Podcasts about nda

Hey there, it's Dave Jackson, and in this episode, I'm exploring what we, as podcasters and content creators, can learn from none other than Barbra Streisand—specifically, the infamous "Streisand effect." What Does It Mean?If you've ever wondered what that term means, I break down the story behind it, starting with a 2003 lawsuit involving her Malibu home and how trying to hide something can actually make it go viral.Be Careful What You Try to "Ban"I share my own experiences dealing with promotion in podcasting, including the challenges that come with companies making big promises about starting your podcast and, yes, my mixed feelings about Spotify's practices in the early days. I also talk about how, as much as we sometimes want to warn our audiences loudly about something, we might end up giving it more attention than it deserves.You'll hear a few stories from my past, like the time with Podshow and an NDA, and what I've learned about arguing with trolls or competitors. Bottom line: sometimes pushing back just amplifies the thing you're trying to keep quiet!As always, if you need help with your podcast, I'd love to work with you. Head over to schoolofpodcasting.com/start and use the coupon code “listener” for a special deal. Can't wait to see what we accomplish together!Thanks for listening!Mentioned in this episode:Want to Podcast But Not Sure Where To Start?I've got you covered with a FREE Podcast Launch Checklist that walks you through the whole process IN THE RIGHT ORDER. Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/checklistPodcast Launch ChecklistThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Please Follow Angry Male Vet Here:SubStack: https://angrymalevet.substack.com/YouTube: https://youtube.com/@AngryMaleVet/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/angry-male-vetTrump's relationship with America's military reaches a crisis point as illegal orders, controversial strikes, and constitutional violations pile up. Angry Male Vet - a 23-year Air Force veteran with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan examines Trump's dangerous approach to military deployment, Pete Hegseth's failed leadership at the Pentagon, and why senior commanders refuse to abandon their oath to the Constitution.Venezuela strikes kill 80 people despite legal objections from JAG officers and CIA lawyers. Admiral Hoy steps down from Southcom command after just one year. Trump threatens six Democratic lawmakers with death for reminding troops about illegal orders. Hegseth purges Pentagon leadership while facing his own rape allegations and NDA payoffs. National Guard troops waste millions daily on photo ops in DC while ICE agents operate without rules of engagement.Military lawyers pushed back, allies stopped sharing intelligence, and the UK withdrew support for extrajudicial killings. Trump went around CIA legal counsel to get Hegseth's approval for strikes on fishing boats that pose no threat. Women in uniform face harassment concerns as Hegseth attacks their service. Voter suppression through military intimidation threatens 2026 midterms.Staff Sergeant Jacob Hill died 750 miles from family in DC during a political stunt deployment. Senior Pentagon officials reportedly prepare to remove Hegseth as Venezuela operations face scrutiny. Constitutional crisis builds as Trump tests limits while professional warriors maintain their oath. SUPPORT & CONNECT WITH HAWK- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mdg650hawk- Support Hawk's Merch Store: https://hawkmerchstore.com- Connect on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hawkeyewhackamole- Connect on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/mdg650hawk.bsky.social- Connect on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hawkpodcasts ALL HAWK PODCASTS INFO- Additional Podcasts Available Here: https://www.hawkpodcasts.com- Listen to Hawk Podcasts On Your Favorite Platform:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3RWeJfyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/422GDuLYouTube: https://youtube.com/@hawkpodcastsiHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/47vVBdPPandora: https://bit.ly/48COaTBSimplecast: https://hawk-droppings.simplecast.com- Hawk Podcasts RSS Feed: https://feeds.simplecast.com/pPVtxSNJ

The It's Always Media Thursday podcast returns for its 10th series, with guests Zuzanna Gierlinska and Fi Salmon. The podcast is an irreverent take on a week in digital media and marketing, hosted by NDA Editor-in-Chief Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes.To kickstart the news series we are joined by not only Fiona Salmon, MD, Mantis, in her guise as the newly-crowned Adtech Personality of the Year, awarded each year by Exchangewire, but also last year's winner Zuzanna Gierlinska, now Partner at our new Panel Power training scheme. In a rare Peppa Pig-free episode, we discuss what such an accolade really means in practice, and the importance of community in our industry, currently being borne out by the retail media sector. And Fiona provides fascinating insight into the changing focus of publishers she is witnessing as they continue revenue stream diversification. And on the day before NDA's Trinity Winter lunch, we discuss the vital role of industry events and, shameless plug here, our Panel Power training programme's mission to raise the quality bar of industry panels, for both audience and participant's company's ROI.

Allen, Joel, and Yolanda share their annual Thanksgiving reflections on a year of major changes in wind energy. They discuss industry collaboration, the offshore wind reset, and upcoming changes in 2026. Thanks to all of our listeners from the Uptime team! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall in the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Joel Saxon’s up in Wisconsin, and Yolanda Padron is down in Texas, and this is our yearly Thanksgiving edition. Thanks for joining us and, and on this episode we always like to look back at the year and, uh, say all we’re thankful for. We’ve had a number of podcast guests on more than 50, I think total by the time we get to conferences and, uh, all the different places we’ve been over the past year. Joel, it does seem like it’s been a really interesting year. We’ve been able to watch. The changes in the wind industry this year via the eyes of [00:01:00]others. Joel Saxum: Yeah. One of the things that’s really interesting to me when we have guests on is that we have them from a variety of parts of the wind industry sector. So we have ISPs, you know, people running things out in the field, making stuff happen. We’ve got high level, you know, like we have this, some CEOs on from different, uh, people that are really innovative and trying to get floating winged out there. They have like on, we had choreo generation on, so we, so we have all different spectrums of left, right center, Europe, well us, you name it. Uh, new innovative technology. PhD smart people, uh, doing things. Um, also, it’s just a, it’s just a gamut, right? So we get to learn from everybody who has a different kind of view on what’s Allen Hall: happening. Yolanda, you’ve been in the midst of all this and have gone through a big transition joining us at Weather Guard, lightning Tech, and we’re very thankful for that, for sure. But over the last year, you’ve seen a lot of changes too, ’cause you’ve been in the seat of a blade engineer and a [00:02:00] large operator. What do you think? Yolanda Padron: Uh, something I am really thankful for this year is, and I think a lot of owner operators are, is just knowing what’s coming up. So there was a lot of chaos in the beginning before the big beautiful bill where everyone theorized on a lot of items. Um, and, and you were just kind of stuck in the middle of the court not really knowing which direction to go in, but. Now we’re all thankful for, for what? It’s brought for the fact that everyone seems to be contributing a lot more, and at least we all know what direction we’re heading in or what the, what the rules are, the of the game are, so we can move accordingly. Joel Saxum: Yeah. I got some clarity. Right. I think that, but that happened as well, like when we had the IRA bill come in. Three, four years ago, it was the same thing. It was like, well, this bill’s here, and then you read through it. I mean, this was a little bit opposite, right? ’cause it was like, oh, these are all [00:03:00] great things. Right? Um, but there wasn’t clarity on it for like, what, six months until they finalized some of the. Longer on some of the, some of the tax bills and what it would actually mean for the industry and those kind of things. So yeah, sorting this stuff out and what you’ve seen, you’re a hundred percent correct, Yolanda, like all the people we talked to around the industry. Again, specifically in the US because this affects the us but I guess, let me ca caveat that it does affect the global supply chain, not, you know what I mean? Because it’s, it’s not just the, the US that it affects because of the consumption here. So, but what we have heard and seen from people is clarity, right? And we’re seeing a lot of people starting to shift strategy a little bit. Right now, especially we’re in budgeting season for next year, shifting strategy a little bit to actually get in front of, uh, I know like specifically blades, some people are boosting their blades, budgets, um, to get in front of the damages because now we have a, a new reality of how we need to operate our wind farms. The offshore Allen Hall: shift in the United States has really had a [00:04:00] dramatic impact. On the rest of the world. That was, uh, a little unexpected in the sense that the ramifications of it were broader, uh, just because of so much money going into offshore projects. As soon as they get pulled or canceled, you’ve have billions of dollars on the table at that point. It really affects or seen it. Ecuador seen it. Anybody involved in offshore wind has been deeply affected. Siemens has seen it. GE has clearly seen it. Uh, that has. In my opinion, probably been the, the biggest impact. Not so much the big beautiful bill thing, but the, uh, ongoing effort to pull permits or to put stoppages on, on offshore wind has really done the industry some harm. And honestly, Joel, I’m not sure that’s over. I think there’s still probably another year of the chaos there. Uh, whether that will get settled in the courts or where it’s gonna get settled at. I, I still don’t know. [00:05:00] But you’ve seen a big shift in the industry over in Europe too. You see some changes in offshore wind. It’s not just the US that’s looking at it differently. Yeah. Globally. I think offshore wind Joel Saxum: right now is in a reset mode where we, we went, go, go, go, go, go get as much in the water as we can for a while. And this is, I’m, I’m talking globally. Um. And then, and now we’re learning some lessons, right? So there’s some commercial lessons. There’s a lot of technical lessons that we’re learning about how this industry works, right? The interesting part of that, the, the on or the offshore wind play here in the States. Here’s some numbers for it, right? So. It onshore wind. In the states, there’s about 160 gigawatts, plus or minus of, uh, deployed production out running, running, gunning, working, spinning all day long. Um, and if you look at the offshore wind play in planned or under development, there’s 66 gigawatts of offshore wind, like it’s sitting there, right? And of that 66, about 12 of them are permitted. Like [00:06:00] are ready to go, but we’re still only at a couple hundred megawatts in the water actually producing. Right. And, and I do want, say, this is what I wanna say. This is, I, I think that we’re taking a reset, we’re learning some things, but from, from my network, I’m seeing, I got a, a whole stack of pictures yesterday from, um, coastal offshore, Virginia Wind. They’ve, and they looked promising. They looked great. It was like a, it was a marshaling facility. There was nelle stacked up, there was transition pieces ready to go. Like, so the industry is still moving forward. It’s just we’re we need to reset our feet, um, and, and then take a couple steps forward instead of those, the couple steps back, Allen Hall: uh, and the industry itself, and then the employees have been dramatically reduced. So there’s been a lot of people who we’ve known over the past year, they’ve been impacted by this. That are working in different positions, look or in different industries right now, uh, waiting for the wind industry to kind of settle itself [00:07:00] out to, to figure out what the next steps are That has been. Horrible, in my opinion. Uh, uh because you’re losing so much talent, obviously. And when you, when you talk to the people in the wind industry, there’s like, oh, there’s a little bit of fat and we can always cut the fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we’re, we’re down to the bone. We’re cutting muscle right now. We’re into some bones, some structure. That is not what I anticipated to happen. But you do see the management of these companies being. Uh, very aggressive at the minute. Siemens is very aggressive. Vestas is very aggressive about their product line and, and getting availability way up. GE has made huge changes, pretty much closing LM wind power, uh, and uh, some things happening in South Carolina that we probably people don’t know about yet, but there’s so much happening behind these scenes that’s negative and we have to acknowledge it. It’s not great. I worry about everybody that has been [00:08:00] laid off or is, is knows their job is gonna go away at the end of the year. I struggle with it all the time and I, I think a lot in the wind industry do. But there’s not a lot to do about it besides say, Hey, uh, we’ve gone through this a couple of times. Wind has never been bountiful for 50 years. It’s bountiful for about 10, then it’s down for about five and it comes back for 10. It’s that ebb and flow, but you just hate to be involved with that. It’s particularly engineering ’cause this industry needs engineering right Joel Saxum: now. All of us on this podcast here have been affected by ups and downs in the industry at some point in time in our life, in in major ways. I guess one of the positive things I have seen that from an operator standpoint, and not as much at the latter half of this year, but at the beginning half of this year is when some of these OEMs were making cuts. There was a lot of people that landed at operators and asset owners that were huge assets to them. They walked in the door with. Reams of knowledge about how, [00:09:00] you know, how a ge turbine works or how the back office process of this works and they’re able to help these operators. So some of that is good. Um, you get some people spread around in the industry and some knowledge bases spread around. But man, it’s really hard to watch. Um, your friends, your colleagues, even people that you, that you don’t know personally just pop up on LinkedIn, um, or wherever. And. That they’ve, they’re, they’re looking for work again. Allen Hall: Yolanda, how do you look at 2026 then, knowing what’s just happened in 2025? Is there some hope coming? Is there a rainbow in the future? Yolanda Padron: I think there’s a rainbow in the future. You know, I, I think a lot of the decisions were made months ago before a lot of people realized that the invaluable, how invaluable some of that information in people’s heads is. Uh, particularly, I mean, I know we’ve all talked about the fact that we’re all engineers and so we, we have a bit of bias that way. Right. But, uh, [00:10:00] just all of the knowledge that comes in from the field, from looking at those assets, from talking to other engineers now, which is what, what we’re seeing more and more of, uh, I think, I mean. So there’s going to have to be innovation, right? Because of how, how lean everybody is and, and there’s going to have to be a lot more collaboration. So hopefully there, there should be some, some good news coming to people. I think we, we need it a little Joel Saxum: bit. You know, to, to, to pair on with what you’re saying there, Yolanda, like, this is a time right now for innovation and collaboration. Collaboration, right. I want to touch on that word because that is something that we, we talk about all the time on the podcast, but you also see the broader industry talking about it since I’ve been in it, right. Since I think I came in the wind industry, like 2019. Um, you hear a lot of, uh, collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. But those were like, they were [00:11:00] fun, like hot air words, like oh yeah, but then nobody’s really doing anything. Um, but I think that we will start to see more of that. Alan, you and I say this a lot, like at the end of the day, once, once the turbines are in the ground as an asset owner, you guys are not competing anymore. There’s no competition. You’re competing for, for green space when you’re trying to get the best wind resource. I get that. Um, but I mean, in the central part of the United States, you’re not really competing. There’s a lot of hills out there to stick a turbine on. Uh, but once they’re, once they are spinning. Everybody’s in the same boat. We just wanna keep these things up. We wanna keep the grid energized, we wanna do well for renewable energy and, um, that collaboration piece, I, I, I would like to see more and more of that in 2026. And I know from, from our chairs here, we will continue to push on that as well. Yolanda Padron: Yeah. And just so many different operators, I mean sure they can see themselves as, as being one against the other. Right. But. When you talk [00:12:00] to these people and it, I think people in the past, they’ve made the, the mistake of just being a little bit siloed. And so if you’re just looking at your assets and you’re just looking at what your OEM is telling you of, oh, these problems are new and unique to you, which I’m sure a lot of people hearing us have heard that. You can stay just kind of in that zone of, oh no, I, I have this big problem that there’s no other way to solve it except for what some people are telling me or not telling me, and I’m just going to have to pay so much money to get it done and take the losses from generation. Uh, but there’s so many people in the industry that have a hundred percent seen the issues you’ve seen. Right. So it’s, it’s really, really important to just talk to these people, you know? I mean, just. Just have a, a simple conversation. And I think some of the issue might be that some people don’t know [00:13:00] how to get that conversation started, right? And so just, just reach out to people, someone in the same position as you go to Wilma, you know, just talk to the person next to you. Joel Saxum: I mean, like I said about visibility, like we’re here too. Like the, the three of us are sitting here. We’ve got our. We’re always monitoring LinkedIn and our emails like if you, if you have a problem, we, we had one this morning where I, Alan, you got a message from someone, I got a message from someone that was like, Hey, we’ve got this root bolt issue. Can you help us with it? We’re like, Hey, we know two companies that can, let’s just connect them up and, and make that conversation happen. So we’re happy to do the same thing. Um, if, if you have an issue, we have a, a Allen Hall: broad reach and use us as Joel has mentioned a thousand times on the podcast. If you don’t know where a technology lies or where a person is that you need to reach out to, you need to go to the Uptime podcast. You can search it on YouTube and probably get an answer, or just reach us on LinkedIn. We’re all willing [00:14:00] to give you advice or help or get you in the right direction. We’ve done it all year and we’ve done it for years. Not everybody takes us up on that opportunity. It’s free. We’re just trying to make this world just a tiny bit better. Yolanda Padron: No one has the time or the money right now to reinvent the wheel, right? So I mean, it just doesn’t make sense to not collaborate. Allen Hall: I think we should discuss what will happen to all the people that have left wind this past year willingly or unwillingly. And what that means for the industry, in my opinion. Now there is more knowledge than ever walking on the streets and probably doesn’t have an NDA to tie them up. ’cause it’s been long enough that the industry hasn’t tapped into, the operators have not grabbed hold of the people who designed the blade that, uh, manufactured the blade that looked at. The LEP solutions that looked at all the bearings and all the different gear boxes that they evaluated and were involved in the testing of those [00:15:00] things. Those people are available right now and a little bit of LinkedIn shopping would give you access to, uh, really invaluable wealth of information that will make your operations work better, and you may have to be willing to pay for it a little bit. But to tap into it would save you months and months and months of time and effort and, uh, limit having to add to your engineering staff because they will work as consultants. It does seem like there’s an opportunity that maybe the operators haven’t really thought about all that much because they haven’t seen too much of it happening yet. Occasionally see the, the wise old operators being smart about this, they’ve been through these loops before and are taking advantage of it. Don’t you see? That’s like 2026 is is is the year of the consultant. I a hundred percent Joel Saxum: agree with you, Alan. Um, I saw a TEDx talk oh, years ago actually now. Uh, but it was about the, what the future of worker looks like, the future of [00:16:00] work and the future of work at that time for those people giving that TEDx talk was workers on tap. Basically consultants, right? Because you have subject matter experts that are really good at this one thing, and instead of just being that one thing good for just this one company, they’re pulling back and going, I can do this, this, this, and this for all these companies. So we have, um, we have a lot of those in the network and we’re starting to see more and more of them pop up. Um, at the same time, I think I’ve seen a couple of groups of them pop up where, uh, you didn’t have. When I look at ISPs, um, I’m always kind of like, oh man, they could do this a little bit better. They could do this a little bit better. And I, I recently heard of an ISP popping up that was a bunch of these like consultant types that got together and we’re like, you know what? We have all this knowledge of all these things. Why not make this a, a company that we can all benefit from? Um, and we can change the way some things are done in the wind industry and do it a little bit better, uh, a little bit more efficiently. Allen Hall: Does that change the way we think about technicians also. [00:17:00] We had the Danish Wind Power Academy on the podcast a couple of months ago talking about training and specific training for technicians and engineers for that matter on the turbines that are at their sites and how much productivity gain they’re getting from that. And we’ve recently talked about how do I get a 10% improvement? Where does that 10% lie? Where is that? And a lot of times we get offered the 1%, the half a percent improvement, the 10% lies in the people. If you know who to ask and you get your people spooled upright, you can make multiple percentage point changes in your operation, which improves your revenue. But I think that’s been left on the table for a long time because we’ve been in build, build, build. And now that we’re into operate, operate, operate. Do you see that shift happening? Do you see O operators starting to think about that a little bit that maybe I should train up my technicians on this? Intercon turbine Joel Saxum: that they’re not familiar with. In my [00:18:00] opinion, I think that’s gonna be a 2027 reality. Because we’re seeing this, your, your right now what? You know we have this cliff coming where we’re gonna see in, in the face of the current regulations in the US where you’re gonna see the. Development kind of slow, big time. And when that happens, then you can see the focus start to switch onto the operating assets. So I don’t think that’s a 26 thing, I think that’s a 27 thing. But the smart operators, I believe would be trying to take some of that, take control of some of that stuff. Right. Well we see this with the people that we know that do things well. Uh, the CRS team at EDF with their third party services and sala, Ken Lee, Yale, Matta, and those guys over there. They’re doing a, I don’t wanna lose any other names here, Trevor Engel. Like, I wanna make sure I get a Tyler. They’re all superstars, they’re fantastic. But what they’re doing is, is is they’re taking, they’re seeing what the future looks like and they’re taking control. I think you’ll see, you’ll, you’ll see an optimization. Um, companies that are investing in their technicians to train [00:19:00] them are going to start getting a lion’s share of the work, because this time of, oh, warm bodies, I think is, is they’re still gonna be there, right? But I think that that’s gonna hopefully become less and less. Allen Hall: Yolanda, I want to focus on the OEM in 2025, late 2025, and moving into 2026 and how they deal with the developers. Are you thinking that they’re going to basically keep the same model where a lot of developers are, uh, picking up the full service agreements or not being offered a turbine without a full service agreement? Will that continue or do you see operators realize that they probably don’t need the OEM and the historical model has been OEMs manufacture products and provide manuals in the operations people and developers read the manuals and run the turbine and only call over to the OEM when they need really severe help. Which way are we gonna go? Yolanda Padron: I think on the short term, it’ll still be very FSA focused, in my opinion, [00:20:00] mainly because a lot of these operators didn’t necessarily build out their teams, or didn’t have the, the business case wasn’t there, the business model wasn’t there. Right. To build out their internal teams to be able to, to do the maintenance on these wind turbines as much as an OEM does. Uh. However, I do think that now, as opposed to 10 years ago when some of these contracts started, they have noticed that there’s, there’s so many big things that the OEN missed or, or just, you know, worked around, uh, that really has affected the lifetime of some of these blades, some of these turbines. So I think the shift is definitely happening. Uh, you mentioned it with EDF NextEra, how, how they’re at a perfect spot to already be there. Uh, but I think at least in the US for some of these operators that are a lot [00:21:00] more FSA focused, the shift might take a couple of years, but it’s, it surely seems to be moving in that direction. Joel Saxum: So here’s a question for you, Ilana, on that, on that same line of thinking. If we, regulation wise, are looking to see a slow down in development, that would mean to me that the OEMs are gonna be clamoring for sales over the next few years. Does that give more power to the operators that are actually gonna be buying turbines in their TSA negotiations? Yolanda Padron: I think it should, right. I mean, the. If they, if they still want to continue developing some of these, it and everyone is fighting, you know, all of these big OEMs are fighting for the same contracts. There’s, there’s a lot more kind of purchase power there from, from the operators to be able [00:22:00] to, to, you know, negotiate some of these deals better. Stay away from the cookie cutter. TSA. That the OEMs might supply that are very, very shifted towards the OEM mindset. Joel Saxum: You, you’re, you’re spot on there. And if I was a developer right now, I’d be watching quarterly reports and 10 k filings and stuff at these operators to make sure, or to see when to pounce on a, on a, a turbine order, because I would wait to see when in, in the past it’s been like, Hey, if we’re, it doesn’t matter who you are, OEM, it has been like we’re at capacity and we have. Demand coming in. So we can pick and choose. Like if you don’t buy these turbines on our contract, we’ll just go to the next guy in line. They’ll buy ’em. But now if the freeboard between manufacturing and demand starts to keep having a larger delta, well then the operators will be able to go, well, if you don’t sell it to me, you’re not, there isn’t another guy behind me. So now you have to bend to what I want. And all the [00:23:00] lessons that I’ve learned in my TSA negotiations over the last 20 years. Yolanda Padron: Something relating to Alan’s point earlier, something that I think would be really, really interesting to see would be some of these developers and EPC teams looking towards some of those contract external contractor consultants that have been in the field that know exactly where the issues lie. To be able to turn that information into something valuable for an operating project that. Now we know has to operate as long as possible, Allen Hall: right? Without repower, I think two things need to happen simultaneously, and we will see if they’ll play out this way. OEMs need to focus on the quality of the product being delivered, and that will sustain a 20 year lifetime with minimal maintenance. Operators need to be more informed about how a turbine actually operates and the details of that technology so they can manage it themselves. Those two things. Are [00:24:00] almost inevitable in every industry. You see the same thing play out. There’s only two airplane companies, right? There’s Boeing and Airbus. They’re in the automobile world. There’s, it gets fewer and fewer every year until there’s a new technology leap. Wind is not gonna be any different, and I hope that happens. OEMs can make a really quality product. The question is, they’ve been so busy developing. The next turbine, the next turbine, the next turbine. That have they lost the magic of making a very, very reliable turbine? They’ll tell you, no, we know how to do it. Uh, but as Rosemary has pointed out numerous times, when you lose all your engineering talent, it gets hard to make that turbine very robust and resilient. That’s gonna be the challenge. And if the OEMs are focused on. TSAs it should be, but the full service agreements and taking care of that and managing all the people that are involved with that, it just sucks the life out of the OEMs, I think, in terms of offering the next great product. [00:25:00]Someone showed me the next GE Joel Saxum: one five. Oh, I would love to see it. Do you believe that? Okay, so I, we’ll shift gears from oe, uh, wind turbine OEMs to blade manufacturers. LM closing down shops, losing jobs, uh, TPI bankruptcy, uh, 99% of their market cap eroding in a year is there and, and, and the want for higher quality, better blades that are gonna last. Is there space, do you think there’s space for a, a blade manufacturer to come out of nowhere, or is there just someone’s gonna have to scoop some of these factories up and and optimize them, or what do you think the future looks like for blade Allen Hall: manufacturers? The future is gonna be vertically integrated, and you see it in different industries at the moment where they’re bringing in technology or manufacturing that would have typically been outsourced in the two thousands. They’re bringing it back underneath their roofs. They’re buying those companies that were vendors to them for years. The reason they’re doing that is they [00:26:00] can remove all the operational overhead. And minimize their cost to manufacture that product. But at the same time, they can have really direct oversight of the quality. And as we have seen in other industries, when you outsource a critical component, be it gear, boxes, bearings, blades, fall into that category, those are the critical items for any wind turbine. When you outsource those items and rely upon, uh, uh, companies that you don’t have direct control over, or not watching day to day, it can go awry. Management knows it, and at some point they’re willing to accept that risk. They know that the cost is right. I gotta build this, uh, turbine. I know I’m working three generations ahead, so it’s okay, I’ll, I’ll live with this for the time being, but at some point, all the staff in the OEMs needs to know what the quality component is. Is it being delivered on time? Do I have issues out in the field with it? Do I keep this supply chain? Do I, and do I build this in house blades? [00:27:00] I think eventually. Like they were years ago, were built in-house. Uh, but as they grew too quickly, I think everybody will agree to that Joel Saxum: capacity. Yeah, Allen Hall: right. They started grabbing other factories that they didn’t know a lot about, but it gave them capacity and ability able to make sales. Now they’re living with the repercussions of that. I think Siemens is the obvious one, but they’re not the only one. GE has lived through something very similar, so, uh, vertical integration is going to be the future. Before we wrap the episode, we should talk about what we’re thankful for for this year, 2025. So much has happened. We were in Australia in February, weather guard moved in April to North Carolina. We moved houses and people, and the whole organization moved from Massachusetts and North Carolina. Joel got married. Yolanda got married. We’ve been all over the world, honestly. Uh, we’ve traveled a great deal and we’re thankful for everybody that we’ve met this year, and that’s one of the pleasures of doing this podcast is I just [00:28:00] get to meet new people that are very interesting, uh, and, uh. Talk, like, what’s going on? What are you thinking? What’s happening? It just feels like we’re all connected in this weird way via this podcast, and I, I, I’m really thankful for that and my always were saying Thanks. I will go through my list. I’m thankful for my mom. I’m thankful for my wife Valerie, who pretty much runs Weather Guard, lightning Tech, and Claire, who is my daughter who does the podcast and has been the producer, she graduated this year from Boston College. With honors that happened this year. So I’m very thankful that she was able to do that. And my son Adam, who’s earning his doctorate degree out in San Diego, always thankful for him ’cause he’s a tremendous help to us. And on the engineering side, I’m thankful to everybody we have with us this year. We brought Yolanda on, so we’re obviously thankful that, uh, she was able to join us. Of course, Joel Joel’s been here a couple of years now and helping us on sales and talking to everybody [00:29:00] in the world. We’re super thankful for Joel and one of the people we don’t tell behind the who’s behind the scenes on our side is our, our, uh, manufacturing person, Tammy, um, and Leslie. They have done a tremendous job for us over the years. They don’t get a lot of accolades on the podcast, but people who receive our strike tape product, they have touched. Tammy and Leslie have touched, uh, Tammy moved down with us to North Carolina and we’re extremely grateful that she was able to do that. Another person behind the scenes for us is Diane stressing. She does her uptime tech news newsletter. So the high quality content doesn’t come from me, it comes from Diane ’cause she can write and she’s an excellent newsletter writer. She helps with a ton of our content. She’s behind the scenes and there’s a lot of people at, at, uh, weather, car Lightning Tech that are kind of behind the scenes. You don’t get to see all the time, but when you do get an email about uptime, tech news is coming from Diane. So we’re super grateful for her. We’ve been blessed this year. We [00:30:00] really have. We’ve brought on a lot of new friends and, uh, podcast has grown. Everything has done well this year, so we’re super happy. Joel, what are you thankful for? Joel Saxum: I would start it the same way. Uh, my, my new. Sorry, my new wife as of last May, Kayla, she is the, the glue that holds me together, uh, in our household together, in this kind of crazy world that we’re in, of the ups and downs and the travels and the moving and grooving. Um, she keeps, she keeps me grounded. She keeps our family grounded. So, um, uh, I, I don’t think I can thank her enough. Uh, and you know, with that being said, we are always traveling, right? We’re, we’re here, we’re there. We’re. All around the world, and I am thankful for that. Um, I’m thankful for the people that we meet while we get to travel, the cultures and the, the experiences and the people that want to share with us and the knowledge gained from, uh, the conversations, whether it be in a conference room or over a beer.[00:31:00] Um, uh, the, the people that we have, uh, grown into this uptime network and, um, I know like my personal network from the past and of course everybody that will come in the future. I think that’s where, you know, the, the, if you know me, you know that I’m very much an extrovert, uh, talking with people and, and getting those conversations gives me energy. Um, and I like to give that back as much as I can. So the, all of the people that I’ve run into over the, over the past year that have allowed me to monologue at them. Thank you. Sorry. Apologies. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s hard to. I think this, this is a, this is always why Thanksgiving is like a six hour long thing in the United States, eight hour long thing. You have dinner at three and you hang out with your friends and family until 10, 11:00 PM because it gives you time to reflect on, um, the things that are awesome in life. Right? And we get bogged down sometimes in our, you know, in the United States. We are [00:32:00] work, work, work, work works. First kind of society. It’s the culture here. So we get bogged down sometimes in the, you know, we’re in the wind industry right now and it’s not always. Um, you know, roses and sunshine, uh, but ha having those other people around that are kind of like in the trenches with you, that’s really one thing I’m thankful for. ’cause it, it’s, it’s bright spots, right? I love getting the random phone calls throughout the day of someone sharing a piece of information or just asking how you’re doing or connecting like that. So, um, that, that would be the, the thing I’m most thankful for, and it puts it into perspective here, to a me up home in Wisconsin, or my, my not home. Home is Austin, but my original hometown of northern Wisconsin, and I’ve got to see. Quite a few of my, my high school buddies are, yeah, elementary school buddies even for that matter over the last couple weeks. And, um, that really always brings me back to, to a bit of grounding and puts, puts life in perspective. So, uh, I’m really appreciative for that as well. Yolanda, newly married as well, and welcome to the club. Yolanda Padron: Thank [00:33:00] you. Yeah, I’m really, really thankful for, for Manuel, my husband, uh, really. Really happy for our new little family. Uh, really thankful for my sisters, Yvonne and Carla and my parents. Um, my friends who I like to think of as my chosen family, especially, you know, here in Austin and then, and in El Paso. Uh, really, really thankful for, for the extended family and for, for weather card for, for this lovely opportunity to just. Learned so much. I know it’s only been almost two months, but I’ve, I’ve just learned so much of just talking to everybody in the industry and learning so much about what’s going on everywhere and just getting this, this whole new outlook on, on what the future holds and, and what exactly has happened and technology wise, and I’m thankful for [00:34:00] this year and how. How exciting everything’s going to be. So, yeah, thankful for you guys. Allen Hall: And we don’t wanna forget Rosemary and Phil, uh, they’ve been a big part of 2025. They’ve worked really hard behind the scenes and, uh, I appreciate everything they’ve done for the podcast and everything they’re doing for. Us as a company and us as people. So big shout out to Rosemary and Phil. So that’s our Thanksgiving episode. Appreciate everybody that’s joined us and has enjoyed the podcast in 2025 and will continue to in 2026. The years coming to an end. I know the Christmas holidays are upon us. I hope everybody enjoys themselves. Spend a little bit of time with your family. And with your coworkers and take a little bit of time. It’s been a pretty rough year. You’re gonna need it. And that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Winner Energy podcast, and we appreciate you joining us here today. If anything has triggered an idea or a question. As we’ve mentioned, reach out to us on LinkedIn. That’s the easiest way to get ahold of [00:35:00] us and don’t ever forget to subscribe. So click that little subscribe button so you don’t miss any of the Future Uptime podcast episodes, and we’ll catch you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

This episode presents perhaps the definitive analysis of the recently concluded Bihar Assembly Elections in which the NDA secured a thumping majority and the INDI alliance bit the dust. Join the conversation as we decode a vast range of issues starting from the great Magadha Empire all the way up to the late Congress Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, the rise of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the dark details of his Jungle Raj in Bihar. Anything said further will ruin the suspense. Do tune in! Support Our PodcastsIf you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting The Dharma Dispatch podcast so we can offer more such interesting, informative and educational content related to Indian History, Sanatana Dharma, Hindu Culture and current affairs. It takes us months of rigorous research, writing and editing and significant costs to offer this labour of love.Ways you can Support The Dharma Podcast:* UPI: ddispatch@axl* Wallets, Netbanking, etc.3. Scan the QR Code below. Get full access to The Dharma Dispatch Digest at thedharmadispatch.substack.com/subscribe

This week's Wealth Formula Podcast is about the economics of sports—if you are a sports fan like me, you will love it. But before we get to that, I want to give you my two cents on one of the most important elements to financial success in anything: conviction. As I write this, Bitcoin sold off from a high of $126K to under $90K. Other cryptos have lost 50-90 percent of their value in the same time. It's been called a blood bath. Some are even saying it’s over for Bitcoin. I might even believe them if I hadn't seen the same story at least 5 times before over the past decade. True bitcoiners have tremendous belief in what bitcoin means to the world. Someone who bought $1,000 of Bitcoin in 2010 and simply refused to sell would now be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the reward for true conviction. The irony of this bitcoin cycle is that many of those individuals with high conviction are finally cashing in on the fruit of their patience. Almost every day, another wallet that hasn't been active since 2011 is selling off a billion dollars into the market into the hands of Wall Street and governments. That's why prices are tumbling. But don't be fooled into thinking that these buyers are the dumb money holding the bag. The story does not end here. Nor is the Bitcoin story a one-off either. History repeats itself as the story of investments unfolds over time. In December 1999, Amazon stock traded at $106. After the dot-com crash, it fell to $5.97. Every talking head had a eulogy written for the company. But if you were crazy enough to hold through the storm, your conviction paid off spectacularly: $10,000 invested in Amazon in 2001 is worth over $20 million today. Now, moving on to the topics of sports. One of my favorite examples of conviction is from 1920, when George Halas bought the Chicago Bears franchise for $100. The Halas family could've “taken profits” countless times. They lived through multiple depressions, a world war, a dozen recessions, five or six league restructurings, labor disputes, player strikes, and decades of bad seasons. Anybody else would've bailed. But they didn't, and today, the Chicago Bears are valued at over $6.3 billion. These stories have different time periods and different industries, but they all teach the same lesson: Conviction is one of the most profitable assets you can own. That's the message I want to leave you before we move into a perhaps more entertaining topic: the economics of professional sports. Most people think of sports in terms of touchdowns, rivalries, and Super Bowl rings. But the truth is… professional sports is one of the greatest wealth-creation machines in American history. Few people understand those engines better than our guest this week. He's one of the clearest, most respected voices in sports economics today, and he's going to break it all down for us: salary caps, streaming deals, and team valuations. If you are a sports fan, you are going to love this week's episode of Wealth Formula Podcast! Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  Donald Trump pretty much bankrupted the USFL by saying we’re gonna go head to head, uh, with the NFL instead of trying to build a a Spring Sports League. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula podcast. Happy, uh, Thanksgiving week, uh, and uh, this week because it is a holiday week in, you know, football and all that kind of stuff that goes along with it. We’re gonna talk. About the economics of sports. And if you’re a sports fan like me, you’re gonna really like this. I really had fun with this interview actually. It was just like me asking a bunch of questions I always had. But anyway, before we get to that, I want to give you my 2 cents. One of the most important elements that I think there is give financial success in anything, and that is conviction. And I bring this up to you in part because Bitcoin sold off. Um, and well at least all the time, I’m recording this from a high of 126,000 and then it, it plunged actually below 90,000. And then of course, there were other cryptos that lost 50 to 90% of their value in the same time. Uh, yeah, it was a bit of a bloodbath. It’s been called a bloodbath and it is a blood bath. And of course, there are some who are declaring Bitcoin dead Again. Um, and you know what? I might even believe them if I hadn’t seen, uh, the same story, at least I’d say, I don’t know, maybe four or five times over the past I, eight years, nine years, whatever. True Bitcoiners though, have a tremendous belief in what Bitcoin means to the world and where this is headed. And some of them, well before I ever got in, right? I mean. That serious conviction because, you know, the people who were buying, you know, back in 2012, 13, I mean, this was completely outta nowhere, had no one’s, uh, no one’s support, nothing. In fact, in 2010, uh, you know, if, if you bought Bitcoin back then simply refuse to sell up until now, um, say you bought a thousand dollars of Bitcoin. You’d be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin, right? That’s the reward for true conviction. And those people, frankly deserve it. Because can you imagine if you just bought a thousand bucks or something and it was already up to a million, it was already up to 10 million and all the way up to 20 million, you still didn’t sell. I mean, I don’t even know if I could, I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t think I could. I mean, at some point I would be like, take the money and run. Right. Um. You know, it’s a funny thing though. The irony of this Bitcoin cycle that we have right now is that many of those individuals with, you know, super high conviction, um, the ones that were in way before any of us and before me, well, they’re actually, a lot of them are actually cashing out sort of the fruit of their patients. Right. Almost every day right now, you’re seeing a another wallet that’s been dormant since like 2011. And all of a sudden it sells. It’s something that has done nothing, but just sit there in storage, selling off a billion dollars into the market, probably, you know, started out as like 10 grand. Right? And where’s that money going? It’s going to the hands of Wall Street’s, going in the hands of, uh, governments. That’s actually the ironic part here. That’s why prices are tumbling. Because I think people are saying, well, gosh, we’re at a hundred grand. I’m sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m sitting on a billion dollars. Uh, I think it’s time to get out, right? But don’t be fooled, in my opinion, to think that these buyers are, uh, you know, they’re the dumb people holding the bag. I mean the, the people holding the bag, it’s Wall Street, right? They’re governments and reserves. And, uh, you know, big treasury companies, the story doesn’t end here. And the other thing is that Bitcoin story is not a one-off in history at all, right? In fact, you know, it, Bitcoin gets a lot of attention. But you even look at something like Amazon, right? December, 1999, Amazon stock trading at $106. Then the.com crash comes, and guess what? It fell down to $5 and 97 cents. That’s a Bitcoin like crash, right? And every talking had a eulogy written for the company. And if you were crazy enough to hold through that storm, your conviction paid off spectacularly. If you had $10,000 invested in Amazon in 2001, it’s worth over $20 million today. So anyway, that’s the point I have though. You know, it’s, the point is about conviction. Uh, and, and I’m not saying that you should just be dumb, buy something and be dumb about it, but especially on these asymmetric things where you think something could be really big, give yourself a time, a period, right? I mean. The only thing other than Bitcoin that I think I, I’m really interested in, in the crypto space is something called Solana. Solana is down like 50% from its ties, and I still think that, you know, when the dust settles, I think this is going to be something that’s gonna pay, pay off. Now if I were to watch it day by day, uh. It’s demoralizing, right? But, but I think the point is, if you have some conviction in something, give it some time. You know, say, I’m gonna watch this for at least five years if I can, if I don’t absolutely get into a situation where I need that money, which hopefully you don’t, because this is not where that kind of money belongs. Right? But give it some time and don’t look, there’s lots of noise, and, and, and then just give it some time and see what happens. Right? Now speaking of giving it some time, you know, a similar story in the sports arena in 1920, George Halas, I think it was Papa Bear, right? George Papa Bear. Halas bought the Chicago Bears franchise for a hundred bucks. Yep, a hundred bucks. Now the Halas family could have taken profits countless times, and they lived through lots of, uh, bad times. Depressions, uh, you know, world War, uh, a dozen recessions, five or six, uh, league restructurings, labor disputes, player strikes, decades of bad seasons. And maybe anybody else would’ve billed at some point if they’d made, you know, millions of dollars from the a hundred bucks. But they didn’t. And the Chicago Bears, as much as I don’t like the Chicago Bears, are valued over $6.3 billion. Now these stories, ultimately, they’re, you know, different time periods, different industries, but same lesson conviction, it’s one of the most profitable assets you can own or attributes at least. Maybe it’s not an asset, I don’t know. That’s a message I wanna leave you before we get into the topic of today, which is the economics of professional sports. Now, most people think of sports in terms of touchdowns, rivalries, super Bowl rings, all that kind of thing. But the truth is professional sports is one of the greatest wealth creation machines in American history, and few people understand those engines better than our guest this week. He’s one of the clearest, most respected voices of sports economics today. And he is gonna break it all down for us. We talk salary caps, streaming deals, team valuations. We talk about the Green Bay Packers and why they’re owned by the city of Green Bay instead of owners. All that kind of stuff that you might have wondered about but you never really knew. So if you’re a sports fan, enjoy it and happy Thanksgiving. We’ll have that interview for you right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own. Bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here’s the key. Even though you’ve borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it. At result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique. It’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today. My guest on Wealth Formula podcast is, uh, Dr. Victor Matheson, professor of Economics and Accounting at College of Holy Cross. He’s a leading authority on sports economics, studying everything from the financial impact of mega events like the Olympics and World Cup, to the inner workings of professional sports leagues, lotteries, and public finance. Uh, welcome to the show. How are you? Well, thanks for having me. Great. Always happy to talk some sports economics. Oh gosh, this is interesting. I’m a huge, uh, I’m a huge sports fan, especially NFL and, uh, so, you know, instead of talking personal finance, you know, without, uh, without any, uh, uh, sports in it, this is definitely a, uh, welcome for me. So, um, well, vigor, let’s start, start with this, you know, um. Most of us who are big sports fans, you know, we’re really driven by the idea of the, the, you know, the, the emotion, the entertainment. Taking a step back from your perspective, how should we look at this whole ecosystem of sports as an economic system? Well, uh, first of all, it’s. It’s both bigger and smaller than, uh, than you would imagine. So if we think of the NFL, the NFL ha generat more revenue than any, uh, sports league in the world. Uh, this year it’ll come in somewhere around 22 ish billion dollars. Uh, that certainly seems like a lot of money. On the other hand, a Sherwin Williams paint store comes in at about that same sort of, uh, revenue, you know. On many podcasts talking about talking about paint, right? Um, if we talk worldwide, all the sports leagues all put together, uh, we’re talking about maybe a hundred billion or so, maybe 120 billion, roughly the same size as Johnson and Johnson. So, uh, you know, it’s a big industry. It’s a, you know, billions in with a B, but it’s also a tiny percentage of, of the total amount of economic. Being generated every year, and, and so we can easily get, uh, um, we can easily get ahead of ourselves and say, well, you know, uh, it’s the biggest company in the world, the NFL, it’s, it’s not even 500. Interesting. Um, so let’s talk a little bit about this, um, uh, how value is created in these leagues. So, so, you know, you said professional leagues are built on the economics of controlled scarcity. So talk a little bit about that, if you would, how this scarcity model drives value and, and, and protects, uh, uh, profitability. Right. So let’s compare, you know, let’s compare a Walmart. To the NFL, right? Uh, so Walmart takes a look at all these potential places that you could put a Walmart and they say, oh, this would be a good one. And a Walmart goes in. And now that Walmart’s generating economic impact and generating revenues for the, for the. For the company and all these sort of things. Now let’s look at the NFL, right? Uh, the NFL does the same thing. They said, Hey, uh, let’s look at Las Vegas. Would that be a good place for a, for a team? Uh, is is London gonna be a good place for a team? Uh, and they look at those. Uh, but here’s the deal. If Walmart looks at 50 places and says, Hey, these 35 would be good places. They’re not gonna just pick the best one for a franchise. They’re gonna put. Walmart’s in all of those, right? Uh, the NFL on the other hand, very specifically saying, you know, we actually don’t wanna put an NFL franchise in every place that we could, uh, make a profit in because we want to be in the, in a world where there are fewer NFL franchises than there are cities that want them, and that generates demand for this. Um, Walmart can’t do that because if Walmart doesn’t put in a franchise somewhere, uh, you know, Target’s gonna come in instead. Uh, that’s not gonna happen in the NFL, uh, because there’s no other competitor to that. So they can actually restrict the number of franchises they have, which means that every franchise is selling at a, a super premium price. These are, you know, at the lowest end, we’re talking five, six, $7 billion franchises. Now, uh, they could sell multiple new expansion franchises, but they choose not to. To maximize the value of those existing franchises. It’s been a while actually since the NFL expanded, um, the league. And I’m curious, what are, you know, what is it that drives them ultimately to do that? I mean, again, you just mentioned there’s this whole scarcity issue. I mean, what do you think are sort of the limitations or sort of the. You know, the, the, the points at which they say, well, gosh, maybe we do move to London, or maybe we do that. Like, do you have a sense of that? Yeah. So a couple things they wanna do. So first of all, one of the big things that all of the leagues in the United States have done is they want to be a big enough league to make sure that they cover all of the good spots or most of the good spots for a team. You don’t wanna leave enough good team locations that a rival league could come and start to challenge you. Right? So thinking back to the 1950s, uh, one of the most important sports leagues ever to come about in the United States. Actually never even existed. And this league is what was called the Continental League. And the Continental League in the 1950s arose as a challenger to major league baseball. Major League baseball in the 1950s was exactly the same size as it was in 1901. It was 16 teams. But the United States had grown immensely and the league had started to move, you know, the Dodgers to LA and the Giants to San Francisco, but you still had huge amounts of the country uncovered by baseball. And so this Continental League came about as an idea saying, you know what? We can take on Major League Baseball by putting franchises in places that it doesn’t exist. They said, oh, here’s our new eight league team. And the way Major League Baseball responded to that is before continental baseball could even start, uh, start existing, it said, oh yeah, well we’re gonna put a team in Minneapolis. We’re gonna put a team in Houston. We’re gonna put teams in these Lee in these cities that the Continental Baseball Association was gonna go into. And therefore, uh, continental baseball never got into existence because Major League Baseball expanded into those locations and everyone has taken that, that hit. You need to be big enough to make sure that every place with a, a good chance at having a team, or at least most of them, uh, are covered so that there’s 8, 10, 12 cities out there, uh, a big enough footprint that you could have your own new league. Uh, do that. So, I mean, if you look at the NHL, if you look at NBA major league baseball, NFL, all about 30 teams. There’s about 30 or a few more big cities. But what’s very important is there’s not 10 or 12 big cities out there, uh, without NFL teams, without football teams that. A rival league could move into that space. You know, I’m curious when you, you brought up that Continental league in baseball. It reminds me when I was a kid of, uh, the United States football, like the USFL and all, they got all these, uh, players, like I remember Herschel Walker started there and, and there was a number of actually guys who ended up in the NFL and being big stars there. So they, they definitely, uh, started out pretty strong. What went wrong for the USFL? It’s so funny you say that. Uh, the answer is actually one big, uh, name. It’s actually Donald Trump. Yeah. So, so what USFL did is, is they noticed that their niche was, um, was the spring, right? We play college football, we pay play high school football, and we play the NFL in the fall, which means that, uh, people out there in the spring, there’s no football out there to be had. The USFL said, you know, we could move into this market. So first of all, we’re gonna move into the spring where there’s not a rival. Second of all, we’re gonna take at least some cities where there’s not active, um, football teams either places like Birmingham, right? Uh, so any case, uh, what happened there is the USFL. Kind of got a little, its ego kind of got ahead of itself and it said, Hey, now that we’ve established ourselves in the spring, we do have some big stars like, uh, uh, Herschel Walker, like Doug Flutie, uh, some of these others. We’re gonna try to take the, uh, take the NFL on, uh, head to head and we’re gonna move from the spring to the fall. And the other thing they did that was very important is they filed a lawsuit against, uh, the NFL, saying that the NFL was engaging in antitrust activity that was keeping this rival league down. It was, uh, keeping them off TV by using their market power with some of the broadcasters. It was using its market power with stadiums to keep these teams out. And so they took him to court, and I think the, the hope was that there would have to be a settlement and that settlement would result in the USFL merging with the NFL. And the owners of the big teams in the USFL would kind of get a backdoor into the NFL this way. As it turns out, the court, in fact did find in favor of the USFL. Uh, they said yes, the NFL is engaging in illegal antitrust activity, but they also said. You guys are insane. Uh, going against the NFL in the fall, there was no way you’re gonna make it. So even though the NFL was found guilty, the jury only awarded $1 of damages. Uh, technically in antitrust cases, that’s tripled. So they actually were awarded $3 in damages and the league basically folded the next day. They won their lawsuit, but they folded the next day. But of course, the owner that had most. Most importantly pushed the league to go head to head against the NFL was the owner of the new, uh, New Jersey team, the Generals New Jersey Generals. Right? And it was Donald J. Trump. Donald Trump. Uh, so Donald Trump pretty much bankrupted the USFL. By, uh, by saying we’re gonna go head to head, uh, with the NFL instead of trying to build a, a Spring Sports League. Now, to be fair to Donald Trump, which I don’t necessarily want to be, but to be fair to him, um, there’s no guarantee that the USFL would’ve made it as a spring league either, but I think anyone, again, a jury looking at this said there was just no chance of that league, uh, surviving against, uh, the NFL. If you try to go head to head in the poll. Just, just outta curiosity, uh, you know, there, when you talk about Trump, I know like he’s had an interest in, you know, professional football teams for a long time where he did, at least, there’s a certain politics that goes into buying an NFL team as well, right? Right. So the NFL is a partnership. Yeah. Which means that they can choose who they decide to partner with. And, uh, the presumption was, uh, in the 1980s when Donald Trump was trying to become an NFL owner that Donald Trump, uh, neither had the money, nor had the friendships among other NFL player, uh, NFL owners, uh, to get into that very exclusive club. And so again, he was able to get into the USFL because it was a much lower buy-in, in terms of, of cost. The USFL owners couldn’t be as picky about who they wanted as fellow partners, and again, I think Donald Trump saw the USFL as a way to potentially get into the NFL through the back door through this lawsuit, and, and by moving directly in the, in the fall because the jury just didn’t find that, that there was any plan. By which the USFL teams could have ever become profitable, uh, going head to head in the fall against the NFL. Let’s talk a little bit about sort of valuations, because what’s interesting is, you know, you’ve talked about scarcity and, you know, the way that the leagues have manipulated, uh, that to make sure that there, you know, the values continue to grow, but at some point in the last 30, 40 years, the numbers just really skyrocketed, right? Where these football teams, you know. It wasn’t a straight line in terms of how much they were worth. What, what went into that massive inflection of, uh, of, of valuation? So, first of all, I think you’re exactly right. There has been this massive inflection. Uh, so I’ve been teaching sports economics since the 1990s and, and the 1990s were kind of at the end of an era where this was really one of the sames back in the seventies, eighties, and even as late as the early nineties, that if you wanna become a millionaire. Start out a multimillionaire and then buy a sports team because it was a, it was just a, uh, a dumpster fire that you could just burn up cash without any hope of any sort of real return. And that changed in probably the late eighties, early nineties. That really changed, uh, a couple things. Change that, uh, first of all. By the nineties and certainly by the two thousands, um, most of the big professional sports in the United States had solved lots of their labor relation problems with the, with the athletes. So there was always this question about, uh, you know, do athletes have the ability to bargain with other teams? Are they able to get free agent, uh, agency, are teams going to be constantly fighting and, and spending every dollar that they can down to the point of bankruptcy to buy that superstar team? And what happened again in the nineties, starting in the eighties through the nineties and the two thousands is pretty much leagues have, uh, agreed to a world where. We’re gonna limit the amount of spending, uh, that we’re gonna do on players so that we’re not all bankrupting each other, bidding for players. In order to get the players to go along with that, we come to an agreement that we’re gonna share basically half the money with the players. And that’s exactly how the NHL works, the NBA works and the NFL works. Major League Baseball is not like that yet. And we may see not this season, but the next one, um, them trying to finally join ranks with the other, uh, with the other leagues. Uh, the question is whether we’re gonna see that happen without a gigantic, uh, work stoppage that. You know, some people who are pessimistic think we’re, we may not have baseball at all in 2027. 2026 is fine, but 20, 27 may, may fall. So as soon as like your costs are all covered up, that you know that everyone is kind of playing on a level playing field. Once we know that we don’t have to worry about bankrupting ourselves. We are only paying players, what we’re bringing in as revenue. All of a sudden, this is a fairly safe investment in a way that it never was prior to, you know, this all dying down. Couple other things going on here as well is, of course, the country’s gotten bigger. We have gotten bigger, but without adding additional, many additional franchises, which means, uh, those, those tickets are becoming increasingly expensive. We’ve gotten richer in a, in a skewed fashion, so that, uh, that of course the rich have gotten richer, a lot faster than the poor have. But of course, going to a baseball game, especially with those luxury boxes and things like this, is, uh, an activity that is reserved for the wealthy. And as the wealthy have gotten more, uh, uh, have gotten, you know, increasingly rich, uh, that means that. You know, businesses like Major League Baseball in the NFL that cater to the upper class, uh, do disproportionately well. And the last thing, and I’m sure you’ve talked about, uh, this before, is on your show, obviously you can have, um, you can have investments that are irrational as long as you think there’s someone later that’s irrational, that you can, you can hand it off to, right? This is, this is all the Greater fool theory. Uh, although I don’t think necessarily in this case, the, the owners are fools, but. Sports teams are a toy of billionaires that you say, well, look, I, I am, I’m a Mark Cuban. I’ve made billions of dollars. Now I want to spend some of my, my money on a, a fun asset. You know, you and I might collect a baseball cards. Mark Cuban might collect baseball teams, right? Uh, so, uh, in a world you might be willing to overpay because you wanna be a sports soldier and you wanna rub elbows with. You know, KA Leonard, you wanna rub elbows with, uh, with, with Shhe Tani. Um, and you may be willing to overpay for that asset, but guess what? 20 years down the way, there’s still gonna be another billionaire who wants to rub elbows with that next generation of superstars. And so you’re fairly sure that the next time when it comes to sell your franchise, there will be another person who’s willing to pay a premium for that asset as well. So again, as we’ve gotten more billionaires, more billionaire wealth, um, this is something that, uh, you know, has attracted folks like Steve Ballmer to, to part with, with big money. And, uh, again, as billionaire assets have grown, uh, the ability and the desire to buy these teams has grown as well. I would think a major driver of the value. Is also coming from, um, the, the media sources, uh, that are changing, right? Where, I mean, I remember, you know, again, being a kid and there was this, you know, there was Monday night football and it was on NBC and. And that, that’s how it worked. But now there’s like bidding for these things and you’ve got Amazon, uh, doing Thursday night football, which is a little weird. Um, and you know, you sometimes you have, uh, uh, you have games on Peacock. What’s going on with that? How does it affect the economics? Uh, and ultimately, like where is this headed? So, uh, in a, in a league like the NFL, uh, over 60% of all revenues that they generate is media revenue, right? Because most of us aren’t going to games every day, uh, too expensive for us, or too time consuming or all sorts of other things. But, uh, lots of us tune in on tv. So we’re talking about, uh, well over $10 billion of annual media contracts with the NFL. Um, and those numbers have been going up, uh, at least in part because you have media companies, uh, in a pretty competitive environment bidding against one another for these things. Now, one of the things about, again, things like the NFL or the NBA is it allows broadcasters or other types of TV networks to bring in customers in a way that their regular programming doesn’t. So a, a company may actually be willing to overpay for the NFL, kind of as a way to get people to buy all of your other products. A famous example from early days, uh, is, is Fox, right? So in the old days there were three big networks. So old days, I’m talking, you know, 1970s, there were the three big networks, right? There was A, B, CNB, C, and CBS, and they all competed against one another. And then in the 1980s, this rival network came up and this is Fox. And they wanted to get into all these markets nationwide. Well, how do you make sure that a. A local station decides to pick up the Fox programming. So for example, I grew up in Denver and Denver had a, had a, an independent channel that, you know, played reruns and all sorts of other things, and, and so they have a broadcast license already. Fox goes up to them and says, Hey, would you like to carry our regular programming? And, and that, that channel said, well, I don’t really think so. We’re doing fine showing Gilligan’s Island and Love Boat and things like this, and we don’t need, uh, an entire set of your programming. We’re doing just fine, as as it is. Uh, so Fox couldn’t get a foothold in that Denver market. So what Fox does is they buy rights to the NFL. All of a sudden now they go back and say, Hey, we’ve got all this Fox programming, we’ve got the Simpsons, and we’ve got, I don’t know, uh, you know, uh, you know, these early, these early Fox programming. But, um, they say, but we also have the NFL. You can’t, you can’t turn down the NFL. And then all of a sudden that existing affiliate says, okay, all right, we’ll add the whole line of Fox programming because you’re right, we can’t turn down having the NFL. So what, what basically happens here is the NFL serves as this kind of must stock item. And uh, you know, Fox was willing to overpay for the NFL because now they’re gonna get everyone to be able to buy the Simpsons and everything else they were offering at the same time. Uh, and so media rights have gone much, have gone up much faster. And we see this all over the place, right? How do you get people to buy. Amazon Prime. Well, let’s say that’s the only way you get to watch, uh, football on Thursday nights. How do you get people to buy, you know, apple tv? You offer major league soccer games as part of their package, right? Uh, and so this is how you kinda legitimize yourself as an actual, real, uh, you know, quote real media company is by offering some, uh, live. Live sports. And that gets people who would not otherwise buy Netflix or Amazon Prime or Apple, uh, to actually purchase those because again, they’re offering this secondary item. Then presumably that in turn drives up the value of of the NFL and you know, they’re bringing in a lot more money because they’ve got not just the three major networks bidding on them, but they’ve got all sorts of big companies with deep pockets. Willing to, you know, increase their, their, their revenue is and, and that sort of snowballs. Is that, is that fair? No, and that’s exactly right. And, and for as much as I talk about, you know, that billionaire who wants the an NFL team or an NDA team as a. Prestige asset. Uh, they’re also concerned about having it as an actual functioning asset as well. So I’m willing to pay, you know, a lot more, even if I’m willing to pay a premium. That premium is based on a fundamental value in the first place. And how do you drive that fundamental value? You drive that fundamental value by maximizing the revenue you generate through things like media contracts, and by maximizing. And by minimizing your costs, by making sure that your labor costs aren’t gonna run away with you, uh, because again, hopefully you, uh, most of the leagues have solved kind of their long-term labor, uh, their labor strife between them and the players within each league. There is also some different rules, and specifically, again, being a big NFL fan, I love the fact that the NFL has a salary cap and profit sharing for each team. ’cause it makes for a much more competitive league, basically, you know, for people who don’t know what that means, essentially each team can pay, has a salary cap of how much they can pay players for a given year. But not all of the leagues have that. Uh, I don’t really follow the other ones. I, I’m not sure who has it, who doesn’t, but I know that, like in baseball, I don’t think they have that. And it creates a situation where you’ve got the Dodgers or the Yankees in, in, in the World Series. More often than not, and you know, you’re not getting the smaller teams usually. No. So you’re exactly right. So the NFL has what’s called a, uh, a salary cap, and it’s actually got what’s called a hard cap. So they’re actually quite serious about this, and there are very few exceptions that can be made to go over this cap. Uh, this cap is based on the total amount of revenue that’s being generated by the league. Uh, and again, the cap basically is the way that they make sure that they share. A fair proportion of the money with the players. Uh, what’s also important is they also have a floor. So the, the cap this year is about 225 million, if I remember right, but the floor is about 200 million. So every team in the league basically is spending the same amount on labor this season, which makes for a very even playing field. And we know that some teams are gonna lose and some teams are gonna win. And it seems like the Browns and the, and the jets never win. And it seems like other teams always do. But what’s important about that is it’s not just because they’re in a big city, that they have these gigantic revenue advantages and that they can buy a championship. It really is, you know, who is smartest with their money, who’s smartest with your coaching, who’s lucky with the draft and things like this. And, uh, that makes for a very nice thing here. What’s also super important is the NFL has a gigantic amount of revenue sharing, and the reason for this is every single game you watch on TV is part of a contract that’s being sold by the league, not the team. And because of that, the league is generating all these, all this revenue, and then is equally distributing that money to each of the individual teams. So a, a team playing in little tiny Green Bay is generating exactly the same amount of media revenue as the New York Giants. Or the LA Rams. So that’s really nice. Uh, again, gigantic amounts of, uh, again, even revenue sharing to all the participants. As a matter of fact, of all of the businesses in the United States, the NFL is probably the single most socialist company. In the United States. So this Great American pastime is wildly socialist when it comes to how they distribute their, their income. So what incentivizes a team to be better and to win Then from the ownership standpoint, if there’s revenue sharing, is it just at the, the other sources of income that come, like advertising, things like that. I’m, I’m just curious, like if there’s so much revenue sharing, what is it that drives a team to, you know, try to be better from the ownership standpoint? So first of all is that being bad doesn’t help you, right? This isn’t major league baseball, so we’re gonna go the o. The other extreme, at least for a US sport, is major League baseball. No, uh, salary cap there at all. So you can pay, uh, players as much as you want, although there is what’s called a luxury tax. So as you, as your, uh, salary, your total payroll gets too big, you start getting, uh, uh, paying penalties to the league, which is then redistributed to the poor teams in the league. That being said, you can spend as much as you want. So yeah, the Dodgers, they spent somewhere, uh, by some accounts somewhere around $400 million this year on talent, including, you know, gigantic contracts to folks like Shhe, Tani, right? Um, but there’s also no minimum either. So if you’re a team that decides, hey, we’re not even gonna bother to try to compete this year, uh, you are the. I don’t know to, if I should call them the Oakland A or the Las Vegas a a or the Sacramento A or the Traveling through the desert, sort of a for a while. Um, but, you know, this is a team that made a decision not to compete and had a, had a tiny payroll. Uh, other teams have decided to do this, and the, and the NFL you could decide that you didn’t wanna win. But it wouldn’t save you any money because again, not only is there a salary cap, there’s a salary floor. So if I have to pay $225 million each year anyway, I might as well try to win with that 225 million. Uh, ’cause I don’t have a choice to just collect my paycheck and hire, you know, the Minnesota Gophers for $20 million, uh, for my, for my team this year. ’cause that’s not an option. Right. Um, one of the things I wanted to just kind of, uh, drill down a little bit on is the model of the Green Bay Packers. As you um mentioned, it’s a tiny little town, northern Wisconsin. Uh, not much going on there. I’ve, I’ve been there myself for a game. It is unique in that it is owned, not by billionaires, but it’s owned essentially as by the fans. How, how does that work? And, and I guess the question is like, why, why aren’t other teams modeled that way? So other teams are not modeled that way because the NFL does not want other teams to be modeled that way, nor do any of the other, uh, major leagues out there. Uh, it’s not good for the NFL for a couple reasons. Uh, first of all. They have to open their books. If it’s a public company and they don’t like to open their books, um, you also don’t have a face for that, uh, league in a way that, that a person couldn’t, couldn’t be in there, uh, pouring extra money in as a kind of a, an, an angel investor. Uh, on top of that, uh, you can’t threaten to relocate to another city unless you get taxpayer subsidized. Um, you know, uh, stadiums and things because it’s a publicly owned team and we know that, that those public owners will not ever decide to move that team out. How did they get that status in the first place? That’s an interesting story, and it’s a story that’s not unique to. The Packers, but it is fairly unique to the United States. So, uh, in the rest of the world, this type of ownership model actually is fairly common. Um, teams that your, you know, listeners would’ve heard of, like Barcelona, like Al Madrid, these are club owned teams. Um, there is not an owner there. They are owned by the fans themselves, and they’re in the business of. Trying to stay in business every year while winning as many games as possible. Uh, there is, they’re not trying to win trophies for a, a Steinbrenner or a Mark Cuban. They’re trying to win, uh, trophies for that fan base. That literally, again, the, the season ticket holders are those owners. Um, the NFL itself, you know, was, was a very hard Scrabble league for a long time. It started in 1920, uh, and between 1920 and 1935. Roughly 55 teams played at least one season in the NFL. And of those 55 teams, basically all but about six of them, had gone outta business or relocated at some point in here. Uh, this is why actually we got such a socialist, uh, uh, business model here is because the owners of the big teams, the owners of the bears. Uh, the owners of the Giants, uh, they said, look, you know, this league isn’t gonna work if we can’t actually find someone to play. And yeah, we’re making money here, but we’re not gonna continue making money if we can’t find other teams that are gonna work in this league. So they said, Hey, we are gonna be very generous. We’re gonna make sure that, that we share our revenues with the people, uh, the other people in our league. We would rather have a small piece of a big pie, uh, than a big piece of a pie that is tiny or disappears completely. Uh, so that’s why we ended up with this, uh, revenue sharing. And of course they were very open to any sort of model that kept stable teams around, including a model where rather than some rich owner in, in Green Bay owns that team. Instead, it’s a municipally owned team. As long as that team had stability and conform long-term rivalries and can afford to put forward a product that’s gonna, that’s gonna work on a, you know, on an NFL field to make a competitive product, they were happy to kind of do whatever they needed to do because again, this was a, this was a really tough league to be in. For the first roughly 20 years with, you know, a lot more successes. There’s been a lot of talk, uh, I know about private equity entering the, uh, the NFL. Tell us, give us a little bit of an understanding of that. I mean, obviously, I, I kind of think of these owners in these buying groups as private equity already, so what’s the big deal? Is the point. So in most sports leagues have already allow private equity and already allow ownership groups with multiple owners, uh, to, to own teams. So again, uh, you know, the, the Red Sox, they have multiple owners of, of that team. Uh, again, Celtics, same sort of thing. Um, but in the NFL we have required basically one owner, right? So this is a, a person. That owns the team and is the face of the team and is this controlling majority owner, uh, they’re going to explicitly allow external people unrelated to the ownership group, to own pieces of NFL teams here. Uh, and I think the, the real issue here, uh, has to do with, uh, there are some franchises in the NFL where the owners are asset rich, but cash poor. I’m thinking actually, for example, the Bears. So the bears are still owned by the same group. Who bought the Bears back in 1920 ish. Right? So this, you know, the, the same family, the Halas, uh, have owned this team for a hundred years. Uh, by this point, you know, little pieces of the team have been handed down to all the cousins and the grandkids and the great grandkids and this sort of folks. Uh, so, uh, you know, I think in total there’s something like 86 different owners of the, of the Bears now, but they’re all part of that original ownership group that everyone. You know, has inherited a little, a little share here. Now mind you, you know, one 86th of the, uh, of the bears is like a hundred million dollars. You know, the bears are probably an $8 billion franchise. And so that’s a hundred million dollars of assets that each one of these grandkids has just because, you know, their grandfather made a smart, uh, smart investment a hundred years ago. Um, but it doesn’t mean that they can live the lifestyle of a person with a hundred million dollars. Because they’re not allowed to sell their share to anyone because private equity was never allowed. And the amount of money that that team is actually generating in terms of annual operating profits isn’t super high. So you’ve got a world where you’re wildly rich, but you can’t really do a lot with those riches. So you know, this is a team that would be prime for the idea of, well, let’s sell off 20% of this. 20% of the team is gonna be maybe a couple billion dollars. And, and then we will just share that basically it’s a big Christmas present to each one of these, uh, these kids here. And again, the, the thing here is that’s $2 billion in cash that each of these small minority owners gets rather than, you know, an asset that they can’t actually use. To buy a yacht in Monaco. Right? And so that’s giving these kids, or the, you know, these minority owners an option to basically, uh, you know, get liquidity for their ownership. And, and that’s the big difference, right? And of course the other thing is, is there are lots of wildly rich people who would like to be an owner of a team in a way that you could do that 20 or 30 years ago by being just a, you know, just a multimillionaire or a multi, multi multimillionaire. That was enough. Uh. You know, you can be a billionaire nowadays and not have nearly what it needs to become an owner in one of these big groups. So, uh, you know, if we think about, uh, Arod, right? Arod bought, uh, the Timberwolves, uh, in the NDA, um. But he couldn’t do it alone despite the fact that he was, uh, you know, for 10 years the highest paid athlete in the world, you know, signed the single biggest contract, uh, in the history of professional sports, uh, when he did so. Uh, and even a guy with that sort of money doesn’t have enough money to buy a sports franchise. So, uh, I think the NFL is, you know, looking down the, the road to a, a world where. Someone wants to sell, but there’s not that many folks with $10 billion out there. And so the idea that we were gonna keep a, a world where there’s gonna be one single owner forever, uh, you know that that’s a pretty small pool of people in a world where you’re thinking about selling franchises at $10 billion. But if we allow these to be sold private equity wise. Then people can live their dream of being a sports owner, you know, for a mere couple billion dollars. And of course, that increases the pool of, of potential people by a lot. You know, you, you mentioned, um, during, just a minute ago in, in passing that these teams don’t actually necessarily throw off a lot of cash. They’re not, you know, they’re not super profitable. It’s not like a bunch of money’s being distributed to owners. Uh, can you talk a little bit about that? I, I didn’t know that actually. Sure. So a bunch of these teams in, in fact, in terms of operating revenue, don’t actually generate gigantic amounts of, of money every year. Uh, again, taking an an NFL team, so an NFL team is gonna generate, you know, somewhere around $500 million, maybe six or $700 million a year, but you’re already competing about 250 million of that to, uh, to the players. So half of that revenue coming in automatically is going to the players. If you built yourself a new stadium anytime recently, obviously you could have big payments on that. Uh, there’s other operating expenses associated with that. Um, in, in a world where you’re not the NFL, but you’re a world like, uh, major League baseball, where. You have much more variability in your, in your player costs year to year and more variability in your revenue. Uh, you could easily end up with years where you’ve got negative cash flow or at least negative profits, and, uh, and that means that you need, you need to be able to weather that. And so of course that’s one of the reasons, for example, why the NFL, you know, wouldn’t just take anyone as an owner, you need to be for sure rich enough to, uh, to weather both the ups and the downs. Again, if you borrowed any money to, uh, to purchase the team, uh, that’s obviously a big, uh, big interest payment there as well. So you could easily have teams again, depending how the owner purchased that, that are not kicking out gigantic amounts of cash on a year to year basis. One of the things that I’ve been hearing about, I don’t really know how this would work, is the, is of private equity moving into potentially like college sports. So we’ve seen some changes in, uh, for example, in college football where now these players can legally get paid. So it’s, it’s starting to look more and more like a professional. Uh, professional league. So how would that work if you’ve got private money essentially buying, uh, the sports teams of an individual university? Or maybe I’m not, maybe that’s not exactly what’s happening, but that’s kind of the impression I got. So first of all, that is exactly what could be happening and, and what people are talking about. Uh, I am deeply skeptical that this is a good idea for the institutions involved. Um. So basically it works exactly like any other sort of, uh, sports franchise, right? Uh, basically you would have an owner, uh, you know, let’s call him Mark Cuban, although he’s not, you know, he’s, he’s not talking about doing this. But imagine Mark Cuban decided he wants to buy, uh, Ohio State, right? Uh, so he comes up with a a billion dollars hands over a billion dollars to Ohio State. And now Mark Cuban is the recipient of any revenues being generated by the Ohio State, uh, program here. Um, and so this works like, just like anything else, right? So this is, this is basically, um, a person like bringing money in, in exchange for a piece of the action. Uh, the reason I’m highly skeptical about this because. Uh, remember the name of your university is very, very strongly tied with the name of your athletic program, right? So, you know, the Ohio State University is the name of both the educational program as well as the, uh, you know, the sports teams, right? And so, uh, one of the reasons that that schools have sports teams in the first place. Is as a method of advertising for their other things, right? So they, they use spectator sports to bring in the students to, uh, bring in, uh, actually, you know, public taxpayer money, all sorts of things. Um, and of course if the school controls the money from the, uh, you know, controls the athletic program as well as the academic program, then we can presume that the interests of the athletic program and the academic program are aligned. As soon as you’ve sold off your, your athletic program to an external, uh, you know, an external buyer, then you have every reason to believe that the incentives of that athletic program, the incentives of the. Academic program are no longer aligned in, in a way that is useful. Um, for example, you could have that, that equity person say, you know what? I’m gonna make money no matter what, and I’m just gonna tank all of our programs because I’m gonna generate more revenue by spending less. And that’s what maximizes my profit. But that may very well harm the academic side. And so if you allow, you know, private equity to come in and they have any control. Over that, uh, athletic program, you basically outsourced an extremely important part of your business while still meaning that your business in the athletics is, is importantly tied to the other parts of your business that you haven’t outsourced. And, uh, that makes me deeply concerned for anyone who would consider going down this route. Is, is that likely to happen, do you think? I don’t think anyone who makes predictions about college sport to this point, uh, can, can do that with any certainty at all. It’s fascinating stuff. Um, and one last question I guess for you, which is, you know, we talk about like people who own teams, uh, being, you know, multi-billionaires. Um. Is there any way that fans can still get a stake if they’re just simple millionaires? Is that just not something that’s po un unless you’re live in Green Bay, I guess, is that pretty much non-existent? So it depends what you’re interested in doing, right? So if you’re a mere multimillionaire, uh, you’re not gonna become an NFL owner. You’re not gonna become an NDO owner. Right. Mm-hmm. Um, if you’re very famous and a multimillionaire, you might be able to come into an ownership group because they want you as the face of the organization. Right. Um, one example of this was George W. Bush who came in with a very tiny ownership stake, uh, when, uh, he bought the Texas Rangers and he owned about. 2% of that, that team. But he was the face of that because he was the son of the president. Right. Uh, and, and then when the Rangers did well, uh, you know, he, he made a fortune doing that as well. So, um, the answer is generally no. But as long as your heart isn’t wedded to the NFL or NBA, there are certainly options that you can come into. Right. Um, we have seen. One tier down, uh, buying into things like the WNBA or the, uh, NWSL in women’s soccer or, uh, or women’s basketball. Uh, even that’s become pricey nowadays. These are a hundred million dollar franchises now these days. Or you can take chances with lower level, essentially minor league, uh, soccer in the United States or, uh, elsewhere, uh, in, in the world. And I think you know where we’re going here. So if you’re a merely. Multimillionaire, uh, and you’re a, a famous, uh, movie star or two, you could put your money in and buy a football or soccer team in Wales, uh, called Reim. Right? And of course, that’s exactly what Ryan Reynolds did. And Malaney and, uh, you know, they did not have anywhere close to NFL money despite being famous guys, you know, big movie stars, you know, you know, tens of millions of dollars in, uh, in money. They’re nowhere close to being NFL owner money. Guess what they were wreck some owner money and, uh, they get all the fun and excitement of being an owner without needing to be a billionaire. Interesting. Well, listen, uh, I, I appreciate all your time and, uh, it’s, it’s fun for me personally as a sports fan to see how this stuff works. Um, do you have a site where you write, do you have people curious about this stuff or, or how can they learn more? So how people can learn more is, uh, is there is some fun sports economic stuff out there. Uh, the classic, uh, book in sports economics is of course Moneyball by Michael Lewis, who of course is a great writer about all things finance and, and people who are interested in, in general interest books about, you know, all sorts of things related from to the tech boom to, uh, obviously the financial crisis of the two thousands to. His early days in, in junk bonds in the 1980s. Uh, Michael Lewis is one of the, one of the great writers out there. Um, uh, other fun books by colleagues of mine, uh, omics by Stephan Semanski is, is a fun one. Uh, and, uh, you know, you can catch up, uh, with some, uh, some. Other podcasts that, uh, that follow these sort of things, including Freakonomics has often things on sports that are, that are fun as well. Uh, unfortunately if you wanna, you know, hear from me, it’s all textbook stuff and then I’ll have to give you a grade. And so probably that. Uh, but again, it, it’s a great time to be a fan of sports and of economics ’cause there’s just so much good stuff out there. Thanks so much for being on the program today. Again, my pleasure. You make a lot of money, but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until your thirties. Now you’re trying to catch up. Meanwhile, you’ve got a mortgage, a private school to pay for, and you feel like you’re getting further and further behind. Now, good news, if you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program put out by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world. It’s called Wealth Accelerator, and it can help you amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens. Steve, the concepts here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you. Check it out for yourself by going to wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. And, uh, once again, uh, I wanna just wish you a happy Thanksgiving and, uh, thank you for, you know, being a listener of this show. And one more thing, just a reminder, uh, we are heading into sort of the last month or so. Of, uh, investment possibilities in the investor club. Wealth formula.com is where you go to join that group. And if you’re looking for a last minute tax mitigation type investment, make sure you sign up as soon as possible. Uh, that’s it for this week on Wealth Formula Podcast. Happy Thanksgiving. This is Buck Jre signing off. If you wanna learn more, you can now get free access to our in-depth personal finance course featuring industry leaders like Tom Wheel Wright and Ken McElroy. Visit wealthformularoadmap.com.

In this podcast, Kushal speaks with Tushar Gupta about the latest reform initiated by the current BJP led NDA government where New Labour codes are being implemented from today. Under this reform 29 different laws merge into four Labour codes. All states governments are on board to support the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 with effect from 21st November 2025. Follow Tushar: X: @Tushar15_ Substack: https://politypolicy.substack.com/ #labourcodes #labourreforms #businessnews #policyupdate #workersrights #employmentnews #indiaeconomy ------------------------------------------------------------ Listen to the podcasts on: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kushal-mehra-99891819 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rVcDV3upgVurMVW1wwoBp Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-c%C4%81rv%C4%81ka-podcast/id1445348369 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-carvaka-podcast ------------------------------------------------------------ Support The Cārvāka Podcast: Buy Kushal's Book: https://amzn.in/d/58cY4dU Become a Member on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKPx... Become a Member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carvaka UPI: kushalmehra@icici Interac Canada: kushalmehra81@gmail.com To buy The Carvaka Podcast Exclusive Merch please visit: http://kushalmehra.com/shop ------------------------------------------------------------ Follow Kushal: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kushal_mehra?ref_... Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KushalMehraO... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecarvakap... Koo: https://www.kooapp.com/profile/kushal... Inquiries: https://kushalmehra.com/ Feedback: kushalmehra81@gmail.com

On today's program, Duluth Vineyard cleared Interim Pastor John Kliewer of misconduct after an investigation found him innocent…but his wife is crying foul, saying Kliewer was forced to sign an NDA as part of his settlement agreement. We'll have details. And, a look at where the My Faith Votes is today a year after its former CEO Jason Yates was charged with the possession of child sexual abuse materials. Plus, another next installment in our occasional series on radical generosity. But first, the Anglican Church in North America has suspended Archbishop Steve Wood after more than 140 clergy signed an open letter calling for his inhibition.  The producer for today's program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today's program include Kathryn Post, Kim Roberts, Isaac Wood, Stacey Horton, Daniel Ritchie, Marci Seither, Tony Mator, and Christina Darnell. Until next time, may God bless you.

इस बिहार चुनाव ने न जाने कितनों को चौंकाया! हुआ यूं कि Exit Polls के रुझानों में जो हवा, महागठबंधन के पक्ष में बन रही थी. वो असली नतीज़ों से आते ही हवा हो गई. जीत हुई NDA की और बिहार के नए सीएम बने, बिहार के पुराने सीएम नीतीश कुमार. लेकिन Exit Polls के आने से भी पहले से एक आवाज़ थी, जिसने नतीजों की सटीक भविष्यवाणी कर दी थी. ये आवाज़ थी 1988 से चुनावों को देख समझ और ओढ़-बिछा रहे सीनियर जर्नलिस्ट राजदीप सरदेसाई की. आपने उन्हें टीवी और सोशल मीडिया पर खूब देखा होगा, लेकिन इस बात का वादा है कि इस पॉडकास्ट में आपको वो एक नए अंदाज़ में ही बात करते नज़र आएंगे. पढ़ाकू नितिन में हमने उनसे पूछा कि जब वो बिहार चुनाव की रिपोर्टिंग के लिए ग्राउंड पर उतरे तो क्या चुन कर लाए? उनसे समझा कि आखिर ऐसा क्या है कि पिछले कुछ सालों से नीतीश कुमार जिसकी गाड़ी में बैठते हैं, वही फर्स्ट आती है? ये भी समझा कि नीतीश के अलावा NDA में मौजूद BJP और LJP का प्रदर्शन किस हद तक चौंकाने वाला रहा? बात सिर्फ़ जीतने वालों पर ही नहीं हुई समझा महागठबंधन के मुखिया तेजस्वी यादव इस बार के चुनाव में क्यों चूके? और ये भी पूछा कि आख़िर Prashant Kishor का भविष्य बिहार की राजनीति में राजदीप को कैसा दिखता है? बहुत मज़ा आएगा. गारंटी है. बस पॉडकास्ट पूरा सुनिएगा प्रड्यूसर: मानव देव रावत साउंड मिक्स: अमन पाल

The Art of Consulting Podcast – Episode Transcript Hosts: Andy Fry & Cat Lam Episode Topic: Non-Disclosure Agreements and the Power of Keeping Information Confidential [00:00 – Intro Music] Andy Fry & Cat Lam (together): Welcome to the Art of Consulting Podcast with Andy Fry and Cat Lam. We are seasoned IT consultants, CPAs, and professional-development connoisseurs. Each episode we bring you an inspiring message to help you discover that X-factor as a professional in your field so you can gain the success you know you deserve in your career and in your life. [00:15] Andy Fry: Hey everybody, today I want to talk about non-disclosure agreements and keeping information close to our chest. One of the things that, as a consultant, you've either already signed or you will sign—especially if you're new to consulting—is a non-disclosure agreement, or what's commonly called an NDA. It really is a confidentiality agreement that says you're not going to share information that is not already public with people who shouldn't have it. Publicly traded companies require this because if you have access to their financials, or you're in meetings where they're about to disclose material non-public information, you possess something valuable. If you start talking to other people, sharing that privately, or—worse—publicly, you can be sued, fired, or face a whole range of consequences depending on the severity. Most NDAs are signed purely for protection; you sign it, you agree not to share, and most of us never have to worry about it day-to-day. But the broader concept of confidentiality is absolutely critical in consulting—and, honestly, in our personal lives too. [01:10] The number-one reason it matters? We're trying to prove we're trustworthy. Trust is a huge thing for me. I even wrote a book called The Trust Paradigm (there are actually three books with that title, but mine's the one with Andy Fry on the cover). I wrote it because I wanted to figure out: What is trust? How do you build it? How do you measure it? As consultants, we prove trustworthiness through integrity—making sure the information we hear isn't used for our own benefit. "Our own benefit" can be financial (classic corporate espionage—yes, it happens at the corporate level too, not just governments). Or, more commonly, it's the ego boost of feeling important because we "know something" and get to tell it. [02:05] I've always treated any confidentiality agreement as lifelong. I have clients I haven't worked with in years. The information I learned back then—probably all public by now—but there could still be context, reasons behind decisions, who said what about letting someone go or selling a division… I view that NDA as in perpetuity. I'm never going to talk about it. I recommend everyone adopt that mindset. I actually had a client bring me into a highly sensitive project with only a handful of people in the loop. They told me point-blank: "We're bringing you in because you've proven in the past you don't share things you hear." They still made me sign another NDA. I signed it and said, "Just so you know—when I sign this, I treat it as forever." [03:00] Organizations can and do test for leaks. At high-clearance levels it's obvious, but even regular companies sometimes plant slightly different versions of the same information to see who's talking. So ask yourself with every piece of information: Is this my story to tell? I once had a family member share something very personal that was happening with my immediate family—me, my wife, and our two kids. It wasn't their story. I told them, "That wasn't yours to tell." It hurt because it showed a lack of boundary awareness. [03:45 – Personal story – Calgary street encounter] I was walking in Calgary for a client, and a friend's wife comes out of an apartment building that definitely wasn't where they lived. Eyes got big, I nodded, kept walking. I spent the next week wondering, "Do I tell my friend?" A week later he called laughing: "Hey, I heard you ran into [wife's name]. She was visiting a friend who lives there and couldn't remember your name in the moment." We both laughed—she thought I kept walking because I suspected something, and I kept walking because I didn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing. Moral: We often don't have the full picture. [04:40] As consultants we're paid for what we know. Having "extra" information can make us feel powerful, special, in the know. But watch high-performing executives in a room—they speak very little. Top performers are extremely discreet about what they share and with whom. That's the behavior we want to model. [05:10 – Early-career story – drinks with another consultant] Over 25 years ago I was out for drinks. Another consultant bragged they'd just signed a big staff-augmentation deal with a health authority that was actually going to replace a bunch of internal employees. I had a close friend who worked there. I was torn—do I warn him? A senior consultant gave me great advice: You care about your friend—that's valid. You don't actually know if the rumor is true or the full intent. Even if you tell him, what do you expect him to do? Quit? Confront his boss? Live in paranoia waiting for the axe? Sometimes "sharing because we care" just offloads worry onto someone else. [06:10 – Practical tips for everyday confidentiality] Speakerphone etiquette: If you're on speaker and others can hear, announce who's in the room (or the car). I don't want to swear or share sensitive info if your 7-year-old (or anyone) is listening. Recorded meetings / Zoom / Teams: Once it's recorded or transcribed, you no longer control that file. Assume anything said can be forwarded. Sharing with spouse or significant other: It's normal to need to vent, but sanitize the details. Leave out names, specific identifiers, anything that could accidentally get repeated at the next dinner party. Doctor/therapist analogy: You wouldn't want your doctor or therapist going home and giving your spouse a play-by-play with your name attached. Treat client info the same way. Assume you live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. That mindset keeps you safe. [07:30 – Closing] If you're new to consulting, this is one of the most important professional habits you can build. If you're seasoned, it's a friendly reminder. Keeping information confidential when it should be is simply the right thing to do—and it will accelerate your career because people will trust you with bigger, more sensitive, and more lucrative engagements. So keep being awesome, work hard, and have yourself a great week. [08:00 – Outro Music]

Robyn and Kody disgust us with their incessant PDA, Meri renovates her haunted B&B and discusses her NDA with Kody, Christine and David talk finances, and Janelle doesn't care about anything just as long as Coyote Pass is sold! Stay tuned for our exclusive After Show this week (only on Patreon!) where we get into some hot goss surrounding Janelle and some interesting Plathville news. Get tons more cringey content on our Patreon! https://patreon.com/realitytvcringeFollow us on IG https://instagram.com/realitytvcringeSubscribe to see our raccoon faces on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_2CgqXLWjIEKV9PCtH3Kjw?sub_confirmation=1Leave a message for us on SpeakPipe: https://speakpipe.com/realitytvcringeSupport the pod by leaving a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform! Thank you so much

Bihar has once again delivered a political drama worthy of its reputation—record turnout, sharp debates over the voter rolls, a decisive victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and a fresh round of questions about whether the opposition has what it takes to displace Modi and the BJP. The NDA—anchored by Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United), together with the BJP and other allies—secured a landslide victory by winning 202 out of 243 seats in the state assembly. The opposition, for its part, saw little change in its vote share from 2020, but could only muster 35 seats. To work through the elections—and their larger meaning for India's political economy—Milan is joined on the show today by the Hindustan Times data and political economy editor Roshan Kishore. Over the past several months, Roshan and his team have consistently put out the most thoughtful data and analysis on the trends in Bihar. Milan and Roshan discuss the resilience of the JD(U)–BJP alliance, the polarization in the electorate, and the dissonance within the opposition alliance's campaign. Plus, the two discuss the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s controversial review of electoral rolls, the impact of upstart Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party, and what the elections portend for India's political economy beyond November.Watch the episode here.Episode notes:1. Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha, “Not conspiracy, political economy explains Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 18, 2025.2. Nishant Ranjan and Roshan Kishore, “The resurrection of ‘coalition of extremes' in Bihar,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.3. Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore, “How did Bihar go from a 2020 cliff-hanger to a 2025 landslide?” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.4. Roshan Kishore, Abhishek Jha, and Nishant Ranjan, “Three key takeaways from Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.5. Roshan Kishore, “Bihar election results: Twelve Ds that explain the Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 14, 2025.6.  “A Sixth of Humanity and the Dreams of a Nation (with Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian),” Grand Tamasha, October 22, 2025. 7. Neelanjan Sircar, “The Welfarist Prime Minister: Explaining the National-State Election Gap,” Economic and Political Weekly 56, no. 10 (March 2021).

Another assembly election is done and dusted. And the Opposition has lost yet again – this time it was decimated. The NDA won 202 out of the 243 seats in Bihar, with a vote share of 46.5%. The Mahagathbandhan could secure only 35 seats, with a vote share of 37.6%. Before the results were out, no one had predicted that the NDA would cross 200 seats. But post-facto, we are hearing sophisticated hypotheses about the so-called ‘index of unity', caste arithmetic, etc that apparently benefited the NDA. And once again, the Election Commission's role is in the spotlight, especially with the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. What does this verdict mean for Bihar, and for the Opposition parties, which, in 2026, face a series of assembly elections preceded by SIR, just like in Bihar? Guest: Professor Kumar Sanjay, who teaches history at Swami Shraddhanand College. Delhi. Host: G. Sampath Shot by Tayyab Hussain Produced and edited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

JDU विधायक दल ने नेता नीतीश कुमार चुने गए, आज 3:30 बजे NDA की बैठक, 272 प्रमुख हस्तियों ने चुनाव आयोग पर हमलों के खिलाफ खुला पत्र जारी किया, आंध्र के गोदावरी में मुठभेड़ में 7 नक्सली मारे गए, पीएम मोदी आज आंध्र-तमिलनाडु दौरे पर हैं, अल-फलाह यूनिवर्सिटी मामले में जावेद सिद्दीकी 13 दिन की ED रिमांड पर, सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने ट्रिब्यूनल रिफॉर्म्स एक्ट खत्म किया, गैंगस्टर अनमोल बिश्नोई आज दिल्ली लाया जाएगा, गोरखपुर में रेबीज़ संक्रमित गाय की मौत, शेयर बाज़ार में सेंसेक्स-निफ्टी में तेज़ी दर्ज हुई, ट्रंप ने खशोगी केस में क्राउन प्रिंस को क्लीन चिट दी और दक्षिण लेबनान पर हुए हमले में 13 लोगों की मौत हुई, सिर्फ़ 5 मिनट में सुनिए दोपहर 1 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें

NDA ने नीतीश कुमार को विधायक दल का नेता चुना, जिसके बाद उन्होंने राज्यपाल को इस्तीफा सौंपकर नई सरकार बनाने का दावा पेश किया, NIA ने अनमोल बिश्नोई को पटियाला हाउस कोर्ट में पेश किया और 15 दिन की कस्टडी मांगी, कोयंबटूर में PM मोदी ने PM-किसान की 21वीं किस्त जारी की, 272 पूर्व अधिकारियों ने एक खुले पत्र में राहुल गांधी की आलोचना की, सेना ने नई डिजिटल कॉम्बैट यूनिफॉर्म का डिजाइन आधिकारिक रूप से रजिस्टर कराया, पश्चिम बंगाल में SIR को लेकर तनाव बढ़ा, BLO की आत्महत्या के बाद ममता बनर्जी ने आयोग पर उठाए सवाल, स्वच्छता मिशन में ODF प्लस गांवों की संख्या बढ़कर 5.67 लाख हुई और यूक्रेन के पश्चिमी शहर टर्नोपिल में रूस का बड़ा हमला. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए शाम 7 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

नीतीश कुमार और NDA नेताओं ने गांधी मैदान में शपथ समारोह की तैयारी का जायज़ा लिया, बीजेपी ने पश्चिम बंगाल के मुख्य चुनाव अधिकारी को लिखा पत्र, कांग्रेस SIR के विरोध में दिसंबर के पहले सप्ताह में दिल्ली में बड़ी रैली करेगी, विदेश मंत्री एस. जयशंकर ने रूस में SCO बैठक में आतंकवाद पर ज़ीरो टॉलरेंस की बात कही, तरनतारन उपचुनाव में गड़बड़ी के आरोपों के बाद चुनाव आयोग ने डीजीपी को किया तलब, X और ChatGPT की सर्विसेज देशभर में डाउन, दिल्ली दंगों पर आज सुप्रीम कोर्ट में सुनवाई हुई, बाबा सिद्धीकी हत्या मामले के साजिशकर्ता अनमोल बिश्नोई को भारत लाने की तैयारी. सुंदर पिचाई ने AI पर पूरी तरह भरोसा न करने की सलाह दी, शेख़ हसीना की सज़ा पर अंतरराष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकार संगठनों ने चिंता जताई. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए शाम 7 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

This week on Sister Wives, Coyote Pass FINALLY gets sold to the highest bidder, Meri drops a bomb about an NDA, Kody gets rid of his mustache for the sake of more kissing, Christine questions her overspending and more!Follow me on social media, find links to merch, Patreon and more here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First, we talk to veteran journalist and The Indian Express' contributing editor Neerja Chowdhury about the results of the Bihar elections and what is in store for Nitish Kumar and the NDA now that they have defeated the Mahagathbandhan in the assembly elections.  Next, we talk to The Indian Express' Anonna Dutt about the current status of TB cases in India according to the Global TB report 2025. She talks about India's target to eliminate TB entirely from the country and how close we are to that target and the challenges that India faces in achieving that goal. (17:12)Lastly, we talk about an explosion that happened in Nowgam police station on the outskirts of Srinagar that killed 9 people and left 29 injured. (27:09)Hosted by Niharika NandaProduced by Niharika Nanda and Shashank Bhargava Edited and mixed by Vijay Doiphode

Welcome to the launch episode of Demo Dispatch! This new monthly podcast from the National Demolition Association brings you timely updates, safety lessons from the field and real-world conversations with the professionals shaping the future of demolition.

Comment on the Show by Sending Mark a Text Message.Think you're protecting yourself by forwarding emails, saving pay spreadsheets, and uploading screenshots to a chatbot before HR lowers the boom? That impulse can turn a strong discrimination or retaliation claim into a story about you breaking the rules. We walk through the hidden legal traps that many employees miss—confidentiality agreements, acceptable use policies, non-disparagement clauses—and how employers flip those mistakes into a ready-made defense.We pull back the curtain on the “retaliation playbook”: IT flags unusual downloads, HR opens a policy investigation, and termination arrives with a “legitimate, non-retaliatory reason.” Then comes after-acquired evidence to limit damages, motions to exclude improperly obtained documents, and the credibility battle that distracts from your core allegations. We also break down the whistleblower myth. Some statutes can protect targeted document retention, but coverage is narrow, fact-specific, jurisdiction-dependent, and easy to lose. Relying on Title VII's anti-retaliation language to excuse broad data grabs is a costly mistake.The AI trap gets special attention. Uploading company files to a chatbot creates discoverable records, waives privilege, and can breach your NDA. It also invites arguments that you were case-shopping, not reporting unlawful conduct. Instead of risking counterclaims and evidence exclusions, follow the safer path: consult an employment lawyer early, use contemporaneous personal notes, make formal complaints that trigger preservation, consider agency filings like the EEOC to lock in holds, and deploy preservation letters to prevent deletion. We close with a practical checklist of do nots and smart alternatives that keep your claim strong and the focus on the employer's conduct.If this conversation could save a colleague from a self-inflicted wound, share it. Subscribe for more plain-English employment law guidance, and leave a review to tell us what topic you want next. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States. For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.

जैश-ए-मोहम्मद मॉड्यूल जांच में एक महिला डॉक्टर गिरफ़्तार, बिहार में नई सरकार के गठन की तैयारियां तेज़, जन सुराज ने NDA की जीत पर बड़ा आरोप लगाया, छत्तीसगढ़ के सुकमा में सुरक्षाबलों ने मुठभेड़ में 3 नक्सलियों को मार गिराया, केरल में टिकट न मिलने से नाराज़ एक RSS कार्यकर्ता ने आत्महत्या की, दिल्ली में हवा 'गंभीर' श्रेणी में रही, मेक्सिको में सरकार-विरोधी प्रदर्शनों में 120 लोग घायल, साउथ कोरिया को मिली परमाणु ऊर्जा आधारित पनडुब्बियां बनाने की अनुमति और भारत को मिला 124 रन का लक्ष्य, सिर्फ़ 5 मिनट में सुनिए शाम 4 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

In this special NL Hafta Live episode, Newslaundry's Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan and Raman Kirpal were joined by The Hindu's Sobhana K Nair and senior journalist Neerja Chowdhury to decode the Bihar poll results.On the sweeping mandate for the NDA, Anand spoke about Nitish Kumar's enduring appeal, noting that he “maximises his EBC base better than anyone else. He knows how to balance administrative acumen with realpolitik.”Sobhana weighed in on Prashant Kishor's poor performance, saying, “It is not a surprise to me that Jan Suraaj did not get even a single seat. There was a lot of disinterest in the rural regions of Bihar. A lot of distrust also. There were questions being asked about where he was getting so much money to put up such a big campaign.”Neerja highlighted the unusual nature of the mandate. “I have not seen this kind of a pro-incumbency wave in India despite 20 years in power. It is unprecedented.”On Nitish Kumar's future in Bihar, she pointed to his biggest vulnerability: “The minus point of Nitish Kumar is that he doesn't have a second line of leadership. Nor has he named a successor. At one point he considered Prashant Kishor but the story would have been different had they not fallen out.”This and a lot more. Tune in!Timecodes00:00:00 - Introductions and announcements00:01:25 - Headlines 00:13:28 - Discussion on Bihar Election results 01:34:17 - Neerja's Recommendations01:37:07 - Concluding remarks 01:46:06- RecommendationsCheck out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by NL Team. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

कमलेश 'ताऊ', आसिफ़ 'खां चा' और कुलदीप 'सरदार' के साथ तीन ताल सीज़न 2 के एपिसोड क्रमांक 130 में सुनिए/देखिए: बिहार में 25 से 30 फिर से क्यों नीतीश, विधानसभा चुनाव में NDA को बंपर मैंडेट के फैक्टर्स बीजेपी का इलेक्शन मैनेजमेंट, प्रशांत किशोर का स्पॉन्ज और RJD का बांस प्रकोष्ठ दिल्ली बम ब्लास्ट की थ्योरी और इंडिया के स्कूल ऑफ़ रेडिकल साइंसेज असमंजस में डालने वाला हमला और आतंक के लिए उपयोगी बेस्ट ब्रेन दिल्ली में हवा के लिए प्रदर्शन तो हवालात के दर्शन देश में टेम्परेचर 50 डिग्री से ज्यादा क्यों नहीं जाता भयंकर प्रदूषण पर सरकार क्यों कुछ नहीं कर रही बीजिंग और न्यूयॉर्क क्यों नहीं हो सकती दिल्ली, ताऊ ने इसे शापित क्यों कहा चम्मच-कांटे का चोचला और West की Spoon-feeding हाथ से खाने का संतोष और इस पर गोरों का आक्रोश बिज़ारोत्तेजक ख़बर में सोने के लिए पार की गई हदें और अंत में प्राणों से प्रिय तीन तालियों की कलेजाकाट चिट्ठियां प्रड्यूस: कुमार केशव साउंड मिक्सिंग: अमन पाल

कश्मीर के नौगाम थाने में हुए धमाके को डीजीपी ने बताया हादसा, बिहार चुनाव में NDA की जीत के बाद मुख्यमंत्री पद पर चर्चा तेज, कांग्रेस ने हार की समीक्षा की और चुनाव आयोग पर उठाए सवाल, बीजेपी ने आरके सिंह को निलंबित किया, यूपी सरकार ने वृद्धावस्था पेंशन बिना फॉर्म के देने का फैसला किया, लखनऊ यूनिवर्सिटी में एक प्रोफेसर के इस्तीफे पर ATS का शक, मुजफ्फरपुर में घर में लगी आग से परिवार के 5 लोगों की मौत, Apple ने नए CEO की तलाश शुरू की, IPL 2026 में कई बड़े ट्रेड हुए, और भारत-साउथ अफ्रीका के बीच पहले टेस्ट में भारत 4 विकेट पर 138 रन पर. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए दोपहर 1 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

बिहार विधानसभा चुनाव 2025 में NDA ने 15 साल बाद ऐतिहासिक जीत दर्ज की और 202 सीटों के साथ प्रचंड बहुमत हासिल किया, महागठबंधन को करारी हार का सामना करना पड़ा, श्रीनगर के नौगाम पुलिस स्टेशन में भीषण धमाके में 9 लोगों की मौत और 27 घायल, विदेश मंत्री जयशंकर ने न्यूयॉर्क में भारतीय कांसुल्स के साथ द्विपक्षीय संबंधों और प्रवासी गतिविधियों की समीक्षा की, छह राज्यों के उपचुनाव के नतीजे घोषित, कांग्रेस में चुनावी हार के बाद असंतोष बढ़ा, चिराग पासवान की प्रेस कान्फ्रेंस आज, पाकिस्तान में सरबजीत कौर ने धर्म परिवर्तन कर किया निकाह, बीबीसी की माफी के बावजूद ट्रंप ने क़ानूनी कार्रवाई की चेतावनी दी और कोलकाता टेस्ट में भारत 1/37 से आगे खेल रहा है. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए सुबह 10 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

In this podcast, Kushal speaks with Aadit Kapadia and Tushar Gupta as they analyse the sweeping victory of NDA in the Bihar assembly elections of 2025. Follow Tushar: X: @Tushar15_ X: @ask0704 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAtomChannelYT/featured #BiharElection2025 #BiharResultsLive #NDA #biharelections #prashantkishore #nitishkumar #bjp #congress #rahulgandhi ------------------------------------------------------------ Listen to the podcasts on: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kushal-mehra-99891819 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rVcDV3upgVurMVW1wwoBp Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-c%C4%81rv%C4%81ka-podcast/id1445348369 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-carvaka-podcast ------------------------------------------------------------ Support The Cārvāka Podcast: Buy Kushal's Book: https://amzn.in/d/58cY4dU Become a Member on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKPx... Become a Member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carvaka UPI: kushalmehra@icici Interac Canada: kushalmehra81@gmail.com To buy The Carvaka Podcast Exclusive Merch please visit: http://kushalmehra.com/shop ------------------------------------------------------------ Follow Kushal: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kushal_mehra?ref_... Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KushalMehraO... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecarvakap... Koo: https://www.kooapp.com/profile/kushal... Inquiries: https://kushalmehra.com/ Feedback: kushalmehra81@gmail.com

बिहार चुनाव में सुबह 8 बजे से काउंटिंग शुरू हुई, 48 केंद्रों पर सुरक्षा कड़ी, शुरुआती रुझानों में NDA को बढ़त, कई वीआईपी सीटों पर कड़ी टक्कर, मोकामा में अनंत सिंह आगे, जमुई में श्रेयसी सिंह बढ़त पर, दरभंगा में संजय सरावगी 5500 वोट से आगे और राघोपुर से तेजस्वी यादव बढ़त में, पूर्णिया समेत कई जिलों में कड़ी सुरक्षा के बीच गिनती जारी रही, तेज प्रताप और विजय सिन्हा पिछड़े, दिल्ली में लाल किले ब्लास्ट के आरोपी उमर मोहम्मद का पुलवामा वाला घर IED से उड़ाया गया, बीबीसी ने ट्रंप की एडिटेड स्पीच पर माफी मांगी और पाकिस्तान में 27वें संशोधन के विरोध में सुप्रीम कोर्ट के दो जजों ने इस्तीफा दिया, सिर्फ़ 5 मिनट में सुनिए सुबह 10 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें

बिहार में काउंटिंग शुरू, शुरुआती रुझानों में NDA बढ़त पर, जान सुराज 4 सीटों से आगे, BJP-RJD में कड़ी टक्कर दिखी, दिल्ली ब्लास्ट आरोपी उमर मोहम्मद का पुलवामा वाला घर IED से उड़ाया गया, पुणे में ट्रक ब्रेक फेल होने से 20–25 गाड़ियां भिड़ीं, उत्तर भारत में कड़ाके की सर्दी और जहरीली हवा, BBC ने ट्रंप की एडिटेड स्पीच पर माफी मांगी, पाकिस्तान में दो सुप्रीम कोर्ट जजों ने आसिम मुनीर को सुरक्षा देने वाले संशोधन के विरोध में इस्तीफा दिया, रूस ने कीव पर बड़े पैमाने पर मिसाइल-ड्रोन हमला किया और भारत-साउथ अफ्रीका टेस्ट आज 9.30 से शुरू, सिर्फ़ 5 मिनट में सुनिए सुबह 9 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें

बिहार विधानसभा चुनाव 2025 के शुरूआती रुझानों में NDA की भारी बढ़त, राघोपुर सीट पर आरजेडी के तेजस्वी यादव का हाल, सीवान में NDA को हर तरफ़ बढ़त, अलीनगर से बीजेपी प्रत्याशी मैथिली ठाकुर आगे और झारखंड विधानसभा की घाटशिला उपचुनाव में झारखंड मुक्ति मोर्चा के प्रत्याशी को बढ़त. बिहार चुनाव की रेगुलर और तेज़ अपडेट्स के लिए सुनिए बिहार चुनाव स्पेशल न्यूज़ पॉडकास्ट

एनडीए 199 सीटों से आगे, NDA की बढ़त पर सांसद शशि थरूर ने क्या कहा, कांग्रेस कार्यकर्ताओं ने लगाए वोट चोरी के आरोप, मनोज तिवारी ने CM के चेहरे पर क्या बोला, तेजस्वी यादव का क्या है हाल, मैथिली ठाकुर 8000 वोटों से आगे, मोकामा से जेडीयू के अनंत सिंह जीते, जनसुराज पार्टी को बड़ा झटका और 7 राज्यों की 8 विधानसभा सीटों पर उपचुनाव के वोटों की काउंटिंग जारी, सिर्फ़ 5 मिनट में सुनिए दोपहर 2 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें

बिहार चुनाव में NDA भारी बढ़त के साथ 243 में से करीब 202 सीटों पर आगे, जबकि महागठबंधन 34 पर सिमटता दिख रहा है. JDU की सीटों में बड़ा उछाल है और पार्टी 75 से ज्यादा सीटों पर बढ़त बनाए हुए है, जिससे नीतीश कुमार का दोबारा सत्ता में लौटना लगभग तय माना जा रहा है. तेजस्वी यादव राघोपुर से पीछे चल रहे हैं, सम्राट चौधरी तारापुर में बड़ी बढ़त पर हैं, और कई सीटों पर AIMIM भी मजबूती से आगे है. कई राज्यों के उपचुनावों में भी मिश्रित नतीजे रहे, जहां नागरोटा में BJP, अंता में कांग्रेस और डम्पा में MNF ने जीत दर्ज की.कांग्रेस और बीजेपी दोनों की तरफ से बयानबाज़ी तेज है, जिसमें हार-जीत के लिए एक-दूसरे को ज़िम्मेदार ठहराया जा रहा है.सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए बिहार चुनाव से जुड़ी बड़ी ख़बरें.

बिहार चुनाव के नतीजों में NDA बड़ी जीत की ओर, पटना में बीजेपी और जेडीयू दफ्तरों में जश्न शुरू, PM मोदी और अमित शाह ने इसे सुशासन और विकास के पक्ष में ऐतिहासिक जनादेश बताया, नीतीश कुमार ने NDA की एकजुटता को जीत का कारण कहा, चिराग पासवान की पार्टी का मजबूत प्रदर्शन, मुकेश सहनी ने हार स्वीकार की और तेज प्रताप यादव ने हार का ठीकरा भीतरघात पर फोड़ा, पंजाब उपचुनाव में आम आदमी पार्टी की जीत, PM मोदी कल गुजरात दौरे पर और भारत–दक्षिण अफ्रीका टेस्ट मैच के पहले दिन का खेल खत्म. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए शाम 7 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

बिहार विधानसभा चुनाव में NDA ने भारी बढ़त बनाई, 160 से ज्यादा सीटों पर आगे, घोषित 147 नतीजों में एनडीए को 125, महागठबंधन को 17 और AIMIM को 5 सीटें मिलीं, पीएम मोदी और नीतीश कुमार ने इस जीत के लिए मतदाताओं और सहयोगियों को धन्यवाद दिया, तेजस्वी यादव राघोपुर से फिर जीत गए, लेकिन जन सुराज का खाता नहीं खुला, तेज प्रताप ने तेजस्वी की हार पर प्रतिक्रिया दी, चिराग पासवान की पार्टी का शानदार प्रदर्शन, अखिलेश यादव ने नतीजों की आलोचना की और बीजेपी पर तीखा हमला बोला और चुनाव में नोटा को 1.81 प्रतिशत वोट मिले, काउंटिंग अभी जारी है.सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए बिहार चुनाव से जुड़ी बड़ी ख़बरें.

बिहार में तस्वीर साफ हो गई है और 243 में से 203 सीटों पर बढ़त के साथ NDA सत्ता में लौटने की ओर, महागठबंधन 34 सीटों पर सिमटा दिख रहा है, तेजस्वी यादव राघोपुर से जीते, तेजप्रताप महुआ से हारे, दिल्ली में बीजेपी ने जीत का जश्न मनाया, PM मोदी ने कार्यकर्ताओं को किया संबोधित, 16 नवंबर को पूरे बिहार में बीजेपी की बड़े जश्न की तैयारी, चिराग पासवान कल प्रेस कॉन्फ्रेंस करेंगे. AIMIM के ओवैसी ने सीमांचल की जनता का शुक्रिया अदा किया, उपचुनावों के नतीजे घोषित, NIA ने पाकिस्तान से जुड़े हथियार और ड्रग्स तस्करी केस में चार्जशीट दाखिल की, H-1B वीजा खत्म करने की तैयारी में अमेरिका, और बांग्लादेश की पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री शेख हसीना ने अपने खिलाफ चल रहे ट्रायल को राजनीतिक खेल बताया. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए रात 9 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

"I feel that the glass is both half full and half empty." Rowena Chiu is a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein. In 1998, she was sexually assaulted by him at the Venice Film Festival and was coerced into signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which silenced her for over twenty years. In 2017, a New York Times journalist came to her home and doorstepped her husband of over a decade, revealing information about the assault and NDA. Rowena was featured in the subsequent NYT investigation, but she insisted on remaining anonymous. In 2019, she finally broke her story on the NBC Today Show, live in front of three million viewers. Rowena's story was featured in both the book and the movie, SHE SAID. She has given over 700 media interviews across four continents, for international news outlets such as ABC, BBC, CBS, and NBC, and has testified at the House of Commons, the Massachusetts State House, and the State Of The Union. Rowena is writing a memoir, a novel, and a screenplay, in addition to working as a global #MeToo activist, advocating for the rights of those who are oppressed or voiceless, in churches, schools, universities, and workplaces around the world. Host: Katie Koestner Editor: Evan Mader Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

What would you risk to do the right thing?In this episode of The Courageous Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Zelda Perkins, Co-Founder of Can't Buy My Silence and the first woman to break an NDA with Harvey Weinstein.Zelda's story isn't just about one man. It's about the system that silences victims and protects abuse. She speaks openly about how she fought back, how breaking her NDA changed UK law, and what leaders and businesses must do now to stop misconduct being hidden behind confidentiality.We Cover: 00:00 – Introduction01:26 – Why Zelda broke her NDA after years of silence03:37 – What really happens when you speak up against power05:18 – The moment the system, not the perpetrator, broke her trust09:23 – How signing an NDA changed her life overnight12:54 – Taking her story to Parliament and pushing for legal reform17:09 – What it really took to start Can't Buy My Silence24:43 – When she realised she was self-bullying 28:57 – Why speaking up must be seen as normal, not “brave”33:11 – Creating safer, more transparent workplaces40:57 – How the new UK legislation will protect victims and change culture56:26 – Zelda's advice to anyone ready to start their own fight for changeDon't miss out on this powerful episode. 

बिहार विधानसभा चुनाव की मतगणना के लिए तैयारी पूरी, 14 नवंबर सुबह 8 बजे से सभी 243 सीटों की गिनती शुरू होगी. इस बार महिलाओं की भागीदारी रिकॉर्ड 71.78% रही. एग्जिट पोल विशेषज्ञ ने NDA की जीत की 90% संभावना जताई, RJD ने इन सर्वे पर भरोसा न करने की बात कही. RJD नेता सुनील सिंह पर FIR दर्ज, संजय सिंह ने बड़े पैमाने पर वोट चोरी का आरोप लगाया, मतगणना के दिन लखीसराय में विजय जुलूस पर रोक, ज्योति सिंह पर आचार संहिता उल्लंघन का केस दर्ज, मतगणना के दिन सभी स्कूलों की छुट्टी और पटना में पोस्टर वार तेज. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए बिहार चुनाव से जुड़ी बड़ी ख़बरें.

When a company proves it can do what's never been done before - producing commercial-grade fumed silica directly from quartz in a single step - it marks a seismic shift in a century-old industry. HPQ Silicon (TSX-V: HPQ / OTCQB: HPQFF) has just crossed that line, confirming independent pilot-scale validation of its breakthrough plasma process.WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW • Binary ON: HPQ replicated McGill-verified lab results at pilot scale — confirming commercial-grade purity and surface area. • Industry Validation: An LOI remains active with the largest fumed silica manufacturer in the world to evaluate pilot samples. • Commercial Stage Begins: Independent results open the door to direct engagement with multiple industrial buyers under NDA. • Canadian Advantage: Positioned to capture up to 50% of Canada's $200M market, which currently imports 100% of its supply. • High-Margin Economics: Targeting ~70% gross profit margins on a market-priced product ($5K–$6K/ton).STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONSFor decades, the global fumed silica industry — valued in the billions — has relied on a fossil-fuel-intensive process that's toxic and expensive. HPQ's one-step, plasma-based system eliminates hydrogen chloride, slashes CO₂ by 84%, and reduces energy use by 87%.With federal and Québec government support funding two-thirds of its pilot costs, HPQ is now transitioning from R&D to commercialization — a rare pivot point where innovation meets execution.CEO BERNARD TOURILLON:“This is a massive milestone. We've replicated our lab results at pilot scale — a world first. That means we can now move from saying ‘we will' to ‘we have,' and start direct commercial discussions.”INVESTOR TAKEAWAYHPQ Silicon has achieved what legacy players could not: proven scalability, independent validation, and a clean, cost-efficient pathway to domestic production. With major industry interest, government alignment, and multiple verticals advancing in parallel, HPQ isn't just innovating — it's redefining how fumed silica will be made and monetized in the clean-tech era.

In this episode of the Deer Season 365 Podcast, we're sitting down with NDA's Kip Adams to discuss the science behind the rut. We'll separate fact from fiction so that you can improve your odds of success during this exciting time of year. Featured Sponsor/Partners Vortex Optics Bass Pro Shops & Cabela's Important Links: Follow Kip on Instagram Follow Brian Grossman on Instagram Sign up for NDA's free weekly e-newsletter Subscribe to the Podcast on: Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeartRadio   About the National Deer Association The National Deer Association (NDA) is a non-profit deer conservation group that works to ensure the future of wild deer, wildlife habitat and hunting. Thank you for subscribing to our podcast! Support NDA's mission by becoming a member today.

News18 Mega Exit Poll results for Bihar predict an NDA victory with 140-150 seats. Find the highlights on our website. In the day's Editor's Picks learn about the consolidation in the auto-tech space, follow our investigation on how a Surat-based prop trading scam unfolded, and our analysis on why China's growing naval muscle should deepen ties among Quad nations. There's all this and more in our newsletter curated just for you.

दिल्ली धमाके के बाद पीएम मोदी ने आज सुरक्षा समिति की अहम बैठक बुलाई, दिल्ली धमाके से जुड़ी लाल फोर्ड ईको स्पोर्ट कार बरामद, इंडिगो और एयर इंडिया एक्सप्रेस को मिले सुरक्षा अलर्ट के बाद देश के कई एयरपोर्ट्स पर सतर्कता बढ़ाई गई, इसराइल के प्रधानमंत्री ने भारत के प्रति संवेदना जताई, बिहार चुनाव के एग्ज़िट पोल में NDA को बढ़त, पंजाब बॉर्डर पर BSF ने तीन पाकिस्तानी ड्रोन गिराए, यूपी सरकार ने महिलाओं को रात की शिफ्ट में काम करने की अनुमति दी, लाल क़िला धमाके के बाद से डॉ. निसार-उल-हसन लापता, शिवसेना चिन्ह विवाद की सुनवाई अब जनवरी में और ICC रैंकिंग में रोहित शर्मा टॉप पर, जबकि विराट कोहली पांचवें स्थान पर. सिर्फ 5 मिनट में सुनिए शाम 7 बजे तक की बड़ी ख़बरें.

Author Matt Cox joins the show to unpack an online conspiracy linking country megastar Garth Brooks to clusters of disappearances and unsolved homicides—claims that exploded from Tom Segura & Christina P's Your Mom's House meme into a crowdsourced rabbit hole. We stress: these are allegations and speculation, not proven facts. Still, Matt walks us through why some internet sleuths think the timelines and tour stops are suspicious, how “organized” offenders evolve, and what retired profilers and a former tour roadie allegedly told him about the logistics that make this theory feel possible. In this episode (allegations discussed): -The YMH spark and why the guest decided to write a book with a formerly incarcerated co-author. -What “heat-map” patterns of missing persons around tour dates might suggest—and where that logic breaks. -Interviews with retired FBI profilers, criminologists, a Hollywood producer, and an anonymous roadie (under NDA). -Early cases near Oklahoma State University, the move to Nashville, and a controversial first big purchase: 300 acres of rural land. -Touring mechanics: slipping away between load-ins, rest-stop encounters, and the “suitcase” hypothesis. -Vegas residency years, access to a private jet, and why some claim disappearances spiked. -Why a simple on-air appearance could defuse the rumor—and why that may never happen. Go Support Matt! Book: https://a.co/d/gV8O25l Podcast: @InsideTrueCrime This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: FRE! Listeners get 20% off their first order at https://FREPOUCH.COM when you use code CONNECT at checkout. That's 20% your first order with code CONNECT. CASHAPP! https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/1ekoiacn #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. MANDO! As a special offer for listeners, new customers get 20% off sitewide with our exclusive code. Use code MITCHELL at https://ShopMando.com for 20% off sitewide + free shipping. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Introducing the Gar Brooks Conspiracy 01:55 About Matt Cox & Deep Dive Into the Case 04:05 Origins of the Viral Conspiracy Theory 07:00 Research Methods & Eliminating False Leads 10:30 Victim Patterns & Serial Killer Psychology 13:40 Serial Killers and Childhood Trauma 16:50 Gar Brooks' Childhood and Personality 19:20 This Episode Is Sponsored By FRE! 22:21 How the Theory Went Viral Online 23:00 Brooks' Silence & Celebrity Response 27:05 Linking Tour Dates to Disappearances 31:50 Early Homicides and College Years 36:00 The Nashville Years & First Record Deal 40:51 This Episode Is Sponsored By Cashapp and Mando! 44:32 Touring Lifestyle and Opportunities 48:05 Logistics: How Could Brooks Commit the Murders? 55:00 Connecting the Dots: Victim Demographics & Methods 01:03:00 The Vegas Residency & Private Plane Theory 01:09:00 Patterns Around Properties & Geographic Profiling 01:14:15 Recent Cases & Modern Technology Challenges 01:23:50 The Chris Gaines Alter Ego & Disassociation 01:31:15 Developing the Book & Challenges of Proof 01:35:45 Law Enforcement, Evidence, and Cold Cases 01:45:00 Psychological Profile: Narcissism, Lies, and Motivation 01:52:00 Circumstantial Evidence & Patterns 01:59:15 The Most Damning Cases and Eyewitness Accounts 02:06:00 Can Gar Brooks Ever Be Investigated? 02:10:00 Final Thoughts, Book Details, and Call to Action Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recently, Trezor unveiled the Safe 7: the first hardware wallet in the world to include the Tropic Square verifiable secure element chip, a true game-changer for Bitcoin security. In this episode, Matej Zak & Tomáš Sušánka explain how it works. Buy your Trezor Safe 7 (referral link): https://affil.trezor.io/SHuM Time stamps: 00:01:13 - Introduction to the podcast episode and guests (Matej Zak, CEO, and Tomáš Sušánka, CTO of Trezor). 00:01:34 - Discussion of the Trezor Safe 7 product launch event in Prague and the host's excitement about the Tropic Square chip. 00:01:55 - Mention of the live unboxing and potential for things to go wrong. 00:02:17 - Addressing rumors about paying influencers; clarification that no payments were made, only travel costs covered. 00:03:11 - Start of unboxing the Trezor Safe 7, focusing on packaging security and tamper-proof elements. 00:04:31 - Overview of Trezor Safe 7 features: flagship product, auditable secure element, large color touchscreen, premium build quality, Bluetooth connectivity, and quantum protections. 00:07:20 - Explanation of "quantum ready" label: Post-quantum signatures for bootloader updates and device authenticity, not full quantum-proofing for Bitcoin. 00:09:00 - Deeper dive into quantum readiness, industry trends (e.g., Cloudflare, Apple), and why it's not a gimmick. 00:12:51 - Continuation of unboxing: Tamper-proof seals, holographic stickers, and physical security layers. 00:14:18 - Confirmation that devices ship without firmware; installation happens via Trezor Suite for added security. 00:15:26 - Setup process on iPhone: Downloading the app, Bluetooth pairing, and why iPhone compatibility was prioritized. 00:16:10 - Market insights: US as the biggest market, challenges with Apple (MFi program), and opting for Bluetooth over cables. 00:18:30 - Ads segment (Sideshift.ai, Layer 2 Labs, NoOnes.com, news.bitcoin.com). 00:20:13 - Resuming app setup: Privacy options, biometrics, Bluetooth permissions, and pairing code. 00:21:42 - Counting physical security layers (five in total) and their purpose. 00:23:07 - Authenticity checks in the app: Confirming purchase source, seals, and packaging integrity. 00:24:09 - Firmware installation process and confirmation that devices ship with only bootloader. 00:25:05 - Discussion of dual secure elements (Tropic Square T01 and Infineon Optiga Trust M) for enhanced security. 00:26:01 - Bluetooth security: End-to-end encryption using Noise protocol. 00:27:04 - Haptic feedback and one-time code for pairing confirmation. 00:28:00 - Device authenticity verification via secure elements. 00:29:39 - More on quantum readiness: Post-quantum certificates for future implementation. 00:30:23 - Tutorial walkthrough: Power button, menu options, and Tropic Square chip explanation. 00:30:59 - Background on Tropic Square: Origin story, name meaning (Truly Open IC), and founding to create auditable secure elements. 00:32:06 - Experience with proprietary secure elements: Discovering vulnerabilities under NDA and deciding to develop an open alternative. 00:34:25 - Why Tropic Square chip is described as "auditable and transparent" rather than fully "open source" (digital parts open, analog parts not yet due to costs; no NDAs required). 00:37:18 - Advantages of Tropic Square for competitors: Better security, transparency, and ability to discuss vulnerabilities openly. 00:38:46 - Competition philosophy: Focus on features, software, third-party integrations, and innovation rather than aggressive tactics. 00:40:29 - Bitcoin-only version mention and pre-order availability. 00:41:26 - Completion of setup tutorial; default 20-word SLIP-39 backup with options for multi-share. 00:43:41 - Metrics for setup experience: Emphasis on user understanding over speed. 00:45:32 - Compatibility with BIP-44 for multi-asset support; differences limited to SLIP-39 replacing BIP-39. 00:47:09 - Status as production-quality device; shipping soon, with room for early feedback. 00:49:19 - Audience questions: Ordering in Southeast Asia (via trezor.io or vetted resellers). 00:50:35 - Audience questions: Coin control in mobile app (planned for parity with desktop in a few months). 00:51:29 - Audience questions: Shielded Zcash support (on backlog, no ETA; space issues resolved but requires further cryptography work). 00:53:18 - Pricing ($250) and pre-order info. 00:53:43 - Closing remarks: Pride in the product, future features, and thanks.

In this episode, Colin Shaw shares a recent personal experience with a major brand that imposed a 'gag order' (NDA) after a poor service experience — and how this reflects a deeper organizational issue: silos. Together with Professor Ryan Hamilton, Colin explores why siloed thinking leads to incoherent customer experiences, how internal motivations can conflict with CX goals, and what leaders must do to ensure learning, trust, and advocacy remain priorities. A must-listen for CX professionals and senior leaders alike. Best Quote: "Who decides? That is the question every leadership team should ask — and answer wisely." Key Takeaways: Organizational silos often lead to decisions that prioritise risk management over customer experience. Legal and PR functions may act rationally within their remit, but this can result in poor CX outcomes without CX leadership involvement. Service recovery is a powerful opportunity to build trust and advocacy — if handled thoughtfully. The presence of gag orders may indicate systemic issues that need urgent attention. CX leaders must break silos, promote organisational learning, and ensure customer trust is considered in every critical decision.   Register for the 'Unleash AI. Reimagine CX launch event' by NiCE  Cognigy https://www.nice.com/lps/nice-cognigy-launch-event?utm_source=influencers&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=NL_Q425_EN_PLT_GLOB_252346_WBN_NiCE-Cognigy-Virtual-Launch-Event&utm_content=0522834&utm_detail=dentsu-influencers-nicecog-glob-colin   About the Hosts: Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn. Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World's Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book called "The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things" Harvard Business Press 2025  Follow Ryan on LinkedIn. Subscribe & Follow Apple Podcasts Spotify

Julie Runez leads marketing for a custom automation firm that designs and builds one-off manufacturing machinery. She came back to work after years at home with her kids, brought a journalist's curiosity, and learned industrial marketing from the ground up during the early months of 2020. Without case studies she could publicly share and with very long, high-stakes sales cycles, Julie shifted the strategy away from chasing clicks to creating in-person proof. The result is a zero-cost lab inside their facility where vendors and manufacturers test ideas together, train teams, and de-risk projects before anyone signs. We talk culture, kindness in leadership, learning fast, and why most problems are system problems, not people problems.Why this conversation mattersIf you sell complex, capital equipment under NDA, the usual playbook won't carry you. Julie shows how to earn trust when buyers need confidence more than content, and how to build culture around the people you want to attract.What you'll hearHow journalism skills, parenting, and resourcefulness translated into an effective solo marketing role.Why kindness from the founder set the tone for culture and risk-taking.The limits of digital in NDA-heavy environments and how in-person proof fills the gap.Inside the lab concept and how cross-vendor collaboration builds end-to-end confidence.Using ClickUp and simple SOPs to turn tribal knowledge into systems.Handling the “I'm in over my head” moments by finding the skill, the person, or the room that solves it.Topics coveredCulture as the environment you create for the people you want.Experimenting, failing forward, and deciding what actually works for your business.Sales cycles that run from a year to many years, and how to stay relevant in the meantime.Bringing vendors, engineers, and customers together to test and train before purchase.Storytelling that focuses on outcomes, not features.Letting the next generation toss the box aside rather than just think outside it.Quotes to pull“When you buy a drill, you're buying holes. Our buyers need confidence their problem will be solved.”“In tough moments it's usually a system problem, not a human problem.”“The lab is our proof. People can see parts move, get training, and leave with answers.”“Kindness from leadership makes everything else solvable.”GuestJulie Runez is the marketing lead for a custom automation and machine-building company serving life sciences and other regulated industries. She built an in-house lab program that lets manufacturers and vendor partners test concepts, train operators, and de-risk projects at zero cost.SponsorMed Device Boston at the BCEC, September 30 to October 1. A sourcing and education expo with suppliers, workshops, and expert-led sessions for the next generation of med-tech.

Every once in a while, I meet someone whose story reminds me why inclusion and communication go hand in hand. My guest this week, Shabnam Asthana, is one of those people. She's a global PR leader, entrepreneur, and author who has spent her life turning words into bridges that connect people and purpose. We talk about her journey from teaching and lecturing at India's National Defence Academy to leading global communications for major brands—and what it taught her about empathy, leadership, and real inclusion. Shabnam shares how storytelling can turn data into emotion, and why true diversity is less about representation and more about respect. Her message is powerful and deeply human: being unstoppable begins with an open heart, quiet courage, and the willingness to rise again. If you're ready to lead with empathy and communicate with purpose, this conversation will stay with you long after it ends. Highlights: 00:43 – Hear how early role models and a working mother raised ambitions and set a path toward leadership. 03:39 – Learn why strong communication skills pointed her toward PR and how debates built confidence. 05:24 – See why teaching became the first step when women in PR roles were rare in smaller cities. 08:12 – Discover what it took to lecture at India's National Defence Academy and earn respect in a rigid setting. 12:09 – Understand the leap from academia to corporate PR after being scouted for communication excellence. 15:50 – Learn how serving as a spokesperson shaped internal and external messaging at a Swedish-Indian firm. 17:01 – Gain a humble view of global work and why inclusion means moving from tokenism to listening. 21:08 – Compare India and Sweden and see how representation differs from real inclusion in practice. 24:18 – Learn how small, specific acts like adding sign to slides can make people feel genuinely seen. 34:24 – Find out how storytelling turns CSR spreadsheets into human change that inspires action. 43:22 – Explore the choice to found Empowered Solutions and why entrepreneurship kept growth alive. 53:06 – Take a fresh definition of an unstoppable mindset rooted in resilience and an open heart. About the Guest: A multi-faceted Professional, who has fast tracked from being a reputed National name to a well-respected and emulated global one! Shabnam Asthana has added new dimensions to Global PR and Communications. She has to her credit, post graduate degrees in English Literature, Public Relations and Advertising, an MBA in Marketing Management & several International certifications including a prestigious Hon. Doctorate in Business Administration from the National American University USA (NAU). She has over 25 years of rich professional experience. She started her career in the educational field as a high school teacher and then moved on to the role of a Lecturer at the prestigious National Defence Academy, Khadkwasla. She was the only civilian who compered for the Passing out parades, PT & Equestrian display and the Graduation ceremony of the NDA for 3 consecutive years. This was covered live on Doordarshan. It was after one of the Passing out Parades that she was compering at the NDA, that a senior position in a reputed company was offered to her and thus began her foray into the corporate world. After her successful corporate stint in senior positions with reputed companies including Multinationals in India and abroad and reputed real estate businesses, she started her own PR and communications firm, Empowered Solutions in 2005 which has been running successfully since then. Adding offices in USA and Canada as part of its international expansion. Ways to connect with Jan: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabnam_Asthana Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shabnamasthana/?hl=en Linked in - https://in.linkedin.com/in/dr-shabnam-asthana-7b174a5 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShabnamAsthana/ X - https://x.com/shabnamasthana VyaapaarNiti Expert Profile - https://www.vyaapaarniti.com/expert/dr-shabnam-asthana- Tring Celebrity Platform - https://www.tring.co.in/shabnam-asthana 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 ** 01:20 Well, Hi again, everyone. I am your host, Michael Hingson, and you are here listening to or watching or both, unstoppable mindset today, our guest is a person of many talents, and I think you're going to be as amazed about her as I am. Shabnam Asthana is a person who has been involved in she was a teacher for a while. She's been very heavily involved in a variety of things at the corporate level. She started her own marketing firm in 2005 and I don't know what all my gosh, she's got so many things, it's really hard to keep up, but I'm sure she's going to tell us all about it, and I am looking forward to that. And I really appreciate all of you being here with us. So Shabnam, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And thank you for being here.   Shabnam Asthana ** 02:15 Thank you, Michael, truly wonderful to be with here, and thank you for that amazing introduction. You make me feel as if I've worn a professional cape of so many accolades and so many things. It's wonderful to be here with you.   Michael Hingson ** 02:32 Michael, well, you do have lots of awards and lots of accolades.   Shabnam Asthana ** 02:38 That's just one part of the journey. The true reward is in the, you know, work that I do, these stories, that I shape, the narratives that spring in that is the true reward. And of course, accolades are always welcome, and they are a way of encouragement, which do ensure that, yes, I continue doing the good work.   Michael Hingson ** 03:00 Well, why don't we start back at the beginning, which is always fun to do. Why don't you tell us about the early Shabnam growing up?   Shabnam Asthana ** 03:08 Okay, that's something which is very close to my heart. I was born in India in a small city called Bokaro, Steel City. It was a Steel City. It was an industrial town, and we were a very close knit community, and we had lots of, you know, interaction with people. I came from a background where both my parents, my mother and my father were working, and at that point of time, a working woman was sort of seen as a novelty, not something I'm talking way, way back. And now the people will also guess my age, I guess because it's pretty way back. And that was the time when we weren't India was still developing, and women were still not seen as the working class, you know, especially in senior corporate positions. And my mother was a senior officer in the steel plant, so that set my aspirations and ambitions very high. And I wanted to emulate her. I wanted to be someone who was working now what I would do I was not very sure of, but yes, I wanted to be working. And then later on, my sister, my both my sisters, were also working, my older siblings, and of course, that set the tone for me to also hop into the professional shoes, and, you know, chart out a career path for myself. So,   Michael Hingson ** 04:44 so what? What did you do? As far as schooling? Did you go to college?   Shabnam Asthana ** 04:51 Yes, I went to the local school there, which was an English medium good school called sin Xavier School. And that was some. Thing which really groomed me for the future, that set the foundations for my career. And after that, I did my schooling in the my college, sorry, in the capital city of India, which is Delhi. And then on, I moved to a place which is close to Mumbai, which is Pune, and I continued my education there. And of course, my career started in Pune. That is when I got into academics, and then henceforth,   Michael Hingson ** 05:34 so when you were in college, and as you were coming out of it, what did you want to do with your life? What was your plan? Or did you have one?   Shabnam Asthana ** 05:43 Yes, I did have one. Like I said, I was always good in communications, and people used to tell me that you are a good communicator. I used to win all the debates. I used to win elocution competitions. And I said, Well, yes, communication does seem to be my forte, so why don't I build on that? And then I saw my father, he was in the public relations industry, and I somehow at the back of my mind, I said, Yes, that is something I would surely want to do. So why not try my hand at PR? And that's how the seeds of my career was planted in my mind, and then it developed there on.   Michael Hingson ** 06:30 But you started out in education and in teaching.   Shabnam Asthana ** 06:34 Yes, that's very interesting. I'll tell you. I wanted to start my career in PR, but I was in a place which was a small city, and it was a place called Jamshedpur, before I moved on to Pune, and there, the career scope was very limited. We didn't have women in the PR. In fact, it was unheard of. So the best thing, or the easiest thing that a woman could do was to hop on the bandwagon of academics. And not saying that it was something you know, that was not looked up to. But yes, I did enjoy my role as a school teacher. That was my first job in Jamshedpur, a small it was, again, a steel city in India, and I became a high school teacher, and quite enjoyed it, because that was also communication. It was the way you communicated with your students, and, you know, sort of got them into, got them interested in what they were learning. So that was, again a stepping stone, and it was the area of communications which expanded later on.   Michael Hingson ** 07:47 So how long did you stay in teaching?   Shabnam Asthana ** 07:51 I was there for about two years in Jamshedpur, and then I moved on to Pune. And guess what the next opportunity I got was as a lecturer in the National Defense Academy. That was a place where the future generals were being groomed, and I was a civilian who, sort of, I was the only civilian, probably, who got into the teaching profession there and there I spent a good four years truly memorable. Worth remembering recounting. There was so many incidents, and I loved teaching. That was something which I did at the National Defense Academy too. Although that was at a higher level, it was very different from the school teaching which I had done. This was more, you know, on a national level, where you had to be more, and there was a lot of discipline which came in, because it was the future, you know, Army personnel, Navy personnel, so all that, there was a lot of discipline that came in and that groomed me better. I understood what the world of discipline meant in the true sense, because I lived   Michael Hingson ** 09:10 it right. What? How did you discover the job at the defense Academy? Though that's certainly a whole lot different than teaching high school students or maybe not.   Shabnam Asthana ** 09:23 It is a whole lot intimidating. Let me tell you that it's very intimidating to walk into a room full of, you know, future generals, army people you don't know who you know who you are, I mean, who they are, and you sort of get very intimidated by the kind the aura is very, very intimidating.   Michael Hingson ** 09:46 How did you discover that job? Yes,   Shabnam Asthana ** 09:49 that was done. We in India, we have something which is called the employment exchange. So you register there and you give your qualify. You list down your qualifications, and you know whatever you are planning to do, and they invite you for certain vacancies. So one fine day, I was just sitting and having my lunch at home when I received a letter, and the letter was an interview call for the National Defense Academy. I literally jumped out of my skin because I was a school teacher, and then being asked to appear for an interview in the National Defense Academy itself was a big leap for me. Whether I got it or not was a different thing. But then to sort of come on board and go and sort of appear for an interview was also something very exciting. And when I went there, I was like, I said, the only civilian The rest were army officers, wives and daughters, you know, related to the working personnel there. So when I went, I was interviewed by the three representatives from all the three wings, that is the Navy, the Air Force and Army. And that was a very good experience. They asked me a lot of questions, and I believe it was later on I was told that it was my confidence that got me in. So thanks to that, I   Michael Hingson ** 11:23 was going to ask you why you why you got in, or why you think you got in. And yes,   Shabnam Asthana ** 11:30 yeah, I did ask them that later, and unofficially, I was told that. Well, it was the way you carried yourself, the confidence and, you know, the excitement and enthusiasm that you shared, which was very, very refreshing.   Michael Hingson ** 11:48 So what exactly did you do at the academy?   Shabnam Asthana ** 11:53 I was teaching them English, and I was teaching them literature. I don't know how interested they were in literature, but then the feedback that I got, which was, you know, the it was a routine feedback, which we have the teachers get. So I used to get good marks, and people used to say, yes, that, you know, your classes are engrossing. It's good. And then, apart from that, there was something very interesting I did, which was I compared for their passing out parades, and I compared for all their shows. And that was something which was covered on television, and that gave me a different kind of foothold in my profession, where I was being seen, where I was being heard, and my confidence grew by leaps and bounds. I was being accepted as a woman. I was being accepted as a civilian. And that was something which was very, very heartwarming for me,   Michael Hingson ** 13:01 and I would assume, very difficult to achieve,   Shabnam Asthana ** 13:05 I think so I do yes, in retrospect, yes.   Michael Hingson ** 13:09 So you did that for roughly four years. Yes. And why did you leave that? What was your? Was your thought about that,   Shabnam Asthana ** 13:21 okay, I would have gone on. It was such a glorious part of my career. But, you know, change, they say, is constant, and that is something which happened. I was comparing for a passing out parade when the chairman of a corporate company which was doing rather well, heard me, and he was impressed by my communication, my speaking abilities, my, you know, the way I was presenting things. And he said he offered me a job, and he said, Why don't you come and join my office and come in as a PR person for my company, and that's exactly I was actually, you know, not very sure whether I wanted to leave this an industry and career where I was already established, where people knew me, and just hop on to the corporate world. But if you remember, that was my ambition. That was what I had always won right at the start. So the moment it came, it almost felt as if it fell into my laps. And I said, Why don't I do that? Yes, and this is a good opportunity, and I must take it up. My I spoke to my family, and they too, felt that it was a good stepping stone to move on. And so I accepted it, and that was my entry into the world of PR, in the corporate   Michael Hingson ** 14:48 world. So what year was that this   Shabnam Asthana ** 14:53 was way back on now you are prompting me to give away my age, which is like. Like ancient, I'd be a fossil. Okay, yes, this was way back in the 90s,   Michael Hingson ** 15:06 okay, and that was kind of what I was curious about. So at that time, industry was a little bit more stable than it was later on, but, but still, you You did it, and you so you stepped into that goal, into that role, and so you became part of the PR world, which is, as you said, what you wanted to do initially, anyway. So, so how long did you stay at that company? I   Shabnam Asthana ** 15:39 stayed there for about four years, and then the chairman of the company passed away. Unfortunately, he was on a trip to China, and he suffered a massive cardiac arrest, so I was working very closely with him in his office, and as is the norm of the industry, once the leader is not there things you know, sort of crumble, and you know, there's reorganization. New faces come in, and normally the new people bring their own teams. So I felt as if, you know, before they told me to sort of move out or something. I don't know why I pre empted that. I said, Why don't I myself make a shift and join some other industry? I mean, join some other company, which I did. Again, I applied. It was a Swedish company, and again, it was one of the best moves that I could have made. I spent a good 12 years in that company, which Hogan is India Limited, I must name them. They were brilliant. And I spent a very, very good part of my career with that company.   Michael Hingson ** 16:56 And so again, you did primarily PR, or what did you Yes, it was   Shabnam Asthana ** 17:02 PR and it was handling the chairman and managing director's office. So the entire communication was handled through me, the internal as well as the external communication. I was a spokesperson, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 17:18 so you became so in a sense, sort of the face of the company.   Shabnam Asthana ** 17:21 Yes, I did. It's nice to feel that yes, that it was a good many years that I was the face of the company in terms of communication, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 17:33 right, right. And, and where were you doing this?   Shabnam Asthana ** 17:38 This was in Pune, and their head office was in Sweden. I used to sort of move between the two. It was a very global company. The subsidiary was an Indian subsidiary, but the parent company was Swedish. So we had a lot of global travel   17:56 that kept you busy. That did so   Shabnam Asthana ** 17:59 there were conferences, and there were so many meetings which were happening,   Michael Hingson ** 18:03 yes, right? So what did, what did you? What did you learn from all of that? Do you think   Shabnam Asthana ** 18:12 it was a very humbling experience? You know, more than the excitement, I was armed with a lot of excitement, because that would have been one of my first trips outside India. I was I had a lot of excitement, lots of things were on my mind, but then ultimately, when one does travel and work in a global company, it's a very humbling experience, because you are exposed to your strengths and also your blind spots, your strengths, your weaknesses, everything comes to you and then you feel that diversity is not always about representation. It's about respect and inclusion is moving from tokenism to listening. That is what I felt, you know, adapting various voices to your workplace, working in unison, trying to empathize with people from different cultures, different streams, different departments, all that really broadened my horizon. So that was something which I learned.   Michael Hingson ** 19:30 So what was the culture like, in terms of since you were at a global company, as it were, how was it different when you were dealing with Sweden, as opposed to when you were dealing with India.   Shabnam Asthana ** 19:45 In India, we don't have diversity as a choice. In India, we are served diversity on a platter because you are born with being diverse. You have. Are numerous religions, you have culture. So we are adaptable people in that sense. But strangely enough, it's a paradox. If I would tell you that inclusion is still a work in progress. Inclusion isn't automatic. It doesn't come to you like that. You have to work for it. Now there is a big change, but I'm talking of the days, way back in the 90s when women in boardrooms were a novelty. So sometimes it was just purely for ornamental value. Sad to say that. But gradually you had to open up, you have to open the doors, and you have to say, look, we are here for a reason. And please listen to our voices too. And that's how we started. I started sort of, I remember once when I was moving in India. I mean, not in Sweden, but once when I was in India, and I was in a strategic board meeting. I was the only woman in the room, and the people were sort of, I could sense the expressions. People were curious, people were dismissing. People were sort of, you know, not sort of prepared to take or listen to me, that was a little bit of a setback. But then gradually, when I started moving abroad, and I started seeing more women, and then gradually, when I was moving so were the others, and they too saw the kind of change that was happening. And so it was pretty difficult in India, initially, if I were to be very honest, Sweden was more inclusive. I could see a lot of women in the workforce. And gradually, since we were sort of interacting with each other, we absorbed each other's cultures and values, and the company became very, very inclusive. So it was a pleasure to work there.   Michael Hingson ** 22:08 Okay, so in a sense, there were, there are parts of Sweden that made you happier than what you were in the East initially experiencing in India.   Shabnam Asthana ** 22:19 Absolutely, absolutely, and I have no hesitation in saying that, because they were welcoming. They were welcoming. And the not necessarily my company, but any company in India, the representation of women, especially in PR, was very, very limited. Now we have evolved, and it's a world of difference, and I'm so happy to see that.   Michael Hingson ** 22:48 How about you, may or may not have a lot of expertise in this, but how about if we're going to talk about inclusion and so on, people with disabilities, both in India and in Sweden and so on and again. I don't know whether you really had much experience or exposure to that. I   Shabnam Asthana ** 23:06 do. I did have my share of exposure, maybe not extensive, but yes, I do. I remember there's this one incident I'd like to talk to you about. It was in Paris. I was in a conference, and there was a deaf girl in the conference room. I could see people making presentations and knowing fully well, because we had the list of participants, and we had their intros, their introductions with us, my team. And you know, of course, I headed that team. We made a special endeavor to include sign in our presentation. And she was so happy because she said, you know, she came to me and she expressed to me that although I have participated so many times in meetings, and especially corporate meetings, I am so happy to see. It was the first time that I felt I was seen and I was not just a presence. So she was very happy with the kind of, you know, preparation that we did for her especially. So I believe it's very nice if people learn to respect each other and learn to believe that not everybody is similar. You may have so many strengths which I don't have. I do not see any physical disability as a handicap. I'm very, very sure about that, I do not see anybody who appears different or who doesn't have the same listening capacity, hearing capacity, to be different from me. They have their own strengths. So I truly believe that, you know, disability. In that sense, is something which does not put a person in the back seat. How.   Michael Hingson ** 25:09 How was that attitude received? Well, both at the company, when you were when you were in the room with her, and you were signing and so on. How did other people receive that? And how was that kind of attitude received initially in India?   Shabnam Asthana ** 25:29 Well, to be very honest, Michael, it wasn't something that is the done thing. People do not accept that. They are like, well, it's a general presentation. We really don't have to make specific I do remember a person who came up to me and said, Shabnam, why did you make a very specific presentation? It was a very general presentation by you doing that, you have set a precedent for others to sort of make them feel small, you know. So he took it in a very negative way. Said, you've made us feel very small. I said, no, please do not look at it that way. It is something where we have made her feel a part of us. It is not trying to belittle anybody, trying not to, you know, get a an edge over others. All of us are the same. It's just that I made it a little easier for her. That's what I just told him, and probably he did, walk away with a smile. I don't know whether it was a sarcastic one or whether it was a smile of acceptance, but then I got my   Michael Hingson ** 26:38 point. I took was this was this in Sweden or India. This was in Paris. In Paris, okay, yes,   Shabnam Asthana ** 26:46 okay, this was a conference, which was   Michael Hingson ** 26:49 she said that, right? Well, you know, the reality is that's all part of the inclusive mindset and the inclusion mindset, and it is so true that most people don't tend to realize it Yes. So I hear what you're saying,   Shabnam Asthana ** 27:10 yes, and realization and sort of acceptance has evolved. People are more accepting. People are more flexible. You know, the rigidity earlier, people were very rigid. Now there is a lot of flexibility. I believe that, right?   Michael Hingson ** 27:32 Well, I think it's better. I'm I think there are still all too many people who tend not to really have an overly inclusive mindset. And it is, it is something that that will be with us for a while, and hopefully over time, people will become more open and realize the value of inclusion. In this country, we have, well and around the world, we have a significant number of people who have these so called physical disabilities, and the reality is that the disability is more caused by inaction mostly than it is by real action.   Shabnam Asthana ** 28:12 Absolutely yes. And I also seriously believe that diversity enriches the outcomes. I have some I have practical experience, and I've seen that. So inclusion enriches outcomes in many ways, right?   Michael Hingson ** 28:35 How has all of your traveling and all of your exposure in various places around the world. How has that tended to shape your understanding of diversity and inclusion?   Shabnam Asthana ** 28:50 Okay, yes, that's a very interesting question. I have seen that challenges are real, biases, stereotypes and expectations that women need to prove themselves twice as much also exists in many, many parts of the world. So they have been. I mean, there have been certain cultures, certain countries, which are very easy to breeze through when you are at work meetings or you're talking to people. But there are certain countries in the let's say in the Middle East, the Far East, which are still not very open to, you know, women taking on lead roles, women strategizing, women talking things that would influence decisions. So sometimes there's also a word I'd like to put in here that sometimes it is not country specific. Specific. It is very individual, specific. So there, like you said, you know, there are certain mindsets which still exist. There are people who may be residing in countries that are very open and very receptive, but their own mindset is limiting. And it is a mindset which is closed, it is rigid. So that stops and that prevents any inclusion. You know that, if I were to put it that way, so I would say it's not merely, not always country specific. Yes, individuals have to evolve themselves and change their mindsets. So it's sometimes I've seen it's countries are good, but some individuals are rigid. I've seen some individuals that are good, but the countries that are rigid. So it sort of works both ways.   Michael Hingson ** 30:54 And it's not just about women, it is about anybody who is different. Yes, then the so called norm, whatever that happens to be, absolutely   Shabnam Asthana ** 31:03 inclusion is not limited to women. So again, I'd like to clarify that it's inclusion is a broad spectrum. So yes, of course, we are a small part of it. But yes,   Michael Hingson ** 31:17 you have written a book, yes, romancing your career and and also you've done a lot of mentoring, obviously, and so on. But what do you mean when you talk about women? And I would say anybody who's different need to define success on their own terms. Tell me more about that.   Shabnam Asthana ** 31:41 So women, or anybody, let's not be very specific about women, because then it would be detracting from the main subject of inclusion. Anybody who wants to be heard has to believe in one thing, that silence is not the answer. Courage is so you have to move from silence to courage. Try and portray your point of view. Speak to people if they listen to you good enough if they don't, it's not as if the doors are closed. If the doors are closed, you can surely open a window for yourself, and it works. So just being silent or being very subdued or being very you know sad that your point of view, or being upset, for that matter, that your point of view is not being listened to is not the answer. You have to show courage. You have to do your homework, right? Remember that value is something that takes anybody places. It's not about being a woman, it's not about being any nationality, any ethnicity. It's just that you have to carry value in whatever you are trying to bring to the table. Once people see value, they will forget whether you are of XYZ nationality or you're an Indian, or you are of any other you're any other gender, if I may say that. So it's the value that a person should work towards. Everybody should work towards bringing value to the table. That is what will get you noticed, and that is what will see you going places. Yes, it did.   Michael Hingson ** 33:43 And again, I think one of the important things is that, from my standpoint, and I keep pushing it, but it's there is that it also is the same for for so called disabilities. One of the things that I maintain is that everybody on the planet has a disability, and the disability for most people is that you depend on light in order to function, and when suddenly light disappears, you have a big problem, unless you have a way to get light back on demand. But we are. We're not ready to accept that as a as a race yet, so people think that's cute, but, but they're not ready to accept it. It doesn't change the fact that it's really there. But the fact of the matter is that that people do have to speak up for themselves, and there are ways to do that, and there are ways not to do that. It isn't a matter of being obnoxious and demanding, but it is all about, as you expressed it earlier, being confident and showing that confidence and showing your knowledge and showing what you bring to the table absolutely well. You've been involved in PR for a long time, and I'm sure that you would agree, one of the main tools that people in the public relations world and elsewhere have to offer is storytelling. I believe the best salespeople are people who can tell stories and can help relate. But my question would be to ask you, how can storytelling bridge communities and bring people together?   Shabnam Asthana ** 35:31 Storytelling is a very, very strong element of PR. Storytelling humanizes everything. It brings in a lot of connection. So people connect automatically, if your storytelling is good, so like I keep telling all my juniors as well or new interns who join in corporate fact sheets can be informative. They can give you facts, but storytelling will transform everything. So you move from information to transformation. Storytelling is the human angle to everything. All of us love you a human angle. For example, let me tell you I was in a meeting which was quite a few years ago, and the CEO of the company was telling me they've done a lot of work in corporate social responsibility. So he wanted to tell me about all the expenditure that they've done. They've uplifted so many schools. They've done so much. They've spent so much on education, they've spent so much on water, on sanitation and so many other things, which has improved the lives of the citizens there. I told him, could you tell me one story of one life that has been affected. So he was at a loss because he had not he did not dive deep into that. He didn't look beyond the numbers and the figures. So his HR person stepped in and he told me a story of a girl. She was an Indian girl. Her name was Aarti. How they had transformed her life, and she had moved on to studying in Howard, and she was being employed in one of the top American companies there. So that was something, a story of transformation. So that is so you know, I believe the power of storytelling and that connected everybody, even his own people, were not aware. The employees were not aware. They were just sort of working like robos, putting in their number of hours, doing their work, not going beyond their call of duty to actually see what was happening to the effects, the efforts of their activities. This was something which we brought out in all their corporate brochures, in all the marketing that they were doing, in all the marketing collaterals that worked wonders. We had lots of inquiries for people who wanted to support them in many ways. We had an interview of the girl, and it was something which was very we added a human angle. So like I said, storytelling humanizes the entire concept, and that is something which connects people. So, yes, it's very   Michael Hingson ** 38:42 interesting. Did he learn to tell stories after that?   Shabnam Asthana ** 38:46 I believe so, because he was so he was really taken aback. And he said, Wow, I never really thought about it. And you told me, You changed my perspective. You made me see it differently. And if I were to say we got a good retainership After that, because he was very happy and my contract was renewed. So that was something which sort of affected the contract too well.   Speaker 1 ** 39:19 The reality is that when you tell a story, it is telling stories is something that most everyone can truly relate to, and when you tell a story that someone listens to or hears and reacts to it,   Michael Hingson ** 39:40 there's nothing better than that, and it's really important that that kind of thing happens. So I'm really glad to hear that you like storytelling. I think it is so important that we have that   39:51 absolutely,   Michael Hingson ** 39:54 yeah, it's so important to be able to do that. Well, you've told us a little bit. About inclusion and diversity and so on in India and in other countries. Do you think it's changing, both in India and in other countries? And how is it changing?   Shabnam Asthana ** 40:15 It is changing. If you go back to the 90s to the present day, you will see that people have become I think it has a lot to do with travel. It has a lot to do with interaction. So people are interacting with each other. I speak to you, you speak to me, you tell me something about you, and I say, Hey, is that worth listening to? Yes, it is. And I try and change my mindset. I become more receptive. I try and tell you my viewpoint. You listen to me. You hear me out. So I have seen companies that have moved beyond check boxes of how many women, how many people with disabilities they've, you know, inducted in the employment stream, in their jobs, and it's become more of the CEOs or the top management asking their people, how many voices have we listened to? How many decisions have been made by these people whom we have taken in. You know, how have we evolved as a company? So that has made me see in boardrooms, in various meetings, that the top management is also very aware of what kind of decisions, what policies, are being framed with people as a diverse group. And it's not funneled or restricted to just the top few. It trickles down and it goes to the people they've hired from diverse groups, and it becomes like a voice of the company. So I have seen that changing, and I have seen that diversion is now diversity sort of is moving more towards the corporate DNA. So it is not a demand anymore. It's not a checkbox. It's more as if it is flowing in naturally, and people are more aware of it. So that's what I've seen.   Michael Hingson ** 42:32 It's a mindset, it is, and people are starting to adopt that. How is it changing in India? You said that in India there's a lot more diversity. But you said inclusion isn't so much there.   Shabnam Asthana ** 42:46 Yes, it is in see in India, it was globally, I saw that diversion was backed by policies, and there was a certain framework which had a set of rules. It had a set of code of conduct. But in India, it was more based on individual goodwill. So we had people, if the CEO or the top management was pro diversity, it would happen automatically, because the ones at the junior level had no choice. They had to naturally comply. But here now in India, it's become more organized, more structured, and people, there are departments now which look into issues of diversity and inclusion, and they try and make the organization work towards that. So they are big companies. They are small companies in India, all are trying to absorb this in the corporate DNA, like I said. So people are conscious. And there are conscious. There are seminars which are happening. People are being spoken to. There is workplace, you know sensitization that follows. People talk about it, people discuss it, and there is a lot of exchange of dialog which happens. So people talk, people learn, people adapt   Michael Hingson ** 44:15 well. So you you work for the Swedish company, for you said, like, 12 years, and then what did you   Shabnam Asthana ** 44:25 do after that? I moved on to, you know, start my own company, which was empowered solutions. That's my brain child, and it's a communications PR and communications company, and I, sort of, I'm the founder director for that the Empowered solutions is my company now, and we are completed. It was set up in 2005 October.   Michael Hingson ** 44:50 2005 what? What made you decide to leave the bigger corporate world and take on all of the challenges of entrepreneur? Leadership and starting your own company, because that certainly is a major change.   Shabnam Asthana ** 45:04 It is I was in the top management. I had a set job, I had the name, the recognition, everything that comes with that. But somehow there was still that kind of, I would say, curiosity, to experiment and to try on newer things. And I am a person who gets a little bored of stagnation, and I had almost reached the height of my career in these companies, and there was nothing more I could do unless I bought over those companies and sort of, you know, became the president and the chairman, which I would I could not do. So I said, Why don't I sort of diversify and take all this learning that I have, all the goodwill that I've earned over the years with the people that have been my clients, with my colleagues, with the people I've met in my business conferences. Why don't I take all this and try and set up something on of my own where I am at liberty to do whatever I want to do without the time pressure, you know, without a pressure of morning meetings and you know, things which have to be a nine to five kind of a role here, I do agree that it is a 24 by seven job that I'm doing at present, because I'm always available. And, you know, I believe that accessibility is very important if you have to be successful, you can't sort of close off and say, no, no, I'm, you know, if somebody needs you, you can't say, Okay, I'm just closing my door and my office. So that was the the, you know, the excitement of experimenting once again and seeing, of course, entrepreneurship is something which is very exciting, and that was something which I wanted to experiment and try and see how I could change that. And, you know, get it into my career. And, you know, get off the normal nine to five job. So that's what I did. I wanted to experiment.   Michael Hingson ** 47:21 So tell me a little bit more about if you would what your company does and how you serve clients and so on. And where are your clients?   Shabnam Asthana ** 47:29 Okay, so basically, it is a PR and communications company, and we have clients now globally. I have primarily in India, because that is where my office is. But I do have clients in Europe, in us, in Canada, where I am currently. And yes, it is more about public relations and communications, and that's what we do. So it's essentially a diversification of I have also taken on writing as part of one of my services. So I do a lot of book writing. I take on people who want to be either who want to tell a story, and who don't have either the time or the expertise. I write for them. I ghost right for them. We also do events. So we have done a couple of events globally, not on a very large scale, but yes, we do have. So it's events, it's public relations, it's communications, it's training, and it's writing.   Michael Hingson ** 48:39 So that's it, right? Well, so you have written one book. Are you looking at doing any more books? By any chance?   Shabnam Asthana ** 48:49 Now I have ghost written about 16 books. So they're all ghost written and under a contract where I don't disclose the names of the books. But yes, I've authored three books, and the first one was romancing your career, a very interesting and fascinating book. That was my first book, and later on, I went on to do two biographies, and yes, I'm doing a couple more correctly, where they are being authored by me. So I'm writing the biographies.   Michael Hingson ** 49:26 So today, in all the work that that you're, that you're doing, do you, do you get involved with many international projects?   Shabnam Asthana ** 49:39 Yes, not many, but yes, we are doing a slow and steady progress there. And we do, I do, keep getting a lot of inquiries. And I must say that I have got a couple of inquiries recently which are very interesting. And I. Working on those. Maybe it's a little premature to tell you that, but yes, there is one big project that has come my way, and we're planning to expand from there. Well.   Michael Hingson ** 50:12 So you have experienced a lot of different countries and so on, and India is certainly becoming more of an economic and a world power in the in terms of what all is happening. Do you think that that the attitudes of India and the way India deals with inclusion and so on is making a difference, and Will that continue to happen?   Shabnam Asthana ** 50:43 Well, Michael, it will, because we are moving out of our country, and we have, you know, taken spots in so many other countries. So if we want to be included, it's high time we practice the same. So we have to welcome other cultures. We have to welcome other nationalities if we hope to be welcomed in other countries as well. So that is something which has really influenced the thinking of people, because we can't be rigid. We can't be, you know, thinking in our own way. And say, Well, let's not do it, because we have to welcome other countries if we have to work and move out of India. So yes, Michael, I will say that very hard. It's very heartening to note that it is changing, and it will continue to do so. In fact, you know, India is moving from being seen as an outsourced to something which people sort of welcome with open arms. But then, yes, things are changing. There are things which are happening which may limit the movement of people, or it may increase the flow of people. But then, well, we have to adopt, adapt and move on.   Michael Hingson ** 52:04 Yeah, well, there's always going to be some of that which makes which makes sense. Yes. What kind of advice would you give to someone, especially young professionals, women and others who are different? What advice would you give to someone who may feel excluded or undervalued in their careers.   Shabnam Asthana ** 52:25 The best thing that I would like to say is that if you hear a no, don't let it bog you down, because be sure that tomorrow you will hear a better yes, it will be something that is shaping the way for your future. So you must not let any naysayers or any projects that fail bog you down just because you're a woman or because you're different or anybody you know. You have to show your courage, you have to be resilient, and you have to lean on your inner strengths. The best magic, the you know, time tried and tested formula, which I would advocate, is leaning on your inner strengths. All of us have a lot of strengths, believe you me, we may not know it, but all of us have a lot of strengths. So when you see a situation that is not to your liking, just lean on your inner strengths. Take a deep breath and say today's no will be a yes tomorrow, and that is the courage that you must move ahead with anybody, irrespective of whether you are a woman or you are any person who is stepping into the corporate world. Just value yourself. Always Be confident. Wear the confidence. And that's the best accessory that you would have.   Michael Hingson ** 54:03 How would you define unstoppable mindset?   Shabnam Asthana ** 54:08 Unstoppable mindset is not something which is something which rises beyond limitations. And by limitations, I don't mean only individual limitations. It may be the limitations of the other people. Let that not define your limitation. Your the term unstoppable, to me, is a term which shows resilience. It shows something where you can fumble. It's very natural to fumble, to stumble, to fall down, to face challenges, to face, you know, rejections. It's very normal, but unstoppable is. Being able to get up again with greater strength, with a better mindset, more courageously, and more importantly, with an open heart, which says, Yes, I will do it. You cannot say you cannot. You know, sort of put me down in any way. My courage is there, my inner strength is there. I am unstoppable in that sense.   Michael Hingson ** 55:28 I think the most important thing that you just said is that you have to do it with an open heart. I think everyone should do that you may learn that your idea may not be the best solution, and it might be the best solution, but you won't know that until you truly have an open heart and an open mind.   Shabnam Asthana ** 55:46 Truly, yes, absolutely, an open heart, I would say, is really, really key. It's very, very important.   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 What keeps you motivated as you continue to advocate for adverse diversity and inclusion and equity and so on.   Shabnam Asthana ** 56:04 What keeps me motivated? Michael, are many things, but then what i If I could just zero down on a couple of them, I would say that what keeps me motivated is the trust that people had in me, and, you know, to give me certain jobs, roles, the trust that they had to sort of say, okay, you can do it. And then I did it. And the people, what keeps me motivated is something also very nice, which somebody came up to me at a recent conference in Germany, and they said, you know, the reason why I didn't give up is because of you. That is me, because I motivated them to do something, and that was your motivation for me, I was like, Okay, if I can motivate you, I too can stay motivated for a long, long time to come. And that's something which I do. I try to inspire and I try to inspire myself as well in the process.   Michael Hingson ** 57:07 Well, if you could leave everyone who is involved in hearing this podcast and so on today, if you could leave them with one powerful message about embracing diversity and so on. What would that message be?   Shabnam Asthana ** 57:23 Well, that message would be that whatever is happening today, if you feel that there is even a little bit of acceptability, that is because somebody else has worked towards it, so now it is your chance to give it back to society, to keep working, to keep opening doors for people, for a better tomorrow, for a more inclusive tomorrow. And diversity doesn't and inclusivity doesn't happen overnight. You have to work towards it. There is a it's the whole process, and you have to work towards it relentlessly. Continue working. Somebody else has worked. They have pushed you forward. They have done a whole lot of things. Now it's your turn to do your bit and ensure that the people who are coming after you come to a better tomorrow, a more inclusive tomorrow.   Michael Hingson ** 58:27 It also, by definition, means that we need to learn how to work with each other and support and help each other,   Shabnam Asthana ** 58:34 of course. And empathy. Empathy is the key, empathy, sensitivity, all that.   Michael Hingson ** 58:41 So if people would like to reach out to you, maybe use your company services or talk with you. How can they do that?   Shabnam Asthana ** 58:48 They could contact me. You can write to me at my email id, which is Shabnam, S, H, A, B n, a m, at empowered solutions, my company name, E, M, P, O, W, E, R, E, D, S, o, l, U, T, I O, N, S, dot, I n, that's my name. The emails will reach me. That's an inbox which you know I'm monitoring myself, and be sure that you will receive a reply. I'd love to hear from people, and I love to communicate. I love to write back. So very welcome.   Michael Hingson ** 59:30 And I would ask, just sort of on principle, if anyone reaches out to Shabnam, who has heard this podcast, please mention that, just so that she knows where you where you discovered her, and I think that would be a good thing to do. Well, I want to thank you for being here. I think this has been absolutely wonderful. I think we've learned a lot I have and I value the insights that you bring. So I hope that other people will take the. Those same insights away, there's there's a lot to learn here, and there's a lot to gain from this. So I want to thank you again for being here, and maybe we'll have to do this again in the future.   Shabnam Asthana ** 1:00:12 I'd love to do that. And Michael, I'd like to thank you for hosting this wonderful, wonderful show. I have seen your episodes. They are brilliant, and it's really nice. I was so looking forward to this. It's been an absolute pleasure to interact with you, and I hope that we'll be doing more of this in the near future.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:35 Well, we'll have to explore that, and I want to thank all of you who are out there watching and listening. I want to thank you for being here. We appreciate you very much. Wherever you're listening or watching. Please give us a five star review. We value that very highly. We really would appreciate you saying good things about us. A five star review is always a wonderful thing. I'd like to hear from you as well. I'd like to hear what your thoughts are about this podcast. Feel free to email me at Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts. We value them, and we take all the comments that we get from people very much to heart. So we appreciate you doing that. And if you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on our podcast, who you think ought to be a guest, let us know. Introduce us. Shabnam, that's also true for you, please. If you know anyone who ought to be a guest, we'd love to meet people and have them come on the podcast and also help us show how we're all more unstoppable than we think we are, or we thought we were. So once again, though, I want to thank you for being here. Shabnam, this has been wonderful. Thank you very much.   Shabnam Asthana ** 1:01:51 Thank you, Michael, thank you to all the listeners.   **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:59 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

25 years ago today, the PlayStation 2 launched in the US. I recount my lonely camping out at a local store that nobody knew had PS2's, only to get a PS2 that didn't work. Once Upon A Katamari is a new entry in my favorite game series, and reviewers love it but there's an aspect of it I'm not as much a fan of. Microsoft has told the Xbox division that they must make 30% profit margins, something that no game company has been able to do. This explains why Xbox has made the decisions they have made for the past year. Then we talk about how Microsoft has opted all users of the Xbox Game Bar on PC into a Microsoft Copilot feature that periodically takes screenshots of your gameplay and sends it to their AI for learning - even if it's a game you're developing and under NDA.

Today we dig into the hard truths of small-business innovation in defense: most startups won't sell end items—they'll be 1st– or 2nd-tier subs whose tech is embedded in a prime's system. We unpack why founders fear losing IP to primes (and why we need better mechanisms than today's SBIR handoffs), where OCONUS opportunities really exist (think F-35 supply-chain niches and vetted foreign subsidiaries—limited but real), and why talent acquisition is make-or-break. Bottom line: protect your IP, read every teaming/NDA, know when aviation or cleared work changes your risk—and recruit serious S&E horsepower if you want to matter. Key Takeaways: IP first. Most small firms will be subs; use defensible NDAs/teaming terms and SBIR data-rights to avoid handing your crown jewels to primes. OCONUS is niche. Foreign buys happen (e.g., F-35 components), but protectionist policies mean smaller budgets and tougher entry—win with differentiated tech. Talent is strategy. Deep science & engineering capability (think Caltech/MIT-level rigor) remains the decisive edge for modernization programs. Know more about the Bootcamp: https://govcongiants.org/bootcamp Learn more: https://federalhelpcenter.com/ https://govcongiants.org/

Day 23 of Democrat Government Shutdown. Dana breaks down how John Fetterman now has a larger reach than AOC. Virginia Democrats plan on redistricting to pull Winsome Sears off the campaign trail. Ontario runs an ad against Trump on tariffs with an out-of-context narration from a 1987 speech from Ronald Reagan. Bruce Springsteen drops a “No Kings” at a recent show on his tour. J.B. Pritzker floats a conspiracy theory that Trump will use the military to seize the ballot boxes in the 2026 Midterms. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner's former political director said his campaign offered her $15,000 to sign an NDA to keep quiet about his N*zi tattoo. Karoline Leavitt shuts DOWN an ABC reporter trying to fact-check her about the history of White House renovations. Dana debunks the leftist narratives about the renovations. Fox News' Bret Baier EXPOSES J.B. Pritzker's false claim that Chicago doesn't have a high murder rate and brings RECEIPTS. Recovering Investment Banker Carol Roth joins us to discuss the currency swap with Argentina, the direct effects on Americans' farmers and ranchers and more. Thank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible…CovePurehttps:/CovePure.com/DanaTake back control of your family's health with CovePure, the advanced water filtration system designed for pure, great-tasting water. Get $200 off. Webroothttps://Webroot.com/DanaChange your October from cyber-scary to cyber-secure with 60% off Webroot Total Protection.AmmoSquaredhttps://AmmoSquared.comDon't get caught without ammo and be sure to tell them you heard about Ammo Squared on this show. ChapterFor free and unbiased Medicare help from my partners Chapter, dial #250 and say keyword “My Medicare”Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand-alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan's contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently, we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don't directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.Keltechttps://KelTecWeapons.comKelTec builds every KS7 GEN2 right here in the USA with American materials and workers—upgrade your home defense today. All Family Pharmacyhttps://AllFamilyPharmacy.com/Dana Don't wait until flu season knocks at your door. Use code DANA10 at checkout to save 10%. Relief Factorhttps://ReliefFactor.com OR CALL 1-800-4-RELIEFTurn the clock back on pain with Relief Factor. Get their 3-week Relief Factor Quick Start for only $19.95 today! Byrnahttps://Byrna.com/DanaGet your hands on the new compact Byrna CL. Visit Byrna.com/Dana to receive 10% off Patriot Mobilehttps://PatriotMobile.com/DanaDana's personal cell phone provider is Patriot Mobile. Get a FREE MONTH of service code DANAHumanNhttps://HumanN.comStart supporting your cardiovascular health with SuperBeets, now available at your local Walmart.

If you're a regular purchaser of games, you're a stark minority within the very industry you know and love. We've known all about the revenue-related trends directing games as of late, but recent data indicates things are far more dire than they seem, particularly if you're a single player purist. For instance, a third of gaming consumers purchase less than one game a year; 12% buy one game a year; 18% buy two games a year. Only 14% of players buy at least one game a month! Yet, there's more money flowing than ever. Like, lots more. What gives? A migration of customers and their habits, of course! We discuss. Other news this week includes a brief Mark Cerny video celebrating Sony's collaboration with AMD for PlayStation 6, the reemergence of Marathon with invites to an NDA'd closed test, the bluest DualSense controller you could possibly imagine, rumors of a cancelled Reconstruction-era Assassin's Creed, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! Could Sony be on the precipice of adding to its family of first party studios? Is there a potential unfilled niche for medical-themed titles? Does PlayStation need to spin-up a new loyalty program? Forget about your favorite color. What's your favorite shape? Download the PrizePicks app and use code SACRED to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:00:00 - Intro0:37:16 - Strange places to listen to Sacred0:41:27 - Ben Debate0:52:43 - Favorite shape0:58:31 - Mark Cerny appears!1:09:26 - New player purchasing data1:29:11 - New Marathon technical test coming1:49:59 - New early PlayStation lore1:58:37 - New blue Dualsense2:03:38 - PlayStation Concert cancelled2:10:25 - Cancelled Assassin's creed leaked2:33:10 - Expedition 33 sells over 5 million, new content coming2:35:40 - New Circana data2:43:33 - Top PSN downloads2:47:34 - PowerWash Simulator 2 release date and Mina the Hollower delayed2:54:28 - What We're Playing (Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei, Baby Steps, Mario Galaxy)3:27:58 - SIE and Sword of the Sea?3:31:39 - Will Rockstar innovate gameplay in GTA VI3:37:38 - What's the end point of live service?3:42:44 - What do "fans" want?3:55:38 - PlayStation Stars still floating around3:59:19 - Where are the medical games? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices