Podcasts about National Association

OA1205 - It's another good news Friday! Voting rights expert Jenessa runs down some of the highlights of the off-year blue sweep in this week's elections, as well as some recent unsung national victories for voting and disability rights. Matt then checks in on the Supreme Court's oral arguments from the challenge to Trump's unprecedented tariffs and why it is looking like he might actually lose his administration's first attempt to defend one of his second administration's policies on the merits.  Finally, in today's footnote: Why a federal judge recently decided that a lawsuit brought by the man whose penis was once featured on the cover of the most important albums of 1990s smelled like summary judgment.  Supreme Court oral arguments in Learning Resources, Inc  v. Trump (11/5/2025) The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 “Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Pratcies that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits,” The White House (4/2/2025)(executive order on tariffs) Solicitor General John Sauer's brief in Learning Resources  Plaintiff's second amended complaint in Elden v. Nirvana LLC et al D.C. federal judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly's opinion in combined litigation challenging Trump's executive order on citizenship requirements for voting (10/31/25) DC federal judge Amir Ali's order in National Association of the Deaf v. Trump  (11/4/25) Order granting defendants' motion for summary judgment in Elden v. Nirvana, LLC (9/30/2025)

A very unusual episode, where returning guest-panelist Safine Hakamaki (Née Ashirova) co-hosts an interview with Henry of the esteemed Svetlana Grivorevna Ter-Minasova.  In this episode, Henry and Safie discuss the life of Professor Ter-Minasova, from her early childhood during WWII up through the present, where she continues to work as the Founding President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Moscow State University!  During this oral-autobiography, we learn why she credits Joseph Stalin with saving her life, what it was like growing up during WWII and the immediate aftermath, and her career as the "Mother" of Soviet (and subsequently Russian) foreign language education.  We're sure you'll enjoy! Svetlana Grigorevna Ter-Minasova is the founder and President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, and retains a position as Professor Emeritus at the university.  She has been Chairperson of the Foreign Languages Teaching Council (part of the Ministry of Education) since 1987.  Among many other credits, she also has been the Founding President of both National Association of Applied Linguistics and National Association of Teachers of English.  Her book "Notes by a Soviet Dinosaur",  came out in 2015, and has been excerpted in East-West Review. Safie Hakamaki is a Russian linguist and foreign language educator.  You can follow her telegram channel @amusing_musings. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

Content Warning: rape, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Marlee Liss is a survivor,award-winning speaker, victim advocate, somatic educator, and author from Toronto, Canada. She grew up in the arts, but pivoted to social work when she began her college career. It was in Marlee's junior year when her life changed forever; she became the victim of a sexual assault and entered an arduous journey in the criminal justice system as a result. However, three years into that battle for justice, Marlee found an additional path: restorative justice. According to Walden University, quote “Punitive justice is the idea of punishing criminals for their crimes against society or the legal system itself, and is the traditional method of handling crime in the United States. Restorative justice seeks to bring victims of crimes into the justice process. Criminals are asked to take accountability for their wrongdoing by facing those they have wronged... The theory is that criminals owe more than a debt to society—they owe a debt to specific people,” end quote. The two processes are not always mutually exclusive. It's important to note that criminal justice can occur tandemly with restorative justice practices. The Broken Cycle Media team is so very grateful for Marlee's powerful perspective advocacy and time and energy in sharing in this episode. Resources: Survivors for Justice Reform: https://www.survivors4justicereform.com/ Dr. Alissa Ackerman: https://www.alissaackerman.com/ Marlee's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marleeliss/ Marlee's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marleeliss Survivors for Justice Reform on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/survivors4justicereform/ National Association of Community and Restorative Justice: https://www.nacrj.org/ NACRJ Restorative Justice Map: https://members.nacrj.org/rj-map/FindStartsWith?term=%23%21 Sources: Statistics: The Criminal Justice System - Rainn, rainn.org/facts-statistics-the-scope-of-the-problem/statistics-the-criminal-justice-system/ “What Is Restorative Justice?” Walden University, www.waldenu.edu/programs/criminal-justice/resource/what-Is-restorative-justice. Thank you again to Scamfluencers and Lola Blankets for sponsoring this episode. Don't forget, listen to Scamfluencers now, wherever you get your podcasts. And for a limited time, our listeners are getting a huge 40% off their entire order lolablankets.com by using the code WCN at checkout. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them What Came Next sent you.

Princella Seymour's thirty-year career has solidified her as a preeminent expert on solutions for the aging community. The heartbeat of her mission is love, family and dignity. As a national advocate for revolutionizing elder care and transforming confusion into clarity, she has served as Vice President of the 120,000+ member National Association of Social Workers and as well as a part of the Aging Life Care Association.  Her new book, Everything You Need to Know About Me, is born from decades of experience witnessing the heartache and confusion families face when trying to honor their loved ones' wishes without having the necessary information.  It is available on Amazon.As CEO of Complete Elder Solutions, Princella has helped thousands. She and her team ensure that families never have to navigate the complexities of aging alone and provide personalized solutions that honor the dignity of every individual.Princella has a bachelor's degree in social work from Florida Atlantic University and a master's degree in social work from Florida International University. In this episode, we discuss:Strategies for funding long-term care, including insurance options and personal savings.Emotional decisions about whether to age in place, move to assisted living or choose other healthcare facilities.Ways to avoid common estate planning pitfalls, like conflicts over inheritance, the importance of an updated will, durable power of attorney and healthcare directives.How to prevent financial exploitation and scams targeting seniors.How families can approach difficult conversations about aging, healthcare and financial matters with their senior loved ones.Planning ahead by investing in assurance programs to provide access to a team of experienced Care Coaches who work to assess, plan, arrange, coordinate and monitor services to meet the special health care needs of seniors.Learn more:Complete Elder Solutions https://www.completeeldersolutions.com/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CompleteElderSolutions#Instagram https://www.instagram.com/completeeldersolutions/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/complete-elder-solutions/

What happens when schools don't have enough psychologists to meet student needs? And how can associations help their members thrive in such an environment?In this episode of Associations Thrive, host Joanna Pineda interviews Eric Rossen, Executive Director of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Eric discusses:How NASP represents over 24,000 school psychologists across the U.S., many of whom serve multiple schools due to a national shortage.The difference between school psychologists and school counselors, and why having both creates “force multipliers” for student success.NASP's advocacy work around federal funding, including the fight to restore grant money that was being used to address workforce shortages.How NASP is addressing the mental health of its members, who often work in isolated environments, under high stress.Eric's leadership journey from school psychologist to association executive, and how earning his CAE signaled a full embrace of his role as an association professional.His leadership style shift, from “doing” to empowering, and how he intentionally built trust when stepping into the Executive Director role.Why National School Psychology Week is more than recognition of school psychologists: it's a tool for public awareness and appreciation of a critical profession.NASP's upcoming 2026 convention in Chicago, expected to be its largest ever, with Dr. Miguel Cardona as the keynote speaker.How NASP is making its convention more expansive and impactful by welcoming affiliated organizations to host events under its umbrella, creating a “bigger tent” for school psychology.References:NASP WebsiteNASP Annual Convention

 CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's Nightline, CBS's Sunday Morning, NBC's Today Show, PBS,, CNN,, Fox; National Public Radio;Washington Post, NewYork Times, are just some of the places you have read or seen him!Civil & Disability Rights are the topics of this show. With Civl Rights History being Preserved for Generations to learn about, What about Disability Rights with it's Multiracial History of Leadership & Activists?? I am concerned.Ralph was an author of the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973&  the American with Disabilities Act along with many others in many Drafts it took to get through a Bi-Partisian Congress as the national law. His work in Civill Rights is amazing as he was trained by many icons including Dorothy Height, Senator Edward Brooke (R, MA), Benjamin Hooks, Roy Wilkins, Wade Henderson. Senator Edward Kennedy, Bayard RustinYou hear very little of  Black Disability Leaders & Activists that are so pivitol to helping in this fight. Brad Lomax, The Black Panters, Dr. Sylvia Walker, (my mentor), Don Galloway or The Honorable Rep. Major Owens ( D, NY). & the Honorable Justin Dart, Tony Coehlo, Ed Roberts, Senator Lowell P. Weicker(R.CT) & others to advance Disability Rights & ADA History.Ralph Neas was both active duty and reserve in the United States Army (1968–1976). In late 1971, he joined the Congressional Research Service's American Law Division at the Library of Congress as a legislative attorney on civil rights. In January 1973, he was hired as a legislative assistant to Republican Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, eventually becoming the Senator's chief legislative assistant.From 1981 through 1995, Neas served as Executive Director of the nonpartisan Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the legislative arm of the civil rights movement. Neas coordinated successful national campaigns that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1991; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Civil Rights Restoration Act; the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988; the Japanese American Civil Liberties Act; the preservation of the Executive Order on Affirmative Action (1985–1986 and 1995–1996);and the 1982 Voting Right Act Extension.Final passage on all these laws averaged 85% in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; in addition, another 15 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights legislative priorities were enacted into law in the 1981–1995 period"The Americans with Disabilities Act Award" from the Task Force on the Rights of the Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities for "historic leadership regarding the enactment of the world's first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities" October 12, 1990;Benjamin Hooks "Keeper of the Flame" award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the 91st Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, July 10, 2000"President's Award for Outstanding Service", Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, September, 2007.© 2025 Building Abundant Success!!2025 All Rights ReservedJoin Me ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASAmazon ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

"I salute you, Queen Wisdom. May the Lord safeguard you with your holy sister, pure and holy simplicity.” - St Francis of Assisi, The Praise of Virtue    Submit a Podcast Listener Question HERE!    Podcasts by Series  Level One Book Study  Level Two Book Study    Today we read Sofia Cavalletti's 2003 journal article “Holy Simplicity,” and then Anna Hurdle joined me to discuss the beauty and wisdom found in her words.  Anna Hurdle is a catechist and formation leader at levels I, II and III. She is a retired elementary Montessori guide and coordinator of CGS at her parish in Charlotte, NC. Anna serves the National Association through the Episcopal Committee and the Formation Advisory Council.    Read the article “Holy Simplicity” HERE    Thank you to all our members and our donors who have given to the 2025-26 Annual Appeal and Tina Lillig Memorial Fund. Your donations make it possible for CGSUSA to expand formation opportunities, give mission courses, invest in technology, create catechist and parent resources and publications, and offer many wonderful events that build our catechist community. All of these initiatives help us serve children with love and generosity. The revenue generated from membership fees covers about 55 percent of the cost of the benefits of membership, so philanthropy is essential to delivering excellent support to catechists, ministry leaders, families, and children. To find out more or make a gift, please visit www.cgsusa.org/donate. Thank you!      The Religious Potential of the Child  CGSUSA Store      BECOME A CGSUSA MEMBER          AUDIOBOOK:  Audiobook – Now Available on Audible  CGSUSA is excited to offer you the audio version of The Religious Potential of the Child – 3rd Edition by Sofia Cavalletti, read by Rebekah Rojcewicz!  The Religious Potential of the Child is not a “how-to” book, complete with lesson plans and material ideas. Instead it offers a glimpse into the religious life of the atrium, a specially prepared place for children to live out their silent request: “Help me come closer to God by myself.” Here we can see the child's spiritual capabilities and perhaps even find in our own souls the child long burdened with religious information. This book serves as a companion to the second volume, The Religious Potential of the Child 6 to 12 Years Old. The desire to have this essential text available in audio has been a long-held goal for many. The work of many hands has combined to bring this release to life as an audiobook.    Find out more about CGS:  Learn more about the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd     Follow us on Social Media-  Facebook at “The United States Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd”  Instagram-  cgsusa  Twitter- @cgsusa  Pinterest- Natl Assoc of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd USA  YouTube- catechesisofthegoodshepherd 

What does it take to build a successful, heart-centered pet sitting business? Lindsey Perriello shares her path from surgical tech to pet care professional, highlighting the emotional toll of past jobs and how her values shaped the company she leads today. She discusses the challenges of setting boundaries, training staff, and keeping a personal touch with 300+ clients. Lindsey's approach is rooted in education, empathy, and honesty—qualities she believes all pet sitters should bring to their work. This conversation is full of practical insights and vulnerable moments that reflect the realities of small business ownership. Main topics: Career change to pet care Ethical client relationships Continuing education & certifications Managing staff and quality control Boundaries and pricing challenges Main takeaway: "Families are putting their trust in us, and in return, I want to do the best that I can." When someone hands you their keys and their pets, they're not just hiring a service—they're extending trust. Our job isn't simply to meet expectations; it's to honor that trust through professionalism, communication, and care that never cuts corners. Training, insurance, certifications, systems—these aren't boxes to check. They're how we prove we take that trust seriously. Whether you're solo or leading a team, remember: your clients don't see your behind-the-scenes effort, but they feel it in every visit report, every thoughtful update, every safe return home.

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

EPISODE SUMMARY: Rick Dees is an radio legend, entertainer, comedian. He shares how he created one of the most iconic countdowns in history and redefined what it means to connect with the audience in this hilarious career retrospective.Dees will be among those honored this fall as Giants of Broadcasting by the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation at the 2025 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts luncheon and awards ceremony on November 14th at Gotham Hall in New York City.On this episode of Chachi Loves Everybody, Chachi talks to Rick Dees about:His early misadventures in radio as a high school and college student in North CarolinaThe story behind creating Disco Duck, how it became a hit, and how it got him firedGetting tapped by Dick Clark to go on air in Los Angeles, and becoming a household name in LA and beyondThe entertainers and unlikely sources that inspired him as a performer and storytellerLearning to invest after people tried to steal from him, and his financial adviceWhy he bought a farm in KentuckyCreating the Weekly Top 40 and how it became the longest continuously running countdown ever.Starring in a late night show opposite Johnny Carson His other ventures including his farm, his own app, cookbook, and launching Home Living which became the Cooking ChannelAnd More!ABOUT THIS EPISODE'S GUEST: Rick Dees is a radio legend, comedic genius and multi-talented entertainer, known for his captivating enthusiasm and quick-witted humor, which continue to leave an indelible mark on the entertainment world.With an extraordinary career spanning decades, Dees has entertained and delighted millions across the globe, solidifying his place as one of the most influential and beloved figures in broadcasting history.Best known for his internationally syndicated radio show, The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, Dees' familiar voice and unforgettable characters are heard by more than 70 million listeners each weekend, spanning virtually every city in the United States, 125 countries, 27 massive ships at sea, and the Armed Forces Radio Network. His show even broke barriers by becoming the first English-speaking radio program to entertain listeners in Beijing, China, making history in the process.Rick Dees rose to prominence when he took over the top-rated morning show on KIIS-FM Los Angeles in July 1981, turning it into the number one revenue-generating radio station in America and making him the hottest property in radio. His unprecedented success earned him Billboard's Radio Personality of the Year Award an astonishing ten years in a row. Further cementing his legacy, Dees was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame and was honored with the prestigious Marconi Award.Dees embraced the digital age with the same pioneering spirit that defined his radio career. His innovative music streaming platform, BYOChannel, offers users the ability to “build their own” personalized channels from a library of over 40 million tracks. He further extended his brand's reach with the Rick Dees Hit Music app, delivering The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 and Daily Dees directly to millions of Apple and Android devices worldwide.In 2025, iHeartMedia launched two new iHeartRadio Original Streaming Stations in partnership with Rick Dees Entertainment — Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 and Classic Rick Dees Top 40. The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 station features the current Weekly Top 40 program, while Classic Rick Dees Top 40 goes back in the archives to feature complete countdowns from the original shows that aired in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, many of which haven't been heard in years.ABOUT THE PODCAST: Chachi Loves Everybody is brought to you by Benztown and hosted by the President of Benztown, Dave “Chachi” Denes. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the myths and legends of the radio industry.PEOPLE MENTIONED:Paul AllenLarry AllenBilly GrahamTom MillerRalph LambethGlenn PowersKen LoweSam & DaveIsaac HayesEstelle AxtonRobert StigwoodAl CoreyWolfman JackDick ClarkBill MurrayElmer BernsteinJonathan WintersJohnny CarsonPaul DrewChuck MartinLynn AndersonDon BensonBarbara StreisandMadonnaMichael JacksonWally ClarkRoger ClevelandCharlie TunaRobert W. MorganDon SteeleBernie CarnielSandy GallinDolly PartonNeil DiamondBarry DillerMichael EisnerMadeleine PughLucille BallCary GrantAva GardnerJohn StewartRobin WilliamsJulie McWhirter-DeesPeter SimoneJerry EdelsteinBette MidlerJon Bon JoviKevin DeesPaul JosephEllen KLiz FultonRachel DonahueRoy LoughlinNick VerbitskyCasey KasemLisa CanningEd WhiteShohei OtaniLesley VisserDavid MuirGary SandyABOUT BENZTOWN: Benztown is a leading international audio imaging, production library, voiceover, programming, podcasting, and jingle production company with over 3,000 affiliations on six different continents. Benztown provides audio brands and radio stations of all formats with end-to-end imaging and production, making high-quality sound and world- class audio branding a reality for radio stations of all market sizes and budgets. Benztown was named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 by Inc. magazine for five consecutive years as one of America's Fastest-Growing Privately Held Companies. With studios in Los Angeles and Stuttgart, Benztown offers the highest quality audio imaging work parts for 23 libraries across 14 music and spoken word formats including AC, Hot AC, CHR, Country, Hip Hop and R&B, Rhythmic, Classic Hits, Rock, News/Talk, Sports, and JACK. Benztown's Audio Architecture is one of the only commercial libraries that is built exclusively for radio spots to provide the right music for radio commercials. Benztown provides custom VO and imaging across all formats, including commercial VO and copywriting in partnership with Yamanair Creative. Benztown Radio Networks produces, markets, and distributes high-quality programming and services to radio stations around the world, including: The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Countdown, The Todd-N-Tyler Radio Empire, Hot Mix, Sunday Night Slow Jams with R Dub!, Flashback, Top 10 Now & Then, Hey, Morton, StudioTexter, The Rooster Show Prep, and AmeriCountry. Benztown + McVay Media Podcast Networks produces and markets premium podcasts including: IEX: Boxes and Lines and Molecular Moments.Web: benztown.comFacebook: facebook.com/benztownradioTwitter: @benztownradioLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/benztownInstagram: instagram.com/benztownradio Enjoyed this episode of Chachi Loves Everybody? Let us know by leaving a review!

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

When most people think about the symptoms of incontinence, they think about physical things like urgency and leaks. But what's every bit as real - and every bit as troubling - are the mental health symptoms that so many patients live with. Incontinence is significantly associated with depression, anxiety and other mental issues, and addressing them can be a particular challenge.Today's guest is Tina Harris from Tenderheart Health Outcomes, here to share with us important information that the team at Tenderheart has learned about mental health from their research and patient surveys. She discusses what patients and caregivers commonly experience and offers strategies to help lighten the mental burden. If you or a loved one are experiencing mental health struggles, don't wait for things to get worse before seeking help. The best time to act is now. Please click or call any of these resources for qualified, professional help: National Mental Health Hotline - 866-903-3787SAMHSA - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - 877-726-4727National Family Caregiver Support ProgramNational Alliance on Mental Illness - 800-950-6264American Society for Suicide Prevention - Call 988 or text TALK to 741741More information on Tenderheart can be found at TenderHeart.com. Details about Tenderheart's research efforts can be found by clicking here. For more information about the National Association for Continence, click here, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.Music:Rainbows Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ For nearly 40 years, Tranquility's high-quality products have helped people manage loss of bladder and bowel control with comfort, confidence, and dignity. Choose from disposable briefs, pull on underwear, booster pads and more. Request free samples today so you can experience the Tranquility difference for yourself. Go to tranquilityproducts.com to take a survey for a free sample or call us at 1 866-865-6101. We're here to help. If you look at the numbers behind incontinence in women, it's hard to believe just how big an issue it is. Incontinence affects more women than diabetes, breast cancer and heart disease, but it doesn't get the attention it deserves. That's why NAFC has created the We Count campaign, to help you realize that you are not alone, and there are treatments available right now that can make a real difference in your life. Visit NAFC.org/we-count to learn more.

This $200M Money Manager Combines Financial Planning & Wealth Management – Meet Robert Finley Founder VirtueAMRobert P. Finley CFA, CFP®Founder & Principal at Virtue Asset ManagementVirtueAM.comAUM $200M AUMBioRobert P. Finley CFA, CFPRobert Finley is a Fee-only Certified Financial Planner and Portfolio Manager in Barrington, Chicago and Glenview Illinois. Robert is a CFA® charterholder and a CFP™ certificant with over 20 years of experience. As a trusted senior portfolio manager and fee-only financial planner in Chicago, Robert most recently managed over $375 million in assets for high-net-worth individuals. Robert has been featured in Barron's, CNBC, USA Today, US News, Money Magazine, MarketWatch,NerdWallet and Fund Intelligence. Robert serves as an Executive Board Member of the Barrington Chamber of Commerce, is an active member of the Barrington Lions Club, and also contributes as a Board Member of Evergreen Cemetery.Robert grew up in Glenview, Illinois and graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, Finance major. He started his career in Wealth Management at LaSalle Bank, managing money and creating financial plans for high net worth individuals, business owners, foundations and endowments. In 2007, LaSalle Bank was purchased by Bank of America and the Wealth Management department was integrated with U.S. Trust. In April 2013, Robert stayed in Chicago and moved to TIAA-CREF's Trust department as a Senior Portfolio Manager.In addition to his professional certifications, Robert is also a member of American Mensa, the Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), a Board Member of the Barrington Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Barrington Lions Club. He lives in Barrington, Illinois with his wife and two children.

President of the National Association of LGBTQ journalists (NLGJA.org) Ken Miguel talks about how the organization promotes queer visibility and accuracy in the media (interviewed by Brian DeShazor). Plus: The Rainbow Rewind notes the November birthdays of comedian Bob Smith and Canadian rocker ally Ryan Adams, the premiere of “The Crying Game” and the passage of Proposition 8, California's ban on marriage equality (produced by Brian DeShazor and Sheri Lunn). And in NewsWrap: Rob Jetten's “yes we can” campaign makes him the youngest and first out gay Prime Minister of The Netherlands, 25 people remain in the custody of Nigeria's Islamic religious police since the Hisbah arrested them at an alleged “gay wedding,” access to their gender-affirming healthcare for Queensland's transgender youth opens by court order and closes again by order of state Health Director-General Dr. David Rosengren, the U.S. state's Supreme Court allows Texas judges with “sincerely held religious beliefs” to refuse to officiate weddings of same-gender couples, British King Charles' first “official engagement” directly supporting the LGBTQ communities is to lay a bouquet of flowers near the first memorial to U.K. LGBTQ service members, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by David Hunt and Ava Davis (produced by Brian DeShazor). All this on the November 3, 2025 edition of This Way Out! Join our family of listener-donors today at http://thiswayout.org/donate/

Register here to attend the live virtual event "How to Scale Your Portfolio, with Tenanted Cash Flowing, New Construction Properties" on Thursday, November 13th at 8pm Eastern. Keith introduces a profound life perspective: humans are typically allotted only 30,000 days. What will you do with the days you have left? Every moment not spent building wealth is a moment lost forever. Adam Schroeder, a real estate investment strategist, joins the conversation to talk about current opportunities with new build properties with significant builder incentives and the potential for high appreciation. Resources: Switch to listening to the podcast on the Apple Podcasts or Spotify app, as the dedicated GRE mobile app will be discontinued at the end of the month. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/578 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text 'GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold  0:01   Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the real estate market is slow when this happens in a cycle. What does it mean to a real estate investor? What type of return can you really expect today? I'll tell you exactly, and you'll be surprised. Learn more about new build properties and why investors often prefer DSCR loans over conventional loans today on get rich education,   Keith Weinhold  0:28   since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com   Corey Coates  1:13   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:29   Welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, yes, America's favorite shaved mammal on a microphone is back with you for another wealth building week. Just the talking primate that's heavily mortgaged here. I'm also a landlord still waiting for a security deposit from back in 2018   Keith Weinhold  1:51   Hmm, oh, I'm so into self deprecation today that I forgot about the place names hitting you, from Dover, Delaware to   Keith Weinhold  2:01   Andover, Massachusetts and across 188 nations worldwide, you're listening to get rich education. There's a realization that can sharpen your investor focus when you think about the fact that, in a sense, how little time you are allotted in your life. It's something that I've thought about more. You're only given about 30,000 days. That's the typical lifespan of a human being, and that goes for both shaved mammals and others. Well, you've already spent 1000s of your 30,000. The question is, what are you doing with the rest? At some point, people understand or they better that they need to go out on a limb. There are people less qualified than you living the life you want to live simply because they chose to believe in themselves, and really, that's the moment everything shifts. belief. It's not a feeling. It is a decision backed by action. Too many people learn this lesson the hard way. They discover, often too late, that relying on one income stream is the most dangerous financial plan of all. A job can vanish. Federal Workers found that out amidst a government shutdown, a business model can change. AI can intrude. A paycheck can stop. But when you own assets that pay you month after month, no matter what you're doing, you slowly begin to untether yourself and move toward freedom. And here's the truth about pain and money. Poor and middle class households work for money, so to them, that's why every dollar spent feels like a little loss. It can even hurt, and that is why they hesitate even on opportunities that could change everything. The wealthy, on the other hand, own assets that pay them, so therefore every dollar spent feels like a seed, because it grows when you own enough income property, you can move away from constantly asking yourself, can I afford this? And start asking, What will this investment earn me? Over time, this mindset shift changes everything at that time when other people's money starts working for you, not the other way around.    Keith Weinhold  4:45   And here's the thought experiment I use, take the hourglass of your life and flip it, watch the sand fall. That's time, 30,000 hours, 30,000 grains. That is. Is time the one resource that you cannot get more of. So every day you delay prudently investing the sand does not pause. It just keeps flowing. But you can choose how that time compounds the sand that's left over and hasn't fallen through the neck of the hourglass. Yet that is your opportunity to build multiple income streams from real estate, from ownership and from leverage, it is your chance to replace anxiety with well autonomy. Every family with generational wealth can trace it back to one person, one risk taker who decided to stop trading hours for dollars. They believed in ownership and control. They believed in themselves. They acted before the sand ran out. If you've already started real estate investing, well, then you've already begun to break that cycle. If you've done it for a time, you're going to have more time, more income and more options than you had before. That is worth celebrating and scaling, because the best time to start was yesterday, and the next best time is before the next grain of sand hits the bottom.    Keith Weinhold  6:22   Later today, I'll talk about taking this sentiment and moving it towards something very specific and actionable. Now, in this era, the real estate market is slow. That is in terms of transaction volume, there just aren't as many sales. Sometimes this whole thing feels more sluggish than Jabba the Hutt after Thanksgiving dinner.   Keith Weinhold  6:49   5 million is a typical number of existing homes sold every year in the US. 5 million. That's normal. That's baseline during the pandemic frenzy. It reached over 6 million, and now it's about 4 million. That's why I say that housing transaction volume has slowed, and appreciation is only about 2% that's below historic norms, and rent growth is like barely doing push ups. It's two to 3% in single family homes volume now it has picked up a little here lately with lower mortgage rates, and so have home prices. Redfin now tells us that home price appreciation is 3% but most outlets say 2% some analysts that are more optimistic than me call today's housing market healthy. They don't call it slow. And why is that? Well, it's the healthiest it's been since covid, because now you have a good balance of buyers and sellers. The real estate market isn't so miserably deprived of inventory like it was back in 2022 in 2023 but I am going to go with slow now, as you know, I coined the phrase real estate pays five ways back in 2015   Keith Weinhold  8:09   But how exactly does that hold up in today's slow transaction market? Could an income property buyer's return even be disappointing now? Well, let's do it. Let's determine what you can expect if you purchase an investment property here in these slow market conditions, we'll determine your total rate of return in year one. And you know, this will be sort of like dating someone that's not the first date, but to really get to know them, to know if they're potential spouse material. You want to see them at their worst and be sure that they look good on their bad days. So let's just be conservative and use 2% home price appreciation. Say that you buy a 200k single family rental. Now a 20% down payment means 40k down. Sellers are willing to give you concessions now, say that they're going to pay your closing costs, because the 200k that you're paying is their full asking price, so it's your terms and their price. Well, say that you don't get any cash flow. The rent only covers the expenses exactly. Okay, so we're really painting on a not so pretty picture. Here, it would seem. Here we go, in a slow market, the first of five ways you're paid is that erstwhile appreciation. Your property only appreciates 2% from 200k up to 204k not so exciting, until, of course, as we know around here, you realize that your return is your gain on your skin in the game, your 4k gain divided by your 40k down payment gives you a 10% ROI. There it is leverage. Didn't just show up. It brought donuts. 10% just from the first of five ways you're paid. The second way is cash flow. Say that rent minus your 160k mortgage payment here and your operating expenses, that merely breaks even, like I was saying. So 0% additional return from cash flow. And before we add on numbers three, four and five to get your total rate of return in a slow market, let's take a moment to check on Jabba. How's Jabba doing? No, Jabba still hasn't gotten up from that heavy Thanksgiving dinner. It's still a slow market. We've confirmed that we're going to continue   Keith Weinhold  10:41   the third way you're paid, as any GRE listener knows by now, is with that ROA return on amortization, also known as principal pay down with a 7% mortgage rate in your 160k loan on this property, an amortization table shows you 1625 bucks a tenant made principal pay down. Divide that by your 40k down again, that is another 4% return. All right, so you add that to your 10% from leverage depreciation, and you've now got 14%   Keith Weinhold  11:17   next is your tax benefit. It's a 150k structure value, not the full 200k because raw land can't be depreciated. Multiply that by 3.6% depreciation, that means you've tax sheltered 5400 bucks. That is like a phantom loss that you get to show the IRS. Just a little more math here, and this is as far as you have to stretch it, in visualizing numbers in an audio format at a 24% income tax rate. That is 1296 saved on 40k down again, another 3% for you, and your running total is a 17% ROI before we get to the last one, which is inflation profiting, not inflation hedging, which almost everyone mistakenly says in real estate investing, it is inflation profiting.    Keith Weinhold  12:13   Your 160k loan gets eaten by 4800 bucks at a 3% inflation rate, divided by 40k down. And you know, inflation is usually the villain. Now it is the hero. You've got another 12% from inflation profiting. And here's the sum in this slow market, your total year one rate of return is 29%   Keith Weinhold  12:43   and you're like, my gosh, did that really just happen? Now you might want to skip back on some parts of that to help make it crystallize in your mind. I've got to tell you before I ran these numbers in this slow market with this 2% appreciation and even assuming zero cash flow, I thought your total rate of return would be in the low 20s, not this high, not 29%   Keith Weinhold  13:09   the numbers don't lie. They just don't get enough attention on CNBC.   Keith Weinhold  13:16   Now I did use shorthand and simplify. You would also have to adjust your 29% for inflation, just like you do for any investment. So then about a 26% inflation adjusted return for you. Wow. And if you want to know more about what I just used shorthand on, you can always watch the five videos on the five ways real estate pays for free at getricheducation.com/course that's get richeducation.com/course, the most valuable video course you'll ever see on real estate investing, but a huge investor lesson here, an epiphany today, is that it does not take a high growth market to build wealth. Even when it seems like real estate's half asleep, it can still work five jobs for you, we could be near the nadir of the cycle here.    Keith Weinhold  14:16   Appreciation has picked up in recent months, with mortgage rates being lower than they've been in a while, but even when appreciation and rent growth slows now, you can see that the ROA tax benefit and inflation profiting just keep working overtime. The bottom line here is that income property still pays a lofty 29% if you buy today, even in a slow market, and this is at a time when investors, a lot of them, don't know what to do with their money, since every market type seems to be near an all time high, and people don't want to buy in at those high levels, and savings accounts pay you less than a gumball machine, owning investment property proves its resilience. I mean, this is why we do this. It's kind of like stocks can party with a surge in an upcycle, and then they can bust and boom and bust and boom. But all the while, instead of partying, real estate just keeps its head down and works the night shift for you, your wealth quietly compounds in the background while the rest of the world panics or debates interest rates on LinkedIn or something.    Keith Weinhold  15:33   All right. Well, with that in mind, where can we take advantage of that real estate return and expect to do even better with it, even if the market did stay slow. Well, builders have unsold inventory in places like Texas and Florida, like I mentioned before, and to a lesser extent, in parts of the West as well, but the prices are too high out in the west for a cash flow investor. So today, you can buy at a discount in a way that you absolutely could not during the height of the pandemic.    Keith Weinhold  16:06   A guest and I are going to talk about a specific opportunity in today's market, and then how you can exploit it. The National Association of Homebuilders has even noticed that home flippers have switched gears, and increasingly, what flippers are doing is instead buying new build properties and then renting them out, because new builds have lower upkeep costs come with a lower mortgage rate because the builder is buying it down for you, they have lower insurance and they attract a better quality tenant that stays longer, even if the HVAC did break. That's okay, because new build homes often come with a warranty. The smart money knows that new build is where the opportunity is today. That's something that I've discussed for a while here, but today we're getting more actionable. CNBC let us know that the CJ Petra company reports that investors now make up the highest share of Homebuilders in five years. And you'll recall that we've had CJ Patrick, company founder, Rick sharga, on the show a lot with me here the past few years. Some say that the smart money is waking up again. I don't know investor activity is steady, but it's not really that much. It only seems like a lot because the wannabe owner, occupant, buyer has been priced out. So it's better to say that investor activity has been steady. Investors bought fully 1/3 of single family homes this past summer, and that is up from 27% in q1 I'll discuss that more soon.    Keith Weinhold  17:44   Hey, you know one thing that makes GRE different is that our show sponsors are here to supplement and benefit your specific investor activity. And another thing is that I use them myself. Thank God we are not here to tell you about pneumococcal pneumonia or your moderate to severe plaque, psoriasis. I don't even know what that stuff means. Freedom, family investments and Ridge lending group. I very know what they're about. I'm a satisfied client with each of them myself. So listen in.    Keith Weinhold  18:21   You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1937795898, 377958989, yep, text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989,   Keith Weinhold  19:32   the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President Caeli Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridgelendinggroup.Com, that's Ridge lending group.com   Kathy Fettke  20:05   this is the real wealth network's Kathy betke, and you are listening to the always valuable get rich education with Keith Weinhold.   Keith Weinhold  20:14   I'd like to welcome in a new guest to the show. He is a real estate investment strategist that's been working in the media industry since 2001 and throughout the career, he's held the title of a local news reporter, podcast host and producer for nationally syndicated companies like NPR. He's been in real estate nearly 20 years. Adam Schroeder, welcome to the show.    Adam Schroeder  20:48   Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.    Keith Weinhold  20:50   Yeah, I'm looking for your read on today's real estate market, just the general landscape overall, because Adam, I've shared that national transaction volume is down about 25% appreciation is still there, although it's been slow. Rents are just steady. We do, however, still have this supply that is down among entry level homes, something a lot of media articles broad brushstroke and don't understand, and really it's still a valid question to ask, even today. Is there any better risk adjusted return than income property that's bought, right? So what are your thoughts on the overall real estate investing landscape?   Adam Schroeder  21:30    Yeah, overall real estate investing, it's kind of like what you said, entry level housing. I remember I saw a heat map. This was probably five or six this was pre covid. It was maybe even seven or eight years ago. It was a heat map that showed, like, new construction, home pricing, and, you know, there was like 500,000 and up. Was just this massive chunk. And then there was all these ones, ones that were under about 300,000 it was around, like six or 8% or something like that. It was really, really small. If you look around, it hasn't gotten bigger. And so the question of inventory and availability and pricing, they're never going to talk about it on the national media, because there is no entry level home in Chicago, in New York, in LA, you're not going to find that. I mean, you're paying 200 grand for a doghouse in the backyard, if you're there. And so we are finding the entry level housing, but I think right now, an oversupply of inventory in some of these markets is a very good opportunity for people. If you're buying for with the right fundamentals, if you're buying in an area that's growing and has good long term, you know, 8,10, 15 year diagnostics. Then if you're buying now with builder incentives and all of that, yeah, your year one, year two, year three. Appreciation may not be the greatest because of that oversupply, but if you look at what's happening now with construction starts in a lot of places, builders have gotten scared off. They're not really starting them now. So if you're buying new now, in 2,3,4, years, all of the inventory will be sucked up, and there won't be new homes coming to the market. So you're going to be one of those people who has one of the newest homes in the area, more people are going to want to be getting in. And so your appreciation and rent growth is much more likely to be growing. So that's one of the things I love to look at, is I look at what new home starts, what happened in the past, what was oversupplied, but now, who's what cities aren't building. And if I know what cities aren't building, then I can compare it to, okay, well, you know, there are some cities in California that aren't building anything I'm not going to buy in California, but there are some cities in Minnesota, in Oklahoma, you know, in Texas, where they're not building anymore. And if it's landlord friendly and can cash flow and all of that, Sign me up. I'm bullish on parts of this, of the United States real estate market, not the whole United States real estate market.    Keith Weinhold  23:55   It's been pretty well documented that parts of the nation are overbuilt. However, especially in Florida and Texas. And I brought up the point months ago Adam that if you buy, say, a new build income property in temporarily overbuilt pockets today, five years from now, looking back five years onto today, you could be like, Yeah, I bought five years ago, when some areas were actually overbuilt, and I snagged a deal, and the builder was even giving me incentives like my rate at that time, because, you know, long term, the demand is going to be there and that the absorption is going to be there. So it's about knowing what's happening and then identifying the right time in that cycle. In today's environment, some feel that DSCR loans are a better option for investors, and what that means a debt service coverage ratio loan is that you qualify for the loan not with your personal income, but instead with the property's income. Do you see more investors employing dscrs?    Adam Schroeder  24:55   We see a ton for a really good reason. That is simply put, especially if you're utilizing these builder incentives, buy down rates on DSCR frequently outperform ones with conventional like some of the lenders we're working with. I look and let's say you're putting 4% I looked at it this morning with an investor with 4% of purchase price towards your loan on a DSCR loan, you're down to 5.49% on a DSCR, but conventional, you're at 5.75 that doesn't happen for the most part. It's just something that right now, the risk profile of investors is allowing the rates to be either at or better than conventional many times. Plus, people love to put their properties in LLCs for protection, and they'll worry with conventional, oh, what if a due on sale clause gets triggered, even though it's really hard to trigger that, if you worry about it, well, why not just get a loan that's equal or better than a conventional that doesn't go on your you know, debt to income and can go straight into the LLC to begin with, and then your hands are clean the whole way through, and you're not having to worry about transferring titling. Honestly, my wife is about to murder me because I have some properties that were meant to go into an LLC two years ago that are not currently in an LLC.   Keith Weinhold  26:17   Well, hopefully you'll live until the end of this interview. Tell us more about DSCR loans, and maybe some that, no you talked about the upside, maybe some red flags and some things to look out for, times when we would not want to employ that loan type.    Adam Schroeder  26:30   A lot of it with the DSCR you're looking at like you said, they're not evaluating you necessarily. Now you do have to show reserves. You do have to show that the property will perform on its own. But sometimes full doc loans with conventional can be the way to go, because, like I said, in the past, it used to be that DSCR loans were three quarters of a percent, or a full percent higher than the DSCR. Or, yeah, DSCR was higher than the conventional. And so if you could get a four and a half with a conventional versus a five and a half on a DSCR. It's well worth the extra paperwork that might come with doing it to save yourself that money and really build up your cash flow. We are just in a very awkward time of investing, where the investors for DSCR loans, the people who are buying those mortgages, are not the same people who are buying the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac secondary loan market, and so they just have different risk profiles, which allows the rates to be different. So that's really the big thing. Is, if you've still got your Fannie Freddie slots, it's worth talking to your lender and saying, what would it look like if I did this loan? What would it look like if I did that loan? Where am I? But when it's all said and done, if you're really close or equal, I would almost always skew towards the DSCR to protect myself, go straight into an entity and keep it off of my debt to income ratio, plus on dscrs. You also have the option, and we don't recommend this for every property or even for certain people, depending on risk profile, but you have the option to do an interest only loan with 20 or 25% down, which allows you to do kind of what we call cash flow management, where people get worried about interest only loans and say, Well, I'm not building equity. I'm not doing this, not doing that. Well, you're not, but you're also, you can still put principle towards your loan every month, right? Like a principal loan, maybe you're throwing 200 bucks a month, a principal towards that. Well, with an interest only loan, you can still put that $200 in. But what it means is, if there's a month where maybe you have some repairs that need to be done, or something like that, don't pay the principal and on the interest only, you're still okay on a principal and interest. If you can't pay that, if you just pay all the interest, they're still going to say, well, Keith, you're late on your loan, right? And so it gives you a little bit more flexibility, but it's not for everyone. It's not for every property, so definitely talk with lenders about that. But conventional loans don't offer that. DSCR loans can.    Keith Weinhold  28:53   There's always opportunity in every real estate market. It's just identifying what those are and then ethically exploiting the opportunity. So we're talking about buying in areas that are temporarily overbuilt utilizing DSCR loans. And another advantage in this market, which is an aberration, is the fact that new build properties, like few times in history, if any, actually cost less than renovated existing properties.    Adam Schroeder  29:20   Yeah. I mean, when you can get into, you know, an A class neighborhood with 80% owner occupied, 90% owner occupied, and you're getting in for way less than the median cost of a home in the US. You mean, you're getting in for, I mean, we've got new builds in the 220 range on some of them up to 400 you know, which is still below the median cost. Yeah, that's really good. If you're looking to get into any a class neighborhood, or even B plus neighborhood, finding a property that's 200 $250,000 in those areas is tough. It's just tough. And so especially because as pricing went up for everything with inflation, you know you can't do. Do a cheap rehab anymore. If you're going to do a good rehab, you can't do a cheap rehab. I talk to our teams all the time and tell me, Hey, I did, you know, I only spent $70,000 to renovate this property and like that is a lot of money. I know you're getting it out whenever you do the burn, you know, or sell to an investor, but still a lot of money to put in to get there.    Keith Weinhold  30:20   Well, then let's talk about identifying possible growth markets for long term investing success. New build properties tend to appreciate better than rehab properties. And you know what's funny, Adam, I was just sharing this with my audience on a recent episode. I largely disagree with this long time investing axiom in real estate that says appreciation is just icing on the cake. I think I know what they're saying that doesn't help you out on a month by month basis, but we're in real estate investing for the long term and long term, more of your returns typically come from leveraged appreciation than they do on the cash on cash return from cash flow. So to me, appreciation is not just icing on the cake. In a lot of cases, it is the cake. And really, that's something that new build can offer more of.    Adam Schroeder  31:09   Yeah, I mean, it's almost in, especially in today's market, it's almost like cash flow is the icing on the cake. You know, you can get a property that, you know, is in that really good area, like we're talking about, and is, maybe it's appreciated a little bit now, but it's very likely to appreciate a lot later. If you're only making, if you factor everything in maintenance, vacancy, all of that, and you're making $100 a month, that's solid, you know, if you look at it, and if you're in those areas, if you appreciate 5% on a $300,000 property, let me tell you this, you're not going to make $15,000 in cash flow that year on that property. So if you look at the people who are really retiring on cash flow, are usually the people who have 100 200 300 doors or something like that, and they play the law of large numbers. I don't want to play the law of large numbers personally, I want to have really good quality assets and have fewer of them, and really work on having positive cash flow, but having the equity growth that allows me to pull money out tax free and either buy more investments or utilize how I want in my life.    Keith Weinhold  32:16   Exactly. If your property cash flow is $100 a month and it's a single family home. Some people say, Oh, that's awful. You would need 100 of them just to get 10k pass it per month. Now you're thinking wrong, and you're oversimplifying it like to your point, with the 300k home and 5% appreciation, that's 15k in one year, you're building equity that can be borrowed against, tax free, and you're building up that lump sum cash flow windfall down the road, if you will, in real estate pays five ways and cash flow matters, but it's only one of five profit centers and all that. So yes, we're so aligned on that one, appreciation is not just the icing on the cake, it's substantially more than that. Well, I've got something to announce. Adam here is going to co host, along with our own longtime investment coach, Naresh, an upcoming live virtual event. And it's called how to scale your portfolio with tenanted cash flowing new construction properties. And it aligns in every way with the trends that we've been talking about and that Adam and I have been identifying here. The event takes place next week. But first, tell us more about what you and the ray shall be speaking about at the event there. Adam.   Adam Schroeder  33:29    one of the biggest concerns people have about real estate, and one of the things that can eat in your cash flow more than anything, is vacancy. I mean, vacancy can kill your deal whenever it's all said and done, because it's one thing, if you're, you know, break even or $100 a month positive cash flow. But whenever you've got a vacant property and you're negative $1,500 a month, that can hurt, that can hit the wallet. And so what we really love, if you can hit it, is a tenanted property that's new and is in a growing area, yeah, and we've got that thankfully. I mean, we've been able to work some really good relationships with national builders that have allowed us to get into they were doing a lease to purchase option with tenants who wanted to buy their property but didn't have it saved up, and these people didn't exercise their option, but they've renewed their lease so you can come in and buy a property that has them in place. It is a house that they wanted to buy. So how long are they likely to stay? Probably quite a while. They like the school district, they like the neighborhood. They like everything about it. You're coming in, you've got the builder incentives we talked about before, and you're just in a positive cash flow position already. Now we're in Texas, which I was actually funny enough. Earlier, right before this interview, I was reading about the states that are going to grow the most, projected until 2050 and they expect Texas to grow by nearly 9 million people between now and believe it was 2050    Keith Weinhold  34:55   everyone's asking, when is it going to pass? California is the most populous state in the nation.    Adam Schroeder  35:01   Well, it depends how many people. In California are part of that 9 billion we've gotten quite a few of them there. As somebody who lives in Texas, and we're in the big cities too. We're not in the Podunk Texas towns you think about in, you know, east or west Texas. We're talking Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, which are three of the top, I believe, 15 largest cities in the country. We're getting some really good incentives. You can get up to right now, 10% builder incentive. So a $300,000 house, you have $30,000 that you can use. That's massive. Yeah, you can get that money back after closing. We can buy your rate down. And we have some people who have literally taken the whole 10% and put it towards a fixed 30 rate at four and a quarter percent. Wow, they are locking themselves in at four and a quarter. Or we have some people who say, like, we were just talking about cash flow is not a concern for me. I'm going to take half my down payment back, and I'm going to go buy another property, because I'm only in this property for 10% now, and so they're able to be, you know, roughly break even in a good growing area, and they can acquire a second property. So you're buying two properties without mortgage insurance for essentially a 30% total down payment, and you're getting your 10% back if you buy the second property. So it's just really incredible time. Like you said, we haven't seen a time like this before. We were able to get into the wholesale division of these builders and provide these incentives that I've personally never seen before. Some of our reps are buying these homes themselves, so we're putting our money where our mouth is. It's just a great time, especially like you were saying, these homes the inventory, take advantage of the opportunity, right? And there's an opportunity that's presenting itself. And if you look at the long term demographics of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. It's an arrow pointed up. That's what those areas are.    Keith Weinhold  36:46   100% I mean, it's almost as predictable as anything. There's never a guarantee, but continued population growth and obvious need for housing there is about as close as you can get. That's massive. 10% back, 380k purchase, $38,000 back at the closing table to use in discount point buy downs completely or half on discount point buy downs and half to pocket and use on another property or use on your next vacation or whatever you want to do. That's massive.    Adam Schroeder  37:18   Yeah, it's fantastic. One thing I forgot to mention about Houston. It's one of the things I love that people don't think about has the third most headquarters of fortune 500 companies in the country, behind New York and Chicago. So people don't think about that when they think of Houston. But I love to throw that out there, because it's there. I love Houston. I lived there for seven years. It's where I met Naresh, actually, and would happily move back there again   Keith Weinhold  37:42   right? Houston has moved so far past the monolith of just having oil be the economic driver. So we're talking about tenanted new construction properties in pretty hot markets, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas ready for you to purchase with that 10% builder incentive. And these are in communities that are primarily owner occupied, so they do have that high appreciation potential and that potential for solid rent growth. So on the live event, the webinar that you are invited to attend from the comfort of your own home, what you can do is just learn more about this overall strategy and why the time in the market is right for this. Learn more about those geographic markets themselves and then their drivers, and even see available new build income property. And the benefit of you attending a live is that you can have any of your questions answered right then and there. You can sign up at grewebinars.com, and Adam, before I ask you if you have any last thoughts, that event is next week. It is Thursday, November 13, at 8pm eastern time again, you can sign up. It is free. Space is limited, so that's something that you want to do now at grewebinars.com, any last thoughts? Adam   Adam Schroeder  38:51   yeah, I will just remind people there's always a reason to buy real estate, and there's always there's always a reason not to buy real estate, and depending on which one you subscribe to, you can always find those opportunities, or you can scare yourself off. So, you know, find the right opportunities that are there for you and your investing style and jump in. Because if you look at what's happening right now. When rates start coming down, owner ox are going to jump back in, and that tends to lead to prices going back up. Like Keith said, these are 85% owner occupied areas, and you're setting yourself up for success. And if you do it now, you can always refi later if rates come plummeting down right so find the right areas. Find the reasons to buy and go for it.    Keith Weinhold  39:41   This is a time when builders are really willing to give you a break. Take advantage of it if you possibly can. Adam, it's been great having you here on the show, and our audience looks forward to seeing more of you next week.   Keith Weinhold  40:00   Yeah, some real potential here. I'm rather excited for your future as a listener next week, investors like DSCR loans, since the qualification looks at the property, not you, and see conventional loans are more for owner occupants. They're fine. They work for investors too. But with dscrs, besides their other advantages, they're a check on making sure your property is profitable. It is just your rent divided by your debt service. That's all it is. So for example, with a $1,000 rent and a piti payment, principal, interest, taxes and insurance payment of 800 bucks. Well, then your DSCR is 1.25 Investors love them because there's no personal income verification, no W twos, tax returns, pay stubs. There's no debt to income ratio bar for you to have to clear also conventional loans often cap you at 10 financed properties, and DSCR loans have no such limit, so there's faster underwriting and easier approval. But with dscrs, look out. I mean, there could be some higher fees, and you might have a three to five year prepayment penalty. But buy and hold investors often keep the property that long anyway, so grow your income streams with dscrs, even when the w2 world says no. And notably, dscrs have absolutely nothing to do with job of the hut either. No sluggy concerns there   Keith Weinhold  41:42   if you've wanted a deal on a property today, here you are with these new build incentives that are really good, better than what most builders are giving looks like. Here's your chance. One reason that the builders are giving us a deal is because of the bulk of GRE buyers. This is for you, if you might want one property or 14 properties load up with these up to 10% builder incentives, or just attend the webinar and learn more. We got into the wholesale division of these builders. We got them right where we want them. The properties are typically already tenanted. So plant your flag in the ground, and call this the pivot point. This whole thing could be a bigger deal than the first man to walk on Mars. We'll see, though, no man has walked on Mars yet, but you don't need to wait that long. Take one of your 30,000 days that you've been gifted in this life of yours, the 30,000 days you've been allotted on this earth to win back some of your future finite time. It is next week, Thursday, the 13th, at 8pm Eastern. It's also GRE last event of the year, your last chance, a live, virtual event where you can attend from the comfort of your own home or anywhere. And it's free. Registration is open now. Sign up at gre webinars.com that's gre webinars.com Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Unknown Speaker  43:17   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively you   Keith Weinhold  43:45   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com

This episode is a collaboration with our colleagues at News Over Noise, the podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative. We recorded this interview on October 27, the first day of U.S. Media Literacy Week, an event that highlights the power of media literacy education and its essential role in education all across the country.The conversation focuses on how AI complicates and already-complicated news literacy landscape. With so many news outlets and journalists striking out on their own as content creators, it can feel overwhelming to keep up with the news each day without the added complication of having to question whether what you're seeing is real or computer-generated "AI slop." Despite those challenges, our guests are confident that each of us has the skills and ability to separate factual information from AI slop and make good decisions about how we consume the news.You'll hear from Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, News Over Noise host Cory Barker, and the following guests:Pam Brunskill, News Literacy ProjectSean Marcus, Poynter Institute/MediaWiseJenna Meleedy, National Association of Media Literacy Educators  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this week's episode of Full of Beans, Han is joined by Eric Pothen. Eric is a Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach and an eating disorder advocate who serves on the Peer Council for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the Community Engagement Committee for the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD). After struggling with an eating disorder for several years, Eric now uses his lived experience to raise awareness and support others on their recovery journeys, particularly around eating disorders, disordered eating, and body image, with a special focus on men.Eric is currently pursuing a degree in Counselling at St. Mary's University of Minnesota, to become an eating disorder therapist, specialising in working with men and the LGBTQ+ community.In this week's episode, we discuss:Navigating shame, identity, and the onset of an eating disorderWhy recovery can feel messyReframing exercise and “food is fuel” in recoveryRecovery perfectionism vs. authentic recoverySupporting individuals as people first, not by gender stereotypesThe hidden and under-discussed behaviour of chewing and spittingThe importance of intention and reframing in long-term recoveryUnderstanding the intersectionality of identity in ED supportTimestamps:03:00 – Eating disorder onset: identity, stress & sadness08:00 – Shame & internalised stigma for men12:00 – People pleasing and external validation18:00 – Compulsive exercise & social reinforcement22:00 – Recovery as rewiring: food, movement & intention27:00 – The messiness of recovery & doing it solo30:00 – Alcohol, chewing/spitting & hidden behaviours34:00 – Marathon training: helpful or harmful?40:00 – Intersectionality and seeing the person, not the gender⚠️ Trigger Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of eating disorder behaviours including anorexia, compulsive exercise, chewing and spitting, and alcohol use. Please take care whlist listening. Resources & Links:Instagram: @ericpothanNEDA Peer Council: nationaleatingdisorders.orgConnect with Us:Subscribe to the Full of Beans Podcast hereFollow Full of Beans on Instagram hereCheck out our website hereIf you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast to help us spread awareness.Sending positive beans your way, Han

Back by popular demand, today we will be discussing SHAPE America's newly minted 2024 National Physical Education Standards.  PETE majors from SUNY Brockport, California State University - Long Beach, and York and Queen's College in New York City will be joining us.  Teacher candidates taking part in today's show are in methods classes with Dr. Seymour, with Dr. Ramsey, and Dr. Michael Ertel.Our first guest is Dr. Ertel (newly hooded) is an Assistant Professor of Physical Education Teacher Education in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Long Beach. His research examines the intersections of motor learning, inclusive pedagogy, and teacher education, using intervention-based and meta-analytic approaches to advance motor competence, instructional fidelity, and adaptive teaching competence in physical education. In his teaching, he emphasizes practice-based frameworks that bridge theory and application, preparing teacher candidates to design inclusive, developmentally appropriate programs for all learners. Beyond the classroom, Dr. Ertel serves the profession as a member of the SHAPE America Physical Education Council and a past New York State AHPERD Executive Council member. A former Title I PE teacher and collegiate soccer coach, he brings a deep commitment to research-informed practice, professional leadership, and fostering meaningful movement experiences for every student.We are also excited to introduce one of the foremost experts and scholars in physical education teacher education in the U.S…not to mention one of the key contributors to the new SHAPE America National Physical Education Standards–Dr. Fran Cleland. Dr. Fran Cleland is Professor Emerita from West Chester University where she served as the program coordinator for the Health and Physical Education Teacher Certification program for 28 years. Dr. Cleland previously taught in the HPE program at East Stroudsburg University, PA and the University of New Hampshire. Prior to teaching in higher education Dr. Cleland taught K-12 health and physical education in Indiana, Virginia and Oregon. Dr. Cleland's research focused on critical thinking in physical education, and she is the lead author of Developmental Physical Education for All Children – Theory into Practice (2017) and most recently co-authored Elementary School Wellness Education: An Integrated Approach to Teaching the Whole Child (2022) and the SHAPE America National Physical Education Standards book (2025). She has presented at the state, district, national and international level on topics including but not limited to, motor development, the Spectrum of Teaching Styles, critical thinking in physical education and creative dance. Dr. Cleland served as president of SHAPE PA, the National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and SHAPE America. Most recently she served on the SHAPE America taskforce to revise the physical education standards. Dr. Cleland is retired but is working part-time as the SHAPE America Book Production and Acquisitions Manager. .

Preaching for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls), Marie Philomène Péan, D.Min. invites us to trust that in God we are held, we are loved, and we are home: "As a nurse, a chaplain, and a pastoral associate, I have sat beside people as they took their final breath. I have held hands, whispered prayers, and witnessed something sacred: death is not the end. It is a passage. And Jesus walks with us through it."Marie Philomène Péan, D.Min., is a seasoned pastoral leader, spiritual director, and community builder whose ministry spans continents and cultures. Originally from Haiti, she brings a multilingual and multicultural lens to her work, speaking Haitian Creole, French, English, and conversational Spanish. Philomène holds a Doctorate in Ministry from Andover Newton Theological School and is a Board-Certified Chaplain with the National Association of Catholic Chaplains.Visit www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/11022025 to learn more about Philomène, to read her preaching text, and for more preaching from Catholic women.

List of International Suicide Crisis Hotlines: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/Translifeline Suicide Hotline - 877 565 8860Translifelinehttps://translifeline.org/fundraise-for-us/Trevor Projecthttps://www.thetrevorproject.org/pflag - lgbtqa+ legal funds https://pflag.org/jointhefight/Planned Parenthoodhttps://www.plannedparenthood.org/National Association of Mental Illnesshttps://www.nami.org/get-involved/donate-to-nami/Palestine Children Relief Fundhttps://www.pcrf.net/Medical Aid for Palestinians https://www.map.org.uk/Internet Archivehttps://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton░MY░MEMES░IN░BIO░https://linktr.ee/memesteroftheweek

Share your Field Stories!Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!We have a new minisode for you today that is taking place instead of our regularly scheduled episode. Thank you so much for listening!.Help us continue to create great content! If you'd like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-formPlease be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review.This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.Support the showThanks for listening! A new episode drops every Friday. Like, share, subscribe, and/or sponsor to help support the continuation of the show. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and all your favorite podcast players.

Many know the Silicon Valley as a region in Northern California that is a hub for technology innovation, but have you heard of the Silicon Valley of Bull Semen? Sophie Eaglen, International Program Director at National Association of Animal Breeders tells us why Wisconsin and the US lead the world in dairy genetics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Never underestimate a steak dinner—big partnerships start with small actions. Jason Meyers and Dawn Myers from Ritter Insurance Marketing join Luke and Josh to talk about the power of relationships in business—and how genuine connection drives growth more than any marketing tool. You'll hear how a single steak dinner led to years of partnership, why Ritter continues to invest in personal relationships even in the AI era, and what separates successful agents from those who struggle.

Voice actor Maria Pendolino joins Lily for an episode that challenges the narrow way society views disability. Maria shares her experiences as an ambulatory mobility-aid user, explaining how fluctuating conditions are often misunderstood or erased in media and medicine. With candid honesty, she connects her journey of psoriatic arthritis, knee replacements, and self-advocacy to building a career that truly works for her body, through voiceover and a fully accessible home studio.The conversation also takes on fat bias in healthcare, how outdated tools like BMI continue to be used to deny or delay care, and the scripts Maria uses to set boundaries in appointments. Her message: you deserve to be treated as a whole person, not reduced to a number or assumption.Maria details the creation of the Disabled Voice Actors Directory, now housed under the National Association of Voice Actors, which helps casting directors find authentic talent. It's a resource born out of a belief that disabled people don't just deserve representation on-screen, they should be hired behind the microphone, too.Key Moments02:50 Breaking the myth of disability as “all or nothing”06:02 What fluctuating disability really looks like in practice14:16 Age bias in surgery: when doctors refuse joint replacements under 5021:31 Why BMI is flawed and how it blocks real care29:46 Self-advocacy scripts: “I will not be weighed”42:34 The audition turning point: “Are you limping?”46:54 Building an accessible home studio and thriving as a voice actor54:11 Founding the Disabled Voice Actors Directory1:04:11 Know the Facts: fat phobia and systemic barriersConnect with Maria PendolinoWebsite: https://www.voicebymaria.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGkmvgiBP89fHUl9-8awQRA/videos Maria Pendolino - London Voice Over: https://www.londonvoiceover.com/artists/maria-pendolino/ Maria Pendolino - London Voice Over: https://voice123.com/voice-actor/voicebymaria 

Send us a textWhat if the real force shaping your faith isn't love… but shame?We rarely talk about it, but shame drives how we see ourselves, how we relate to God, and how we show up in the world. It hides beneath perfectionism, people-pleasing, and even spirituality, quietly scripting how we live.In this episode, we talk with Toni Kim, Director of Spiritual Care for the National Association of Evangelicals, who's spent years studying how shame forms us and how freedom and healing is possible. Toni helps us unpack how to recognize shame's voice, why it's so powerful, and what freedom looks like when we finally name it.This isn't a conversation about guilt or failure. It's about the transformative impact of healing.You'll discover:The subtle ways shame disguises itself as spiritualityHow shame shapes your inner life without you realizing itWhy real spiritual growth begins with honesty, not performancePractical ways to move from shame to wholenessTonikim.org

Highlights from this episode: - Crime - Weight Loss - Heart Health - LawsuitsIntro and outro music by Doctor Turtle Sponsored by The National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors visit https://naild.org/Headlines and Sources can be found at https://restoringdarkness.com/Find the Darkness News Update on BluSky https://bsky.app/profile/darknessnewsupdate.bsky.social

On the October 28th episode of "People Not Titles," hosts Steve Kaempf and Matt Lombardi discuss the U.S. government shutdown's impact on real estate, the National Association of Realtors' internal challenges, and why younger Americans are favoring stocks over homeownership. They also review Midwest market trends, share Halloween-themed real estate stats, and wrap up with sports talk and upcoming events.**Government Shutdown Impact on Real Estate (00:00:00)****Pending Home Sales and Economic Jitters (00:01:07)****Absence of Federal Economic Data (00:02:41)****Loan Processing Delays and Market Fluidity (00:03:12)****NAR Working Group Formation and Purpose (00:04:28)****Background and Motivation for the NAR Working Group (00:05:04)****Brokerage Perspective and NAR's Response (00:07:09)****NAR Working Group Recommendations Overview (00:08:13)****Clear Cooperation Policy Critique (00:09:13)****Three-Way Membership Agreement Challenge (00:10:49)****Financial Transparency and Restructuring (00:12:26)****Independent Governance and Oversight (00:14:04)****NAR's Financial Reserves and Legal Exposure (00:16:05)****Second Century Ventures and Member Benefits (00:18:31)****NAR's Response and Strategic Planning (00:21:34)****Federal Reserve Meeting and Rate Cut Expectations (00:23:22)****Young Americans: Stocks vs. Homeownership (00:24:57)****Homeownership Costs vs. Renting (00:26:36)****Generational Attitudes Toward Real Estate (00:27:48)****Wealth Building and Real Estate (00:30:09)****Barriers to Homebuilding and Housing Shortage (00:32:08)****Coiled Spring Housing Market Thesis (00:34:33)****Mortgage Rate Snapshot and Market Data (00:36:01)****US Existing Home Sales and Inventory (00:36:40)****Illinois Housing Market Update (00:40:27)****Illinois Market Forecast (00:42:26)****Wisconsin Housing Market Update (00:42:50)****Haunted Houses and Homebuyer Attitudes (00:43:40)****Podcast Announcements and Events (00:46:47)****Chicago Bears and Sports Recap (00:47:41)****Podcast Closing and Sponsor Message (00:49:22)Full episodes available at www.peoplenottitles.comPeople, Not Titles podcast is hosted by Steve Kaempf and is dedicated to lifting up professionals in the real estate and business community. Our inspiration is to highlight success principles of our colleagues.Our Success Series covers principles of success to help your thrive!www.peoplenottitles.comIG - https://www.instagram.com/peoplenotti...FB - https://www.facebook.com/peoplenottitlesTwitter - https://twitter.com/sjkaempfSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1uu5kTv...

#NancyLevine #LightMemoir #MotherDaughter #AnorexiaRecovery #EatingDisorderMemoir #StorycomicPresents #MentalHealth #OCD #Compulsion #SurvivalThroughWriting   In this heartfelt conversation, I sit down with Nancy Levine and her daughter Rachel Levine-Spates to discuss their powerful co-authored memoir, Light. Blending Nancy's reflective narration with excerpts from Rachel's raw and personal journal entries, Light traces a mother and daughter's journey through the dark spiral of disordered eating and the long road to healing. Rachel shares what it was like to see her teenage self through her mom's lens, while Nancy opens up about the guilt, fear, and fierce love that fueled her desire to tell their story honestly. Together, they explore the process of turning pain into purpose—and the courage it took to put their truth on the page. This interview is a must-watch for parents, mental health advocates, survivors, and anyone looking for proof that love and language can light a way out.  Learn more and get the book: https://www.rootstockpublishing.com/rootstock-books/p/light   If you or someone you know is struggling with anorexia or disordered eating, help is available — for example, the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders (ANAD) offers free peer support, treatment referrals, and a helpline. https://anad.org/get-help/   The Title sequence was designed and created by Morgan Quaid. See more of Morgan's Work at: https://morganquaid.com/   Storycomic Logo designed by Gregory Giordano See more of Greg's work at: https://www.instagram.com/gregory_c_giordano_art/   Want to start your own podcast?  Click on the link to get started: https://www.podbean.com/storycomic   Follow us: Are you curious to see the video version of this interview?  It's on our website too! www.storycomic.com www.patreon.com/storycomic www.facebook.com/storycomic1 https://www.instagram.com/storycomic/ https://twitter.com/storycomic1 For information on being a guest or curious to learn more about Storycomic? Contact us at info@storycomic.com   Thank you to our Founders Club Patrons, Michael Winn, Higgins802, Von Allan, Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos, Marek Bennett, Donna Carr Roberts, Andrew Gronosky, Simki Kuznick, and Matt & Therese. Check out their fantastic work at: https://marekbennett.com/ https://www.hexapus-ink.com/ https://www.stephanieninapitsirilos.com/ https://www.vonallan.com/ https://higgins802.com/ https://shewstone.com/ https://www.simkikuznick.com/ Also to Michael Winn who is a member of our Founders Club!

In this episode of Real Estate News for Investors, Kathy Fettke reports on the latest data from the National Association of REALTORS®. Existing-home sales climbed 1.5% in September as mortgage rates eased, helping affordability and bringing more buyers back into the market. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun says improving conditions are giving the housing market new momentum — and that could create fresh opportunities for investors as demand rebounds.

Chris shares how thoughtful questions and ritualized connection can transform teams, and entire companies, from entitled and exhausted to humble and energized. You will learn the PASTA playbook, create moments to pause, ask better questions, savor what is working and shift what is not, take bold empathetic action, appreciate the journey. We dig into the wisdom economy, why relationships are now a power skill, and how a 7,47 p.m. prompt can spark trust in any room.Join our exclusive email list and unlock even more valuable insights, expert advice, and bonus content to enhance your relationship superpowers. —sign up HERE today!Connect with Barb BettsInstagram: @barbbettsFacebook: @barbarambettsYouTube: youtube/@barbbettsWebsite: www.barbbetts.comLet's Stay in Touch!https://www.liinks.co/barbbettsBarb Betts is a sought-after keynote speaker, seasoned real estate expert, passionate educator, and the CEO of The RECollective, a thriving boutique brokerage in Southern California. Barb has delighted countless stages including, Inman Connect, WomanUP!, and at the National Association of REALTORS® Annual Conference. Whether she's teaching on referrals, authenticity or leveraging relationships, Barb brings an honest, compassionate, and transparent approach to every single stage. As a real estate professional, with over 20 years experience, Barb has mastered the ever changing real estate landscape and the balance of running a vibrant brokerage. Through her signature course, Real Estate By Relationship®, Barb educates business builders on the exact systems, proc...

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

Kevin covers the following stories: an update on Hurricane Melissa; are tariffs to blame for higher coffee prices?; the National Association of Realtors reported September existing home sales; President Trump offers a plan to lower beef prices; cattlemen look for a long-term solution for beef supply; U.S., and China trade deal is drawing closer; U.S. - Canada trade deal talks terminated "Reagan ad", sighted as one of the reasons; Kevin has the details, digs into the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his insights and opinions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin covers the following stories: an update on Hurricane Melissa; are tariffs to blame for higher coffee prices?; the National Association of Realtors reported September existing home sales; President Trump offers a plan to lower beef prices; cattlemen look for a long-term solution for beef supply; U.S., and China trade deal is drawing closer; U.S. - Canada trade deal talks terminated "Reagan ad", sighted as one of the reasons; Kevin has the details, digs into the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his insights and opinions. 

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

On this episode of Accelerating Government, host Dave Wennergren talks with Doug Robinson, the executive director of NASCIO, about technology priorities for State CIOs. Guests:Doug Robinson, executive director, National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinsondoug/ Additional Resources:To learn more about ACT-IAC, please visit our website: https://www.actiac.org/ To learn more about NASCIO and read the 2025 State CIO Survey: https://www.nascio.org/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bob Bertog, president of Bertog Landscape Co. in Wheeling and a certified landscape professional with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joins John Williams to answer all of your lawn and garden questions.

Kevin covers the following stories: an update on Hurricane Melissa; are tariffs to blame for higher coffee prices?; the National Association of Realtors reported September existing home sales; President Trump offers a plan to lower beef prices; cattlemen look for a long-term solution for beef supply; U.S., and China trade deal is drawing closer; U.S. - Canada trade deal talks terminated "Reagan ad", sighted as one of the reasons; Kevin has the details, digs into the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his insights and opinions. 

In this thought-provoking episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, Matthew Worwood and Cyndi Burnett sit down with Dr. Catherine Little, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut and President of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). Catherine reflects on how the field of gifted education has evolved—where meaningful progress has been made and where key challenges still persist, especially in ensuring all students have opportunities to engage in deeper, more creative thinking. Drawing from her extensive research, she shares practical strategies for integrating gifted education into the everyday curriculum, highlighting the power of facilitating student conversations around open-ended questions to promote curiosity, critical thinking, and creativity. This episode offers rich insights for teachers, gifted coordinators, and education leaders seeking new approaches to creative teaching, teaching creativity, and supporting creativity in education through inclusive and inquiry-driven practices. Plus, a special shout-out to the upcoming National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—a must-attend event for anyone passionate about gifted and creative education!   About the Guest Dr. Catherine Little is a professor at the University of Connecticut specializing in giftedness, creativity, and talent development. Her research focuses on professional learning, differentiated instruction, and questioning practices for advanced learners. She has led several national initiatives, including Project Spark, Project LIFT, and Project Focus, aimed at recognizing and responding to academic potential, especially in elementary students from underserved populations. Dr. Little currently serves as the president of the Board of Directors for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), supporting educators in developing resources and strategies for nurturing the talents of all students. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform and sign up for our Extra Fuel newsletter for more resources and inspiration. Visit FuelingCreativityPodcast.com for more information or email us at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com.

Dusty Holcomb is the Founder and CEO of The Arcqus Group, an executive coaching and leadership consulting firm that helps leaders connect purpose to performance through clarity, consistency, and accountability. With a background that spans senior leadership, operations, and culture building, Dusty works with executives and their teams to unlock potential and lead with intention. Before founding The Arcqus Group, Dusty served as CEO of National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, where he led thousands of employees across North America. He holds an MBA from Auburn University and completed the Advanced Management Program at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. A member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Private Directors Association, and YPO, Dusty also serves on multiple private and nonprofit boards and is a five-time Ironman finisher. WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT EFFECTIVE LAW FIRM LEADERSHIP When people don't understand why their work matters or how it connects to where the firm is going, they show up differently. They do what's required but not much more. And that gap between doing the minimum and bringing your best? That's discretionary effort. Law firm leaders deal with this all the time. You've got talented people who care about their work, but they're buried under billable hours and competing priorities. It's difficult to step back and create the clarity that actually helps people engage. In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge, Elise talks with executive coach Dusty Holcomb about practical ways to lead more intentionally. Dusty shares five questions that help leaders connect their teams to purpose and vision and explains why you have to repeat key messages far more often than feels comfortable. They also dig into how to shift from constant reaction mode to intentional leadership and what it really takes to lead yourself before you can effectively lead others. 4:52 — Why leadership is influence, not authority, and why it starts with leading yourself first 8:07 — The five questions that help leaders bring purpose and clarity to their teams 11:36 — How simplifying expectations keeps people focused and accountable 15:10 — The role of consistency and repetition in creating alignment and culture 19:24 — Shifting from reactivity to intentional leadership and controlling your calendar before it controls you 23:18 — How reflection and planning build self-awareness and better decision-making 27:42 — When to delegate, what to let go of, and how trust frees leaders to lead 31:56 — Why discretionary effort is the measure of a healthy, engaged team 35:27 — What lawyers can learn from leadership practices outside the legal profession MENTIONED IN CONNECTING THE DOTS: HOW TO EFFECTIVELY LEAD YOURSELF AND OTHERS The Arcqus Group Dusty Holcomb on LinkedIn 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy Chick-fil-A's "My Pleasure" Example Get connected with the coaching team: hello@thelawyersedge.com The Lawyer's Edge SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE Today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a 9-month business development program created BY women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers AND supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession. If you are interested in either participating in the program or sponsoring a woman in your firm to enroll, learn more about Ignite and sign up for our registration alerts by visiting www.thelawyersedge.com/ignite.

What does it take to keep your voice—and your purpose—strong through every season of life? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I sit down with my friend Bill Ratner, one of Hollywood's most recognized voice actors, best known as Flint from GI Joe. Bill's voice has carried him through radio, animation, and narration, but what stands out most is how he's used that same voice to serve others through storytelling, teaching, and grief counseling. Together, we explore the heart behind his work—from bringing animated heroes to life to standing on The Moth stage and helping people find healing through poetry. Bill shares lessons from his own journey, including losing both parents early, finding family in unexpected places, and discovering how creative expression can rebuild what life breaks down. We also reflect on 9/11, preparedness, and the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your training—whether you're a first responder, a performer, or just navigating the unknown. This conversation isn't just about performance; it's about presence. It's about using your story, your craft, and your compassion to keep moving forward—unstoppable, one voice at a time. Highlights: 00:31 – Hear the Flint voice and what it takes to bring animated characters to life. 06:57 – Learn why an uneven college path still led to a lifelong acting career. 11:50 – Understand how GI Joe became a team and a toy phenomenon that shaped culture. 15:58 – See how comics and cartoons boosted classroom literacy when used well. 17:06 – Pick up simple ways parents can spark reading through shared stories. 19:29 – Discover how early, honest conversations about death can model resilience. 24:09 – Learn to critique ads and media like a pro to sharpen your own performance. 36:19 – Follow the pivot from radio to voiceover and why specialization pays. 47:48 – Hear practical editing approaches and accessible tools that keep shows tight. 49:38 – Learn how The Moth builds storytelling chops through timed, judged practice. 55:21 – See how poetry—and poetry therapy—support grief work with students. 59:39 – Take notes on memoir writing, emotional management, and one-person shows. About the Guest: Bill Ratner is one of America's best known voice actors and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021,) and the non-fiction book Parenting For The Digital Age: The Truth Behind Media's Effect On Children and What To Do About It (Familius Books 2014.) He is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance, Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review,) and New Millennium "America One Year From Now" Writing Award Finalist. His writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) Missouri Review (audio,) Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. He is the voice of "Flint" in the TV cartoon G.I. Joe, "Donnell Udina" in the computer game Mass Effect, the voice of Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel, NewsNation, and network TV affiliates across the country. He is a committee chair for his union, SAG-AFTRA, teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Media Awareness for Los Angeles Unified School District, and is a trained grief counsellor. Member: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA, National Storytelling Network • https://billratner.com • @billratner Ways to connect with Bill: https://soundcloud.com/bill-ratner https://www.instagram.com/billratner/ https://twitter.com/billratner https://www.threads.net/@billratner https://billratner.tumblr.com https://www.youtube.com/@billratner/videos https://www.facebook.com/billratner.voiceover.author https://bsky.app/profile/bilorat.bsky.social About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well on a gracious hello to you, wherever you may be, I am your host. Mike hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to have a voice actor, person, Bill Ratner, who you want to know who Bill Radnor is, go back and watch the old GI Joe cartoons and listen to the voice of Flint.   Bill Ratner ** 01:42 All right. Lady Jay, you better get your battle gear on, because Cobra is on their way. And I can't bring up the Lacher threat weapon system. We got to get out of here. Yo, Joe,   Michael Hingson ** 01:52 there you go. I rest my case Well, Bill, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Bill Ratner ** 02:00 We can't rest now. Michael, we've just begun. No, we've just begun.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 We got to keep going here. Well, I'm really glad that you're here. Bill is another person who we inveigled to get on unstoppable mindset with the help of Walden Hughes. And so that means we can talk about Walden all we want today. Bill just saying, oh goodness. And I got a lot to say. Let me tell you perfect, perfect. Bring it on. So we are really grateful to Walden, although I hope he's not listening. We don't want to give him a big head. But no, seriously, we're really grateful. Ah, good point.   Bill Ratner ** 02:38 But his posture, oddly enough, is perfect.   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Well, there you go. What do you do? He practiced. Well, anyway, we're glad you're here. Tell us about the early bill, growing up and all that stuff. It's always fun to start a good beginning.   Bill Ratner ** 02:54 Well, I was a very lucky little boy. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1947 to two lovely people, professionals, both with master's degree out at University of Chicago. My mother was a social worker. My father had an MBA in business. He was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. So I had the joy of living in a better home and living in a garden.   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 My mother. How long were you in Des Moines?   Bill Ratner ** 03:24 Five and a half years left before my sixth birthday. My dad got a fancy job at an ad agency in Minneapolis, and had a big brother named Pete and big handsome, curly haired boy with green eyes. And moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was was brought up there.   Michael Hingson ** 03:45 Wow. So you went to school there and and chased the girls and all that stuff.   Bill Ratner ** 03:54 I went to school there at Blake School for Boys in Hopkins, Minnesota. Couldn't chase the girls day school, but the girls we are allowed to dance with certainly not chase. Michael was at woodhue dancing school, the Northrop girls from Northrop girls school and the Blake boys were put together in eighth grade and taught the Cha Cha Cha, the waltz, the Charleston, and we danced together, and the girls wore white gloves, and we sniffed their perfume, and we all learned how to be lovers when we were 45   Michael Hingson ** 04:37 There you are. Well, as long as you learned at some point, that's a good start.   Bill Ratner ** 04:44 It's a weird generation. Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 04:46 I've been to Des Moines before. I was born in Chicago, but moved out to California when I was five, but I did some work with the National Federation of the Blind in the mid 19. 1970s 1976 into 1978 so spent time at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines, which became a top agency for the Blind in well, the late 50s into the to the 60s and so on. So   Bill Ratner ** 05:15 both my parents are from Chicago. My father from the south side of Chicago, 44th and Kenzie, which was a Irish, Polish, Italian, Jewish, Ukrainian neighborhood. And my mother from Glencoe, which was a middle class suburb above Northwestern University in Evanston.   Michael Hingson ** 05:34 I Where were you born? 57th and union, north, south side, no, South   Bill Ratner ** 05:42 57th union is that? Is that west of Kenzie?   Michael Hingson ** 05:46 You know, I don't remember the geography well enough to know, but I know that it was, I think, Mount Sinai Hospital where I was born. But it was, it's, it's, it's a pretty tough neighborhood today. So I understand,   Bill Ratner ** 06:00 yeah, yeah, my it was tough, then it's tough now,   Michael Hingson ** 06:03 yeah, I think it's tougher, supposedly, than it was. But we lived there for five years, and then we we moved to California, and I remember some things about Chicago. I remember walking down to the local candy store most days, and had no problem doing that. My parents were told they should shut me away at a home somewhere, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything. And my parents said, You guys are you're totally wrong. And they brought me up with that attitude. So, you   Bill Ratner ** 06:32 know who said that the school says school so that   Michael Hingson ** 06:35 doctors doctors when they discovered I was blind with the   Bill Ratner ** 06:38 kid, goodness gracious, horrified.   Michael Hingson ** 06:44 Well, my parents said absolutely not, and they brought me up, and they actually worked with other parents of premature kids who became blind, and when kindergarten started in for us in in the age of four, they actually had a special kindergarten class for blind kids at the Perry School, which is where I went. And so I did that for a year, learn braille and some other things. Then we moved to California, but yeah, and I go back to Chicago every so often. And when I do nowadays, they I one of my favorite places to migrate in Chicago is Garrett Popcorn.   Bill Ratner ** 07:21 Ah, yes, with caramel corn, regular corn, the   Michael Hingson ** 07:25 Chicago blend, which is a mixture, yeah, the Chicago blend is cheese corn, well, as it is with caramel corn, and they put much other mozzarella on it as well. It's really good.   Bill Ratner ** 07:39 Yeah, so we're on the air. Michael, what do you call your what do you call your program? Here I am your new friend, and I can't even announce your program because I don't know   Michael Hingson ** 07:48 the name, unstoppable mindset. This   Bill Ratner ** 07:51 is unstoppable mindset.   Michael Hingson ** 07:56 We're back. Well, we're back already. We're fast. So you, you, you moved off elsewhere, out of Des Moines and all that. And where did you go to college?   Bill Ratner ** 08:09 Well, this is like, why did you this is, this is a bit like talking about the Vietnam War. Looking back on my college career is like looking back on the Vietnam War series, a series of delusions and defeats. By the time I the time i for college, by the time I was applying for college, I was an orphan, orphan, having been born to fabulous parents who died too young of natural causes. So my grades in high school were my mediocre. I couldn't get into the Ivy Leagues. I got into the big 10 schools. My stepmother said, you're going to Michigan State in East Lansing because your cousin Eddie became a successful realtor. And Michigan State was known as mu u it was the most successful, largest agriculture college and university in the country. Kids from South Asia, China, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South America all over the world came to Michigan State to study agricultural sciences, children of rich farmers all over the world and middle class farmers all over the world, and a huge police science department. Part of the campus was fenced off, and the young cadets, 1819, 20 years old, would practice on the rest of the student body, uniformed with hats and all right, excuse me, young man, we're just going to get some pizza at eight o'clock on Friday night. Stand against your car. Hands in your car. I said, Are you guys practicing again? Shut up and spread your legs. So that was that was Michigan State, and even though both my parents had master's degrees, I just found all the diversions available in the 1960s to be too interesting, and was not invited. Return after my sophomore year, and in order to flunk out of a big 10 University, and they're fine universities, all of them, you have to be either really determined or not so smart, not really capable of doing that level of study in undergraduate school. And I'd like to think that I was determined. I used to show up for my exams with a little blue book, and the only thing I would write is due to lack of knowledge, I am unable to complete this exam, sign Bill ranter and get up early and hand it in and go off. And so what was, what was left for a young man like that was the theater I'd seen the great Zero Mostel when I was 14 years old and on stage live, he looked just like my father, and he was funny, and if I Were a rich man, and that's the grade zero must tell. Yeah, and it took about five, no, it took about six, seven years to percolate inside my bread and my brain. In high school, I didn't want to do theater. The cheerleaders and guys who I had didn't happen to be friends with or doing theater. I took my girlfriends to see plays, but when I was 21 I started acting, and I've been an actor ever since. I'm a committee chair on the screen actors guild in Hollywood and Screen Actors Guild AFTRA, and work as a voice actor and collect my pensions and God bless the union.   Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Well, hey, as long as it works and you're making progress, you know you're still with it, right?   Bill Ratner ** 11:53 That's the that's the point. There's no accounting for taste in my business. Michael, you work for a few different broadcast entities at my age. And it's, you know, it's younger people. It's 18 to 3418 years to 34 years old is the ideal demographic for advertisers, Ford, Motor Company, Dove soap, Betty, Crocker, cake mixes and cereals, every conceivable product that sold online or sold on television and radio. This is my this is my meat, and I don't work for religion. However, if a religious organization calls, I call and say, I I'm not, not qualified or not have my divinity degree in order to sell your church to the public?   Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I can understand that. But you, you obviously do a lot, and as we talked about, you were Flint and GI Joe, which is kind of cool.   Bill Ratner ** 13:01 Flynn GI Joe was very cool. Hasbro Corporation, which was based in Providence, Rhode Island, had a huge success with GI Joe, the figure. The figure was about 11 and a half inches tall, like a Barbie, and was at first, was introduced to the public after the Korean War. There is a comic book that was that was also published about GI Joe. He was an individual figure. He was a figure, a sort of mythic cartoon figure during World War Two, GI Joe, generic American soldier, fighting man and but the Vietnam war dragged on for a long time, and the American buying public or buying kids toys got tired of GI Joe, got tired of a military figure in their household and stopped buying. And when Nixon ended the Vietnam War, or allotted to finish in 1974 Hasbro was in the tank. It's got its stock was cheap, and executives are getting nervous. And then came the Great George Lucas in Star Wars, who shrank all these action figures down from 11 and a half inches to three and a half inches, and went to China and had Chinese game and toy makers make Star Wars toys, and began to earn billions and billions dollars. And so Hasbro said, let's turn GI Joe into into a team. And the team began with flint and Lady J and Scarlett and Duke and Destro and cover commander, and grew to 85 different characters, because Hasbro and the toy maker partners could create 85 different sets of toys and action figures. So I was actor in this show and had a good time, and also a purveyor of a billion dollar industry of American toys. And the good news about these toys is I was at a conference where we signed autographs the voice actors, and we have supper with fans and so on. And I was sitting next to a 30 year old kid and his parents. And this kid was so knowledgeable about pop culture and every conceivable children's show and animated show that had ever been on the screen or on television. I turned to his mother and sort of being a wise acre, said, So ma'am, how do you feel about your 30 year old still playing with GI Joe action figures? And she said, Well, he and I both teach English in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania school system, and last year, the literacy level of my ninth graders was 50% 50% of those kids could not read in ninth grade. So I asked the principal if I could borrow my son's GI Joe, action figures, comic books and VHS tapes, recordings of the shows from TV. And he said, Sure, whatever you want to try. And so she did, and she played the video tapes, and these kids were thrilled. They'd never seen a GI Joe cartoon in class before. Passed out the comic books, let him read comics. And then she said, Okay, you guys. And passed out notebooks and pens and pencils, and said, I want you guys to make up some some shows, some GI Joe shows. And so they said, Yeah, we're ready. All right, Cobra, you better get into the barber shop, because the barber bill is no longer there and the fire engines are in the way. And wait a minute, there's a dog in the street. And so they're making this up, using their imagination, doing their schoolwork, by coming up with scenarios, imaginary fam fan fiction for GI Joe and she raised the literacy level in her classroom by 50% that year, by the end of that year, so, so that was the only story that I've ever heard about the sort of the efficacy of GI Joe, other than, you know, kids play with them. Do they? Are they shooting each other all the time? I certainly hope not. I hope not. Are they using the action figures? Do they strip their guns off and put them in a little, you know, stub over by the side and and have them do physical battle with each other, or have them hump the woods, or have them climb the stairs, or have them search the trees. Who knows what kids do? Same with same with girls and and Barbies. Barbie has been a source of fun and creativity for lots of girls, and the source of of worry and bother to a lot of parents as   Michael Hingson ** 17:54 well. Well, at the same time, though, when kids start to react and relate to some of these things. It's, it's pretty cool. I mean, look what's happened with the whole Harry Potter movement and craze. Harry Potter has probably done more in the last 20 or 25 years to promote reading for kids than most anything else, and   Bill Ratner ** 18:17 that's because it's such a good series of books. I read them to my daughters, yeah. And the quality of writing. She was a brilliant writer, not only just the stories and the storytelling, which is fun to watch in the movies, and you know, it's great for a parent to read. If there are any parents listening, I don't care how old your kids are. I don't care if they're 15. Offer to read to them. The 15 year old might, of course, say mom, but anybody younger than that might say either, all right, fine, which is, which means you better do it or read, read a book. To me, sure, it's fun for the parent, fun for the kid, and it makes the child a completely different kind of thinker and worker and earner.   Michael Hingson ** 19:05 Well, also the people who they got to read the books for the recordings Stephen Fry and in the US here, Jim Dale did such an incredible job as well. I've, I've read the whole Harry Potter series more than once, because I just enjoy them, and I enjoy listening to the the voices. They do such a good job. Yeah. And of course, for me, one of the interesting stories that I know about Jim Dale reading Harry Potter was since it was published by Scholastic he was actually scheduled to do a reading from one of the Harry from the new Harry Potter book that was coming out in 2001 on September 11, he was going to be at Scholastic reading. And of course, that didn't happen because of of everything that did occur. So I don't know whether I'm. I'm assuming at some point a little bit later, he did, but still he was scheduled to be there and read. But it they are there. They've done so much to help promote reading, and a lot of those kinds of cartoons and so on. Have done some of that, which is, which is pretty good. So it's good to, you know, to see that continue to happen. Well, so you've written several books on poetry and so on, and I know that you you've mentioned more than once grief and loss. How come those words keep coming up?   Bill Ratner ** 20:40 Well, I had an unusual childhood. Again. I mentioned earlier how, what a lucky kid I was. My parents were happy, educated, good people, not abusers. You know, I don't have a I don't have horror stories to tell about my mother or my father, until my mother grew sick with breast cancer and and it took about a year and a half or two years to die when I was seven years old. The good news is, because she was a sensitive, educated social worker, as she was actually dying, she arranged a death counseling session with me and my older brother and the Unitarian minister who was also a death counselor, and whom she was seeing to talk about, you know, what it was like to be dying of breast cancer with two young kids. And at this session, which was sort of surprised me, I was second grade, came home from school. In the living room was my mother and my brother looking a little nervous, and Dr Carl storm from the Unitarian Church, and she said, you know, Dr storm from church, but he's also my therapist. And we talk about my illness and how I feel, and we talk about how much I love you boys, and talk about how I worry about Daddy. And this is what one does when one is in crisis. That was a moment that was not traumatic for me. It's a moment I recalled hundreds of times, and one that has been a guiding light through my life. My mother's death was very difficult for my older brother, who was 13 who grew up in World War Two without without my father, it was just him and my mother when he was off in the Pacific fighting in World War Two. And then I was born after the war. And the loss of a mother in a family is like the bottom dropping out of a family. But luckily, my dad met a woman he worked with a highly placed advertising executive, which was unusual for a female in the 1950s and she became our stepmother a year later, and we had some very lovely, warm family years with her extended family and our extended family and all of us together until my brother got sick, came down with kidney disease a couple of years before kidney dialysis was invented, and a couple of years before kidney transplants were done, died at 19. Had been the captain of the swimming team at our high school, but did a year in college out in California and died on Halloween of 1960 my father was 51 years old. His eldest son had died. He had lost his wife six years earlier. He was working too hard in the advertising industry, successful man and dropped out of a heart attack 14th birthday. Gosh, I found him unconscious on the floor of our master bathroom in our house. So my life changed. I My life has taught me many, many things. It's taught me how the defense system works in trauma. It's taught me the resilience of a child. It's taught me the kindness of strangers. It's taught me the sadness of loss.   Michael Hingson ** 24:09 Well, you, you seem to come through all of it pretty well. Well, thank you. A question behind that, just an observation, but, but you do seem to, you know, obviously, cope with all of it and do pretty well. So you, you've always liked to be involved in acting and so on. How did you actually end up deciding to be a voice actor?   Bill Ratner ** 24:39 Well, my dad, after he was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine in Des Moines for Meredith publishing, got offered a fancy job as executive vice president of the flower and mix division for Campbell within advertising and later at General Mills Corporation. From Betty Crocker brand, and would bring me to work all the time, and would sit with me, and we'd watch the wonderful old westerns that were on prime time television, rawhide and Gunsmoke and the Virginian and sure   Michael Hingson ** 25:15 and all those. Yeah, during   Bill Ratner ** 25:17 the commercials, my father would make fun of the commercials. Oh, look at that guy. And number one, son, that's lousy acting. Number two, listen to that copy. It's the dumbest ad copy I've ever seen. The jingles and and then he would say, No, that's a good commercial, right there. And he wasn't always negative. He would he was just a good critic of advertising. So at a very young age, starting, you know, when we watch television, I think the first television ever, he bought us when I was five years old, I was around one of the most educated, active, funny, animated television critics I could hope to have in my life as a 56789, 1011, 12 year old. And so when I was 12, I became one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of radio stations with my friends John Waterhouse and John Barstow and Steve gray and Bill Connors in South Minneapolis. I named my five watt night kit am transmitter after my sixth grade teacher, Bob close this is wclo stereo radio. And when I was in sixth grade, I built myself a switch box, and I had a turntable and I had an intercom, and I wired my house for sound, as did all the other boys in the in the B, O, R, S, and that's brotherhood of radio stations. And we were guests on each other's shows, and we were obsessed, and we would go to the shopping malls whenever a local DJ was making an appearance and torture him and ask him dumb questions and listen obsessively to American am radio. And at the time for am radio, not FM like today, or internet on your little radio tuner, all the big old grandma and grandpa radios, the wooden ones, were AM, for amplitude modulated. You could get stations at night, once the sun went down and the later it got, the ionosphere would lift and the am radio signals would bounce higher and farther. And in Minneapolis, at age six and seven, I was able to to listen to stations out of Mexico and Texas and Chicago, and was absolutely fascinated with with what was being put out. And I would, I would switch my brother when I was about eight years old, gave me a transistor radio, which I hid under my bed covers. And at night, would turn on and listen for, who knows, hours at a time, and just tuning the dial and tuning the dial from country to rock and roll to hit parade to news to commercials to to agric agriculture reports to cow crossings in Kansas and grain harvesting and cheese making in Wisconsin, and on and on and on that made up the great medium of radio that was handing its power and its business over to television, just as I was growing As a child. Fast, fascinating transition   Michael Hingson ** 28:18 and well, but as it was transitioning, how did that affect you?   Bill Ratner ** 28:26 It made television the romantic, exciting, dynamic medium. It made radio seem a little limited and antiquated, and although I listened for environment and wasn't able to drag a television set under my covers. Yeah, and television became memorable with with everything from actual world war two battle footage being shown because there wasn't enough programming to 1930s Warner Brothers gangster movies with James Cagney, Edward G   Michael Hingson ** 29:01 Robinson and yeah   Bill Ratner ** 29:02 to all the sitcoms, Leave It to Beaver and television cartoons and on and on and on. And the most memorable elements to me were the personalities, and some of whom were invisible. Five years old, I was watching a Kids program after school, after kindergarten. We'll be back with more funny puppets, marionettes after this message and the first words that came on from an invisible voice of this D baritone voice, this commercial message will be 60 seconds long, Chrysler Dodge for 1954 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I watched hypnotized, hypnotized as a 1953 dodge drove across the screen with a happy family of four waving out the window. And at the end of the commercial, I ran into the kitchen said, Mom, mom, I know what a minute. Is, and it was said, it had suddenly come into my brain in one of those very rare and memorable moments in a person's life where your brain actually speaks to you in its own private language and says, Here is something very new and very true, that 60 seconds is in fact a minute. When someone says, See you in five minutes, they mean five times that, five times as long as that. Chrysler commercial, five times 60. That's 300 seconds. And she said, Did you learn it that that on T in kindergarten? And I said, No, I learned it from kangaroo Bob on TV, his announcer, oh, kangaroo Bob, no, but this guy was invisible. And so at five years of age, I was aware of the existence of the practice of the sound, of the magic of the seemingly unlimited access to facts, figures, products, brand names that these voices had and would say on the air in This sort of majestic, patriarchal way,   Michael Hingson ** 31:21 and just think 20 years later, then you had James Earl Jones,   Bill Ratner ** 31:26 the great dame. James Earl Jones, father was a star on stage at that time the 1950s James Earl Jones came of age in the 60s and became Broadway and off Broadway star.   Michael Hingson ** 31:38 I got to see him in Othello. He was playing Othello. What a powerful performance. It was   Bill Ratner ** 31:43 wonderful performer. Yeah, yeah. I got to see him as Big Daddy in Canada, Hot Tin Roof, ah, live and in person, he got front row seats for me and my family.   Michael Hingson ** 31:53 Yeah, we weren't in the front row, but we saw it. We saw it on on Broadway,   Bill Ratner ** 31:58 the closest I ever got to James Earl Jones. He and I had the same voice over agent, woman named Rita vinari of southern Barth and benare company. And I came into the agency to audition for Doritos, and I hear this magnificent voice coming from behind a closed voiceover booth, saying, with a with a Spanish accent, Doritos. I thought that's James Earl Jones. Why is he saying burritos? And he came out, and he bowed to me, nodded and smiled, and I said, hello and and the agent probably in the booth and shut the door. And she said, I said, that was James Earl Jones. What a voice. What she said, Oh, he's such a nice man. And she said, but I couldn't. I was too embarrassed. I was too afraid to stop him from saying, Doritos. And it turns out he didn't get the gig. So it is some other voice actor got it because he didn't say, had he said Doritos with the agent froze it froze up. That was as close as I ever got to did you get the gig? Oh goodness no,   Michael Hingson ** 33:01 no, you didn't, huh? Oh, well, well, yeah. I mean, it was a very, it was, it was wonderful. It was James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer played Iago. Oh, goodness, oh, I know. What a what a combination. Well, so you, you did a lot of voiceover stuff. What did you do regarding radio moving forward? Or did you just go completely out of that and you were in TV? Or did you have any opportunity   Bill Ratner ** 33:33 for me to go back at age 15, my brother and father, who were big supporters of my radio. My dad would read my W, C, l, o, newsletter and need an initial, an excellent journalism son and my brother would bring his teenage friends up. He'd play the elderly brothers, man, you got an Elvis record, and I did. And you know, they were, they were big supporters for me as a 13 year old, but when I turned 14, and had lost my brother and my father, I lost my enthusiasm and put all of my radio equipment in a box intended to play with it later. Never, ever, ever did again. And when I was about 30 years old and I'd done years of acting in the theater, having a great time doing fun plays and small theaters in Minneapolis and South Dakota and and Oakland, California and San Francisco. I needed money, so I looked in the want ads and saw a job for telephone sales, and I thought, Well, I used to love the telephone. I used to make phony phone calls to people all the time. Used to call funeral homes. Hi Carson, funeral I help you. Yes, I'm calling to tell you that you have a you have a dark green slate tile. Roof, isn't that correct? Yes. Well, there's, there's a corpse on your roof. Lady for goodness sake, bring it down and we laugh and we record it and and so I thought, Well, gee, I used to have a lot of fun with the phone. And so I called the number of telephone sales and got hired to sell magazine subscriptions and dinner tickets to Union dinners and all kinds of things. And then I saw a new job at a radio station, suburban radio station out in Walnut Creek, California, a lovely Metro BART train ride. And so I got on the BART train, rode out there and walked in for the interview, and was told I was going to be selling small advertising packages on radio for the station on the phone. And so I called barber shops and beauty shops and gas stations in the area, and one guy picked up the phone and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you on the radio right now? And I said, No, I'm just I'm in the sales room. Well, maybe you should be. And he slams the phone on me. He didn't want to talk to me anymore. It wasn't interested in buying advertising. I thought, gee. And I told somebody at the station, and they said, Well, you want to be in the radio? And he went, Yeah, I was on the radio when I was 13. And it just so happened that an older fellow was retiring from the 10am to 2pm slot. K I S King, kiss 99 and KD FM, Pittsburgh, California. And it was a beautiful music station. It was a music station. Remember, old enough will remember music that used to play in elevators that was like violin music, the Percy faith orchestra playing a Rolling Stone song here in the elevator. Yes, well, that's exactly what we played. And it would have been harder to get a job at the local rock stations because, you know, they were popular places. And so I applied for the job, and   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 could have lost your voice a lot sooner, and it would have been a lot harder if you had had to do Wolfman Jack. But that's another story.   Bill Ratner ** 37:13 Yeah, I used to listen to Wolf Man Jack. I worked in a studio in Hollywood. He became a studio. Yeah, big time.   Michael Hingson ** 37:22 Anyway, so you you got to work at the muzack station, got   Bill Ratner ** 37:27 to work at the muzack station, and I was moving to Los Angeles to go to a bigger market, to attempt to penetrate a bigger broadcast market. And one of the sales guys, a very nice guy named Ralph pizzella said, Well, when you get to La you should study with a friend of mine down to pie Troy, he teaches voiceovers. I said, What are voice overs? He said, You know that CVS Pharmacy commercial just carted up and did 75 tags, available in San Fernando, available in San Clemente, available in Los Angeles, available in Pasadena. And I said, Yeah. He said, Well, you didn't get paid any extra. You got paid your $165 a week. The guy who did that commercial for the ad agency got paid probably 300 bucks, plus extra for the tags, that's voiceovers. And I thought, why? There's an idea, what a concept. So he gave me the name and number of old friend acquaintance of his who he'd known in radio, named Don DiPietro, alias Johnny rabbit, who worked for the Dick Clark organization, had a big rock and roll station there. He'd come to LA was doing voiceovers and teaching voiceover classes in a little second story storefront out of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. So I signed up for his class, and he was an experienced guy, and he liked me, and we all had fun, and I realized I was beginning to study like an actor at 1818, who goes to New York or goes to Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or St Louis to act in the big theaters, and starts acting classes and realizes, oh my goodness, these people are truly professionals. I don't know how to do what they do. And so for six years, I took voice over classes, probably 4050, nights a year, and from disc jockeys, from ex show hosts, from actors, from animated cartoon voices, and put enough time in to get a degree in neurology in medical school. And worked my way up in radio in Los Angeles and had a morning show, a lovely show with a wonderful news man named Phil Reed, and we talked about things and reviewed movies and and played a lot of music. And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm earning three times the money in voiceovers as I am on the radio, and I have to get up at 430 in the morning to be on the radio. Uh, and a wonderful guy who was Johnny Carson's staff announcer named Jack angel said, You're not still on radio, are you? And I said, Well, yeah, I'm working in the morning. And Ka big, get out of there. Man, quit. Quit. And I thought, well, how can I quit? I've always wanted to be a radio announcer. And then there was another wonderful guy on the old am station, kmpc, sweet Dick Whittington. Whittington, right? And he said at a seminar that I went to at a union voice over training class, when you wake up at four in the morning and you swing your legs over the bed and your shoes hit the floor, and you put your head in your hands, and you say to yourself, I don't want to do this anymore. That's when you quit radio. Well, that hadn't happened to me. I was just getting up early to write some comedy segments and on and on and on, and then I was driving around town all day doing auditions and rented an ex girlfriend's second bedroom so that I could nap by myself during the day, when I had an hour in and I would as I would fall asleep, I'd picture myself every single day I'm in a dark voiceover studio, a microphone Is before me, a music stand is before the microphone, and on it is a piece of paper with advertising copy on it. On the other side of the large piece of glass of the recording booth are three individuals, my employers, I begin to read, and somehow the text leaps off the page, streams into my eyes, letter for letter, word for word, into a part of my back brain that I don't understand and can't describe. It is processed in my semi conscious mind with the help of voice over training and hope and faith, and comes out my mouth, goes into the microphone, is recorded in the digital recorder, and those three men, like little monkeys, lean forward and say, Wow, how do you do that? That was my daily creative visualization. Michael, that was my daily fantasy. And I had learned that from from Dale Carnegie, and I had learned that from Olympic athletes on NBC TV in the 60s and 70s, when the announcer would say, this young man you're seeing practicing his high jump is actually standing there. He's standing stationary, and the bouncing of the head is he's actually rehearsing in his mind running and running and leaping over the seven feet two inch bar and falling into the sawdust. And now he's doing it again, and you could just barely see the man nodding his head on camera at the exact rhythm that he would be running the 25 yards toward the high bar and leaping, and he raised his head up during the imaginary lead that he was visualizing, and then he actually jumped the seven foot two inches. That's how I learned about creative visualization from NBC sports on TV.   Michael Hingson ** 43:23 Channel Four in Los Angeles. There you go. Well, so you you broke into voice over, and that's what you did.   Bill Ratner ** 43:38 That's what I did, darn it, I ain't stopping now, there's a wonderful old actor named Bill Irwin. There two Bill Irwin's one is a younger actor in his 50s or 60s, a brilliant actor from Broadway to film and TV. There's an older William Irwin. They also named Bill Irwin, who's probably in his 90s now. And I went to a premiere of a film, and he was always showing up in these films as The senile stock broker who answers the phone upside down, or the senile board member who always asks inappropriate questions. And I went up to him and I said, you know, I see you in everything, man. I'm 85 years old. Some friends and associates of mine tell me I should slow down. I only got cast in movies and TV when I was 65 I ain't slowing down. If I tried to slow down at 85 I'd have to stop That's my philosophy. My hero is the great Don Pardo, the late great   Michael Hingson ** 44:42 for Saturday Night Live and Jeopardy   Bill Ratner ** 44:45 lives starring Bill Murray, Gilder Radner, and   Michael Hingson ** 44:49 he died for Jeopardy before that,   Bill Ratner ** 44:52 yeah, died at 92 with I picture him, whether it probably not, with a microphone and. His hand in his in his soundproof booth, in his in his garage, and I believe he lived in Arizona, although the show was aired and taped in New York, New York, right where he worked for for decades as a successful announcer. So that's the story.   Michael Hingson ** 45:16 Michael. Well, you know, I miss, very frankly, some of the the the days of radio back in the 60s and 70s and so on. We had, in LA what you mentioned, Dick Whittington, Dick whittinghill on kmpc, Gary Owens, you know, so many people who were such wonderful announcers and doing some wonderful things, and radio just isn't the same anymore. It's gone. It's   Bill Ratner ** 45:47 gone to Tiktok and YouTube. And the truth is, I'm not gonna whine about Tiktok or YouTube, because some of the most creative moments on camera are being done on Tiktok and YouTube by young quote influencers who hire themselves out to advertisers, everything from lipstick. You know,   Speaker 1 ** 46:09 when I went to a party last night was just wild and but this makeup look, watch me apply this lip remover and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, I have no lip.   Bill Ratner ** 46:20 You know, these are the people with the voices. These are the new voices. And then, of course, the faces. And so I would really advise before, before people who, in fact, use the internet. If you use the internet, you can't complain if you use the internet, if you go to Facebook or Instagram, or you get collect your email or Google, this or that, which most of us do, it's handy. You can't complain about tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. You can't complain about tick tock or YouTube, because it's what the younger generation is using, and it's what the younger generation advertisers and advertising executives and creators and musicians and actors are using to parade before us, as Gary Owens did, as Marlon Brando did, as Sarah Bernhardt did in the 19 so as all as you do, Michael, you're a parader. You're the head of the parade. You've been in on your own float for years. I read your your bio. I don't even know why you want to waste a minute talking to me for goodness sakes.   Michael Hingson ** 47:26 You know, the one thing about podcasts that I like over radio, and I did radio at kuci for seven years when I was in school, what I really like about podcasts is they're not and this is also would be true for Tiktok and YouTube. Primarily Tiktok, I would would say it isn't as structured. So if we don't finish in 60 minutes, and we finish in 61 minutes, no one's gonna shoot us.   Bill Ratner ** 47:53 Well, I beg to differ with you. Now. I'm gonna start a fight with you. Michael, yeah, we need conflict in this script. Is that it The Tick Tock is very structured. Six. No,   Michael Hingson ** 48:03 no, I understand that. I'm talking about podcasts,   Bill Ratner ** 48:07 though, but there's a problem. We gotta Tone It Up. We gotta pick it up. We gotta there's a lot of and I listen to what are otherwise really bright, wonderful personalities on screen, celebrities who have podcasts and the car sucks, and then I had meatballs for dinner, haha. And you know what my wife said? Why? You know? And there's just too much of that. And,   Michael Hingson ** 48:32 oh, I understand, yeah. I mean, it's like, like anything, but I'm just saying that's one of the reasons I love podcasting. So it's my way of continuing what I used to do in radio and having a lot of fun doing it   Bill Ratner ** 48:43 all right, let me ask you. Let me ask you a technical and editorial question. Let me ask you an artistic question. An artist, can you edit this podcast? Yeah. Are you? Do you plan to Nope.   Michael Hingson ** 48:56 I think conversations are conversations, but there is a but, I mean,   Bill Ratner ** 49:01 there have been starts and stops and I answer a question, and there's a long pause, and then, yeah, we can do you edit that stuff   Michael Hingson ** 49:08 out. We do, we do, edit some of that out. And I have somebody that that that does a lot of it, because I'm doing more podcasts, and also I travel and speak, but I can edit. There's a program called Reaper, which is really a very sophisticated   Bill Ratner ** 49:26 close up spaces. You   Michael Hingson ** 49:28 can close up spaces with it, yes, but the neat thing about Reaper is that somebody has written scripts to make it incredibly accessible for blind people using screen readers.   Bill Ratner ** 49:40 What does it do? What does it do? Give me the elevator pitch.   Michael Hingson ** 49:46 You've seen some of the the programs that people use, like computer vision and other things to do editing of videos and so on. Yeah.   Bill Ratner ** 49:55 Yeah. Even Apple. Apple edit. What is it called? Apple? Garage Band. No, that's audio. What's that   Michael Hingson ** 50:03 audio? Oh,   Bill Ratner ** 50:06 quick time is quick   Michael Hingson ** 50:07 time. But whether it's video or audio, the point is that Reaper allows me to do all of that. I can edit audio. I can insert, I can remove pauses. I can do anything with Reaper that anyone else can do editing audio, because it's been made completely accessible.   Bill Ratner ** 50:27 That's great. That's good. That's nice. Oh, it is. It's cool.   Michael Hingson ** 50:31 So so if I want, I can edit this and just have my questions and then silence when you're talking.   Bill Ratner ** 50:38 That might be best. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Ratner,   Michael Hingson ** 50:46 yep, exactly, exactly. Now you have won the moth stories. Slam, what? Tell me about my story. Slam, you've won it nine times.   Bill Ratner ** 51:00 The Moth was started by a writer, a novelist who had lived in the South and moved to New York City, successful novelist named George Dawes green. And the inception of the moth, which many people listening are familiar with from the Moth Radio Hour. It was, I believe, either late 90s or early 2000s when he'd been in New York for a while and was was publishing as a fiction writer, and threw a party, and decided, instead of going to one of these dumb, boring parties or the same drinks being served and same cigarettes being smoked out in the veranda and the same orders. I'm going to ask people to bring a five minute story, a personal story, nature, a true story. You don't have to have one to get into the party, but I encourage you to. And so you know, the 3040, 50 people showed up, many of whom had stories, and they had a few drinks, and they had hors d'oeuvres. And then he said, Okay, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. It's time for and then I picked names out of a hat, and person after person after person stood up in a very unusual setting, which was almost never done at parties. You How often do you see that happen? Suddenly, the room falls silent, and someone with permission being having been asked by the host to tell a personal story, some funny, some tragic, some complex, some embarrassing, some racy, some wild, some action filled. And afterward, the feedback he got from his friends was, this is the most amazing experience I've ever had in my life. And someone said, you need to do this. And he said, Well, you people left a lot of cigarette butts and beer cans around my apartment. And they said, well, let's do it at a coffee shop. Let's do it at a church basement. So slowly but surely, the moth storytelling, story slams, which were designed after the old poetry slams in the 50s and 60s, where they were judged contests like, like a dance contest. Everybody's familiar with dance contests? Well, there were, then came poetry contests with people singing and, you know, and singing and really energetically, really reading. There then came storytelling contests with people standing on a stage before a silent audience, telling a hopefully interesting, riveting story, beginning middle, end in five minutes. And so a coffee house was found. A monthly calendar was set up. Then came the internet. Then it was so popular standing room only that they had to open yet another and another, and today, some 20 years later, 20 some years later, from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota to New York City to Los Angeles. There are moth story slams available on online for you to schedule yourself to go live and in person at the moth.org as in the moth with wings. Friend of mine, I was in New York. He said, You can't believe it. This writer guy, a writer friend of mine who I had read, kind of an avant garde, strange, funny writer was was hosting something called the moth in New York, and we were texting each other. He said, Well, I want to go. The theme was show business. I was going to talk to my Uncle Bobby, who was the bell boy. And I Love Lucy. I'll tell a story. And I texted him that day. He said, Oh man, I'm so sorry. I had the day wrong. It's next week. Next week, I'm going to be back home. And so he said, Well, I think there's a moth in Los Angeles. So about 15 years ago, I searched it down and what? Went to a small Korean barbecue that had a tiny little stage that originally was for Korean musicians, and it was now being used for everything from stand up comedy to evenings of rock and roll to now moth storytelling once a month. And I think the theme was first time. And so I got up and told a silly story and didn't win first prize. They have judges that volunteer judges a table of three judges scoring, you like, at a swim meet or a track beat or, you know, and our gymnastics meet. So this is all sort of familiar territory for everybody, except it's storytelling and not high jumping or pull ups. And I kept going back. I was addicted to it. I would write a story and I'd memorize it, and I'd show up and try to make it four minutes and 50 seconds and try to make it sound like I was really telling a story and not reading from a script. And wish I wasn't, because I would throw the script away, and I knew the stories well enough. And then they created a radio show. And then I began to win slams and compete in the grand slams. And then I started submitting these 750 word, you know, two and a half page stories. Literary magazines got a few published and found a whole new way to spend my time and not make much   Michael Hingson ** 56:25 money. Then you went into poetry.   Bill Ratner ** 56:29 Then I got so bored with my prose writing that I took a poetry course from a wonderful guy in LA called Jack grapes, who had been an actor and a football player and come to Hollywood and did some TV, episodics and and some some episodic TV, and taught poetry. It was a poet in the schools, and I took his class of adults and got a poem published. And thought, wait a minute, these aren't even 750 words. They're like 75 words. I mean, you could write a 10,000 word poem if you want, but some people have, yeah, and it was complex, and there was so much to read and so much to learn and so much that was interesting and odd. And a daughter of a friend of mine is a poet, said, Mommy, are you going to read me one of those little word movies before I go to sleep?   Michael Hingson ** 57:23 A little word movie, word movie out of the   Bill Ratner ** 57:27 mouths of babes. Yeah, and so, so and I perform. You know, last night, I was in Orange County at a organization called ugly mug Cafe, and a bunch of us poets read from an anthology that was published, and we sold our books, and heard other young poets who were absolutely marvelous and and it's, you know, it's not for everybody, but it's one of the things I do.   Michael Hingson ** 57:54 Well, you sent me pictures of book covers, so they're going to be in the show notes. And I hope people will will go out and get them   Bill Ratner ** 58:01 cool. One of the one of the things that I did with poetry, in addition to wanting to get published and wanting to read before people, is wanting to see if there is a way. Because poetry was, was very satisfying, emotionally to me, intellectually very challenging and satisfying at times. And emotionally challenging and very satisfying at times, writing about things personal, writing about nature, writing about friends, writing about stories that I received some training from the National Association for poetry therapy. Poetry therapy is being used like art therapy, right? And have conducted some sessions and and participated in many and ended up working with eighth graders of kids who had lost someone to death in the past year of their lives. This is before covid in the public schools in Los Angeles. And so there's a lot of that kind of work that is being done by constable people, by writers, by poets, by playwrights,   Michael Hingson ** 59:09 and you became a grief counselor,   Bill Ratner ** 59:13 yes, and don't do that full time, because I do voiceovers full time, right? Write poetry and a grand. Am an active grandparent, but I do the occasional poetry session around around grief poetry.   Michael Hingson ** 59:31 So you're a grandparent, so you've had kids and all that. Yes, sir, well, that's is your wife still with us? Yes?   Bill Ratner ** 59:40 Oh, great, yeah, she's an artist and an art educator. Well, that   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 so the two of you can criticize each other's works, then, just   Bill Ratner ** 59:52 saying, we're actually pretty kind to each other. I Yeah, we have a lot of we have a lot of outside criticism. Them. So, yeah, you don't need to do it internally. We don't rely on it. What do you think of this although, although, more than occasionally, each of us will say, What do you think of this poem, honey? Or what do you think of this painting, honey? And my the favorite, favorite thing that my wife says that always thrills me and makes me very happy to be with her is, I'll come down and she's beginning a new work of a new piece of art for an exhibition somewhere. I'll say, what? Tell me about what's, what's going on with that, and she'll go, you know, I have no idea, but it'll tell me what to do.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33 Yeah, it's, it's like a lot of authors talk about the fact that their characters write the stories right, which, which makes a lot of sense. So with all that you've done, are you writing a memoir? By any chance, I   Bill Ratner ** 1:00:46 am writing a memoir, and writing has been interesting. I've been doing it for many years. I got it was my graduate thesis from University of California Riverside Palm Desert.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:57 My wife was a UC Riverside graduate. Oh, hi. Well, they   Bill Ratner ** 1:01:01 have a low residency program where you go for 10 days in January, 10 days in June. The rest of it's online, which a lot of universities are doing, low residency programs for people who work and I got an MFA in creative writing nonfiction, had a book called parenting for the digital age, the truth about media's effect on children. And was halfway through it, the publisher liked it, but they said you got to double the length. So I went back to school to try to figure out how to double the length. And was was able to do it, and decided to move on to personal memoir and personal storytelling, such as goes on at the moth but a little more personal than that. Some of the material that I was reading in the memoir section of a bookstore was very, very personal and was very helpful to read about people who've gone through particular issues in their childhood. Mine not being physical abuse or sexual abuse, mine being death and loss, which is different. And so that became a focus of my graduate thesis, and many people were urging me to write a memoir. Someone said, you need to do a one man show. So I entered the Hollywood fringe and did a one man show and got good reviews and had a good time and did another one man show the next year and and so on. So But writing memoir as anybody knows, and they're probably listeners who are either taking memoir courses online or who may be actively writing memoirs or short memoir pieces, as everybody knows it, can put you through moods from absolutely ecstatic, oh my gosh, I got this done. I got this story told, and someone liked it, to oh my gosh, I'm so depressed I don't understand why. Oh, wait a minute, I was writing about such and such today. Yeah. So that's the challenge for the memoir is for the personal storyteller, it's also, you know, and it's more of a challenge than it is for the reader, unless it's bad writing and the reader can't stand that. For me as a reader, I'm fascinated by people's difficult stories, if they're well   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:24 told well, I know that when in 2002 I was advised to write a book about the World Trade Center experiences and all, and it took eight years to kind of pull it all together. And then I met a woman who actually I collaborated with, Susie Florey, and we wrote thunder dog. And her agent became my agent, who loved the proposal that we sent and actually got a contract within a week. So thunder dog came out in 2011 was a New York Times bestseller, and very blessed by that, and we're working toward the day that it will become a movie still, but it'll happen. And then I wrote a children's version of it, well, not a children's version of the book, but a children's book about me growing up in Roselle, growing up the guide dog who was with me in the World Trade Center, and that's been on Amazon. We self published it. Then last year, we published a new book called Live like a guide dog, which is all about controlling fear and teaching people lessons that I learned prior to September 11. That helped me focus and remain calm.   Bill Ratner ** 1:04:23 What happened to you on September 11,   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:27 I was in the World Trade Center. I worked on the 78th floor of Tower One.   Bill Ratner ** 1:04:32 And what happened? I mean, what happened to you?   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:36 Um, nothing that day. I mean, well, I got out. How did you get out? Down the stairs? That was the only way to go. So, so the real story is not doing it, but why it worked. And the real issue is that I spent a lot of time when I first went into the World Trade Center, learning all I could about what to do in an emergency, talking to police, port authorities. Security people, emergency preparedness people, and also just walking around the world trade center and learning the whole place, because I ran an office for a company, and I wasn't going to rely on someone else to, like, lead me around if we're going to go to lunch somewhere and take people out before we negotiated contracts. So I needed to know all of that, and I learned all I could, also realizing that if there ever was an emergency, I might be the only one in the office, or we might be in an area where people couldn't read the signs to know what to do anyway. And so I had to take the responsibility of learning all that, which I did. And then when the planes hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building, we get we had some guests in the office. Got them out, and then another colleague, who was in from our corporate office, and I and my guide dog, Roselle, went to the stairs, and we started down. And   Bill Ratner ** 1:05:54 so, so what floor did the plane strike?   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:58 It struck and the NOR and the North Tower, between floors 93 and 99 so I just say 96 okay, and you were 20 floors down, 78 floors 78 so we were 18 floors below, and   Bill Ratner ** 1:06:09 at the moment of impact, what did you think?   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:13 Had no idea we heard a muffled kind of explosion, because the plane hit on the other side of the building, 18 floors above us. There was no way to know what was going on. Did you feel? Did you feel? Oh, the building literally tipped, probably about 20 feet. It kept tipping. And then we actually said goodbye to each other, and then the building came back upright. And then we went,   Bill Ratner ** 1:06:34 really you so you thought you were going to die?   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 David, my colleague who was with me, as I said, he was from our California office, and he was there to help with some seminars we were going to be doing. We actually were saying goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor plunge to the street, when the building stopped tipping and it came back. Designed to do that by the architect. It was designed to do that, which is the point, the point.   Bill Ratner ** 1:07:02 Goodness, gracious. And then did you know how to get to the stairway?   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:04 Oh, absolutely. And did you do it with your friend? Yeah, the first thing we did, the first thing we did is I got him to get we had some guests, and I said, get him to the stairs. Don't let him take the elevators, because I knew he had seen fire above us, but that's all we knew. And but I said, don't take the elevators. Don't let them take elevators. Get them to the stairs and then come back and we'll leave. So he did all that, and then he came back, and we went to the stairs and started down.   Bill Ratner ** 1:07:33 Wow. Could you smell anything?   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:36 We smelled burning jet fuel fumes on the way down. And that's how we figured out an airplane must have hit the building, but we had no idea what happened. We didn't know what happened until the until both towers had collapsed, and I actually talked to my wife, and she's the one who told us how to aircraft have been crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth, at that time, was still missing over Pennsylvania. Wow. So you'll have to go pick up a copy of thunder dog. Goodness. Good. Thunder dog. The name of the book is Thunder dog, and the book I wrote last year is called Live like a guide dog. It's le

Host Jonathan Hughes talks to three financial aid experts on location at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) Conference in Anaheim, California. Jonathan talks to  Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management and Executive Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships at Auburn University, Celena Tulloss, Executive Vice President of NASFAA, Beth Maglione, and Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services at Suffolk University, Ken Ferriera, about NASFAA, the current state of financial aid, and more.

“Many of our churches' greatest battle is they are inwardly focused. You've got to focus to the community; you've got to focus outwardly.” Dr. Tim York shares about the resources offered by the National Association of Free Will Baptists for churches, equipping them to reach and minister to their communities. Find the resources at https://nafwb.org/resources/. #NAFWB #BetterTogether #Church #Ministry #Outreach *We apologize for the technical difficulties with the audio quality.

Ed Cofrancesco, chief executive officer at International Assets Advisory, says there is a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, where the economy has been great for stocks but consumers have been feeling the pain. He is hoping to see rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, with the impacts trickling down to Main Street in ways that might perk up some of the soft data and consumer sentiment, and that could help people avoid falling into the trap of spiraling debt. Stefan Sharkansky, creator of The Best Third, discusses his research, which shows that the classic "4% Rule" — where retirees expect to  be set for life financially if they can live by spending no more than 4 percent of their retirement nestegg annually — has two bad potential outcomes, either premature depletion of their portfolio or unnecessary underspending. He dials in on how savers can better view their savings to make more efficient use of their nestegg. Kyle Guske, investment analyst at New Constructs, revisits Warby Parker in The Danger Zone, noting that the eyeglass maker and retailer is popular but that brand-recognition alone isn't enough to make a good stock, particularly if it leads to greater sales without any signs of profits. New Constructus first put Warby Parker in the Danger Zone when it was going through its IPO in 2021. Plus Lester Jones, chief economist for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, discusses the latest Business Conditions Survey released today by the National Association for Business Economics, which showed that economists believe the likelihood of a recession is shrinking, at least for now.

In this episode of the Inside Out Leadership Podcast, I sit down with my friend Sheila Arquette, President & CEO of the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP), to explore what it looks like to empower others from the inside out. Sheila's leadership is grounded in presence, compassion, and genuine care for the people entrusted to her — a true example of a heart-led leader.

"Be on-time, put out the extra effort. ... No matter what you're going to be in life, be the best." --Owner-operator John Treadway on his motivation through the years Raised to “be the best” at whatever he did, owner-operator John Treadway is clearly working hard to achieve that lofty goal with his one-truck business. It's a two-truck business, actually, with Treadway trucking with his own authority mostly in a stunningly beautiful 1998 Peterbilt 379 he calls "Teal Appeal," but with a 2006-model Pete kept as a spare to run in winter, and as a failsafe to serve his central customer. Treadway was Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for September, featured in this story by Senior Editor Matt Cole, whose long talk with Treadway makes up the bulk of this week's podcast: https://overdriveonline.com/15767883 Owner-operator John Treadway hauls flowers year-round for a greenhouse operation near his base in Kokomo, Indiana, with his Tway (prounced TEE-Way) Rose Transport, now with authority for going on a decade after some decades more leased to other companies. His story stretches back to his start trucking with the 1990 purchase of a 1985 Kenworth Liberty Edition cabover he used to haul grain with his older brother, eventually moving on to pull flatbeds and a variety of other trailers. It's reefer work these days for the flower operation, and since we saw his tractor at MATS early this year he's put work into a 2017 Great Dane reefer to match the lines and colors of "Teal Appeal" 1998 Pete, as you'll hear in the podcast today. Yet so much of Treadway's approach to trucking he traces to the time before he ever held a steering wheel, his life built in the business on top of those be-the-best values instilled at an early age along with admiration of truck drivers whose names he may have never known but from whom he garnered examples to which to aspire. Along with business brass tacks he keeps early lessons learned ever at the front his mind about what it takes to build success as a one-truck owner, and to have a little fun along the way. "One of my good friends told me a long, long time ago, 'To be an owner-operator, that's a 364-day-a year job,'" Treadway said. "You're driving through the day, you're hauling the loads, but it doesn't stop. The weekend comes, and you've got repairs to do, and then on top of that if you want to add a piece of chrome or something, you have to try to fit all that in. There's just a grind to it. You've just gotta keep grinding, and keep moving forward." Read about all of our 2025 Truckers of the Month, contenders for the annual prize of a Bostrom seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Commercial Vehicle Group and a custom replica of the winner's tractor: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Also in the podcast: Shout to Overdrive's Small Fleet Champs announced Thursday, October 23, at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual conference in Nashville with fellow finalists on hand with the hundreds assembled for the opening night dinner and program: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15770012/overdrives-2025-small-fleet-champs-tfx-oberman-come-out-on-top Keep tuned for a roundtable talk with all in attendance conducted just ahead of the event in a near-future Overdrive Radio edition. No shortage of wisdom shared amongst this group, no doubt.

Show Featured Sponsor:  The Precision Holsters Vanquish! Learn more: Precision Holsters and use code “seekAWS” for a discount.​​ On today's episode of the American Warrior Show, Rich Brown is joined by Michael “Mac” McNamara, founder of Post-Traumatic Winning and ALL MARINE RADIO. Mac's story spans finance, combat, leadership, and a lifelong mission to help others thrive after trauma. About Michael McNamara: Began his career at Merrill Lynch in Los Angeles, first as a bookkeeper and later as an account executive. Enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, later commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in December 1983. Served in multiple assignments, including: 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment 1st Light Armored Infantry Battalion Marine Detachment, USS Ranger CV-61 The Basic School 3rd Light Armored Infantry Battalion Left active duty in 1994 after more than a decade of service. Post-Service Career & Return to Duty: Became Director of Sports for Special Olympics North Dakota in 1998. Launched his broadcasting career in 2000 as host of MacTalk, earning the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award (2007) for Small Market Personality of the Year. Returned to active duty in 2004, promoted to Major, and deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, with the 1st Marine Division. Mobilized again in 2006 for duty in Fallujah, Iraq, with the 5th Marine Regiment, while simultaneously serving on the Grand Forks City Council. Deployed once more in 2010 with the 1st Marine Regiment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, serving until his retirement in 2015. Post-Traumatic Winning & Advocacy: Founded The Post-Traumatic Winning Company, LLC and launched ALL MARINE RADIO, an online platform promoting mental fitness and reducing veteran suicide. Began presenting Post-Traumatic Winning in 2019, first at Camp Lejeune, NC. The presentation has since reached audiences across the U.S., Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, and Europe, impacting organizations of over 10,000 members with measurable results in combating destructive behaviors and suicide. Launched the Post-Traumatic Winning Weekly Seminar series in January 2021, expanding the program's reach and dialogue. Published his first book in March 2025, From Trauma to Joy: Life-Changing Lessons That Fellow U.S. Marines Taught Me After Traumatic Events Occurred in My Life — designed to share these universal lessons with a wider audience. In This Episode: How trauma can become a source of growth, not defeat. The creation and impact of Post-Traumatic Winning. Lessons learned from leading Marines and civilians through crisis. Building mental fitness and resilience in the face of adversity.

This month's podcast episode from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) includes discussion on the ongoing federal government shutdown, mass layoffs of federal workers, and potential impacts on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs, which could impact local health department services. For weekly updates, subscribe to NACCHO's News from Washington newsletter: www.naccho.org/advocacy/news.   Later in the program (8:15), NACCHO experts discuss how various research studies throughout the year serve as the backbone of what is known about local health departments across the United States. This research is then used in peer-reviewed papers that local health departments can use as resources to strengthen their own planning processes. NACCHO releases seven major national studies, including its two flagship studies, the National Profile of Local Health Departments Study (Profile) and the Forces of Change Survey. Both studies have been conducted for decades, so together they provide a stable, long-term picture and a real-time snapshot of what's changing in local public health. This research is instrumental to contributing to the understanding of local health departments and their needs and is valuable in helping local health departments assess the effectiveness of their health strategies and services.   ###   About NACCHO The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) represents the over 3,300 local governmental health departments across the country. These city, county, metropolitan, district, and tribal departments work every day to protect and promote health and well-being for all people in their communities. For more information, visit www.naccho.org.

Share your Field Stories!Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! On today's episode, we talk with Dr. Na'Taki Osborne Jelks, assistant professor of environmental and health sciences at Spelman College and Co-Founder of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance about Community Science, Climate Justice, and Mentorship. Read her full bio below.Help us continue to create great content! If you'd like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form Showtimes: 1:36 - The Positives about Fall7:59 - Interview with Dr. Jelks starts17:40 - West Atlanta Watershed Alliance 29:56 - Challenges of Funding39:35 - Field Notes with Dr. Jelks!Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review. This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.Connect with Dr. Na'Taki Osborne Jelks https://www.linkedin.com/in/na-taki-osborne-jelks-ph-d-mph-571225/Guest Bio: Dr. Na'Taki Osborne Jelks is an assistant professor of environmental and health sciences at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA and Co-Founder of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, a community-based, environmental justice organization. Jelks investigates urban environmental health disparities; the impact of climate change on marginalized communities; the role that place, race, and social factors play in influencing health; and urban greening and resilience practices and their impact on health. She also develops, implements, and evaluates community-based initiatives that set conditions to enable low-income and communities of color to empower themselves to reduce exposure to environmental health hazards. Jelks' scholarship centers participatory approaches that engage environmentally overburdened communities in monitoring local environmental conditions, generating actionable data for community change, and developing effective community-based interventions that revitalize toxic, degraded spaces into healthy places. She is currently leading UrbanHeatATL, a research initiative in which local students and community members are mapping urban heat islands in Atlanta with community science. Her research has been supported by public and private entities such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Rockefeller, Robert Wood Johnson, JPB, and National Science Foundations.Music CreditsIntro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace MesaOutro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs MullerSupport the showThanks for listening! A new episode drops every Friday. Like, share, subscribe, and/or sponsor to help support the continuation of the show. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and all your favorite podcast players.

Dr. Manisha Juthani, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, joins the show for the first time as ASTHO's president to discuss her plans for the new term; Dr. Karen Hacker, health policy fellow at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, co-authored an article for the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice with Dr. Susan Kansagra, Chief Medical Officer at ASTHO, Chrissie Juliano with Big Cities Health Coalition, and Lori Freeman with the National Association of County and City Health Officials, about the way forward for state and local public health; on October 27th at 2:00 p.m. ET, ASTHO and the Public Health Foundation (PHF) will host a webinar about academic health department partnerships in Vermont; and on Wednesday, November 12th, ASTHO and PHF will hold an interactive Q&A session for their final webinar in the academic health department partnership series. ASTHO Article: Manisha Juthani, MD, Commissioner of Connecticut Department of Public Health, Announced as Next ASTHO President JPHMP Article: Where Do We Go From Here? The Way Forward for State and Local Public Health ASTHO Webinar: Strengthening Academic Health Department Partnerships for Student Success in Vermont ASTHO Webinar: Ask Me Anything: Academic Health Department Partnerships