But then that also assumes. Speaker 3: Like the judgments creeping in for both sexes now, is what I'm saying. Speaker 1: Yes, and that assumes the idea about like we're becoming aware of the risks of older parents assumes assumes a lot about what might be going on here biologically. Yes, exactly, whereas if Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden and whoever else may be in their cohort are having are assessing all the risks, I'm sure they are. We know how health obsessed Hollywood is and making those choices, and there I think. I don't know that's interesting though, Amelia, where you say that that maybe the judgment, instead of fading away, just attaches itself to both genders. Speaker 3: Well, because I don't think it is just about biology. I think it would be we need to put on the table to not be disingenuous. That a lot of people listening to this may have a reaction of if you have a baby at a more advanced age, shall we say, in your fifties, you automatically do a bit of maths, and you think, well, when that child in school, Cameron Diaz will be sixty three. I don't know how old Benji Madden will because I'm not that good at maths, but he'll be also kind of old. And so I think that's one of the concerns that people are now voicing a little bit more when no one ever used to say, well, Mick Jagger is going to be so old when his kids graduate but now we are starting to say that or feeling perhaps feeling more comfortable to say that. Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting. But then I think in this privileged bubble that we're talking about, longevity is an obsession. So I think that that is also changing. This right is that people are thinking rightly, wrongly whatever that with all the right advances and all the right supplements and all the right that they're imagining themselves at seventy three, at this kid's twenty first, like leaping around, I'm doing yoga and pilate, particularly if they. Speaker 2: And Brian Johnson says he's got what is it the sperm of a twenty old? Think about that, man, Yeah, So I'm sure Cameron and Benji are having the same conversation. Speaker 3: So Cameron has remember she literally wrote a book about sort of how to be healthy as you get older, so she's this is clearly on her radar that she's sort of anticipating she will be living a long time. Speaker 1: That's always got time for on this Wednesday. Speaker 3: At births, deaths, any marriages, No. Speaker 1: There weren't any couples at the met gala, were they? They all went. Speaker 2: Solo boycotting, boycotting marriage on the metal, or. Speaker 1: Maybe it was like, unless that engagement wing comes from Amazon, we don't sink, perhaps in her body, her head and she did anyway. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for to our amazing team for helping us put the show together. We're going to be back in your ears on Friday, of course, and for subscribers with some scorelous gossip with Mia tomorrow. That's all. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.