Podcasts about new englanders

Winter Wisdom: Buying and Selling Homes in New England During the Cold Months When most people think of real estate seasonality, they picture the spring market bright flowers, open houses, and eager buyers emerging from winter hibernation. But on this week's episode of Talk Real Estate Roundtable, Sharon McNamara and Melissa Wallace reminded listeners that winter in New England brings its own unique set of opportunities, challenges, and wisdom for both buyers and sellers. Busting the Myth: “No One Buys or Sells in Winter” One of the most common misconceptions in real estate is that nothing happens once the cold sets in. Sharon set the record straight homes sell every month of the year, and serious buyers don't stop searching because the temperature drops. In fact, winter often attracts the most motivated buyers those relocating for work, upsizing or downsizing before the new year, or simply ready to make a move despite the season. As Sharon noted on-air, “There's always a reason someone needs to sell and when motivation meets opportunity, the season doesn't matter.” Why Winter Real Estate Deserves Attention Melissa asked the question many wonder: why does winter real estate deserve its own spotlight? Sharon explained that the colder months bring unique considerations from curb appeal under snow to heating costs, icy driveways, and limited daylight for showings. But with proper preparation, sellers can stand out when inventory is lower and competition is thinner. Plus, fewer listings mean more attention for your home. “You might just have fewer buyers looking,” Sharon said, “but the ones who are looking are serious.” Seller Tips for the Cold Months Create Warmth the Moment Buyers Step In – Keep the heat steady, bake something simple, and add cozy touches like soft lighting or throws to help buyers feel at home. Stay on Top of Snow and Ice – Safety is part of presentation. Keep driveways, walkways, and stairs clear. Highlight Winter Efficiency – Energy-efficient heating systems, newer windows, and good insulation are major selling points this time of year. Leverage the Season – Decorate tastefully for the holidays; a festive but uncluttered space can create an emotional connection. Buyer Considerations in Winter Winter home shopping isn't without its perks. Sharon and Melissa noted that buyers can often see how well a home handles the cold. You'll experience the heating system, insulation, and draft control firsthand. And because the market tends to slow, you may face less competition when making an offer. Buyers should, however, stay mindful of weather-related limitations roofs, landscaping, or exterior conditions may be covered by snow, so factor in a thorough spring check if needed. A Glimpse Ahead: Predictions from the Farmer's Almanac The conversation took a lighthearted detour when the hosts discussed the surprising news that one edition of the Farmer's Almanac will stop publication after 2026 though not the Old Farmer's Almanac most New Englanders rely on. According to its forecast, Massachusetts can expect a mild and dry winter with fewer snow days than usual but Sharon and Tim at WATD agreed: “It's still New England, baby. You never really know.” A Roundtable Tradition of Connection The episode also featured live listener calls and even a check-in from a real estate friend in Miami. Listeners weighed in on whether they'd list now or wait until after the holidays and most agreed: why wait? As one caller said, “If you're serious, just go ahead and put it on now and see what happens.” That spirit of engagement mixed with laughter, storytelling, and genuine care is exactly what keeps Boston Connect Real Estate's Talk Real Estate Roundtable such a beloved part of the South Shore community. Final Thoughts Whether you're buying or selling this winter, the key is preparation and partnership. The agents at Boston Connect Real Estate specialize in helping clients navigate every season of the market with strategy, care, and a bit of local wisdom. If you're ready to start your next chapter, contact our team today at bostonconnect.com or call 781-826-8000 to schedule a one-on-one consultation. Because with the right team by your side, every move can be a moving experience.

In this episode of the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast, host Diana Winkler interviews Pastor Mark Sowersby, who shares his powerful testimony of overcoming childhood abuse and finding forgiveness and healing through faith. Mark recounts his early life filled with abuse, meeting Jesus at 16, and wrestling with his identity as a victim. Through the love of his church community and personal determination, he not only found freedom but also pursued education and ministry. He also speaks about reconnecting with his birth father and how the loss of his mother catalyzed the launch of his ministry, 'Forgiving the Nightmare'. The episode serves as an inspiring account of transformation, resilience, and the power of unconditional God's love. 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message 00:47 Welcome to the Podcast 01:25 Introducing Pastor Mark Sowersby 01:40 Technical Difficulties and Apologies 02:17 Pastor Mark's Testimony 05:49 Childhood and Abuse 07:10 Finding Faith and Forgiveness 18:06 Weight Loss Journey and Healing 23:08 Dyslexia and Education Struggles 24:42 Writing a Book and Ministry 28:14 Reading the Bible: Audio vs. Written 28:27 A Life-Changing Christmas Story 29:20 Overcoming Illiteracy with Help 30:14 A Love Story Blossoms 30:56 College Journey and Divine Guidance 32:49 Answering the Call to Ministry 33:13 Struggles with Self-Worth 35:15 Finding Confidence in God 35:56 Weight Loss and Self-Love 40:01 Victim to Victor: A Personal Transformation 45:00 Reuniting with Birth Father 48:20 Launching Forgiving the Nightmare Ministry 54:40 Final Thoughts and Prayer   website: www.forgivingthenightmare.com email: mark@forgivingthenightmare.com    Bio:  Reverend Mark Sowersby has been married to his wonderful wife Jennifer for 17 years and is the father of four children. Mark has been an ordained minister with Assembly of God for over 25 years and is currently the Pastor of Christian Assembly of Schuyler in beautiful upstate New York. Pastor Mark holds a BA in theology from Zion Bible College/Northpoint Bible College. In 2019 Pastor Mark went through a time of great healing. He began speaking about the experiences of his past and God's grace and the transformational work of forgiveness in his life. He now speaks about his story through his ministry, Forgiving The Nightmare. When he isn't serving his congregation and his community through ministry, teaching, and support, you can find him on all the trails and lakes in Upstate New York, spending time with his family.   Website: https://dswministries.org Subscribe to the podcast: https://dswministries.org/subscribe-to-podcast/ Social media links: Join our Private Wounds of the Faithful FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1603903730020136 Twitter: https://twitter.com/DswMinistries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxgIpWVQCmjqog0PMK4khDw/playlists Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dswministries/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DSW-Ministries-230135337033879 Keep in touch with me! Email subscribe to get my handpicked list of the best resources for abuse survivors! https://thoughtful-composer-4268.ck.page #abuse #trauma Affiliate links: Our Sponsor: 753 Academy: https://www.753academy.com/ Can't travel to The Holy Land right now? The next best thing is Walking The Bible Lands! Get a free video sample of the Bible lands here! https://www.walkingthebiblelands.com/a/18410/hN8u6LQP An easy way to help my ministry: https://dswministries.org/product/buy-me-a-cup-of-tea/ A donation link: https://dswministries.org/donate/ Transcript: [00:00:00] Special thanks to 7 5 3 Academy for sponsoring this episode. No matter where you are in your fitness and health journey, they've got you covered. They specialize in helping you exceed your health and fitness goals, whether that is losing body fat, gaining muscle, or nutritional coaching to match your fitness levels. They do it all with a written guarantee for results so you don't waste time and money on a program that doesn't exceed your goals. There are martial arts programs. Specialize in anti-bullying programs for kids to combat proven Filipino martial arts. They take a holistic, fun, and innovative approach that simply works. Sign up for your free class now. It's 7 5 3 academy.com. Find the link in the show notes. Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast, brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer songwriter, speaker and domestic violence advocate, [00:01:00] Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. Now here is Diana. Welcome back. You made it well. I have a great guest for you today. I told you about him last week. Pastor Mark Sowersby and he has knocked this interview out of the park, and we had an amazing time. We did not have an amazing time with the Zoom platform. I could not hear him, but he could hear me, and it was a half an hour of back and forth trying to get it to work. So I wound up having to record this episode on our phones with the earbuds. So I don't normally do [00:02:00] that. I usually have my $300 studio microphone. So if it doesn't sound as good, I apologize. But this content is so great that I think you'll forgive me, but I'll try to do some, post-production, to make it sound better. So without further ado. Here is Pastor Mark. Yeah. Nice. Nice to meet you. Yes, nice to meet you also. And I saw your wife there too, so, and I think you saw my husband's beard anyway. Yes. And my wife is the strength and the brains of this operation around us. I'm blessed. I'm a blessed man there. Amen. Thank you. Yes. So we got the, um, the technical, uh, demons outta the way. Well, I appreciate that. We tried two computers and my Apple phone. And I have to tell you, I am a novice at computers at best, so Yeah, me too. So we're kindred spirits for sure. Amen. Amen. And I read your testimony about your [00:03:00] website and your faith and your podcast and everything. What a beautiful testimony you have. Oh, thank you so much. So you, you're in Arizona, is that correct? Yes. Wow. Wow. Well, I have to tell you of one of my bucket lists because I'm a northeast guy. I'm a New England, New York. We have snow. It's freezing. They're saying we could have a possible blizzard tomorrow. Uh, I love that. Go to the Grand Canyon. That's my, on my bucket list. My, my family. Hear me speak about that all the time. I've never seen it. But I long to, let me tell you, it's more breathtaking than you can imagine. The pictures don't do it justice. I've been there many, many times, of course. And yes, you should come as soon as you're allowed to travel. I would be over here. Yeah. There's so much more to see. We long to go. We really want to see it. You know, if somebody said, you really see the significance when you look at that great canyon and you see how [00:04:00] small you are, it humbles you and reminds you of what a great big God we serve. So, you know, we just, uh, amen. Thank you for hearing my story and my testimony, and it's an honor to be here with you and celebrate the victories that we have in Christ. Amen, brother. We're gonna get to know you a bit here for my listeners. So why don't you tell the, listeners a little bit about yourself. My name is Mark Sowerby. I'm a husband, a father, a friend. I'm a sports fan. I eat too much. I talk too much, but I'm a pastor and a servant of Jesus Christ. I was looking at all your pictures and stuff, and I saw your progression of your weight loss. That is so amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And my weight loss journey is really just a symptom. Or result of the greater healing that's taken place in my life. Uh, I'm very proud of it. It's something [00:05:00] I have to work hard for and be very disciplined in. So yes, there's a work towards it, but really it's the sub to the main plot. The main plot is what Jesus did in my heart to help me forgive and help me heal the abuses and the pains. And as that began to fill my life, this weight loss journey with the discipline and that burning good habits and exercising, and I'm up to running, uh, six miles a day on the treadmill. So, wow. Six miles. Yeah. So well, remember, we're not in Arizona heat, so it's not hot, well, I have a treadmill. That's usually what I exercise on. I have an exercise room, I don't run unless somebody's chasing me or the laxative has started working. Those are good reasons to run. so let's start at the beginning. So what was your childhood like? Well, unfortunately I have a story of brokenness, pain, and sorrow. I was born from an affair. Uh, so my [00:06:00] father never really had a relationship with him. I am assuming that as soon as he, uh, got the news, he, he left. So I was raised by my mom. I have two siblings that my mom had from a prior marriage. So the three of us kind of lived together at my grandmother's house, and that's what I knew. That was what life was. I was seven years old. A young man came into our family, and that young man eventually married my mom 20 years, her younger, and when he came into our home, he brought abuse and pain. He brought death and destruction. He brought lies and poison. And as any abuser, those abusers have touched many people. And as not only did he abuse my mom in a and. With just vulgarness and pain, but he also abused me and with sexual abuse and physical abuse and emotional abuse. And it was just a very difficult time in my life. So from seven to 14, that's kind of the world I knew. Not only did he abuse my body, not only did he steal from [00:07:00] me, my dignity, my value. Not only did he try to control me, but he also sold me for other men to abuse me. Mm-hmm. Other men to take my body. He stabbed me and beat me and burnt me. And at 16, I was invited to church, I ran into a youth group. And, uh, there's a whole story in that. But let me tell you, I ran into youth group and I ran into Jesus. Jesus was Amen loving. Amen. Jesus's loving arms. He wrapped him around me and started me on the journey, journey of forgiveness. And it's been a journey up. I just turned 50. We just lost my mom earlier this year. Wow. They say a flu. Some say COVID, but we lost her earlier this year and it was really kind of a season for me to walk through some even deeper, deeper healing. We have a lot in common. 'cause I just lost my brother this week. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for your loss. Yeah. So we both have losses today. Yes. Yes. I'm so [00:08:00] sorry for your loss. You as well. Thank you. Your mother was a believer? She was at the end of her life. As we say, the 11th hour of Thief on the cross remember me. Mm-hmm. My mom did have one of those kind of conversions. Unfortunately, she never, the last few years of her life, she came to understand Jesus, but she never forgave herself or forgave. Her pain. She lived with the regrets and the shames and the guilt of her pains. She knew the love of Christ, and I believe that when she closed her eyes on this earth, she opened her eyes there because of what Christ did for her. But she carried this burden of shame and guilt and hurt. But I forgave her, not because I'm special, not because I'm better. I forgave her because Christ forgave me. And in that journey of learning with to forgive people say to me, how could you forgive such a great thing? I just forgave what was in front of me. That's it. Step by step, precept by precept. That's how I forgave. I [00:09:00] couldn't think about the whole journey all at it was too hard. What's in front of you? Well, we'll definitely get into, your process of forgiveness. Would it be okay to, circle back to your stepfather coming into your life? Now it sounded like it was a very violent to way he treated you. Did he do any grooming of you to start the abuse or was it violent right away? I believe there was grooming, again, being so young and, uh, being so, uh, naive. I probably didn't recognize it, but I'm sure there was grooming you know, there was this natural longing. From a child without a father to find a father figure. Mm-hmm. Um, being so young, not understanding the process of that, and any person that would gimme attention, I would run to them to try to find somebody who would govern me or lead me or [00:10:00] guide me or accept me. So I'm sure there was some manipulation in that, as I became more groomed or broken or became more pliable, if you would, because of my young immaturity. He began to have more of his way on it, just so you know. And I always refer to him as my mother's husband. Never as my stepfather? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, no, you didn't offend. No, I have forgiven him. I think in forgiveness, it's okay to have, uh, some boundaries. Sure. I think that, to have some healthy boundaries, I've forgiven him. I've put him in the hands of God, and I pray the grace of God will meet him and his pain and his sorrow, and only God can reach him. Uh, but again, there's some healthy boundaries around my life and my families. So what was your relationship with God when you were going through all this abuse? We grew up in a very religious home. I was a New England Protestant, so most of New England are [00:11:00] Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, Polish Catholic, French Catholic. But I was the rare Protestant. And I remember saying to my grandfather one day, I asked him, I said I, well, let me back up and say, I always knew what I wasn't. I knew I wasn't a Catholic, but I didn't know what I was. So, grandpa used to tell us we weren't Catholic. He announced that pretty clearly. But one day I asked him, I said, then if we're not Catholic, what religion are we? And all he said was, go ask your mother. So, you know, we didn't really grow up in any kind of. Formal faith-based community, uh, you know, sometimes went to Christmas Eve service, you know, those kind of what we call Sea Easter and Christmas. The CE. The CE crowd. That's right. But it really wasn't, a church was not a part of my life. We knew God was there, be good and you go to heaven, be nice to people, you go to heaven. But there really wasn't a faith-based situation. I'll be honest with you, uh, the [00:12:00] only religion I got, or the only faith I got was the one album that was played in our home. It's not a Christian album, it was Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm a kid of the seventies. Yes, I'm very familiar with that. Yeah. And but God's name is so powerful now as a Bible college graduate, as a pastor, I could see all the holes of the theology in that and how it was really written, dragged down the gospel. They say Jesus Christ, and as a child, that name is so powerful. So, I mean, I didn't know anything. So here I was, I, I remember seven years old with a big headset on sitting in front of the speakers and listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. And, and now I realize what a mockery it was. But then just the name has power. Yeah, there was no resurrection in that movie. No, no, no. You know, when you have Mary Magdalene sing to, to him and say, you're just a man, [00:13:00] only a man. I mean, it's such a mockery. But again, at eight years old, 10 years old, I thank God that all truth belongs to God. Amen. And his name is so, amen, powerful. Amen. That every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And as that name, Jesus was smoking, it pierced my darkness. Now, I didn't know about crying out. I didn't know about prayer, but God was preparing me for such a time. And at 16 the lifeguard at the apartment complex invited me to church. She was a pretty girl, and I didn't wanna say no. Uh, she invited she invited me and picked me up with her boyfriend. Oops. We went, yeah, we went to church that night and there began my journey into meeting Christ, knowing his mercy and grace into my faith walk and it's been a journey ever since. So is that when you, met the Lord for real [00:14:00] and got saved? Exactly, I was 16 years old. It was the early part of the summer and I went to that youth group and everybody told me that. To throw away my rock and roll music and to cut my hair and take my earring out. And everybody wanted to hug me and I didn't wanna be hugged by anybody. It's an evangelical Pentecostal church. And I was like, I don't, yeah. But come to find out, the youth pastor lived in the same apartment complex I did. I had a ride to church anytime it was open. So, later on that summer, mid-August, I remember a man inviting me, a young man from the youth group. It was raining. He was giving me a ride home. We got into his car and he asked me right there, uh, mark, do you wanna ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior? And we prayed right there the sinner's prayer. And I recognized the grace of God and the mercy of God and the Spirit of God. And at 16 years old, I asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord. And I thank him that he was calling me at such a time. So, and then I [00:15:00] had to grow up. Wow. And then I had to grow. I was still 16 with a messed up background and, still was spilling life all over myself. But that church loved me. They hugged me and kicked me in the can at the same time. Now were you out of your mom's house? Away from your abuser? Well. When the abuse first became, and I don't wanna say public, but when it became outside of the family when I meant the first person I confessed it to or, or shared it with, was my uncle. And I think that people have to remember my abuse happened from 19 7 7 to 1984. And the awareness and the advocacy that's out there today wasn't there then. And things like this happen behind closed doors. And I think culturally, not everybody, but culturally in most families said, we keep that stuff behind closed doors. We don't share it. We handle it as families. I told my uncle at [00:16:00] 14 years old. He was the first person I confessed to, and I ended up living with my uncle for about a year. He became my defender. So from about 14 to about 15 and a half, I lived with my uncle, and about 15 and a half I moved back with my mom. And yes, her husband was still there. But he, uh, he was very sickly at this time. So, he wasn't able to hurt me physically anymore. And I was strong enough to not allow anybody to hurt me anymore. So Now you said the word confess. Well, you didn't do anything wrong. Thank you. I, yeah, I just meant, I told. You shared your story, your abuse, uh, your victimization. So yeah. You don't have to apologize for anything. Amen. Thank you. That's right. It was probably a poor choice of words. I was just reading. I announced to my uncle, or I, I shared out, I took it out. I took it outta that simple family unit that I would tell my mom, [00:17:00] my mom having so much hurt and pain in her life, didn't know how to handle that. And just would say, well, he promises not to do it again. And he promised not to do it. And of course, so in a lot of ways I felt like my mom was a victim. And, and. Even though I've had to learn to forgive my mom because of what she allowed to happen, but in some ways, not that I justify it, but I've begun to understand it. Because she was abused by her first husband who broke her heart because, uh, just pain who had many affairs on her, and she was so broken down, so hurting and she did not understand love. I think she, um, interpreted love in a very, uh, trying to think of the word here you know, an enabling way. My mom was more of an enabler and I think she interpreted her love in enabling. So she enabled people. I mean, it sounds like [00:18:00] codependency. Was that the word you're looking for? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. So you struggled with your weight for years. Was that a symptom of your. Abuse your childhood? I, I think it was, you know, I'm, I'm not a psychologist or, a social worker. I'm a preacher, but you know, I think what I was trying to find in food was comfort, friendship. It always accepted me, uh, it comforted me when I was having a bad day and it rewarded me when I was having a good one. But like any drug, if you would, it lies to you. And it says, Hey, is everything will be okay. Just have a little bit more, have a little bit more, and, it just is. So for me, food became my drug of choice. Mm-hmm. Uh, it became where I found comfort, found peace, found acceptance. I punished myself with it. Boy, I'm no good. I'm going to eat ice cream. Oh, I'm having a great day. I'm gonna eat [00:19:00] ice cream. So, you know, it was one of those things. Uh, what I tell people is that I wish I could say to you that, that God has taken away all the hurt, all the pain, all the sorrow. It's still there in my life. It's still a familiar. Familiar pain that continues to call to me. But what God did is he became bigger. He became bigger than the pain. He became bigger than the shame. He became bigger than the hurt. So is it still there? Sure. And the flesh wants to run to it. And the psyche wants to run to it because I know it, it's comfortable. I, I know my role there. I, I understand what my protection and my manipulation that I can find there. But God became bigger. God became bigger. You know, I was telling a friend today, and I climbed a mountain after I lost about 50 pounds. I climbed a mountain. And it was about a half a mile long. And to me it was Everest. It was the biggest mountain in the world. And it took me hours [00:20:00] to go up and I had blisters on my feet and bruises on my toe. I was very proud that I climbed it. But after I lost about a hundred pounds, I climbed the biggest mountain in the state of New York called Mount Marcy. And what was the difference between those two mountains? One was bigger and I think that's the same thing. What happened to me is that even though that sometimes the enemy wants to try to bring me back to those familiar pains, those familiar insecurities, those familiar foes, God became bigger. His word, his spirit his love all became bigger. And I have to hold onto that and I have to claim, not claim it, but I have to run into it. You know, I have to run into that every day. So. Oh, you would love the mountains here. We have so many mountains to climb. So yeah. If you come to Phoenix, then we'll have to go hiking together. Yes. I wanna see that Grand Canyon. I wanna come to Phoenix. I am a New Englander, but it's cold [00:21:00] all the time here. But I hear that you guys leave for the summer and go back in the winter. We leave for the winter to warm places because it's so hot in Phoenix in the summer. Yeah. We're not snowbirds. We are here all year. Now we get to 110 every year. That's, that's normal. It gets to 120 here every summer. But this year it was 55 days of 110 degrees. Wow. Which, um, that killed all my plants and, uh, two of my trees, so Wow. Yeah, it's 70 degrees outside now, but in the summertime it's brutal. Wow. Don't come in the summer. Come in the winter. Okay. I, um, I did get to do a mission chip for Juarez, Mexico, which is obviously south of you guys and a little east, but at the same time, I got a touch of hot weather and I have done a lot of missions trips to Central America and the Caribbean, but they do have a different climate because of the sea and the water. So it's not that dry heat. [00:22:00] It's, definitely that, more moist, heat. Yeah, I think you'll do fine. Like I said, I looked forward to it. We were just in Israel in, November November, 2019, and it was 85 degrees. In Jerusalem and I roasted, I had such a hard time because the elevation was different and the humidity from the from the sea. Yeah. I don't know if you've been to Israel, I have not. Another, another bucket list, yeah yes, definitely recommend that for sure. Thank you. My wife and I, we love to travel. You know, we, we have four children, so right now our kids are in the ages of 15 to seven, so we are right in the midst of it. You know, we're, we're mom and dad, taxi and, and we homeschool. So my wife is going a hundred miles an hour all the time. Pastor wife. Homeschool mom and she's taking care of [00:23:00] me. So, I mean, this is, God bless her. If there's a hero in this story, it's my wife. Your wife's a homeschooler. Um, you had said in your story that you had dyslexia growing up. What was that like? Well, you know, I think that I still have it. Uh, God hasn't, hasn't healed me from it. So what happens is, is I tell people when the way I was raised, I survived my childhood. I wasn't raised, you know, I didn't have parents that, that looked out for me. I didn't have somebody who wanted to govern my experiences or, or was an advocate for me. So I, I really just kind of survived my childhood and one of the casualties of that. Was my education. Uh, it was the early seventies, so I think there was a lot going on with sight reading and some different kind of philosophies of teaching. So here I was in a broken home with a learning disability. I [00:24:00] was being bullied at school because the way I felt about myself and, you know, so yeah, reading has always been a chore for me. It still is a chore today. But again, the lord, he helps and he, he brings me through and he gave me a brilliant wife. Uh, she is a, a teacher by education. And my children love to read. My son will walk into walls. He reads books this thick. I mean, and I remember holding him the moment he was born, praying, Lord, give him just a heart for reading. And he does. I mean, my son 15 says, dad, can we go to the library? Love the library. Oh, he, yeah, we're friends with the librarian. Uh, if they need somebody to help him out, move books and they call him. But yes, reading has always been a chore and I, believe it or not, I'm in the midst of writing a book. Oh, I was just gonna ask that if you had a book out or not. We are just started to speak to a publisher, it's self-publishing company. Uh, so we're definitely in [00:25:00] conversations. We have written, just kind of let it pour out of me. It's been there for 50 years, so just kind of. And, uh, now we've kind of put it in front of people who really know what they're doing. I tell everybody, I wrote it my ways, I handed it to my wife and she interpreted it and made it legible. And, uh, we have some local friends who have done some basic editing, so they're kind of editing for us, and now we're sending it to the publisher who knows how to edit in a professional way. So, so, you know, the Lord told me years ago that this testimony would be written down. I remember I chuckled when he told me that because I said, Lord, I can barely read or write. And I remember saying to the Lord, Lord, if you want this written down, what am I gonna call it? He said, you'll call it Forgiving the Nightmare. So that's why the name of the ministry, the name of the book, the name of the website is called Forgiving the Nightmare. I think everybody uh, regardless of [00:26:00] how one came, you know, yours and I came in by probably hands of other people's, but sometimes nightmares come in by all different ways. Loss, regrets pains, hurts. And we all have to kind of say, Lord, how do we go through that? And I know as Christians, we want it instant, you know, we wanna stand on the word, we wanna claim it, we wanna save. Lord, give it to me. But I think sometimes we have to, uh, go through the process. I think of Jacob and how he wrestled with God, or he wrestled with the angel and they wrestled all night long. And, and God, the angel touched his hip and then he said, what do you want? And Jacob said, I want a new. And he became Israel, the promise. Mm-hmm. So he left deceiver, as you know, and he became Israel promise. And I think sometimes in that journey of forgiveness as much as Christians and people, we want it and we want it so true and so earnestly, [00:27:00] but sometimes we have to wrestle. We have to wrestle with the past. We have to wrestle with ourselves, we have to wrestle with the fears, and wrestling doesn't make us bad, doesn't make us sinners, doesn't mean God has left us. I think God's working with us, the process as a pastor, I've seen so many people who are unwilling to go through the process. And they get stuck. They get stuck in the cycle, in the the hurts and the pains of life. Just kind of build up on them. And I know God wants to set 'em free, but again, it, you have to learn to die to self crucify the old man, you know, tame the tongue. And it's hard. It's hard, especially when everything in the, especially when everything in the world tells you you're okay to have that. It's okay for you to hate. It's okay for you to be angry. It's okay for you to, when God says, for us to let him go first, let Him lead us. And God is, if we forgive those who trespass against us, he'll be faithful and just to forgive us. [00:28:00] And that scripture boy haunted me for a long time because I said, Lord, I'm not ready to begin. I'm sorry I'm preaching. No, you're awesome. I'm enjoying this. Um, I'm curious how you read your Bible. Do you use an audio bible or do you, um, do use an actual written Bible? Well, I do read Bible. I like the ESV, I like the NIV, I like those verses. I do read it. I do listen to audio at times. What happened was, is about 20, I was in my early twenties and a woman at church asked me to read the Christmas story out of Luke in front of the youth group. Now, when I say youth group, we had about a hundred youth in our youth group, maybe even 150. It was a large youth group and she was the kind of woman who would not take no for an answer. You know, the church lady? Yeah. I think every church has one of those. Yeah. And you know, I tried to give her every excuse in the [00:29:00] book, I lost my glasses. I was too embarrassed to say that I couldn't read. So I got up in front of the youth group and I read out of Luke chapter two and I. Stumbled over my words and I read slowly and I read broken up. And people were very kind to me that day. The youth pastor and the youth group, they were not cruel. And after service, that woman came back to me and said that she homeschooled her children and she would like to homeschool me if I'd want to. Now I was, I was a grownup. I was 23 and I went back to her house and there I sat with her 6-year-old, five-year old as she was teaching her 5-year-old, 6-year-old how to read. She was also teaching me phonics. I never learned phonics. I tell everybody, when I learned TION and Sean and not ion, it changed my life. Unbeknownst to me that church lady had an older daughter [00:30:00] and that older daughter watched me. Watch me struggle over my words, watch me go to the house and sit with her five-year-old sister and learn ae IOU and learn the rules of bowels and phonics. Well, years later, that older daughter would become my wife. Oh. Oh. So, yep. So, you know, she told me that she fell in love with me and she watched me there. And so that, that's a little bit of our love story. But yeah, she watched me from afar and, and now today we have four kids together and she still helps me read. So I do read. I a much stronger reader than I ever was. Uh mm-hmm. So I, I can read a much better than I could then. Well, I certainly can see looking back that you had so many people in your corner to that God sent to help you, and what a blessing. Now, did you go to college? I did. I [00:31:00] graduated from what's now called North Point Bible College. At the time, it was called Zion Bible College. It was in Barrington, Rhode Island. It was a very focused school for ministry only. Uh, so I did go there. I didn't wanna go there. I'm a New Englander. I knew about the school. It was in my backyard. I wanted to go to Southeastern to Florida. I wanted to go to pennsylvania and go to Valley Forge. Uh, those doors were not open to me. I remember saying, the Lord, I'm done. Lord, I've tried. Everybody's rejecting me because of my education. And he said, go to Zion. I went in and I met with the Dean of students. In that meeting, the dean of students said to me, mark, do you have a call? I said, yes, I believe I do have a call. He got up from his desk and he went to a big picture window, a woman who was walking in front of his picture window, and he tapped onto the window and he called this woman in. As she came [00:32:00] into his office, he introduced me to a woman named Jan Kruger. He let me know that Jan was led by God to go to school, to go to Zion the week earlier than me to start a learning center. And Jan and I became our first student in the learning center and we worked hard. The first year, most of my, classes were uncredited 'cause I had to learn how to be a student. I didn't know what a syllabi was. I didn't know how to take tests. Uh, we sat in that learning center. I cried, I complained. She was a mom. She hugged me sometimes and she told me to. To suck it up sometimes. And, uh, that was the best advice I could get. So yeah, i'm a proud graduate of Zion Bible College, and I'm ordained with the Assembly of God. So when did you get called into the ministry? Well, pretty much after, it was about my 17th year, 16 years old, I got saved and 17 years old, I was [00:33:00] at a Youth convention, and I pretty much felt like the Lord called me then. Now, I ran from that call for a long time because of my insecurities, my fears, my inabilities. See, when I walked into the room, I always felt like I was junk. Like I was dirt. Like I could offer nobody, nothing. And I was, no, you know, I, that's how I felt about myself. So who would let me be that pastor? What do I have to offer? I could barely read. Look what happened to me. So. For many years I wrestled with it and about 24, 25 years old, I had a brand new truck, little S 10 pickup truck. They called it Bernie because it was purple. I was listening to Petra, remember a Petra? I love Petra. And I was, I was listening to Petra from the seventies not the nineties. Petra and I remember I was listening to Petra and the Holy Spirit filled with the cab of that car and that truck I had to [00:34:00] pull over. I was on old post road. I'll never forget tears coming down my face. The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, mark, choose this day whom you'll serve. I've called you and I will equip you. And I said, God, I want you. That's when the journey of. Colleges, and I wish I could tell you it was all roses and cherries after that. It wasn't, you know, there's still a lot of growing up and a lot of overcoming, and a lot of dying to self. And, and there still is. But yeah, that's how I got called and I went to that school and they loved me. They were honest to me. You sound like you had a lot , in coming with Moses with his speech impediment. He was, exiled to be a goat and a sheep herder. They're not gonna listen to me, Lord. You know? Did you feel like that? Oh, sure. I sure did. Like I said, I, for most of my life, I felt like what can I offer? So what I did is I put a facade on myself or I, I lived up to the role that I [00:35:00] thought people wanted from me, or a role to, to find acceptance or protection. So, if I had to be the clown, I was the clown. If I had to be the fool, I was the fool. If I had to be the weak, I was the weak because I felt those things about me. Recently in this weight loss journey and this giving, God has given me confidence. And I say that with much humility because I know it's not my confidence, it's confidence in him. But I've never had confidence before. I feel like a carpenter with a new tool. I feel like, you know, a businessman with a new suit that I've never had confidence before. Now again, it's not confidence in what I have. Because I'm still weak, but it's a confidence going, my Abba father makes a way for me. My Abba father heals me and, and goes before me. So it's, it's a kind of a new season for me to be confident and say, you know what? I can live a healthy life. People ask me why I lost the weight. [00:36:00] And I remember I was reading the scripture, and you're probably familiar with it, is when the Pharisee comes to the Lord or it says to him, Lord, how does one enter the kingdom of heaven? And the Lord says, well, what is written? He says, Lord, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and with all your spirit, and love your neighbor as yourself. I've read that a million times. I've preached on it. I've studied it. One day I was reading it, he said, Lord, I know you love me, mark, but you don't love your neighbor, and you don't love yourself, so you can't love your neighbor. And I realized because I didn't love myself, I wasn't taking care of myself. I love my children. I love my wife. I wanna take care of 'em. They don't need me. I wife can, but I want to. I wanna do things for, I wanna take care of 'em. I wanna help 'em be better and stronger and smarter and wiser, and love the Lord. And I realized I didn't love myself. So the weight loss journey, forgiving the nightmare, forgiving my mom, forgiving the abusers, forgiving those [00:37:00] who betrayed me as a child, helped me begin to love myself again. No visions of grander. I'm still a just a normal guy saved by grace. Uh, I still put my big foot in my mouth, my wife can come in and tell you all the stories, but, uh, but you know, I started to love myself and. It sounds like, you found your self worth in the Lord Jesus because Jesus sees you as his child. You are a child of God, and that's where your worth is. So it sounds like your healing journey brought you to that place. Yeah. It's not self-confidence like the world says it is. It's how God sees you. You're precious and you're loved. Amen. And you're valuable. He died for you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You're gonna get me going now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. I want others to [00:38:00] experience this. You know, I, my whole ministry, I've been surrounded by hurting people and hurting churches. I've worked with people that have had major traumas in their life. Not that I ever sought it. I can't. I think the Lord just led me to it. And as I've worked with people, people say that I've been able to bring comfort. I'm easy to talk to. I thought, well, okay, Lord. And I want people to find that freedom that I have. I understand being shackled to pain in the past. I understand allowing those things to form the way you think about and believe about yourself, and never truly being set free. Waking up with that numbing feeling of brokenness all the time. All the time, just constantly. But God truly set me free. He set me free. And because he set me free, I'm nobody special. And being a pastor, I see so many people that have a [00:39:00] form of this and they don't. They haven't gone through it. So they're still living with a confession in Christ, but still the hurts of the past. Blame them. I don't, I'm not putting fingers, I'm not taking the log out on my own eye before I take the twig from their eye. But I'm saying the freedom that God has for his people. Uh, and again, do we still stumble? Yeah. Do we still need refining? Sure. Are we still the clay? And he's still the potter of court, but there's a freedom that we find as a pastor. I've just met so many people who will say, pastor, I'm killed. I'm delivered. And you realize it's, it's only an inch deep. It's, you know, as soon as they get tested, as soon as they get, get bothered, it just spills out. It pulls out of them in, in a defense or in, in a rejection or in a way they, they have a self view of the world or of themselves. Now God's consent is free. God can set [00:40:00] us free. So, what's the difference between being a victim and being victorious? Hallelujah. Well, in my humble opinion, a victim is somebody who always sees themselves broken, sees themselves in a way that, that that allows them to stay in their victimhood. For a long time, my victimhood became my identity. I remember one day when the Lord brought me to the altar and he said those words to me. He said, mark, I want you to give this up. And I literally said, in an audible voice, Lord, if I'm not a victim, then what am I? Because all I knew was the, the role of being a victim. Oh, my victimhood was good. I could manipulate with it. I could win every argument with it. Oh, when I was 16 years old, my mom, who was a single mom with not much money she bought me a car. I had a phone in my room. I had cable on my own [00:41:00] tv. She made me breakfast in bed. Why she owed that to me. Why? Because I was a victim. And I got to see how I could win every argument at school. I could put my head down and I could lift up my head and go, well, who here else was molested? I was, and no one would say anything. And the Lord rebuked me at that and said, said, yeah, that's what victims do. At least that's what I did. He said, I wanna make you victorious. And I remember him saying, me saying to the Lord, if I'm not a victim, what am I? And he said, you're victorious in me. I had to learn what it meant to be victorious. Amen. I had to learn to let that facade go. Let that personality go, let that old man die and let the new man of Christ rise up inside him. That is awesome. I just love that. I've never heard anybody describe it like that. Now, I prefer the, word survivor instead of victim. But I think you took [00:42:00] it up another notch. We are, victorious in the Lord. Well, my victimhood, you know, as much as I was a victim, but I used it for my own gain. Mm-hmm. Which made me just as not guilty of what happened to me, but made me not a healthy place. It put me in a Right. But it's all I knew, you know, I could manipulate, I could win the argument. Right. I was the guy. Who else here was stabbed and burnt and abused? I could show you my scars where they stabbed me. I could show you the burn marks. I was prostituted for other men to abuse me. Boy, you know, I could really win the, the argument. But that was wrong. Yeah, it was wrong. It was wrong to put that on my mother, it's wrong to put that on my family. It was wrong to put that on others. And the Lord had to rebuke me and, uh, wow. And he did, because he loves, he rebukes the ones he loves, so he rebuked you. I just so appreciate your raw [00:43:00] and honest, telling of your story. Because, you've heard stories where they just put the fluff or they put the stuff that's gonna, bring up the ratings or whatever. But you really, kept it real. And I think you're a great pastor because people see that you're a real person. You're not some fake up there that can't relate to your congregation's problems, do you feel that way? Oh, definitely. You know, my congregation, as you know, like we talked earlier, I wrestle with dyslexia and every once in a while I'll stumble over a word while I'm reading the Bible and in front of my congregation. And, and that really bothered me for a long time. My Lord, I'm a pastor. How can I not read this and now. When I stumble over a word, my congregation yells it up to me. So I'll be on the platform. And you know what? They'll see me stumbling and you know, they'll yell it up to me and it's just a term of endearment. [00:44:00] It's not been one of rejection or shame, and I say, you know what? I'm doing that just to make sure you're in the Bible. That's what I tell 'em. But I'll be reading the scripture and, and my dyslexia kick in, or, or the word will be all scrambled. And, and they're the kind voices. Oh, pastor, that's, that means this. And, and it's kind of a nice direction. I tell people the church I pastor is a real church with real people serving a real God. Wow. So, wow. Fancy fluff. Church don't come to us because, you know, we're real and we cry together, we do life together. We step on each other's toes. We don't always agree, but we always love God. That is so awesome. Pastor of Christian is Alia Scott. That's right. I didn't announce your church name. I wanted to ask you to tell another story about. You said that you met your birth father at one point. What happened during that reunion Union? [00:45:00] Well, I was 45 years old and I wanted to reach, I wanted to know, I tell people my birth father and I met at the right place in life. I think if I would've met him younger, I would've still been angry. Rejected Kyle, but I was 45. I was the father of four. I've made my own mistakes, my own problems. I learned to mature a little bit. To be really frank, my father's wife passed on, so he was more ready to meet me. So his wife that he had the affair on to si me, if you would, she passed. So he was more open to meet me and uh, I just didn't meet him, but the whole family met him together. We met in a restaurant, we met in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and the family came in and the kids instantly. Started to call him grandpa. I thought, I don't know if I'm okay with that. And he never rejected it. So the last few years of [00:46:00] life, we just lost him. I, I had him for about four years. It wasn't warm and fuzzy, daddy and son, but it was something, we had a relationship. We'd talk about sports, we'd talk about life. He was a snowbird from Massachusetts to Florida and he just kind of let me know. So I'm very thankful for the four years I had. Again, it wasn't, Hey buddy, I'm proud of you kind of moment, but I got to find out a little bit about. Who my dad was and who some of my relatives are on my father's side. I got to learn about some of the health conditions of, of my father. And you know, he said he was pretty, he made it to 84. He liked to drink and he liked ladies, I like Jesus, I like one lady, Wow. That's an incredible story. I tell people it was the right time. Again, if I would've met him at 25, I would've been angry. I would've said, you know, why did you abandon me? 45 was a good time because. You know what, by that [00:47:00] time I, I stepped in enough life of my own to, to not, to be slow to judge, oh, God does have the perfect timing. I haven't spoken much about my story at all on here, but my husband and I talk about, boy, I wish that we had met, long time ago, you know, and skipped all the pain because we were both victims of abuse from our previous spouses. I'm sorry. And, um, but we thought about it and we thought we were different people. If we met at that time, I don't think I would've been interested in you and you wouldn't have been interested in me. And, I think that God brought us together this time of our life. No, we've been married 11 years. Congratulations. Thank you. So, God brought us together at our time of life because that was the perfect time and Sure. We're best friends. We never even have had a real fight. We didn't disagree, of course, but now you should write a book [00:48:00] about that. Okay. I mean, we disagree and, um, get on each other's nerves, but the Lord has just, you're normal. Just blessed us. Yeah, we're definitely normal. Um, especially during pandemic. It's like you learn about your spouse when you're stuck with them 24 7. Right? That's true. That's true. Yeah, we had to make some adjustments. Amen. And, um, we still love each other, and that it's great when you're talking about times of life, you know, for such a time as this, and I think for me, the Lord spoke to me years ago about forgiving the nightmare ministry. He actually spoke to me when I was in college about this. I didn't know it was gonna, uh, blossom or what it was gonna look like, but he spoke to me years ago about writing it down and it was always inside me. And I kept, my wife knew about it. We would always think, how's the, what's the Lord gonna do with this? Is it distant inside me to guide me through life? Is it more for others? Is it, Lord, how's it, how's it [00:49:00] gonna? Blossom if you would manifest. And we lost my mom and I have to tell you that, not immediately, but pretty quick. After losing my mom, I felt like this ministry could just launch. And it has launched. God has brought, brought a web designer into our life. He's brought some, um, producers into our life to help me tell the story. We're talking with a, an editor and a publisher. All this has happened fairly quickly. And I think, Lord, why now? And I think, to be honest with you, and this is just my opinion, I, I don't know if I have chapter and verse to back this up, but my mom was so embarrassed. She was so full of shame because of my upbringing every time for the last 20 years of my life, every time me and my mom were alone together, she would just apologize. And I don't just mean say, sorry. She would grovel and I would say, mom, I forgive you. I forgive you, [00:50:00] Marky. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And if my mom knew that I was speaking to podcasts or writing a book, she would've been so, so embarrassed. So she may, it would've just troubled her so much. So I think outta the grace of God, and again, don't have chapter and verse, but I think upon her passing released me to be able to share this story, to be able to bring others into it, to just think God was being merciful to my mom on her journey. And again, it was almost pretty instant after her, uh, her own passing that I remember being on the treadmill one morning and the Lord just kind of. Just impressing upon me by giving the nightmare. Remember those words? I spoke to you. This is where it's gonna take place. And since then, we've made a couple videos, uh, we've launched a website. I'm talking to wonderful people like yourself and just trying to get the [00:51:00] story out of forgiving the Nightmare and trying to say to people whatever that nightmare was. Was it physical and sexual abuse like mine? Was it a tragedy in your life? Is it regrets? Is it fears? Is it the loss of a child or a loved one? Whatever that pain is that your nightmare. I want you to know that God can help you forgive it and overcome it and break the shackles so we don't have to be the man or the person. The hurt tried to make us. We no longer have to be Jacob. We can become Israel. Your mom would be so proud of you. And I think that, thank you. If, the Lord's probably told her, you know, the good things that have come out of a terrible situation, she said she had, you said she had some shame. Oh. I think if she was looking down at you now that, that shame would be gone. [00:52:00] That shame is no longer there. Look how God's using my son, my, my wonderful son to spread the gospel and to help people. And so Well, thank you. I'm so thankful for you, brother. Thank you for saying those words, sister. It's very kind of you. I used to say to my mom, even up to her last days, I would say, mom, who's your favorite? And she would say, I love you all, all the same. And I'd say, mom, stop lying to my siblings. I'm the youngest of three. My older brother and my older sister never made me feel like a step or a half brother. Uh, we just kind of always lived in the same house. We got real family problems and just life, but they've never left, never met me, felt, never let me feel like I was less than even to today. So I'm very thankful. My oldest sister, who is, a second mom to me, my oldest sister, she is my second mom and I'm thankful for her. So. Wow. Well, we [00:53:00] just had just a great time tonight. When your book comes out, please contact me. I would love to have you on the show again, to promote your book because obviously you, your story is so powerful and we wanna get it out to as many people as we can. So, tell the folks how to connect with you. Well, the best way to connect with me is@forgivingthenightmare.com. Forgiving the nightmare.com. Forgiving the nightmare.com is the best way to connect with me. If you go there, you'll find a email, it's called mark@forgivingthenightmare.com. That comes directly to me, right on my phone. So that's the best way to connect with me. Also you can go to our Facebook page called, forgiving the Nightmare. For giving Nightmare Facebook page. I try to put up pictures and little devotions there and stories there. So that's the two. Best way through Facebook, after Giving the Nightmare, after giving the Nightmare do [00:54:00] com, those are the best ways to connect with me. And I hope to get so Arizona someday. You have an open invitation. Wow. I'll be a tour guide for you. I know that Arizona like the back of my hand. Wow. Wow. Now my children could hear you in the background, so they're gonna be pretty excited about that invitation. There's so much stuff for, for their Edge group as well. So, we will hook you guys up. So thanks for being patient with the tech stuff and I'm glad we pushed through and didn't let the devil get the victory tonight. We found a way to get you on here. That's right. May I pray for you as we close. Oh yes, please. Thank you. Father God, we just come to you tonight and we thank you again for your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the sacrifice that he gave to us upon the cross, Lord. And we pay the price we could not pray, Lord. And we thank you for the gift of life [00:55:00] and life more abundant. Lord, we thank you for the promises. It says in this life there will be many troubles, but fear not because you are with us always. And Lord, tonight I pray for my sister. Father, I thank you that you're using her Lord. To spread the gospel to share, hope to be a light and a dark place. But Father, now, I pray that you come beside her father as she's shared that she's lost her brother this week, Lord. And I pray you comfort her. Lord, you said you had to go so the comforter could come. I pray, the comfort of the Holy Spirit will come beside my sister and be with her and her family as they grieve their loved one, their family member, their friend, Lord. So Lord I pray peace upon my sister. I pray Lord that you use her, continue to bless her. I thank you for the testimony of her and her husband, 11 years that you've brought together for such a time as this. I pray, Lord God, that they grow closer to you so they can grow closer to each other. And Lord, we thank you tonight [00:56:00] that Lord, we're no longer Jacob. You've made us Israel Father, no longer do we have to be shaped by our past, but now we can hold on to the promises. Lord, no longer does, we have to be shackled by somebody else's abuse, and we can be set free by your word. So, Lord, I pray that you fill us. You lead us, and may we be the light and may we be the salt, and may we lift up your name. We pray for a unity across our nation. We pray for a healing across our land, and we pray, Lord, for a revival of your salvation to come to our our country again, in Jesus name, amen. Thank you so much, brother. God bless, sister. Thank you. Take care yourself. Bye now. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You could connect with us at [00:57:00] DSW Ministries dot org where you'll find our blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week.

Host Dr. Joel Berg is joined by American Dental Association (ADA) President Dr. Richard Rosato. In this conversation, Dr. Rosato shares his journey from shifting gears from pediatric medicine to pediatric dentistry as a student and how his relationships have affected his participation in organized dentistry. Dr. Rosato shares his experience as a private practitioner and business owner, and how that mentality and passion influence the impact he hopes to have during his time as ADA President. In particular, Dr. Rosato speaks about the importance of practitioner and patient mental wellbeing. Guest Bio: Dr. Rosato is a native New Englander. He was born in Revere, MA, and raised in Danvers, MA. He moved to NH in 1986 to attend Saint Anselm College. After college, he attended Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and graduated in 1994. Then he was off to Chicago to the University of Illinois Medical Center, Cook County Hospital, Michael Reese Hospital, Mercy Hospital, and the West Side VA for his residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery which was completed in 1998. He then moved back to New England and practiced initially in Rhode Island before finding a home back in NH in 2000. He quickly enjoyed being a part of shaping the profession of dentistry and advocating for patients through leadership. Initially, he served the NH Dental Society as the Council on Government Affairs Chair for 5 years before ascending through the leadership ladder from 2006-10 culminating with becoming president of the NH Dental Society in 2010. Following his year as president he was appointed to the American Dental Society Council on Ethics, Bylaws, and Judicial Affairs and served as chair in his final and fourth year on the Council in 2015. During his national leadership time, he also continued to serve the NH Dental Society as Long Term Delegate for 8 years 2011-2019. He was then appointed to serve from 2015 to 2019 as caucus chair of the ADA First District representing all 6 New England States. Following this he ran and was elected to the ADA board of trustees to serve from 2019-2023. While on the ADA BOT, he also served as compensation chair, ADA Business Enterprise Inc. as a board member, and a board member of the Innovation Advisory Committee. He has a tremendous calling to be at the tip of the profession fighting for oral healthcare so that everyone can have a dental home. He resides in Concord with his wife, Dr. Laurie Rosato, and three children, Richard Jr, Colin, and Madison. He cherishes family time and enjoys golf, the Boston Bruins, and car rides with his labradoodle Roma.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when a retired Coast Guard veteran skips a Florida boat show and instead takes a quiet drive through the wetlands north of Boston? In this intense and chilling episode, we sit down with Steve, a lifelong New Englander whose routine trip for dumplings turned into a life-altering encounter. He describes seeing an enormous black figure — 8 to 9 feet tall, gliding across a rutted dirt road in broad daylight — just three miles from his home. We also hear from Judy in Washington, whose 14-foot tall Bigfoot beat its chest in a sign of peace. Then we cross into the Canadian Rockies with a fog-filled sighting in Whistler, and back to Spencerport, New York where a deep growl echoed through the woods. These are firsthand encounters filled with emotion, shock, and awe — each one a thread in the growing tapestry of Sasquatch experiences. From Massachusetts to Washington to B.C. to New York — these are the stories of people who know what they saw.

Tales of perpetual fire, demons and ghosts haunt these creepy US towns, restaurants are pitching water as a fine-dining experience, and New Englanders are fed up with leaf-peeping tourists.

In the early 1800s, most New Englanders believed tomatoes were deadly poison. Then Newport, Rhode Island, artist Michele Felice Cornè dared to prove everyone wrong—changing American diets forever. But was there more to the story of this so-called “killer fruit”?  Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore Cornè's legacy, his home that still stands today, and how one brave man took on centuries of superstition—one bite at a time.   Attack of the Killer Tomatoes - A New England Legends Podcast Listen ad-free plus get early access and bonus episodes at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more episodes join us here each Monday or visit their website to catch up on the hundreds of tales that legends are made of. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ournewenglandlegends.com/category/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jeff Belanger here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://jeffbelanger.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  PLEASE SUPPORT THE ADVERTISERS THAT SUPPORT THIS SHOW Happiness Experiment - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://go.happinessexperiment.com/begin-aff-o2?am_id=podcast2025&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=michael⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Factor Meals - Get 50% off your first order & Free Shipping at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.FactorMeals.com/p6050off⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & use code: P6050off at checkout Mint Mobile - To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.MintMobile.com/P60⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shadow Zine - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shadowzine.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Love & Lotus Tarot -  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://lovelotustarot.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back at you with another Whacky Cheese Wheel episode. Yes, Andrew is making us talk about Lovecraft again for Halloween. We mix the two best things in Andrew's life, cosmic horror and New Englanders. Come listen to our discussion that devolves into mourning our current political landscape. Credits: Hosts: Jesse McAnally & Andrew DeWolf & Liz Esten Podcast Edited By: Nathan P. Keelan Keeper of the Cheese: Juliet Antonio This show is a part of the Broadway Podcast Network Social Media: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Musicals with Cheese on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Musicals W/ Cheese on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠musicaltheatrelives@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Jess Socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jesse McAnally ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jess McAnally on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Andrew Socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Andrew DeWolf on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Andrew DeWolf on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Liz Socials ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Liz Esten on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Liz Esten on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Use our Affiliate Link⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark! We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, here with our first-ever Patreon podcast episode! We're going to chat about: ⭐️ How we're feeling about the BIG MOVE. ⭐️ How to think about clothes after a significant size change. What even IS your style now?! ⭐️Figuring out fall uniforms! ⭐️ Diet culture in disaster prep. ⭐️ The one thing we wish straight-sized style bloggers would do differently. And so much more! To hear the full conversation, you'll need to be a paid subscriber. Reminder: Substack subscribers, make sure to redeem your gift to read this newsletter for FREE!

Astrid Sheckels continues the wit and whimsy of childhood through her marvelous and magnificent illustrations and storytelling. You might recognize her from the Hector Fox and Friends series or Sea Dog and Sea Dog Rescue, and she created the gorgeous cover and interior illustrations for Beyond Mulberry Glen by Millie Florence. Today we're chatting about her new book, Flora and the Jazzers, which Kirkus called “sumptuously illustrated” in their starred review and I couldn't agree more. This jazz-age Cinderella story starring a ferret named Flora and set in a 1920s New York hotel is going to blow you away, I just know it. Astrid is a New Englander who loves to paint animals in clothes, so clearly she is a woman after my own heart, and I just know you'll fall in love with her too.In this episode, you'll hear: How childhood family read-alouds instilled a love for stories in AstridThe way one of Astrid's earliest childhood drawings became the inspiration for FloraWhy a sketchbook is an ideal tool for budding creatives Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/astrid-sheckels Don't forget to pre-order your copy of Flora and the Jazzers and then tell us you did so you get your pre-order bonus mail! 

Welcome back to "Okay, Last Try"For our latest episode, we sat down with skater, comedian, ⁠Podcast About List⁠ member, and New Englander, ⁠Patrick Doran⁠. After being a total "Welcome kid" in the mid-2010s, Patrick found himself on stage, performing stand-up comedy, getting into character, podcasting, and taking on some acting roles as well. We get into all of this and plenty more. Hope you enjoy!If you'd like to watch this episode, check out Sixth Cents YouTubeCheck out ⁠Patrick's work⁠ and ⁠Podcast About List⁠, if you haven't alreadyHost: ⁠Larry Lanza⁠Producer: ⁠John Testa⁠Artwork: ⁠Lindsay Brett

In this insightful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, hosts Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb begin their series on Jesus's parables by examining the Parable of the Sower (or Soils). This foundational teaching from Christ reveals why some hearts receive the gospel message while others reject it. The hosts unpack the four soil types Jesus describes, exploring what each represents spiritually and how these patterns continue to manifest today. They emphasize that while the parable reveals different responses to the gospel, it also provides comfort for believers engaged in evangelism, reminding us that outcomes ultimately depend not on the sower's skill but on the condition of the soil—a condition that only God can prepare. This episode offers both theological depth and practical encouragement for Christians seeking to understand the various responses to the gospel message in their own ministry contexts. Key Takeaways The Parable of the Sower serves as a hermeneutical key for understanding all of Jesus's parables, as it directly addresses why Jesus taught in parables and provides the interpretive framework for understanding their purpose. The parable reveals four types of responses to the gospel (represented by the four soils), but only one that leads to genuine salvation and fruit-bearing. The focus of the parable is not on the sower's skill or the seed's quality but on the condition of the soil—emphasizing God's sovereignty in salvation while encouraging continued evangelism. The "rocky ground" hearers represent those who initially receive the gospel with joy but have no root system to sustain them when trials come, often resulting in what we might call "deconstruction" today. Christians should expect varied responses to gospel proclamation and not be discouraged when the seed appears to be wasted on unresponsive hearts, as this pattern was predicted by Jesus himself. The parable provides a warning against shallow faith while encouraging believers to develop deep spiritual roots that can withstand persecution and trials. Genuine conversion is ultimately evidenced by fruit-bearing, not merely by initial enthusiasm or religious affiliation. Understanding the Soils The Parable of the Sower presents four distinct soil types, each representing different responses to the gospel message. The first soil—the path—represents hearts where the gospel makes no impact whatsoever; the seed simply bounces off and is quickly snatched away by Satan. This illustrates not merely outward rejection of the gospel, but also intellectual non-comprehension. As Tony explains, this doesn't necessarily mean active hostility toward the gospel but could simply be indifference: "It may not be someone who has like a closed fist, 'I hate the gospel, I hate everything about God,' but for some reason they're just not [interested]." This parallels Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that "the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him." The rocky soil represents those who initially receive the gospel with enthusiasm but lack depth. Their faith appears genuine at first but quickly withers under pressure or persecution. This phenomenon is particularly evident in what we often call "deconstruction" today—where someone who appeared genuinely converted falls away when their faith is tested. As Jesse notes, "I think what I've been helpful for me is to get outta my mind...what's the length of time here? Is it possible that somebody could be in this place...which presents like a setting down of deep roots that could last like years on end?" The parable reminds us that immediate joy at receiving the gospel is not necessarily evidence of saving faith, and it calls us to examine whether our own faith has sufficient depth to withstand trials. The Comfort of Realistic Expectations One of the most encouraging aspects of this parable is how it calibrates our expectations about evangelism and gospel ministry. Jesus teaches that when the gospel is proclaimed, we should expect varied responses—including outright rejection—not because of any failure in the message or messenger, but because of the condition of human hearts. This provides tremendous comfort for believers engaged in evangelistic efforts who might otherwise be discouraged by apparent failure. Tony highlights this point: "This parable is not about the skill of the sower or even the efficacy of the seed...The point of the parable...is that it has to do with the soil itself." This understanding frees us from the pressure of thinking we must somehow perfect our evangelistic technique or presentation, while also removing the false guilt that can come when people reject the message we share. Furthermore, the parable encourages continued, generous sowing of the gospel seed. As Tony observes, "We don't see the sower in this parable meticulously only identifying the good soil and only planting the seeds there. He does promiscuously spread this seed everywhere that he can." This reminds us that our responsibility is faithful proclamation, while the results remain in God's sovereign hands. Memorable Quotes "The Parable of the Sower teaches really that the gospel call goes out to all... but only those who God regenerates, that good soil, are gonna receive it savingly and will bear fruit." - Jesse Schwamb "Just because our experience of Christianity and our experience of being in the faith feels so genuine and real and rooted, we should also recognize that it felt real and genuine and rooted for [those who later fell away]... There's a caution there for us." - Tony Arsenal "The exhortation built into this is that we need to seek that root. We don't get to determine what kind of soil we are on an ultimate level—that's God's election and his secret providence. But on a horizontal level, in our experience of things, we have agency, we make decisions. We seek to be rooted or unrooted in the gospel." - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:36] Introduction and Greetings Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 462 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I am Jesse. Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast of Good Soil. Hey brother. Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. Well, will you look at us? Look at us. It's finally and officially begun. And that is this conversation. [00:01:00] Kickoff to the Parable Series Jesse Schwamb: This episode is really the kickoff, well, the first parable that we're going through together, starting a long conversation that I think is gonna bear much fruit, if you will. Yes. Maybe 30, maybe 60, maybe a hundred times. Lord willing. It's gonna be great. And we're starting off with a doozy. Yes. Actually, maybe this is like the granddaddy of all the parables because we're gonna hear Jesus tell us something about the word of God and how it's received among different hearers. And this is so fantastic. It's the only place to begin because this is truly some eternally contemporary words. Yeah, it's, this is the parable that's continually verified under our own eyes. Wherever the word of God is preached or expounded and people are assembled to hear it, the sayings of our Lord in this parable are found to be true. It describes what goes on as a general rule in our congregations in the world. Anytime the word of God goes out, what a place to begin. So we're gonna get there. It's gonna be great, don't you worry, dear listener. [00:02:04] Affirmations and Denials Jesse Schwamb: But of course, before we do that, it's our tradition, our word that's spoken is always something in affirmation with something or in denial against something. So I say to you, as I always do, Tony. What do you have for us on this episode? Uh, an affirmation or denial. Tony Arsenal: This is an affirmation. I'll try to keep it nice and short and tight. Uh, I am affirming everything that comes with the fall. It's the air's getting crisp. The season, the, the pumpkin. Yeah. Not, not the fall. With the, let's, let's, let's clarify. I'm affirming everything that comes with autumn. So, uh, the air's crisp, the pumpkin spice is flowing, the leaves are starting to come down. Although, as a New Englander, I feel like I might be a little disappointed this year they're saying that it might not be as vibrant because we've been under a bit of a drought. But, uh, I, I'm all for all of it. Sweaters, gimme like a nice cozy scarf to put on and like a, I don't know, like a stocking cap. Gimme some flannel. I'm just ready to rock and roll. I'm, I'm, I'm done with summer and I'm ready for fall and yeah, that's, that's the whole thing. That's the affirmation. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. [00:03:09] Autumnal Delights and Debates Jesse Schwamb: Beautiful. It's speaking of like eternally or seasonally contemporary. That is so good. Plus I would say like the fall or autumn. The best adjectives, doesn't it? Yes. Like including like the word ottum. Yes. Like, that's just a great word that we, we do not use enough of. So this season, loved ones dropping a tum in there because Yes. It's just such a good word. Tony Arsenal: And I, I know people hate on the pumpkin spice and uh, there was a rev, I think I've said this before, it's re revolutionized my understanding because I used to get so mad because I was like, this doesn't even taste like pumpkin. It's not pumpkin flavored items, it's pumpkin spiced. Flavored items. So it's the, the spice you would use in pumpkin pie is the spice that they're talking about. So people complain that you're just putting nutmeg in things. And to that, I say yes, that's the point. You just start adding nutmeg or pumpkin spice or cloves or all spice or whatever it might be. The point is we're using the same spices that you would use for making a pumpkin pie or some other sort of fall. Delicious fall. Pumpy squashy, goodness. Jesse Schwamb: You got that right. This is a classic case of don't hate the player. Hate the game. Tony Arsenal: It's true, it's true. And if you don't like it, if you don't like pumpkin spice, then just don't talk to me at all. I'm just kidding. Still get pumpkin spice. Like you can go to Starbucks and get the same, same coffee you always get. You don't have to get pumpkin spice, you don't have to drink pumpkin beer, you don't have to do any of that. The all the stuff is, all the normal stuff is still available. They don't tell you you can't have it. Nobody is opening your mouth and pouring it down your throat. So just calm down, order your normal drip coffee and move on with your life. Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of polarizing autumnal type things, I don't know if we've talked about probably, we have talked about this and I've just forgotten. Where do you land on the whole. Cotton, uh, sorry. Candy corn, not cotton candy, but candy corn. Tony Arsenal: I, I feel like we have talked about this and my perspectives may have changed over the years. I'm not a big fan of candy corn, but I will eat it until I vomit. If you put it in front, I think is the, is the consensus that if there's a bowl of it in front of me, the first thing that I will do is I will break off two little white tips of the ca uh, candy corn and stick them on my fangs and pretend to be vampire. Jesse Schwamb: Beautiful. Tony Arsenal: And then I will eat the remainder of the pound and a half of candy that's in front of me until I throw up. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I know there's some difference between like candy, corn and like the little pumpkin confectionary ones. Yeah. Some people prefer those over others. And then this is not even to talk about the whole debate between when it comes to Reese's Peanut butter cups and Oh yeah. The pumpkin variety of those and No, all that stuff. Tony Arsenal: No. Mm. Jesse Schwamb: No. To those? Tony Arsenal: No, to those. The, the shaped, the shaped, uh, Reese's Peanut butter objects, I suppose they're not cups at that point. Uh, they use a different kind of peanut butter. I dunno if you know that, but they use a different peanut butter. So they, they actually do taste different than the actual didn't know that says peanut butter cups. Um, it's either a different kind of peanut butter or a different kind of chocolate. But one of the primary substances, uh, not in the Aristotelian sense, uh, one of the primary substances is different. And so it does actually taste different. It's not as good. And then the balance between the chocolate and the peanut butter is off. It's, it's not good. I'm a, I'm a peanut butter cup. Uh, I like to say aficionado, but I think probably snob would be a better. A better term for it. Jesse Schwamb: Listen, you'll, you like what you like by the way, only on this podcast, only, I think among long-term listeners, would it be necessary to clarify that you do not mean substance in there was six alien sense. Tony Arsenal: That's true. That's, that's definitely true. Well, Jesse, that is where we are. Enough about my, uh, fall. Uh, food preferences. What are you affirming and or denying? Tonight, [00:07:02] Musical Recommendations Jesse Schwamb: I'm gonna also come along with you on it with the affirmation, and maybe while you're drinking that PSL or you're searching for that candy, corn, you might like, want something to put into your ears that isn't us, that's a little bit more melodic. And so I'm affirming with the, this time and age in which it is all about curation. That's often a lovely thing. I use Spotify for all of my music consumption, and they just fed me like a really interesting playlist that I would never have thought of as a category, but I've really been enjoying, it's called Math Rock. And I saw, and I thought I'm, I'm usually kinda like dubious of the Spotify playlist because like they're kind of out there for me generally. But I thought to myself, well, this is an interesting port man too. Like, I like math. I like rock, and the description was complex rhythms and mesmerizing loops. So I thought, I like complex rhythms. I like loops that continue and mesmerize, so the check it out for yourself. If you're looking for something that's like, it's enough to be interesting while you're working on something, but not too interesting. So that distracts you. This is apparently the jam. So yeah, it's like just really interesting rock oriented, mostly instrumental music that is like. Really motivating, but again, not interesting enough to really distract you from the task at hand if that's not your thing. The other thing I would recommend, I know you'll join me in this, Tony, is that poor Bishop Hooper released a new album this week. It's called The Serpent and the Seed, and this one has a ton of tracks on it, like 18 or so, and it, it as well is a unique mix of both instrumental, really lovely, beautiful pieces and then some that carry more vocal and melodic stuff that's kind of their customary jam. Both of 'em are great. They both do have kind of an an autumnal vibe, if I'm honest. Now I'm thinking about it. It's really the perfect compliment to whatever it is that you're consuming that has that pumpkin spice in it. So math, rock, the serpent and the seed. There you go. Tony Arsenal: I'm trying to synthesize. I mean, math and rock are like two of Jesse's favorite things. So I'm trying to synthesize what it would be like to scream the quadratic equation at someone with some sort of like slightly off cadence, dissonant guitar rift underneath. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Tony Arsenal: I feel like there's a Me Without You album out there somewhere that that's exactly what it is. But Jesse Schwamb: yeah, probably there should Tony Arsenal: be at least. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, there, there absolutely should be. And I'm with you. I'm willing to work on that album. That's a great idea. Like just, it's just an album of mathematical equations and like the deep mysteries of life, you know, listen, math is beautiful. Numbers are stories. There's, there's so much there. Yeah. You had me at Quadratic, so I, I think we've, we've given people a lot to enjoy in this fall season. It's true. Tony Arsenal: I, I. I couldn't solve a quadratic equation to save my entire life at this point. Uh, I took introduction to logic when I got to college 'cause I couldn't remember how to multiply fractions on the entrance exam. That's fair. So that's fair. So that was, that's my experience with math. But right Jesse Schwamb: now the internet wants to keep serving me videos about, you've seen like all these tests, like these entrance exams for like Harvard or like the Ivy Leagues, other Ivy Leagues, and it is all these random things, you know, like we're solving for like two variables, terminally, and there is some kinda like expon explanation to it. Um. Yeah, I guess that's what I've become and I watch 'em all. They honestly get me every time. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not gonna watch that. And then I'm like, oh, I'm definitely gonna watch that. So it just happens. It's great. Tony Arsenal: I love it. Meanwhile, meanwhile, YouTube is desperately trying to get me to watch Season six and Cobra High. And it's very quickly gonna be succeeding. I think the next time Netflix has a, has a promotion where I can get a cheap month or something like that, I will definitely be binging Cobra Kai. So I feel like our YouTube algorithms are very different. Jesse Schwamb: Very different. Yeah. Very different. Certainly in, um, there is a commonality of, of the mysteries of the world and. [00:11:06] Introduction to the Parable of the Sower Jesse Schwamb: In some way, that's what we're talking about in this entire series. And yeah, if for some reason you didn't hear a conversation from two weeks ago where we really set the table, I think for what a parable is, why Jesus uses parables. As far as I remember, you correct if I'm wrong, it was the definitive conversation about why the parable is not just peace wise in Jesus' teaching, but really why it's the centerpiece. Yeah, we talked about that at great length. So now we're really ready to go. If you didn't hear that, I highly recommend you go back and hear that. 'cause there's so much. I realize as we, we looked at this parable of the sower or better like the parable of the soils, that we could do a whole series on just this bad boy. Such not just like wide interpretation, but wide application. So much for us to really chew on and then to really come back to and chew the could. So we're gonna have to be probably every time a little bit self-editing and brief. So if you're just yelling at your device, why aren't you talking about this thing? There's a great place for you to yell into or maybe just calmly and very politely suggest rather than the void, you can join our Telegram group. Telegram is just an app for, it's kind of a conversational tool and platform, and if you're looking for it and I know that you are, don't, why would you even fool yourself? It's, you can find it by going to T Me Reform Brotherhood. There's a whole channel, there's a bunch of channels there, a bunch of little conversations that we have compartmentalize. There's one just to talk about the episode. So as we go through this, my encouragement to everybody is track with us, get your scriptures out. Come along with us in the actual journey of processing this. Do spend some time processing it with us. And then when there is inevitably that thing, they're like, why didn't you talk about this? You know, a great place to converse with others and us about that would be in the Telegram Chat. So T Me Reform Brotherhood. So enough of that, let's get to it. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there's, there's some, um, there's some logic that would say we should have just rather than doing an Introduction to Parables episode, we should have just done the parable, because this parable does really follow, it really does form like an introduction to all of Christ's parabolic teachings. And, you know, it's, no, it's no, um, mystery either in God's providence or just in Matthew as being a, a, you know, somewhat genius level composer of, of a work of literature in putting this parable first, because you're absolutely right at the top of the show that this parable really is. Almost like the hermeneutical key for all of the parables. Not just for in terms of like understanding the parables, it doesn't do that so much. But in understanding the purpose of the parables and more importantly, explicitly in the middle of this, Christ explains why he teaches in parables. So we covered that a lot last time, so we're not gonna, we're gonna skip over that middle section 'cause we don't need to rehash that. But this really is the granddaddy of all the parables. It it is, um. It is Christ's teaching on why he uses parables in action. It's the application of his own theology, of parables, if you want to call it that. Uh, in principle. And he is gracious enough that in this very first parable, he actually gives us the interpretation, right, which is, is not entirely unique, um, in, in the gospels, but it is not always the norm. There are a fair number of parables where Christ just drops the parable and leaves it there, um, for both his immediate listeners to figure out and then also for us to figure out. We're not given the inspired interpretation, but this one we are given the inspired interpretation. And Jesse, I had to laugh because, um. Just as you get really, really upset and worked, worked up about when people say Christ's body broken for you. Uh, it just drives me nuts when people call this the parable of the soils. 'cause Christ gives it a name, right? So, so we'll talk about that too. And I, I'm, I'm mostly playing, like, I'm not gonna jump through the screen at you or anything like that, but that's the, one of the other unique features of this parable is that it's given it's, it's given a name. Um, and that's part of the interpretation is that in most cases, parables have a primary figure or a primary point that's being made. And if you get that primary point wrong or that primary figure wrong, um, you tend to get the rest of the parable wrong. In this case, Christ graciously tells us who the parable is about or what the parable is about, and then later on when we get to the, the next parable or a couple parables down, um, he actually tells us more about the parable through some other teaching as well. [00:15:38] Reading and Analyzing the Parable Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, do you have that text in front of us? Do you wanna go ahead and read that first chunk? That's the parable itself. Jesse Schwamb: I do, let's do it by the way. Uh, maybe somebody should keep track. Here's a fun little game of how many times we say parable or parabolic. And of course, whenever I hear parabolic, I always think, of course there is like something of great hyperbole or allegory, but I often think of, uh, parabola, which to your point, Tony, I think you're just doing this for my sake now, and I love, this is an exponent oriented equation. Of course, it's a like a canonical section, which can only be creative mathematically by pronunciation again. So thank you for that. I thought you just did that for me, so Tony Arsenal: I have no idea what you just said. You might as well have been speaking like Hindu. Jesse Schwamb: It's fantastic. Well, let's, let's get to the actual, the best word, the word of life. And this is from Matthew chapter 13. Beginning just at the start of the chapter. That same day, Jesus went out of his, uh, house and sat beside the sea and, and great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables saying. A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprung up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no roots, they were it away. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain. Some a hundred fold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears, let him hear. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. So on a surface level here, the, the parable is straightforward, right? We have a very straightforward picture, which is, is common for most of the parables, that it's not some sort of unusual, crazy out there situation that's being described. It's a common scenario from everyday life, uh, that doesn't tend to have sort of like. Mythological legendary kinds of characteristics. We have a simple farmer who is out sowing his seeds. Um, some of the commentaries we'll point out, and I don't, I dunno how accurate this is or isn't, but I, I saw it in, in a couple different commentaries. So I'm inclined to, to believe it that our model of farming, uh, in sort of a western world or, or maybe not western world, but in a more, I dunno, technologically advanced world, is to teal the ground till the ground first, Jesse Schwamb: right? Tony Arsenal: And then to scatter seed. And it was much more common in the ancient world to actually scatter the seed kind of, uh, promiscuously and then till the ground. Um, I don't know the reasons for that. I'm not a horticulturist, but, um. The, the, one of the critiques that I've heard, and it's funny when people try to critique Jesus is 'cause they're always proven wrong, but one of the critiques I've heard is like, no farmer whatever would ever do this. Like, no, no sower would ever just throw seed on the ground, but this actually is the way they would've done farming. So he's, he's taking an everyday scenario that everyone would've been familiar with. Right. Nobody would've been like, oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense. They would've just said, oh yeah, of course you just throw the seed on the ground and then you come back around later and you do what you need to do. So it, it was really a scenario where some of the seed would've fallen on the path. And we're not talking about like a road next to the farm, but a lot of times the, the field had sort of, um. They're probably called like convenience trails is what they're called now. But people would travel through the, through the paths, and so there would be an area that's already walked, walked on that's a little bit easier to traverse. And eventually that area would turn into a pathway. So it was, it was kind of turned into sort of like hard clay turf that you couldn't get the seed into anyways. And then there would've been areas where, um, there was rocks under the surface. Most of our fields that our farm fields have been tilled and prepared and have been worked over, that the stones had been removed. But it wasn't always like that in the ancient world. And then you would've had areas where there was, uh, there was other vegetation, thorns, weeds, other kinds of plants that would've made, made it difficult for the crop to sprout and to bear fruit. So we have a very common scenario. There's nothing surprising about this. There's nothing out of the ordinary. It's just a simple farming metaphor that Christ employs here. Jesse Schwamb: And in some ways that's very consistent of course, because we have these very ordinary, normal things that God is using as a means of explanation for something that is very extraordinary, very supernatural. So we have the natural coming into play, not just as a representation, but to really demonstrates, illustrates and impound both in structure and form. This idea of what it means for the gospel to be communicated. And I'm with you, my understanding is in most ancient world. Those, those fields, we tend to think of them as fields and often the reference that way were like more like these narrow strips of land separated by these paths and you have this farmer casting the seed like very liberally. And not only that, but I think what's interesting right on the face. Is we see that there are basically four potential outcomes here and only one of those outcomes, 'cause we're already understanding this to mean the sowing of the sea, which is the word of life, which is the gospel message. Only one of those outcomes results in kingdom growth. There's a ratio of three to one. There's three times as many poor outcomes. In other words, there's all of these various ways in which we find that the seed is not rejected or does not result in the intended fruit. But there is just one path, one narrow kind of way in which it does result, and then it results in kind of various outcomes in terms of like the magnitude of the fruit or the plants that result from this planting. But as a result of that. I think what's really interesting to me right on the face is that we're seeing, like you said, there is a sower. He's casting the seed deliberately, he's coming on the path and he's just throwing it out. And in that narrow strip of land, there are all these different soils. And so right away we see if you're, if you're a farmer, you're understanding something about, it's not about the skill of the farmer in the casting of the seed. It's not even about the, the skill of the seed to grow. It's about the soil itself. And so again, we have this as three times as many potentially poor outcomes as there are for the one that results in this grand harvest. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And the one thing about this that might be, might have been, and, and again, some of the commentators are, are split on this, but might have been a sort of unexpected, um, element. And, and this is something we do see with, uh, with the parables, is there's usually some sort of, um. Unexpected or dramatic or turn of events kind of element, usually towards the end of a parable that would make, would, should be a subversion of expectations. Right? Right. And so the, in this instance, um, a yield of 30 times or, or 60 times or a hundred times, all of those yields would be crazy high yields. Um, you know, I, I, I think there are some plants, some of the commentators will make, make a point that there are some plants where like a 30. A 30 yield is normal. Um, but a 30 or a 60 or a hundred times yield of a crop is, is not the expectation. And so I think in, in a scenario like this, the reader or the listener is prepped by the fact that there are three, uh, negative outcomes and only one favorable outcome. To assume that the crop yield is not going to be great. Right? And then the reality is the crops that do sprout the crops that land on the good soil or the seed that lands on the good soil. Not only is it productive, it's so productive that it actually outpaces and kind of compensates for the lack of productivity or the lack of fruitfulness of the other three. So it's, it's three different, uh, it's four possible outcomes and then three levels of fruitfulness. And so this parable does sort of cause the listener or the hearer to think about, um, and start, you know, from the very outset, think about what does, what does it mean that the seed landed on the path and was stolen away by the birds? What does it mean that it sprouted quickly and uh, but didn't have roots and so it withered away in the sun? And what does it mean that, you know, it sprouted among thorns and so it couldn't bear fruit. And then I think the implied, um, the implied question that's being forced here because the parable does start out, you know, saying there was the sower, the sower, um. Sowed this seed out. He doesn't introduce this the same way he normally, he normally does or commonly does, right? Jesus often will start the peril ball by saying something like, the kingdom of God is like, right? Or you know this. This is like that. This, he just starts out saying like, a sower was out in the, in the field sowing seed. So the, the listener is not primed to know what the comparison is necessarily, but I think part of that is that now they're forced to ask what is the comparison? And I don't think it's much of a stretch. And again, this is why parables are so kind of paradoxical is it's not a difficult, when we get to the interpretation, it's not difficult to see the interpretation. Right, right. It's, it's easy to understand that the parable here, the metaphor is, is different reactions of, of some sort to. To a given thing, right? It's, it's different reactions to an investment of some sort. There's an investment of seed and in some instances it just doesn't take, in other instances, it takes and it doesn't sprout, and in other instances it sprouts, but it never fruits. So when we get to the interpretation, Jesus is gonna give us the clarity of what that investment is, and then who are, or what are the outcomes and what do they mean? In, in our, you know, in our thought process of what the kingdom of God is like. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, so let's do it then. [00:25:44] Understanding the Soils Jesse Schwamb: 'cause what we've got here is we basically have, each soil is representing some type of here. So we've got four heres but only one true believer. So it's probably behooves us to go through all of them and really kind of chat through. And maybe what we can do is try to bring some of our own practical application to each of these. I've been really meditating and pondering that, trying to think if this is practical for us, then how can we understand how each of these are being manifest all around us? And of course the intention here is not to like name people that we think fall into each of these four little groups, but more so to think about how we might understand people who do fall into each of these groups. And that is to say that. Each one of these, well, the, the first three rather, that these ones in which they're, the soil is in some degree suboptimal. I, I don't know that it means that it's always that way, for instance. So we might think of people that fall into those categories, but the Lord may be moving or working in them to move them into that fourth category. And of course, he's done that with ourselves, so we know that that's exactly how he operates. Um, and it's, I think it's good for us to remember that. I think there's a lot that's scary about this first soil, this idea that. The seed just bounces. So we get no uptake whatsoever in this one. But the other ones, at least you get a little satisfaction that there's some kind of reception. There is a receipt of that word. And the reason why I find this one to be so troubling is because these who hear it in the first case, they don't understand and they don't esteem it. And Christ is very clear to say that the seed itself doesn't sit there long. It bounces. So there's a, there is a literal hardness. That's reflected in that clay soil or that path, which is down trotted. And it's hard because of perhaps this constant lack of belief, this constant and unrepentant hearts or lifestyle, but it would be enough if it just kinda bounced off and sat there. But the fact that it's snatched away that the birds come and take it away, that Satan himself has an active and powerful role in influencing all of those who are hearing this word. And I think that hardness of heart may not just be manifest in, say, like an unrepentant lifestyle or this kind of clench fist against God on the inside, which is of course true of the natural man. But more than that, that anything that would take us away from true belief. So that is even any kind of our religious system or belief, any kind of philosophy, any kind of other worldview I think is in mind here because we know the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And so. What he's doing in that sometimes happens first and foremost in the mind, manifested in the heart and then in our behaviors. So if he's stealing away this word by replacing it with something that is false, that is not true, that destroys, that pulls us away and moves us away, then this is very scary. He has a real power, which we talked about. I don't know, like maybe six or so episodes ago. It's worth listening to, I think. And so what I find here that is really traumatizing upfront is the involvement in particular of the sinful man under his own mean estate. That is, that it's clear that the natural man cannot conceive of the things of God without regeneration, and Jesus makes it abundantly clear. He's, he's basically saying what Paul says later on in First Corinthians when he writes, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, does not accept them. So again, there's no agreement. There's no, even an intellectual ascent does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly to him and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one for who is understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ, so there is no mind of Christ, which is, it's a horrible way to live life. And so in that space we have both the natural man, his total depravity, unable to pull himself up by his theological bootstraps or philosophical bootstraps or his intellectual emotional bootstraps to even discern what the way in which the world really actually is. And then in in, I say in addition to that, we have the devil himself waging war and attacking by pulling away that seed. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I have a little bit of a different take on this and I think this is what I am looking forward to in this series. Is there, there is gonna be. [00:30:01] Understanding the Parable of the Sower Tony Arsenal: Different, uh, different understandings that probably all fall and are all compatible, but all fall within a acceptable range of understanding. Here, you know, I, in, in reading some of the commentaries, Calvin makes the point that all four of these different types of seed represent people who in some sense are open to the gospel. They're, they're open to, he, he makes the point that this is not talking about the, the person who like refuses to hear the gospel at all, who like won't even come into the church. This is a person predominantly who is, is exposed to the word in some sense, probably in view as someone who's among the people of God who's in the, in the, in the physical body of the people of God who's among Christians or among those hearing the word. And for whatever reason, the, the, the seed doesn't, uh, it doesn't even get into the soil. Right, and he compares, Christ compares, um, this not to somebody who is hardhearted, but to someone who doesn't understand, right? That there's an intellectual element to this, right? You think of, um, you know, you think of somebody who hears the scripture and probably understands outwardly what it means, but doesn't ever comprehend it internally. They don't ever really, they don't ever really let it penetrate into their, into their hearts. Um, so it's been sewn into their hearts, but it doesn't actually take root in their hearts in any other sense. [00:31:38] The Role of the Soil in Receiving the Word Tony Arsenal: And this is what's a little bit different from, from the other ones that we're gonna see in all of the other cases. The seed takes root, Jesse Schwamb: right? Tony Arsenal: It actually penetrates the ground and begins to grow. Um, it, this is a seed that never even makes it that far. And so it may not be someone who has like a, who necessarily has like a closed fist. I hate the gospel. I hate everything about God, but for some reason they're just not. And when we say for some reason I'm talking, obviously I'm talking la you know, horizontally. Um, we know that the reason that they don't have an open heart is 'cause the Holy Spirit is not open to their heart. But for whatever earthly temporal reason, the word just doesn't penetrate. It bounces off of them. It just doesn't get there. Not necessarily because they're outwardly hostile to it. They just maybe are not interested in it. And so this is where I think that. Along with the evil one, snatching it away. That's actually like one in the same thing. Is, is part of what I think this is getting at is that the, the, the only reason that the, um, that Satan can snatch away the word from their heart or what has been sewn into their heart is because their heart has not received it. And so it's that sort of dual function and, and maybe it's kind of like, almost like, uh, in Exodus, you know, God hardening the heart and then Pharaoh hardening the heart and those two things are happening, you know, by means of concurs that God is doing it in a divine sense. I almost feel like this is an instance where kind of like the, the census or, or with job where Satan is the one who is doing it, but it's ultimately attributed to God as well. It's the hardening of the heart, but it's also the hardness of heart. Um, all of those things are playing a dynamic, but ultimately the point here is that there are those who the word is preached to. [00:33:30] The Sower's Responsibility and the Soil's Condition Tony Arsenal: Um, you know, we will find out in, in a little bit later, like, the sower is Christ in, in these parables here. It's not, it's not generally the sowing of the word. It's Christ who is sowing the word. It's the son who is sowing, uh, the seed of the word. And we can think about that either during his own ministry. This certainly was, um, was true of his own ministry on Earth, that there were some who just did not receive the word and they just, it just bounced off of them. But then also as the son sows the seed through his people, down through the church age, through history, whether it's in the Lord's Day service or personal, witnessing, personal, you know, um, evangelism, it's still God who is sowing the seed. It's still the Lord who is the sower of the seed. But even in that context, there are still some who just don't receive it. So I think what you said earlier is really, is really spot on. This parable is not about. The skill of the sower or even the efficacy of the seed. Right. And I think sometimes people read this and they, they look at it as though it is actually the sewer's fault. What a dumb sower. He sowed it on the path. Of course it's not gonna take root. That's not the point of the parable at all. The point of the parable, and we learn it just right, this very first one, is that it has to do with the, the soil itself. Which is why, you know, I, I kind of joke about calling it the parable of the soils, and that's a fine way to refer to it. And most of these parables could have multiple different, you know, accurate titles as well. But the point of the parable, or the main point of the parable is that the soil itself is what determines the outcome. Again, you know, we, we don't need to get into all the theological details of how the soil becomes, what the soil is. This show has the word reformed in the title. You can figure out that we're gonna say, well, God is the one that prepares the soil. And that also just fits with the, with the a parable here, right? The good soil is only good because it's been tilled and prepared by the sower ahead of time, right? So I think that's, that's spot on. And, and you know, as I think about the people I know in my life, um, it's very easy to get discouraged when you try to so seed to, to follow through on the metaphor when you try to so seed and it feels like it bounces off. But we shouldn't be surprised at that. We shouldn't be surprised when someone is just not interested because Christ in his very first parable tells us there are people out there like that. That doesn't mean you don't sow the seed, it doesn't mean you don't continue to spread the seed the way that the sower does. And the reason for that is that some of it is going to take, take root, some of it is going to take root and bear fruit and you are not in charge and you don't control which one does which. We don't see the sower in this parable meticulously only identifying the good soil and only planting the seeds there. He does promiscuously spread this, so this seed everywhere that he can. [00:36:26] The Reality of Hardheartedness Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, there is something there that I think is comfortable about this hardness of the soil, because I think sometimes we underestimate that the normative position of man is to be antagonistic toward God. That's not to say like we're talking about in their every action they take, they're going to refuse to hear the gospel or they're going to fight vehemently or out outwardly against it. But it's true that everywhere we find the scriptures, whether it's this other metaphor about God, again, doing this great surgery, of taking out this height of stone, which is of course hardheartedness or whether we go to like Romans three, where Paul says that there's no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God. So we understand that the default position is, one, nobody's seeking after God. Two, that God is too threatening to us. He threatens ourself. He threatens our ego, he threatens our own way. He threatens our contingency, all of which we try to fight against, like to our own dismay. And you know, basically. You know, it's willing, suspension of disbelief. But it's interesting and I think comforting here that what he's saying is, is exactly what you've just said, which is do not he, he'd almost say like loved ones. Do not be surprised when you find that people are just not that interested. They're just not into the gospel. Because your default position is to be a gospel abuser. To be a covenant breaker. And so because of that, there's just a natural hardness. And that hardness, I think he has to draw out. He has to say it's gonna bounce and Satan's gonna snatch it away because it would be, it's too easy to look at those who are just like vehemently opposed to the gospel that wanna debate. You wanna shut you down, wanna yell at you, wanna put signs in your face, wanna spit on you. That's too easy to be like, well, of course. Those people are not gonna receive it. But what about the quiet people who just don't care? Or, yeah. What about the people who are too caught up in their way of life or their simple behaviors or their patterns, or again, just what? What about those? What about the Mormons? When they come to your door and you can speak into your blue in the face about what Paul says, like the gospel plus anything is anathema, and they're just kinda like, yes. Yeah. Totally. That's fine. Totally down with that. And you're like, yeah, but you're doing, you're doing that very thing. This is great comfort to know that even those situations where you're not at war explicitly with somebody, that it's still comforting to know that this is going to happen. And also I think it's a great reminder that apart from God, apart from that changing of the soil, as you said, Tony, we would be those same people. That's in fact where we start. I, I don't say that. Like there's a progression here. We find in the, from moving from one to four. There is though something like you've said, where it's just interesting that Jesus shows us the very kind of shades of this. And I think, again, we gotta get out of our head like the, the temporality of this or like, well, what length of time are we talking about? Like when we get to the second one, which we should move on to. And there is some sprouting of the seed. Like how much time are we talking about? Like if it's two weeks, are they in camp two, if it's three weeks, are they moved out of that into some other, one of the other schools? Uh, I think it's just to show us that there are really, again, four hearers, one believer, and we can see clearly what the one believer looks like. It's a little bit more difficult to maybe sometimes discern what the other three look like, but it gives us hope and encouragement and basically just a sense of like, this is the way the world works. To know pres positionally, that when we go out, and like you said, I love this already, this is a major theme, is speak the gospel to all people. I mean, in this way, the gospel is for all people. Because Jesus' saying, do not cast the seed here. Go and look at that narrow path and find out, try to keep it off the, the hard ground. Do not let the devil snatch it up. It just says, throw and seed, throw and seed. And so we have to keep doing that stuff. [00:40:10] The Challenge of Shallow Roots Jesse Schwamb: So let's get to number two. What, what? Yeah. What say? Yeah. Tony Arsenal: Let me read it here. This is in verse, uh, 20 and 21. Here. It says, as for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the world, immediately he falls away. So thi this is the person who, um, who has some sort of outward conversion experience, right? It's a person who receives the word, he receives it with joy, um, and appears to sprout, right? This is seed that has taken hold and has, uh, you know, the, the, and we, we can see that it has taken hold. So it's not just some hidden seed that has roots and never breaks the surface. Right. It's a, it's a, it's a plant that has made its way into the soil. It has taken roots of some sort. Um, but the roots are shallow. The roots never actually get, uh, deep enough to, to be able to survive the sun, right. In the, the original parable, it's, it's baked by the sun. And, you know, this is, um, I think what what we're gonna see is maybe to sort of preface your question, and I think probably this is gonna be one of those two parter episodes, even though we planned it to be one parter episode. Um, I think what we're gonna see here is that you can't actually know whether someone is. The hard rocks is the rocks or the thorns. Right? Un until, until all is said and done. Right. Right. And that's part of what's difficult is you, you want to look at a parable like this, and this is where I think maybe this is a good sort of like caution against overinterpreting, the parables, right? Christ is not trying to give us a rubric to identify who is what. Jesse Schwamb: Right. He's Tony Arsenal: not trying to give us like a litmus test to say like, that person is the hard soil. That person is the rocks. That person is the thorns. And you know, this reminds me, I, I recall, I, I dunno how many years ago, it was a couple years ago when Kanye West was going through his like Jesus phase, right? And he, everyone was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that Kanye is a Christian and he's writing this album called Jesus. Jesus Saves. And, and I, I just remember saying at the time, like, guys, there's a parable of the soils here. Like we should be. Um, we should be joyful that it, it appears that this seed is taking root, but there are lots of different outcomes when the seed takes root. And it's funny because I, I don't, I don't remember what episode this was and please don't go look it up 'cause that's a waste of everyone's time. But I remember when that conversation happened and I don't know whether there was an affirmation or a denial or what context came up in, but I remember contrasting him to Justin Bieber. And it's ironic, right, because I actually just read on Twitter today. Let me see if I can find the post during the next time you're talking. Justin Bieber posted this really amazing, theologically astute, mature kind of statement on Twitter today. And I think at the time, if you had asked me, um, is Kanye more likely to be the good soil or Justin Bieber to be the good soil, I would've said Kanye. Right? Just because he's, he was older, he is a little bit more established in himself. Um. Justin Bieber was still very young. He was, he was sort of like all over the place personality wise. He seemed to be changing radically. And it just goes to show like, you can't tell. And, and I'm not even saying right now like, this is, this is where it gets difficult. I'm not even saying right now, Justin Bieber is good soil, although I did right. Retweet his quote and did hashtag good soil. Almost aspirationally, right? But we can take a look at someone's life in retrospect and say, this person is bearing fruit, or this person is not bearing fruit. And, and that's really where this particular, um, type of soil goes. It's not so much the fruit, it's the sprout. And I think when we look at a situation like Kanye and, and. There's hopefully still a lot of life left for Kanye, and that means there's still hope for a con, a genuine conversion and bearing fruit that keeps with repentance that does not appear to be what had happened at the time. Right? He's gone totally off the rails at this point. So we pray for that. We hope, we hope for better things for him. Um, but. At the time, Kanye was, is he, he's going by Y now. I don't even know what to call him anymore. But Kanye was a sprout that grew up with great joy quickly. And what we found through time is that it appears that he, when he was, although maybe he fits better into the second, this next category that we'll have to push off till next week, I think. But either way, like he appeared to have sprouted, he appeared to have taken root and ultimately did not actually bear fruit. And that's the defining feature of these first three ones. It's not so much about what happens with the seed. Does it get in the ground? Does it not get in the grow? Does it sprouts, does it not sprout? It's ultimately about the fruitfulness, right? The final, the final phase of the parable, the final, um, the final type of soil is the one that produces fruit. So we'll get to that in detail, but that's what we need to think about. And again, like I said, it's not as though crisis saying like, all right, here's this checklist of ways to determine whether someone's conversion is correct, is true or not. Because we can't know that until after the fact and well after the fact. We also can't know that it's valid until after the fact. What I think this parable, broadly speaking, gets at is that we have to look at every situation and realize that there are these different possible outcomes. And although I don't know that this is explicitly part of the parable, it also sort of points us to the fact that like, because it's not a foregone conclusion about what's gonna happen, maybe there's also something we can do about it. Right? Right. Maybe when we realize someone might be on the rocky soil. Whether we, we have some reason to believe that or we just want to get out in front of that possibility, maybe there's still room to actually get in there and, and move the seed to a different soil, I guess might be a better way to use the metaphor is to, to just take the seed somewhere else or to till the soil, to get the rocks out of the soil. Although this is not talking about like rocks in the soil. It's talking about a layer, probably a layer of bedrock. Like Yes, exactly. Just under the surface. Jesse Schwamb: Right? So Tony Arsenal: there is an immutability about these, these different categories of, of people, and again, this is where like overinterpreting, the parable can get to be problematic, but we, we see that there are these categories, we can't necessarily know which one of these categories a person is in when they have some sort of outward expression of faith where they've received. I think we can tell the difference between that first category. Someone who just has not received the, the gospel at all, has not received the word of God at all, right? Like it's just bounced off of him. It's made no impact. I think we can see that that's a relatively straightforward, um, situation for us to assess. And of course we can't see someone's heart, but it's, it's usually pretty outwardly, readily available to us that they just have not received the word in any means. Right. When we get to these second two categories, that's not the case. We're talking about two different categories of people who have received the word and it has begun to sprout. It has begun, it actually has sprouted, not just begun to sprout, but it's sprouted. Um, I just think we need to be really careful to sort of not place someone in an immutable category until after we've seen what's gonna happen. Yes. Really across their whole life. Jesse Schwamb: Yes. [00:47:41] The Importance of Deep Roots in Faith Jesse Schwamb: I'm glad you brought that up because we really have to remember that in the last three instances, you cannot tell from the soil what the outcome will be. So it is a little bit, I'm with you, kind of a misnomer in the translation. This idea of like rocky soil. Yeah. If it were truly like rocky soil, the way that probably most of us in the Western think of it like soil mixed with gravel, right? They're probably, the sewer would be like, why would I throw it on there like that? That doesn't make any sense. Certainly again, if you're looking for that, that really fertile, well tilled ground, the one that looks promising, you wouldn't do that. So more than likely, I'm with you. We're talking about like a hired limestone layer that would've been like a few inches below, and as the sun would come down, my understanding is of course, like that limestone would heat up. It'd be like the perfect warm environment for like a seed to immediately like spring up with some hope. And that's exactly I think what Jesus is after here. It's this idea that the seed springs up immediately. People receive the message with joy. There's been no root or development to deeper moist soil though, because it doesn't exist. It gets blocked out. But inci incidentally, like the heat of that rock bed actually is the thing that causes it to germinate and produce at least a sprout really, really quickly. But as soon as like any kind of other heat comes upon it, because it cannot not grow deeper because it cannot set the roots, because it cannot get enough water from deep down, then it's going to be quick to die. I think we see this all the time. Maybe we even see this to some degree, not exclusively and in the same kind of magnitude in our own lives. But you know, we may listen to a sermon with pleasure while the impression produced in us is like only temporary, short-lived. You know, our hearts can be like that stony ground. Sometimes it may yield like a plentiful cop clap of warm feelings and like good resolutions and good vibes. How often do we hear that language? But all this time, there may be no deeply rooted work in our souls. And that first like cold blast of oppression or temptation may cause like all of that to go away. What I see interpret it from this particular group and, and this the one that follows it very much the same is like a conversion to religion. So here where this is where I firmly, like, I think we have a class, and this might trigger some people, but I'm gonna say it anyway. We have a class for this to me is deconstructionism. Yeah. And I think what I've, I've been helpful for me is to get outta my mind is that. I'm not sure that we have to be so concerned in this, this metaphor or this great parable about like what's the length of time here? So for instance, is it possible that somebody could be in this place where there is this hard layer of rock, which presents like a setting down of deep roots that could last like years on end. Yeah, where somebody has heard the gospel message has come into the life of the church and finds that this is generally a pleasant way to believe and to live and to express these ideals until maybe they have a strong voice somewhere or they're confronted with the fact that this, their message now is not very tolerant. And so as soon as there comes against them, this push that maybe what you're saying is too exclusive, that all of a sudden there really is a manifestation that there's no real root there. Yeah, there was no conversion. There was a conversion to religious principle and ideas and insomuch as those things didn't push too much against whatever objectives they had. Not even like going after what happens in the the third instance here with all the pleasures of life and all the temptations of the flesh, but just that there is some challenge. To what they believe and that it would be continually lived out in their actual lives, meaningful enough that it would impact behavior, change their mind, and continue to make them outspoken about the thing in which they're setting their roots into that if those things would cause the death of. That sprouts, then to me, that's where we find deconstruction isn't falling. And so in that case, again, it's comforting because it's not a matter of actual conversion as it were. It's not a matter of actual regeneration that hasn't actually occurred. There's plenty of reasons to come alongside and to give the gospel some kind of favor or to give it some kind of acquiescence because it's good on its own. There are lots of things that are good about it, but the rootedness in that is not merely in the outward manifestations of all the benefits of the gospel. It is getting Christ, as we've said. Yeah. And if we're not abiding in Christ, then we will necessarily die. In fact, Christ says elsewhere when he speaks to himself that even every bad branch that does not bear fruit, the father prunes and throws away. And so here we find that happening. It's, this is traumatic, it is dramatic, but this is where I think we see oftentimes Christians really get unnerved and sometimes it really, I think, rocks them when they see people who've had, like you said, Tony, like some professional faith. And I remember us talking about Kanye, and I remember us saying like, I think you and I were cautiously optimistic. We said like, this is fantastic. God does this very thing where he transforms people. And then we see in the long term, in the long run, the manifestation of that transformation, not in just merely as sinner's prayer or some expression of knowing something about the gospel intellectually, but the living it out so that the plant itself grows up in Christ to know of his great love, and then to share and abide in that love where it bears fruit. And so here I find this again, to be just very comforting because I think we see this a lot and our nerves, a lot of Christians, but I think Christ is giving an example here to say, do not be a unnerved by this. [00:53:10] Encouragement for Sowers and Believers Tony Arsenal: Yeah, maybe one last thought and then we, we can push pause until next week when we come back to this parable. Is. I think it's, there's two words in this, um, this little, these two verses here that really stick out to me. There's the, the word immediately, right? Yes. He immediately receives it with joy. That word is repeated later on when he immediately falls away. So there is a, um, there's a, a sense of suddenness to this, to this kind of, I'm using quotation marks if you're not watching the YouTube to this quotation or this, um, conversion experience, right? I think we all know people who have kind of the slow burn conversion experience, right? That's not to say that those people may not be, um, on hard soil or rocky soil. Right. But the, the person that we're talking about in that crisis talking about is the person who hears the word and has every appearance of an outward, radical, outward conversion of joy. And then joy is the second word that that shows up here. One of the things that drives me crazy, you know, maybe just to, to riff off the, the deconstruction, um, narrative a little bit is it drives me crazy when some sort of, um, high profile Christian falls away from the faith or deconstructs or falls, you know, into deep sin and then abandons the faith or has a tragedy happened in their life and whatever reason they abandon the faith. There's this tendency particularly among, I, I think sort of. I don't know if like, there still are young restless reform Christians out there, but I think it's still a valid descriptor. Kind of like the, I'm trying not to be pejorative, but sort of like the surface level tulip is what I call them, like the five point Calvinists who like heard an RC sprawl sermon one time and think that they are like the def, they're the definition of Calvinism. There's this tendency among that demographic that when somebody falls away from the faith to act as though everything about their experience of Christianity was somehow like an act like it was a, it was a, it was a play they were putting on, they were deceiving everybody. Right. That's that's not real. It's not the, it's not the way that it actually works and, and. I think the, um, the flip side and the caution for us in that is that just because our experience of Christianity and our, our experience of being in the faith feels so genuine and real and rooted, we should also recognize that like it felt real and genuine and rooted for Derek Webb or for name, name your key, you know, Joshua Harris, name your big profile deconstruction person of the day. Um, there's a caution there for us and I think that's the caution here in this, um, in this, I dunno, part of the parable is. Just as this is saying, the reason that the person falls away immediately is because there is no root in them yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, he immediately falls away, right? The cause of this is because there is no route that ca

We visit an underground chamber in Upton, Massachusetts, that's puzzled some New Englanders – while others long knew its ancient origins. All this week, we're heading underground to discover the stories beneath our feet. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this podcast episode ... It's called the Yankee National Party and says it upholds the values of New Englanders and beyond. We talk to three local party members who live in the state and are part of the Connecticut chapter to find out more. Plus we take a look at other stories from across the region.

We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!With more than 4 million New Englanders avoiding gluten, the demand for safe, trusted options is huge. Wicked Gluten Free's New England Expo, coming September 20 to Fitchburg, brings 100+ vetted vendors, samples and experts together under one roof! Guest: Abby Helman Kelly - founder of Wicked Gluten Free Are You Quiet Cracking? The Latest Workplace Trend Is Growing… Guest: Dr. Kamin Samuel, PhD in Positive Neuropsychology The share of workers taking mental health leave is up 300% from pre-pandemic levels. Guest: Dr. Ashley Nazon – licensed clinical social worker & owner of "A Holistic Therapy Group, LLC Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame Presents Wasn't That a Time: The Boston Folk Revival 1958 – 1965. One-Day Symposium September 27, 2025, at the Arrow Street Arts Center in Cambridge. Guest: Deana McCloud - curator of the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame & founding Executive Director of the Woody Guthrie Center

In April of 2008, several members of various local paranormal investigation groups got together to form Paranormal Boston. This small group, as well as the addition of a few new, talented, carefully-chosen individuals, possess either a strong background in paranormal investigations or they've had their own profound paranormal experience. All are open-minded skeptics who take a scientific approach that goes much deeper than looking for unexplained creaks and shadows (like you see on television).Our group's credibility and professional reputation have led to requests to conduct home and business investigations throughout New England, and we have gained additional recognition via national and local cable television shows, national and local radio shows, local newspapers, trade magazines, books, podcasts and social media.Despite many requests from reality television shows through the years to perform investigations on questionable paranormal cable TV shows, we have made a conscious choice to stay out of the limelight and avoid the reputation that often comes with compromising your values to boost television ratings (and egos).In January of 2018, we changed our name to Paranormal New England to better identify the entire geographical area we have worked in the past, and will continue to work in the future. We are dedicated, and passionate, and here to help our fellow New Englanders should they need us.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-x-zone-radio-tv-show--1078348/support.Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.We are proud to announce the we have launched TWATNews.com, launched in August 2025.TWATNews.com is an independent online news platform dedicated to uncovering the truth about Donald Trump and his ongoing influence in politics, business, and society. Unlike mainstream outlets that often sanitize, soften, or ignore stories that challenge Trump and his allies, TWATNews digs deeper to deliver hard-hitting articles, investigative features, and sharp commentary that mainstream media won't touch.These are stories and articles that you will not read anywhere else.Our mission is simple: to expose corruption, lies, and authoritarian tendencies while giving voice to the perspectives and evidence that are often marginalized or buried by corporate-controlled media. 

Stephanie sits down with author Hannah Brencher to discuss the practical power of unplugging from technology to deepen our connection with God, others, and oneself. Drawing from her book, The Unplugged Hours, and her personal journey, Hannah shares practical insights and spiritual wisdom that offer a clear pathway for anyone feeling overwhelmed, distracted, or disconnected. Unplugging is less about abandoning technology and more about reclaiming the present, deepening contentment, and embracing our true identity in Christ. Through practical disciplines, humble self-awareness, and a commitment to delighting in God right where we are, we find the spacious, unhurried lives that our souls crave. 1. Recognizing the Need to Unplug Hannah recounts her realization that constant connection to her phone was leaving her exhausted, burnt out, and spiritually depleted. She felt a persistent need to always be “on,” a sensation many people can relate to in today's always-online world. Symptoms that signal it might be time to unplug include: Feeling tired and perpetually “on” Burnout and lack of creativity Scattered attention and apathy towards loved ones False sense of control by consuming endless information Numbing and anxiety, worsened by exposure to social media algorithms designed to keep us engaged through fear or desire Unplugging, for Hannah, didn't mean abandoning her phone entirely, but initiating a conscious journey toward better habits and rhythms. 2. The Power of Contentment and Presence Hannah acknowledges and embraces the struggle—and ultimately, the spiritual discipline—of contentment. Social media and the internet constantly convince us that fulfillment is elsewhere, which removes us from both the present moment (time) and from our current environment (space). Hannah draws from the Apostle Paul's words about learning contentment, framing it as a dance that takes practice and humility. For example, Hannah's practice of “grounding” by jotting down details of the present moment (in a notebook, not a phone) helps her drop into her actual life, savoring little joys, and affirming that “this is enough.” Unlike capturing moments for others to see on social media, this form of slow documentation, she says, nurtures personal satisfaction and removes the compulsion for outside validation. 3. Rethinking Productivity and Success Stephanie and Hannah highlight the toxicity of equating productivity with worth. Hannah shares how unplugging redefined her sense of value from accomplishment and approval to simply being present with God. True productivity, she discovered, isn't about checking boxes, but about what God is cultivating within us through periods of stillness—patience, peace, faithfulness. Success, then, transforms from external achievement to delighting in God and being aware of His presence. Hannah echoes Stephanie's insight that “a successful life is a succession of days and moments where I'm delighting in God.” 4. Practicing Stillness and Receiving God's Presence Jesus' example comes alive as the epitome of unhurried purpose—accomplishing all the Father's will without rushing. Unplugging isn't just for personal peace, but to become truly available to God, hearing His voice and responding with readiness and openness (“Here I am, Lord”). Through intentionally slowing down and savoring “vegetable moments”—Hannah's metaphor for embracing the slow, nourishing parts of life—we open ourselves to the real rewards: deeper relationship with God and others. MORE ABOUT HANNAH BRENCHER Hannah Brencher says,  “I love teaching individuals how to build intentional lives they love through the power of habit and meaningful routines. I am the founder of The World Needs More Love Letters, author of 4 books, a TED Speaker, and an online educator teaching others how to establish important disciplines within their lives. Words are my everything and nothing fires me up more than getting to teach people about the power of discipline. Establishing better discipline was an essential piece in dealing with depression and I love seeing the freedom it unlocks in others as they establish better habits and rhythms in their own life. I'm a proud New Englander living in city of Atlanta with my husband Lane and our little girl Novalee. You can find us trying out new restaurants across the city, getting dangerously cutthroat over playing Battleship, playing at the park, and cozying up to watch a thriller (or Moana if Novi gets to pick) with our rescue pup Tuesday.” More at https://hannahbrenchercreative.com/  MORE ABOUT “THE UNPLUGGED HOURS” Join the Challenge: One Thousand Unplugged Hours in One Year Former social media addict, Hannah Brencher discovered first-hand that turning off her phone had a substantial impact on her mental health, relationships, time management, and outlook on the world. Like so many of us, Hannah had been turning to her phone to cope with life in a time of isolation and uncertainty. But those coping mechanisms had become habits she didn't know how to break until she truly committed herself to one simple yet profound act: log 1,000 phone-free hours in a year. Now, in The Unplugged Hours, she demonstrates how the act of powering down and reducing the habit of a constantly plugged-in lifestyle can change your entire life. No matter what you do for a living, how much time your apps save you, or how much entertainment your phone brings, it is possible to unplug—and rediscover the richness of life on the other side. A powerful weaving of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual insights, this life-changing book will help you: Reclaim your ability to be present and engaged with the world around you. Swap the hurried, constant pace of technology for a steadier, more rooted way of living. Establish your own unplugged rituals and rhythms in daily life. The Unplugged Hours gives you the practical ideas and spiritual inspiration you need to stop scrolling and start living. So join the challenge: put your phone down and live your life. We invite you to check out the first episode of each of our series, and decide which one you will want to start with. Go to gospelspice.com for more, and go especially to gospelspice.com/podcast to enjoy our guests! Interested in our blog? Click here: gospelspice.com/blog Identity in the battle | Ephesians https://www.podcastics.com/episode/74762/link/ Centering on Christ | The Tabernacle experience https://www.podcastics.com/episode/94182/link/ Shades of Red | Against human oppression https://www.podcastics.com/episode/115017/link/ God's glory, our delight  https://www.podcastics.com/episode/126051/link/   You are invited to join us on the Gospel Spice Prayer Bible Study, titled "The heart behind prayer" starting September 20, 2025! Details and registration here: https://www.gospelspice.com/prayer  There are a few things in our Christian life that we know we should do more, or at least better – and prayer just might top the list. Prayer is a mystery. Why would a conversation with a human have any influence on God's eternal, sovereign plan? It defies logic, and beckons love. How can God, the Almighty Lord of Hosts, be this close, this personal? It defies understanding, and beckons involvement. But, lack of time, inspiration, and discipline, combined with the ruthless tyranny of our busy lives, push prayer to the periphery, to the “one day I'll get to it” pile. And yet, we can excel at what we endeavor to undertake. So, why isn't prayer more of a spiritual priority? Could we develop a mindset around prayer that made it attractive, inspiring, even maybe delightful? What if we attuned our spiritual ears to listen to God, and our spiritual eyes to see His provision? As an unassuming student, I'm going to humbly offer to share the little I have learned from others about the joy of prayer. I will give us theology, practical tips, and useful resources, sharing what works for me as we, together, learn to pray. If you find prayer intimidating, or if your lack of prayer makes you feel guilty or “less than,” then this is the place for you! If you have been a student of prayer for many years, this is the place for you too! If you have breath in your lungs, then prayer can become one of the deepest joys of your day. Don't miss out! A PERSPECTIVE ABOUT PRAYER To pray is to believe that God not only hears, but that He responds. It is to stand in the gap for a broken world, wielding the authority of Christ, empowered by the Spirit, and trusting in the goodness of the Father. The question is not whether prayer works, but whether we are willing to pray the kinds of prayers that invite God's Kingdom into the darkest places of the earth—and of our own hearts. We may never fully understand the mechanics of prayer, or how it intersects with God's sovereignty, but we are not called to understand everything. We are called to be faithful. And faithfulness means showing up—in prayer, in persistence, in expectation. So today, let us pray not only for the comfort of our hearts, but for the transformation of the world. Let us take our place as image-bearers, co-laborers, and co-heirs. Let us believe that God is still listening—and still acting. Because He is. There's only one way to find out what might happen when we truly pray like this. Let's begin. THE MINDSET BEHIND THIS COURSE Before we begin, let me tell you the obvious: I don't really know how to pray. I'm a humble student and absolute beginner at the holy endeavor that is prayer. So, this course isn't really about what I've learned, or any wisdom I might have gathered. But, I've sat at the feet of many prayer warriors over the decades, through books and teachings. So, I'll share what I learned from them. Humility is going to be our primary heart posture! With each lesson, I will offer a few thoughts, practices, and ideas – with much humility, and not taking myself too seriously. I will also share her favorite books and resources about prayer. FInally, I will introduce you to some of the most influential prayer warriors of our history as the Body of Christ. Most importantly, I will invite YOU to pray! Learning to pray comes from praying. Our humble ambition is to inspire you to pray, and to give you a few tips on how to do that. Then, it's up to you! Prayer is a lifelong endeavor. Let's make it delightful together! So, let's get started. You are invited to join us on the Gospel Spice Prayer Bible Study, titled "The heart behind prayer" starting September 20, 2025! Details and registration here: https://www.gospelspice.com/prayer  There are a few things in our Christian life that we know we should do more, or at least better – and prayer just might top the list. Prayer is a mystery. Why would a conversation with a human have any influence on God's eternal, sovereign plan? It defies logic, and beckons love. How can God, the Almighty Lord of Hosts, be this close, this personal? It defies understanding, and beckons involvement. But, lack of time, inspiration, and discipline, combined with the ruthless tyranny of our busy lives, push prayer to the periphery, to the “one day I'll get to it” pile. And yet, we can excel at what we endeavor to undertake. So, why isn't prayer more of a spiritual priority? Could we develop a mindset around prayer that made it attractive, inspiring, even maybe delightful? What if we attuned our spiritual ears to listen to God, and our spiritual eyes to see His provision? As an unassuming student, I'm going to humbly offer to share the little I have learned from others about the joy of prayer. I will give us theology, practical tips, and useful resources, sharing what works for me as we, together, learn to pray. If you find prayer intimidating, or if your lack of prayer makes you feel guilty or “less than,” then this is the place for you! If you have been a student of prayer for many years, this is the place for you too! If you have breath in your lungs, then prayer can become one of the deepest joys of your day. Don't miss out! A PERSPECTIVE ABOUT PRAYER To pray is to believe that God not only hears, but that He responds. It is to stand in the gap for a broken world, wielding the authority of Christ, empowered by the Spirit, and trusting in the goodness of the Father. The question is not whether prayer works, but whether we are willing to pray the kinds of prayers that invite God's Kingdom into the darkest places of the earth—and of our own hearts. We may never fully understand the mechanics of prayer, or how it intersects with God's sovereignty, but we are not called to understand everything. We are called to be faithful. And faithfulness means showing up—in prayer, in persistence, in expectation. So today, let us pray not only for the comfort of our hearts, but for the transformation of the world. Let us take our place as image-bearers, co-laborers, and co-heirs. Let us believe that God is still listening—and still acting. Because He is. There's only one way to find out what might happen when we truly pray like this. Let's begin. THE MINDSET BEHIND THIS COURSE Before we begin, let me tell you the obvious: I don't really know how to pray. I'm a humble student and absolute beginner at the holy endeavor that is prayer. So, this course isn't really about what I've learned, or any wisdom I might have gathered. But, I've sat at the feet of many prayer warriors over the decades, through books and teachings. So, I'll share what I learned from them. Humility is going to be our primary heart posture! With each lesson, I will offer a few thoughts, practices, and ideas – with much humility, and not taking myself too seriously. I will also share her favorite books and resources about prayer. FInally, I will introduce you to some of the most influential prayer warriors of our history as the Body of Christ. Most importantly, I will invite YOU to pray! Learning to pray comes from praying. Our humble ambition is to inspire you to pray, and to give you a few tips on how to do that. Then, it's up to you! Prayer is a lifelong endeavor. Let's make it delightful together! So, let's get started. Support us on Gospel Spice, PayPal and Venmo!

Jess here! A while back, Sarina and KJ talked about how much they enjoyed Tess Gerritsen's novel, The Spy Coast, and Sarina reassured KJ she'd enjoy book two of the series even more. I had never read a Tess Gerritsen novel, and while I'd heard her name before and vaguely understood she wrote thrillers, I was starting from square one when I downloaded the audio version of The Spy Coast. Now, I'm not an international spy thriller kind of gal. In the abstract, I understand the allure of books like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Six Days of the Condor. Spies! Intrigue! International [almost exclusively men] of mystery! But they have never really floated my proverbial boat. That said, I loved Tess Gerritsen's spies and the world they inhabit. There's a sense of place - nay, a downright LOVE of place - and a retiring, rural New England domesticity that spoke to this retiring, rural New England reader. Book two, The Summer Guests, is even more rooted in Maine, on its history and the social dynamics of its natives and its summer people. Once I tore through those first two books, I went back to Gerritsen's first book, The Surgeon, one of Time Magazine's top 100 thriller/mystery books of all time and the first in the Rizzoli & Isles series, consequently made into a long-running television series. Gerritsen has a fascinating career trajectory, lots to talk about regarding pantsing and plotting, where the ideas come from, and lots of other geeky details about the writing life. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Find Tess at Tessgerritsen.com, or on Bluesky, @TessGerritsen Transcript below!EPISODE 462 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, the company I started more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. In October, we'll be enrolling a new cohort of certification students who will be going through programs in either fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and learning the editorial, emotional, and entrepreneurial skills that you need to be a successful book coach. If you've been curious about book coaching and thinking that it might be something you want to do for your next career move, I'd love to teach you more about it, you can go to bookcoaches.com/waitlist to check out the free training I have—that's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. The training is all about how to make money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers. Fall is always a great time to start something new. So if you're feeling called to do this, go check out our training and see if this might be right for you. We'd love to have you join us.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, prose, narrative nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction, queries, proposals. This is the podcast about writing all the things. More than anything else, this is the podcast about the writing life and about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The Atlantic and The Washington Post, and my bi-weekly (formerly bi-weekly) column at The New York Times, The Parent-Teacher Conference, ran for about three years I am joined today by Sarina Bowen, who has written 50-odd books. She has written lots and lots of romance, and her most recent addition to the world of publishing has been her thrillers, Dying to Meet You and The Five Year Lie. And she has a book coming out this fall called Thrown for a Loop. The reason I am recording this intro on my own—which, as you may know if you've been listening, is highly unusual for us—is because I know myself. And I know when I'm really excited to talk to someone on the podcast; I'm going to flub the intro. I'm going to forget something. I'm going to forget to introduce them altogether. So today, I'm doing that first, so I don't mess it up. A while ago on the podcast, you may have heard Sarina and KJ read some books by an author named Tess Gerritsen. I had heard of Tess Gerritsen, but I had never read any of her books. I just hadn't yet. I haven't read Nora Roberts yet. I haven't read—there are lots of authors I haven't read yet. And sometimes you don't even know where to start. So when Sarina and KJ recommended Tess Gerritsen's new series set in Maine—the first one being The Spy Coast and the second one being The Summer Guests—I figured I had a good place to start. And you know, as a New Englander, I love a good book about New England, and that was the start of my interest in Tess Gerritsen's work. I have gone back to the beginning and started with her book The Surgeon, which was her first book in the series that became the Rizzoli and Isles Series, as well as a television show. Tess Gerritsen has a—she's written through 33 books at this point. And as I now know, she has also directed a documentary called Magnificent Beast about pigs, which I listened to this morning while I was vacuuming the house. I loved it. She also—she has a lot to say about genre, about publishing, about second careers, about a writing place, and about process. So let's just jump right into it. I am so excited to introduce to you today, Tess Gerritsen. So from the perspective of what our listeners love—this podcast, the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast —is super geek. People who love the nuts and bolts and the dorky details of the writing life. Sarina has a past life in finance, and so she tends to be, like, our “no, but let's talk about the numbers” kind of person. I'm just the research super dork, which is why I spent my morning watching your documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenOh my god! (Laughing)Jess LaheyMagnificent Beast. I—I've joked in the past that if I could, I would probably just research things in—in, you know, maybe there'll be a book out there, maybe there won't, but I would research things and—and just learn as much as I could. And so I loved—loved—your Magnificent Beast documentary. I thought it was fantastic. But one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you, just from the very beginning, is that we feel like you do some pretty incredible world-building and relationship-building with your places and your characters. And so I just—I would love to start there, mainly with the idea of starting with the real nuts and bolts stuff, which is, like, what does an average writing day look like for you? And how do you, sort of—how do you set that up? What does it look like, if you have an average writing day? Maybe you don't.Tess GerritsenWell, it's hard to describe an average writing day, because every day is—there are days when you sit at your desk and you just, you know, pull your hair. And there are days when you get distracted by the news. And there are many days when I just do not want to write. But when I'm writing, the good days are when my characters are alive and talking to me. And it's—it's—you talked about world-building and character-building. That is really key to me. What are they saying to me? Can I hear their voices? And it sounds a little—a little crazy, because I am hearing voices. But it's those voices that really make characters come alive.Jess LaheyI—You have said in other interviews that you are very much—sorry to those of you who hate the terms—that you are very much a pantser. And you are sitting on this interview with a consummate plotter. Sarina is our consummate plotter. So could you talk a little bit about how those character—how those voices—influence, you know, the pantsing of the—of the book, and—and how that works for you?Tess GerritsenWell, I mean, it is weird that I am a pantser. And it's funny—I think that people who are plotters tend to be people who are in finance or in law, because they're used to having their ducks lined up, you know. They—they want everything set up ahead of time, and it makes them feel comfortable. And I think a large part of becoming a pantser is learning to be comfortable with unpredictability. Learning to just let things happen, and know you're going to take wrong turns, know you're going to end up in blind alleys—and yet just keep on forging ahead and change direction. So I suppose that what helps me become a pantser, as I said, is hearing a character's voice. If, for instance, when I wrote The Spy Coast, the first thing I heard about that book was Maggie Bird's voice. And she just said, “I'm not the woman I used to be.” And that's an opening there, right? Because you want to find out, Maggie, who did you used to be? And why do you sound so sad? So a lot of it was just—just getting into her head and letting her talk about what a day-to-day life is, which is, you know, raising chickens and collecting eggs and becoming—and being—a farmer. And then she does something surprising in that very first chapter. There's a fox that's killing her chickens, so she grabs her rifle and kills it with one shot. And that opens up another thing, like—how are you, a 62-year-old woman, able to take out a rifle and kill a fox with one shot? So it's—it's those things. It's those revelations of character. When they come out and they tell you something, or they show you they—they have a skill that you weren't aware of, you want to dig deeper and find out, you know, where did they get that skill?Sarina BowenAnd that is a really fun way to show it. I mean, you're talking today with two people who have also kept chickens.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Jess LaheyAnd had foxes take their chickens, actually.Sarina BowenOh yes, because the two go together.Tess GerritsenYes.Sarina BowenBut yes, I admit I have never shot a fox, and maybe wouldn't.Jess LaheyI have yelled very loudly at a fox, and he actually—I have to say—really mad respect for the fox, because he took one look at me—he did drop the chicken that I was yelling at him for grabbing—and then he went across the street, around the neighbor's house, around the back of the other neighbor's house, and came at the exact same chicken from the other side of the house, where I couldn't see him out the window.Tess GerritsenOh, they are so smart. They are so smart.Jess LaheySo smart. Sarina, it sounded like you had something— you had something you wanted to add, and I interrupted you when we were talking about pantsing and we were talking about world-building and characters speaking to you.Sarina BowenWell, I just had thought that it was a lovely moment to explain why I was so excited to read this book after I heard Tess speak at Thriller Fest 2024, in a packed room where there was nowhere to sit except on the floor. You told the audience a little bit of a story from your real life that—that made you want to write that book. And I wonder if you could tell us what that was, because for me—I mean, we were only five minutes into your talk, and I'm like, oh, I'm—I'm going to download that tonight.Tess GerritsenWell, yes, it was. A lot of my books come from ideas that I've been stewing over for years. I have a folder called the ideas folder. It's an actual physical manila folder. And if I see something in an article or a newspaper or a magazine, I'll just rip it out and stick it in there, and it sometimes takes a long time before I know how to turn this into a book. So the idea for The Spy Coast is a little bit of obscure knowledge that I learned 35 years ago, when I first moved to Maine. My husband is a medical doctor. He opened up a practice, and when he would bring in new patients, he would always get an occupational history. And he used to get this answer—this very strange answer—from his new patients. They would say, “I used to work for the government, but I can't talk about it.” And after he heard that three times, he thought, what town did we land in? And who are these people? And we later found out that on our very short street, on one side of us was a retired OSS person, and on the other side was retired CIA. A realtor told us that our town was full of CIA retirees. So, I mean, of course you want to ask, why did they get here? What are they doing here? What are their lives like? I knew there was a book in there, but I didn't know what that book was. I needed 35 years to come up with the idea. And what I really needed to do was become old and—and realize that as you get older, especially women, we become invisible. People don't pay attention to us. We are over the hill. You know, everybody looks at the young, pretty chicks, but once you start getting gray hair, you fade into the background. And with that experience myself; I began to think more and more about what it's like to be retired. What is it like to be retired from a job that was maybe dangerous, or exciting, or something that you really risked your life to—to achieve? So that was—that was the beginning of The Spy Coast. What happens to CIA retirees—especially women—who are now invisible? But that makes them the best spies of all.Jess LaheyYeah, and we have—we did this really cool thing, this really fun thing for us on the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. It's like a supporter-only thing, where we call First Pages, where very brave authors—very brave writers—submit their first page to us, and we talk about it and decide whether or not we'd want to turn the page. And you have an incredible skill on your first pages. You're very, very good at first pages. And I was thinking about The Summer Guests, that you had this wonderful line that I'm going to read now:Purity, Maine, 1972. On the last day of his life, Purity police officer Randy Pelletier ordered a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee at the Marigold Café,Which immediately reminded me of my very, very favorite line from all of literature—my very favorite first line—which is Irving's first line from A Prayer for Owen Meany, in which he ruins the story for you right there in the first line:I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God.There is this incredible power to first lines. And I'm sort of wondering where—how first lines happen for you. Do they happen first? Do they happen last? Do they happen along the way?Tess GerritsenFirst lines usually happen last. I—it's—I will write the whole book, and I'll think, something's missing in that first chapter. How do I open this up? And, you know, there are things that make lines immediately hypnotic, and one of those things is an inherent contradiction—something that makes you think, wait, okay, you start off this way, but then all of a sudden, the meaning of that line switches. So, yeah, it starts off with, you know, this guy's going to die. But on that last day of his life, he does something very ordinary. He just orders coffee at the local café. So I think it's that contradiction that makes us want to read more. It's also a way to end chapters. I think that—that if you leave your reader with a sense of unease—something is about to go wrong, but they don't know what it is yet—or leave them with an unanswered question, or leave them with, as I said, a contradiction—that is what's page-turning. I think that a lot of thriller writers in particular mistake action for—for being—for being interesting. A car chase on the page is really very boring. But what's interesting is something that—you could feel that tension building, but you don't know why.Sarina BowenI have joked sometimes that when I get stuck on a plot, sometimes I will talk at my husband and—and say, “you know, I'm stuck here.” And he always says, “And then a giant squid attacked.” And it—of course I don't write books that take place where this is possible, so—but it never fails to remind me that, like, external action can sometimes be just, you know, totally pointless. And that if you're stuck, it's because one of your dominoes isn't leaning, you know, in the right spot. So...Tess GerritsenYeah, it's—it's not as much fun seeing that domino fall as seeing it go slowly tilting over. You know, I really learned this when I was watching a James Bond movie. And it starts off—you know, the usual James Bonds have their cold open to those action and chasing and death-defying acts. I found that—I find that really, in that movie anyway—I was like, Ho hum. Can we get to the story? And I found the time when I was leaning forward in my theater seat, watching every moment, was really a very quiet conversation aboard a train between him and this woman who was going to become his lover. That was fascinating to me. So I think that that transfers to book writing as well. Action is boring.Jess LaheyYou and Sarina do something that I feel, as a writer; I would probably not be very good at, which is creating that unease. I—Sarina in particular does this thing... I've read every one of Sarina's books, as a good friend is supposed to do. And I text her, and I say, Why don't they just talk about it and just deal? Get it out in the open! And she's like, you know, we just got to make these people uncomfortable. And you both have this incredible talent for helping—keeping the reader, uh, along with you, simply because there is this sense of unease. We're slightly off-kilter the whole time. And yet in me, as a people pleaser, that makes me very uncomfortable. I want people to be happy with each other. So how do you—if you get to a place where you feel like maybe things aren't off-kilter enough, or things aren't off-balance enough—how do you introduce a little bit of unease into your—into your story?Tess GerritsenWell, I think it comes down to very small points of conflict—little bits of tension. Like, we call it micro-tension. And I think those occur in everyday life all the time. For instance, you know, things that happen that really don't have any big consequence, but are still irritating. We will stew about those for—for a while. And, you know, I used to write romance as well, so I understand entirely what Sarina is doing, because romance is really about courtship and conflict. And it's the conflict that makes us keep reading. We just—we know this is the courtship. So there's always that sense of it's not quite there, because once the characters are happy, the story is over, right?Sarina BowenYeah.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Sarina BowenAlso, writing the ends of romance novels is the least interesting part. Like, what...? Once the conflict is resolved, like, I cannot wait to get out of there.Tess GerritsenRight, exactly. You know, I—I pay attention to my feelings when I'm reading a book, and I've noticed that the books that I remember are not the books with happy endings, because happiness is so fleeting. You know, you can be happy one second, and then something terrible will happen. You'll be unhappy. What lasts for us is sadness, or the sense of bittersweet. So when I read a book that ends with a bittersweet ending—such as, you know, Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove—I ended up crying at the end of that book, and I have never forgotten that ending. Now, if everybody had been happy and there had been nobody to drag all those miles at the end, I would have forgotten that book very quickly. So I think—I try—I always try to leave the end of the book either bittersweet—I mean, you want to resolve all the major plot points—but also leave that sense of unease, because people remember that. And it also helps you, if you have a sequel.Sarina BowenThat's so interesting you've just brought up a couple of really interesting points, because there is a thriller—I actually write suspense now—and one of the books that so captured my attention about five years ago was killing it on the charts. And I thought it was actually a terrible book, but it nailed the bittersweet ending. Like, the premise was solid, and then the bittersweet ending was perfect, and the everything between the first chapter and the last chapter was a hot mess, but—but—um, that ending really stuck with me. And I remember carrying it around with me, like, Wow, they really nailed that ending. You know, and—and maybe that has, like, legs in terms of, like, talking about it. And, you know, if it—if—if it's irritating enough, like, the tension is still there—enough to, like, make people talk about it—it could actually affect the performance of that book. But also, um, one thing that I really love about this series—you have—what is the series title for the...?Tess GerritsenMartini—The Martini Club.Sarina BowenThe Martini Club, right? So The Martini Club is two books now. I inhaled the first one last summer, and I inhaled the second one this summer. And The Martini Club refers to this group of friends—these retired spies. And of course, there are two completely different mysteries in book one and book two. And I noticed a couple of things about the difference between those mysteries that was really fun. So in the first case—or in one of the two cases, let's see—in one of them, the thing that happens in their town is actually, like, related to them. And in the other one, it's kind of not. So to me, that felt like a boundary expansion of your world and your system. But also, I just love the way you leaned into the relationship of these people and their town in such a way. And how did you know to do that? Like, how—what does your toolbox say about how to get that expansiveness in your character set? Like, you know, to—to find all the limits of it?Tess GerritsenThat—you know, so much is like—it's like asking a pole-vaulter how they do it. They just—they have just—I guess its muscle memory. You don't really know how you're doing it, but what I did know was—with age, and because I love these characters so much—it really became about them and about what is going to deepen their friendship? What kind of a challenge is going to make them lean into each other—lean on each other? That's really what I was writing about, I think, was this circle of friends, and—and what you will do, how much you will sacrifice, to make sure your friends are safe. No, you're right—the second book is much more of a classic mystery. Yeah—a girl disappears. I mean, there was—there were—there were CIA undertones in that, because that becomes an important part of the book. But I think that what people are—when people say they love this book—they really talk about the characters and that friendship. And we all want friends like this, where we can go and—and—and have martinis together, and then if we—one of us needs to—we'll go help them bury a body.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Tess GerritsenThat's—they all have shovels, and they're willing to do it. That's the kind of friendship—friends—we want.Jess LaheyWell, and that's funny you mention that—I had an entire question—it wasn't even a question, it was a statement—in here about friendships and being grateful to you for the reminder about the importance of relationships. And this entire podcast was born out of the fact that we were talking writing all the time, and we just wanted an official way to sit down once a week and actually talk about the work. And your work is suffused with just these incredible relationships—whether that's the Rizzoli and Isles—you know, in your first—in the one of your other series—and I'm just—I'm very grateful for that, because we—especially—I think I re—I really crave books about female relationships, especially about older female relationships. And I have been loving your books, and I've—like, as I may have mentioned to you in my initial email—I had—I'm so sorry—never read your books before. And I admitted in the introduction that there are lots of very, very famous authors whose books I have never read. And it's always so exciting to me to dive into someone's series and realize, oh, this person really touches on themes that mean a lot to me, and I can already tell that I'm going to be enjoying a lot of their books to come forward. So thank you for all of the great descriptions of relationships and how we do rely on each other for various aspects of just how we get through all of this stuff.Tess GerritsenYeah—get through life. But you know what's funny about it is that it didn't start that way. For instance, let's go back to Rizzoli and Isles. The very first time they both appear in a book is in The Apprentice. And they don't start off being friends. They start off being—they're so different. As the TV producer once said, “you've really written about Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.” That's okay—they are—in the books. They are not natural friends. But like real-life friendships, sometimes—just kind of develop slowly, and—and they have their ups and downs. So there are times when—when Jane and Maura are barely speaking to each other because of conflicts they have. But by the time book twelve comes around—or maybe book seven comes around—you know that they would risk their lives for each other. So I think that if you're writing a series like Rizzoli and Isles, or like The Martini Club, it really helps to develop the friendship on the fly and see how they react to certain stresses. The next book, which I just turned in, called The Shadow Friends—it even put—pushes them even further, and it really—it really strains a marriage, because it's—it's more about Ingrid, and an old lover comes back into her life. She used to—they were both spies—and he is, like, hot, hot, hot—Antonio Banderas kind of guy. And here's Ingrid, married to Lloyd, you know, who's just a sweet analyst who cooks dinner for her every night. And I—when I was coming up with that story, I thought, I want to write a book about their marriage. So it wasn't—the plot wasn't about, oh, you know, international assassinations, even though that does occur in the book. It's really about the story of a marriage.Jess LaheyAnd it gives you, it gives you added unease. You know, if you have your two characters not speaking to each other, and you know your readers love those characters and crave those characters to be getting along at some point, then that's just another reason that we're following along. I was just thinking about, uh, Michael Connelly, uh, book the other day, because I really, really like the series he did with Renée Ballard and her relationship with the Bosch character, and how that series is totally about crime, but yet it's also very much about the relationship. And I think I follow—I continue to read those because of the relationship between those two human beings, and less so because of the murder mystery sort of stuff.Tess GerritsenI think it really becomes important if you're dealing also with Hollywood television series. I still remember what the producer first said when he called me up about Rizzoli and Isles. He said, "I love your girls, and I think they belong on TV.” He didn't say, I love your plots. He didn't say, I love your mysteries, you know, all your intricate ups and downs. It was really about the girls. So if you hope to sell to a television series, really, it's about characters again.Jess LaheyAbsolutely.Sarina BowenI was going to ask about longevity, because you have so many books, and you're so obviously still invigorated by the process, or there wouldn't be a book three that you just turned in. So how have you been able to avoid just being sick to death of—of writing suspense novel after suspense novel?Tess GerritsenI refused. That's what it is. You know, I—I don't—I guess I could say that I have a little bit of ADHD when it comes to—to the books I write. I cannot—after 13 books of Rizzoli and Isles, I just had a different idea. And it takes—it takes a certain amount of backbone to say no to your publisher, to your editor, to people who are going, well, when's the next one in this series coming out? And to be able to say, I need a break. I need to do something completely different. So over—how many years I've been a writer—almost 40 now—I've written science fiction and historicals and a ghost story and romantic suspense and spy novels and medical thrillers and crime novels. I've been all over the place, but each one of those books that took me out of what I was expected to do was so invigorating. It was a book that I needed to write. As an example, I wrote a book called Playing with Fire. Nobody wanted that book. Nobody expected that book. It was a historical about World War II, and about music—about the power of music—and having to do with the death camps. I remember my publisher going, "What are you doing?" And, you know, it's—it's true—they're—they—they are marketers, and they understood that that book would not sell as well, and it didn't. But it still remains one of my favorite books. And when you want to write a book, you need to write that book. That's all—even—even if nobody wants it.Jess LaheyI actually was—I'm so pleased that this came up, because that was actually going to be my question, because both you and Sarina have done this—done, you know, 90 degrees—whether it's out of, you know, one genre into another—and that, to me, requires an enormous amount of courage. Because you know you have people expecting things from you. And you in particular, Tess, have people saying, "No, I want the next one. I love this relationship. I want the next one." And—and dealing—you're not just dealing with the disappointment of whether it's an agent or an editor, but the disappointment of fans. And that's a pressure as well. So when I used to do journalism, I remember a question I asked of another journalist was, "How do you continue to write without fear of the comment section?" And essentially, for us, that's our—you know, those are our readers. So how do you find that thing within yourself to say, no, this really is the thing that I need to be writing now?Tess GerritsenWell, that is a really—it's a really tough decision to buck the trend or buck what everybody's expecting, because there's a thing in publishing called the death spiral. And if your book does not sell well, they will print fewer copies for the next one. And then that won't sell well. So you start—your career starts to go down the drain. And that is a danger every time you step out of your tried and true series and do something out of—you know, completely out of the ordinary. I think the reason I did it was that I really didn't give a damn. It was—it was like, Okay, maybe this will kill my career, but I've got to write this book. And it was always with the idea that if my publisher did not want that, I would just self-publish. I would just, you know, find another way to get it out there. And I—I was warned, rightly so, that your sales will not be good for this book, and that will—it will hurt the next contract. And I understood that. But it was the only way I could keep my career going. Once you get bored, and you're—you're trapped in a drawer, I think it shows up in your writing.Jess LaheyI had this very conversation with my agent. The—my first book did well. And so then, you know, the expectation is, I'll write like part two of that, or I'll write something for that exact same audience again. And when I told my agent—I said, "You know, this book on substance use prevention and kids—I—it's—I have to write it. And I'm going to write it even, you know, if I have to go out there and sell it out of the trunk of my car." And she said, "Okay, then I guess we're doing this." And yes...Tess Gerritsen(Laughing) They had their best wishes at heart.Jess LaheyAnd honestly, I love—I loved my book that did well. But The Addiction Inoculation is the book I'm most proud of. And, you know, that's—yeah, that's been very important to me.Tess GerritsenI often hear from writers that the book that sold the fewest copies was one that was—were their favorites. Those are the ones that they took a risk on, that they—I mean, they put their heart and soul into it. And maybe those hurt their careers, but those are the ones that we end up being proud of.Jess LaheyI like to remind Sarina of that, because I do remember we text each other constantly. We have a little group, the three of us, a little group text all day long. And there was—I remember when she first wrote a male-male romance, she was scared. She was really scared that this was going to be too different for her readers. And it ended up being, I think, my favorite book that she's ever written, and also a very important book for her in terms of her career development and growth, and what she loves about the work that she does. And so I like to remind her every once in a while, remember when you said that really scared you and you weren't sure how your readers were going to handle it?Sarina BowenRight? Well, I also did that in the middle of a series, and I went looking for confirmation that that is a thing that people did sometimes, and it was not findable. You know, that was...Jess LaheyWhat? Change things up in terms of—change things up in the middle of a series?Sarina BowenIn the middle of a series. And anyway, that book still sells.Tess GerritsenThat is a great act of courage, but it's also an act of confidence in yourself as a writer. There are ways to do it. I think some writers will just adopt a different pen name for something that's way out there.Jess LaheyIt's funny you should say... it's funny you should say that.Sarina BowenWell, no, and I never have done that, but, um—but anyway, yeah, that's hard. I, uh...Jess LaheyYeah.Sarina BowenIt's hard to know. Sometimes...Jess LaheyWe entertain it all the time. We do talk about that as an option all the time. Shouldn't we just pick up and do something completely different? One of the things that I also—I mentioned at the top of the podcast about, you know, you went off—not only have you done lots of different things in terms of your writing—but you went off and you did an entire documentary about pigs. I have—I have to ask you where on earth that came from and why. And it is a total delight, as I mentioned, and I have already recommended it to two people that I know also love the topic. But, you know, to go off—and especially when you usually, as some of us have experienced—our agents saying, so when am I going to see more pages? or when am I going to see the next book? And you say, I'm really sorry, but I have to go off and film this documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenYes. Well, you know, I was an anthropology major in college, and I've always been interested in the pig taboo. You know, back then, everybody just assumed it was because, yeah, it was disease or they're dirty animals—that's why they're forbidden food. It never quite convinced me, because I'm Chinese-American. Asia—you know, Asia loves pork. Why aren't they worried about all that? So I was in Istanbul for a book tour once, and I remember I really wanted bacon, and, you know, I couldn't get bacon. And then I thought, okay, I really need to find out why pork is forbidden. This is a—this is a cultural and historical mystery that never made sense to me. The explanations just never made sense to me. It cannot be trichinosis. So I told my son that—my son is—he does—he's a filmmaker as well. And he just said, "Well, let's do it. Let's—we will pose it as a mystery," because it is a mystery. So it took us probably two years to go and—you know, we interviewed anthropologists and pet pig owners and archaeologists, actually, just to find out, what do they say? What is the answer to this? And to us, the answer really just came down to this cultural desire for every—every tribe—to define us versus them. You know, they eat pigs. They're not us, so therefore they're the enemy. And it was fascinating because we—we ended up finding out more about pigs than I was expecting, and also finding out that people who have pet pigs can sometimes be a little unusual.Jess LaheyAnd the people who purchase the clothes for the pigs are also crazy.Tess GerritsenYes. Sew outfits for their pigs and sleep with their pigs. And there was—there was one woman who had—she slept on the second floor of her house, so she had an elevator for her pig who couldn't make it up the stairs, and, you know, ramps to get up onto the bed because they've gotten so fat—they've been overfed. But it was—for me, at the heart of it was a mystery.Jess LaheyAs a nonfiction author whose whole entire reason for being is, "I don't know—let's find out," I think that's just the most delightful thing. And I loved your framing as, "I don't know, we have this question, let's go out there and just ask people about it and find the experts." And that's—oh, I could just live on that stuff. So...Tess GerritsenSo could I. You know, research is so enticing. It's enticing. It is—it can get you into trouble because you never write your book. Some of us just love to do the research.Jess LaheySarina actually has taken skating lessons, done glass blowing—what else have you done? Yoga classes and all—all kinds of things in the pursuit of knowledge for her characters. And I think that's a delight.Sarina BowenYes. If you can sign up for a class as part of your research, like, that is just the best day. Like, you know, oh, I must take these ice skating lessons twice a day for five months, because—yeah—or twice a week, but still.Tess GerritsenYou must be a good ice skater then.Sarina BowenI'm getting better.Tess GerritsenSo you never gave them up, I see.Jess LaheyWell, it's fun because she usually writes about hockey, but she has a figure skater coming up in this book that's coming out this fall. And she's like, "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to figure skate."Tess GerritsenYeah.Sarina BowenI also—one time I went to see Rebecca Skloot speak about her big nonfiction The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.Tess GerritsenOh, okay.Sarina BowenAnd she said that all her best ideas had come from moments in her life when she went, "Wait, what?!"Tess GerritsenYes. Yep.Sarina BowenIncluding for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Like, she learned about the cells in high school—she was in high school biology class—and the teacher said, like, "This woman died in the '60s, but we're still using her cells," and she said, "Wait, what?!" And that's—that's what you made me think of with the pigs. Like, I think...Jess LaheyWell, and also your folder of ideas. I mean, I immediately texted Sarina after listening to a podcast where I heard an ad, and the ad made me go, "Oh that could be creepy." And then I'm like, "Okay, this is—this is a plot. This is going in the folder somewhere." And so you have to just think about how those things could unfold over time. And I love the idea of—and even in journalism—there are articles that I've written where I said, this just isn't their time. And then, like, five years later, I'll hear something out there, and I'm like, okay, finally, it's the time for this thing. And there's a reason you put that article in your idea—in your paper—manila folder of ideas.Tess GerritsenWell, I think writers are—we have to be curious. We have to be engaged in what's going on around us, because the ideas are everywhere. And I have this—I like to say I have a formula. It's called "two plus two equals five." And what that means is, sometimes you'll have a—you'll have a piece of information that, you know, there's a book here, but you haven't figured out what to do with it. And you wait for another piece of information from some completely different source, and you put them together, and they end up being like nuclear fusion—bigger than the…Sarina BowenYes!Jess LaheyYes!Tess GerritsenSome of the parts.Sarina BowenMost every book I've ever written works like that. Like, I have one idea that I drag around for, like, five years, and then I have this other idea, and one day I'm like, oh, those two things go together.Tess GerritsenYep.Jess LaheyYeah, absolutely. I think Stephen King mentioned that about Carrie. I think it was like, telekinesis, and that usually starts about the time of menstruation, and it was like, boom, there was Carrie. You know, those two things came together. I love that so much. So you mentioned that you have just handed in your next book, and we don't—we do not, as a rule, ask about what's next for an author, because I find that to be an incredibly intimidating and horrifying question to be asked. But I would love to hear; you know, is this—is this series one that you hope to continue working on? The main series, mainly because we have quite fallen in love with your little town in Maine—in Purity, Maine. Fantastic name for your town, by the way. It's really lovely. It creates such a nice dichotomy for these people who have seen and heard things during their careers that maybe are quite dark, and then they retire to a place called Purity. Is this a place where we can hopefully spend a little bit of time?Tess GerritsenWell, I am thinking about book number four now. I have an idea. You know, it always starts with—it starts with an idea and doodling around and trying to figure out what—you know, you start with this horrible situation, and then you have to explain it. So that's where I am now. I have this horrible situation, I have to explain it. So, yeah, I'm thinking about book four. I don't know how—you never know how long a series is going to go. It's a little tough because I have my characters who are internationally based—I mean, they've been around the world—but then I can't leave behind my local cop who is also a part of this group as well. So I have to keep an eye out on Maine being the center of most of the action.Sarina BowenRight, because how many international plots can you give Purity, Maine?Tess GerritsenThat's right, exactly. Well, luckily…Jess LaheyLook, Murder, She Wrote—how many things happened to that woman in that small town?Tess GerritsenExactly, exactly. Well, luckily, because I have so many CIA retirees up here, the international world comes to us. Like the next book, The Shadow Friends, is about a global security conference where one of the speakers gets murdered. And it turns out we have a global security conference right here in our town that was started by CIA 40 years ago. So I'm just—I'm just piggybacking on reality here. And—not that the spies up here think that's very amusing.Sarina BowenThat is fantastic, because, you know, the essential problem of writing a suspense novel is that you have to ground it in a reality that everyone is super familiar with, and you have to bring in this explosive bit of action that is unlikely to happen near any of us. And those two things have to fit together correctly. So by, um, by putting your retired spies in this tiny town, you have sort of, like, gifted yourself with that, you know, precise problem solver.Tess GerritsenYeah, reminding us.Sarina BowenYeah.Tess GerritsenBut there's only so far I can take that. I'm not sure what the limits... I think book four is going to take them all overseas, because my local cop, Jo, she's never been out of the country—except for Canada—and it's time for her dad to drag her over to Italy and say, "Your dead mom wanted to come to Italy, so I'm taking you." And, of course, things go wrong in Italy for Jo.Jess LaheyOf course, of course. Well, we're going to keep just banging on about how much we love these books. I think we've already mentioned it in three podcast episodes so far in our “What have you been reading lately that you've really loved?” So we're—we're big fans. And thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us and to—you know, one of the whole points of our podcast is to flatten the learning curve for other authors, so we hope that that's done a little bit of that for our listeners. And again, thank you so much. Where can people find you and your work if they want to learn a little bit more about Tess Gerritsen—her work?Tess GerritsenYou can go to TessGerritsen.com, and I try to post as much information there as I can. But I'm also at Bluesky, @TessGerritsen, and what is now called “X”—a legacy person on X—@TessGerritsen, yes.Jess LaheyThank you so, so much again. And for everyone out there listening, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perella. Our intro music—aptly titled Unemployed Monday—was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

After of a winter of exceptionally high natural gas and electricity prices, many New Englanders are asking whether a new natural gas pipeline is the solution.

This week, we're bringing you the first episode of our new series: A Week In Her Wallet, where real women track their spending for seven days — every swipe, tap, and temptation — and then reflect on not just what they bought, but why. In this episode, we're joined by Lizzie, a 41-year-old chiropractor, mom of two, and small-town New Englander who is all about spending with intention. She's self-employed, passionate about local businesses, and has a refreshing perspective on budgeting for real life. Lizzie walks us through: Why she skipped $1,000 concert tickets — and doesn't regret it How her family handles finances and decision-making together What self-care looks like to her Her candid thoughts on gift-giving pressure from her family Why her week felt like a love letter to her town Plus, she reflects on where money seems to “leak” most easily and why she doesn't mind spending on the things that truly bring value. … Does more financial confidence sound good to you, then you might want to try: 

SportsDay Insiders Kevin Sherrington, Evan Grant and Shawn McFarland discuss [00:40] the Rangers' position at the All-Star break and what Chris Young should do. Do Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, plus the imminent return of Jon Gray, change the narrative of a roller-coaster offense? What's Adolis Garcia's future with the Rangers? [26:46] As a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, Shawn gives his take on new Cowboys' backup QB Joe Milton, a former Patriot, as the guys speculate on whether he's a legitimate backup to Dak Prescott. [36:16] They also discuss Cooper Flagg's summer season and Paige Bueckers' viral moment at a news conference.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SportsDay Insiders Kevin Sherrington, Evan Grant and Shawn McFarland discuss [00:40] the Rangers' position at the All-Star break and what Chris Young should do. Do Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, plus the imminent return of Jon Gray, change the narrative of a roller-coaster offense? What's Adolis Garcia's future with the Rangers? [26:46] As a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, Shawn gives his take on new Cowboys' backup QB Joe Milton, a former Patriot, as the guys speculate on whether he's a legitimate backup to Dak Prescott. [36:16] They also discuss Cooper Flagg's summer season and Paige Bueckers' viral moment at a news conference.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's program, we're joined by the President and CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Paul Neidzweicki. Paul tells us about the success of the Fourth of July weekend on Cape Cod. Then we turn to the issue of affordable housing in New England. Rhonda Pieroni CEO of Hearth INC, joins us to talk about that nonprofits efforts to increase affordable housing for older New Englanders. Paul Linet founder and President of 3iHOME tells us about a number of projects his organization is supporting in the state of Maine for those living with disabilities. We're also joined by the owner of Broadway Capital, Mike Vienneau. Mike's company is responsible for a new affordable housing project in the city of Chelsea. Finally, the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal, Doug Banks is our guest to talk about the major business headlines of the week.

If you're a New Englander and in particular someone who frequents the Cape, you're no stranger to Summertime traffic jams heading to and from the Cape! While Cape Cod offers beautiful beaches with a wide range of local shops and restaurants to enjoy, it can take hours of sitting in traffic just to enjoy it. With that being said, is Cape Cod worth dealing with the unbearable traffic?Now you can leave feedback as you listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the FREE iHeart Radio app! Just click on the microphone icon in the app, and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!

Determine what most people tend to associate signatures with from a personal standpoint. Learn just how far back the practice involving signatures dates to. Understand why signatures involving historical documents have proven to be significant. Agree if it's fair to say we've been led into believing that every delegate present at the Pennsylvania State House signed his official signature on the Declaration of Independence Document come July 4, 1776. Go behind the scenes and learn what took place two days prior to July 4, 1776. Discover if there was more than one president presiding over the debates and meetings during Second Continental Congress. Get introduced to a 39 Year Old Man from Massachusetts from a background standpoint. Receive a timeline of morning events that took place on July 4, 1776, including what the 39 Year Old Massachusetts Man had done. Receive an in depth analysis behind what people used in the form of pen writing materials prior to modern day times. Discover just how excellent the 39 Year Old Man's handwriting had become prior to and around July 4, 1776. Determine if this particular New Englander had ever led any movements behind separating from England, the Mother Country. Agree if most people tend to have a strong notion that all of our forefathers were ardent radicals who advocated separation from England well before July 4, 1776. Learn where the 39 Year Old Massachusetts Man stood along the greater political spectrum. Confirm if in fact the 39 Year Old New Englander had established any big precedent come morning of July 4, 1776. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence. Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren. Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston? Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero. Christian's Foundation | Book  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence. Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren. Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston? Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero. Christian's Foundation | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

  American whale oil lit the world. The Industrial Revolution couldn't have happened without it. Connecticut was part of the whaling industry of the nineteenth century that sent thousands of American ships manned by tens of thousands of men to hunt whales across the world's oceans. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New England's predominance in successful  whaling. In fact, New London, Connecticut is known today as the “Whaling City”.    My guest Eric Jay Dolan  is the author of sixteen award-winning books on maritime history. In this episode, we will be talking about the history of American whaling taken from his work in Leviathan The History of Whaling in America published in 2007 byW.W. Norton Press.  His latest book, is Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. Dolin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts.   Note: Listeners may find this  episode disturbing. Whaling was a brutal trade - we are describing the industry in its historic context.   To find out more about the other books that Eric has written, go to his website:  www.ericjaydolin.com/   His website also has information on upcoming events he's doing and contact information. He is available for book talks and lectures both in person and remotely.    You'll find the link to the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park here: www.nps.gov/nebe/index.htm   Don't forget that our August 1st episode will feature Mystic Seaport's new whaling exhibit.   ----------------------------------------------------- Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show. Go to ctexplored.org to send your donation now.   This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.   Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!  

On this episode of That's Rad, a podcast presented by the Littleton Food Co-op, we're kicking off summer with a big scoop of Gifford's Famous Ice Cream. Or, should we say *THE* big scoop, as Gifford's CEO Lindsay Skilling sits down for an interview. Skilling is a fifth-generation ice cream maker in the Gifford family, overseeing day-to-day operations and growth of the company, along with her siblings and cousin. She and Anastasia talk about what it was like “growing up Gifford,” what makes the Maine-based company and product so special, and why it has won the hearts of the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Portland Sea Dogs, and New Englanders alike. They also take a look back at Gifford's devastating 2023 factory fire, and discuss the state of recovery today. Listeners will be left with a message about the importance of family, doing work you care about, and to never take a scoop of ice cream for granted. Warning: cravings for Gifford's Famous Ice Cream will occur, proceed with caution. The Littleton Food Co-op is a proud retailer and supporter of Gifford's Famous Ice Cream and hundreds of other New England food brands. As the first and only consumer-owned food co-op in northern New Hampshire, Littleton Co-op exists to serve the needs of its members and the greater North Country community. While everyone is welcome to join the membership base of over 11,000 folks committed to promoting healthy choices for people and planet, membership is not required to shop at the store. Visit us in cozy Littleton, New Hampshire or online at littletoncoop.com. See ya at the Co-op!

What even is Substack? And how can an entrepreneur use it to support their marketing efforts?Listen to Sara ramble on about how she uses Substack and why you actually don't need to be jumping on this newest platform.Meet Sara Noel:Sara Noel is a Website Copywriter, Marketing Mentor, Unapologetic Squirrel (aka ADHDer), Champion of Single Moms, World's Loudest Noah Kahan Fan, and the most unfiltered business owner on the Internet. She's the proudest F-bomb-dropping New Englander you'll ever meet, the "queen of over delivering" (according to her students and clients), and she's wicked obsessed with helping business owners learn how to write better website copy.www.betweenthelinescopy.comwww.betweenthelinescopy.com/sprintwww.betweenthelinescopy.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠Find Felly:⁠fellyday.com⁠⁠threads.net/@fellyday

About the Guest: Dr. Fred PutnamFred Putnam retired after forty years of teaching high school, college, and graduate school; for twelve of those years he was Professor of Bible & Liberal Studies in the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University (2012-2024), where he helped to design, and taught in, the program leading to the MA in Teaching [MAT] in classical education. Beginning as a seminary professor of Biblical Hebrew and Koiné Greek, his teaching expanded to include not only the languages and interpretation of the Bible, but also linguistics, translation theory and practice, English literature, philosophy, etc. During those years of teaching, experiences with students led him from being a fairly conventional teacher (lectures, quizzes, tests, grades, attendance, etc.) to a text- (or subject-) and student-centered pedagogy that others have identified as “classical”. The main thrust of his teaching has always been helping students learn to read-learning to attend to, reflect on, and respond to texts, whatever those texts may be (including poems, novels, Scripture, works of art and music, etc.). In the Templeton Honors College, he led undergrad courses on the Old and New Testaments, Hebrew, Greek, and seminars on Joseph Pieper, The Count of Monte Christo, and philosophy of education, and five masters-level courses in the MAT: "Classical Pedagogy I: The Culture of the Classroom", "Philosophy & History of Education II: The American Public School System", "The Ethos of a School", "Drama in the Classical School (With an Emphasis on Shakespeare)", and "Teaching the Bible as a Classic Text" (online through the Templeton Honors College). While homeschooling their daughters, Fred and his wife met weekly with homeschooled high-schoolers; he taught Shakespeare, poetry, literature, philosophy, Hebrew, and Greek, while his wife tutored individual students in reading and creative writing. Born in New Hampshire, he grew up on farms in northeast Connecticut, emigrated to PA in 1970, and insists that he is a New Englander on "southern assignment". He knows that hills are made of granite, Guernseys give the best milk, and continues to await a real northern-style winter. An ordained minister, he preaches in various churches in southeastern Pennsylvania, where he and his wife live near their daughters and grandchildren, and where he also reads, translates and analyzes the Hebrew and Greek Bible, and putters. Show NotesIn this episode, Adrienne and Dr. Putnam discuss the seminal works of Josef Pieper. They also do a deep dive into what a beautiful way of teaching really looks like. Some highlights include:How Dr. Putnam teaches (What is classical pedagogy?)Teaching & learning are relational activities-- the teacher's view of a student is central to the pedagogyHis course: The Ethos of a School-- how a school can establish and maintain a humane identity even during major changesHow Pieper can help teachers understand virtues and their applications in teachingHow Pieper can help us understand what it really means to learn and how it affects being a teacherUnderstanding the nature of being a person and its implications for teachingResources MentionedAn Anthology by Josef PieperOnly the Lover Sings by Josef PieperLeisure, The Basis of Culture by Josef PieperThe Courage to Teach: The Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. PalmerHow Children Learn by John HoltTeaching with Your Mouth Shutby Donald L. Finkel TedTalk: Kathryn Shultz on Being Wrong https://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong?language=en________________________________________________________Beautiful Teaching online courses:BT online webinars, interactive courses, and book studies registration: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/Reading Josef Pieper with Dr. Fred Putnam will take place on Thursday evenings Sept-Dec. Space is very limited. This is a seminar experience. Interaction with Dr. Putnam is essential for this online course. If you are interested in having this immersive experience with him, you can enroll here: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/course/reading-josef-pieper-with-fred-putnam________________________________________________________This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★ _________________________________________________________Credits:Sound Engineer: Andrew HelselLogo Art: Anastasiya CFMusic: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic © 2025 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserve

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about novelists becoming video game writers, NetGalley, and Amazon. Then, stick around for a chat with Sarina Bowen!Sarina Bowen is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, a 24-time USA Today bestseller, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in economics.A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.Sarina's books are published in more than 15 languages with twenty or so international publishers.She is a sitting council member on the Authors Guild, with committee work in finance and advocacy.

It is July 1675 in New England. On June 23, fighting men of the Wampanoag nation and of Plymouth Colony had begun killing each other and enemy civilians in earnest. The question was whether this still small conflict would remain a local and short dust-up within Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag lands encompassed by the colony's borders as defined by the New Englanders, or would it spread more widely? That question was very quickly answered – the wildfire of King Philip's War would spread to encompass virtually all of New England east of the Connecticut River and up the coast of Maine. This episode explains how it happened. The image for this episode on the website is a drawing of King Philip - Metacom - by Paul Revere, who 250 years ago today (April 8, 1775), was riding to Concord to warn the locals, not yet on the famous Midnight Ride but on a false alarm that turned out to be an unplanned dress rehearsal. Maps of New England during King Philip's War X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War Matthew J. Tuininga, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War

McCoy Stadium, home to the precious memories of many southern New Englanders is coming down. Locals are mourning the demolition of the Pawtucket icon.

(0:00) Leroy Irvin and Cerrone Battle begin the final hour of the show with The Entertainment Report: featuring talk of "Celtics City", Lamar Jackson's acting career and Tracy Morgan's health status. The Dynamic Duo segue to the sale of the Boston Celtics and their initial thoughts and concerns. (13:32) Irvin and Battle stay in the NBA with commentary on the Lakers fans and new Celtics ownership. The duo break down their optimism in the new ownership group, led by Bill Chisholm, due to Chisholm being a native New Englander. Leroy notices the Celtics playing better without Jaylen Brown. (24:46) The Playa's Call closes out the show. Leroy and Cerrone continue to screen calls on the Celtics. They speculate on the future of the Celtics. They also discuss gambling and the enjoyment of watching sports.

In 2002, Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt were riding high following their first successful life insurance scam. Before the women set their sights on their next victim, Kenneth McDavid, there was another scheme brewing. This one, developing across the country, and involving an elderly man named Fred Downie. At 96-years-old, this widowed New Englander owned a house on Cape Cod, and somehow befriended a young woman named Kecia Golay, Helen Golay's youngest daughter.  Kecia soon convinced Fred to move to Southern California, where her mother owned several properties. Fred Downie agreed and would indeed find his place in the sun, though only for a short time. He'd write his niece Mildred letters about the glory of west coast living. As the months rolled by, however, the letters got more despondent. And then, the letters stopped. Soon, Mildred would learn that Fred was dead.  Unfortunately for Helen and Olga, their claim on an insurance policy for Kenneth McDavid landed on the desk of Ed Webster, a detail-oriented insurance investigator who previously worked as a private eye. And Ed had questions. Soon, the LAPD got involved. Through Kenneth McDavid's case, they learned about Fred Downie's case which only raised more questions. Why was 97-year-old Fred Downie in the middle of the road, unattended, when he was struck by a car? And why was he carrying funeral instructions on him when he died?  Sponsors: Hers: forhers.com/dirtymoney for your personalized weight loss options Armoire: armoire.style/dirtymoney to get up to 50% off your first month Follow host, Jami Rice, on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube @JamiOnAir to keep up with this story and other true crime cases she's deep-diving into and providing commentary on. Check out Jami's other true crime podcasts, MURDERISH and Lipstick & Lies, which are available in all podcast apps. Dirty Money Moves is a collaboration between MURDERISH and Cloud10 Media. Executive Producers are: Jami Rice and Sim Sarna Research and writing by: Zach Selwyn If you enjoy Dirty Money Moves, please do us a favor and give the podcast a 5-star rating and review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any podcast player. Sources are available at MURDERISH.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Home Depot, which makes most of its money from renovations, said small projects are driving its sales. That suggests homeowners are staying put — maybe improving the home they have while waiting for a clearer picture of the economy. Meanwhile, home prices just keep rising, although market volatility has cooled off. Also in this episode: When Canadian energy tariffs take effect, New Englanders will pay up and consumer confidence drops amid inflation anxiety.

Home Depot, which makes most of its money from renovations, said small projects are driving its sales. That suggests homeowners are staying put — maybe improving the home they have while waiting for a clearer picture of the economy. Meanwhile, home prices just keep rising, although market volatility has cooled off. Also in this episode: When Canadian energy tariffs take effect, New Englanders will pay up and consumer confidence drops amid inflation anxiety.

Talk about being unstoppable, I can offer no better example than our guest this time, Nick Prefontaine. My impression is that Nick grew up as a pretty normal kid, but at the age of fourteen his life changed when he suffered a major traumatic brain injury that left him paralyzed, unable to talk nor even able to feed himself. Nick will take us through his experience including his decision along the way to eventually leave the hospital by running out the door. Roughly 60 days after entering a rehabilitation hospital Nick met his goal by running out of the hospital when he was discharged. How did he do it? As he tells us he was able to employ what he later called the S.T.E.P. system. What is S.T.E.P? It stands for Support, Trust, Energy and Persistence. At the age of 16, Nick while still in school began learning the real estate world. He will tell us about some of the lessons he learned along the way which are quite fascinating. Today in his mid-thirties, Nick still works in real estate along with his father, but he also has formed his own company named Common Goal. Only a few years ago Nick began learning how to coach and help others who are facing serious challenges in their lives. He works especially with people who are experiencing serious brain injuries such as what he encountered. He is a successful author and coach. There are many good life lessons that come out of my time with Nick Prefontaine and I am sure you will agree with me that his observations are invaluable and worth exploring. You can even visit his website, www.NickPrefontaine.com/step” where you can obtain a free copy of his eBook describing in detail his S.T.E.P. system. About the Guest: Nick Prefontaine is a 3x best selling author and was named a top motivational speaker of 2022 in Yahoo Finance. He's a Speaker, Founder and CEO of Common Goal. Using the S.T.E.P. system he is able to lead clients through their trauma. Once they make it through, that is where their limitless potential lies. Nick's been featured in Brainz Media, Swaay and Authority Magazine. At 14, Nick suffered a life-threatening snowboarding accident. His parents were told that he'd never walk, talk or eat again on his own again. He made a personal goal that he would not walk but run out of the hospital. He unknowingly used a system to do just that and less than 60 days later he ran out of the hospital. Nick got started in the real estate industry at an early age. Most notably, he was knocking on pre-foreclosure doors at 16, doing 50+ doors a day. This experience not only shaped his career but it also was a part of his recovery. Going door to door, helping people out of their unfortunate situation. Ways to connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickprefontaine/ https://www.facebook.com/nick.prefontaine.7/ www.NickPrefontaine.com/step About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 You are listening, once again, to an episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and today we get to really deal with the unexpected, as I tell people oftentimes about the podcast. Sometimes we do get to talk about inclusion, and we do that before we talk about diversity, because diversity never includes disabilities. But mostly what we get to talk about is the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. So mostly we get to do the unexpected today, whatever that may mean. Our guest is Nick Prefontaine, Nick, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here all the way back in Rhode Island, so we have to yell across the country to reach each other, huh?   Nick Prefontaine ** 02:05 Absolutely. Michael, however, I've been, I've been looking forward to this for for a few weeks now. So looking forward to jumping in with you. Me too. I'm really looking forward to it, and   Michael Hingson ** 02:16 I know we do get to do some unexpected, really neat story things and so on. But why don't we start tell us about the early Nick growing up. And I know your story integrates into that at some point, but tell us. Tell us about the early Nick. You're, you're setting your set me right up. I try right up. So   Speaker 1 ** 02:35 I, um, alright, so I was at, I was actually at Ski Club with my friends are on the way, we all got released a little bit early. So it was super exciting, as I'm sure you can imagine, or your listeners can imagine, when you're in eighth grade, you get released a little bit early. It's always a big deal. It's always a big thing. So whenever we add Ski Club, we always got released a little bit early. So that was exciting to begin with, and then my friends and I all brought our snowboard gear on the bus to get ready so we could get as most the most out of that day as possible, as far as runs, and not waste any time once we got to the mountain to get ready. So we got some mountain the rest of the class migrated inside to get their ski and snowboard attire on. And we were ready. Because we were prepared. We got ready on the bus. We we had to write for the chair lift. And then going up, we noticed that it was very icy, because it had been raining, so people were wiping out everywhere. However, the the chairlift went right over the terrain park where all of the jumps were, and I knew, as soon as I saw it, that I had to go off the biggest jump in the terrain park. I was like, Oh yeah, that's got my name all over it. So   Nick Prefontaine ** 04:00 got to the top, buckled into my snowboard, took a breath of that crisp winter air, and confidently charged towards that jump with all my speed. And then going after the jump, I caught the edge of my snowboard would sue me off balance, and so I was forced to go off the jump, off balance. I've come to learn that at the moment of impact, I had a decision to make, and I got really still, so I'd left my body and I had two choices. Option one,   Speaker 1 ** 04:34 it's going to be really hard, and once you get through it, you'll help. You'll be able to help trauma survivors to thrive with the rest of their lives, or you can move on to the other side. And I chose a really hard path. So once I got to the hospital, the they actually to get me to the hospital, they wanted to bring a helicopter in. However, it.   Speaker 1 ** 05:00 It was too windy, so they had to send in an ambulance. And out of all the paramedics in the the entire county, there was only one who could intubate right in the spot, and I needed that to be able to breathe. And lucky for me, he was one of the paramedics that showed up to the mountain that day,   Speaker 1 ** 05:22 there's, there's. So that's one, one thing, that's one of the things that contributed to why I'm able to talk to you today and still tell this story. The second one was I had a pair of goggles that I wore, so I wasn't although I wasn't wearing a helmet, and I later learned that I wasn't wearing a helmet, which I usually did when I went to this particular mountain, I was wearing a pair of goggles, and the goggles that I wore had a lot of padding in them. So not only did they brace my impact as I continue to roll down the mountain and continue to hit my head. The goggles mysteriously moved with each impact to brace each each individual impact. So that was the first thing that happened, paramedics. The right paramedic out of all the ones in the area. That was the second the third. Once I got to the hospital, I was I was out, I was toast.   Speaker 1 ** 06:26 The doctors said that I would have been in a coma for seven to 10 days at a minimum, just based on the impact alone. However, Michael, I had swelling in my brain, and the doctors were worried that if I woke up and panicked, the swelling would increase and I would have died, so they had to induce me into a coma. And very early on, when I was resting in the intensive care unit, my parents were the only ones, my immediate family, who were allowed in that room. And the doctors came right in front of me, no fault of their own. They were just doing their job, but they   Speaker 1 ** 07:11 they came into my room to share the prognosis. And as I'm sure you can imagine, it was not so positive, not so positive, not so positive. Each time they will come into my room where I was in a coma. I was out, albeit, but I was in a coma. So they went to share this with my parents. And right as they started talking, my mom stopped them, and she said, No, no, not in front of him, because she understood that even though I was in a coma, I wasn't conscious, I was still taking in information, albeit subconsciously or unconsciously. I always confuse those two. Still to this day, I always confuse those two, however, because my mom stopped the doctors from sharing that news in front of me, made them step outside the room. Once they got outside the room, that's where they shared with my parents that look. He's been in a snowboarding accident, and   Speaker 1 ** 08:17 he's in a coma. Even if he comes out of his coma, there's a good chance that he's probably not going to be able to walk, talk or eat on his own again. And because my mom stopped the doctors and didn't let that information get through to me in any way, what it allowed me to do was just get up every day, figuratively and literally, and treat it like any of the situation.   Speaker 1 ** 08:47 So a month I was in the in the coma, partially induced coma, for three weeks. I really don't remember a month, because it was a partially induced coma,   Nick Prefontaine ** 08:58 as I said.   Speaker 1 ** 09:01 So a month after my accident, those are where my kind of my synapses and my my brain started firing. So I those are where my first memories start. And initially, I was transported to the third floor of the rehab hospital in Boston, and that's where I began my journey. The third floor was reserved for the most critical of cases, and that was me at that point. I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I couldn't feed my I couldn't do anything, couldn't feed myself, couldn't do anything, and the only thing that I could do was sit up in bed for eight minutes at a time, supported by three nurses, and even then, I was sweating profusely, like I had just ran a marathon. So it was definitely a long.   Speaker 1 ** 10:00 Ahead of me, and I had to, I had to build up my strength slowly, slowly but surely. And it was right around this time that I started,   Speaker 1 ** 10:13 although we're Yeah, it was unknowingly that I started to utilize a system, and that's the same system that I teach to this day   Speaker 1 ** 10:27 in my in my keynote talks for brain injury associations, and also working one on one with individuals that are going through trauma, that's the step system. So Michael, Step is an acronym. It stands for support. Make sure that you have the support of your family and friends right from the beginning, and this is going to have you falling back on relationships that you built prior to your setback. T is trust, trust that once you take your first step, your next step is always going to be available to you. And this this also is about trusting that voice that we all have inside, inside of ourselves. Call it what you want, God, the universe, your inner voice. We all have that voice, but so many of us don't listen to it. So it was very early on my recovery, when I was transported to that rehab hospital in Boston, that I started to listen to that inner voice. So this was before I could talk. I was still unable to talk. I was in a wheelchair. I couldn't walk and I overheard my parents talking and conferring with the doctors, and they would meet them every week to say, all right. So they would, for instance, they would say to the doctors, what do we have to do this week to make sure Nick makes a full recovery? I heard in the back of my head, no, you're going to run out of the hospital. So then running out of the hospital became our common goal and what we were shooting for.   Speaker 1 ** 12:14 So I always like to illustrate that point, because that's that goes right along with trust. You have to get to trust that voice, that that you have inside of you, within support. If I could take a step back within support,   Speaker 1 ** 12:31 it's important. One of the main things that I talk about in step the ebook, which, at the end, I'll give your listeners a way they can download the whole step system, step the eBook for free. One of the things I talk about in there is within support, is that you have to make sure you have an advocate with you at all times. That advocate for me during the day doesn't have to be   Speaker 1 ** 12:59 however, for me, it was my parents. So my mom would be with me every day, going to every therapy and doctor's appointment with me. She also had her parents, who would join, joined her several days a week to help, help break it up. Then at night, when,   Speaker 1 ** 13:21 when it was time at night, my mom would switch off with my dad, and my dad would come in and spend nights at me.   Speaker 1 ** 13:30 The night said he couldn't be there because he had to travel for work and everything. The night said he couldn't be there. I would have an uncle, a grandfather or someone come and spend the night with me as well. So this was so important, because I had an advocate with me at all times to really, really it, it helped things in that. And I said, this is going back, but it's really not going back because it it flows right into energy. So maintaining our E is energy. Maintaining our energy allows our body's natural ability to be able to heal itself. Medication has the potential to get in the way of that. So I needed a lot of drugs and medication to be pumped into me, rightfully so, to help keep me alive, modern medicine saved my life. However, after my accident, I had to make sure that I wasn't just constantly the doctors or the nurses or the hospital staff wasn't constantly medicating me and Michael. This also comes right around the time that it was very early on my recovery, a month after my accident.   Speaker 1 ** 14:48 I always like to share this story, because I was so as I said, my my dad or my grandfather. I think it was my grandfather in this case, was spent.   Speaker 1 ** 15:00 In the night with me, and this was before I could talk. So I got up in the middle of night and I had to go the bathroom. So I tried to   Speaker 1 ** 15:10 call his name and get his attention, wake him up. Well, he wouldn't wake up. So I managed to put the hospital bed down and hobble to the bathroom, use the bathroom and then make it back into bed. Nothing happened. However, the hospital staff found out the next day, and they freaked out. They're like, we can't have this liability. He can't be doing this. And what we're going to do before bedtime, we're going to give him this many cc's of this medication, that many cc's of this other medication, and that should calm him down for bedtime, so that he's able to sleep and we don't have this happen again. And my mom said to them, No, you're not just ask him not to do that again. So they asked me not to do that, and I made sure not to do it again, and I didn't have any problem. However, if I didn't have an advocate with me at all times the hospital, just to make their jobs easier, I'm not, I'm not gonna suck in on here, they would've, they would've just medicated me, yeah.   Nick Prefontaine ** 16:22 So   Speaker 1 ** 16:24 with that, Michael, I will take it. So if you have any questions about that,   Michael Hingson ** 16:28 well, so you have support, trust, energy, and what's the P?   Speaker 1 ** 16:34 The P, I'm glad you asked. Is persistence, okay, so persistence, once you take your first step, keep getting up every day and take your next step, no matter how small. By continuing to move forward every day, you are building an unstoppable momentum, right? And they were long days. They were long days for me in the inpatient rehab in the rehab hospital in Boston, I would get up. I would usually, especially in the beginning, need help. Physical therapists would have to teach me how to shower again.   Speaker 1 ** 17:12 If you can picture that I had to, I had to learn like something as simple as the water comes before the soap. Like I when I say I had to relearn everything. I truly mean everything. I have no memory how to how to do anything. Yeah, so I would have that. Then I would have, I would get breakfast, and then have my first sessions of physical occupational and speech therapy, and after which we broke for lunch. And it's really interesting, because it was at one of these lunches in between my therapies   Nick Prefontaine ** 17:48 that I had a moment.   Speaker 1 ** 17:51 This is kind of the only moment that I can point to where   Nick Prefontaine ** 17:57 I had any doubt,   Speaker 1 ** 18:01 and I always like to illustrate this, because we all have doubts we're human, Me and Me included in that. So I was in a wheelchair, and I had my lunch in front of me, and after I finished lunch, I was just looking over my situation in the wheelchair and everything. And I turned to my mom and I said,   Nick Prefontaine ** 18:26 Am I ever going to be able to walk again?   Speaker 1 ** 18:29 And she goes, of course, you are. That's what we're doing here. So you can get everything back and we can go home.   Speaker 1 ** 18:35 So what this allowed me to do is one have like, have the confidence that, oh, okay, all right, good. It was, it was like a lapse for me, yeah, and it just allowed me to to keep going and keep taking that next step. So let's go back to the original injury. So the injury for you, did you have broken bones or anything, or was it primarily just a brain injury? Yeah, I actually joke about this, because people say, Oh, my God, you must have had a broken arm, broken leg. I drank a lot of milk.   Nick Prefontaine ** 19:10 I love cereal at the time,   Speaker 1 ** 19:13 so I didn't have any broken bones. I just had a traumatic brain. Traumatic brain injury, right? So when you essentially went out of your body, you you realize you had two choices. Whereas Was anyone talking to you? Did you hear a voice that helped you realize you had one of two choices to make? Or, how did that what happened? So that's actually, I'm glad you asked that question, because that's actually something that I wasn't conscious of. I didn't I didn't know in the moment, and I didn't even know that years into the future. It was only within the last few years that I've been working one on one with one of my coaches. I have several coaches, but one of my coaches, I really.   20:00 Really,   Speaker 1 ** 20:01 I really term her, or I describe her as an energy coach.   Speaker 1 ** 20:07 She really helps me get quiet and work through things, whatever I'm dealing with. That was one of the things when we were going deep within that we were able to uncover, because she reflects back to me what she's picking up in my field. So that's one of the things that we're able to uncover. I don't have a conscious memory on that, but joy was the one that was able to reflect that back to me,   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 that that's what happened. So I don't have a conscious memory of that. However, it came back to me that   20:47 that's what happened.   Speaker 1 ** 20:50 So as you were recovering, Did Did you have a voice inside you that was talking with you, that you communicated with? Did you have discussions, or that, did a voice direct you? Or what? Other than that voice in the back of my head, that it was a pretty strong voice at the time, it was knowing you're going to run out of the hospital, that that was really my that was really my guiding force throughout my my recovery,   Speaker 1 ** 21:20 really what I was working towards every day, which it was why it was part of my motivation for getting up every day, doing that, doing the physical occupational speech, then having lunch, and then I didn't finish that thought I actually, after lunch, went back to therapy. I had double session. So I had again, physical occupational and speech therapy. And then even after that, I would be doing extra weights, extra exercises and routines that were going to help me get to my common goal, which was running out of the hospital. And we, when I say, We myself and my parents made sure that everyone, my therapist, nurses, doctors, they all knew my goal, which was to run out of the hospital. So we asked them, Is there any what are the extra exercises that Nick can be doing that that's going to get him to his common goal, of running out of the hospital faster. So if you, if you fast forward a little bit. Michael, I was, I was in my conscious memories is I was in inpatient rehab, in the rehab hospital for a little less than 60 days, and a little less than 60 days, I realized my common goal, which was running out of the hospital. And after running out of the hospital, it wasn't like my work was done. I had to continue to go to outpatient therapy for physical, occupational and speech therapy, albeit not double sessions, but I had to do that physical occupational speech therapy five days a week, along with being tutored all summer long in order to continue on to high school with the rest of my classmates. And are you able? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say the looking back on it, it's, it's a little surreal, but   Speaker 1 ** 23:28 it was only 18 months after finishing my rehab, recovering from my snowboarding accident and being in a coma for three weeks and having to learn how to walk, talk and meet again that I got my start in real estate, and that was because I picked up a book off of my dad's shelf in his library that was Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kawasaki. Now I grew up. I grew up my family. I grew up in a family real estate. Like, like a real estate family. My dad was a builder when I was younger, then he was in a realtor, then an investor, and then, like all, all throughout my life, he was always in real estate, always doing something. So I picked up that book   Speaker 1 ** 24:18 in a summer, only 18 months after I finished my outpatient rehab, and at the time, he had a real estate he had a real estate investment company, and   Speaker 1 ** 24:31 I approached him and I said, All right, I want to, I want to get like, I want to help. I want to, like, get started on this book. It really has me thinking so was right around this time that when I approached him, it was right before I got my driver's license, right as I was getting my driver's license. So   Speaker 1 ** 24:52 right around that time, they were playing with the idea of having bird dogs go and knock on Pre Foreclosure doors or.   Speaker 1 ** 25:00 Or in other words, homeowners that have received the notice of default letter from the bank, meaning that they have missed a few payments all the way up to, I mean, 10 or 12 payments, and the bank still hadn't foreclosed on the home.   Speaker 1 ** 25:15 So I would get in the beginning. When I first started this, I had no formal training. They they just said, Hey, here you go to this website to get to find out where these are.   25:29 Then   Speaker 1 ** 25:32 you knock on the door and you say this script. Then if no one's home, you leave this letter so that that was pretty much the only the direction that I got. So I had to go to school during the week because I was only 16.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 Unfortunately, I would, I would have liked to be working all the time, but I had, but I had to go to school. So the only times that I had to do this was on the weekends. And I would pick one day per week, either a weekend or a holiday, and I would go and knock on these doors. And in the beginning, like I said, I got, I received no training, so I just got, I had a script, and I'll leave behind the leave. And I would try to set up meetings for our investor to meet with them about the following week about potentially buying their home.   Speaker 1 ** 26:27 However, in the beginning, I didn't see a lot of success. I got a lot of doors, as you can imagine, slammed in my face because I had no strategy, no tact whatsoever. I would basically rush up to the door and say, Hey, hi. I'm Nick Prefontaine. With Prefontaine, I forgetting what the company was called at the time. I'm here to help you out of your unfortunate situation. And as you can imagine, I get a lot of doors slammed in my face,   Speaker 1 ** 26:58 and rejection is not a bad thing. I was just able to learn from that. So then, shortly after starting my dad sent my cousin Mike and I out to California to shadow the number one person in the country that was having success for these Notice of Default doors, door knocking these people, and once I saw him and how his strategy, how much nuance and like, how scripted every part of his routine was. I was like, oh my god, light bulb went off. Um, because he was, like, going up, knocking on the door, doing a light, friendly knock, like just a neighbor from down the road. Then he would take a few steps back. They answer the door. Say, Hey, not sure I have the right address. Can you confirm something for me? And you would show them their clip his clipboard. And once they saw their name on the list, they would light up and just tell him what happened, what they were doing to fix this situation, or let's be candid, it was 2000 2006   Speaker 1 ** 28:10 2007 so what they weren't doing about the situation,   Speaker 1 ** 28:15 and it really made things easier. And then he was able to book follow up meetings for the following week. So once I saw that, I instituted that, once I got home, and then I started seeing a lot of success. And in these areas, in these cities where I door knock during high school, we own properties for years, even after I graduated high school. And then after I got out of high school, I started studying to get my get my real estate license, and I got my real estate license, a pretty great time to get your real estate license. March of 2008 Mm, hmm. So anyone, anyone that was around during that time. Knows that the financial markets and everything was was kind of coming down during that time and crashing. And it was, it was interesting. Michael, The first pre licensing course that I went to, that I went to take, or the first time, rather, I'm sorry that I went to take my test to get my real estate license. There were because I didn't pass on the first time. It took me a few times, but so the first time I went, there's probably 25 people in the room with me taking the test. The second time I went, only a few weeks later,   Nick Prefontaine ** 29:42 there there was really, like 10,   Speaker 1 ** 29:46 maybe closer to 15. And the third time that I went and took it, because it took me three times to pass my real estate licensing test, they i.   Nick Prefontaine ** 30:00 Yeah, there was one other person   Speaker 1 ** 30:03 in the room. Yeah, there was one other person in the room. So as you can imagine, it was a sign of the times, for sure. And   Speaker 1 ** 30:12 I was a, I was a realtor for a full, full time realtor, helping buyers and sellers for six years, like that was my primary and only source of income. Then in 2014   Speaker 1 ** 30:28 my dad approached me about he was an investor, and he was buying homes like acquiring homes creatively so without signing personally for loans or without using big investor down payments or any of his money. So he is acquiring them creatively,   Speaker 1 ** 30:51 just to name a few, with like with owner financing. So buy if they didn't have any debt on the property, you would buy the home with owner financing and make principal only payments. A second way that he was acquiring them was   Speaker 1 ** 31:10 you would close on them subject to their existing loan. And I'm just trying to keep it high level, keep it basic. The third way is, if there was a loan, like, for instance, if there was a loan in place,   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 he would buy it with a just a lease purchase agreement. And in all cases, taking over responsibility for maintenance, repair and upkeep over the duration of his agreement. And they were usually anywhere from three to five years. And then once he got that, he came to me and said, Hey, would you be able to help me with the marketing of these properties? Because I'm getting all these deals, I'm getting all these properties under contract, and I can't do two things at once, so I can't continue to get properties and market the property. So will you be able to help me with the marketing of the properties? And I was reluctant at first, but I finally came around the idea that I could help him, right alongside being my business as being a realtor and marketing all the properties turned into, oh, shoot, now we need help with handling all the buyer inquiries and the interest that's being generated off this marketing. Will you be able to help me with, with the with the buyers, and fielding all the buyer calls and inquiries and everything like that. So then, over the course of 13 months, my income shifted where I was maybe making five or 10% with him as an investor, and 90% of my income was coming as a realtor. Over 13 months, because of the evolution of the business, my income shifted where it didn't even make sense for me to keep my license, and in January 2016 after I received my last commission check, I let my real estate license go and joined him full time as an investor   Speaker 1 ** 33:19 and working one on one with the buyers   Speaker 1 ** 33:23 that has morphed into working with not only doing our deals and our properties,   Speaker 1 ** 33:31 it also and capital encapsulates working with associates that we have all over The country to do these same types of creative deals, so buying homes with with low or no money down, and then exiting them on a rent to own agreement.   Speaker 1 ** 33:53 So that's, that's what's really developed in the process. And it's pretty exciting. And then if I could, if I could take a step back, because   Speaker 1 ** 34:04 during that time frame, so back, if you go back to 2012 Michael, I developed, I developed an issue with my voice, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on. And I would go to all the I went to my, my, my, what is it called primary care physician, and he checked me out, evaluated me, did a full physical on me. He's like, No, I don't see anything wrong. You're fine. And I was like, something's not right. So I kept looking and I kept being referred. I went to analogous, kept being referred to these different doctors, but a year after looking for answers, I was finally referred to   Speaker 1 ** 34:49 a voice specialist in Boston at Mass, eye and ear. His name was Dr song, and there are only 35 of these voice.   Speaker 1 ** 35:00 Specialists in the country or on the continent. I was, I was confused the two, but, but I think in the country, there are only 35 of these boys specialists. And after looking for almost a year for an answer, and no one able to give me an answer, I was, I was so blown away that immediately Dr song walked in into the room, heard me speak, and right away, not only goes, oh that,   Speaker 1 ** 35:31 yeah, we deal with it all the time. Go to the front desk and get scheduled for a botox injection in a couple weeks, and if there was a camera on me, Michael, my mouth was like on the on the floor. I was absolutely blown away, because here I was. I had all this anxiety built up, and I was, I don't know, I don't like that word. I had all this   Nick Prefontaine ** 35:57 worry,   Speaker 1 ** 35:59 not worry. It was, I'm looking, I'm searching, I'm looking for the word. It's anxiety. I just don't love that word. I don't know it was. I had all this like pent up. I was just looking everywhere, and I couldn't get an answer. So it could be anxiety, I'm not sure, or concern, but concern, yeah, so I, I was just, like, melted I, like, melted off me when he did that, because   Speaker 1 ** 36:30 it really, it put me so at ease. And so what was the issue? Oh, it was a I had, I had some, I had a lot of tension in my throat. It was, it was basically like, it was hard to get the words out, so that's how I would sound. But to me, I felt fine inside, so I was like, Oh, I don't get why my voice is sounding like that. So what did the Botox do? Well, what it did. I actually can relate this back to my accident, because during my recovery from my accident and having to learn how to talk again, I knew what I wanted to say up here, it was clear, Isabelle up here,   Speaker 1 ** 37:13 then I just couldn't get the words out, like they just couldn't come whereas then this was a little bit different. Same thing, I knew what I wanted to say. It was clear in my head. However, just coming out, I just couldn't get the words out. And what it was was   Nick Prefontaine ** 37:36 they don't know what. He didn't want to label it.   Speaker 1 ** 37:40 He said he doesn't want to put a label on it, because in all my research and looking for answers and everything, I really resonated with something in a community, a group called   Speaker 1 ** 37:56 just for, it's, um, I'm sorry, dysphonia International. And at the time, they were called National spasmodic dysphonia association. So spasmodic dysphonia is like it basically, it's just a voice issue.   Speaker 1 ** 38:15 So now that it's now that it's worked its way out of my system, I don't even know if it's if it's that, or if it's a combination of that with muscle tension, because for me, now, it's out of my system. As as you can tell here, I've, I've been doing quite a bit of talking, and there, there's no issue. So I don't, I fortunately don't have an issue with my voice anymore,   Michael Hingson ** 38:44 and the last Botox injection I had to receive was February 13 of 2020, okay, so that's been over four years, which is pretty cool. Yeah, let me ask you this question. So you had clearly a very serious injury.   Michael Hingson ** 39:05 How did that injury affect you in terms of what you do and the commitment to do what you do and how you feel about the world? Oh, I love the question, the   Nick Prefontaine ** 39:22 so there has always been,   Speaker 1 ** 39:26 there has always been this voice in in the back of my head. So after I got out of after I ran out of the hospital and went through all my outpatient rehab, and really, once I finished and graduated school, graduated high school,   Speaker 1 ** 39:43 I've always kind of had this voice in the back of my head that's been telling me that whatever I'm being successful in, whether it's sales, real estate, anything   Speaker 1 ** 39:55 that voice has always been saying, Yeah, that's great, but what you really.   Speaker 1 ** 40:00 Need to be doing is helping individuals through their trauma and to be able to thrive with the rest of their lives. And I've really always   Speaker 1 ** 40:14 kind of unknowingly unconsciously gravitated towards people that have had a setback or a life challenge, and it's been for the fact that whenever something happens, whether it's an accident or a sudden illness or a sudden health thing, that that sets people back. Anyone who knows me and my story, they always say, Oh, if you talk to Nick, you have to talk to Nick. And I've always helped them through their trauma, their life challenge or trauma, and help them get through and then thrive with the rest of their lives. And I've throughout the years, Michael, I've always, I've always unknowingly, unconsciously share this step system with them to help them realize just that to get through their trauma and thrive with the rest of their lives. It wasn't, it wasn't until,   Speaker 1 ** 41:15 wasn't until a little bit late more recently, so was back in September of 2019   Speaker 1 ** 41:23 that someone approached me, and I've I've been fortunate. I've had the ability, because of our our real estate coaching and mentoring business, that I have with my family, with my dad and my brother in law, that I've always had the opportunity to do a little speaking do tell my story from stage at our events. And we've been having events since 2016   Speaker 1 ** 41:55 so I've always, I've always been blessed where I've I've at least had that opportunity to get up and share my story.   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:04 However, that's   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:07 that's only been 1515,   Speaker 1 ** 42:10 maybe 20. Maybe the Max would be 25   Speaker 1 ** 42:15 minutes that I've been able to share my story. Then someone who saw me speak at our at our event, our qls event. We call it the qls Quantum Leap systems event   Speaker 1 ** 42:29 in September. We have another one coming up here in September, but someone that saw me speak in 2019 at at that approach me,   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:40 and she said,   Speaker 1 ** 42:43 I love your story. Love the love the way that you you shared it. If you're ever looking to fine tune your message and bring it to another level so you're able to impact and affect the most amount of people possible, let me know, and I can introduce you to a few mentors and coaches and speaker bureaus and help you get started.   Speaker 1 ** 43:13 She made it clear she wasn't, wasn't trying to steal me away from my dad or our family business. But if I ever, if I ever wanted to explore that. So at the time, I, at the time, I was still dealing going through the final throws of my voice issue, as I said, the last treatment that I got was February 13 of 2020,   Speaker 1 ** 43:38 and I still wasn't ready. I was still I still had a few more hurdles to go through, a few more injections to get and I wasn't ready. However, I always held on to her card, and   Speaker 1 ** 43:55 I finally reached out to her in May of 2021, so one.   Speaker 1 ** 44:03 Then I set a book. I said, Art, I'm ready.   Speaker 1 ** 44:07 Who should I talk to? How do I get started about that offer that you offer me 18 months ago, and   Speaker 1 ** 44:16 she introduced me to Tricia, who has Tricia Brooke, who's become a friend and mentor of mine, and ever since she made that introduction and I had that first call with Tricia three years ago, a little over three years ago, there has been no voice in the back of my head. Michael, so what that's evidence of to me is that I'm doing exactly what I was put on this shirt to do well. And so do you still do real estate, or are you now doing more coaching and so on and speaking full time? So I I'm still involved in our I have the the good fortune.   Speaker 1 ** 45:00 In, I have the ability to do both. So I'm still doing real estate and also, and this is interesting about the the time frame not to say   Speaker 1 ** 45:11 kind of Whoa, look at me really out. This is just to   Nick Prefontaine ** 45:17 share the   Speaker 1 ** 45:21 kind of the importance and how far a mentor or a coach can take you. That's why I like to share this story. So   Speaker 1 ** 45:31 as I said, I only spoke for maybe 1520 maybe 25 minutes max, before I before I met Trisha and now I give keynotes to brain injury associations and other organizations that support people that are going through trauma, whether it's a trauma life challenge or otherwise. I give 4550 and 60 minute keynotes. Whereas before her, I would, I was only speaking for 1520, 25 minutes max. So   Speaker 1 ** 46:09 I, I always like to share that, because it just drives a point home the importance of a mentor,   Michael Hingson ** 46:16 right? Well, so you, you teach the step system. How do you do that? What? What is the process to teach that? Because it seems very intellectual and so on. But so, how do you teach step?   Speaker 1 ** 46:31 So step is really, it's about applying the step system. So within, within step, there's, a bunch of different bullet points, if you will, about like one of those. One of those for support is make sure that you have your advocate right from the beginning. And this doesn't, this doesn't necessarily have to be a family member. That's why people always hear the word family and they try to latch on to that. It can be anyone, it can be a neighbor, it can be a co worker that's always been there, always been around and looking, looking to help you out. But it has to be someone who will be an advocate, yeah, exactly right, someone, someone who's around, always, always looking to help you. So that's one of the things I talk about within step and it's really as far as the step system. It's really helping them to apply the step system to their life and their situation. Now I do have, I do have one thing which is in addition now the ebook step, which is going to teach you, I'll give you at the end step, the ebook gonna teach you all about support, trust, energy and persistence. That's free, and that's really a great way to take take your first step today. Then after you go through that, if you're looking to kind of bring it to another level, I have step the video course, and that's really that's only $37   Speaker 1 ** 48:13 and what that entails is for each Letter,   Speaker 1 ** 48:18 so support, trust, energy and persistence for each letter. Uh, there's a coaching video from me that's going to walk you through how you go about applying the step system to your life, your setback, your trauma, your situation, and allow you to move forward. Each letter also comes with a workbook and coaching videos and emails from me, which is going to have you have me continually in your corner. So that's the that's really the steps. It's the free,   Nick Prefontaine ** 48:59 no pun intended.   Speaker 1 ** 49:02 It's that that's the that's kind of the process is the ebook, then step the video series, which is only $37   Speaker 1 ** 49:14 then after you go through that, then we can, if you're still interested in working together, we can jump on the phone to kind of uncover and discuss what it would be like working together, one on one. And I usually do one on one clients for either three or six months, depending on your situation. You started something called common goal. Tell us about that.   Speaker 1 ** 49:40 Common goal is alright. So really, everything that   Nick Prefontaine ** 49:47 I've been able to kind of uncover   Speaker 1 ** 49:51 from my recovery, and that includes the step system,   Speaker 1 ** 49:56 was because of my mentor, Tricia Paul.   Speaker 1 ** 50:00 Pulling it out of me when we were 21 together. So if I can take you back, I know, I know I talked about since I had that first initial call with Trisha, I told you that there's been no voice in the back of my head. Well how that call went. I shared my goals with her and the impact that I was looking to make with her. And I said, Do you think that's possible? And she said, absolutely. I said, Okay, what do you recommend? She said that I recommend the speaker salon, which is and I said, What's the speaker salon? She said, Well, you commute to New York City for six weeks in a row. So for five weeks you get to work on your eight to 10 minute talk, and then on the on the sixth week, you perform it in front of influencers, decision makers, event organizers, TEDx organizers, people who can book you to speak,   Speaker 1 ** 51:05 so that that's what I think. That's what she told me she thought I should do. I said, All right, well, what? What is that? And she said, that's 25,000   Speaker 1 ** 51:13 i i said, yeah, yes, absolutely that. And I made the commitment right there and that I wanted to do that, because I saw   Speaker 1 ** 51:24 it was a it was a wholehearted yes for me, and it was a wholehearted yes because I knew it was a part of my path, part of my calling, to be able to tell my story From stage in front of individuals, and also help individuals that are going through trauma. So I said, Yes, did that? Completed that. Then during the speaker song, Michael, she approached me   Speaker 1 ** 51:53 and said that she works one on one with individuals to help them build out their speaker platform,   Speaker 1 ** 52:02 and I didn't I didn't even know what that was. I didn't even know what a speaker platform was. I didn't even know what that meant. However, from my experience working with her for several weeks in the speaker salon, I just knew this was what I wanted, and what I wanted was to continue to   Speaker 1 ** 52:25 get her brain and her thoughts on on myself and and   Speaker 1 ** 52:33 my situation, so I can impact and and affect individuals. So I said, Yes. She said, that's 75,000   Speaker 1 ** 52:43 I said, Okay, well, you're gonna have to give me a week to kind of figure out where I'm gonna where I'm gonna get the money for that. So I didn't have 75,000 underneath my mattress. So what I did, I went and applied for financing, and six days later, I ended up sending her the funds. She was the one that helped me to launch common goal. So in January of 2022, working one on one with her,   Speaker 1 ** 53:16 was a six or seven month contract that was our one on one, more together. I would have a call with her once every two weeks, two or three weeks, and she was the one that really helped me launch common goal and uncovered the step system. Michael, as I was saying, she pulled it out at me to the point where she was asking me, all right, so   Speaker 1 ** 53:43 you got in the snowboarding accident, and then you ran out of the hospital. How'd you do it?   Speaker 1 ** 53:50 I said, I don't know. I just I did it. I got up every day and just kept working every day until I got to where I wanted to go. And she goes,   Michael Hingson ** 53:59 No, not good enough. Yeah, I agree with her,   Speaker 1 ** 54:04 how'd you do it? So she kept asking me, I think it went seven or eight layers deep. Her asking me, how did I do it to a point, Michael, where I was so frustrated, I was like, I don't know. Stop asking me that question, and   Speaker 1 ** 54:22 what came out of that, though, was the step system.   Speaker 1 ** 54:27 So the step system is what I teach to this day. And she also helped me to write several keynote talks, which, as I, as I share with you I'm now delivering for brain injury associations and other associations that support individuals that are going through trauma. So with, I'm sorry, go ahead.   Speaker 1 ** 54:52 I was just going to say without, without that introduction, uh, three years ago.   54:59 Um.   Speaker 1 ** 55:00 From Sharon. Sharon spanne was the one that introduced me to Trisha.   Speaker 1 ** 55:06 I wouldn't be or, who knows how long it would have take me, or if I be where I am today. So I'm very fortunate of that. So what is common goal?   Michael Hingson ** 55:19 Is it an organization. Is it? You know what? What is it?   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 Yeah, it. It's my company. So we support individuals who are going through trauma to thrive with the rest of their lives, very simply put. And as I said, we're doing, I'm doing a lot of speaking at brain injury associations and other associations that are supporting individuals that are going through trauma, sharing the step system, spreading the message, and also then that what comes out of that is working one on one, with   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 with individuals. Got it to thrive with the rest of their lives. Are you able to do that virtually, or is it only in person? Or how does that work?   Speaker 1 ** 56:08 That's a great question. So there is nothing like being in person, sure,   Speaker 1 ** 56:15 and dealing with someone one on one. However, the nature of the world, you can't you can't be there in person and flying around just to meet with people one on one. So it is something that that can be done virtually.   Speaker 1 ** 56:32 However, interspersed in there, I love there to be a person, if at all possible, a personal touch. That's always my my preference. And if there's some way we're meeting, we're either we meet up somewhere, there's some way that we can meet face to face and really develop that personal connection, that's cool. So   Michael Hingson ** 56:57 it, and I agree, it's always nice to be able to do things in person, it's so much better. But the the value of the world today, if you're able to do it, is to doing things virtually. Gives you the potential to to teach   Michael Hingson ** 57:14 to a wider, I don't want to say audience, because I think a lot of the teaching is probably one on one, but to a wider   Michael Hingson ** 57:22 group of people, but it's really exciting that you're you're doing it, and none of it would have happened if you hadn't gone through the injury. And I wonder if it would have happened if you had had a helmet on back at the injury.   Nick Prefontaine ** 57:41 This is always,   Nick Prefontaine ** 57:43 this is not a,   Speaker 1 ** 57:45 what should we call it? This isn't something I talk about all the time. However, what the doctor said, obviously,   Speaker 1 ** 57:55 a helmet versus not a helmet, like a helmet, you always, you always say, Yeah, helmets better for you. However,   Speaker 1 ** 58:02 the doctors said that because of the force with which my head hit the ice, that they don't, they don't even know how much difference a helmet would have made, but the goggles made a big difference. It would have, yeah, absolutely, it would have, it would have split right their opinion. I mean, who knows? Like, I don't know. We don't know. However, if I were to have the choice, I, I, I'd like a helmet,   Speaker 1 ** 58:35 as opposed to not everyone. So I'm a, I'm a huge advocate of helmets, like helmet safety. I just that's,   Speaker 1 ** 58:43 that's not something I talk about little known fact. So what   Michael Hingson ** 58:49 was it like? I'll ask this, and we've been doing this a while, but what was it like running out of the hospital? It was,   Speaker 1 ** 58:59 I can go right back to that day. Mm, hmm, I bet you can. So it was April, April 24 2003   Speaker 1 ** 59:08 and on that day I went to, I went, there was a, there was a pizza, there was a there was a pizza shop right next door to the hospital. So we walked. I had several goals. So running out of the hospital was the main goal. However, the food goal, like so I could swallow, like, swallow, right? Was a coke and a grinder. There you go, Coke because it was a soda and the bubbles irritate your throat, so it's not something you think about. However,   Speaker 1 ** 59:47 it wasn't like the soda was free flowing in the hospital. So that was always a goal of mine, a coke in a grinder for those non New Englanders out there. I.   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:00:00 Was a sandwich,   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:03 yeah, like, like, a turkey, a turkey sandwich. So that was always my   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:00:08 that was always my goal. I actually think it might have been a meatball, but,   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:13 well, I digress. I digress. So I remember that day we I walked over next door to the hospital with my physical therapist and my mom, and I can really, I can see the pizza shop, like walking in the door and getting that aroma and ordering and just realizing my goal. And then after that, I ran. After I came out, we came out for having lunch. I ran across the parking lot diagonally, and I raised my physical therapist, who was running backwards. I raced her. I don't even remember who won, but as you can see, that's a that's a really vivid memory for me. That was,   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:01 oh, it was amazing. And like, it like I shared, it wasn't, wasn't like my work was done. I had to, you know, continue to work. But that that was a big day for sure. Well, Nick, this has been remarkable in a lot of ways, and definitely inspiring. And clearly, you are an unstoppable person by any standard. And I'm glad that we got to have this connection, and we got to talk about this. And you tell the story, I think it's an important story. I keep thinking about your parents, who were, as you point out, very strong advocates. I had the same situation, because when it was discovered I was blind, my parents were told to send me off to a home, and my parents refused, and it was because of their advocacy that I developed the attitudes that I did about life, and clearly that is very much the same for you, whether it was Your parents or you had a, probably a larger support system in a lot of ways than than I did initially. But still, the bottom line is that you had the advocates, and that is extremely important. And I agree with you that anytime any of us are are different,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:17 or are facing any kind of situation, having advocates is extremely important, and it's always good to find advocates to be part of our lives. Absolutely, absolutely, 100%   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:30 Well, I want to thank you for being here with us. We We did an hour without a lot of difficulty, just just like I said we would, and just like we talked about so I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank everyone for listening. Nick's story is incredible and amazing in so many ways, and clearly unstoppable. So you mentioned the ebook. Tell me about how people can get that. Yeah, absolutely. So what, uh, what we covered here was really just a 10,000 foot view of the step system, um, if they go to or when they go to Nick prefontaine.com,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:09 forward slash step and spell Prefontaine, if you would. Yeah, sure, I'll spell the whole thing. Okay, hey, it's n, i, c, k, P, R, E, F, O N, T, A, I n, e.com,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:27 forward slash, step, S, T, E, P,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:33 they can download the whole step system for free, and In that they're going to learn all about support, trust, energy and persistence. And as I was saying earlier, it's a great first step, and they're going to be able to that will allow them to take that first step today,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:56 and if they want to then follow up and reach out to you and learn from you and so on. How do they do that?   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:04 They can also, there's a contact, there's a Contact button on the website. Well, right, yeah, right from the website they they should be able to, they should be able to do that, do that, but like or and like I was sharing earlier, the the steps would be to go through, keep saying that,   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:24 okay, would go, would go through step the ebook, then do step the video series, the video course, and then after, after you've gone through those so we're speaking the same language, then we can hop On the phone to determine what our what our work would be like together, one on one. And I'm assuming in the eBook, it also gives the contact information to reach out and go further. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I'll include Well, super well, Nick.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:55 Thank you very much for being here, and I want to thank all of you who are listening.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:01 Watching, and if you're on YouTube watching, we really appreciate you being here and allowing us to invite you in, to be part of our family, and we want to become part of yours. I would really love it if any of you who would do so would give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to us. We value, we appreciate and value your ratings very highly.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:23 I'm sure that Nick would love to hear from you, and he is giving you ways to reach out to him. So please do that for me. I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me through email easily. At Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at, accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:41 so Michael h i@accessibe.com   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:43 or go to www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:50 and that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n.com/podcast,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:55 and you can listen to all of our episodes if you're not listening to us somewhere else. But we would really love your thoughts and your opinions. Nick for you and all of you listening, if you know of anyone else who we ought to have on as a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know. Bring them on. Introduce us. We are always looking for guests, so I really value getting to meet more people, as I love to tell people, if I'm not learning at least as much as anybody else who comes on the podcast, I'm not doing my job well, and I've had the value and the joy of getting to learn from so many people like Nick. So please let us know if you have any guests, we'd love to hear from you.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 So again, Nick, thank you very much. We really appreciate you being here. This has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate your time, and we hope that you'll come back again and visit.   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:06:48 Thanks, Michael, I have a blast, and I can't wait to do it again.   **Michael Hingson ** 1:06:56 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.

President Trump has pardoned and commuted the sentences of people convicted of crimes committed during the Jan. 6 insurrection, making good on a campaign promise and stunning legal experts.

It's another year and another chance to suffer from comparisonitis!! But, worry not, I've got you (or, more accurately, Sara from Between The Lines has got both of us covered today). With everyone celebrating their end-of-year wins and their goals for this upcoming season, quarter, and year, it's a time when we tend to do a little reflection (good and bad).Sara Noel is a Website Copywriter, Marketing Mentor, Unapologetic Squirrel (aka ADHDer), Champion of Single Moms, World's Loudest Noah Kahan Fan, and the most unfiltered business owner on the Internet. She's the proudest F-bomb-dropping New Englander you'll ever meet, the "queen of over-delivering" (according to her students and clients), and she's wicked obsessed with helping business owners learn how to write better website copy.You can find her online here, but you'd be better off just subscribing to her weekly newsletter from the get-go — she shares one marketing tip, once a week, but always includes a good-enough-to-skip-your-responsibilities-to-read story.Website: www.betweenthelinescopy.com Newsletter (free copywriting tips): www.betweenthelinescopy.com/subscribe Okay, so in this episode of The Blogging & SEO Show, we're talking all thing comparisonitis, how to avoid it, how to deal with it, and why you shouldn't let it ruin all the hard work you've put in the past year (because you're fudgin amazing, okay?). Don't forget to listen in next week, too, as we'll be back to our usual Blogging & SEO goodness ;)More Ways to Learn & Connect with Me:Blog: www.thecommamamaco.com/blogInstagram: @‌commamama.coDon't forget to follow and subscribe to the show to be notified when new episodes are available! Go ahead and subscribe to the newsletter and get inbox notifications and access to exclusive deals for my listeners - Get on the list.

New Englanders love the lottery, and it's long been an important source of public funding. But it's not the only option for people's gambling dollars. Boston Fed researcher Riley Sullivan talks about lottery history, policy, and trends.

A Stellar Year: Space Discoveries and Cosmic Wonders of 2024 Matt Robison is joined by astronomy professor John Gianforte from the University of New Hampshire, also known as 'the Sky Guy'. They delve into the most fascinating space-related events of 2024, including the Great North American Eclipse, new moons around Uranus and Neptune, significant finds from the James Webb Space Telescope, and intriguing developments in early universe theories. They also look ahead to future missions like the Europa Clipper and the use of AI in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, highlighting how science fiction is becoming reality. (New Englanders: if you want to see some of these amazing sky sights, come to the UNH Observatory--more information here) 00:00 Introduction to Beyond Politics 02:04 A Big Year for the Sun 02:14 The Great North American Eclipse 05:39 Solar Maximum and Aurora Borealis 13:39 The Parker Solar Probe 16:22 Exploring the Solar System 16:49 The Comet 18:54 The Mysterious Oort Cloud 24:04 The Debate Over Pluto and Planet Nine 29:15 The Mystery of Planet Nine 29:35 New Moons Discovered in Our Solar System 32:35 James Webb Space Telescope's Latest Discoveries 33:48 Formation of Stars and Planets 36:34 Theories on Solar System Formation 39:40 Earliest Galaxies and Black Hole Mergers 47:28 The Ultimate Fate of the Universe 56:11 Science Fiction Becoming Reality

(00:00) Zolak and Beetle discuss the Gillette Stadium Red Seat new amenities that are put in place to bring fans back to the stadium to watch the Patriots. (13:29) The crew notes that the current state of the Patriots makes it hard for New Englanders to be fans of the team. (28:23) Zo and Beetle compare Caleb Williams and Drake Maye and who they would rather have as quarterback. (38:59) The guys end the final hour with Today’s Takeaways.

Send us a textScott speaks with WEEI's Rich Keefe of the Jones and Keefe Show. Rich is a native New Englander who worked for 98.5 The Sports Hub prior to WEEI. He became their midday host in 2024. Keefe's also appeared in pre- and post-game shows for Patriots.com and is a contributor to NBC Sports Boston. A fun episode talking about the state of the current Patriots as well as Rich's career. 

New Englander writer Nathaniel Hawthorne visits the remains of Fort Ticonderoga, which played an important part in the French-Indian and Revolutionary wars as first the French battled the English for possession of the valuable waterways and later the British battled the American colonists for possesion of the northern colonies. For more short and long classic stories follow us at 1001 Stories From The Gilded Age. Also check out our archives at www.bestof1001stories.com

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  1/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1921 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER ROME

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  4/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1937 TOM OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER WARSAW, POLAND

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  2/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1922 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  3/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1932 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER PARIS, FRANCE

“I believe I can swing it.” This is the story of the Coolidge Administration. Calvin Coolidge isn't the most talkative guy–he's painfully shy, to be frank–but “Silent Cal” does care deeply about public service. Over the years, the thrifty, hard-working New Englander moves up the ranks, from municipal offices to state offices, until, as Massachusetts Governor, he's asked to join Warren G. Harding's run for the White House. When the scandalous, playboy President meets an untimely end, family man Cal suddenly finds himself President of the United States. Cal slashes government spending and taxes while pursuing peace abroad. He also sees terrible heartache with the loss of loved ones. Meanwhile, the nation is debating if evolution should be taught in schools, the Mississippi floods, and the sculpting of Mount Rushmore begins. Cal might not be a hands-on president, but much is happening during his time in office that will reverberate into the years ahead.  ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. HTDS is part of the Airwave Media Network.  Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Email us at advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices