Podcasts about north star

Can you bring humanity back into AI-driven selling? Mark sits down with Paul Fuller, CRO of Membrain, for a conversation that unpacks the accelerated pace of change in sales and leadership brought on by AI. Paul brings his unique perspective on blending technology with the foundational elements of leadership, service, and creativity—urging listeners to define their North Star as sales evolves at unprecedented speed. Together, they dig deep into why the human element can't be allowed to exit the stage even as automation and AI tools become more sophisticated. The episode explores how sales organizations risk becoming too mechanical, losing sight of relationship-building and problem-solving in their quest for efficiency.   

Fans of the long-running game show Family Feud Canada may have caught the Bernstein family appearing as contestants last week. The five family members—who all live around Richmond Hill and Oshawa—taped their episodes back in August at CBC headquarters in Toronto, but had to keep their appearances a secret until their three episodes aired on Dec. 15-17. In an interview with The CJN's North Star podcast, two of the family members reveal how proud they were to represent Judaism on the small screen—bantering in Yiddish with comic host Gerry Dee—even though their episodes ended up airing during difficult times. The family watched themselves on TV last week, shortly after losing patriarch Nat Bernstein, 101, in Montreal. And while the timing around Hanukkah was convenient for celebration (especially given how much gelt they won), the terror attack at Bondi Beach in Australia cast a pall over their excitement. To find out what the experience was like, why they auditioned, and what the five of them will do with the prize money, siblings Shaun Bernstein and Alexis Orchard join North Star host Ellin Bessner. Related links Watch the Bernstein family's three episodes on Family Feud Canada on CBC Gem , or see clips on YouTube . Read about the Kestelman family including Rabbi Stephen Wise and his wife Cheryl, who runs the synagogue's supplementary school, his sister Renee Cohen of TanenbaumCHAT, and other relatives win on Family Feud Canada back in 2022, in The CJN. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

It's Christmas week, and the perfect time to reflect on your future as a leader. In this episode of Recruiting Conversations, I'm answering one of the biggest questions I've been hearing to close out the year: How do I cast a bold, inspiring vision for 2026 without overcommitting or losing trust when I can't deliver it all at once? If you've ever wrestled with that tension, this episode will help you lead with both clarity and confidence. I walk you through how to cast a magnetic vision and pair it with grounded execution, so people believe in both your future and your follow-through. Episode Breakdown [00:00] Merry Christmas & Setup – A holiday message and the big question: how do I balance big vision with realistic execution [01:00] The Tension Every Leader Feels – You're dreaming big for 2026, but also wearing 5 hats and carrying the weight of everything you already do [01:30] Vision and Execution Are Not Opposites – You can lead both, if you hold them in tension with transparency [02:00] Vision Should Stretch You – If your "vision" only covers the next 30 days, it's not vision. It's a task list [02:45] Execution Builds Trust – Your actions must reinforce your words. Belief comes from consistency, not hype [03:10] Real-World Example – Casting a boutique leadership vision even when you're just starting solo, and grounding it with small Q1 steps [03:45] Avoid the Extremes – Some cast vision with no follow-through. Others get stuck in the day-to-day and stop casting vision entirely [04:30] What Great Leaders Will Do in 2026 – Inspire people with clarity, then walk them there step by step [05:00] Brand and Content Must Reflect the Balance – Be honest about where you're going and what you're doing now [05:15] Your Vision Will Evolve – That doesn't mean you were wrong. It means you're leading in real time [05:40] Final Challenge for Year-End Write your 2026 vision (team, culture, impact) Identify 2–3 steps you'll take in January Decide how to communicate that to your current team and future recruits Key Takeaways You Don't Have to Choose Between Big Vision and Real Execution – You just need to lead both with clarity and consistency Vision Without Steps Creates Skepticism. Steps Without Vision Create Stagnation – You need both to build belief Let People See the Journey – Share the North Star, but also the next two steps toward it Your Leadership Brand Should Reflect Both Your Belief and Your Process – That's how trust compounds It's Okay if Your Vision Evolves – Stay rooted in your values, and you'll always find alignment People don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be honest, bold, and grounded. Cast the vision. Show your work. Invite others to build it with you. Want help crafting a vision-based recruiting strategy that attracts and builds trust? Subscribe to my weekly email at 4crecruiting.com or book a call at bookrichardnow.com. Merry Christmas, and here's to a 2026 worth building.

It's the holiday season and with it comes the pressure of resolutions, big plans, and “new year, new me” energy.In this episode, the team breaks down a more realistic approach to goal setting: simple focuses instead of endless goals, how to actually remember what you set, and why reflecting on progress matters (so you don't just live in “what's next?” mode).They explore the balance between pain vs pleasure as motivation, why ambition can be both powerful and exhausting, and the idea of life “dimmers”, where different seasons require different levels of focus on family, work, health, and social life.And to keep it grounded (and fun), the team shares personal goals for the year ahead, including one “unreasonably epic” goal that's purely for the story.___CHAPTERS00:00 Intro: goal setting for the New Year01:05 Resolutions vs “focuses” + why most goals get forgotten05:25 Why reflecting on progress matters (avoid “what's next?” spiral)07:30 Pain vs pleasure: what really drives change09:35 Goals in elite sport: clarity, focus, and dissatisfaction vs enjoyment12:45 Meaning, responsibility, and the balance of ambition14:25 Journey vs destination vs company (who you do life with)16:20 Personal goals: “unreasonably fun” + events and challenges24:00 Feeling-based goals vs tick-box goals (North Star thinking)27:10 Morning routines + how habits set up the day34:20 “Dimmers” and seasons of life (family/work/health/social balance)40:10 One practical tip: keep it simple + take 30 minutes to formalise it41:10 The “unreasonably fun” challenge (do something epic this year)43:30 Outro

Hamilton's award winning music director and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire is back after his legendary three episode series in 2018 and he's here to help wrap this show up right! Lac never comes to the pod empty handed and once again brought a keyboard, a laptop full of Hamilton music that no one has ever heard, and his ✨immaculate✨ vibes.  This week, Alex talks about celebrating ten years of Hamilton on Broadway including putting together the amazing performance at the Tonys, experiencing the Hamilfilm on the big screen, the pure joy of Leslie Odom Jr. reprising Aaron Burr, what his day to day relationship with the show is now, and reflecting on the brotherhood of The Cabinet™. Lac also shares what it feels like for him to create and experience music, letting us in on what inspires him, what it feels like to truly be in the middle of a wave of inspiration, and what guides him to his own personal North Star.  Oh and did I mention there's a keyboard?! And secret Hamilton clips?!  This episode was recorded in November of 2025 at WTF Media Studios in Manhattan and produced with Natalie Grillo from Any Moment Productions in collaboration with Meghan Miles. Alex Lacamoire on Instagram #126: Alex Lacamoire // Part One (2018) #127: Alex Lacamoire // Part Two (2018) #128: Alex Lacamoire // Part Three (2018) /// MUSE: Musicians United for Social Equality Basura: A New Musical Howard Ho and How Hamilton Works on YouTube /// #95: Carvens Lissant: Maaaaan the man is non-stop! // Part One #96: Carvens Lissant: Maaaaan the man is non-stop! // Part Two #97: Christopher Jackson // Part One #98: Christopher Jackson // Part Two #222: Christopher Jackson // C-Jack Returns! // Part One #223: Christopher Jackson // C-Jack Returns! // Part Two #224: Christopher Jackson // C-Jack Returns! // Part Three #477: Nevin Steinberg // Hamilton Broadway's Sound Designer // Part One #478: Nevin Steinberg // Hamilton Broadway's Sound Designer // Part Two /// Gillian's Website The Hamilcast on TikTok The Hamilcast on Instagram Join the Patreon Peeps

Preaching: Mike RothMuch is wrong with the world and it breaks our hearts. We feel discouraged. We feel overwhelmed. We feel hopeless. Our Advent sermon series, Held by Longing, will plumb the depths of our sorrow. But then, we'll keep going. We'll follow the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures in considering how our discouragement, overwhelm, and hopelessness can, like the North Star, hold us in light that guides us onward. Onward, to participate in Divine Love, which is capable of making all things new.Pearl Church exists to express a sacred story and to extend a common table that animate life by love. A primary expression of our sacred story is the weekly sermon. If our sermons inspire you to ponder the sacred, to consider the mystery and love of God, and to live bountifully, would you consider supporting our work? You can donate easily and securely at our website: pearlchurch.org. Thank you for partnering with us in expressing this sacred story.

Stop chasing shiny objects and start driving real business outcomes. Marathon Health CTO Venkat Chittoor joins the show to explain why AI is the ultimate enabler for digital transformation but only when it is anchored by a rock solid business strategy. Essential Insights for Tech LeadersAI is not a standalone strategy. It is a powerful tool to accelerate a pre-existing business North Star. Success in digital transformation follows a specific maturity curve. Start with personal productivity, move to replacing mundane tasks, and eventually aim for cognitive automation. Governance must come before experimentation. Establishing guardrails for data privacy is critical before launching any AI pilot. Measure value through tangible efficiency gains. In healthcare, this means reducing administrative burden or "pajama time" so providers can focus on patient care. Don't let marketing speak fool you. Always validate vendor claims against your specific industry use cases. Timestamped Highlights00:50 Defining advanced primary care and the mission of Marathon Health 02:44 Why AI strategy is useless without a defined business strategy 05:01 The three steps of AI adoption from productivity to cognition 12:14 How to define success metrics for a pilot versus a scaled V1 solution 16:40 Real world ROI including call deflections and charting efficiency 21:43 Advice for leaders on data quality and avoiding vendor traps A Perspective to CarryAI is actually enabling [efficiency], but without a solid business strategy, AI strategy is not useful. Tactical Advice for the FieldWhen launching an AI initiative, focus heavily on the underlying data quality. Ensure your team accounts for data recency, accuracy, and potential biases, as these factors determine whether an experiment succeeds or fails. Start small with pilots to build muscle memory before attempting to scale complex systems. Join the ConversationIf you found these insights helpful, subscribe to the podcast for more deep dives into the tech landscape. You can also connect with Venkat Chittoor on LinkedIn to follow his work in healthcare innovation.

“If your company doesn't know the story that it's helping to tell, no marketing campaign is going to save you.” — Rain BennettMost businesses mistake their vision for a quarterly goal or a financial target, but that's not a story anyone wants to join.In this solo episode, Rain Bennett unpacks the critical difference between vision and mission, showing how your vision acts as the narrative North Star for your entire brand. Rain shares a clear, actionable framework based on Simon Sinek's “Just Cause” model and explains how the best visions are resilient, inclusive, and service-oriented.Through two powerful case studies—Patagonia and The People's Game—Rain illustrates how a well-crafted vision can guide every part of your business, from branding to product development to internal culture.If you've ever struggled to articulate why your company exists beyond just making money, this episode gives you the foundation to start telling a story that actually matters.In this episode, you will learn to:Define a brand vision that is resilient, inclusive, and service-orientedAlign your team and decisions around a single, powerful storyAvoid the common mistakes that make most vision statements meaninglessUse real-world case studies to guide your own storytelling strategyCraft a vision that inspires belief, not just activityFor more storytelling tips and tricks,Visit rainbennett.com or thestorytellinglabpodcast.comFollow on TikTok @chiefstorytellingofficerFollow on Twitter @rainbennettFollow on Instagram @rainbennettFollow on Facebook @thestorytellinglab Subscribe to the YouTube Channel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Isaiah 14:13-14; He who was born as king of Israel, and let Jesus guide us to the Father for we will reborn again in His new creation up in Heaven

The Weekly Blitz is brought to you by our friends over at Shop Marketing Pros. If you want to take your shop to the next level, you need great marketing. Shop Marketing Pros does top-tier marketing for top-tier shops.Click here to learn more about Top Tier Marketing by Shop Marketing Pros and schedule a demo: https://shopmarketingpros.com/chris/Check out their podcast here: https://autorepairmarketing.captivate.fm/If you would like to join their private facebook group go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/autorepairmarketingmastermindFinish Strong Series: “Your Cashflow North Star”Presented by Shop Marketing Pros — trusted marketing partners for top-performing auto repair shops.Episode SummaryIn Part 3 of the Finish Strong Series, Coach Chris Cotton tackles the topic that stresses shop owners more than anything else: cashflow.This episode introduces the concept of the Cashflow North Star — the exact number that tells you whether your shop is safe, stressed, or in danger. Chris delivers a tactical, step-by-step breakdown of how to calculate it, how to use it, and how it transforms your clarity and decision-making as a business owner.If you've ever felt uncertain about money, unsure about what's “safe,” or anxious about the ups and downs of car count… this episode is your cure.What You'll Learn in This Episode✔️ Why You're Not Broke — You're UnclearThe emotional truth behind why even profitable owners struggle with money fear.✔️ What a Cashflow North Star Actually IsA simple but powerful financial safety system that every shop owner MUST have.✔️ The 3 Zones Every Shop Operates InGreen Zone — HealthyYellow Zone — TightRed Zone — Danger And exactly what to do in each.✔️ How to Calculate Your North Star (Step-by-Step)Chris breaks down the full process: fixed expenses, weekly burn rate, danger thresholds, safety buffers, and the real “stop spending” line.✔️ The December Cashflow Mistakes That Kill ShopsLessons on:Equipment purchasesEarly tax paymentsHoliday bonusesSubscription creepNeglected receivablesMissing parts creditsPoor forecasting✔️ How to Forecast Cashflow for 90 DaysA simple 30/60/90 approach that eliminates fear and replaces it with leadership-level clarity.Why This Episode MattersA shop without a cashflow plan is a shop that's always one slow week away from panic. When you know your Cashflow North Star, you stop guessing… and start leading. This episode gives you that power.Sponsored By: Shop Marketing ProsA big thank you to Shop Marketing Pros for sponsoring this episode. They're the experts in storytelling, branding, and digital marketing for auto repair shops.Learn more at ShopMarketingPros.com — where great shops get great marketing.To listen to more episodes, make sure and go over to iTunes and or Spotify.Don't forget to rate and review us!Connect with Chris:AutoFix-Auto Shop Coachingwww.autoshopcoaching.comwww.aftermarketradionetwork.com 940-400-1008Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AutoFixAutoShopCoachingYouTube:

Marketing hasn't changed.Human behaviour hasn't changed.Most brands still get this wrong.This episode is a curated montage of insights from three of the most influential thinkers in modern marketing and behavioural science — exploring why people buy, how brands become commodities, and what actually drives growth.===============

Cabinet Minister Evan Solomon tells The CJN in a wide-ranging interview how the government is 'highly engaged' in monitoring terrorist threats against Canada's Jewish community. Solomon spent much of last week carrying out his official role as Canada's first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, making funding announcements to support local researchers and entrepreneurs. But on Dec. 14, the rookie politician made a point to tell Canadians about the impact that the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre had on Canada's Jewish community—including himself. Having already spoken to his rabbi and congregants at his synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple in midtown Toronto, he quickly headed downtown to City Hall to film a video of support, inviting Mayor Olivia Chow to join. Days later, he took part in a roundtable discussion with RCMP officials and other Canadian law enforcement agencies, where politicians and Jewish community leaders were briefed about the possibility of a domestic copycat attack. Solomon insists his government is “highly engaged” with what he calls the “unacceptable level” of antisemitic attacks and the “threat level” that's causing fear and anxiety for his community. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, Solomon sits down with host Ellin Bessner to explain what is being done. Related links Evan Solomon was one the two Jewish MPs from Toronto who were appointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney's new government in May 2025, in The CJN . Hear Evan Solomon's (and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow's_ message to the Jewish community for Hanukkah, after last week's Australian Bondi Beach massacre, on The CJN's North Star podcast. Learn more about Evan Solomon's election campaign for the Liberals in Toronto Centre, one of the key ridings to watch in April 2025, with a tiny Jewish electorate at 1.4% of the population, in The CJN. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

#thePOZcast is proudly brought to you by Fountain - the leading enterprise platform for workforce management. Our platform enables companies to support their frontline workers from job application to departure. Fountain elevates the hiring, management, and retention of frontline workers at scale.To learn more, please visit: https://www.fountain.com/?utm_source=shrm-2024&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=shrm-2024-podcast-adam-posner.Thanks for listening, and please follow us on Insta @NHPTalent and www.youtube.com/thePOZcastFor all episodes, please check out www.thePOZcast.com  1:26 - Real Name3:32 - Most dangerous weapon6:03 - Sense of purpose7:30 - Support from mother9:22 - Early tough lessons as a Leader11:26 - Why Army?14:06 - Misconceptions about military19:18 - Mental Health21:25 - Entering into Corporate America25:09 - The Process/Mindset27:37 - Job Hunting29:04 - Impact of Thank you Letters31:24 - Tribute to success37:02 - Keep the Change38:30 - Women in life43:00 - Letter from Grandmother48:30 - Single greatest piece of advice49:20 - Perfecto's North Star

When sociologist Robert Brym published his research on Canadian Jewry in November 2024, his findings made international headlines. While 94 per cent of the community said they support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state—and about 84 per cent were strongly or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel—barely half said they called themselves Zionists. The three progressive Jewish organizations that commissioned the survey concluded it proves how nuanced conversations about Israel are within Canada's Jewish community after Oct. 7. It also showed how no one can claim to speak for the majority of Canadian Jews, they added—not the mainstream centre-right organizations, nor the anti-Zionist far-left ones. All the while, the author himself has been quietly fuming, as he believes his original findings have been “weaponized”, deliberately misinterpreted by Jewish groups—mainly Independent Jewish Voices—in order to bolster their own political goals. This came to his attention a few weeks ago in the Senate, where a committee has been studying antisemitism in Canada. Byrm has been sitting on the results of a new study he did earlier this year, which he says proves them wrong. He revisited the same nearly 600 people who answered the first time, and asked why 51 per cent felt they could not call themselves Zionists. Now that his paper has been published in the latest issue of the academic journal Canadian Jewish Studies, Brym is eager to set the record straight: while he found the same overwhelming support for Israel as a Jewish state at 94%, modern interpretations of the word “Zionism” are making many Canadian Jews reject the label. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, Ellin Bessner sits down with Brym to unpack his latest findings and to hear his advice for people who support Israel but don't want to use the Z-word. Related links Read Brym's new  2025 study just published in the Association of Canadian Jewish Studies' latest journal edition.  Read his first  2024 survey done on behalf of NIFCanada, JSpaceCanada and Canadian Friends of Peace Now Hear how the heads of New Israel Fund of Canada and JSpace Canada broke down the findings of the first 2024 survey, on  The CJN's Bonjour Chai podcast from Dec. 2024. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

I'm about to tell you something that might sting a little: you've been planning your years completely backwards. And it's costing you everything.Here's what I see every single January, and maybe you'll recognize yourself in this: You're setting bold revenue goals, mapping out launches, planning content calendars. It all looks perfect on paper. You're ambitious. You're strategic. You're ready to make things happen.But by March? You're exhausted. By June? You're behind. And by September, you're lying awake at night wondering why this business you built to give you freedom feels like it's running you instead of supporting the life you actually want to live.Sound familiar?Here's the thing: after years of doing this work myself and with hundreds of ambitious women just like you, I've discovered something radical. The problem isn't that you're not disciplined enough. It's not that you're not working hard enough. The problem is the planning methodology itself.We've been doing this backwards. We plan business first. And then we try to squeeze our lives into whatever's left over.In this episode, I'm sharing part of my framework from my Plan Your Ideal Freedom Year workshop, the methodology that's changed everything for me and the women I work with. And it starts with a simple but powerful flip: what if you built your business around your life instead of fitting your life around your business?If you're in your 40s or 50s like me, juggling aging parents, kids launching into adulthood, your own health becoming more complex, and a business that seems to demand more every single year, this isn't just a nice idea. This approach is necessary. It's how you stop optimizing and start actually living.What You'll Learn:Why everything you've been taught about business planning is backwards (and why it's leading you straight to burnout, resentment, and a business that consumes your life instead of supporting it)The 6-step reverse planning methodology I use to claim my life first, then build my business around my actual capacity, not some fantasy version where nothing goes wrongHow to choose your word for the year that becomes your North Star (mine is "golden" for 2026, and I'll tell you exactly why)The non-negotiable first step that most ambitious women skip and why skipping it is stealing your energy, creativity, and joyWhy women in their 40s and 50s must plan differently. Your energy, responsibilities, and wellbeing require a new strategic approach.The holistic life planning process I created with LifePilot to make sure your health, relationships, and personal growth don't get sacrificed on the altar of business success Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Eddie Pinero dives into the powerful shift from hoping for miracles to creating your own wins. Using a vivid metaphor of an underdog football team, he breaks down how to take control of your life by believing in your own potential, defining your North Star, and structuring your days for success. Join Eddie as he explores how to stop waiting for that one-in-a-thousand chance and start building a life where winning is the norm.More from Eddie Pinero:Wear the Lifestyle: www.AGNS.lifestyleMonday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletterBusiness Inquiries - http://www.yourworldwithin.com/contact#liveinspired #yourworldwithin #motivation

What does it really mean to “launch your radiance,” and how do you do it in real life? In this episode, I sit down with rocket scientist and confidence strategist John Mollura to explore what it truly means to launch your radiance from the inside out. We dive into the power of legacy as a guiding North Star, the importance of discernment in protecting your energy, and why taking messy, imperfect action is often the fastest path to growth. You're going to love this conversation, and you're going to want to share it with everyone you care about who also desires to look and feel their best too!Get 10% off the Elite Action Academy and receive premier access to weekly live Q&A group Momentum Sessions along with access to the private Elite Action Collective Facebook Community: https://john-mollura.systeme.io/elite-action-academy-aflUse Discount Code: RACHELVLearn more about John Mollura:John Mollura is a former rocket scientist who spent fifteen years leading global field tests that NASA and elite military units depended on for mission success. Today, he's an elite executive coach and professional speaker who helps high achievers overcome procrastination, perfectionism, and overthinking through his Elite Action™ framework. John equips leaders to stop chasing perfect and start taking confident, consistent action that builds real momentum and lasting impact.Connect with John: https://john-mollura.systeme.io/elite-action-academy-aflStep into your Radiance Sanctuary in the Membership https://www.theschoolofradiance.com/membershipFor more resources related to today's episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.theschoolofradiance.com/podcasts Follow Rachel Varga Official on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelvargaofficial/ —Catch full episodes of The School of Radiance Podcast here on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@RachelVargaOfficial —Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@RachelVargaOfficial —Follow me here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelvargaofficial/ Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/rachelvargaofficial/ Website: https://www.theschoolofradiance.com —FREE STUFF: Download my FREE Skincare Checklist, sign up for my FREE 30 minute biohack your way to clear skin and slowing aging training now, and my newsletter for promos and exclusive events just for you! https://www.theschoolofradiance.com/freebiesEveryone gets one FREE call! Book your free 15-minute call with Rachel Varga to see which options will help you achieve your skin radiance goals! https://rachelvarga.as.me/YourPersonalizedRadianceConsultation —Looking for Skincare products, Tutorials, booking YOUR private One-on-One, and the deep dive Radiance Membership?SHOP skincare: https://alwaysradiantskinshop.comBOOK your private One-on-One: https://rachelvarga.as.me/Initialconsultation REGISTER for Tutorials and/or Membership: https://theschoolofradiance.com As a disclaimer, please note that the information shared in this podcast and interview is not to be taken as medical advice, and it's always important to consult with your physician before making any lifestyle changes. Rachel disclaims any responsibility for inaccurate credentials of guests or information used that may cause harm.Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The School of Radiance with Rachel Varga (formerly The Rachel Varga Podcast and The Always Radiant Skin Podcast)!Rachel Vargainfo@theschoolofradiance.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Where has Santa Claus gone?Once upon a time there was Santa Claus's Village — but Santa Claus wasn't there. He had been missing for days and days… actually for months. Who would prepare and deliver gifts to the children as they did every year?That part of the North Pole which was usually very busy had become strangely silent — not an Elf could be seen around, no sounds of bells, the sleighs were covered in snow and all the reindeer dozed about confused.If you looked into his house you couldn't see a trace of life. The fireplace cold, the rocking chair covered in cobwebs, an empty cup on the wooden table and a candle stub burnt out long ago.Many were the rumours that had spread about Santa Claus's absence. Some said he was on another planet in a far, far away galaxy, some on the Moon, some on the vast oceans — and someone even said he had opened a bakery in Buenos Aires.The mystery was thick. Nobody could make sense of it and everything was silent and still.Meanwhile, many miles away, in the Southern Seas, a group of seagulls who spent their days fluttering above the bay spotted a small sailing boat in the distance. There was only one sailor on board who was hoisting the main sail up the creaking mast.The eldest seagull couldn't believe his eyes. He did a couple of acrobatics in the air, pulled out his spyglass, looked more carefully and said: "But I know him! That sailor comes from distant lands!"Turning to the other seagulls he told them: "One day, during one of my long journeys, I lost my way and found myself on the frozen rooftops of a village at the North Pole. I landed right on the house of that long-bearded man you see on the boat. He heard me calling for help, came to fetch me, fed me and told me about his work. I think this meeting has something magical about it. Our next adventure is about to begin."Gliding down, they headed towards the boat and all landed on the bow. The seagull and the sailor greeted each other like old friends.Shortly after, a group of dolphins arrived near the sailing boat, curious. They swam in circles around the boat, jumping out of the water.The youngest dolphin noticed something strange. "Look! Wood shavings are coming out of the hold and floating! And you can see little lights below deck."The long-bearded sailor smiled. "Come," he said in a warm voice, "I'll show you what I've done all these months."He opened the hatch to the hold and inside, by the light of two swaying lanterns, you could see a floating workshop full of wonders. With a sharp plane he had worked pieces of wood recovered from the sea, transforming them into toys — and he had done the same with shells, coconuts, cork stoppers, glass bottles, starfish and golden threads that had arrived from who knows where."I travelled to learn new ways of bringing joy," the sailor explained. "But there's so much work to do and Christmas is coming. Would you help me finish?"And so they all set to work together. The dolphins brought special shells from the bottom of the sea. The seagulls gathered coloured feathers. The objects transformed into gifts were placed in large canvas sacks.The days passed quickly.On the first of December the captain, wearing his red warm hat with his pipe in his mouth, looked at the starry sky and said: "It's time to leave."The dolphins lifted the sailing boat until it rose above the waves. The sails filled with wind and it took flight, whilst the flock of seagulls guided it through the clouds following dreams. Together they continued the journey heading north, flying through the endless blue.Night fell quickly and in the sky full of stars one shone brighter than all the others. It was the North Star which with its light accompanied the sailing boat's descent to earth.By magic, as it approached the village, the sailing boat transformed into a sleigh loaded with gifts. The presents built in the hold arrived in the workshop to be delivered together with all the other parcels.When it landed on the roof of his house, a tinkling of bells was heard in the distance. The Elves looked out of their doors and shouted: "It's him! It's him! It's Santa Claus! He's back!"The red-nosed reindeer woke up suddenly and began polishing the sleighs, decorating them with bows and coloured pine cones.Life in the village awakened all at once. The tree branches shook as if they were being tickled. A group of penguins, who had arrived at the North Pole to lend a hand, sliding on the ice sheets at great speed, ended up inside snowdrifts and came out like bouncing balls.“You are so funny! We'll hang you on the Christmas tree as decorations!" the village animals shouted.But the penguins, freeing themselves from the snow, ran towards Santa Claus's house to help with the preparations.In the village absolutely everyone got moving. The reindeer rushed to the Post Office and filled the sacks with letters, then carried them to the workshop. The Elves with the help of the penguins were ready for work.That morning, when the bells rang out in celebration, foxes, squirrels, hares and bears came running from every corner of the forest to celebrate Santa Claus's return. There was so much to do for the joy of all the children in the world.The air smelt of fir trees and homemade biscuits. The Christmas trees sparkled with icicles like stars. The animals chased each other happily with their noses turned upwards.The preparations began in earnest. Throughout the month of December they worked together — saws that sang, hammers that played, coloured paper that flew. Santa Claus told stories of his journey whilst he hammered and sanded.And when the 24th of December arrived, everything was ready. The presents were loaded onto the sleigh and Santa Claus set off on his most important journey.The seagulls flew away towards new horizons, leaving their footprints on the snowy rooftops.Since that Christmas it is said that Santa Claus never left the North Pole again."What if it was only a tale? Is it true, or not? The final decision is yours!" — Written by Lucia & Marco CiappelliFor the Italian version and many more stories to read and listen to: https://www.storiesottolestelle.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kevin Brown is a Co-Founder and CEO of Friction Labs. In this episode of Iron Game Chalk Talk 2.0, Kevin talks to us about: How to be innovative and create products based on needs The importance of helping athletes find an edge to improve their performance Why finding your North Star as an entrepreneur is beneficial Visit our website at https://isaiahcastilleja.podbean.com/ Please visit our sponsors and show them some appreciation for their support. Visit Teambuildr at www.teambuildr.com Visit The Strength and Conditioning Co at https://thestrengthandconditioningco.com/ Visit BetterHelp at https://www.betterhelp.com/

Today, we're joined by Tricia Maia, Head of Product at TED. We all know TED Talks — but behind the scenes, TED is undergoing a massive product transformation to adapt to a post-AI media landscape. In this episode, Tricia Maia, Head of Product at TED, pulls back the curtain on how they're solving the “discovery” crisis facing digital media today. Tricia shares: * Why “views” are dead: Explaining why TED is abandoning top-of-funnel traffic as their North Star metric and shifting focus to “depth,” completion rates, and account signups to combat volatile search algorithms * AI that actually scales: How TED is using advanced AI auto-dubbing — not just subtitles — to clone speakers' voices into other languages, driving 2-3x better performance * The “gap” strategy: The challenge of connecting a decentralized ecosystem of free users and volunteers at TEDx with an ultra-premium live experience that can cost up to $12,500 per ticket Links Tricia's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/triciamaia/ TED.com: https://www.ted.com/ Chapters 00:00: Introduction 01:51: TED's Media Landscape in an AI World 02:17: What does "Product" mean at TED? 04:24: How TED is Dealing with Challenges and Strategies in Media Discovery 14:59: Evolving Metrics and Goals Beyond Vanity Metrics Like Views 24:24: How TED is Connecting Digital and Event Audiences 32:22: TED's New AI Auto-Dubbing Initiative 37:14: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/@LaunchPodPodcast)! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr). Special Guest: Tricia Maia.

Funerals began Wednesday in Australia for some of the 15 Jewish victims of the Dec. 14 Bondi Beach massacre, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger. The Chabad rabbi was shot at the popular Hanukkah candle-lighting festival near his synagogue during the terrorist attack by an ISIS-affiliated suspect. Among those who will be mourning is a former Ottawan, Michael Gencher, who now runs the Australian arm of the Jewish advocacy organization StandWithUs. Gencher was a close friend of the murdered rabbi and knew others who were killed. Gencher blames what happened squarely on the Australian government. He believes much more could have been done by the federal government over the last two years to crack down on escalating antisemitic hate, which included street protests and firebombings. Meanwhile, Jason Adessky, a former Montrealer, was near Bondi Beach with his children and their Canadian grandmother on Sunday to pick up Hanukkah treats. They nearly brought the family to the beachfront festivities, but decided against it because of the heat. Now Adessky is “trying not to think about the ‘what ifs'”. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner is joined by Jason Adessky and Michael Gencher to hear how the massacre has affected them personally, along with Australia's 117,000 other Jewish residents. Related links Read about how Canada's Jewish community is responding to the Australian terrorist attack, in The CJN. Watch the broadcast of the funeral for Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the Chabad emissary gunned down at his Hanukkah beach festival by ISIS-influenced terrorists on Bondi Beach on Dec. 14. Hear Canadian political leaders warn that our governments must do more to prevent a similar attack here, on The CJN's North Star podcast . Donate to help the victims' families in Australia with links on the Chabad of Bondi website. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Hilton Misso once sold a law firm for $57 million. Here, he reflects on what it means to succeed as a lawyer and how best practitioners can achieve success – in whatever form that takes. In this episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with lawyer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and author Hilton Misso about drawing inspiration from his father to be a good legal practitioner, how technology aids guiding principles, what he believes constitutes success for lawyers, and whether what success looks like can evolve or if a North Star is needed. Misso also delves into the steps that must be taken in order to build an ethical, profitable practice, checking in on one's progress, overcoming challenges on the road to success, making time in the day in order to achieve, the lessons he learnt from selling his law firm for $57 million, how he learnt to be a leader, the power of discipline, and knowing when to walk away from what one has built. If you like this episode, show your support by rating us or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (The Lawyers Weekly Show) and by following Lawyers Weekly on social media: Facebook, X and LinkedIn. If you have any questions about what you heard today, any topics of interest you have in mind, or if you'd like to lend your voice to the show, email editor@lawyersweekly.com.au

Where has Santa Claus gone?Once upon a time there was Santa Claus's Village — but Santa Claus wasn't there. He had been missing for days and days… actually for months. Who would prepare and deliver gifts to the children as they did every year?That part of the North Pole which was usually very busy had become strangely silent — not an Elf could be seen around, no sounds of bells, the sleighs were covered in snow and all the reindeer dozed about confused.If you looked into his house you couldn't see a trace of life. The fireplace cold, the rocking chair covered in cobwebs, an empty cup on the wooden table and a candle stub burnt out long ago.Many were the rumours that had spread about Santa Claus's absence. Some said he was on another planet in a far, far away galaxy, some on the Moon, some on the vast oceans — and someone even said he had opened a bakery in Buenos Aires.The mystery was thick. Nobody could make sense of it and everything was silent and still.Meanwhile, many miles away, in the Southern Seas, a group of seagulls who spent their days fluttering above the bay spotted a small sailing boat in the distance. There was only one sailor on board who was hoisting the main sail up the creaking mast.The eldest seagull couldn't believe his eyes. He did a couple of acrobatics in the air, pulled out his spyglass, looked more carefully and said: "But I know him! That sailor comes from distant lands!"Turning to the other seagulls he told them: "One day, during one of my long journeys, I lost my way and found myself on the frozen rooftops of a village at the North Pole. I landed right on the house of that long-bearded man you see on the boat. He heard me calling for help, came to fetch me, fed me and told me about his work. I think this meeting has something magical about it. Our next adventure is about to begin."Gliding down, they headed towards the boat and all landed on the bow. The seagull and the sailor greeted each other like old friends.Shortly after, a group of dolphins arrived near the sailing boat, curious. They swam in circles around the boat, jumping out of the water.The youngest dolphin noticed something strange. "Look! Wood shavings are coming out of the hold and floating! And you can see little lights below deck."The long-bearded sailor smiled. "Come," he said in a warm voice, "I'll show you what I've done all these months."He opened the hatch to the hold and inside, by the light of two swaying lanterns, you could see a floating workshop full of wonders. With a sharp plane he had worked pieces of wood recovered from the sea, transforming them into toys — and he had done the same with shells, coconuts, cork stoppers, glass bottles, starfish and golden threads that had arrived from who knows where."I travelled to learn new ways of bringing joy," the sailor explained. "But there's so much work to do and Christmas is coming. Would you help me finish?"And so they all set to work together. The dolphins brought special shells from the bottom of the sea. The seagulls gathered coloured feathers. The objects transformed into gifts were placed in large canvas sacks.The days passed quickly.On the first of December the captain, wearing his red warm hat with his pipe in his mouth, looked at the starry sky and said: "It's time to leave."The dolphins lifted the sailing boat until it rose above the waves. The sails filled with wind and it took flight, whilst the flock of seagulls guided it through the clouds following dreams. Together they continued the journey heading north, flying through the endless blue.Night fell quickly and in the sky full of stars one shone brighter than all the others. It was the North Star which with its light accompanied the sailing boat's descent to earth.By magic, as it approached the village, the sailing boat transformed into a sleigh loaded with gifts. The presents built in the hold arrived in the workshop to be delivered together with all the other parcels.When it landed on the roof of his house, a tinkling of bells was heard in the distance. The Elves looked out of their doors and shouted: "It's him! It's him! It's Santa Claus! He's back!"The red-nosed reindeer woke up suddenly and began polishing the sleighs, decorating them with bows and coloured pine cones.Life in the village awakened all at once. The tree branches shook as if they were being tickled. A group of penguins, who had arrived at the North Pole to lend a hand, sliding on the ice sheets at great speed, ended up inside snowdrifts and came out like bouncing balls.“You are so funny! We'll hang you on the Christmas tree as decorations!" the village animals shouted.But the penguins, freeing themselves from the snow, ran towards Santa Claus's house to help with the preparations.In the village absolutely everyone got moving. The reindeer rushed to the Post Office and filled the sacks with letters, then carried them to the workshop. The Elves with the help of the penguins were ready for work.That morning, when the bells rang out in celebration, foxes, squirrels, hares and bears came running from every corner of the forest to celebrate Santa Claus's return. There was so much to do for the joy of all the children in the world.The air smelt of fir trees and homemade biscuits. The Christmas trees sparkled with icicles like stars. The animals chased each other happily with their noses turned upwards.The preparations began in earnest. Throughout the month of December they worked together — saws that sang, hammers that played, coloured paper that flew. Santa Claus told stories of his journey whilst he hammered and sanded.And when the 24th of December arrived, everything was ready. The presents were loaded onto the sleigh and Santa Claus set off on his most important journey.The seagulls flew away towards new horizons, leaving their footprints on the snowy rooftops.Since that Christmas it is said that Santa Claus never left the North Pole again."What if it was only a tale? Is it true, or not? The final decision is yours!" — Written by Lucia & Marco CiappelliFor the Italian version and many more stories to read and listen to: https://www.storiesottolestelle.com Each story is currently written and narrated in both Italian and English.The translation from Italian (the original language) to English and the reading of the stories are performed using Generative Artificial Intelligence — which perhaps has a touch of magic... We hope it has done a good job!If you like it, make sure to tell your friends, family, and teachers, and subscribe to this podcast to stay updated. You'll be able to read or listen to new stories as soon as they become available. Visit us On The Official Website https://www.storiesottolestelle.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We share Ben's journey from selective mutism and to bold faith, deep community, and a calling that blends real estate with ministry. The conversation gets practical on reframing blessing, building godly friendships, and taking back attention from screens.• Life update on real estate plans in Northwest Arkansas• Outdoor passions as joy and renewal• College community that lasts beyond campus• Summer camp lessons in communication and grit• NorthStar teachers meeting students where they are• Bridging cultural divides with humility and truth• Blessing as equipment for God's purposes• Screen time pitfalls and simple habits that help

Measuring marketing's impact is hard. There's no silver bullet. And if someone tells you there is, they're probably selling you something that only tracks clicks.This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by Chief Analytics Officer Matt Hultgren to tackle one of marketing's most persistent challenges: measurement. They explore why so many campaigns fail before they even launch, how to balance short-term performance with long-term brand building, and why the best marketers use multiple models to find the truth.Topics covered: [02:00] Why human behavior makes measurement messy[04:00] The planning problem causing measurement failures[06:00] Choosing your North Star metric[08:00] Balancing immediate CAC with long-term brand growth[10:00] Using multiple models to triangulate the truth[13:00] Quantifying TV's halo effect across channels[15:00] Incrementality testing vs MMM vs synthetic controls To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: 2025 Marketing Architects Report: https://www.marketingarchitects.com/Long-and-Short  Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

In this episode of Quakers Today, co-hosts Sweet Miche (they/them) and Peterson Toscano (he/him) tackle a question that seems simple but is actually quite complex: What do Quakers believe? We explore the wide theological spectrum of the Religious Society of Friends from those who view the Bible as the inerrant word of God to those who may not believe in God at all. A Smorgasbord of Beliefs We hear from Adam Segal-Isaacson, a Friend from Brooklyn Meeting who was raised both Jewish and Quaker. Adam shares how he navigates his dual identity and offers a powerful metaphor about harmony versus monotony in worship. Watch the full QuakerSpeak video: Do All Quakers Hold the Same Beliefs? An Evangelical Friend Among Liberals Peterson sits down with Jasson Arevalo, an Evangelical Quaker from El Salvador and a student at the Earlham School of Religion. Jasson describes the "Programmed" tradition of his upbringing—complete with pastors and music—and his view of Biblical inerrancy. He shares his experience of studying alongside Liberal, Unprogrammed Friends and how curiosity and respect bridge the theological divide. Read Jasson's article, "You Will Be Told What You Must Do," in the December 2025 issue of Friends Journal or at FriendsJournal.org. Convincement and Belonging What makes someone a Quaker? Is it a membership card or an internal shift? We review the new Pendle Hill pamphlet, Awakening the Witness: Convincement and Belonging in Quaker Community by Matt Rosen. The pamphlet explores the distinction between "convincement", the spiritual experience of becoming a Friend, and formal membership. Learn more at PendleHill.org. Recommendation Peterson recommends the Iranian film It Was Just an Accident, directed by Jafar Panahi. It is a darkly comic and morally complicated story about the long-term effects of trauma and the refusal to become like one's oppressors. Listener Responses We asked you: What do you believe now that you didn't believe before becoming a Friend? Jeremy shares how Quaker history helped him understand the "Great Apostasy" as the moment the church merged with political power. Zoe discusses moving from "religion as harm" to religion as a positive force for community. Creative Decorating reflects on the mind-blowing concept of "that of God in everyone." Resources Mentioned: QuakerSpeak Video: Do All Quakers Hold the Same Beliefs? (Featuring Adam Segal-Isaacson): quakerspeak.com/video/do-all-quakers-hold-the-same-beliefs Read Jasson's Article: "You Will Be Told What You Must Do" in Friends Journal: friendsjournal.org/you-will-be-told-what-you-must-do Pendle Hill Pamphlet: Awakening the Witness by Matt Rosen: pendlehill.org/product/awakening-the-witness-convincement-and-belonging-in-quaker-community Next Month's Question We want to hear from you! What is something you learned in school about Native Americans or Indigenous peoples that you've since learned is not true? Leave us a voice memo with your name and town at 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377). (+1 if outside the U.S.) You can also reply by email at podcast@FriendsJournal.org or on our social media channels. Sponsors Quakers Today is the companion podcast to Friends Journal and other Friends Publishing Corporation content. Season Five of Quakers Today is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Friends Fiduciary provides professional investment management for Quaker organizations, uniting financial goals with Quaker values. Learn more at FriendsFiduciary.org. AFSC works to challenge injustice and build peace. Their "North Star Vision" calls for transformative alternatives to prisons and policing. Learn more at afsc.org/NorthStar. For a full transcript, visit QuakersToday.org.

Do people constantly comment on how "busy" you are? It's tough to know if that's a compliment or just a weary observation. We get it.  But busyness doesn't have to mean burnout. Join us as we explore how to ditch the feeling of just "getting through life" and instead, lock onto a clear, powerful mission that genuinely excites you. Our team shares our personal journeys—the honest, sometimes messy process of figuring out how to eliminate commitments that don't align with our deepest desires. We'll show you how to find your own soul-feeding joy and use crystal-clear clarity as your North Star. When you define your core purpose, saying "no" becomes surprisingly easy—it truly is a complete sentence. This frees up your time, not for leisure, but for truly meaningful, fulfilling experiences. Stop just being busy with your time; start being productive with your life.

Hey Tribesmen, Episode 63 is here, and this one is for every man who knows he's capable of more but hasn't been living like it. I sat down with Eli Wininger, IDF Special Forces veteran, ultra-runner, and men's health coach, for a conversation about discipline, purpose, and what it truly means to be a strong Jewish man today. Eli's story is unreal. He grew up in LA, chose to volunteer for the IDF, survived life-and-death moments in Gaza, ran 251 miles for the hostages, and now coaches men into becoming disciplined, capable leaders. But what makes this episode powerful isn't the dramatic stories, it's the clarity: Men don't need more motivation. They need discipline, purpose, and a reason bigger than their excuses. If you've been drifting… inconsistent… or wanting to level up for your wife, kids, and community, this episode is your wake-up call.     What You'll Learn Why discipline builds confidence Motivation fades. Discipline lasts. Eli explains how the IDF builds it, and how any man can start today. How small habits reshape identity Change one habit. Keep one promise. Build one win. That's how men transform. Why Jewish men must get strong Strength protects. Weakness endangers. The world needs strong Jewish men again. The power of wrapping tefillin Heart → head → hand. Align yourself before you start your day. Why porn destroys clarity and intimacy It weakens discipline, distorts reality, and damages connection. Purpose as fuel When Eli almost died in Gaza, he realized he wasn't living with meaning. Purpose changed everything. How to show up when life hits hard The same mindset that got him through the battlefield, and 251 miles, can carry any man through challenges. Why discipline creates safety in marriage Consistency builds security. Security builds intimacy. Why men are struggling mentally today Distraction. No challenge. No brotherhood. Eli breaks down how to rebuild strength of mind. Calling yourself out Most men's biggest enemy is the lie they tell themselves.     Key Takeaways for the Tribe ✔ Discipline Beats Motivation, motivation disappears, discipline builds the man you respect. ✔ Strength Is a Jewish Value, your body protects your family and community. ✔ Do One Thing Every Day, small wins compound. ✔ Purpose Is the North Star, when the "why" is strong, the excuses die. ✔ Cut Porn Out, purity strengthens clarity and intimacy. ✔ Lead by Example, your kids learn from your consistency. ✔ Consistency Creates Safety, your wife relaxes when she trusts your steadiness. ✔ Measure Your Life, if you're not tracking it, you're guessing. ✔ Brotherhood Is Essential, no man stays sharp alone.     Show Notes 00:00 – Introduction Yigal shares the wild story of how his wife sent him Eli's reel before the interview. 01:00 – Eli's Background Growing up in LA and choosing to defend Israel. 02:23 – Volunteering for the IDF His grandfather's Holocaust story and the moment Eli committed to service. 04:28 – Discipline in the IDF How small tasks turn boys into disciplined men. 07:59 – Motivation vs Discipline Why motivation collapses and discipline lasts. 08:58 – Discipline December Master one habit at a time. 10:05 – Why Tefillin Matters Aligning heart, mind, and action. 12:00 – Kids Watching You Consistency shapes children. 13:29 – Jewish Men and Strength Why weakness is dangerous today. 16:00 – Wear the Magen David Jewish pride is non-negotiable. 18:38 – Why Porn Destroys Discipline It kills clarity, intimacy, and self-respect. 21:59 – Finding Purpose The moment in Gaza that changed Eli's life. 25:08 – The Worst Day in Gaza Mines, fire, bullets, the day his team almost didn't make it home. 29:03 – Mindset Under Fire Purpose fueled survival. 31:04 – Why Men Are Struggling Social media, no challenge, no brotherhood. 34:48 – Discipline Creates Joy Doing what you say you will do builds confidence. 35:52 – Marriage and Safety Consistency makes a wife feel secure. 38:06 – Accountability Matters Why men need coaching and challenge. 41:44 – Eli Builds Disciplined Men This is deeper than fitness. 45:19 – Data + Discipline Wearables and tracking make growth real. 46:02 – How to Work With Eli Instagram @eliwinning. 47:18 – Closing Blessing A call for Jewish strength, courage, and pride.     This episode is for every man who wants to reclaim discipline, build strength, live with purpose, and lead his family with confidence. Stay strong, stay disciplined, Yigal P.S. If this hit home, choose one habit today. One promise. One action. Discipline begins now.

Dexory builds data intelligence platforms for logistics, using autonomous robots to create digital twins of warehouse operations. With over $280 million raised through a recent preemptive Series C, the company has scaled from a bootstrapped startup to a full-stack robotics operation expanding across Europe and the US. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Andrei Danescu, Founder and CEO of Dexory, to unpack how the company navigated early product-market misalignment, cracked the messaging for a category-creating technology, and maintained execution velocity as a capital-intensive business. Topics Discussed: Building in logistics after observing parts tracking failures in Formula One operations The costly mistake: spending years on public space robots before committing to warehouse logistics Why bootstrapping for five to six years forced product discipline before venture funding Messaging shift from autonomous robot capabilities to inventory visibility pain points Zero infrastructure change as a strategic product constraint for live warehouse deployments Geographic expansion strategy using multinational customers for internal reference selling How the convergence of AI adoption, sensor cost reduction, and industry data appetite created market timing Maintaining commercial velocity as the primary metric for Series C readiness in full-stack businesses GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Message to the problem, not the technology stack: When Dexory led with "world's tallest autonomous robots" and "scan 10,000+ pallets per hour," prospects responded with "what does it actually do?" The shift to leading with inventory visibility and stock control—a pain point customers immediately recognized—unlocked early traction. For category-creating products, customers need to map your solution to existing problems before they can appreciate technical differentiation. Andrei's insight: start with the problem customers know they have, then layer in technical superiority once you've established relevance. Turn operational constraints into product requirements: Dexory designed around the reality that warehouses operate as "live businesses" that cannot pause for infrastructure overhauls. Zero infrastructure change became a core product spec, not a nice-to-have feature. This required autonomous navigation in complex, dynamic environments rather than controlled spaces. Founders building for established industries should identify non-negotiable operational constraints early and architect solutions that respect them rather than requiring customers to adapt their operations. Build value expansion mechanisms before closing your first customer: Dexory established infrastructure for continuous product improvement from day one, treating early deployments as ongoing collaborations rather than transactions. Customers influenced roadmap priorities while Dexory delivered incremental value increases over time. This transformed buyers into advocates who took "point of pride" in the technology. The tactical approach: structure customer agreements and product architecture to support continuous delivery cycles that compound value rather than one-time implementations. Use multinational customers as geographic expansion infrastructure: Instead of opening regional offices across territories, Dexory targeted global companies where a European deployment could generate US interest through internal reference calls. Andrei noted this creates "a lot stronger" references "because they're already part of the same company." The expansion velocity this enabled—UK to Europe to US without massive regional buildout—proved critical for a capital-intensive business. Founders should prioritize customers with multi-region operations who can accelerate geographic reach through internal advocacy networks. Treat post-raise execution velocity as your next round metric: After Dexory's Series B, investors returned a month later to find the company "already ahead of plan." This consistent over-delivery on growth targets set up their preemptive Series C. For full-stack businesses where each dollar deployed takes longer to show returns, maintaining commercial momentum signals execution capability that justifies higher valuations. Andrei's warning: the temptation to slow down and "invest a bit more in product" after raising capital is exactly when founders need to double down on commercial traction as the North Star. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Are you building a dream board for 2026 or just making a pretty collage you'll forget by March? Most people stop at the pictures. But as a leader, your vision needs to be a strategic roadmap, not just an aesthetic. In this week's Empowerment Minutes episode, “Beyond the Board: Building Your 2026 Dream Board Anchored in Purpose,” we explore how to design a vision board rooted in your North Star. When your board is anchored in your Purpose, Values, and Impact, it becomes a powerful leadership tool that keeps you aligned when things get busy. Tune in on your favorite podcast platform and start designing a 2026 you can actually see and step into.  Ready to go deeper on your own? Grab a copy of my newly released Dream Big and Live Your Dreams Boldly Workbook a structured, self-guided process to help you move from the board to the breakthrough.

In this educational, refreshing, and beautifully hopeful episode, Wren, the creator of the Living Our Breast Lives Podcast, is joined by the incredible Metastatic Breast Cancer Thriver, Carolyn Leigh, the President of North Star Cancer Advocacy.In 2018, she was the third member of her family to be diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, including her mother and uncle. After her metastatic diagnosis, she spent years studying the latest scientific understandings about the immune system and immunotherapies for cancer before launching North Star Cancer Advocacy in 2022 with the aim of providing information to the community and advocating for vast increases in NIH funding. The North Star Board of Directors and the MBC community recently raised $100k to further the research of combining Natural Killer cells (immune system cells) and one of the most promising breast cancer drugs in preclinical development, ErSO-TFPy.In this episode, join me as Carolyn breaks down: - How the inspirational Judy Perkins and TILs therapy reshaped her belief in what's possible- The moment she decided to found North Star- A simple breakdown of MHC I expression and why some immunotherapies succeed while others don't- A crash course in how immunotherapy actually works inside the body- Her mission to raise six figures for immunotherapy-driven clinical trials — and what real success would look like - How and where to access immunotherapy clinical trials- A raw conversation about allyship, momentum, and why the MBC movement can't depend solely on those living with the diseaseCarolyn isn't just an MBC advocate… she's a brilliant mind, a fierce researcher, the president of the North Star Cancer Research Foundation, and a woman determined to change the future of metastatic breast cancer!Living Our Breast Lives Information:Email: livingourbreastlivespodcast1@gmail.comInstagram: @livingourbreastlivesFounder: Wren MorrobelPersonal Instagram: @wren_morrPodcast Guest Speaker: Carolyn Leigh's Information:Email: NorthStarCancerAdvocacy@yahoo.comInstagram: @north.star.cancer.advocacy@north.star.cancer.researchFacebook: North Star Cancer Research FoundationWebsite: NorthStarCancerResearch.orgCRI Clinical Trial Finder:https://cri.careboxhealth.com/en-US/

L1 blockchains have gone through every hype cycle: ICOs, NFTs, gaming, metaverse, now AI. But what actually survives?In this episode, I speak with Alexander Zahnd, CEO of Zilliqa, an L1 that launched in 2017 and recently became fully EVM-compatible. Alex shares his journey from a decade in Swiss TradFi and treasury/regulatory projects into DeFi, and how that shaped his views on financial rigor, regulation and long-term blockchain adoption.Key Timestamps[00:00:00] Mercenary DeFi users: Alex explains why liquidity follows the highest incentives and why this is a problem for long-term protocol sustainability.[00:01:00] From Swiss banks to Zilliqa: A decade in TradFi, treasury and regulation, discovering DeFi as “finance without intermediaries,” and joining Zilliqa four years ago.[00:05:00] L1 landscape today: How Zilliqa moved from sharding-focused scalability to full EVM compatibility, and why EVM + SVM gravity is consolidating general-purpose L1s.[00:08:00] Narrative chasing vs. building: ICOs, gaming, NFTs, metaverse, AI—all tried at Zilliqa; why chasing every hype is fragile and a clear, durable North Star matters.[00:11:00] AI x blockchain: Alex uses AI tools daily but is skeptical of forced “AI + chain” narratives until real, organic use cases emerge.[00:13:00] Real institutional adoption: Institutions aren't allergic to crypto; they're allergic to operational and regulatory uncertainty. Why audit-ready, compliant infra will be a major driver.[00:14:00] Where DeFi still has upside: Derivatives, perps, structured products, on-chain treasuries, RWAs, and permissioned DeFi rails for institutions and KYC'd wallets.[00:17:00] Token design lessons: Tokens should coordinate and power utility flows, not exist purely for price appreciation or quick fundraising.[00:20:00] Price vs fundamentals: How token price is the easiest visible metric, but often detached from real usage—unlike equities, where mature analyst coverage helps.[00:24:00] Lowering dev friction: Why Zilliqa's EVM compatibility and AI-assisted tooling matter for non-engineer builders to prototype and ship ideas faster.[00:28:00] On-chain LEIs with Liechtenstein: A government-backed initiative for blockchain-verifiable legal entity identifiers as a bridge between TradFi and Web3.[00:29:00] Alex's ask: Strategic partnerships, institutional integrations and long-range alliances around regulated, EVM-based infrastructure.Connecthttps://zilliqa.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/zilliqa/https://x.com/zilliqaDisclaimerNothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend.Get featuredBe a guest on the podcast or contact us – https://www.web3pod.xyz/

La semaine s'ouvre sur RTL2 Pop-Rock Station avec une sélection réconfortante avant les vacances de Noël : Thin Lizzy, Blue Öyster Cult, Faith No More, mais aussi des nouveautés signées Kasabian, Tame Impala et Rise of the Northstar. La soirée se poursuit entre indie rock et classiques, de Courtney Barnett à PJ Harvey. L'antenne se met doucement à l'heure des fêtes avec un focus sur "Do They Know It's Christmas" de Band Aid, hymne caritatif de 1984 devenu un marqueur historique de la pop britannique. Plus tard, Faith No More, Geese et une relecture audacieuse du "Boléro" de Maurice Ravel par Victor Le Masne, avec la participation de Rahim Redcar, apportent une touche inattendue à l'émission. En fin de programme, RTL2 Pop-Rock Station navigue entre Mark Knopfler en solo, Unprocessed, The Doors et une nouveauté de Headkeyz, groupe montpelliérain de metal alternatif. La dernière ligne droite s'adoucit avec Feist, The Strokes et Elliott Smith, avant de conclure la soirée avec Adele Tame Impala et Jackson Browne. Kasabian - Hippie Sunshine Soundgarden - Rusty Cage The Good - The Bad & The Queen Thin Lizzy - Whiskey In The Jar Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man P.J. Harvey - A Place Called Home Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas Blue Öyster Cult - Dont Fear The Reaper The Automatic - Monster Faith No More - Easy Geese - Cobra Victor Le Masne & Rahim Redcar - Bolero Phoenix - Everything Is Everything Mark Knopfler - What It Is Unprocessed - Head In The Clouds The Doors - Break On Through (To The Other Side) The Ting Tings - Shut Up And Let Me Go Rise Of The Northstar - Neo Paris Crosby, Stills & Nash - Teach Your Children Feist - My Moon My Man Headkeyz - The Crown Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song The Strokes - The End Has No End Elliott Smith - Everything Means Nothing To Me Adele - Rumour Has It Tame Impala - Dracula Jackson Browne - The Load Out / Stay (Live)Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

David Cleevely didn't approach hospitality like a chef — he approached it like a systems engineer. After decades building companies at the heart of British technology and science, Cleevely went on to co-own one of the UK's most iconic Italian restaurants. In this conversation, he explains why running a restaurant isn't that different from running a technology business — if you understand systems, incentives, and long-term thinking. This isn't a story about Silicon Valley hype. It's about infrastructure, patience, culture, and why the boring bits are what actually make businesses work. ===============

Preaching: Ben ConachanMuch is wrong with the world and it breaks our hearts. We feel discouraged. We feel overwhelmed. We feel hopeless. Our Advent sermon series, Held by Longing, will plumb the depths of our sorrow. But then, we'll keep going. We'll follow the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures in considering how our discouragement, overwhelm, and hopelessness can, like the North Star, hold us in light that guides us onward. Onward, to participate in Divine Love, which is capable of making all things new.Pearl Church exists to express a sacred story and to extend a common table that animate life by love. A primary expression of our sacred story is the weekly sermon. If our sermons inspire you to ponder the sacred, to consider the mystery and love of God, and to live bountifully, would you consider supporting our work? You can donate easily and securely at our website: pearlchurch.org. Thank you for partnering with us in expressing this sacred story.

Send us a textWhat if authority wasn't about being the best closer, but about creating the safest decision for your buyer? Grant sits down with Doug Brown—CEO of CEO Sales Strategies—to explore how shared context, credible associations, and personal ROI can transform ordinary sales conversations into trust-driven commitments. From New England roots to global brands, Doug shows why familiarity is a strategic lever, not a vanity metric.We dig into the gap between “good” sales teams and those viewed as market authorities. The surprise: status and positioning can tilt the field before price is ever discussed. Using vivid examples—from first-class optics to iconic venues—Doug explains how perception amplifies pricing power. But he also grounds it in craft: speak to the business ROI and the personal ROI driving real human decisions, whether that's safety, reputation, or career risk. Buyers sign when they feel both the numbers and the nerves are addressed.The heart of the conversation is resilience. Doug recounts a costly client pivot that vaporized roughly $2M, then shares the mental and operational playbook that pulled him forward: stop treating symptoms, remove root causes, and take one meaningful step every day toward a clear North Star. We also get practical with a 90-day revenue plan that works without heroics—set a truthful target, do the math on KPIs, reengage dormant clients, increase touchpoints, and define your ideal right-fit buyer to align message and market. We close with a grounded take on AI: use it to accelerate research and outreach, but never outsource the human-to-human moments that make complex deals possible.If you're ready to sell with authority, protect your margins, and build pipeline you can trust, this conversation gives you the mindset and methods to start today. Subscribe, share with a teammate who needs a boost, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we read every one.Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates, visit 5starbdm.com. And don't miss Grant McGaugh's new book, First Light — a powerful guide to igniting your purpose and building a BRAVE brand that stands out in a changing world. - https://5starbdm.com/brave-masterclass/ See you next time on Follow The Brand!

BONUS: Swimming in Tech Debt — Practical Techniques to Keep Your Team from Drowning in Its Codebase In this fascinating conversation, veteran software engineer and author Lou Franco shares hard-won lessons from decades at startups, Trello, and Atlassian. We explore his book "Swimming in Tech Debt," diving deep into the 8 Questions framework for evaluating tech debt decisions, personal practices that compound over time, team-level strategies for systematic improvement, and leadership approaches that balance velocity with sustainability. Lou reveals why tech debt is often the result of success, how to navigate the spectrum between ignoring debt and rewriting too much, and practical techniques individuals, teams, and leaders can use starting today. The Exit Interview That Changed Everything "We didn't go slower by paying tech debt. We went actually faster, because we were constantly in that code, and now we didn't have to run into problems." — Lou Franco   Lou's understanding of tech debt crystallized during an exit interview at Atalasoft, a small startup where he'd spent years. An engineer leaving the company confronted him: "You guys don't care about tech debt." Lou had been focused on shipping features, believing that paying tech debt would slow them down. But this engineer told a different story — when they finally fixed their terrible build and installation system, they actually sped up. They were constantly touching that code, and removing the friction made everything easier. This moment revealed a fundamental truth: tech debt isn't just about code quality or engineering pride. It's about velocity, momentum, and the ability to move fast sustainably. Lou carried this lesson through his career at Trello (where he learned the dangers of rewriting too much) and Atlassian (where he saw enterprise-scale tech debt management). These experiences became the foundation for "Swimming in Tech Debt." Tech Debt Is the Result of Success "Tech debt is often the result of success. Unsuccessful projects don't have tech debt." — Lou Franco   This reframes the entire conversation about tech debt. Failed products don't accumulate debt — they disappear before it matters. Tech debt emerges when your code survives long enough to outlive its original assumptions, when your user base grows beyond initial expectations, when your team scales faster than your architecture anticipated. At Atalasoft, they built for 10 users and got 100. At Trello, mobile usage exploded beyond their web-first assumptions. Success creates tech debt by changing the context in which code operates. This means tech debt conversations should happen at different intensities depending on where you are in the product lifecycle. Early startups pursuing product-market fit should minimize tech debt investments — move fast, learn, potentially throw away the code. Growth-stage companies need balanced approaches. Mature products benefit significantly from tech debt investments because operational efficiency compounds over years. Understanding this lifecycle perspective helps teams make appropriate decisions rather than applying one-size-fits-all rules. The 8 Questions Framework for Tech Debt Decisions "Those 8 questions guide you to what you should do. If it's risky, has regressions, and you don't even know if it's gonna work, this is when you're gonna do a project spike." — Lou Franco   Lou introduces a systematic framework for evaluating whether to pay tech debt, inspired by Bob Moesta's push-pull forces from product management. The 8 questions create a complete picture:   Visibility — Will people outside the team understand what we're doing? Alignment — Does this match our engineering values and target architecture? Resistance — How hard is this code to work with right now? Volatility — How often do we touch this code? Regression Risk — What's the chance we'll introduce new problems? Project Size — How big is this to fix? Estimate Risk — How uncertain are we about the effort required? Outcome Uncertainty — How confident are we the fix will actually improve things?   High volatility and high resistance with low regression risk? Pay the debt now. High regression risk with no tests? Write tests first, then reassess. Uncertain outcomes on a big project? Do a spike or proof of concept. The framework prevents both extremes — ignoring costly debt and undertaking risky rewrites without proper preparation. Personal Practices That Compound Daily "When I sit down at my desk, the first thing I do is I pay a little tech debt. I'm looking at code, I'm about to change it, do I even understand it? Am I having some kind of resistance to it? Put in a little helpful comment, maybe a little refactoring." — Lou Franco   Lou shares personal habits that create compounding improvements over time. Start each coding session by paying a small amount of tech debt in the area you're about to work — add a clarifying comment, extract a confusing variable, improve a function name. This warms you up, reduces friction for your actual work, and leaves the code slightly better than you found it. The clean-as-you-go philosophy means tech debt never accumulates faster than you can manage it. But Lou's most powerful practice comes at the end of each session: mutation testing by hand. Before finishing for the day, deliberately break something — change a plus to minus, a less-than to less-than-or-equal. See if tests catch it. Often they don't, revealing gaps in test coverage. The key insight: don't fix it immediately. Leave that failing test as the bridge to tomorrow's coding session. It connects today's momentum to tomorrow's work, ensuring you always start with context and purpose rather than cold-starting each day. Mutation Testing: Breaking Things on Purpose "Before I'm done working on a coding session, I break something on purpose. I'll change a plus to a minus, a less than to a less than equals, and see if tests break. A lot of times tests don't break. Now you've found a problem in your test." — Lou Franco   Manual mutation testing — deliberately breaking code to verify tests catch the break — reveals a critical gap in most test suites. You can have 100% code coverage and still have untested behavior. A line of code that's executed during tests isn't necessarily tested — the test might not actually verify what that line does. By changing operators, flipping booleans, or altering constants, you discover whether your tests protect against actual logic errors or just exercise code paths. Lou recommends doing this manually as part of your daily practice, but automated tools exist for systematic discovery: Stryker (for JavaScript, C#, Scala) and MutMut (for Python) can mutate your entire codebase and report which mutations survive uncaught. This isn't just about test quality — it's about understanding what your code actually does and building confidence that changes won't introduce subtle bugs. Team-Level Practices: Budgets, Backlogs, and Target Architecture "Create a target architecture document — where would we be if we started over today? Every PR is an opportunity to move slightly toward that target." — Lou Franco   At the team level, Lou advocates for three interconnected practices. First, create a target architecture document that describes where you'd be if starting fresh today — not a detailed design, but architectural patterns, technology choices, and structural principles that represent current best practices. This isn't a rewrite plan; it's a North Star. Every pull request becomes an opportunity to move incrementally toward that target when touching relevant code. Second, establish a budget split between PM-led feature work and engineering-led tech debt work — perhaps 80/20 or whatever ratio fits your product lifecycle stage. This creates predictable capacity for tech debt without requiring constant negotiation. Third, hold quarterly tech debt backlog meetings separate from sprint planning. Treat this backlog like PMs treat product discovery — explore options, estimate impacts, prioritize based on the 8 Questions framework. Some items fit in sprints; others require dedicated engineers for a quarter or two. This systematic approach prevents tech debt from being perpetually deprioritized while avoiding the opposite extreme of engineers disappearing into six-month "improvement" projects with no visible progress. The Atlassian Five-Alarm Fire "The Atlassian CTO's 'five-alarm fire' — stopping all feature development to focus on reliability. I reduced sync errors by 75% during that initiative." — Lou Franco   Lou shares a powerful example of leadership-driven tech debt management at scale. The Atlassian CTO called a "five-alarm fire" — halting all feature development across the company to focus exclusively on reliability and tech debt. This wasn't panic; it was strategic recognition that accumulated debt threatened the business. Lou worked on reducing sync errors, achieving a 75% reduction during this focused period. The initiative demonstrated several leadership principles: willingness to make hard calls that stop revenue-generating feature work, clear communication of why reliability matters strategically, trust that teams will use the time wisely, and commitment to see it through despite pressure to resume features. This level of intervention is rare and shouldn't be frequent, but it shows what's possible when leadership truly prioritizes tech debt. More commonly, leaders should express product lifecycle constraints (startup urgency vs. mature product stability), give teams autonomy to find appropriate projects within those constraints, and require accountability through visible metrics and dashboards that show progress. The Rewrite Trap: Why Big Rewrites Usually Fail "A system that took 10 years to write has implicit knowledge that can't be replicated in 6 months. I'm mostly gonna advocate for piecemeal migrations along the way, reducing the size of the problem over time." — Lou Franco   Lou lived through Trello's iOS navigation rewrite — a classic example of throwing away working code to start fresh, only to discover all the edge cases, implicit behaviors, and user expectations baked into the "old" system. A codebase that evolved over several years contains implicit knowledge — user workflows, edge case handling, performance optimizations, and subtle behaviors that users rely on even if they never explicitly requested them. Attempting to rewrite this in six months inevitably misses critical details. Lou strongly advocates for piecemeal migrations instead. The Trello "Decaffeinate Project" exemplifies this approach — migrating from CoffeeScript to TypeScript incrementally, with public dashboards showing the percentage remaining, interoperable technologies allowing gradual transition, and the ability to pause or reverse if needed. Keep both systems running in parallel during migrations. Use runtime observability to verify new code behaves identically to old code. Reduce the problem size steadily over months rather than attempting big-bang replacements. The only exception: sometimes keeping parallel systems requires scaffolding that creates its own complexity, so evaluate whether piecemeal migration is actually simpler or if you're better off living with the current system. Making Tech Debt Visible Through Dashboards "Put up a dashboard, showing it happen. Make invisible internal improvements visible through metrics engineering leadership understands." — Lou Franco   One of tech debt's biggest challenges is invisibility — non-technical stakeholders can't see the improvement from refactoring or test coverage. Lou learned to make tech debt work visible through dashboards and metrics. The Decaffeinate Project tracked percentage of CoffeeScript files remaining, providing a clear progress indicator anyone could understand. When reducing sync errors, Lou created dashboards showing error rates declining over time. These visualizations serve multiple purposes: they demonstrate value to leadership, create accountability for engineering teams, build momentum as progress becomes visible, and help teams celebrate wins that would otherwise go unnoticed. The key is choosing metrics that matter to the business — error rates, page load times, deployment frequency, mean time to recovery — rather than pure code quality metrics like cyclomatic complexity that don't translate outside engineering. Connect tech debt work to customer experience, reliability, or developer productivity in ways leadership can see and value. Onboarding as a Tech Debt Opportunity "Unit testing is a really great way to learn a system. It's like an executable specification that's helping you prove that you understand the system." — Lou Franco   Lou identifies onboarding as an underutilized opportunity for tech debt reduction. When new engineers join, they need to learn the codebase. Rather than just reading code or shadowing, Lou suggests having them write unit tests in areas they're learning. This serves dual purposes: tests are executable specifications that prove understanding of system behavior, and they create safety nets in areas that likely lack coverage (otherwise, why would new engineers be confused by the code?). The new engineer gets hands-on learning, the team gets better test coverage, and everyone wins. This practice also surfaces confusing code — if new engineers struggle to understand what to test, that's a signal the code needs clarifying comments, better naming, or refactoring. Make onboarding a systematic tech debt reduction opportunity rather than passive knowledge transfer. Leadership's Role: Constraints, Autonomy, and Accountability "Leadership needs to express the constraints. Tell the team what you're feeling about tech debt at a high level, and what you think generally is the appropriate amount of time to be spent on it. Then give them autonomy." — Lou Franco   Lou distills leadership's role in tech debt management to three elements. First, express constraints — communicate where you believe the product is in its lifecycle (early startup, rapid growth, mature cash cow) and what that means for tech debt tolerance. Are we pursuing product-market fit where code might be thrown away? Are we scaling a proven product where reliability matters? Are we maintaining a stable system where operational efficiency pays dividends? These constraints help teams make appropriate trade-offs. Second, give autonomy — once constraints are clear, trust teams to identify specific tech debt projects that fit those constraints. Engineers understand the codebase's pain points better than leaders do. Third, require accountability — teams must make their work visible through dashboards, metrics, and regular updates. Autonomy without accountability becomes invisible engineering projects that might not deliver value. Accountability without autonomy becomes micromanagement that wastes engineering judgment. The balance creates space for teams to make smart decisions while keeping leadership informed and confident in the investment. AI and the Future of Tech Debt "I really do AI-assisted software engineering. And by that, I mean I 100% review every single line of that code. I write the tests, and all the code is as I would have written it, it's just a lot faster. Developers are still responsible for it. Read the code." — Lou Franco   Lou has a chapter about AI in his book, addressing the elephant in the room: will AI-generated code create massive tech debt? His answer is nuanced. AI can accelerate development tremendously if used correctly — Lou uses it extensively but reviews every single line, writes all tests himself, and ensures the code matches what he would have written manually. The problem emerges with "vibe coders" — non-developers using AI to generate code they don't understand, creating unmaintainable messes that become someone else's problem. Developers remain responsible for all code, regardless of how it's generated. This means you must read and understand AI-generated code, not blindly accept it. Lou also raises supply chain security concerns — dependencies can contain malicious code, and AI might introduce vulnerabilities developers miss. His recommendation: stay six months behind on dependency updates, let others discover the problems first, and consider separate sandboxed development machines to limit security exposure. AI is a powerful tool, but it doesn't eliminate the need for engineering judgment, testing discipline, or code review practices. The Style Guide Beyond Formatting "Have a style guide that goes beyond formatting to include target architecture. This is the kind of code we want to write going forward." — Lou Franco   Lou advocates for style guides that extend beyond tabs-versus-spaces formatting rules to include architectural guidance. Document patterns you want to move toward: how should components be structured, what state management approaches do we prefer, how should we handle errors, what testing patterns should we follow? This creates a shared understanding of the target architecture without requiring a massive design document. When reviewing pull requests, teams can reference the style guide to explain why certain approaches align with where the codebase is headed versus perpetuating old patterns. This makes tech debt conversations less personal and more objective — it's not about criticizing someone's code, it's about aligning with team standards and strategic direction. The style guide becomes a living document that evolves as the team learns and technology changes, capturing collective wisdom about what good code looks like in your specific context. Recommended Resources Some of the resources mentioned in this episode include:  Steve Blank's Four Steps To Epiphany The podcast episode with Bernie Maloney where we discuss the critical difference between "enterprise" and "startup". And Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm, and Dealing with Darwin.   About Lou Franco   Lou Franco is a veteran software engineer and author of Swimming in Tech Debt. With decades of experience at startups, as well as Trello, and Atlassian, he's seen both sides of debt—as coder and leader. Today, he advises teams on engineering practices, helping them turn messy codebases into momentum.   You can link with Lou Franco on LinkedIn and learn more at LouFranco.com.

Gregg Altschul, Vice President of Technology at FanDuel, shares a clear and practical look at how leaders can create real alignment across personal, team, and company goals. He explains why transparency drives trust, how to build a path for growth at every level, and why the best managers help people pursue their long term North Star while still delivering for the business. This is a thoughtful and modern blueprint for tech leadership and team development.Key TakeawaysTeams move faster when the company goal is translated into a simple set of objectives that every level can understand and act on.Transparency is the anchor for healthy goal setting and creates the space for honest conversations about career direction.Managers should encourage long term North Star thinking since it keeps people growing even after short term milestones are reached.Succession planning should be an active part of how teams operate so progress never depends on a single person.People can stay committed to their work even if they have long term plans outside the company, and supporting those plans often improves retention.Timestamped Highlights02:19 How top level business goals get distilled into specific team and personal goals that engineers can act on.04:57 The role of transparency in helping teams understand the why behind each objective.07:34 Helping ICs tie personal development to broader company needs while still honoring their ambitions.09:28 Creating a safe environment for honest career conversations in a world of hybrid and remote work.15:14 Why knowing a person's long term plans makes succession planning easier for everyone.17:45 How Gregg works with his own manager on growth even when the title ladder narrows at the VP level.A standout idea from Gregg“As long as you have a North Star you will grow. Whether you ever reach the exact role you picture is not really the point. The point is growth.”Call to actionIf this conversation helped you rethink how goals work inside your team, share it with a colleague who will appreciate it. Follow the show so you never miss new episodes and connect with me on LinkedIn for more conversations with leaders shaping the future of engineering and data.

Josh Ho is the Founder and CEO of Referral Rock, a bootstrapped referral marketing platform serving SMBs that rely on multi-step, relationship-driven sales. Starting in 2015 as a solo developer consulting on the side, Josh built the first version himself, validated demand quickly, and landed early customers by doing demos and hands-on support.  Referral Rock has grown to roughly 500 customers, 20 team members, and about $3M in annual revenue. The company scaled through strong inbound SEO, founder-led sales, and a high-touch onboarding model for B2B businesses that value referrals. Over the years, the product expanded too broadly, creating UX and complexity challenges that later required a deliberate refocusing on core use cases.  Today, Referral Rock is profitable, founder-owned, and steady at its current revenue plateau as Josh rethinks pricing, packaging, product simplicity, and ICP focus. He shares practical lessons on avoiding over-complexity, hiring from what you've already figured out, returning to first principles, and treating plateaus as puzzles to solve rather than signs of failure. Key Takeaways Charge Early, Not Late – His first startup delayed monetization; Referral Rock asked for payment within days of launching an MVP. Pricing For Segments– Good-better-best failed for SMBs with wildly different referral economics; switching to two specific lanes solved misalignment. Do the Job First – Hiring worked only after Josh personally figured out support, sales, or marketing enough to define the role clearly. Plateaus Aren't Failure – Post-COVID shifts and SEO changes slowed growth, but Josh treats plateaus as system puzzles, not existential threats. Profit Equals Freedom – With no investors and steady profitability, he optimizes for enjoyable work, long-term optionality, and building at his own pace. Quote from Josh Ho, Founder and CEO of Referral Rock "For me, a plateau or a pivot is a puzzle to be solved. Any time you try to build something, you hope to just keep hitting accelerators and different serendipitously find those things. But I've learned through my life, the most part, there are things that work only for a certain duration, right.  "For me, it comes back to how I think about the business and. my innate goals for the business which, are different from most founders. When I'm talking to another founder is, they'll ask me what my exit strategy is. And my answer is usually, Well, I don't really have one. That's not how I think about the business. It's a very clear. "I enjoy my work and that's my North Star. Am I having fun? Do I enjoy this work? And I also continuously reinvent myself and my role to fit those changes.. There might be a job I had to do that I don't enjoy, but then I'll do that until it's no longer like the limiting step and then hire someone to backfill for myself." Links Josh Ho on LinkedIn Referra lRock on LinkedIn Referral Rock website Podcast Sponsor – Designli This podcast is sponsored by Designli, a digital product studio that helps entrepreneurs and startups turn their software ideas into reality. From strategy and design to full-scale development, Designli guides you through every step of building custom web and mobile apps. Learn more at designli.co/practical. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com. Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding.  A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.

In this episode of ‘The Art of Living Big,’ host Betsy Pake discusses her journey of creating new traditions after a significant life change. She shares her experience of making intentional choices and emphasizes the importance of self-trust and honesty, encouraging listeners to honor their true desires. She also highlights the role of community and the value of supportive relationships. The episode concludes with reflections on the past year and the anticipation of new beginnings. Transcript  Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master, coach, and creator of the Navigate Method. Here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big. Hi everyone. Welcome to the show today.. I have something to talk to you today about, but , I wanna start by telling you about my Christmas tree. I, , it’s the holiday time. And if you’re new here, I have been living in an apartment this, whole year. I sold my house towards the end of last year. , , Got divorced, moved into this apartment. And in April I got a kitty. Okay, so these are important aspects to my thought process for the holidays this year, one of the things that I’ve really tried to do is just to create new traditions, , or new rituals in the morning. How I do things. I wanted it to be different. Like I didn’t wanna be rerunning old patterns. I really wanted to create something new for myself. And so. I have been really intentional about that over the year and as we get closer to the holidays, I was really thinking , do I wanna bring in the energy of all the old decorations? , There’s some things that I do wanna pull out like my daughter’s stalking and that kind of thing, but for the most part, I didn’t really feel aligned with it anymore. It’s like that person that owned all those things is so unfamiliar to me that I didn’t wanna bring the energy of it in. And because I got this cat, in Dean Martin I got in April, he’s a sweet, sweet kitty. I think he’s so close to cuddling with me. Honestly, he’s, he’s gonna cuddle any day, but it took a long time for him to warm up. I mean, it took him like four months before he even pured. Literally. I think he’d had like a hard life on the streets, you know? So when he got in my house, I basically kidnapped him and , I got him from the pound, but brought him home. He didn’t have any choice. And then he was like, what woman? You are crazy. So here we are. It’s Christmas time and I’m like, if I get a Christmas tree, , he’s gonna, it’s, he’s, it’s gonna be diabolical. He’s never gonna be able to handle it. And so I was thinking like, do I get like a Christmas tree? . , One of those pre-lit trees, like a big tree. Do I just get maybe a little tree? Do I get like just a tree that’s in a little fake tree that’s in like a pot? Do you know what I mean? I’m like, I could, I, went to a million different stores. I’m like looking at everything. I’m like, what am I gonna get? Because I think he’s gonna be just a nut job. So I finally went to Lowe’s last weekend and they had these two. Trees that kind of went together. One’s like maybe four feet, and the other one’s like maybe three feet. So they are supposed to sit next to each other. They’re connected. Their, light system is connected, or I would love to put them in separate spots, but they’re connected together. And it’s like a cone that has this holographic ribbon that sort of wraps around the cone and a star on top. And the lights are little, they’re not like little Christmas tree lights. It’s like a, I wanna say like a techno light. It’s like a strip. Do you know what I mean? Inside the thing. So it does all kinds of different things. It flashes, it dances, it twirls around. It does a million things. And so I thought. This will be really good because I don’t think Kitty will mess with it, and so anyway, I brought it home. It looks really pretty. Maybe you’ve seen it on Instagram. I’ve shared it in my stories, but I was correct. He is not messing with it, which is great. And it looks really pretty and the lights bring me a lot of joy. So. You know, we can create new experiences for ourselves that can be really good. I talk to women every day that are , trying to make these big decisions in their lives and in their marriage and what to do, and I think there is so much fear in the unknown that I wanted to kind of share that little piece of what’s going on here. Because what if it’s great? , What if it. All works out better than you thought. And we have so much power in our imagination, but so many times we use our imagination to go down the rabbit hole of all the things that could be wrong. And what if we harness that for , , what could happen if it could be great. And , this year I have thought, and I think I mentioned this last week, I’ve thought about doing a podcast just on my year. ’cause I think there have been so many lessons in it . , That everybody could benefit from, right? I mean, so many lessons, and you probably have a lot of lessons in your life too, that people could benefit from if you shared those. And so I have thought about that. ,, I might do it, but this year has been the most wild ups and downs and twists and turns. The way that it’s landing is just like the most beautiful place. Like I’m so happy with the way this year has turned out for me, , and next year already. Really amazing things to look forward to. I went to an event last month with my coach and the coaching group that I’m part of, and there was a new woman in the group who I just hit it off with. She was so fun and so cool, and she lives in New York City. I’ll have to have her on the show sometime. But anyway, the women in this group that I’m in, we all tend to form such tight friendships and we have stayed in the group. ,, This particular woman is new, but the other women. . We stay. And so we’ve been together for many years. And so I went for this walk with this new friend. We were there at the resort and we decided to go get coffee and we were gonna go for a walk. And we were just talking and I was talking about my year and some of the things that have happened and how great it’s been. And I said, , the only thing that I really miss. About having a partner because I really like being single., I’m in a really good place of just doing things on my own and discovering myself, and there’s no space right now for anybody else, , to be honest. But the one thing that I miss is, sometimes it is nice to have a built-in person to go. Travel with, right? Like to be able to go on a trip and to go with, and I have done many trips this year. I’ve gone by myself, I’ve gone with this group to several places, and it’s been great. And I love that. And there’s other places that I wanna go. And so she said, well, where would you go? And I said, well, I really wanna go to, to Morocco. I have a, a friend that I met online, and she and I message back and forth. She’s divorced as well. And you know how you just find somebody and you start talking? She’s a, a, famous author and we just have hit it off. So I’m like, I really wanna go see her. She lives in Marrakesh. And she was like, let’s go. So I was like, okay, we were on the walk, we booked the trip on the walk, opened up our apps. I, I am a big points girl, so I did it with points. I share that just because that is a privilege to be able to open up an app on a phone, on the, on a walk on and book a trip to Morocco. It was, , cost me $11 fees. Um, but I was able to, book my trip and to go to Morocco. So this spring we’re going to Morocco and it just goes to show you that for when you get in a place where it’s really clear what it is you like and what you don’t like, and you’re able to voice it, and you’re around people who are like extraordinary people, right? You’re building your life around people who. Like similar things and are adventurous and able to take those kinds of risks, , it, it can change everything. I think our community is so, so important, and I always say this inside the, women Inside the Navigate method, you know, , once you come into the Navigate Method, you’re sort of like in forever. I joke, that they can never get rid of us, , unless they want to. But you know, after you go through the program, you stay in our alumni group and we meet every month so people can see each other every month and form those relationships. Um, and if you wanna keep going with me, there’s an opportunity to do that in another way. . So building community I think is so incredibly important, and especially when we’re going through big things or hard things, and to be able to say like this is to have somebody witness your life, right? To be able to have somebody witness. Things that you’re going through. It doesn’t always have to be a partner or a spouse. And many times we have partners or spouses and they’re still not witnessing your life. Right. It’s just a, a placeholder. And so I have found that there is just such a, a, need for this and a way to do it. I think women are coming together in community in totally new ways. Which, leads me to remind you that next month in January we’re doing the fireside chat. If you go onto Instagram and you just message me fire, it’ll automatically send you the link or the, link is in my bio. , Every month we’re just getting together, , on Zoom and you can turn your camera on or leave it off, whatever’s comfortable to you. And I’ve got questions that I ask and we just kind of reflect and get together for this. I call it the middle verse, right? This is where we are in the middle verse. And so I think creating those pockets of community is really invaluable in terms of building a life that feels really good and really full, you know? And I think that’s where, , where I could say I am right now. After this year, I have built a life that feels really good and really full there. And when I say that I’m not looking for a partner. I know a lot of times my friends will ask , are you gonna date? And I just, my life is really full and really good. I don’t, I’m not missing anything. And now I have a fun, somebody fun to travel with, so there’s no, there’s nothing missing. Um, and maybe someday there will be, but right now it just feels really good. So I think that as we. Look, and we think about well, what will my life be like? I wanna just reflect that. What if it’s better than you thought it would be? Like, what if things come together in ways you couldn’t expect? If you had told me last Christmas, you will have just booked a free trip to Mor Morocco with a new friend That is so fun and lovely like. Probably, well, I probably would’ve believed you just because, ’cause I’m open to that kind of stuff. But it would have been like, oh my God, that’s cool. That’s really cool. But being in a place where I was open to receiving that is, is the thing maybe that would have surprised me. So to this, week, I wanna talk to you a little bit about something that has been on my mind when I’ve been thinking about this past year, and I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. , And I’ve been thinking about the thing that I think rises to the top of so many of our conversations inside the Navigate Method, and it is this moment when a woman realizes that she’s spent years and years editing herself in order to keep the peace. And I think. Probably likely, in my case at least, I know I can say this for myself, years of looking for outward validation, right? I would, kind of throw ideas off of my dad or my sister when I was younger, you know, when I was in my twenties or even thirties, gosh, I mean probably forties. I probably was doing it in my forties, but always looking to make sure I was doing things right. Checking on someone else’s emotional weather before I even knew how I felt about things. And at some point the cost of that becomes really huge. Because when you start to outsource your decisions or your peace long enough, you start to detach from what is you. So instead, you are seeing everything through a lens of what would they think? What would my dad’s response be? How would my sister react to this? What would my spouse think? Or my brothers or sisters, or. Coworkers or whoever that is for you. And in that you stop believing that your instincts are reliable and you start, I think, really doubting parts of you that do speak really loudly. And the more that you deny those parts of you, the harder it is to be able to hear it. Right? I mean, if you keep shushing. Part of you, if you keep shushing someone, pretty soon they’re gonna shush. Right? And that’s the thing that I hear over and over inside the Navigate method when I work with women is like I, I don’t even know. I have no idea what I think. Like you could ask me a question like, do I like shells or spirals, pasta better? I don’t know. But I know what my husband likes better. I know what my kids would prefer. So today what I wanna do is I wanna talk about what it really means to become the woman that you can trust, because I think that is the foundation for all decision making and for creating a really big life, right? It’s not about your partner’s approval, it’s not about your family’s expectations. It is not about the path that is very safe. Or respectable. I hear this a lot too, like what will people think? Right? The foundation of all of this is you and it’s your inner knowing and, I think that there is a, woman inside you who, who has always known, but we were taught out it was taught out of us, right? Or you know, I don’t know. Screamed out of us or whatever, so that we started to quiet that piece. And I have noticed even in myself over the past year and now I’ve been a, coach in doing this work since 2012, like a long time. I have done decades of my own work. I have done. Everything from therapy to meditating for days on end to screaming into a pillow. Do you know what I mean? , I’ve done it all. I’ve run the gamut. And what I know that from this past year is that rebuilding your trust isn’t about becoming fearless. It is about becoming honest. It’s about being honest with yourself and how you feel. It’s becoming honest with what you have tolerated. It’s becoming honest with what you have been carrying that was maybe never yours to carry in the first place. And I think that self-trust starts to build every time that you tell yourself the truth. And I always say this in my groups, is you don’t have to take action on it. You can still betray yourself in the action, but if you’re telling yourself the truth. Being honest about what it is you really want. Even if you don’t do it, it is a step forward. And I wanna say that again ’cause I think it really matters, is that self-trust builds every time you tell yourself the truth and then you can start to learn to stay with yourself through the consequences of that truth. I saw something online a couple days ago and I thought it was so good and it was like, you’re not stuck. You just don’t wanna go through the, consequences of what will happen if you act on that truth. And I thought, oh dang, that’s so good. Right? It’s so good. And I think that for a lot of us, , the idea of being true is foreign because we were really raised to be agreeable. I was talking. Inside one of my groups the other day, and I was saying that my lease is coming up and my plan was to buy a house. And now things have shifted and I’m not sure where, if I wanna stay here, there’s some opportunities that I may take to move to a new city. , I don’t wanna sign a year long lease. And when I asked my body what. How long I wanted to be here. I asked, is it six months? And I felt very unsteady. And I asked, is it a year lease? ’cause those are the options they gave me. They gave me six months, 12 months, 13 months, which I thought was weird. Um, I think that’s what it was. And when I asked my body 12 months, I felt constricted. Like, no, I gotta get outta here. And so it was eight months. Eight months is where my body felt relaxed and happy and positive. And so I asked the apartment, can I get an eight month lease? And the lady, the manager, said, yeah, but I’ll have to, I mean, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask corporate. And she looked at me and she’s very sweet, but she looked at me like, it’s more work for her. God love her. She looked at me like, take the six or the 12, ’cause I have to do more work. If you want eight. And there was a moment where it was uncomfortable, and then a moment where I decided it was okay. That’s what I wanted. That was my truth. And when I was talking in groups, someone in group was like, I could never do that. I could never do that. And I think that you can get to a place where you can do. Because self-trust builds every time you tell yourself the truth and you stay with yourself through the consequences of that truth. And the consequences of that truth were that I had to sit with the uncomfortableness while someone else sorted out in their head how they were gonna take a step forward and ask corporate. And when they were gonna do that, and they were a new person down there, new manager, and they were going through their own process and I didn’t need to fix that. I just asked, I just had to ask and then see what the answer was would be. And I still don’t know. And so we wait. We wait and we’d be comfortable in that waiting. And I think,, , we were raised to just, just take the 12 months, it’s fine, you’ll stay a couple more months. And that may be what I do, but I needed to ask in order to move forward and feel like I had honored myself. You know, if you were, , someone in a family where you had to really walk on eggshells, maybe. You had a explosive mom or dad or an alcoholic, all of these things, you may have been tiptoeing around and minimizing everything that you needed just to be able to move through things. And it can be really hard to make these shifts. So self-trust is rebuilt in the moments. Where you’re truth telling and they’re micro moments., I talked last week, I think it was about micro joy. The, small things, the doing, the puzzle, the snuggling with the cat, if you’ll ever let me, like all these little things are what makes life bearable. ’cause life has big, hard things. And I think self-trust is in micro moments of truth telling, telling the truth to yourself, to the people that matter. And over time those start to become a pattern. It starts to become who you are. , When I was in group and that woman said, I could never do that, I thought to myself, I think I used to be like that too, where I would never do that. And I think that you do over time as you create that, you create a new identity. It’s a new way of being and a new way of relating to yourself and eventually a new way of relating to everybody else. Right? So I think that a woman who really trusts herself doesn’t make the decisions that she has to make from a place of fear. She makes them from a place of clarity. Right? And I think about, , going back to the apartment lease, it may seem insignificant. And I thought to myself, I have to ask because I have to honor what it is that I feel. Even if I end up choosing one of the others, I’ll feel really good that I did this ask, and I think that, , over time we get this new identity and then we don’t even have that conversation back and forth in our head. I’m guessing by next Christmas as I continue and continue and continue to do this, that. It won’t even be, it won’t even be something I would, it would be like tying your shoe, right? I don’t have to watch a YouTube every time I go to tie my shoe. Right? So I think that there is a part of this whole process that surprises women in, in, I notice this when we’re teaching it inside the Navigate method, is that, that when you start doing this, when you start. Rebuilding trust, rebuilding that self-trust, you’re gonna feel grief. And that feels so foreign to people. And sometimes they’ll be like, I don’t know what this is. And we talk a lot about, what are the specifics? I have a dictionary on my desk and someone will say, I have resentment. And I’ll open up and we’ll read the definition. And I’ll say, does that define what you just described? No. So what is this really? And I think that one of the things that we run into so many times is we run into a feeling of grief. And this grief is about the years that you abandon yourself. So many times I hear women say this is resentment towards their husband or resentment towards, , or anger towards si situations or things that have happened. But I can always trace it back. Yes, , did. Somebody overstep your boundaries. Yeah, like all those things, he’s not off the hook. That’s not what this is about. This is about you recognizing that you may have feelings of grief for the moments that you did know better, but you felt you had no choice. You felt you had to do it to keep the peace you felt you had to do it. ’cause that’s what a good wife does, or a good sister does. Or a good daughter does. Grief. Grief for a version of you that, that put everybody else first. That version of you was slowly disappearing while everybody else was really comfortable, and I think that this grief isn’t a sign that. You’re doing it wrong. It’s a sign that you’re actually returning, right? That you are becoming a woman who you can trust. And that means trusting yourself enough to let your past self know that she was never wrong or weak, but she was doing the very best she could with the tools that she had. And now you have new tools, right? So now you can do it differently. So here’s the North Star in all this. To start small. I know I say, I know. Start small, right? Start small, start honest and start with just one moment of noticing when you override yourself. This can even be after. This can be you get in bed at night and you’re like, where did I abandon myself today? It’s gonna be a tiny moment where saying no, when you mean no. Is important and you’re gonna notice where you said yes when you meant no. And there’s gonna be a moment where you are okay saying no, and you might brace yourself and nothing bad will happen. And I think that moment. Also leads to some grief because you may realize that you were doing things to protect yourself, and it was a pattern that you created when you were young and it worked and it was needed at that time. But now you are a grown ass adult and you don’t necessarily need the, pattern. But maybe you’ve created a bit of that experience for yourself by acting that way in places that you didn’t need to, like with the apartment complex, right? Every one of those moments is like a brick in a foundation of the woman that you were and the woman that you’re now becoming. And there can be a new steadiness, right? A new groundedness in this, a new version of you that isn’t looking for permission, or to validate yourself from anybody else, and that’s self-trust,? And that I think is really the beginning , of living a big life, right? So this season, as we’re going really into the, real Christmas holiday season, whatever holiday you that you celebrate, this time of year, new Year’s at least, that is a universal, but I want you to just notice. You are allowed to rebuild a relationship with yourself. I want you to remember that and that you are not necessarily becoming somebody new, but you are returning to the woman that you always have been and that you’ve always been meant to be. And this is the one who knows, the one who is certain, the one who chooses, the one who trusts herself. And the one who trusts herself enough to live a life that is built on that reflection of truth. And you can start it right now, practice through the holidays. There’ll be so many opportunities to practice on the holidays. And just start with one little promise. I will not abandon myself again. Alright. That’s all I got for you this week. Thanks so much for listening. I love you guys so much. I will see you, I will see you next week. I think what we’re gonna do, we’ll have maybe one more this year, and then I’m gonna take some time off for the holiday, which I’m really excited about, and then we’ll be back after the new year. , My plan is to be here next week. Then take some time. So I’ll see you next week, but I hope if you don’t catch next week, I hope you have a really wonderful, a wonderful holiday and new year. I hope you do something that really lights you up. I hope you see the value that you brought to everybody over this past year and. How you can really show up for yourself in a new way in 2026. , 2025 is the year of endings. It is a nine year in numerology. We are moving into a one year, and that is the year of new beginnings. So what do you need to leave behind this year and what can you call in for next? We’ll talk about that maybe more next week. All right. I love you guys. I’ll see you then. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake. And on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring and keep living big.

What if the way you're asking clients about their goals is actually making it harder for them to follow through?Most coaches ask what their client wants to accomplish, get an answer like "I want to get out of debt" or "I want to save more," and then move straight into strategy. Goal identified, check. Time to build the plan.But here's what's missing: connection. Not your connection to their goal, THEIR connection to it.People don't take action because they have a goal. They take action when that goal feels meaningful. When they can picture what shifts on the other side of it. When they understand why it matters right now, in this season of their life.In this episode, I'm walking you through the MeaningFirst Method™, a conversation framework that helps clients move from pressure-driven goals to goals rooted in personal truth and desire. This is the foundation that makes everything else easier: the follow-through, the consistency, the willingness to come back after a setback, the sense of ownership.You'll hear exactly how to guide this conversation, what questions to ask, when to pause and let silence do the work, and how to help clients uncover what they actually care about, not just what they think they should want.This isn't about adding more to your session checklist. It's about creating the clarity that makes every other conversation more effective. Because when meaning comes first, strategy has something real to build on.Links & Resources:Ultimate Growth GuideJoin the Facebook groupMeaning First Method Conversation Guide (one-page downloadable)Client Creator Challenge (90-day program starting January 8th)Key Takeaways:Your job isn't just to ask about goals; it's to help clients connect to them. People follow through when goals feel meaningful, not simply when they've been stated out loud.Sometimes the stated goal isn't the real thing that matters. It's the doorway to what actually drives them: more freedom, calm, choice, breathing room.The client's goal is both the North Star and the map. It shows you where you're going and informs every choice you recommend along the way.MeaningFirst helps clients shift from "I should fix this" to "I want to build a life that feels aligned." That's a fundamentally different, and far more sustainable, experience.Let silence work for you. After asking what makes a goal important right now, pause. Give them space to think and feel their way to the real answer.Connection comes before strategy, always. Only after meaning is clear do we start planning timelines, pacing, and tactics.This framework sustains motivation when things get hard. When clients understand what they actually care about, they can reconnect to that meaning every time they want to quit.

Shoot us a Text.Episode #1216: Today we dig into the tightening-but-shifting new-car inventory landscape, explore Nissan's bold attempt to rediscover its “North Star”, and watch Target leapfrog competitors by baking full-on AI shopping directly into ChatGPT.Show Notes with links:November brought a slight dip in overall new-vehicle inventory, but the real headline for dealers is how quickly anything under $25K is evaporating from lots—and how quickly EV days' supply is rising. Here's the breakdown:U.S. new-vehicle inventory fell 1.6% to 3.09M units, but days' supply ticked up from 70 to 73.Sub-$25K vehicles are practically mythical—spending 1.5 days on lots.EV supply ballooned from 107 to 126 daysHybrids sit at a 60-day supply, ICE vehicles at 75 days; minivans remain leanest at 58 days.Toyota continues to run the tightest ship in the industry with 31 days of supply.Christian Meunier isn't pulling punches—Nissan has been drifting for years, and he says the U.S. turnaround now depends on sharper execution, stronger product, and yes…better dealer performance.Meunier says Nissan had “no North star, no vision and no direction,” prompting him to bring headquarters staff back in-office four days a week to accelerate decisions and rebuild momentum.U.S. sales have fallen 40% in a decade, market share is down to 6.4%, and heavy discounting has trained shoppers to view Nissan as “the cheap one.”Nissan needs at least 7–8% retail share to support its 1,067 U.S. stores, and if the brand can't lift demand, fewer dealers may be necessary.“Christian is the right man for the job. It's just a hard job,” said dealer council lead Mike Rezi.Target is jumping headfirst into AI commerce by embedding its shopping experience directly into ChatGPT, building on OpenAI's growing presence in e-commerce with Shopify and Etsy integrations.Users can search, add to cart, and check out via ChatGPT using their Target account.The integration supports drive-thru and pickup orders within the chat interface.This move mirrors Walmart's AI ambitions, but Target is first to market with a confirmed rollout.“Target is a great example of what that shift looks like when it's done with ambition and speed,” said Fidji Simo, OpenAI CEO of Applications.Thank you to today's sponsor, Mia. Capture more revenue, protect CSI, and never miss a call or connection again with 24/7 phone coverage and texting (SMS) follow-up for sales, service, and reception. Learn more at https://www.mia.inc/Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/ JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox welcomes back Matthew Coffey, co-founder of Squid, Ireland and the UK's largest local loyalty network with 550,000+ users and nearly 2,000 independent businesses. What began as a simple tap-for-coffee reward app has evolved into a powerful loyalty and payments infrastructure - and now Squid has launched Wave, a universal points currency described as “air miles for the high street.” You can now earn points in one brand and redeem them in another, all by linking your everyday spending cards. Matthew breaks down how Squid integrated with global giants like Square, raised over €10 million, and is now preparing to expand Wave across Europe as a new rewards-powered payment rail. He also shares the founder lessons he's learned, from communication to fundraising to scaling fast without losing trust and integrity. If you're curious about loyalty, fintech, payments, or the realities of scaling a startup into a European network, this episode is essential listening. Show Notes In this episode, Gary chats with Matthew about: How Squid grew from free coffee stamps to 550,000+ users and almost 2,000 independent businesses. Why Matthew & Katie focused on coffee shops to build a two-sided network from scratch. Introducing Wave — “air miles for the high street” where you earn across brands automatically. How card-linking with Visa/Mastercard/Amex enables one-touch loyalty. The impact of integrating with Square to give independents big-brand loyalty and data tools. The journey from early-stage startup to raising over €10m, including a €1.7m+ crowdfunding round. The North Star metric Squid tracks: the total free product given back to users. Squid's two-step scaling playbook for Europe: launch loyalty locally, then layer Wave on top. Why 2026 will be the “year of payments” as Squid builds a rewards-driven payment rail. Matthew's biggest founder lessons: communicate better, expand earlier, trust technology, and be relentless. Links & Resources Download Squid on iOS / Android: https://tr.ee/WFmx4sOqmR ——  Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly inspiration on Business, Brain and Body, as well as exclusive events, courses and more, straight to your inbox. It's free! https://www.mrgaryfox.com/subscribe-1  ---  Visit my partners  Azure Communications: https://bit.ly/azureEE  Nostra: https://bit.ly/3HHwSMo —- Music Credit: “Nobody Knows” by Andrew Applepie — used under royalty-free license.

How do you honor the ones you love?Our guest, author and maker Ashley Russell, brings her grandmother, Wanda's, kitchen back to life with a cozy, retro-modern cookbook that feels like a hug and reads like a memoir. We dig into how a granddaughter turned a private archive into a public heirloom, complete with tattoo-style illustrations, candid photos, and DIY food shots that celebrate mess and memory over perfection. Ashley walks us through gathering 300 recipes and shaping a tight, test-driven collection that honors regional roots and lived history. We get the stories behind “top secret” favorites, the delightfully divisive WTF chapter, and why dishes like liver and onions or milk toast still matter. You'll hear how the book's cardstock pages invite cocoa smudges and notes in the margins, how a decade-by-decade photo collage reveals a family in motion, and how a Spotify playlist ties together the songs Wanda loved—from mid-century standards to a modern country croon she played late in life. This conversation is also a master class in creative resilience: funding through community, trusting pivots, and defining a clear North Star (your point of view!). Ashley shares how a tattoo flash became food Kewpies, why she shot the food herself, and how staying vulnerable and afraid might be the key to the best art. We explore cooking as care, a feminist choice, and a small act of rebellion against disposable culture. Our hands are busy, phones are down, hearts are open. If you've ever wanted to preserve your family's flavors or make art that feels true, you'll find practical tips and a lot of courage here. Subscribe for more story-rich conversations about books, craft, and the rituals that keep us human. If this episode stirred a memory, share it with someone you love and leave a review so others can find the show. Your kitchen table might be the start of the next great family archive.Support the show:On Patreon Buy us a book Buy cute merchIf you have any comments or questions, please connect with me on Instagram or email babesinbooklandpodcast@gmail.com. I'd love to hear your suggestions and feedback!Link to this episode's book:What's Cooking Good LookingOther links:Sad Puppy TattoosTranscripts are available through apple's podcast app—they may not be perfect, but relying on them allows me to dedicate more time to the show! If you're interested in being a transcript angel, let me know. This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.Theme song by Devin KennedySpecial thanks to my new friend, Ashley! Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Dr. Fei-Fei Li (@drfeifei) is the inaugural Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, a founding co-director of Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute, and the co-founder and CEO of World Labs, a generative AI company focusing on Spatial Intelligence. She is the author of The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI, her memoir and one of Barack Obama's recommended books on AI and a Financial Times best book of 2023.This episode is brought to you by:Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic broad spectrum 24-strain probiotic + prebiotic: https://seed.com/timHelix Sleep premium mattresses: https://helixsleep.com/timCoyote the card game​, which I co-created with Exploding Kittens: https://coyotegame.com/Wealthfront high-yield cash account: https://wealthfront.com/timNew clients get 3.50% base APY from program banks + additional 0.65% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 11/07/2025 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB. Experiences will vary. Outcomes not guaranteed. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, humans! Last week we excavated our "why", and this week, we're talking about how to make it actionable. I'm sharing the most powerful lesson I've learned: your "why" isn't just a statement; it's your decision-making filter. It defines where you say yes and, more importantly, where you finally say no. I'll walk you through how my why helped me walk away from a financially great opportunity because it demanded sacrificing the boundaries I teach you to protect. I'm also sharing the biggest professional decision I've made in years. I'll show you why this opportunity was an absolute yes and how it allows me to live my purpose of elevating the human experience on an even greater scale. Ready for your challenge? We're auditing your calendar to find out where you're currently living (or not living) your "why" at work. Get your green and red markers ready. This is how individual transformation creates true alignment! Stacie More episodes at StacieBaird.com.

BONUS: Impact Engineering—Finding Agile's Lost North Star With Tom Gilb and Simon Holzapfel The Clarity Problem: Why Organizations Start with "Fuzzy B*S*!" "Everybody seems to start from a position of fuzzy b*s*. Nice-sounding words. Management does it, professors do it, politicians do it. And they don't even feel very guilty about it."   Tom Gilb doesn't mince words when describing how most organizations define their objectives. The fundamental problem isn't a lack of ambition—it's a lack of clarity. When leaders are asked about their critical values like "extremely high security" or "employee happiness," they typically respond with circular definitions that provide no actionable direction. Tom's approach starts by exposing this gap and then demonstrating that any value—no matter how "soft" or intangible it seems—can be quantified. Using AI tools, he's shown clients over 1,400 different ways to measure human happiness alone. Why Agile Lost Its North Star "Agile's lost its North Star because the economic problems it was trying to solve within the organization are now mismatched with the digital world."   Simon Holzapfel offers a structural analysis: Agile developed primarily to allay the concerns of pre-digital capital—investors who needed reassurance that their money wouldn't disappear into failed projects. But today's digital economy operates differently. Capital now moves like a service (SaaS model), and innovation is fundamentally stochastic—you can't predict when breakthroughs will happen. Organizations using flow-focused tools when the real problem is value creation are applying yesterday's solutions to today's challenges. The First Step: Quantify Your Critical Values "If you ask AI to quantify employee happiness a hundred different ways, it will do it in one minute for free. So you can no longer be in denial."   The path forward starts with brutal honesty about what your organization actually cares about. Tom's approach involves:   Identifying the top 10 critical stakeholder values Defining clear scales of measure for each Establishing where you are now (status) Setting where you need to be to survive (tolerable level) Defining what success looks like (target/goal level)   This isn't about adding bureaucracy—it's about creating shared clarity that enables everyone to row in the same direction.   About Tom Gilb and Simon Holzapfel   Tom Gilb, born in the US, lived in London, and then moved to Norway in 1958. An independent teacher, consultant, and writer, he has worked in software engineering, corporate top management, and large-scale systems engineering. As the saying goes, Tom was writing about Agile before Agile was named. In 1976, Tom introduced the term "evolutionary" in his book Software Metrics, advocating for development in small, measurable steps. Today, we talk about Evo, the name Tom uses to describe his approach. Tom has worked with Dr. Deming and holds a certificate personally signed by him. You can listen to Tom Gilb's previous episodes here.    You can link with Tom Gilb on LinkedIn    Simon Holzapfel is an educator, coach, and learning innovator who helps teams work with greater clarity, speed, and purpose. He specializes in separating strategy from tactics, enabling short-cycle decision-making and higher-value workflows. Simon has spent his career coaching individuals and teams to achieve performance with deeper meaning and joy. Simon is also the author of the Equonomist newsletter on Substack. And you can listen to Simon's previous episodes on the podcast here.    You can link with Simon Holzapfel on LinkedIn.

#355: We need to talk about burnout - and not just the kind that comes from working too many hours or answering emails at 10 p.m. This week, I'm addressing that bone-deep exhaustion that's become the background noise of so many of our lives, where your body feels like it's moving through wet cement and everything feels like way too much. I'm talking about the burnout that happens even on maternity leave, even in retirement, even while doing things you genuinely love. This isn't a work problem that a vacation can fix. It's about the chronic, relentless abandonment of yourself in the name of keeping everyone else comfortable. Tune in this week to discover how emotional outsourcing keeps us trapped in the burnout cycle. You'll learn why your nervous system reads disappointing others as life or death, and most importantly, you'll get a practical remedy for starting to source safety internally and becoming your own North Star once more. Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://beatrizalbina.com/355 Order your copy of End Emotional Outsourcing here: https://beatrizalbina.com/book/ Follow me here: https://www.instagram.com/beatrizvictoriaalbinanp/?hl=enMentioned in this episode:Buy Your Copy of End Emotional Outsourcing Today!Please support the book by reviewing it on Amazon or Goodreads. It helps the book reach more folks who are still living in old survival patterns and don't have language for it yet. Drop your screenshot at beatrizalbina.com/book and you'll get access to thank-you gifts and raffles for free breathwork sessions, coaching, and audiobook copies. I appreciate you more than you know. Get your copy today: https://feminist-wellness.captivate.fm/bookEEO Pre-Sale

If 70 percent of your company depends on you, success is silently draining you. Today you will learn how one CEO coach scaled impact with a 13 week Control Room, set real boundaries without losing momentum, and fixed meetings that waste hours. Stay to the end for a simple 10 minute daily step that can save 90 minutes tomorrow and the two word mindset shift that changes everything. In this episode, Dana Earhart shares how to scale without sacrificing your life. We break down the 13 week CEO Control Room, real world meeting cadence, servant leadership that unlocks performance, and a simple daily practice that saves time and restores clarity. What you will learn: How to set a single North Star for the next 90 days ️ A meeting rule that ends time wasting fast ️ The question great leaders ask at the end of every meeting ️ Why boundaries increase productivity and retention ️ The “sacred 15” morning reset for mind, body, and soul ️ A planning habit that can save 90 minutes a day This episode is for the founder who is exhausted from carrying the whole company on their back, the operator who keeps telling themselves they will slow down after the next project, and the leader who knows they are capable of more but feels stuck in the weeds. If you are ready to scale without sacrificing your sanity, this conversation will show you exactly how to reclaim time, build systems that actually support you, and lead with clarity instead of chaos. Tune in because the shifts in this episode do not take months. They start the moment you hit play. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.