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Natasha's insomnia journey began during the long grind of the pandemic. Life was full, intense, and stretched thin. She and her husband were working and their young son needed to take school classes online. When their nanny suddenly stopped coming, Natasha brushed it off at first. But that first sleepless night turned into another… and then another. Before she knew it, she was caught in a spiral she couldn't make sense of. Like many people who've always slept well, she didn't expect sleep to suddenly feel impossible. She tried going to bed earlier. She tried teas, essential oils, supplements, white noise, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication — anything she could find and all the things the internet tells you “should” help. Each attempt only made her more aware of how badly she wanted sleep and how far away it felt. Her nights became long stretches of alertness mixed with exhaustion — awake while everyone else slept — and her days were filled with worry about the next night. Over time, insomnia started to shape her choices. She avoided travel. She canceled early meetings. She relied on her husband sharing a bed with her for sleep to have any chance of happening. Insomnia slowly became the center of her days. The turning point didn't come from a pill or a hack. It came when every one of her “solutions” stopped working — and she realized she couldn't keep building her life around avoiding insomnia. That moment of exhaustion and honesty pushed her to look for a different approach. When we started working together, Natasha began noticing something important: even after a bad night, the next day could go better than she expected. And sometimes, after a good night, the day didn't feel great at all. That simple observation helped loosen the grip insomnia had on her. She also began changing her actions in small, meaningful ways — not to fix sleep, but to take her life back. She scheduled breakfast meetings again. She made evening plans without checking the clock. She traveled. She stopped organizing her days around sleep anxiety. And she created a calmer routine at night by watching shows she enjoyed instead of lying in bed trying to force sleep. Today, Natasha has her life back. Sleep isn't a project. Nights aren't battles. Insomnia no longer runs her life. Natasha runs her own life and sleep takes 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. Natasha, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Natasha: You are welcome, Martin. Thanks for having me. Martin: It’s great to have you on. Let’s start right at the very beginning. When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you feel caused those initial issues with sleep? Natasha: I think it was 2022 and we were still very much within the pandemic. And so there was of course like bad news all around, but I wasn’t necessarily stressed by that. All our children were outta school in the sense that all the schools were shut down. Natasha: At that point, my like 5-year-old or 6-year-old son, he was having to do his online classes and the day was just relentless, right? Because me, my husband, we were both working, we didn’t have any help at home. And then he had these online classes. So I had found this sort of nanny person who could help out during the day so that we could get our work done. Natasha: And I think she basically just called in sick. And I think like now, and this is all in hindsight, but I think it was some sort of like anxiety from that. And she wasn’t being very specific about whether she was, she had COVID or whether she was just, she said, I’ve hurt my foot. And, I think it was basically the fact that there was a lot of uncertainty about when she would be back and whether she would be back. Natasha: And I couldn’t sleep that night when she said, I’m not coming tomorrow. And, I think that was fine because the next day rolled around, but then the day after that, again, I sort of couldn’t fall back to sleep. And you know what happens when you haven’t slept one night and you feel like you have this huge day to get through the next day you try to overcompensate. Natasha: So I think I probably try to get into bed really early and I couldn’t fall asleep. And then I think I probably still just got out and read a book and got on with it. Natasha: So the days had been quite difficult to get through with a small child and work. I think by the third day I started noticing, I suddenly noticed the fact that I hadn’t slept very well and that I wasn’t being able to fall asleep. Natasha: And so the third night, I just really couldn’t sleep at all because I’d become very attentive to the fact that I was having this difficulty and that I had to. And so I think that’s what set it off. I don’t think there was anything more than that. Once it got started it just became this kind of vicious spiral of crashing pretty much after two or three days of sleeping very badly. Natasha: And then feeling slightly recovered the next day only to not be able to go back to sleep that night. And yeah, I think I started paying so much attention to the fact that I was having difficulty sleeping, that it was just getting harder and I think it, it turned into a huge full-blown problem. Martin: I’m gonna guess that there’s been other times in your life where you might have got a little bit less sleep or a lot less sleep than normal. And then things figured themselves out and sleep got back on track. What do you think was different this time around? Natasha: So I think a few things might have been different. Natasha: One was of course, that I think the pressure in the pandemic was very high on productivity and just somehow getting through the day. So not just, you had a lot of things to do at work. You had very little help and I had a child and I think also because there was this idea that there was some degree of latitude with your partners. Natasha: If for some reason you are sick, then he can pick up the slack more than what he’s normally doing. But I think he was completely slammed as well. As a family I think we’d become very aware of just how we were stretched beyond like capability. Natasha: So I think maybe that was one like predisposing condition that it, it made the need for rest so much higher. And therefore I think there was some kind of a, psychological reaction to the fact that when you thought that you really needed to rest, you weren’t being able to. I also do think, I do think it maybe had something to do with COVID because I did get COVID early 2022. Natasha: And I think I got, ever since then I’ve had COVID twice. And every time I’ve had COVID I’ve had a little bit of difficulty with sleep and a little bit of hyper arousal. So I, I think maybe it was a combination of these two things. But normally now if that happens, it just resolves itself because I don’t sit and, I don’t get too upset about it. Natasha: But at that time, perhaps, maybe some sort of like the physiological part was there, and then there was this huge psychological reality. Martin: Would you say that because it was such a stressful period it felt like maybe the stakes were higher than they were in the past. So as a result, you put more pressure on yourself to get sleep back on track. Martin: There was more trying, more effort, more pressure. Natasha: Yeah. I think there’s also one of the things I have realized and listening to your podcast, it’s something that I’ve observed. There are a lot of people who say that they develop insomnia. Many of them say that they were excellent sleepers. Natasha: They were brilliant sleepers before and they could sleep anywhere, anytime. And that was me as well. I could sleep anywhere, anytime. But the other thing is also that I think there are people who say that, I can’t function without sleep. I need my sleep. I love my sleep. Natasha: And there are others who are like, yeah, I can get on with it. It’s fine. I think you and I feel like if you’re the type who has told themselves for years that, oh, I can’t function without sleep, which is what I used to tell myself, and that’s why I used to sleep very adequately because I’d be like, oh, I need my nine hours and I need like my naps in between. Natasha: I feel like if you’ve spent years telling yourself that you can’t function without sleep and then a stressful situation comes that requires you to compromise with sleep or where your sleep gets affected, perhaps you are more susceptible to then developing anxiety around it, right? Because you’ve told yourself that you don’t know how to kind of function without it. Natasha: So maybe it’s also personality or like prior mindsets. Martin: It’s like the more important we deem something in our lives, quite naturally, the more we’re gonna focus on it. And if it deviates from whatever we want it to be doing that’s gonna immediately generate a lot of concern. Martin: And where we get trapped with insomnia and sleep is really, it’s beyond our direct and permanent control. So it, it kind of backfires, that additional effort. We might not be able to control the thoughts, we might not be able to change the fact that we see it as something important. Martin: It’s okay to see it as something important, but it’s our actions around that. The more we try to make sleep happen the more we can end up struggling with it. Natasha: Yeah, and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that now there is so much literature and all the things you can do to improve your sleep, right? Natasha: So there is this perpetuation of this illusion that somehow sleep is something you can entirely control and engineer. And I think I was doing so much of that as well. Natasha: You go through this strange, five stages of grief or something through that period of night where, you just, at some point you’re very angry. At some point you’re very depressed with your situation because it’s also this, it is a strange experience of being wide awake when the whole world is sleeping. Natasha: It’s different from being a night owl and it’s different from someone who’s, voluntarily working or relaxing or gaming or whatever. Natasha: You are alert and exhausted. So because you’re alert, you can’t go to sleep and because you’re exhausted, you can’t actually do anything productive. So you’re literally just sitting awake and not being able to do anything and not being able to relax. Natasha: And I think that in that whole process you do end up, of course you start googling feverishly and I’ve done everything right. I think over the last two years, before, before I met you, I think I’ve done everything I must have done. Like the primrose oil, the lavender, the magnesium, the chamomile tea, the Yeah, like I think the white noise and I’ve done, I think you try everything and the more things you’re throwing at it, the worse it’s getting. Natasha: And I think every failure after you’ve tried something and that failure is even harder to reconcile. But some of that comes from the fact that you’re reaching out for answers into Google and Google is giving you some solutions. It’s not telling you that, the way to, to get to sleep is just to let it go. Natasha: It’s not telling you that, it’s actually telling you, do this, and then you start doing it. Martin: The information out there tends to be about doing more, it’s, if there’s a problem, do this. And with sleep, it’s all about doing less. If anyone has a recollection in their own experience of a time when sleep wasn’t an issue or a concern, what did you do to experience sleep in that way? Martin: And it was nothing. It was going to bed. It was getting out of bed, living your life, and it just took care of itself. But then we just exposed to this proliferation of advice and information and hacks and gadgets and gizmos and this and this. And when we are feeling stuck it’s completely understandable that we are gonna be looking for a solution. Martin: And almost everything in life, the solution is do this or do more, put more effort in. Try harder. That sleep is one of those outliers. And we can so easily through no fault of our own, get tangled up in that quick sound, so the more we fight it. The more we struggle with it, the more we try and escape that quick sound, the deeper we find ourselves sinking. Natasha: Yeah. You said this and I think I, this is printed in my brain because I remember in one of our first sessions you said exactly this, you said that most things in life respond well to effort, but sleep doesn’t, sleep does not respond well to effort. And because we all have such a bias for action and effort, you think that if there’s something I can do. Natasha: What happened to me was like one night I didn’t, I think again, my husband, I woke him up at 4:00 AM because I was like, I think I’m having a heart attack. Natasha: Because, ’cause you are just palpitating now obviously your body’s completely dysfunctioning because you’re exhausted and you haven’t slept. And so I was sweating and I was feeling this like pinch in my heart and he got really worried. Natasha: So I said, okay, let me just go and buy sleeping pills. And I didn’t know what that was. So I went to this pharmacy and I was like do you have sleeping pills? And they were like you need a prescription for that. Because in India you don’t need a prescription for a lot of things. A lot of things you get over the counter, but hang on, this one is one that we do need a prescription for. Natasha: So then I started texting you can only get prescriptions from, obviously a licensed doctor or a psychiatrist. And I didn’t know any, so I texted one, a friend saying, do you know? And then she said yes. And so she connected me with somebody. But they said that you have to, you have to have a session with a therapist. Natasha: For her to for them to evaluate you. And I was desperate, right? Because I hadn’t slept all night. And I said, listen, I just, I need something to knock me out and I don’t need therapy. I don’t need a therapist. I’m fine. Literally the only problem in my life right now is that for some reason I’ve developed this mysterious inability to sleep. Natasha: And, but they of course, had the responsible practice was that I should talk to a therapist. So I did. And of course, at the end of the hour she was very sweet and she said it does seem you are fairly self-aware and your relationship with your partner is very good and everything is fine and maybe you just need medication. Natasha: And I was almost like, yes, I told you so then she put me through a psychiatrist. And that person, but that was the interesting thing, right? When I went to the psychiatrist and it was, she spoke to me literally for 10 minutes, and this was on Zoom because we were still in the pandemic. Natasha: And yeah, she was like okay, are you anxious about something? And you, you mentioned one or two things because if you are living life and if you’re adulting, of course you’re anxious about a few things. So I said a few things and she was like, okay, great. And here’s an antidepressant, which kind of surprised me because I’d never taken antidepressants before. Natasha: And I have studied psychology, so I do understand SSRIs. So I asked her, I said, oh, why are you giving me an antidepressant? She was like basically this is, it’s just going to relax you. So I said, fine. Natasha: So I took that, but I wasn’t happy about it because I wasn’t happy taking it. And I think what also what happened was I started taking the antidepressant for a couple of weeks. And predictably. So I slept okay on the first couple of times because it was a sort of a placebo, right? You had this like safety feeling that I’m taking a pill and I’m fine. Natasha: And then I think I was traveling to Delhi for work and it, I had my pill and it didn’t work. And I was up all night and I had to work the entire day. And then the same thing happened the next day. I came back to the hotel, I was exhausted and I was like, I’m going to just absolutely crash. Natasha: I think I fell asleep in the cab on the way to the hotel, but I popped my pill. I got into bed and I couldn’t sleep. And then I was like, okay, this medicine is not working. So I remember being, that, that makes you really worried because you see, I went to a doctor gave me something and now this is not working. Natasha: So then I came back and then I tried different things. When I got back home, I remember that night I went to bed and my husband Suraj was sitting next to me, and that was very comforting. So then began this whole era of me saying, okay, I need you to sleep in the bed with me, right? Natasha: You have to be in bed with me. So whether you are reading or whatever you’re doing, you need to be in bed. Because I wasn’t sure the medication was working. And so I stopped taking that, but then I didn’t have any other crutch, so I said, okay, you have to be in bed with me. And so he would have to get into bed and sometimes he likes to sleep a bit later and I get tired sooner. Natasha: It was adding these layers of something is wrong with me to my sense of self, right? Because you’re like, first you can’t sleep, then you, now you need your husband to come and lie with you. And you’re affecting his life as a result. Natasha: And then I became very averse to traveling as a result. So I said, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna go anywhere because I I don’t know, I, I don’t wanna sleep alone, so I don’t wanna go on business trips and I don’t want to go, but more than business trips, because those couldn’t be avoided. Natasha: I was almost like, I don’t wanna go on personal instead of holidays with my girlfriends, and I just don’t wanna go on a holiday with somebody where if I’m not sure where I would have to sleep alone by myself. So I was supposed to go for this hike and we would go, we were gonna sleep in a dorm. And I was so terrified of the idea of being like, absolutely wide awake at 3:00 AM in a dormitory full of girls, I don’t know, which was not me at all. Natasha: ’cause that, that I was not that type of person ever. So I opted out of that. I said, no, I’m not gonna do that. And it just started adding up right where I stopped making evening plans because I said, oh, if it’s too late, and then I get home late and then it I won’t have enough time to wind down and get to bed. Natasha: So I think all of this was happening and even when I was traveling. In 2022, I remember we went for this, I had this huge event in September or so. And it had been like eight months since my issues with sleep. But I had to go to Bombay for this event for a whole week. And my plan was that I’m basically going to night cap it through I’m going to have a drink every night and then I’m going to somehow knock myself out and just get through the entire week. Natasha: And that’s exactly what I did. Which, in hindsight, that’s, it’s just such a terrible strategy. But there was no other way to imagine being able to do things like this. So I feel like this was carrying on and I had sort of, because I’d already been to a psychiatrist, one I once, I didn’t consider going back to anyone because what I was very aware of was that I really wasn’t struggling with anything in my life in a big way other than sleep, so I. And that was the other thing. ’cause again, anytime you ever told anyone or even hinted to somebody that you find it hard to sleep, the first question they’re like, oh, are you stressed out about something? Or or and that can almost start grating you. ’cause you’re like, no, I’m not stressed about anything. Natasha: I’m not stressed, I’m not per se stressed and I, but this thing that, you’re losing sleep because there must be some something underlying and something subconscious and you’re like, no. The only thing that’s conscious, subconscious and all pervasive is sleep anxiety. And I think the fact that sleep anxiety, again, is its own category of anxiety, of, it’s a type of anxiety that perhaps happens. Natasha: And there are no other underlying hidden, Freudian reasons for why you’re not being able to sleep. You’re really, you’re just having some, you’ve developed a strange relationship with sleep and your bed. So you are passing out on your couch and then the minute you hit the bed you are like wide awake, so I think this thing was something that I have only processed a little bit in hindsight and through, conversations with you and understanding this whole situation. But like throughout 2022, it was just, it was some, it was a hack, just hacking my way through it. And because things were working out really well with having my partner in bed with me I was like, okay, fine, this is fine. Natasha: How bad is it? And even through 23, I think like 23 actually was very stable because like I said, whenever I was traveling, I had become that person where I said, okay, I’m not gonna sleep when I travel. But even then, I think there was. There was a, I remember again, I went for a team retreat and I was up the entire night, like the sun came up and I just got outta bed and we all had, and this was this big strategy retreat, which you had to talk a lot of strategy. Natasha: And that was the, and I was confused about whether I should tell my teammates that I didn’t sleep all night. And so I, but I decided to, ’cause I said I can’t, I’d come to that point where I was like, this is just who I am. This is going to be forever. So I have to start telling people that I find it hard and I’m, I have lovely colleagues and they’re all wonderful people. Natasha: So I said, maybe I can trust them and I could just tell them that I couldn’t sleep all night, because, if I’m spacing out in the middle of the dates, it’s only fair that they know. And I did tell them and and they were very kind about it, but I think I was so tired. Natasha: At the end of that day, I remember, and I was so terrified, Martin, that I was not gonna be able to sleep again. And so I actually asked my one of my teammates who I’m really close with, and I really like her. And I told her, I said, and this is gonna sound very strange ’cause we were all living in a house. Natasha: So it was nice. It was like a large, huge villa. And I said, is it okay if I sleep with you? And she was like, yeah, sure. And she was very sweet about it. And so I actually had went and I slept in her room with her. And I think that there were parts of me that was so embarrassed by this, but also so helpless about it and feeling like what is happening. Natasha: Whenever you tell people they, I mean they are sympathetic, but either they don’t understand or it’s the sort of you’re stressed. Natasha: And again, I think I was talking to someone and they recommended the psychiatrist and this therapist to me. So then I went to her and she prescribed me a whole other set of SSRIs and anti-anxiety medication. And again, I took it for a while and it does make you feel slightly different. So I think I started feeling a little bit. Not okay on some of that medication. Natasha: Especially, I think the worst experience which I’ve had is taking medication, going to bed, not being able to sleep, and then you are waking up with half, slept with this half digested medicine in your brain and you’re just getting through the next day because you know you, ’cause you have to. Natasha: All of us end up going through all these rabbit holes because there is no direction and the experts are actually giving you wrong advice and Google is definitely leading you in the wrong direction. And then you’re just stuck with all of the, this sense of helplessness and this huge sense of the fact that something is broken inside you. Natasha: And it’s funny, because I do actually work in the mental health field and there is a lot that’s said about the stigma associated with depression, with anxiety because even though there has been so much awareness building and conversation still, if your team members or someone in your organization is going through depression and they’re not able to perform, very few people can actually come and say, this is what’s happening to me when it’s happening. Natasha: They can talk about it once they have figured it out and gotten over it. And in a strange way, like insomnia is like that because if I hadn’t slept all night and if I slept at 4:00 AM and I woke up at seven and I had a call at nine 30 in the morning and I had to cancel it, or I had a call at seven in the morning, which I had to cancel. Natasha: I couldn’t be like, I’m sorry, I have to cancel this call because I couldn’t sleep all night. I would say I’m sick, or something else. But it sounded absurd to see, it almost sounds like you’re not a, you’re not a capable functioning adult if you say oh, I couldn’t sleep. And I think that sense that something that everybody else is just doing so effortlessly and everybody else is just doing without thinking and you’re just not able to do. Natasha: And it’s so basic. It’s, I would look at my son he’d just pass out. It feels so basic. I think that was the hardest part, like now in hindsight, right? It was of course the tiredness and all of the other things. But this, the psychological experience of going through insomnia, I think is very difficult. Martin: I completely agree with you. Just the way you were describing it there, you could tell how insomnia or sleep just started to become more of your identity. It was almost like taking over more of who you are. And in a way you were just losing this independence, this independence, this sense of agency that you have over your own life, because so many of your actions became geared towards protecting sleep, avoiding insomnia compensating for difficult nights, all of which is completely understandable. Martin: And when all of that stuff just doesn’t feel like it’s proving to be a long-term solution, it can then feel really mysterious, right? Martin: It can feel like there’s something uniquely wrong. There’s something going on here that is different to what other people might be experiencing, and then we can get all of that kind of self-judgment and maybe some shame and some embarrassment and the negative self-talk, and we can be really harden ourselves that just piles it on and makes things even more difficult. Natasha: Yeah. I don’t wanna start like blaming, Google and blaming the sort of sleep culture, but I think the thing is that scientists the people who are closest to the science are the most humble about the conclusions. But the health industry is the exact opposite, right? There are just lots of claims and there’s lots of stuff. Natasha: And now the algorithms just push it to you because for sure at some point my algorithm figured out that I had, and probably very quickly that I was anxious about this. Natasha: So everything that I was being prompted. Was just like this about sleep and that about sleep and women in sleep and something and constantly actually the reverse, which was the extreme benefits. And so everything from like longevity to dementia to osteoporosis, every single thing is linked to sleep. Natasha: And of course it is, in the sense that, but it’s also linked to diet and it’s also linked to happiness and it’s also linked to genetics. And it’s linked to a hundred thousand things. Natasha: Once the algorithm finds you and finds your weakness, it starts then. And then I actually actively stopped looking at any of that content. ’cause I very quickly realized what it would do to me, right? In the sense that it would just make you feel even worse about where you were. And I think that, that’s one big part of sleep anxiety as well, because you are convinced that you are like hurting yourself. Natasha: You’re convinced that you’re becoming very unhealthy and that you’re going to die, because because you’re not being able to sleep well and that, your brain is going to deteriorate very quickly and everything is just gonna deteriorate. Natasha: I do know people who sleep badly and they run marathons and they just it doesn’t matter, like they just live their lives despite the fact that they sleep badly and they continue to sleep badly and they continue to live their lives. But I do think that there are others. And then me especially I was not being able to reconcile these two things, that I would not sleep well, but I would just get on with my life. I think the, the sense of the control and the pop science was also hurting quite a bit. Martin: When we have a problem, we wanna look for a solution, right? And there’s just so much out there. And I think there is also a lot of misinformation and misleading information out there because that’s what gets the attention. If someone writes an article that just said Sleep, it’s important, you can’t control it. Martin: No one’s gonna read that, right? But if someone comes up with a headline that says 12 Sleep Hacks that guarantee eight hours of sleep, or 12 things you can do tonight to prevent cancer ever showing up in your life, loads of people are gonna read that. Natasha: Over those two years I did lots, I accomplished lots. A huge part of life was continuing. Natasha: But the point was that I was not entirely myself and that’s the bit that I was missing. It had become a new mutation on my identity, the sleep thing, right? So 99% of my identity was still the same, but there was this new 1% that had just emerged from somewhere. Natasha: You’re not accepting your situation. You’re quite distressed by it. That’s another thing that comes with insomnia. Martin: It becomes more powerful the more we try to resist it. You can find yourself acting in ways that don’t really reflect who you are or who you want to be. Natasha: Actions are a powerful way to signal to your brain what, where your attitude lies, so I think that sometimes you can’t just intellectualize your way out of a problem. Natasha: Like sometimes you have to change the way you’re behaving. In that sense, this kind of almost subterranean signal to your brain that your attitude towards something has changed because now your body’s doing different things than what it was doing. Martin: You’d already tried so many things. You had a strategy, a roadmap that you were following with kind of mixed success. Martin: What made you think it would be productive or there would be an opportunity here for you to get something from us working together? Natasha: What happened in 2024, which is when we met, was that everything just started failing. And I don’t know why necessarily. I think we went on this holiday for New Years in 20 23 we went to this holiday. Natasha: And at that holiday, our entire day routine was starting very late. And we were not sleeping before 12 or 1230 every single night as a family. And I think because we’d lived that kind of routine for about two weeks, when we got back home early 24 I think I was like, I have to go to work, so I should get to bed at night. Natasha: And obviously your body was in attuned to sleeping at nine. And and then that, and this time I went to bed. My husband and I went to bed. He promptly fell asleep. I don’t know his bo his body can sleep as much anytime. I dunno, it just doesn’t seem to bother him. But I couldn’t. And then there was that like, oh shit moment, right? Natasha: That, oh my God, my last standing hack has stopped working. And there was all this legacy of failure as well in the past. And so then I think basically I went through a couple of weeks where I, it was exactly as bad as your peak struggles where you’re just not sleeping before you had figured out your placebo or your hack or your safety behavior before any of that, ’cause once I figured some of those out in 22 and 23, then there was a whole period of stability. But again, I was back in this tumult and we had to go for, to celebrate a function for the same sweet teammate of mine who had shared her hotel bed with me. And she, her sister was getting married and we went and we flew to another town for this. Natasha: And again, basically all of us landed. We got to the hotel really late. Everyone’s exhausted, husband and child pass out. I don’t sleep at all. At 5:00 AM I think he woke up to get a glass of water. And he saw, and I was reading and he said, oh, why are you up? And I said, I haven’t slept all night. And so I think for him, he was like, oh my God. Natasha: What is, this is bad. Because, I think he could really empathize saying You must be exhausted. And I was tired and I was just, I was so upset because I’d come for this wedding and I’d been really looking forward to it. And I didn’t feel like participating in anything because like literally my body, my brain, everything was hurting. Natasha: So he then said we should go to, he found some sleep clinic and we went there when we got back. When we got back home again, it was the same, it was the same thing. So again, I went to the sleep clinic, the doctor prescribed me some other, like tricylic or some other cocktail of drugs. And even as the doctor was talking, and this was like a neurologist who literally told me, and I have no issues saying that, this is what he said to me. Natasha: He was like, oh, that’s really strange. Oh, you should be able to sleep, but if you’re not, here are some pills. And if these don’t work then you’re going to be on sleeping pills your whole life. There’s no other solution. He said that. He was like, oh, come back to me in a month because if this doesn’t work, then, and he literally shook his head and said, oh, then there’s no hope. Natasha: And then you’re just gonna have to be having sleeping pills for the rest of your life. And even as he was seeing it, I think something in me just got really pissed off. I was like, this is ridiculous. He didn’t even listen to my story. Natasha: It was just like, oh, you have sleep problems? Okay, here you go, here’s some drugs. So as soon as we got home, I told Suraj, I was like I don’t think he, he doesn’t know what he is talking about at all. I have actually had this situation for the last two years and I don’t think he knows what he’s saying. Natasha: And Suraj of course, trying to be the very like, supportive person. He said no, you should not. Don’t reject the doctor’s thing, just take the medication. You will be fine. And sure as hell, it didn’t work. Like after three, four days it stopped working. Natasha: And then basically I think I, in one of my, fever dreams at 2:00 AM 3:00 AM like as I was awake I was just typing into Spotify ’cause I was listening to different podcasts to to keep myself entertained at night. Natasha: And I was like, oh, there must be some podcast. Somebody must have talked about insomnia. And I typed that into Spotify, and then I found your podcast, and then I started listening to it. And Martin, for me, I was so desperate by then, I was so tired and so desperate that I said that I won’t even bother listening to all these episodes. Natasha: And, piecing together the wisdom. I said, I’m just going to write to this person and I’m just gonna directly reach out to him. Because at that point, I was very sure that I really needed like somebody to work with me, somebody to talk to. I couldn’t do some sort of self-paced, self-help. I really had to feel like I had shared my side of the story with somebody and then they understood and then they were going to kinda help me. Natasha: So that’s how I actually, I found you. And that’s what brought me. So in some sense, it was the ultimate failure of everything that got me here. Martin: When we started working together what kinda concepts did we explore or what kind of changes did you make that were different, that you feel helped you move forward and start emerging from this struggle? Natasha: One of the things that I really appreciated was that you actually asked me to list out my own strengths, right? And I think when you did that, one of the things that you noted was the fact that I do actually lead with intellect to some extent. And so for me, being able to understand like psychologically and cognitively understand things. Natasha: And once I see them in a new light, I think that’s very powerful. So that was the first thing where I think I still, this was like, I still remember our first conversation right where you said that sleep doesn’t respond to effort. And that line, it just almost like immediately, I think I just completely changed my behavior almost immediately in response to that. Natasha: I remember you mentioned in the early days itself was the fact that you can sleep really badly so you can have a bad night, but you could have a good day and you can have a good night and you can have a bad day. And so I started attending to that. Natasha: And I actually started noticing that was true. Like I could have had a very bad night, but the next day many things went well. Many things went my way, and the day was pretty effortless, even if I was slightly tired and whatever. Natasha: And then there were other times where I’d slept perfectly well and I was like, whatever, restless or fidgety or the day had gone badly. And so this dissociation of sleep is this thing that, produces this perfect day for you the next day, and you are just like this perfect person the next day. Natasha: I think for me the dissociation of those two things was also very important from, again, a kind of intellectual lens. Natasha: And then of course there was the whole bit around how do you change your actions, right? What will you do differently? And why I mentioned these two reframing sort of points is that I think they help you take those actions because sometimes you can’t take an action without conviction. Natasha: If you’re not convinced or if you don’t understand why you’re taking the action may not yield very much, but if you do understand why you’re taking that action, it helps. Natasha: I was always so conscious about like setting up breakfast meetings. I would never set up breakfast meetings. I had stopped doing that ’cause I was like no. I don’t know. Natasha: I started setting up breakfast meetings. I started like setting up dinners. I said, that’s fine. I’ll deal with it like however it goes. Calendaring your life the way you would if you did not have any issues with sleep. There was perhaps something powerful about that. Martin: It sounds like in terms of that perspective, really when we were working together, it was just a process of teasing out what you already knew, what was already inside you. This idea that sleep doesn’t need or want or require all of these kind of efforts or attention or rules or rituals or accommodations, it just wants to take care of itself. Martin: And as we explored that, you were able to reflect on your own experience and you realized, huh, yeah, that is the case. Like my experience has been telling me that, but because I’ve, my superpower of problem solving is the dominant force right now that has almost been clouded in a way. And you got this pressure to continue trying to problem solve, continue putting effort in, even though the experience says that might not be useful for you. Martin: And then the second approach was the actions you started to chip away at that power and the influence that sleep was having by focusing more on actions that served you rather than serving insomnia. And as you did that it kinda lost some of its power and influence over you. Martin: So maybe in turn you might have been less inclined to put that effort in, and so it becomes a cycle again, but maybe a more positive cycle compared to before. Natasha: Yeah, very true. I also of course, owe a debt of gratitude to K-Dramas because I one of the things that we discussed and we talked about was also like, I think nighttime awakening is a very unpleasant experience, right? Natasha: And that’s the other thing that people who struggle with insomnia will talk about that. Just the experience of being awake at night is for some reason really unpleasant. But if you flip that and if you start looking at it as some sort of invitation to binge watch K-Dramas, and for me it was fine because you the day is very busy and you’re, you’ve got children, you’ve got work, and so you can’t exactly just watch silly television all the time. Natasha: So for me, I tried to, I started thinking that so I actually intentionally found certain series and. I said, okay, I’m gonna watch these at night and I’m not gonna watch them through the day or at any on the weekends. I’m not going to and I’m gonna watch this at night. And I, and the other thing I told myself was also this idea of, a little bit of like sleep consolidation, I think. Natasha: Which did help with the hyper arousal part because I think that’s so physiological. It had to be trained out. Was this fact that no matter what, I’m not gonna sleep before 1130 or 12 even, so I’d start watching like my TV at, nine 30 and then I almost used to feel, I was almost looking forward to the TV time. Natasha: ’cause I said I have two and a half hours to watch tv. I have so much like time, actually, I don’t have to turn it off. I could just watch the next episode and the next episode. Because, I’d get up and I’d make myself a beverage and I’d come back, I’d make myself a snack, so it became this I have this whole day, which is relentless, and then I have these three hours that are just mine. Natasha: So looking at it from that point of view did help because once I told myself that I’m not gonna try to sleep before 12 I think it helped because then, yeah, by the time it was 12, I was quite tired and I hadn’t spent two or three hours in bed trying to sleep, working myself up, on the kind of arousal lad because when you’re tossing and turning, you get kinda worked up in a way that’s very different from when you’re just watching like Korean tv and then you’re genuinely tired. Natasha: And then by 12, 12 30, I was so there were many nights where I started successfully falling asleep at the time that, I decided to fall asleep at, which was 12 or 1230. And I think that also helped quite a bit because this idea that your relationship, like I was saying, that relationship with your bed literally and your body’s own cues that, when it lies down, it starts to feel like this. Natasha: I think it suddenly started changing because of accepting the night. I am accepting the fact that the night is going to be long, and so why don’t you make it nice? Martin: Your relationship to being awake at night had changed through your actions. So even if sleep was exactly the same, in other words, you never fell asleep before, let’s say three o’clock in the morning. Martin: The difference is one time you might have been in bed tossing and turning, really struggling, battling away until three o’clock in the morning. This alternative approach involved watching some TV shows that you like doing stuff that’s more pleasant, setting aside time for yourself making it a more useful way to spend that time awake and that in turn. Martin: Although there’s obviously no guarantee that’s gonna make sleep happen because it’s out of your control. It just makes that time awake more pleasant. It doesn’t get you so exhausted and tangled up in that struggle. And it can also help train your brain that maybe being awake at night isn’t such a threat that we need to be on action stations to try and protect you against. Natasha: Exactly that. Martin: What would you say if someone is listening to this, and we’re talking about making being awake more pleasant, we’re talking about accepting that sleep might be out of your control, that the difficult thoughts and feelings might be out of your control. But someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, I’m not interested in any of that. Martin: I just want to sleep. I don’t want to. Read a book or watch tv, I need to get rid of these thoughts and these feelings. I don’t wanna learn how to deal with them. I just wanna sleep. How do you respond to that? Natasha: I would say that’s a perfectly understandable reaction. So the first thing is that, that’s a completely understandable thing to feel when you’re going through this. Natasha: And I felt exactly that. I think I also had this, you have to go through your arc because you do go through this like resistance and anger and you feel very, yeah, you feel resentful at the fact that you’re being asked to accept something that you don’t like at all. Natasha: But, I think there is, again I think humans are very resilient in the way that at some point I think you realize that there is no choice. There is no option but to accept because not accepting this is not serving you very well. And so that was the other thing that I think this feeling that you should not be having negative emotions about insomnia. Natasha: That’s not true at all. Like of course you’re going to feel bad. Recovering from insomnia requires you to not think that sleep is important? No, it’s none of that. Because of course you, you’re not gonna think sleep is not important or you’re not gonna value sleep. Natasha: You do value it and it is important. And it is. It’s perfectly fine to exist in that contradiction of, knowing that this is important, wanting it, desiring it, but not becoming completely agitated. I think because that’s the really important part. How do you find routines and rituals, and how do you find maybe just the first level of acceptance. Natasha: That’ll help you feel a little less agitated. And then I think that, these are positively reinforcing loops because when you experience that slight, like release from not feeling very agitated, from that first level of acceptance, you accept a little further, and then you practice acceptance and it gets better and better. Natasha: And the funny thing is, it is true. There are times of course, and I am sure that many of your other like people might have said the same thing, but when you start sleeping better again, there’s a part of you that’s I should not be noticing this. I should not be noticing that I’m sleeping better, that this is working because I don’t wanna notice it. Natasha: A part of you is noticing the fact that, okay, I’m relaxing and I’m, I’ve let go. I’ve just let go now. So I’m gonna watch TV and I’m just gonna stay awake and I’m gonna embrace whatever this is. And then you’re like, and it tends to work. And the more you do that, the more it works, so I think it’s a com. It’s this whole like positive loop. Martin: All thoughts and all feelings are okay. So much of our struggle can come from this belief that we shouldn’t have certain thoughts or we shouldn’t have certain feelings, and that can just set us up for a struggle. Martin: The alternative way forward is to acknowledge all of our thoughts and our feelings as normal valid human. That as human beings we experience the full range. Some make us feel good, some don’t. Some are useful, some aren’t. Some are true, some maybe not. We have the power to decide how we choose to respond to them, and I think that’s really what you’ve encapsulated so well because it’s when we respond with resistance, which is completely understandable, it feeds into it and it gives that stuff more power and more influence, and it just gets as tangled up. Martin: If we’re feeling stuck, if things feel mysterious, perhaps there’s an opportunity here to respond in a different way with a little bit more acknowledgement, acceptance, and letting go, as you said, not holding this all so tightly just opening up to it a little bit more. Martin: If nothing else, perhaps that would just free up a little bit of energy and attention that otherwise would’ve been consumed by battle for you to do more of the stuff that really matters to you. Natasha: Yeah, and if anyone’s listening to this, I think they’re already halfway there in the sense that they have at least found something that’s giving them, that’s helping them square their own experience with some amount of knowledge. And at least, like I said, for me it was really helpful. Like the hardest part was all the misinformation, like when you are being, when you are consuming something that’s not actually helpful for insomnia and then, and so it’s either lack of information or it’s misinformation. Natasha: But I think once you get the right information, even if there’s resistance initially, resistance gets spent, eventually you are spent, right? Because how much are you gonna struggle? Because you will resist, and you will resist. And then eventually, if it’s not working, you will be tired and you will let your guard down. Natasha: And at that point, at least you’ve got the right information and you are ready to receive it. The problem is when there’s just no information and then you just continue in these loops of confusion. So I think for me, awareness generation is really important. Martin: I remember when we were working together, you had this concern about acceptance. How do we achieve acceptance without it feel like you are in a position of helplessness and you’re giving up, versus how do I achieve acceptance with a sense of power of individual empowerment? Martin: And that can be a bit difficult to wrap your head around, right? Natasha: It is. I remember writing to you and saying that I’m not feeling like I’m choosing acceptance. I’m being forced to accept, in which case it’s not acceptance, it’s just something that’s forced on you. Natasha: But the thing is, like I said, I think that resistance and that friction was required for me to get over the hump as well. And there are people who may perhaps come to acceptance easily and there are others who may not. And I think both reactions or like a whole spectrum of reactions is perfectly natural. Natasha: What I do feel is from my own journey also, is that eventually, like acceptance is inevitable because, the friction doesn’t yield anything that’s helpful in this situation. And so the only thing is that, like I said, having somebody to talk through on when you’re going through this, having someone to talk through with is important because, some of the words and the reframing and the perspectives, they’re there at least. Natasha: And it’s like when your acceptance portal finally opens. It’s available for that information to go inside. If there was nothing there, then you may accept it, but from a place of helplessness or sorrow or just, I don’t know. And then you would have to work a lot harder perhaps to generate solutions and kind of perspectives for yourself. Natasha: But if there is some perspective, initially the door is closed and it’s not going in, but that’s okay because at some point the door will open and then all of that stuff that’s waiting to be heard and understood will go inside. Martin: Yeah. There’s value in every part of the experience, even when it feels like we’re really struggling, there’s always something to be learned from that, and it might not feel like it’s useful at that time, but at some point in the future, we will serve some kind of value as a learning experience or something we can pick and choose from to help us move forward in a different way or to keep us moving forward in the way we want to be moving. Natasha: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. Martin: What did progress look like for you on this journey? Did you find that as you were starting to get this sense of independence back, sleep just suddenly magically transformed and you were having great nights of sleep and every single night was better than the last? Natasha: I wish I could say that. There is no such thing as perfect sleep. And no one is sleeping perfectly. I mean, you may have less sleep for multiple reasons, right? You’re traveling and then there’s other disruptions and someone is sick and so on, so forth. Natasha: So I think, I think the important, the huge tangible change, I think and it’s not a change that, let’s say that if you just looked at the surface of my life in terms of like, how productive is she and how active is she? And how creative is she? I think a lot of that is probably looks the same because you are still doing things. Natasha: But I think what did change, one of the things that did change Yes, is that I think this idea of traveling definitely came back for me. Traveling for leisure. Not just work, but traveling for leisure. And so I did actually travel last year a couple of times for leisure. And so that was one small change. Natasha: Yeah, like having late nights and it’s totally fine having early mornings and it’s totally fine. And just so that sense of like release with your own. Calendar and not having anxiety about it, so I think for me, there are, of course, even today, there are several times where, you will get, six hours or five hours, because maybe you’re traveling. Natasha: But I’ve noticed that not only I don’t talk about it, like that’s the other thing, right? I don’t, I’m not talking about it with like my husband or my sister or anybody that, gosh, like I wouldn’t see that talk about it at all because I’m yeah, it’s fine, I’ll go to bed tonight and tomorrow or whatever. Natasha: And even if I’m, even if I’m like, I’ve got three straight like events and for some reason the three straight nights I’m going to be pulling like late nights, I’m okay. I’m not very stressed about that. So I think basically there’s a certain sense of relaxation and I will say that, look, this journey is not linear, right? Natasha: And I suppose like the longer you’ve struggled with it or the harder you’ve struggled with it, and the more intensely you have felt about it, like it is gonna take you some time to feel like this isn’t a theme in your life at all. And like for me, for instance, even like this showing up here to talk about it and to have it recorded, there was for a long time I thought that I wanted to write about it actually for last year, early last year, I started wanting to, when I experienced a lot of these benefits, I said I should write a whole piece. Natasha: And then I just couldn’t because I said that, I don’t want to jinx it. And so there were these lingering feelings, right? Saying that if I talk about it, if I, and if I go out and announce that I’m fine and I had this problem and I no longer have it I don’t wanna say that. But then, over time it just faded away. Natasha: Even that, even holding onto that kind of goes away. Time actions, consistency and of course this underlying reframing is the journey. It happens in fits and starts, but I think eventually you do get to a point where. Your relationship, like you said, the relationship with sleep changes. Natasha: One of the things I do appreciate about this journey has been that I have actually learned a lot about sleep. There is no perfect, there is no eight hour, eight and a half, seven or whatever. There is no, you have to find your rhythm and the more you dissociate with the sleep dogma that has become a culture I think the better off everyone is. Martin: In terms of the timeline here, how long would you say that it took you to get to a point where you felt like you’d left the struggle behind? Natasha: I think there was this whole period of, there, there was also like micro progress and then there was like a little bit of a slide back and there was frustrations. Like I said, it was non-linear. So I would say that it was probably only by the summer, so about maybe four months or so, four or five months. Natasha: And I did actually start scheduling like work trips and travel and so on so forth. And the more I did that, I think by the time summer rolled around, I was starting to feel like I could plan my days and plan my weeks and plan my time the way I wanted to. And yeah, and it’s been like a steady stabilization from that point all the way, till now. Natasha: I do wanna again stress that when somebody says that they no longer struggle with insomnia, it doesn’t mean that they sleep like nine hours or eight hours every single night consistently all the time. That is not the, that’s not what resolution looks like. Natasha: Resolution is you’re not controlled by it. Martin: It’s very rare that someone tells me that they’re able to change everything and transform their lives in a few days or a few weeks. And it often requires ongoing practice too, right? There’s ups and downs. Martin: We’re always gonna get pulled back into a struggle, whether it’s with sleep or insomnia or anything else that goes on in our lives. It’s just that awareness when that’s happening and being able to change course to refocus on actions that matter to us and to live our lives and allow sleep, the opportunity to take care of itself rather than trying to fix sleep so that we can live our lives. Martin: If we can just flip that around, it can just be such a transformative way of approaching this. Natasha: Yeah, I agree. Martin: Your whole learning experience, your whole journey maybe comes down to this realization through action that you have the ultimate power over your life. And as you reinforce that, sleep just becomes a thing. It doesn’t just, it doesn’t become the most important thing in your life when you are not resisting it so much when you’re just accepting sleep is gonna turn up and do whatever it wants or insomnia’s gonna turn up, do whatever it wants. Natasha: And you do start sleeping much better. I think the listeners especially need to hear that if they’re going through it right now, they don’t want to, feel like the takeaway of this is that, oh, you’re just gonna reach some radical acceptance, but your sleep is not gonna change. Natasha: The truth is that the sleep does change and you do feel rested and you do sleep more and you get back to sleeping normally. The idea is to just not expect that. That every, you’re going to be in some sleep paradise all the time because that’s just, that’s not even normal life, and I think by the time, if you’re going through a lot of insomnia, what you want is that you want sleep paradise. Natasha: You just want something where every day you’re just knocked out cold beautifully because you develop that kind of a, sensitivity to sleep. But once you get over it, you realize that most of the times you’re sleeping well, sometimes you’re not. And irrespective, it’s just not on your mind anymore. Martin: Natasha, I want to thank you for all the time you’ve taken to share your experience with us. I do have one last question for you. If someone is listening and they just feel like they cannot end the struggle with insomnia, that there’s nothing they can do, what would you say to them? Natasha: The first thing I would really say is that it’s understandable to feel that. And it’s hard. It’s very hard feeling that, it’s a really hard place to be in when you are feeling like that. But I would say that there are many people now who have figured out how to come out of this. Natasha: It’s not a pharmacological technical solution, it’s something that’s inside you, everybody has it. Your sleep is not broken. Your brain is not broken. Like nothing about you is broken. It’s a phase and I think like everything this will pass and some of just a little bit of intentionality and just to some amount of, perhaps, hopefully perspective and reframing and then just changing your actions a little bit and a combination of all of that and patience will get you through it, so I think that’s probably what I’d like, anybody listening who’s struggling to take away. Martin: Thank you so much again for coming on. Natasha: Yeah. Martin, thank you so much. Thank you for what you do. 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!

Patrick brings listeners right into the real decisions confronting Catholic families, including grappling with difficult family relationships and the call to protect children’s innocence. He fields blunt questions on Church authority, women and the priesthood, Holy Communion crises, and IVF, weaving in his own stories and unapologetic opinions while keeping the conversation engaging and honest. Linda - My brother is gay, and my sister is lesbian. I confronted my sister about whether or not she was gay, she said no but she did have a woman move in with her. I couldn't raise my kids around her. (00:32) Martin - There doesn't seem to be much democracy in the Catholic Church. Why don't they ask us about our opinion of the direction of the Catholic Church? (12:44) Cecilia – I’m a Eucharistic Minister and I noticed I dropped the Precious Blood on myself. The stain disappeared. Where did it go? (25:48) Amy - What would you do if you didn't have kids and your gay friend invited you to the party? (31:11) Karen - My 28-year-old needs a suspense and mystery novel recommendation that ties into the Church (33:19) Rosalie - I went to receive Communion, and the pastor refused to give it on the tongue. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just walked away. It upset me. (38:33) Bob - You are really good at engaging other Christian faiths. How can Christians argue against the Magisterium and Scripture? (42:17)

Matters of life and death Australia’s death care and funeral industry is big business. We meet death doula Dr Annetta Mallon and funeral industry adviser Martin Tobin, two caring and passionate business owners supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Dr Annetta Mallon is an end-of-life consultant, doula and educator and grief psychotherapist based in Tasmania. With decades of experience in trauma recovery and personal growth, Annetta helps people understand their rights and options at the end of life – especially those without a strong support network. Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business. He is founder of Funeral Direction, a consultancy supporting funeral homes and cemeteries across Australia and New Zealand. A former solicitor, Martin brings legal, strategic and business insight, and is focused on helping the industry evolve through innovation, education and long-term planning. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel at Myrtle & Pine Studios -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP03_Matters of Life and Death James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death. In this episode, we're talking about matters of life and death, well, the final matter, how we say goodbye. Death is big business, and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more than $2 billion. And with us are two entrepreneurs, two people who work in this area, supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. We're joined by Dr. Annetta Mallon, an end of life consultant, an educator, and also known as a death doula. And Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business and is now an expert adviser on the global funeral industry. Annetta, Martin, welcome to Life's Booming. So many places to start. I'm excited. And Martin, I'll start with you. What's it like when the family business is death? Martin: Yeah, well, it's all I've ever known. When I was, you know, when I was born and grew up, I, we actually lived in a funeral parlour. Um, so when I was, for the first two or three years of my life, uh, the funeral parlour was downstairs. We lived upstairs. So when it's all you've known, you don't think anything different of it. And I suppose all of my friends and sort of social groups when I was young and a teenager thought it was pretty quirky and funny, but for me, it was what I knew. My grandfather and his brother started our family business in the thirties. And by the time I came along, it was well, well and truly established. I didn't really work directly in it straight away after leaving school, but it was always in the background. And so I've always been comfortable with it. James: Yeah. But such an interesting thing. Like what's, what's the dinner time conversation. Did you have a good day, darling? Good deaths? Some good deaths? Martin: Well, all of that. You know, I think that's the stereotype, isn't it, that funeral directors are a bit, sort of weird and severe and a bit morbid, but, but it's, it's far from the truth. You know, I think most people who work in funeral service, and the work that Annetta does, are really warm and loving and gregarious people because you have to have those qualities to really survive and thrive in, in what we do in that space. James: You kind of got to love life, Annetta. Annetta: Absolutely. We are fiercely alive until we are dead. And I think that. Whether it's from the professional funeral side of things or more from consumer advocate and personal support side of things, coming in with a joke – why do we screw the coffin lids down so hard to keep the oncologist out. Great icebreaker: show up with cake. Make jokes, because most of us have a lot of laughter and love in our lives and it's important to leaven sorrow and, and grief. Martin: Yeah. Don't let death just drown out the… James: What's the undertaker's joke? Martin: Oh, there's so many. I mean, everyone used to, I used to get called Stiffy Tobin, that sort of stuff. James: Stiffy, Tobin… Martin: …you know, a bit. So a lot of funeral directors get called Stiffy. Annetta: …that's a 1930s cartoon character, isn't it? James: It's like, it's the, the Millers, the Millers and bakers are Dusty. You know, it's that, it's that era, isn't it? Annetta: You're a Tintin character. James: Yeah, exactly. Martin: Yeah. Luckily I wasn't, you know, I don't fit the stereotype of tall and gray. I'm sort of fairly short and not gray. And so when I joined our family business, I was quite young. So I was lucky I sort of didn't fit that stereotype. And back in the early 90s, there was very few women, very few people, young people, very few people from, from diverse backgrounds. So it's changed a lot really for the better in that sense. So there's no stereotypical funeral director now it's, it's a really, really diverse. James: What's a, what's a doula? Annetta: Well, a doula is someone who supports life's transitions. So I've been a birth doula, and it's a very powerful energy when someone comes into the world, but it's really not my jam. I like the other transition, and I'm better at it. I provide an awful lot of information for people who have questions like, what is this going to feel like? Should I be at home or should I be in the hospital? And the point of a lot of my conversations is not to provide answers, but to support people into recognising what's best for them, which I suspect is actually quite a lot of what Martin does, with the way that you work with businesses. James: When do you turn up? Annetta: A piece of string question. I can turn up pre-need, so there's no terminal or life limiting diagnosis. There's a bit of a myth that we turn up magically, like a fairy, in the last 24 hours of life. That's not really great or optimal. James: So, do some people get you, even if, well, I don't have a diagnosis, but I want to start working with a doula? Annetta: If you're a doula like me who does planning and can answer questions and help people prepare their documentation and their wishes, because that's not anything you want to be doing at the last minute and in cases where there's dementia and cognitive decline. It's too late then to get your planning in place. So I also help to support and foster family-wide and network-wide conversations so that everyone understands if someone's interested in assisted dying, let's talk about that. Does anyone have questions, for example. Or have you considered your pets in your planning? Are you including your grandchildren or just your children? Would you prefer to die in a medicalised environment, ideally, or in a home like environment? James: So you can, yeah, so you're there at any point and really every circumstance is entirely different. Annetta: It is, it's unique every single time. James: Same for funerals? Martin: Yeah, I mean, a funeral really should be a reflection of the person's life and interests and values and philosophies, and sometimes, you know, historically, traditionally, in say the last couple of hundred years that, that often revolved around their, their faith. So these days funerals are quite sort of open-ended, quite, quite unstructured, quite celebratory and people are trying to find some ritual in that and some meaning in that and, and that's the, that's the real change that's happening in funeral service. You know, funerals have been going on for thousands of years. They're one of the early rituals of human, human existence. So, and they emanate from the human need to stop when someone from among us leaves us, and reflect on that person's life, to typically grieve that person, if they meant something to us. So that is, you know, invariably people feel sad, not always, but typically. And people have to then say, well, how do we, how do we move forward without this person? And then for a lot of people, that's incredibly difficult. Grief, grief is just our response to loss. You can't control it. You can't make it go away. So if you suppress it in the early days, it comes back to bite you later. So a funeral is a chance to gather, reflect, embrace the reality of the death and embrace the early stages of the grief, the pain that you'll often experience, and to receive support from your community and to let go of that person because they go from being with you to being a memory. James: It's interesting the way you phrased it or the point of view you expressed there was to me it was the person closest to whoever's died, it's for them. And then it's for the community. It's not for us. Funeral's not for the guy that died. The funeral's for us. Martin: Yep, that's right. And we're finding a lot of people now trying to sort of orchestrate their own celebration and say, this is what I want. I want this to happen, that to happen. And that's, that's got a place, but it's really for the living, for the, for those that are left behind. And, you know, the dead, the dead can't tell the living what, how to feel. But they can give guidance and direction, but I think it's really important that the funerals, funerals are done the way that the survivors feel they need, need to do it so that they, that helps them get back into life afterwards. James: Yeah. Yeah. Would you agree? What's a funeral for? Annetta: I think a funeral is an opportunity to remember why your person was so important to you. One of the big changes that I think we're going to see more and more of in Australia now, with assisted dying nationally available, is a fabulous ‘going away party’, as I call them. So people who attend their own funerals, because basically, especially if you're in a hospital, you know when your time is coming. So there's almost like a bookending effect where we have a celebration with the person and they get to say goodbyes and explain to people why they were important and hear all the good stuff. Then there's probably going to be a gathering of some kind afterwards, possibly ham rolls and whisky will play a part, because, as Martin has said, we need to commemorate the fact that this aspect of our lives is now irrevocably changed. I think for a lot of us, the relationship goes on, but it's very different. I still talk to my mother and my grandmother, both of whom are dead. I don't expect them to respond. But there's still kind of… James: …I think that's the sane way to do it. If you expect them to respond, I don't… Annetta: That's a different conversation. James: That's different. Yeah. We're doing another whole episode on that. Martin: Different podcast. Annetta: Different podcast. James: From Beyond the Grave. Welcome. So again, the funeral's not really for the dead person. Annetta: I've never thought a funeral is for the dead person. It is to really bring us out of the immense shock of the raw grief that – and this is a generalisation – is about 72 hours. And that's not a sustainable emotional state. We get to come together. We get to shift from intense grief, the personal experience of loss and that response – because grief is love with no place left to be put – into mourning, which is a more shared communal public sense of loss, which is a really important transitional period in accepting a death, coming to terms with a death, acknowledging a death. And the funeral makes a space that I think is important, not just for the closest people, but for friends, work colleagues, community members. So there is a space that can be welcoming for a variety of community members, which is also really important. Community can be quite intimate and small, it can be broader and more encompassing. Martin: Yeah, look, I think it does need to, I think a good funeral will reflect the person's life. If, if it's, if it's not authentic, if you go to that funeral and you say, Gee, that wasn't about Fred, then clearly the family have got it wrong. So there has to, they have to be the central character, and that has to, you know, has to really reflect who they were, ideally. But if Fred starts micromanaging his service, his celebration, then I think we're missing the point because it really is for, for those left behind to say, what's going to be meaningful for me to help me, you know, take stock of my life now that Fred's, Fred's gone. A good example is, you know, sometimes people these days will often say, look, let's not go to the fuss of a funeral. Let's, let's have a private cremation or burial and we'll have a memorial service, which is fine. And a lot of people choose that. But if Fred's not there, you know, the emotions around how people feel about Fred and the stories about him aren't really aren't heightened enough for people to really feel what they should feel at a funeral. It's hard to sort of get started with your grief, is sort of the perspective I have… James: …But I suppose there's often that, that's often thought of, we're going to do this in a few days, but the memorials in two weeks… Annetta: I think it's individual. And I also think it is broader culture. So for example, in some cultures, from Eastern Europe, there are marker days. So you will have the funeral on a particular day and then you might do something 10 days later. And then the 40th day might be, for example, in the Macedonian community… I still pay attention to ‘death-aversaries’ and I pay attention to it because it's going to affect my mood and the way I go throughout the day because I will be thinking about that person. And ideally, you have had the opportunity to spend time with your person, whether that's in a hospital room. For example, I did that when my mother died. We were allowed to have the room for as long as we wanted with her. Or at home, and you might keep your person at home for a day or two and sing to them, wash them, sit in silence, cry with them, laugh with them. That's, that can be part of the saying goodbye, which the funeral then when it's done properly and appropriately, I think sort of wraps everything up and ties it as neatly together as you can so that you can move into all of the afters of grief. James: Martin, let's talk about the, the business of funerals. It's a big business, isn't it? Martin: Well, it's, it became an industry a hundred plus years ago, something that people started outsourcing to, you know. And initially it was outsourced to cabinet makers who made the coffin. And then they, the cabinet maker said, well I can, not only can I make the coffin, but I can transfer the body from the place of death and… And over a period of time it became an industry. So, it is there, so it is an organised industry in most, most countries around the world. And so the, the organised funeral director will provide a range of services to, you know, support people who've lost, lost someone. In Australia, it's primarily, historically, made up of family owned private businesses that are multi generational family businesses. But about 25 years or so ago, a lot of the well known family businesses were purchased by larger groups. But certainly they're at, in my view, they're at a competitive disadvantage to a generally family owned local community based, family owned business, because they just don't have that essence. James: Yeah. Is it a strange thing? I mean, you've talked very compassionately about grief and about the humanity of what's involved about the moment of death and what people are dealing with. Yet this is something that you'll make profit from, that the company is going to make profit from. Is that a strange, is there a conflict there? Martin: There isn't really. I mean, you know, sometimes I think a lot of the people who are attracted to the industry, yeah, they're talking to a family and they've gone through a loss and there's a lot of grief and pain and there might be, there might be some challenging financial circumstances too that they glean from the conversation. And yeah, that people feel, feel, Oh, gee, how can we add pain to them, or, you know, add, you know, send them an invoice for $10,000, whatever it might be on top of what they're already experiencing. So yeah, it is a little bit uncomfortable, but I think if, if the business has integrity around its pricing and there's, there's genuine options and, and you know, they're not sort of forced into any sort of uncomfortable decisions, then, you know, most people recognise that a funeral, if it, you know, needs to be done in a certain way, there's going to be a cost to that. James: And do you find that, you know, the, the rise of doulas, the presence of doulas, the change… the way in which there seems to be a lot of, a lot of alternatives to those bigger companies or that standard sort of the mahogany casket approach. Is that in a reaction to this sort of somewhat, you know, industrialisation of, of the process? Annetta: Partially, yes, and from my perspective, I think we can, Okay, Boomer, let's give you a big vote of thanks, because at every stage of life, the Boomer generation, it's a cliche for a reason, they've demanded information and choice, and they want things on their terms far more than we'd seen in the silent generation, certainly, and previous generations. So, what are my rights, options, and choices at end of life? What can we do better and differently? It's made space for things like Daisybox Caskets Australia. I'm not affiliated with them, but they offer a lower and a high quality product, but it's less expensive than mahogany, which you mentioned. Not a bad option for families on a budget, not a bad option for cremations. I think, as we are in such an almost overwhelm of information age, people do want to know what's possible and we can readily see that, for example, in the USA, we've got Katrina Spade, who started with the urban death project. James: What’s that? Annetta: The urban death project was an architectural hypothetical exercise. How can we offer a space for respectful memorialisation and body disposition that is not taking up valuable land. And from this, then we have, recompose, which is natural, organic reduction, nor human composting. In Tasmania, we've got the very first water based cremation service. James: What is that? Because I mean, cremation implies fire to me, not water. Annetta: Yes. So it's alkaline hydrolysis. It's a high temperature, high alkaline process of dissolving everything, which at the end you get a product that instead of gray ashes, white, you get a completely sterile liquid, that I personally don't see why we can't use on green spaces, urban green spaces, but it can go down the drain. James: Just water me in the park. Just go water the flowers with me. Annetta: I quite like that. Martin: Splash me into the ocean. James: Splash me into the ocean. Annetta: There we go. And it's, it's about a seventh of the environmental footprint of a flame cremation. Costs about the same, maybe a little bit more, but we also have a team that will transport statewide. We don't do natural burial, we don't have dedicated natural burial, um, spaces in Australia. The UK does it really well. James: Again, what’s natural burial? Annetta: Okay, so instead of going down six feet, like into colder ground, which is anaerobic, there's frequently a lot of concrete involved, you're in essentially like a hotter ground. You've got more microbes and oxygen, you're going to break down faster. And in the UK, the multipurpose spaces where you might be running, sheep, for example, or growing wildflowers or food. In the USA, when you have the composted remains of people, which turns out to be quite a lot, large in volume, they work with a national park, and it actually goes to beautify hiking trails and to recondition public spaces. James: I like all these. Annetta: I like it too. James: They're kind of positive, aren't they? Annetta: There's options for everybody. So it's opening up spaces for non medical community based people like myself. It also means that there's new and exciting ways for funeral directors to then work with people to make the meaningful, personalised, ritual and ceremony and funeral experience. So, thank you, Boomers. We've got a lot of change. James: Yeah.. And is, are the traditional companies, are they embracing this? Are they seeing the need to embrace this? [00:19:15] Martin: The traditional funeral of being in a church and sort of straight to the cemetery with, with everything sort of reasonably structured, that pattern has definitely broken. We're seeing two things in the Australian industry, that is people trending or consumers saying That doesn't do it for me anymore, I'm either going to go for something very simple that's, like, low cost and, you know, where there's not much of a fuss; or people are saying, I want something highly customised, highly celebratory, highly innovative. And the companies that have stayed quite traditional and conservative are actually losing relevance. And so the funeral directors who are seeing those Baby Boomer-led changes, and are responding construct-- who are responding or actually leading the way themselves and coming up with some of those ideas themselves, they're the ones that are becoming or staying relevant and are thriving. You know, there's a funeral company called Tender Funerals who, whose focus and philosophy is that the family are much more involved in the actual funeral, which is, which is a great thing, which is how it should have, how it used to be. You know, the family themselves would… James: So what might take place? What do they, what do they do? Martin: Well, they might wash and dress the body as, as Annetta said, you know, they might, they might carry the coffin in some of the steps that normally the funeral director would, would only do. There's subtle differences and I don't, I don't profess to know a lot about what they do, but, but philosophically their, their message is let's do funerals the way they used to be done, and not outsource everything to the funeral director. So that's a challenge for the organised industry, because people are responding to that, and because people are saying, Yeah, actually, that's how we did use to do it. And I think the work that doulas are doing is getting people comfortable with the conversation, you know, the fact that we all die and that… Annetta: We've checked, everyone dies. Yeah. Martin: Yeah, we worked that out before. Annetta: Spoiler alert. James: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Martin: So, you know, the organised industry has to realise that with education and Boomer-led sort of innovation, there's a lot more, you know, sort of change and sort of innovation they have to embrace, otherwise they will become irrelevant. Annetta: Whether you're coming from a more business-like perspective or something that's more community led, we all offer skills and services that have value. People train to be funeral directors and celebrants. People train to be morticians, people train to be doulas. And there's an awful lot of ongoing research and continuing education because the legislation is changing very quickly, in terms of documentation, where it's stored, how it's processed. Assisted dying is constantly changing, as we review the laws. And there is a value to that. I'm not a charity. I like to eat meals and sleep under a roof. So, I think one of the unexpected benefits of having more open conversations, generally, is people can recognise, Oh, well, maybe this much for a funeral seems too much, but this is a reasonable sum and I'm happy to pay that sum because we're getting something of value, in the end. That may be more personalised, maybe more ritualised and traditional, but then we have an exchange of something for something. James: But also those pro, the kind of, you know, those newer processes you were describing, even of how we dispose of the body, a more sustainable approach, is going to reflect a lot of people's values, you know, in a way that a traditional cask of being buried at a six feet under. Martin: Funerals don't operate in a vacuum. You know, they're part of the broader society. James: Yeah. Why do you like working in the area of death? Martin: It's a real privilege to, to work with, I mean, you know, the work that Annetta does is amazing. Like to have an open conversation with someone who is facing their own mortality, must, every day, must be an amazing privilege. And the work that I've done historically is after that. So it's, it's not as, it's not as confronting, because it's happened, but it's just really satisfying work to help people, you know, when they are at a low point to do something for them that's valuable, that's meaningful, and to help them with the long-term journey they're about to embark on. A funeral is just one of the first steps in their, their overall journey without that person. And if you can get them off to a good start with a good, you know, this notion of a good funeral, then, you know, then it's incredibly satisfying work. The vast majority of the people that work in funeral service, and I'm sure in the work that you do, are there for the right reasons. They're there because they, they are people-driven people, they love helping. They want to make a difference for people. So, it's a very satisfying industry. But most of what we have, the stereotype of we're all a bit weird and that it's far, it's almost the opposite. James: Annetta, why do you like it? You said you were better than this. You'd been a birth doula but you said ‘I'm better at death’. Annetta: I am better at death. I like puppies, not children, which probably explains a lot. I'm a good story keeper. And someone who is at end of life or is coming to terms with a life-limiting or terminal diagnosis – maybe a slower decline or more rapid decline – there is still an essence of themselves that they would like to have preserved, which I think feeds into this idea of the meaningful, purposeful funeral. The meaningful, purposeful end-of-life, with quality of life until we die, and then trying to offer a quality of life to people as they come to terms with the death of their person, is values driven, I think, in terms of planning. And also, for me, it's about honoring that person and trying to empower them with as much information as appropriate so that they can make informed decisions. I think there's nothing more empowering. When I've done my job really right, I'm not even involved when someone dies. Sometimes I'm in the room and that's okay, but often I will hear from families afterwards. And there's wonderful stories about the time that was spent while their person was dying, caring for their person's body after death, how the family and the friends came together to facilitate all of that, and then how that relationship of community changes, or stays the same, following that. So people then find meaning in their own life, get more excited about planning. The death literacy snowball is a wonderful thing to watch in action. That's my jam. I really love it. James: What do they do? What, what have people told you about death? Annetta: Interestingly enough, for a lot of people, it's not about death itself. It's about being frightened of dying. My pain threshold's in the basement, I don't want to be in pain. That bothers me far more than my moment of death. The people they loved know that they're loved… James: They want that, they want them to know? Annetta: … They want that. They want to know that love has been expressed, which I think is possibly why we're seeing that uptick, too, and people saying, I'd like this playlist at my funeral. I always start with a playlist with planning, you know, control it, be the DJ. Could we talk about this? I'd like these elements. Because it's a way of caretaking in a sense, the people that they're going to leave behind. The messages that people leave are messages of love. I think that's something the film Love Actually got really right, in the beginning. How do I convey that? How can I try and make that my legacy? So we're seeing it arise in, life writing, the narrative of someone's life so that there might be a digital book or voice recordings. We're seeing that with social media platforms where social accounts can be turned into memorial accounts. But I think also we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that sometimes that is all yanked away with no warning, sometimes, by family members who think that that's the right thing to do. And that can leave people devastated. So I think we're all kind of jogging along together, trying to come to terms with all the changes and make them a good fit for individuals. James: Martin, what do you hear? What do hear people say about death? Martin: Most people dread the day, you know, they're dreading the day, they have to get it, get up there in front of all those people, walk through the gathering and everyone's looking at them. And so there's a, there's a lot of dread. People will say, can we just get over and done with? Can we do it tomorrow? You know, when the death's been today, or whatever. So there is that sense that it's going to be an ordeal. So if, after it's happened and you, the feedback is all the conversations you hear are, Oh, that was really special and it went well and, and what a tribute we paid to Dad or Mum, you know, you know, he would have loved it or whatever. You know, that you've lifted all that dread away, and then they move ahead. So they're off to a good start. Otherwise, if we just die and we, we pause for a few minutes and we get back on the bike and start living again, well, you know, that person, all their, what they meant to us and all their stories and history and what they wanted to be said about them just gets shuffled aside and we get on with life again. So I think we, I think most of us deserve a bit better than that. And a funeral is a really good opportunity to just stop the clock for a while. You know, we don't have to wallow in it for weeks. And some cultures do, they actually, they put a real ritual around it. But as a minimum, just have some, some chance where we can say, his life mattered. I think that's, I think that's really good. Annetta: Yeah. James: This has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much, Annetta. Thank you. Annetta: Thank you for having me, James. It's been a pleasure. James: Martin, thank you. Martin: I enjoyed it. James: Terrific. Thanks to our guests, Dr. Annetta Mallon and Martin Tobin. You've been listening to Season 6 of Life's Booming, Dying to Know, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please, leave a review or tell someone about it. Head to seniors.com.au/podcast for more episodes. May your life be booming. I'm James Valentine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Martin's first time recording a solo podcast episode! His topic of choice - Mindset. Listen in as he shares a real-life incident wherein mindset affected a person's work performance, as well as some ideas on how to change our negative subconscious beliefs to more optimistic ones.Time Stamps 00:19 -  Episode Intro 00:54 - Let's Talk About Mindset! 04:62 - A Story on the Effect of Mindset 11:21 - Our Subconscious Beliefs Quotable Moments from Martin “There's a certain comfort in numbers. It's objective. You can get an answer, you can add two numbers up, and get a correct answer and an incorrect answer.” “Mindset is a very very powerful factor in success, and the problem with it is we're not aware of the mindset that we have.” “If your subconscious brain were a lake that you can't see through, but every now and then a fish jumps up above and you get a glimpse of it, you need to pay attention and say, is that true?”  “We have to take that courage, go contrary to our instincts, act as if, and begin to change the subconscious beliefs that are damaging us and holding us back.” Resources Need Marketing Help? We Recommend Benali Watch On Youtube Follow On Social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Subscribe To Our Newsletter, The Countdown Have Questions? Email us More from Martin theprofitproblem.com annealbc.com    Email Martin Meet With Martin LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from Khalil benali.com  Email Khalil Meet With Khalil LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from The Cashflow Contractor Ask Us A Question Sign Up For A Free Consultation thecashflowcontractor.com  Email The Cashflow Contractor LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Your voice matters! Help us improve The Cashflow Contractor Podcast.Take our quick survey to shape the future of the show. Share your feedback and ideas in just a few minutes. Click the link below:https://forms.gle/NDVDbYzDj6uKiQ127Thank you for being part of our community!Khalil and MartinThe Cashflow Contractor Podcast

Using a substitute for salt in your cooking and eating can meaningfully reduce your blood pressure and risk for cardiovascular disease, a couple of new studies demonstrate. Johns Hopkins cardiologist Seth Martin says these studies have a clear take home message. Martin: There was a big clinical trial out of China and then this study […]

00:00 - Intro 00:30 - Jeff Finney's “In-Theory vs. In-Practice” 02:30 - What's Inflation? 05:55 - The Rule of 72 07:30 - Inflation in the 70's vs. 2022 10:30 - Inflation in Real Estate 13:40 - Uncertain Inflation Strategy - Crypto 17:20 - Uncertain Inflation Strategy - Real Estate 19:40 - Uncertain Inflation Strategy - Loans 21:11 -  Bad Inflation Stategies For Contractors 26:00 - Good Inflation Strategies For Contractors 30:00 - Efficiency Is The Best Defense Against Inflation 42:00 - Moving To Higher Margin Work 46:00 - Why You Can't Afford To Not Be Confident 48:00 - Outro Quotable Moments “Inflation is a general price increase on labor, goods, and materials in response to increase of the money supply.” – Martin “There's 37% more money in the United States today than there was 1 year ago. Meanwhile, the gross domestic product only went up 5%.” – Martin “Chasing more sales as a hedge against inflation is just compounding the problem and digging yourself into a hole.” – Khalil “Even though the number in your bank account is going up, you can't buy anything because the money is worth less.” – Martin “If you're not paying employees more because of inflation, then you're going to lose those employees.” – Khalil “Personal savings for individuals have increased $380 billion since before the pandemic.” – Martin “There's no better time to raise prices because your customers are most likely expecting it – they've heard of inflation.” – Khalil “Don't wait – if you're the last contractor to increase prices then people are probably going to push back on it because you waited too long to do it.” – Khalil “If you start tracking things, then you can start fixing things. You have to be more efficient with time, money you have, and costs that you're incurring.” – Khalil “Do it, or perrish.” – Martin “You need to consider which work has higher margins and you need to pivot to that.” – Khalil Resources Read Jeff Finney's Book, “That's It, I'm Fired” Read Paul Akers' Book, “2 Second Lean” Listen to our Episode, “Self-Confidence Is Key” Check us out on Youtube Follow us on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Countdown Have questions? Email us! More from Martin theprofitproblem.com annealbc.com    martin@anealbc.com  LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from Khalil benali.com  khalil@benali.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from The Cashflow Contractor Ask Us A Question Sign Up For A Free Consultation thecashflowcontractor.com  info@thecashflowcontractor.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

The dilemma. (1:30) How to get around it. (2:55) Is your job ad compelling? (4:30) Quotable Moments “If employers were buyers and employees were sellers, it's a sellers market.” – Martin “A little over 90% reported that the lack of workers is the number one factor in scarcity of products and scarcity of services, which in turn is the number one factor in the price increases we're all seeing.” – Martin “There are two things you can do – offer the going rate for labor and emphasize the benefits of working for you.” – Martin “Are you offering a competitive salary and does your job as entice them or does it put them to sleep?” – Martin Resources Check us out on Youtube Follow us on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Subscribe to our newsletter, The Countdown Have questions? Email us! More from Martin theprofitproblem.com annealbc.com    martin@anealbc.com  LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from Khalil benali.com  khalil@benali.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from The Cashflow Contractor Ask Us A Question Sign Up For A Free Consultation thecashflowcontractor.com  info@thecashflowcontractor.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

This week we're pitching Space Movies with Eden MW! Adam Sandler has developed a strange obsession with a certain cinematic alien species, and he needs to get to space to give them a proposition! Also pitched this week: Who's the Martin? - There's a race of aliens providing a strange new cultural exchange service by way of abductions, but can Martin's (Martin Freeman/Chris Martin)friends discern him from his doppelganger? Gravity Cops - A Jackie Chan romp in which a secret police taskforce go flying through the streets, laughing as loud as they can. Find Eden's things here! https://www.youtube.com/c/edensthings If you enjoyed the episode, consider supporting us on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/lifesapitchpodcast

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

This week is all about monstrous metaphors and how horror can speak to us. Firstly we review A Monster Calls, starring Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson and impressive young actor Lewis MacDougall. Adapting Patrick Ness's illustrated novel to the big screen, director J.A. Bayona realizes the allegorical theme of grief for the loss of a loved one with judicious CGI and animated 'fairy tale' sequences. In this fashion Bayona's film follows in the tradition of horror as metaphor defined by the work of George Romero, who died on 16 July 2017. Known principally as a zombie movie icon, the Pittsburgh native was also a film-maker committed to the principles of independence. His investment in the locality of Evans City gave an economic burst to the depressed blue-collar region, and it's this ethos of DIY film-making for which Romero deserves more recognition. From the inevitability of death represented by his zombies, to the deromanticised vampire Martin ("There's no magic") and Ed Harris's modern-day King Arthur in Knight Riders reduced to a Renaissance Fair performer, Romero raised up the ordinary instead of escaping to fantasy.