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00:01 - Rick MacIvor (Ad) Hi, this is Rick MacIver with the VO Video Village YouTube channel. You know, when I started doing voiceover, I listened to the VO Boss podcast religiously. It was my go-to source of information about the industry and I still listen to it to this day. Every week there's an amazing new guest and Anne is able to really get some great information. I just love it. So thank you so much, Anne, looking forward to next week's episode.  00:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey guys, it's that season again. Are you feeling that tickle in your throat? Don't let a cold or flu slow you down. Combat your symptoms early with Vocal Immunity Blast, a simple and natural remedy designed to get you back to 100% fast. With certified therapeutic-grade oils like lemon to support respiratory function, oregano for immune-boosting power and a protective blend that shields against environmental threats, your vocal health is in good hands. Take charge of your health with Vocal Immunity Blast. Visit annganguzacom to shop.  01:09 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguza.  01:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, nn Ganguza, and I'm here with the one and only Lala Pitas.  01:40 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Hey, annie, back again. Happy 2025, and yet another year. Here we are.  01:46 How, many years, how many?  01:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) years Lau. It's been years.  01:49 - Lau Lapides (Guest) A decade, I don't know 20?. I feel like you know, we came out of the womb and we knew each other.  01:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I don't know.  01:56 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It feels like forever, but it is over two years now.  01:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think it's two and a half, at least, almost Two, and a half At least, almost, if not more, if not three Lau.  02:03 I'm telling you, I am manifesting that 2025 is going to be my best year ever, and I say that because we've come off of a tough year, not just a tough year necessarily for your business, but just a tough year, I think, in general for everyone, mentally, physically. I mean. It's just been a tough, tough, tough year of 2024. So I am ready for 2025, despite whatever may happen in the world, I feel like with this political climate, I want this to be the best year ever for my business, and so I had a couple of podcast episodes and we do this all the time right End of year assessment how are we going to make this year the best? But I really want to stretch Lau and talk about how we can go beyond the typical. Well, let's write our goals down right and let's do this for the year.  02:52 Let's talk about how we can really, I think, manifest success and stretch ourselves out to be the absolute best that we can be, and to be mindfully and skillfully healthy for 2025.  03:04 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Stretching. That's my thing. I love stretching, and when I say stretching I mean really kind of motivating our folks to just move in directions that are uncomfortable, that you may not have experienced before. Those are the best, where you have no idea what the outcome is. Because the truth is, you know, in our profession we get seasoned. After a while we kind of know what to expect. We know kind of the behaviors of clients. We get to know that right. But we always want to refresh, we want to feng shui the spirit. How do we do it? Put ourselves in an environment that we're not used to. That's going to help us grow, and as a talent, as a person, as a business entrepreneur, what could that mean? Well, some examples I like to give. Why not take a fencing class? Why not get into a class where you're doing mime and you're not talking at all? I love that?  03:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) How do?  03:58 - Lau Lapides (Guest) you communicate through your body, through your mind, through your spirit, without the aid of the copy of the script. This is all going to be tools in the toolkit that you're going to pull when you get back in your booth and say, wow, how did I feel when I was locked into my body, how do I?  04:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) unlock. You know what. I think I love that, but I think, before we figure out how we're going to stretch right, let's sage the space, so to speak right. Let's sage the space, so to speak. Right. Let's sage the space, let's clear the space right. And what are some things we can do to kind of clear away all the? I like to say clear away what was last year and now? How are we going to start fresh? How are we going to start new? How are we going to sage our space, and I mean physically? You could I love sage, I'm a big sage burner. I like to sage it to create new energy. But that saging right could be. Maybe you decide to take up a little bit of meditation, a little bit of breathing exercises. I know that, stretching yourself mindfully, but also physically as well. I started taking Pilates last year and I'll tell you what I feel great, and I do it early in the morning.  05:08 - Intro (Announcement) So, as a matter of fact, this morning I was at 6.30 am class.  05:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Wow, Discipline. I love that so I can start my day right. I do a 6.30 and a 7.30 back to back and I absolutely love the way it makes me feel in the mornings. There's a lot of just default. There's breathing in there, right, and we talk as voice actors how important breathing is. And breathing is amazing. I mean, first of all, we breathe every day, but like focused, right, conscious, like breathing exercises which by default happened in my Pilates class, really helped me to expel the negative energy and take in the new energy and really helped me to feel more balanced, more focused, brings down my blood pressure and you know, what's so funny is I've learned to breathe so well that literally it becomes this challenge. Well, you know that I still go see my doctor, my oncologist, all the time and they're always taking my blood pressure right, so for a while there my blood pressure was high and they prescribed medicine for me, right.  05:56 And so ever since I was you know, I got myself a little bit healthier. Thankfully, my blood pressure is actually a little bit on the lower side, but I also take my blood pressure every single day right Just to make sure I'm on top. I have learned how to breathe so that I can lower my blood pressure. Like it's insane. And in my little Peloton classes too, you can actually see your heart rate and so if you do active breathing right, you can see how it brings down your heart rate. You can see how it brings down your heart rate. So I think staging the space, so to speak, or physically do it, but also stage the space. Take some time in the morning for meditation and breathing to get you in the right head space and physical space for a great day ahead and a great year ahead. Oh, I love all of that.  06:38 - Lau Lapides (Guest) And you know we've got to get out of that fight or flight, breathing yeah, which, the truth is, all of us do it. I mean because we're running around, we're running all over the map and we'll go into the what we call the upper thoracic breath, the clavicular breath. That's our throat, our chest, whatever Can we live, of course? Can we have a great life, definitely. Is it effective for speaking? Nope, it isn't. And that's our gift, that's our craft, that's our job is to speak for a living.  07:06 So we want to move that down into the diaphragm and everything you're doing, annie, is just a gift to be able to do that. And it harkens back to me when I was a young kid in college studying theater, that some of my professors would use this, saying They'd say leave your trash at the door when you walk in the studio. Leave it there, don't bring it in with you. That's your emotional stuff that you're bringing in. I'll give you new stuff to deal with and don't worry, don't worry, when you leave, it'll be there for you to pick up and take with you. I'll give you new stuff, I'll give you new stuff.  07:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Don't worry, I'll give you new stuff to deal with right Unless you're using it right for the scene ahead right. I mean, take it through the door if you need it. But a lot of times that baggage right it's not always. I'm going to say 99% of the time I'm going to say maybe that's not necessary for voice acting, unless you're playing a role that calls for that.  07:57 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Right, right. I think that if you're going to use it as a reservoir of emotion, to call upon, it has to be compartmentalized, it has to be disciplined and dealt with. It can't just be dumping, it can't be unloading your day or unloading your life in the space because it's number one, it's not professional or appropriate, but, number two, it doesn't feel good, it doesn't make you a cleansed breath performer, which is where we want to go. We want to go to a full sort of centered, grounded place of where the breath is coming from. So I love that. I love that. No one loves sage more than me. I actually named my son Sage, oh yeah, well, there you go I adore sage.  08:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think it's really important to just sage out your space Totally, totally cleansing.  08:44 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Are we ready for some how-tos yet, annie? Yeah, sure, let's go, let's do it. I'm going to lay one on the friends. That is really unexpected, but from an actor's point of view it's very elevated technique. And look into it and go online and look it up. It's called Rasa Boxes, something you're never going to hear in voiceover. It's an elevated boxes on the floor made of tape, literal boxes. The actor steps into the box and becomes an emotion in that box and it's very specific and it's very much a deep dive and intense and when they step out of the box they immediately lose that tone, immediately 100% cleanse themselves of that emotion. Think about that. The crossover to me is when you're doing like audiobook or you're doing character work, you're playing 10 different characters. You don't want any bleed of sound, right, absolutely Well, we don't want any bleed of spirit. Sure, we want to know that if you're enraged, you're the witch that's enraged, that you step into the box where you're the peaceful fairy and there's no bleed from one box to another.  09:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But can you evolve that emotion? Can you be the fairy that is maybe angry to begin with and then becomes cleansed of that anger? Somehow Can you have one foot in one box and one foot in another and play that way. You know why.  10:15 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I love you so much Because you're brilliant and you're always 10 steps ahead. You just single-handedly skipped over two years of MFA graduate work because skip a year or two and you're going to start melding and shaping and mixing the boxes together. But the point is it's intentional. Yes, yes, it mixing the boxes together. But the point is it's intentional, it's a choice. It doesn't just happen because I can't control myself and my output. I love that.  10:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that because when I'm teaching acting for narration one of my classes that I've taught in multiple places I talk about how your emotion can evolve from the start of the sentence into the end of the sentence, and that requires control and it requires, it does require focus, a lot of focus, in order to intentionally go from one emotion to another, to add that interest and that texture and that storyline.  11:05 - Lau Lapides (Guest) That's great, yes, and this is a physical, if you will, a physical incarnation of that not just internal but it's actually physical, so you can like.  11:14 We used to do as little kids play. What do we call it? Hopscotch? We used to go from box to box. You're literally going box to box and we're doing that in our life too. We're going from script to script, character to character, intention to intention, but it defines it. I think that's where the stretch comes. How do I stretch the ability of going 100% deep dive immediately and then pulling out of that immediately? It reminds me of a professional ball player. So if you're like a baseball player, someone who's sitting on the bench but they are not warming up, they are 100% ready to jump in the game and go. Is there a script Lau or is it just it's improv? Well, I mean, the experiment of it is all improv, and then you can install that into your scripts so that you know exactly what the boxes are. So there's no sitting on the bench kind of saying, oh, I'm going to warm myself up into it, I'm going to figure it out as I go. It's either you're 100% committed to it or you're 100% out of it. I love it.  12:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think right now I look at, I'm looking at boxes right now. I think we can play this not just physically, but I love the physical aspect of it.  12:21 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It's a cool thing. We can play it On Zoom.  12:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We can do it we can play it on Zoom too, because maybe Anne is the angry box right, and maybe Lau is the love box Right, if you think about it, and then we could just like okay, improv right, there we go. And so I'm not angry right now. But see, that would be tough for me, right? I've got to like work. I'm gonna have to work on that, because I don't like to be angry in my real life.  12:40 - Lau Lapides (Guest) But here's the thing you learn as an actor. You're not just as a voiceover talent, you're not just being that or becoming that. You're playing an action based on a situation, yeah Right. So it's your job to figure out what's the situation.  12:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh yeah, as we say, who are you talking to, right? What's going on? That is so important again, because we talk about, like, how are we evolving as successful businesses with digital disruption and AI and increasing like size of the industry, and how do we compete while we become the actor right that can evolve and meld with whatever we're being asked to do, and a lot of times, I'll ask people to create that scene in which the words on the page will make sense and will allow you to connect with those words in a meaningful way. And so that's where a lot of times, my students will be like but wait, they're like oh, now I'm asking them to think and it's like but this is hard and I'm like it is Like you know, if it were easy we'd all be voice actors making millions of dollars.  13:40 But even then that would be kind of cool.  13:42 - Lau Lapides (Guest) But yes, it's also the commitment in the relationship. So I think that's what makes it hard is like you don't realize you're making a commitment to a relationship immediately, without the intellect or analysis that we want to take to be safe. Right, kids are great at that. If kids played Rasa Boxes as a game, they'd jump right in and be the evil queen. They'd jump right in and be the fairy princess, because they understand it from an emotional EQ, emotional quotient way.  14:12 Yeah yeah, yeah. And so we're so intellectual these days, which is fabulous. We want to be able to analyze our script, of course, but we miss the part where we're connecting our mind to our feet, to our center, to our heart, to the ground. Right, it's actually quite Native American in a lot of ways. When you look at it, it's very soulful, it's very spiritual, it's very grounded to not only the spirits above us, the gods above us, but also the nature, the ground, the trees, the roots.  14:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Love it. I love it. I think we should have like a Zoom class on that. I think we should.  14:47 - Lau Lapides (Guest) We should have a Zoom class maybe during our audition demolition. That could be fun. That could be a ton of fun.  14:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It is fun, it's hard in a good way, yeah.  14:56 - Lau Lapides (Guest) And so what's the name of that again for our bosses out there that want to jot that down yeah, the name of the technique is called RASA R-A-S-A boxes, rasa boxes you should really look it up, and it's a sort of international kind of methodology that's used by actors of all cultural backgrounds to reach their characters deeply and quickly.  15:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, yeah, Deeply and quickly. Now that's the thing, because I've got a lot of students who they're like but this takes so much time and I said honestly, like, if you think about it, like how much time did that really take? Ten minutes, Did I just work with you for ten minutes on it? I mean, it's just one of those things where I asked you, okay, what's that moment before, right? And so, what is that scene? Why are you even saying these words? What's the purpose? All right, so I love that. So we've got we're saging, right, we're saging, we're cleansing and we're meditating, we're breathing, and now we've got something that's helping us to stretch outside of our boxes, or in the boxes, so to speak, for the acting technique that we just talked about. What else is there Lau out there that can help us?  15:57 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Well, I think you and I practice this all the time, subconsciously we do, and that is the grounding, and there's many techniques for grounding. But you need to ground yourself In the acting world. We call it sinking in. We can tell if you're not sinking in because you're floating.  16:13 you're somewhere floating, we can hear you processing the material still yes yes, you're not grounded, you're not centered, you're not sinking in, and there's different ways to do that. Sometimes people will want a stone, a crystal, a liquid, something that's warm, that is with them and touching them and around them. That helps them ground their spirit. Sometimes it's just a mental focus, like athletes may do. They may visualize and say I'm grounding myself to the ground.  16:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now, that's a physical, that's what I like, that I'm getting, that this is physical and I use this. Actually, laura, I did steal this from you and my students because I say grab your heart right. Yes, touch your heart because then it's going to help to connect you with those words in a meaningful way, right.  17:01 Yes and I believe that that will help to ground you as well, like literally. I mean, of course I've got objects in my studio that I can touch, I can feel I can connect to, but of course, since I'm looking at the script right, I have to be careful because I don't want to look away from the script, because I might drop a word or two. But I love like just grab yourself that kind of like just kind of connection.  17:22 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Yeah, it's also prep. You can stop your session and do it at any time, but it should be a prep for you, so that you're not going into it cold and expecting yourself to warm up as you go.  17:34 but really grounding yourself and centering yourself as you're there. And you know, I actually have found that to be very disturbing to many students over the years and it probably was to me when I was younger in that we forget that we have a muscle that's the biggest one. We have the heart. We forget what that is, yeah, and so it reminds us of not only love and warmth and connection, but death. Yeah, because it reminds you there's mortality as well as life, and that's something that actors have to come to over aging and over time, because it just is a maturity thing. I think that when you feel your heart and you know, this is my lifeline to living it's also my lifeline to dying as well, and there's a beauty in that not to be morose, but there's a beauty in understanding that you're vulnerable at all moments in life. You're not in control of anything.  18:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think the vulnerability, that's a great word. If I had a word to put in my studio to help me to connect right and to get past the words of it all and the sound of it all, I think it would be empathy.  18:42 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Yeah, yeah, well, the mortality, I like to think is also connected to humility. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, modesty and humility and understanding. We're not that great, that big, that important that we can't be gone at any moment, so what that provides for us is the understanding of what others are going through, yeah, what others are traveling through in that journey and that takes away from, oh, the ego of it all right the ego, you know I have something I say a few times in my classes about being a great e-learning narrator is to be a great teacher right yes, and if ego rules your classroom, get out of the classroom, right.  19:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) If ego rules your acting in reality, right, it's really not about you, it's about serving your audience, your scene, and really doing that justice Now. So we've got our sage, we've got our stretching to get out of the box and to get back in the box and to get back in the box.  19:35 What are some things that are not necessarily voiceover related that we can do to expand right our creativeness and our creative brain. And I like to say things that aren't necessarily like voiceover related, and I'll start it off by saying aren't necessarily like voiceover related and I'll start it off by saying for me, if you can do it financially, travel Traveling to another country can give you a wonderful perspective.  19:56 Anything that can get your creative juices flowing, that and a good movie right. So I watched a couple of great movies on the plane going out to Europe and then I was in Europe, experiencing different people, different cultures, and just watching and listening and talking and that allows me to grow spiritually, mentally, and it helps me in my performance. I mean it helps me to draw upon different experiences.  20:19 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Huge, huge, it's everything, or even this is what I've been doing recently going to different areas and towns in my state that I've never been to before or have never heard of, and just kind of driving around looking at properties, looking at businesses, looking at to expand my universe as to what surrounds me that I have not paid attention to yet, and how does that make me feel? How do I relate to that? I think that that's important in me being able to bring it into my knowledge base, my mindset, and to that EQ. Think that that's important in me being able to bring it into my knowledge base, my mindset, and to that EQ, that emotional quotient of understanding how others are living, how others are connected to the universe, to the world, to the, whatever, wherever they live. I think that's so important. I mean it doesn't have to be expensive.  21:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean, you could go to the mall and people watch One of my most favorite things I like to do when I went to New York was just hang out, sit down and watch people, because you can learn so much by absorbing the energy. It's not even about necessarily like, do you have to go to a class to learn something? I mean you just be absorbing the energy and for me, I like to be around positive energy, but sometimes being around negative energy also tells you like, oh okay, then that's also a learning experience.  21:29 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It reminds you too, like how do you do that when you have to do that? Because you and I are pretty positive energies and we try to stay hopeful in life and smile, but how do you do that when you have to do that? Maybe you're in a very somber or serious script, maybe you're in a character that is deeply defeated or unhappy. How do I reach that? Again, rasa boxes, how do I get into it? Very quickly and deep dive it? By understanding how people live, how they function, how they are in the world. That EQ, I think, is so—I would even venture to say, even though we're super intellectual beings, at least where we come from, culturally, eq is almost more important because it is really taking into consideration the other, the other person in a really important way, in a deep way, that many people just don't do.  22:19 They don't think to do, that it's so about not you.  22:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean ultimately, yeah, ultimately it's not about you.  22:27 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Ultimately, it's not about you.  22:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's not, but it is about you serving others or serving a purpose that can help you in the end. Right, I think it's not like you're not going to benefit if it's not about you. The fact is that it can benefit everyone, I think, if it becomes about the person.  22:43 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Okay, so listen, I feel a quote coming up and I must allow it because I'm working on Shakespeare right now in one of my classes. As for a mirror held up to nature. So that is the human spirit by Shakespeare held up to its audience. In other words, I'm the actor, I'm the performer, I'm just mirroring you, the society, the need, the value. I'm showing you your own humanity. Yeah, absolutely.  23:12 - Intro (Announcement) Or at least I'm attempting to.  23:13 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I'm attempting to do that. So in the mimicry, if you will, in the mirroring, there is a profound psychological effect with your audience. It's not only like this business-like ability which comes. That is important, but it's trust. It's a nugget of heart value that lasts people a whole lifetime. That I know you do and I strive for that. It's sure we want to make money, sure we want to be successful, sure we want to do all that, but we want to make long, meaningful relationships with our audiences so that we can have that legacy.  23:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, I mean I always was that person who had a positive legacy. Absolutely I mean, right, I always was that person who had a positive outlook on life. I mean, it was always like, you know, you and I are kind of bubbly personalities and so I that kind of has run my life, and when things happen that are not expected, like that were not in my control, I had health issues, right that, where all of a sudden I faced mortality, right, it amplified. It amplified that it wasn't about me In amplified that it wasn't about me. In reality it wasn't about me.  24:10 And what do I want to leave? What is my legacy? How do I want to be remembered? Right, right, and it really is about like, well, when you work 70, 80 hours a week, nobody like misses their work. When they pass on, right, it's not like, oh damn, I should have worked more. It's a funny thought though, Right, I should have worked more, but really it's, I should have lived more. And I think that really kind of planning and making time for that is important. So my husband, the other day he you know now where he works, you can take a mental health day he took a mental health day.  24:41 You know where he went? Disney. He went to Disney. And Disney is a great refresher for creativity. I'll tell you that. There you go, because you can just go and relax and have fun and allow yourself to feel right, yes, and not necessarily beaten down by the stresses of your work life.  24:58 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Just be present. Yeah, be present in the moment, having enjoyment, having fun, having an honest enthusiasm right Right Now. Who said this? Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.  25:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I have to look up who that was, but it's so true it's funny because everybody's like he went alone, he went by himself and I'm like, yeah, I said look, Jerry looks at Disney, the way I look at shopping, Like I can go shopping for hours. I mean hours, I mean when.  25:23 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Jerry travels.  25:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I go like on a Sunday or a Saturday I'll go to the mall for like four or five hours, six hours, believe it or not. Sure, have some dinner. Sure, just walk around and observe. That's what I do. I observe, that's a lot of what I do. I'm like, yeah, I shop too, but I observe and I literally could do that all day long. So I'm like, yeah, no, I let him do that.  25:44 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Okay, does that fall in? Just to circle back Now is that now falling into the rejuvenation factor, the regenerating? Does that fall into that stretch factor of like? What are you doing to rejuvenate and regenerate that helps you stretch, helps you grow, helps you?  26:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) learn all these things? How does shopping help Anne grow? Well, you know, believe it or not, in a creative sense, right, we know that I'm a fashion buff. Right, we know that I'm a fashion buff, right, I'm not necessarily buying everything up in the stores, but I'm curating, I'm looking, I'm combining, I'm doing that creative, like whatever it is that creative assemblage in my head and building outfits, whether I actually purchase anything or not. And then I'm looking at people. I'm saying, oh, I like that, I like. Oh, look at that, would look good with that. And so I'm exercising Believe it or not, it's a creative exercise for me. And Jerry's like, oh, you're out shopping. No, I'm creatively exercising.  26:38 - Intro (Announcement) I'm stretching. This is going to help my business.  26:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm stretching this is going to help my business, but it is something like that, and you know I always say watching a great movie, something that can move you, move you to an emotion, to tears to happiness, to joy that is invigorating and that to me, is like okay, I want to make someone feel like that or I want to have an impact like that.  26:59 And how can I achieve that? How can I do that? Through my day-to-day voice acting Right, cause I mean we all know cause, we're all in it Right, but it's not to be minimalized.  27:08 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I mean, it's not just, oh, it's just voice acting Hell no, I mean that's something that someone says from the outside, not from the inside right when you're inside of it. Everything's a challenge.  27:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and I'm like oh yeah, meryl Streep makes it look easy, right, she's an amazing actress, right. But that did. It did not happen overnight, and I think that, of course, there are people who have gifts, but I'm not to say that those gifts don't require work, you know, to develop and grow.  27:35 - Lau Lapides (Guest) That's the actor challenge, though. When you see great actors, it looks easy, it looks like it's natural, they're born doing it. They don't need coaching, they don't need classes, they just do it. No, you haven't seen the whole back end of that and they just do it. No, you haven't seen the whole back end of that. And they continue learning growing.  27:56 Yeah, johnny Depp is famous for going right into the culture and the mindset in the background and living it for a couple months before he shoots a film. You know what I mean. It's like hard work. There's a lot of hard work involved in building authenticity. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely Right. Is there not like a bit of a what's the word? Paradox in working so hard to building authenticity that has a technical kind of fake structure to it and that is, you know, being on a microphone, right, but you have to be able to do that. You have to be able to do that and balance both.  28:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, oh, I love this conversation. This is such a great beginning of the year conversation because it's so different from just write your goals down, and, of course, I still think you should write your goals down. But hey, before you do that, right, take stock, sage out, get yourself out of the box, go through these steps and then stretch right and then do something that will stretch your creativity even further so that you can have the absolute best 2025 ever, ever.  28:52 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Unbelievable. I feel like we should have for that segment. We should have shaved our heads, been on a mountaintop in Tibet and drinking really delicious tea, like. I feel like we missed that part of it, but it was extraordinary, as always.  29:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Next episode, Lau and I will be coming to you from, yeah, drinking our tea. Oh my goodness, bosses.  29:12 - Intro (Announcement) Delicious.  29:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's been amazing. Thank you, Lau. As always, it's just a pleasure and I look forward to our next episode together. Bosses, you too can connect and network like bosses, boss superpowers, and find out more at IPDTLcom. Big shout out to our sponsor. You guys have an amazing year week, year day, all that good stuff, and we'll see you next week. Bye.  29:35 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Let's Meet HERE to See if Farm Marketing Boot Camp is for you.   This morning I met with a farmer in Pennsylvania who said her biggest bottleneck is herself.   She wishes she could clone herself; she needs more of herself.

After reading about the characters in this book, I made it my mission to have their kind of life for myself. Today we meet David Ciminello and we're talking about the book that saved his life: More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.David Ciminello is a Lambda Literary Fellow and author of The Queen of Steeplechase Park. As an actor, David guest starred on Seinfeld (“The Barber”), Murder She Wrote, Matlock, and Kojak. His original screenplay Bruno was made into a motion picture directed by Shirley MacLaine and stars Kathy Bates, Gary Sinese, and Jennifer Tilly.In More Tales of the City, the tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelgänger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favorite gynecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all--without ever leaving home.Connect with Davidwebsite: davidciminello.cominstagram: @djciminelloFacebook: facebook.com/david.ciminelloOur BookshopVisit our Bookshop for  new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbookTo purchase More Tales of the City visit: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780060929381To purchase The Queen of Steeplechase Park visit: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781942436614Become an Associate Producer!Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbookCreditsHost/Founder: J.P. Der BoghossianExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy EricksonMusic and SFX credits: visit thiqueerbook.com/musicQuatrefoil LibraryQuatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can't buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1June 18: 2-Year Anniversary Livestream: Follow us on Instagram @thisqueerbook. (7:30am EST/6:30am CST)June 22: Queer Speculations: A Reading and Gathering. On Zoom. Visit armenianliterary.org to register. (1pm EST/12pm CST)June 29: Live broadcast from Twin Cities PRIDE. 2pm CST. Listen to AM950 Radio on your radio app or am950radio.com. Or, visit our tent!Support the Show.

Here is the recording of our live stream we held on Instagram on June 18! We talk about impactful episodes. We had a couple of trivia questions for the audience. We got into our book ban episodes. Then we shared about upcoming shows!Our BookshopVisit our Bookshop for  new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbookBecome an Associate Producer!Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbookCreditsHost/Founder: J.P. Der BoghossianExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy EricksonMusic and SFX credits: visit thiqueerbook.com/musicQuatrefoil LibraryQuatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can't buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1June 18: 2-Year Anniversary Livestream: Follow us on Instagram @thisqueerbook. (7:30am EST/6:30am CST)June 22: Queer Speculations: A Reading and Gathering. On Zoom. Visit armenianliterary.org to register. (1pm EST/12pm CST)June 29: Live broadcast from Twin Cities PRIDE. 2pm CST. Listen to AM950 Radio on your radio app or am950radio.com. Or, visit our tent!Support the Show.

Our first-ever live stream starts today June 18 at 7:30am Eastern, 6:30am Central. Follow us on Instagram to join us. We're @thisqueerbook. Once it's over I'll be uploading it here so you can listen to it here, on your favorite podcast app. Hopefully, see you all soon. If not, stay tuned to this space for the recording of today's livestream! June 18: 2-Year Anniversary Livestream: Follow us on Instagram @thisqueerbook. (7:30am EST/6:30am CST)June 22: Queer Speculations: A Reading and Gathering. On Zoom. Visit armenianliterary.org to register. (1pm EST/12pm CST)June 29: Live broadcast from Twin Cities PRIDE. 2pm CST. Listen to AM950 Radio on your radio app or am950radio.com. Or, visit our tent!Support the Show.

I'm proud to sit on the Advisory Board of Sparks & Honey, a global consultancy that helps some of the world's biggest brands understand explosive and immediate cultural shifts and adjust their strategies accordingly. A few times a week Sparks & Honey hosts Cultural Briefings from their studio in NYC. Last week, they hosted a briefing on the Biggest Food & Beverage Influences to watch in 2024. I joined as the guest expert and the conversation was fire. From Ozempic to AI, inflation to microplastics, we ran through the sociological, technological, economic, environmental, and political you need to know about. Are you looking for a speaker for your next event? I deliver keynotes on the future food revolution. On Zoom or in person, inspire your colleagues with an energizing talk about the trends, technologies, and business models influencing the future and how your org can play a role in shaping what's et.

Happy New Year! A big challenge as we look at a fresh start and feel excited about 2024 is how can we make this year meaningful so that at the end of the year you don't feel like nothing really happened that made a long term impact.   What can we focus on to make sure this year is meaningful and is different than anything money can buy!   In today's devotion we're going to highlight Ecclesiastes 1:2-3.   *God bless you and Happy New Year! Here is the list of Bible studies pastor discussed: The Life of Daniel, God's Persevering Prophet Wednesdays, 10:00 – 11:00   *The Life of Daniel, God's Persevering Prophet Wednesdays, 7:15 – 8:15p On Zoom  (Email Pastor for the link)   *The Gospel of Matthew (cont'd)  Fridays, 9:30-10:30a   *“Nothing New Under the Sun” Studying the Book of Ecclesiastes Sundays, 10:45-11:45a *Bible 101 Tuesdays, 7:00-8:15p   We hope you enjoy this message and if you have any questions you can email us at: votl.podcast@gmail.com Instagram: @votlchurch Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/votl.org/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbssSY_GyJMabh9W-sSVQpQ Online: https://votl.org

On this week's episode, Writer/Executive Producer Alex Berger (Blindspot, Glen Martin D.D.S, Quantum Leap, and many many more) talks about his writing career, thoughts on breaking into the industry as well as his experiences taking a "Showrunners Course" through the studios.STORY NOTESAlex Berger on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1584238/Alex Berger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbergerla?lang=enFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTAlex Berger:They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answer to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. If you're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time. You're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational on say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that you're going to how to dig in on this with those. NowMichael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. Michael Jamin here. I have another wonderful guest today and this guest, we're going to talk about drama writing because he works primarily in drama and his story is fascinating how he broke in. And we're going to get to please welcome Mr. Alex Berger and he's worked on Alex. Let me introduce people to some of your amazing credits here and you can fill in in, I'm just going to go for some of the highlights. Well, I know you did Kil, you co-created Glen Martin d d s, which is the show. My partner ran Covert Affairs, the Assets Franklin and Bash the Mentalist Blind Spot. And currently you are a writer on Quantum Leap, so you got a lot of drama. Burger. Welcome, welcome to the podcast.Alex Berger:Thank you so much for having me. It's, it's good to be here. I've been enjoying listening to it.Michael Jamin:Oh man, I'm so happy you're doing this. Let's talk. Let's start from the beginning because I think it was so interesting about your background. So many people say, how do I get a showrunner attached to sell my show? And you kind of sold your show, your show, Glen Martin, d d s. You were pretty new to the scene and then you got a show on the air without much experience. So how did that happen?Alex Berger:Yeah, I'd been out here for probably five or six years and I'd had a couple of staff jobs. I'd had a job doing a sort of comedy variety show before that. That was a very sort of small potatoes thing. But that came about because Steve Cohen Cohen, who I know you've talked about before, was a friend of mine and had mentioned this idea that Michael Eisner had for a long time about a family who traveled the country in an rv and they had writers attached for a long time. Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric Show were attached to write the thing.Michael Jamin:I didn't know any of this.Alex Berger:They got a 60 episode order on their other show, and so they had to back out. And so Steve would come in and pitch a take. So I came in and I pitched a take, and Michael Eisner, who had just left basically running Hollywood, he was running, Disney had just started a company, and he had just had larynx surgery, so he couldn't talk. So every time I pitched something, he had to write his response on a computer, which was fun, but a little challenging.Michael Jamin:But what was the idea, how much, when you pitched your take, what did they give you?Alex Berger:He had said Family lives in an rv. Basically it travels the country and animation. And he had more than that. I mean, it is been almost 20 years, so I've forgotten. But he definitely had a real idea. He'd had this idea for 30 or 40 years that he'd wanted to do over the years at Disney and he wasn't able to do it. So he had a pretty formed idea of what he wanted the show to be. ButMichael Jamin:Was it dentist you came up with that throughAlex Berger:Development? I mean, that was sort of like Steve and I, Steve became sort of a, and it was almost like an incubator instead of a typical situation in which I would come in and pitch a show, he kind of brainstormed with me and created the ideas with me, and we kind of toyed with a couple of different versions of it and came up with the idea of him being, why is he on the road and what's he driving in? And came up with the idea of a dentist that was in his mobile dentistry unit and sort of built some of the characters around that. And it kind of kept getting added to,Michael Jamin:Because all that stuff became comedy gold throughout the seasons. We were like, what kind of idiot has a dental car? Who does he think, what kind of clients? How does that work? And it all became fodder for the show,Alex Berger:For the circus at one point. And it was doing dental work on animals, if I remember correctly. But it was definitely, I didn't think I'd seen that before. So that was kind of one of the things that was fun to explore.Michael Jamin:And so you came up with all the, well, at least the dynamics for the characters, because what I remember, we watched the, I dunno if it was a pilot or presentation that you saw, but yeah, the characters you invented were funny. You had the dumb kid, he had the daughter and she had an assistant, which we hadn't seen that before.Alex Berger:It was definitely even more than other experiences I've had in development, very much a team effort. And then we had sort of come up with a script, and then I think you had Eric Fogle on the show before, and Eric came on and was also sort of added his vision both in terms of look and feel and tone and story, and was digging in with us. And then Michael on his own, paid for an eight minute pilot presentation. So they made an eight minute stop motion, basically the first act of the show. And he took it downtown and took it everywhere. And we ended up setting it up at Nick at night with this 20 episode order. And I think that's when you guys sort of made the picture, right?Michael Jamin:So you started, I'm curious. It's funny how I never even asked you about this. So at that point you had to meet showrunners for a show you created, which we're going to talk about a second. Did you meet a lot of showrunners?Alex Berger:I met none of the showrunners. I met you guys after you'd been hired.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? I wonder how many they had. SoAlex Berger:The tote system was, they wanted to sort of make that decision. And so they met with showrunners and had decided they were very much immediately captivated by you guys and were really excited about, and I don't think it was a pretty quick decision. And then they had me come to meet you guys.Michael Jamin:Now the thing is, I imagine you were very easy to work with and to your great credit, I always felt like you just turned over the keys and it was like, okay, here you go. And it was never an ego thing if you, but was it difficult though for you?Alex Berger:I mean, I can give you the answer that I was thinking at the time, and I can give you the answer that I have in retrospect. I think at the time I felt like, I don't know. It's a good question. Let me give you the answer in retrospect first, which is in retrospect, I know that I was inexperienced to know, especially about comedy writing a lot and certainly about running a show. I think at the time I was very happy for you guys to come in and run it. And exactly as you said, take the keys. I think that I felt intimidated because it was a room full of really seasoned comedy writers. I knew I was one of the least experienced writers on the show, and yet my name was on the show. So it was a kind of a weird game. It's not like a typical situation in which a more experienced writer comes in, but they've never run a show.So they pair them with a show runner and then they're really a triumvirate or something. I definitely felt like experience wise and sort of comedy chops wise, I was with folks who'd broken 2, 3, 400 episodes of cool sitcoms that I really admired. So I felt like I wanted to contribute from a character and comedy perspective as much as I could, but I also felt like I was learning on the fly that I had my name on. So it was definitely tricky to sort of figure that out. But you guys were great about never feeling like you were stepping on toes, and you always would consult with me, especially at the beginning, but it was very clear that it was your show, but it was also that you wanted me to sort be on board with what we were doing.Michael Jamin:And I mean, it was a fun room. I mean, maybe I shouldn't speak for you. I thought it was a fun room. Yeah,Alex Berger:Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was like I'd never been in a sitcom room before. I mean, I've been in a couple of drama rooms as an assistant and a writer, and those rooms are more buttoned up and a little more like, let's come in at 10 and start talking about the story at 10 15. And there's definitely bits and sort of digressions, but a comedy room has a certain energy that you can't replicate. And it was really fun to be in that room. And I've been in rooms that are a little bit like that since, but never anything that was, I laughed quite so much, just had it.Michael Jamin:I was going to ask you about that, right? I haven't worked in any, we've done dark comedy, but never drama. And so I'm curious, you've done a lot of drama. So are the rooms, are they really what you're saying? Are they buttoned up? Are they sur because it's still a creative shop?Alex Berger:It's fun. I would say this is based on a very small sample size of my two years in Glen Martin. And then just listening to comedy writers talk, I think comedy writers find the genius through procrastination. I think that it takes the tangent sometimes to get you to the gold. And I know you guys, especially more than other comedy writers I've known, were very focused on story structure. I know from your time with Greg Daniels and Seaver had bought a book at the mall,And it was very important to you that the story felt like it had load-bearing walls, but it did feel like more free flowing and there were room bits and there was a whole sitcom inside that room of three characters, both people in the room and people we were looking out the window at. So that's definitely different than other shows I've been on, other shows I've been on, it's a little more like, all right, let's get to work. And especially these days with room hours have gotten shorter and so on less. And I've been in Zoom rooms for the last couple of years, so it's even less of a roomMichael Jamin:Basic. Oh, so gotten, haven't gotten, your last rooms haven't been in person either. YouAlex Berger:Haven't? Yeah, I've been in three Zoom rooms since the pandemic.Michael Jamin:It's funny you mentioned because comedy rooms have room bits and our offices were on Beverly Hills and Big glamorous street in Beverly Hills. We would look out the window, and you're right, we would create stories when we weren't making stories for the tv, we were making stories for the regular characters that we would see outside our windows.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean truly. I know you had Brian and Steve and a couple of other people from the show on. I have not laughed that hard in a room.It was a blast. And I also think there's value to it creatively. It's not wasted time. I think it's just a different way of getting to the process. I remember hearing once of, I can't remember which one, it was a Simpsons writer who would be on draft. He had two weeks to write his draft, and he would past around the fox lot for 12 days and then write the draft in the last two days. And someone asked him, why don't you just write the draft for the first two days and then be done? And he said, because I need those 12 days of pacing to get me to the last two days. And I think copywriter are more prone to that kind of way of thinking. I think.Michael Jamin:See, see, I don't remember that way always. I always get nervous when that story's not broken. I always want to crack the whip seavers more. Like that's, but to me, I was always,Alex Berger:When you were in the room, it was more like, let's stay on story. And when see, it was a little more. And then when you guys were both out of the room, it was even more free flowing, which is not to say that all of the eps weren't trying to keep us on story, but its like it's was a silly show about silly characters and absurd, every premise of every episode had a massive degree of absurdity to it. And so you wouldn't be too serious in a room like that, or you wouldn't be ready to make that kind of show. I mean, at least that was my take on it.Michael Jamin:I would describe that as a writer's show. It was always about what made us laugh and not the 15 year old kids who shouldn't be watching or the 10 year old kids. I knowAlex Berger:It was either Brian or Steve who said it was a show with a demographic of nobody.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:The demographic of the 15 people in that room for sure. We all really enjoyed watch them. They're all really funny. They'reMichael Jamin:Funny.Alex Berger:It was on the wrong network.Michael Jamin:Oh, for sure. Steve and I were horsing around procrastinating on some work we were doing, and for some reason we stumbled on, maybe it was some guy's YouTube channel where he was talking about Glen Martin and this guy nailed it. It was like he was in the room. I don't know how he knew every, it seemed like he knew where we messed up. He knew where we got it. Right. I was justAlex Berger:Amazed. I saw that video and I was like, I can't believe somebody watched the show. I thought that literally, I could not imagine that this guy was that deep into the show.Michael Jamin:Oh no. I get a lot of comments on social media like, oh my God, you ruined my childhood. Really? Like you gave me nightmares.Alex Berger:My wife's cousin is like 25 or 26, and he's dating a girl. And on the second date, he asked her what your favorite shows are. And the second show she said was Glen Martin, d d s. And when he said, oh, my wife's cousin wrote that show, she was instantly smid with him. She gave him so much gr.Michael Jamin:Oh, that's so funny. I mean, it was a wild show, man. Too bad. That was a shame. We were going to spin it off too. We all, oh yeah,Alex Berger:Stone spin off right behind. OhMichael Jamin:Yeah, there you go.Alex Berger:The Drake Stone. Yeah,Michael Jamin:All my dolls. Yeah. As soon as they went under, they go here. Here take some. You must have some dolls, right? They give you some dolls. I haveAlex Berger:Alen Martin Puppet and an Alex Burger puppet, and my kids constantly want to play with them and I won't let them.Michael Jamin:Who were you in the show? I don't remember what kind.Alex Berger:I think I was a Greek God carrying somebody at some point in some fantasy sequence and they would reuse the puppets. That was what was so funny. So I think that was one thing, and then they reused me as another thing.Michael Jamin:And did you ever get out to Toronto to see theAlex Berger:No. Did you go upMichael Jamin:There? Oh yeah. We went once and Fogel and I had a very romantic dinner together on top of the Toronto Space Needle or whatever they call that. I sawAlex Berger:Them shooting the pilot presentation, which they shy in New York. It was incredibly cool, but just I've always found set to be tedious in general, but I can't imagine how tedious it must be to do stop motion.Michael Jamin:Do you go, oh, I think they wanted to poke their eyes out, but do you go on set a lot for dramas? Yeah. Is it just your episode or what?Alex Berger:Depends on the show. I did this show called Blind Spot for five years, and basically we would have a writer on set for every episode and we would try to make it your episode, but oftentimes it was the writer who wrote the episode had a baby and is on maternity leave or they can't go to New York at this time or if they went to New York and they wouldn't be back in LA for the breaking of their next episode. So we tried to shuffle it around a little bit and it's trickier when it's out of town. You've got to make people have life that they've got to plan around. But you're going for three and a half weeks to New York.Michael Jamin:Are most of your show shot out of town?Alex Berger:It's been mixed Quantum Leap, which is the show I'm on now is Shot Year on the Universe a lot. Blind Spot was New York Covert Affairs, which I went to a lot of episodes for, was in Toronto, which was a lot of fun. And then I've had a couple Franklin, imagine the Mentalists were LA and it's been sort of a mix.Michael Jamin:How many day shoots are most of your shows? Dramas?Alex Berger:It depends on the budget of the show. Blind Spots started as nine and then was eight and a half and some tandem days and by the end was eight. They keep pulling money budget every year. Quantum Leap I think is eight.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then what do you, as a writer on set for comedy when on set, it's like, I want to make sure they're playing the comedy right, making jokes, but what are you looking for that the director isn't covering?Alex Berger:Well, first of all, it's a lot of times if you have a great director, it's a team effort. So the director is obviously in charge of the set, but if you have a director who's collaborative, they're asking you, do you feel like that works? Or which take do you feel like was better? It's blocking work for you and your main job is just to make sure that you're the protector of the script and a protector of the story. And it's not like, excuse me, you didn't say the word there. Although there a Sorkin set, they will keep you word perfect, but it's more like, actually, I know you want to change that line. It doesn't feel comfortable in your mouth, but it's really important that you say this. It's going to set something up that we're doing in three episodes, or Hey, just so you know, when you're saying this to this character, you're actually lying and you're going to be revealed to be.It's a lot of making sure that everybody knows the episode up to the episodes we're leading to. And then, yeah, there's still a lot of shows I've worked on have a fair amount of comedy. So you're still making sure jokes, land and actors, this doesn't feel comfortable in my mouth. Do you mind if I say it like this? Or if you work with an actor who wants to have a little bit and wants to assert a line, sometimes I need to be the one to say, okay, well then that means that this person needs to say this line after to keep a joke going.Michael Jamin:Right? Right. It's interesting, and especially when scenes are shot out of order, it is easy for actors to lose track of where they are in the story. So that is theAlex Berger:Part I really like is Prep, because I've worked on a lot of big shows, big action shows and into you fly to New York with your script in hand and you're so excited. And then the first thing that the line producer tells you every single time is, we're $400,000 over budget. Before you even say hello. The fun part to me is the puzzle of how do you protect the story with the constraints of we can't shoot this in nine days. I've walked into episodes that were supposed to be seven day shoots, and the board came out and it was 10 days. And so you've got to figure out, okay, we can move this back into the house so we can take this care, we can do this here. And actually the shootout that happens after the bank robbery, maybe that happens off screen, stuff like that.Michael Jamin:So are you doing a lot of rewriting on set then?Alex Berger:It's usually in prep.Michael Jamin:Okay. In prep,Alex Berger:By the time you're on set in a drama, you're pretty close to set to go unless something changes or an actor nowadays, if an actor gets covid, then all of a sudden you're taking that actor out of the scene and rewriting the scenes and why are they, that kind of thing.Michael Jamin:And then are your showrunners ever on any of these shows ever on set? Or are they always sending proxies? Yeah, itAlex Berger:Depends. It depends on the show. So typically on the shows that I've been on, the showrunner, the showrunner was there for the pilot. They're usually going to go for 1 0 2 just to, it's been four months and they want to reestablish a tone and kind of be a leader, and then they'll try to pop in and out a bunch during the year so that it's not like they're just coming when there's a problem. And then when the show's in la, the showrunner will usually try to pop by after set, especially if before the Zoom Room thing, the writer's room would wrap at seven, the production's still going, so they usually come for the last couple scenes, something like that.Michael Jamin:How many writers are there usually on these hour shows?Alex Berger:I mean, I'm curious to hear what your answer is for comedy too, because it's really shrinking in the beginning. I mean, Glen Martin was what, 10, 12, something like that, including if you're Partners is too, and then it's gotten down to 10 and then eight. And then I think Quantum Leap were about 10, which is a big staff, but the Netflix show I just worked on was six. The show, the Assets that I did, which was a limited series was five. And this is a lot of big issues of the strike is these rooms are getting too small. What are the root comedy rooms like now? Because I know there's been, it's like sometimes it's like 25 people in a roomMichael Jamin:Well, on animation, but I think those days are kind of overAlex Berger:Or big network sitcoms aren't there.Michael Jamin:I don't think they're that big. I don't think there aren't big network sitcoms anymore, but I don't think, I mean it was never,Alex Berger:What was the Tacoma room?Michael Jamin:Oh, it's probably eight or so. But that's a small cable show,Alex Berger:But they're all small. I think they're all like that now. Even the network comedies, unless you're Abbott, they're all 13 or eight orMichael Jamin:Yeah, I think even just shoot me back in. This was in the day, I want to say maybe 10 or 12 times. Oh really? That's it. Yeah. Yeah, Roseanne. Roseanne was famously Big. Fred had a big staff, but that was Roseanne. It was a giant show.Alex Berger:And The Simpsons, I know there's these shows that have the two, I mean the drama rooms, there's a bunch of writers who having a big staff and then they like to split the room in two and break two episodes at the same time. A lot of showrunners actually want a small staff and hate having too many voices. I like a big room. I like eight to 10 people because you're always in a drama room, especially you've always got one writer on set, two writers on draft sometimes set, so there's three or four people gone every single day. So your room thins out real fast, and I think you need at least five people to break a story.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. Now the thing is, you're a funny guy. You have a good sense of humor. You started in comedy, but do you miss at all comedy or do you feel I'm a fish in water with drama?Alex Berger:Yeah, I was in over my head in comedy, I be the guy who can do a little bit of comedy on a drama staff than that guy in a comedy room who's mostly focused on story. I mean, I felt like, obviously I wrote Pilot and I felt like I had a voice on that show, but it was clear to me that this was not the type of show that I was going to be thriving at. I really enjoyed it, but it was like just comedy wasn't my thing. I love writing on a Funny One Hour, Franklin and Bash, which was a legal show, was essentially a comedy that had the stakes of a drama, but the tone of a comedy. And I love because I like being able to go to the serious scene to have the emotional he, to not have to have a joke at the end of every scene. And then I've written some pilots and stuff that have a fair amount of comedy, but I always want, and I've written half hour dramas. It's just I want the pressure of three jokes a page and beating a joke and beating a joke and beating a joke. It just wasn't my pace.Michael Jamin:Well, I got to say, I think it was probably the last script you wrote was you and Pava teamed up to write a Christmas episode. Oh yeah. And you guys crushed it. I remember coming back, you guys turned it in, whatever you guys did together, were like, you guys, you're going to do this together. Probably because PA wanted to write a musical. I was like, Papa, I'm not writing a musical. And he probably did, but you guys turned in a great draft. And I was like, if that show had gone, I'd be like, I remember thinking, well, these guys are going to be stuck in a room together for a long time. Because yeah,Alex Berger:That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. And it's funny, I want to show my kids the show. They're really young and there's not a lot of episodes that are appropriate for little, that one's pretty tame. That one's pretty tame. We did a rom-com parody sort, the Wedding planner parody, and then we did a, what was it? I forget the other ones. It was a lot of fun.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. What is nutty stuff? So now the dramas, I'm sorry. When you go off to write your own pilots, when you're developing your own, is there a unifying theme tone that you like to pitch? Yeah,Alex Berger:I would say two things. One is fun. I don't want to write some things super dark. I don't want to write. I like watching shows like that. I watch Last Of Us and The Leftovers and a lot of shows that are real bleak and I really enjoy them. But when I'm living in the world for 12 hours a day, for eight years, I want it to be fun. I want to have a certain amount of lightness to it and sort of levity to it, which is not to say it has to be a comedy, it can still be a drama. There just needs to be something fun about it. And even when I'm writing on a show like Quantum Leap, we've had episodes that are really serious, but the ones that I do, I try to make them, I did an airplane hijacking episode, but I tried to make it fun and sort of like an eighties action movie. And then the other thing I would say is sort of optimism. I try to write something that makes you think that the world is going to be a better place. I've written a lot of political shows and politics is pretty dark these days. One, my take is sort of, but if we do this, we can all get through it. None of those have gotten on the air. So maybe that says something about what people feel about optimism these days.Michael Jamin:Well, it's also a numbers game, but how do you feel, let's say you were given the keys to run your show, got on the air somewhere, eight episodes on the air. How do you feel? Feel about that? Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready. Or like, oh my God, what did I get?Alex Berger:Both. I mean, I did the Writer's Guild showrunner training program a couple of years ago, which is phenomenal. WhatMichael Jamin:Was that? Tell me all aboutAlex Berger:That. It was great. But so essentially it's a six week every Saturday, all day, every Saturday college course on how to run a show. And it's run by Jeff Melvoin, who's a really seasoned showrunner, and Carol Kirschner, who's been working in the business forever. And then they bring in John Wells is usually a big part of the program and they bring in really heavy hitter showrunners all the way down to people who were in the program last year and then got a show on the year. And they're like, bill and Ted when they come back at the time Machine and Bill and Ted's, and they're like, you're in for a crazy journey. And so it's really cool to hear from all of those people and they focus one day is on writing, one day is on post one day on production. And what I learned from that was having been on staffs for something like 250 episodes of tv, I've learned basically all the things you can do in terms of book learning to run a show.But the last 20%, you can't learn until you're there. Sort of like if you read a hundred books about swimming, you kind of know how to swim, but if you dropped out of a helicopter ocean, you're going to have to figure it out and you're going to be drowning while you're doing it. And literally, I don't know if this was your experience when you guys had it, but every other show I've talked to says nothing fully prepares you for it. So I have a couple shows in development right now, and if you told me that they were to go, I think the first feeling would be utter terror and like, okay, let's do it. Let's go. This is the time to do it. And I've run a lot of writers' rooms and stuff like that, but I've never actually had the keys to the castle, soMichael Jamin:Interesting. Right. Okay, so you've run the room, you've been breaking stories, you're in charge of that. Now time in terms of tell me about the short run is problem You apply, how do you get in?Alex Berger:You have to be recommended by somebody and applied and they want someone, they're trying to find people who are the next shows up. And so people in the program have a pilot that's already been shot and that's already ordered a series, but they don't know how to run a show. You people who've worked in features or worked in writing novels who are transitioning into television. So all the production stuff to them is totally new. And then you have lot of people like me who sort came up as staff writer, story editor and just worked their way up the ranks who've been around for a while, who just haven't taken that next step, who want to know more about what it's like to run a show. I loved it. First of all, it was like being in college, man, it was just absorbing material and taking notes at a frantic pace and reading that they recommended. But it was just so interesting to hear. It's like this, your podcast is so great because you could hear people speak, but these are people who are specifically targeted at the demographic of you're a co eep and you're about to run a show. Here's what you need to know.Michael Jamin:And so you don't pay for this, right? Or youAlex Berger:Do, the guild pays for it and the studios pay for it. It's a phenomenal program.Michael Jamin:And then it's so interesting. And then, alright, so then how big of a cohort, how big of a group isAlex Berger:It? 30. And it's a bummer because these days it's been on Zoom and so you don't really get to the year. I did it in 2017 or 2018. And so I got to know those folks and they were sort of, yeah, again, my cohort and three quarters of them are running shows and everybody else's EPS or eps, running rooms. It's a very fun dynamic to have a group.Michael Jamin:What are they teaching you? I'm so curious as what they teach you. I bet there's stuff I don't know. And we've done three shows. What are they teaching you about post that you were surprised?Alex Berger:The overwhelming, the first thing they tell you when you walk in the door is quality scripts on time. The bug that they gave me, the showrunner program, quality scripts on time, and that was basically the theme of it was being efficient, being and knowing when to cut your losses and say move on. And knowing when to say this isn't good enough. And so for posts, it's like, are you the type of person who wants to be in post for 10 hours a day? That's fine, but then you need to have somebody who's going to be overrunning the room, or do you want the writer who produced the episode to do the first and the second cut? And then you do the last cut and they bring in editors and they talk, editors tell you about what they want to hear. A lot of things that I'd been in post a lot before I was in that room and then editors were telling me things that I was doing that annoyed the crap out of them. And I was like, oh, little thing like what? Snapping, when you say cut there,Michael Jamin:Oh,Alex Berger:That annoys.Michael Jamin:That annoys them. It's like a dogAlex Berger:Thing. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of editors, some editors want line notes. Some editors want you to say, this scene doesn't feel funny enough, I'm not getting the comedy. And then they'll say, okay, let me take another swing at it. And you need to feel like, is this the type of editor that wants to do it on their own or that type of showrunner that wants to do that. But broadly speaking, it's essentially a leadership training program. The nuts and bolts stuff with all stuff that I had seen up close being a lieutenant on a show, there are a lot of little tips that I picked up here and there and when I get a show, I will go back to my notebook and frantically look through it, but it's mostly about how do you lead, how do you manage, how do you fire people? How do you delegate? How do you tell people that they're not doing a good enough job but give 'em a second chance? Interesting. They bring a lot of directors in, stuff like that.Michael Jamin:What was the last thing youAlex Berger:Said? How to interview a director? How to interview director. A big director came in and talked to you. Here's some questions you should ask when you're interviewing. Here's a great one that they said. They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answers to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. You're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time, you're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind of throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational. I say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that are like how to dig in on this with those people.Michael Jamin:Now I'm learning. What else can you share with me thatAlex Berger:Might be helpful? I can get my notebook you,Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.I remember when we're running Glen Martin, which is the first show we ran a lot of this, and you probably weren't even aware of this, A lot of it was me. If I was at the board or whatever, it was me like, okay, I want to make sure I'm not losing the room. I want to make sure everyone, no one's losing focus. And I think part of that was make a decision even if it's a bad one because you can lose the room if you can't pull the trigger. You know what I'm saying? It's so frustrating. You guysAlex Berger:Did a good job with that. And then I think that decisiveness, I think is actually one of the most important qualities in the showrunner, but also willingness to admit you were wrong if you made a decision and moved on and then a day later you realize you were wrong. You have to and say, I made the wrong decision. And one of the things I've learned running that I've really tried to do when I'm running a room is if there's an idea floating around that I hate, but it's getting energy and it's getting excitement, I try not to step on it until it either burns out on its own or it's reached a critical mass and I'm like, look, I think this is not going to work, but let's talk it out because there's nothing worse as having come up on staffs. And this is one of the most valuable things when you've been a staff writer and a story editor as opposed to getting your own show as the first thing that happens to you is you know how demoralizing it is when everybody's super excited about something now it's not going to work. It's so demoralizing. Yes, A lot of times you think it's not going to work. You just sit there back and listen for 20 minutes and you're like, oh, actually, you know what? There is a version of this that'll work if I just add this one thing. It's an organism and you're leading an organism and it's very hard. You guys did a great, and you guys are a team, which is even harder because you've got to read each other's minds aboutThis works.Michael Jamin:You bring a good point. I remember one time, so when Glen Martin, I would go, I would direct the actors on Wednesdays or whatever and see would be running the room, and I remember coming back at the end of a long day directing, come back to the room and you guys had made a lot of progress on the script and everyone's excited. Everyone's excited about this idea and you guys pitched it to me. I wasn't getting it. I didn't get it. I was like, I didn't want to shit on it because I could tell everyone was so excited about it. And so I just kept on asking questions just to explain it to me so that I would get on board.Alex Berger:That's a really hard part is and because I've never been the actual showrunner, I've never been the one, I would be like, I'm sorry we're vetoing this. A lot of times what I would do, because I was a number two, was if I hated something, if I left the room and then I came back and I hated something, I'd be like, look, I'm not totally on board with this idea, but let's give it its day in short and let's pitch it to the showrunner. And I would try, when I would pitch it to the showrunner be to not give away which side I was on or to say, look, here's one side of the argument, here's the other side of the argument. But when it's ultimately up to you, it is hard because I always analogize it to in Family Feud when the first four people give their answer and then that last person has to give the final answer and they want to go against the rest of the family. It's a hard thing to do. You're wrong.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:I guess, I don't know. What was that experience like for you? Did you feel like it was like you had to balance? What was your favorite idea versus losing another 10 people's morale?Michael Jamin:It wasn't even about my favorite idea. It was more like I just want to make sure if sea's on board than I trust, I trust him. But it's also like I wish I can remember what the episode was. It just didn't make anyAlex Berger:Sense to me. No, I remember that a couple times. Every show I've ever been on has had that. Every show I've ever, the showrunners left the room, the room gets excited about, something comes back in and it's not what they want, it's just part of show running. The value of having a staff that's been together for a while is the longer the staff has been together, the more you can say, oh, secret and Michael are going to hate this. We shouldn't even this path. Versus early on, you're going down a million paths you don't know. But once you get to know the showrunner, you kind of get to know what they like and what they don't like.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There was another idea that we had in that, I don't remember what we were all on board, but Seaver wasn't on board. It was something crazy.Alex Berger:Oh, I think it was the radio episode and there was something about wires or no wires, and they weren't recording the music the whole time,Michael Jamin:Who wasn't recording music.Alex Berger:Glen went to, you got to cut this out of the podcast.Michael Jamin:No one's going to care. ButAlex Berger:It was like there were a lot of room bits that I think that's the problem with room bits is they take on a life of their own and then they're an inside joke. And if the runner comes in and there's a room bit in the script, it's an inside joke. It just doesn't work. You weren't there for the beginning of it, which is a good sign that it's not a good story because the audience wasn't there for it either. But I think it was Glen becomes a radio producer named Stacey Rappaport.Michael Jamin:Yes.Alex Berger:His wife was also named Stacey Rappaport. Yes. And I know he works for Stacey Rappaport. And anyway, the whole time it was the, you guys were doing the Brady Bunch, Johnny Bravo episode basically as aMichael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:Remember the debate was like, were they actually recording by the way? I will say again, you can cut this out early, but it's not relevant at all. But I grew up watching the Brady Bunch for whatever reason, even though I'm 10 years younger than you guys. And that was number one reference that you guys talked about. So I did feel like at least I got those references.Michael Jamin:Oh, it's so funny. I remember that. I remember because I think I was the one who pitched the name Stacey Rappaport.Alex Berger:I remember because I had a friend named StaceyMichael Jamin:Rappaport. Oh really? That's so funny. It was just a man's name that the joke was that Glen was going to choose a new identity for himself and he chooses a woman's name.Alex Berger:What have you gone back and just watched full episodes of the show?Michael Jamin:No. And everyone, people want to know about. People ask me that a lot. I don't touch. I should. I love that show, but I don't touch anything that I've written. I just don't. It's over and I don't know why, but you doAlex Berger:Just not even about Glen Martin. That is an interesting thing about writers is whether they want to go back. I go back and watch stuff and I hate it because I'm like, but because Glen Martin was not really mine. It was such an organism of the room. I laugh when I go back and watch it except the one I wrote, which I don't like.Michael Jamin:Oh my God. We had some fun in that show. But okay, so when you take, I have so many questions for you. When you were young, when you were a kid, did you want to be a writer? I know TimeAlex Berger:Know was a profession. I loved television. I was a youngest kid. I was raised by the Cosby Show and the Brady Bunch and G I F. And my idea of a family was basically what those families were probably to go back, rethink the Cosby one. And then even in college, I interned at Saturday Night Live and late night with Conan O'Brien back when he was on, which were fantasy camp, especially the s and l one was truly a dream come true. And it still didn't occur to me that it was a profession that I could go do. I was go to law school and then a buddy of mine, we were in Jerry's Subs and Pizza, which is an East coast person you probably remember. And we were sitting there talking about what we're going to do and he's like, like I said, I'm going to go to LA and be a writer. And I said, how do you do that? And he said, someone writes this stuff, why couldn't it be us? And it just gave me this epiphany of like, oh yeah, everybody who's out there as a writer at some point wasn't a writer and just got out there and learned how to do it. And so we all went out together and we kind of got our start.Michael Jamin:Did your friend become a writer too?Alex Berger:Yeah, we all ended up creating a show together. So the earliest thing that we did was we were on the high school debate team together and we walked into National Lampoon, which at the time was doing low budget cable programming, and the head creative guy there just made fun of my resume the entire time and made fun of debate. And then by the end of it said, there's a show here. And so we came, pitched him a show called Master Debaters that was a debating society, and we ended up getting to make, it was like our film school. I knew nothing about how to make a TV show and that one, I was throwing the keys to the castle. I was casting it, writing it, producing it. I was in it, posting it with every crisis. But it was so low stakes because the budgets were tiny and they were in syndicated cable stations and college campuses. No one would watch me. So I got to learn by doing and I loved it. It was great.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then, all right, so then you became a writer and then you just kept on writing. I guess mean it's not an easy path, but you've made a really pretty good name for yourself over the years.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean, thank you. It was a winding path when I came out, I thought for a minute I might want to be a development executive. I read a book by this guy, Brandon Tartikoff, who used to run N B C called The Last Great. It was like basically made it out to be, you're sitting in your room and the smartest people in the world come and tell you what TV show ideas they have, and then you pick the eight of them and pick the order in America Shears. And so I worked in development for a minute and I was not what it was like at all, and I was miserable and I was jealous of all the writers who were coming in. So I said, that's the job I want. And so I quit. WhatMichael Jamin:Was it I didn't know you worked at VO for? I wasAlex Berger:Assistant. I was an assistant in development at N B C.Michael Jamin:What was it like then?Alex Berger:It's very busy and not as creative as I wanted to be. I actually really enjoyed the conversations I had with the executives when it wasn't time to do my job and it was just time to talk about tv. But the actual job I was doing, I was terrible at, I mean, it was a lot of keeping track of who was calling, and I'm an absentminded first, butMichael Jamin:That you're an assistant. I mean, surelyAlex Berger:You, but it's a long time before your branded Tartikoff, right? Almost everybody else under branded Tartikoff has a lot of business responsibilities to do. And it wasn't, that's not how my brain works. My brain needs more free time. I think if I worked at a place that was smaller that was incubating three or four shows, I probably would've enjoyed it more. But we had 50 comedies and 50 dramas in development, and I was trying to get of all of them and who was calling and the letterhead changing and all this stuff. And it was just like I was not good at it. I mean, my boss even said to me one day, he said, you're a very smart guy. Why are you not very good at this? And we had a nice conversation about that. But the main thing was the writers that came in that I was, can I get you a coffee?Can I get you a tea? Can I get you a Coke? I was so jealous of them. Door would close to the pitch, and I just wanted to be in there listening to. And so I realized I should follow that. And so I didn't last that long. I left like eight months and I quit. I at the time had been, I think had a couple of writing jobs, like smaller writing jobs lined up that show Master Debaters had been optioned of VH one. So we were writing a pilot for VH one and a couple of their small writing jobs. So I went to go do those and then got back in the beginning of the line as an assistant, I was a writer's assistant on a show, and then I was an assistant to a showrunner and then I stop.Michael Jamin:So it's a brave move for you to leave that behind in.Alex Berger:It was definitely, I mean, I had some stuff lined up, but it was definitely a risk, but I just knew it wasn't the right, I was in the wrong place. But it's interesting, it was an incredible learning experience. I knew how development work from the inside, and I still think I know more about what's actually going on at the network than a lot of my peers because I was on the other side. And then the folks I met who are the other assistants to the other executives are now all executive vice presidents of networks or presidents of networks or I met my agent because he was an assistant to an agent that used to call, and then he signed me while he was still a coordinator. One of the people on that hall now became the president of Fox, another one who I've dealt with a lot became the president of N B C. I met a ton of great folks through that who have become friends and allies over the years, and I sold Joe to,Michael Jamin:But okay, so it's probably changed lot since you were in assistant that was probably 20 somethingAlex Berger:Years ago, 19 yearsMichael Jamin:Ago. So what is it like then that we don't understand?Alex Berger:I think the main thing that I didn't understand, and this has for sure changed and certainly in cable and streaming is just a volume. They are not spending as much time thinking about your script as you are by definition. But in development, there are literally 40 to 50 scripts at least back then on both on comedy and trauma. And so my boss, who was in charge of both has a hundred scripts to keep track of. So he was very smart and could make a judgment very quickly about a script, but he would read it once, sometimes read it again, and then he was making a judgment about whether it was a show. So as a writer now I know they're reading fast, they're reading it at three 30 in the morning, or they're reading it on the plane, I've got to grab attention fast, I've got to hook you in. I cannot lean, oh, the great twist, wait till the Great Twist. It's on page 55. And when I'm pitching, it's the same thing my boss said to me, I hear 300 pitches a year. I typically hear about five ideas I haven't heard before. The other 95 I've heard before. It's about take, it's about the writer, it's about their passion. And so when I go and pitch an idea, the substance of the idea is the second most important thing. And my connection to it and why it has to be me is the first most important.Michael Jamin:And that's the hard part. I feel that's the hard part because usually you think of an idea, you can't really, I don't know, you're a hundred percent right. They always, they want to know why are you the only one in the world who can write this idea truthfully? It's like a lot of times you're not a lot of times like, well, this is the characters we created. It's a funny situation, but there's probably a lot of people who could write this idea.Alex Berger:I think that what I have seen, and I've never done this, but I know folks who have is, I knew a writer once who his sort of why me paragraph was, I just run a show for a bunch of years. I came off of running that show and I didn't know what I wanted to do next and I had an identity crisis. And so it got to the idea of identity crises and here's a spy show, an action spy show, but at the center of it as a character going through an identity crisis. So it's notMichael Jamin:GrewAlex Berger:Up and my dad was a spy, and therefore sometimes it's emotional or sometimes I had this interaction with a guy on the subway and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And it led me to this show. And sometimes by the way, you retrofitted sometimes you already come up to the show and then you've got to come up with that first paragraph that's retrofitted and sometimes often it feels organic even though it was come up with thatMichael Jamin:Word. That's so interesting because I'm glad you said that to me. It almost sounds, it gives me some soce knowing that, because a lot of times we'll say, okay, this is why we're the only ones, and this is from seabird's idea home life or my home life, and then it doesn't sell. And you're like, well, I don't know what to do now. But you're actually broadening it out into a thematically, it's more personal to you. It's not necessarily a dynamic. It's more like,Alex Berger:Here's how I think about it. I think that, and I could be wrong, and by the way, it's different in a comedy because you've got to make 'em laugh in a comedy, and I know certain comedy executives don't laugh, but for the most, if you're funny in the room, they're thinking, okay, I want to be in business with these pets, but in drama, are there twists and turns? Am I hooked on this? Is this going to fit with something that we have on the air? Do we have something similar? But I always think what they're going to remember when they've heard six, they hear six to eight a day, and then at the end of the week they go tell their bosses about the ones that they bought. So what they're going to remember is, oh my God, you'll never believe the story this guy told about the time that he was held hostage on the subway, or you'll never believe that, or a cool twist or a cool character. They're not ever going to remember the third beat of the pilot, or when pitch episode ideas, here's soMichael Jamin:Interesting.Alex Berger:I think you need that stuff to be in there, but what they're going to remember, it's like when you walk into a house, when you're looking for a house, you remember, oh, I was dazzled by the kitchen and the master bedroom had the fullest bathroom and yeah, yeah, it had five bedrooms and five baths, which is what we need. But it felt like this when I walked in. It's like, how do they feel? That's another, I'm sorry to ramble, butMichael Jamin:No,Alex Berger:For drama. I think in a pitch, if you can make the executives feel how the show is going to make them feel, that's a successful pitch to me. Comedy's a little different, I think. ButMichael Jamin:Interesting. I feel like I'm learning a lot from you actually, because I mean, honestly, we'll sell shows and we'll not sell shows.Alex Berger:We're learning all that time from you guys for 40 episodes on the murder.Michael Jamin:But a lot of this is, like I said, we will sell a show or we won't sell a show, and I won't know why. I don't know. I'm not sure why this one sold this one, the other one didn't sell. I can, but that'sAlex Berger:Why I really don't like Zoom pitches because you can't. I love, that's actually my favorite part. I think it comes from, like I said, I was on the debate team in high school and college, and I loved trying to persuade someone who was not necessarily on my side at the beginning that I'm right. And I viewed every pitch as a miniature debate. I'm debating against the person who says, don't buy this. And I love the feeling of like, oh, I've got them hooked, and they're now, they are going to buy the show as long as it continues to go on this pace. And I hate the feeling of, I think they've checked out. And actually when I've memorized a pitch, when I think they've checked out, I'm talking, but my internal monologue is, well, I guess we didn't sell it to Fox. All right, well, if we can sell it to Fox, we can go to a B, C. Because I'm sort of like, I've moved on.Michael Jamin:How much off book are you have notes or not?Alex Berger:I've developed this method that I got from this guy, Martin Garra, who I've worked for eight or nine years for some blind spot, and now on Quantum Leap, it's different, but I love it, which is, it's different on Zoom, but when we go back to in-person pitches, what he does is he brings in his laptop and he puts it on the table in front of him and it acts as a teleprompter. And so he's looking up at you making eye contact and occasionally looking down. And then he is got a remote that flips page to page and the script is there word for word. So if you're like, oh shit, I'm about to get to the part that I always mess up, then you just look down and read for a minute and they know you've written this. It's not like no one is under the illusion that you walked in and RIFed for 20 minutes off theMichael Jamin:Topic. Does he do this in person or on Zoom?Alex Berger:Both. On Zoom, it's so easy because you can have your screen, but in person, I thought, oh, they're going to think it's offputting. But because I was practiced, I got to the point where 70% of it was eye contact and the laptop was there as the security one did.Michael Jamin:And what program is he using? That's a teleprompterAlex Berger:Work.Michael Jamin:Oh, so you're just scrolling. Oh, you're just clicking.Alex Berger:There's this Bluetooth remote that he uses that I was now in my drawer, and it's just you click and it's to the nextMichael Jamin:Page. You have a Bluetooth remote that works on your lap. I didn't even know this such a thing. I'm learning so much from you Burger.Alex Berger:Oh, you know what? I've lost it. Oh, here. Yeah, so it's like a little U S B that plugs into the back of your computer, and then you're just like, you click, click, click and it's, you look like you're giving its head talk it 5% easy. And I actually think in a comedy pitch, it might come off as too dorky, but for a drama it's like, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to deliver a pitch. And I wrote it. And the reason I find it useful is a lot of times when you're developing with the pod and the studio and then also the non-writing show runner, so many Sunday night, you're getting notes for a Monday morning pitch and stuff's changed. So if I get to the section that just changed, I might look down a little bit moreMichael Jamin:Interest. So I was going to say, are you going in mostly with pods these days for people who don't know that they're producers on the overall deals at studios, but is that how it works in dramas as well?Alex Berger:I don't think I'm going to show on the air anymore without an entourage. So when I was on Blind Spot, it was produced by Greg Ante and I did a couple pieces of development with him and then also with Blind Spot. I just think there's the business side of it, which is that these networks want to be in business with their 800 pound gorillas and the not. So if you walk in with one of them, even if it's my vision a hundred percent, and it's my personal story, the fact that this brand is behind it really helps. And then I also, I actually enjoy the process of crafting the idea with smart people. I don't want to work with a pod who's annoying and gives dumb notes or a studio who does that. But every pod I've ever worked with, if I'm stuck on an idea, I'll say, Hey, can we hop on the phone for half an hour and work out this story problem? You guys have each other so you can get in a room and hash out a story problem. But I need to talk. I cannot think through anyMichael Jamin:Interesting,Alex Berger:And we'll work it out. Oh,Michael Jamin:So you'll really use them as a resource. It's so interesting.Alex Berger:I mean, this guy, Martin Garrow who runs Blind Spot Quantum Leap, I've developed him a bunch of times and he's a writer.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's differentAlex Berger:Stuff is acting as a pod. But I can call him and we have such a shorthand, we've broken 150 episodes a week, butMichael Jamin:That's different because he's a writer. He is not, I mean, he's a writer, is writer producer, but he's really aAlex Berger:Writer. So it's Greg Ante. I like working with folks who are on the creative things, and I've worked with producers who weren't writers, but could be because they're a creative, the worst part of that development is when someone gives you a note and they don't realize, oh, that's going to unravel. They think it's two lines, but it actually unravel all. Whereas when you work with people who've made a lot of tv, they're like, look, I know that this blows everything up to do this one little thing, but here's why I think it's better. Or Hey, they gave a huge note. Here's easy fix. It's only two lines.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting. You're absolutely right. There's a huge difference between, I think between working with a producer, producer and a writer producer, because the writers, they just know what's going to unravel everything. I don't know. Yeah, that's ProducersAlex Berger:Are good for like, oh, you know what? Who'd be great for this is this actress. And they make the call and they're good.I find that you find everybody's in this business, they're good at something. Nobody who's come to this business and is just dashing a check. Well, probably not true, but the people that I try to find work with are people who are in this business smart. And even if they're not totally up on exactly what I wanted to do, fix the script, they have something that they're really good at that I want to use. So even if it's, there's one person at this company who's mostly the production person have a really good idea about like, Hey, if we shot this in Buffalo, we could do this.Michael Jamin:Right. Interesting. Wow. I think I've learned a lot from you. Before we conclude, you want to write drama withAlex Berger:Me? Let's go that. Let's talk about drama.Michael Jamin:I think I'm going to get into the drama business with you. I think you're going to be my pod. What advice do you have for young writers? You must have something to Wise to say.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean, I probably don't have anything wise to say, but I'm happyMichael Jamin:To. Or how are they breaking in the business?Alex Berger:It's funny. The answer was so different 10 years ago to four years ago. It changed rapidly, and it's very different now because of the writer's strike. So if you're talking about what should I be doing right now, if I want to break in? I was just talking to a writer today and my advice to her was, just use this time to write. It's not a good time to try to get a producer attached or a showrunner attached or an agent. It's a good time to just be writing and really writing diligently. And then this is over. And in general, my advice is get a job in the industry, even if it's as an assistant. If you can't get a job as an assistant in a room, get a job as an assistant in post or get a job as a PA on set, just get into the room. Then just keep building a network and talking to everybody. And when your cousin comes and says, you know what? I used my college roommate, I think as a writer, I don't know what he take them up on all of those opportunities because you never know what's going to result in something. The first three jobs I got were from general meetings that I didn't want to take because actually two of them were from people. My mom had metParties in Washington dc but they were another assistant who was leaving their job and happened to open up. And then the last thing I would say is, I think the thing that people don't do as much of it that they should do is engage in the continuing education piece of this. So your listeners to your podcast are obviously trying to learn how to write, and that's important. There's a lot of other good podcasts out there. There's Deadline Hollywood, which everybody should be reading every single day. There's business podcasts like The Town and the Business and Fresh Air that people should be listening to understand the macro pieces of their business. So often you get people who come out here and they have

On Zoom calls , it not unusual to have incoming phone calls interrupting you and dogs barking. We had both on this episode, plus blinding sunlight create screen glare ( in Scotland!). However, none of that fazes our dream team podcast panel, who reviewed 5 more albums from the Rolling Stone Top 100 list on this episode . The albums were from NWA, Alanis Morrisette, Kate Bush, Jay Z & John Coltrane. In general, we were pretty impressed with these albums - but along the way we did manage to point a few metaphorical fingers too. As John's said, it's all about as a listener how much you love/don't love the record you are listening to. In the end, we loved 3 of the albums enough to vote them onto the list. ( it took us a bit longer than usual on this episode, feel free to dip in & out!) That makes is 20/35 voted in at the moment - which leaves us with just the 80 gaps to fill to get to 100.....until next time. Enjoy & stay safe.

Ce soir la matinale se met au rythme de la musique parisienne.  Tout d'abord on reçoit Xavier Lemettre, directeur du festival de musique Banlieues Bleues. Alors que ce festival fête ses 40 ans, son directeur revient pour nous sur son histoire et son évolution pour parler de sa programmation actuelle pleine de surprises à découvrir aux portes de Paris.  On Zoom ensuite en compagnie de Laura Pardonnet, Secretaire General de la Pop, incubateur artistique et citoyen qui propose, à travers des créations et des conférences, de réfléchir à la place du song dans notre société, de la petite musique intime, au song des cloches en passant par le gazouillis des oiseaux.  Cette matinale polyphonique sera agrémentée de la chronique cinématographique de Hugo qui s'est intéressé à la musique dans le cinéma de Damien Chazelle. On finira en beauté avec une création sonore composée par le collectif rcp_25ans_ensemble à partir de song du métro.  Animation : Lucas Corroy / Interview : Victoire Renard / Chronique : Hugo Leroi, rcp_25ans_ensemble / Réalisation : Gabrielle Bayer / Coordination : Marie Leroy, Elfie Gay

Ce soir la matinale se met au rythme de la musique parisienne.  Tout d'abord on reçoit Xavier Lemettre, directeur du festival de musique Banlieues Bleues. Alors que ce festival fête ses 40 ans, son directeur revient pour nous sur son histoire et son évolution pour parler de sa programmation actuelle pleine de surprises à découvrir aux portes de Paris.  On Zoom ensuite en compagnie de Laura Pardonnet, Secretaire General de la Pop, incubateur artistique et citoyen qui propose, à travers des créations et des conférences, de réfléchir à la place du song dans notre société, de la petite musique intime, au song des cloches en passant par le gazouillis des oiseaux.  Cette matinale polyphonique sera agrémentée de la chronique cinématographique de Hugo qui s'est intéressé à la musique dans le cinéma de Damien Chazelle. On finira en beauté avec une création sonore composée par le collectif rcp_25ans_ensemble à partir de song du métro.  Animation : Lucas Corroy / Interview : Victoire Renard / Chronique : Hugo Leroi, rcp_25ans_ensemble / Réalisation : Gabrielle Bayer / Coordination : Marie Leroy, Elfie Gay

This is a Re-re-release of the episode called Rain because it just feels like people need a little relaxation and reverie during this time where the contagion, politics and the threat of climate change is exhausting us. Plus the holidaze.  When I listened to it again, it seemed new, that's the nice thing about forgetting stuff. And it's raining in San Diego right now.Written, engineered, and narrated by Jill BadonskyA new Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching training starts in January. On Zoom.Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.comSupport the show Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

Victoria Pelletier is a dynamic, innovative, and passionate Senior Executive with over two decades of progressive executive experience in strategy, operations, growth initiatives, and business and talent development in organizations such as Brookfield, American Express, Aon and IBM.  She is currently a Managing Director at Accenture, leading much of North America's Travel Industry Client Portfolio.She is a visionary leader with a passion for innovation, creativity and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.  In fact, Victoria has won both the 2020 Mentor of the Year award from Women in Communications & Technology AND the 2019 HSBC Diversity & Inclusion in Innovation Award. Victoria was also named as 2021 50 Most Influential Business Leaders in Technology.Victoria serves as a board member for several organizations; she is also a published author, regular contributor to Forbes and a member of the Forbes Business Council. She is an in-demand public speaker and appears regularly on national radio and television.  An inspiring professional with impeccable credentials, Victoria is a trusted voice among peers and emerging executives. In this episode, Victoria shares so many key job transition ideas and coaching for the candidate, including:·         On ZOOM interviews, it is important that you appear confident, in control and to look directly into the camera to create some type of eye contact connection.·         In today's job market, a candidate having multiple jobs in their past is really expected so don't worry about being labeled a “job hopper”.·         It is important that you set strong goals for yourself and have the resilience to work toward them; to be very aware of your strengths/areas to improve – this mean you are doing a critical self-assessment and do something with the information; model the behavior you want to be seen as – your self-brand is very important for your success.·         You don't have to be an extrovert to be successful at networking – you just need to take steps early on, be strategic in your efforts and build it over time – you will be able to leverage that network for your success.·         Our workforce of the future will see an even faster pace of digital transformation, a constant need to upskill and fluid/new ways to work will be the norm.·         In your work life, you are going to have ups and downs, accept this, build resilience into your character.And Victoria had many other comments and observations for the person who is changing their jobs/life.   For more information about Victoria unstoppable approach to work/life, go to her website  https://victoria-pelletier.com/ 

Most of my income comes via speaking to humans. In auditoriums with big groups. In boardrooms with small groups. At sporting clubs with athletes. With first responders. The general public. Students. Fitness and health professionals. Corporates. On podcasts. On Zoom calls with organisations around the world. Online workshops. And in the past, lots of radio. This episode is a brief snapshot of some of the lessons, challenges and insights gleaned from a very long (and continuing) journey of getting paid to say stuff. Based on what you do or want to do, some of you will find this helpful and valuable and hopefully, the rest of you might find it interesting. Enjoy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most of my income comes via speaking to humans. In auditoriums with big groups. In boardrooms with small groups. At sporting clubs with athletes. With first responders. The general public. Students. Fitness and health professionals. Corporates. On podcasts. On Zoom calls with organisations around the world. Online workshops. And in the past, lots of radio. This episode is a brief snapshot of some of the lessons, challenges and insights gleaned from a very long (and continuing) journey of getting paid to say stuff. Based on what you do or want to do, some of you will find this helpful and valuable and hopefully, the rest of you might find it interesting. Enjoy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, admonishment is given for those struggling to maintain a healthy appetite for intimacy, after confronting sexual child abuse. As one of the untold side effects of early childhood sexual abuse, sensuality often plays the scapegoat to fear - with the hope that ignoring your divine physical body, will numb your lingering energetic trauma. In actuality, it makes it worse. I introduce "Homemade Acapella EP, Nikki Boom Boom, I Got You" highlighting the debut Single, #LinkInBio, a conversation of the mature holy woman, asking the right questions, setting her boundaries, and expressing her desires - to the man she wants. Download at travishoniquia.bandcamp.com Stay Connected at linktr.ee/tlmnowpresents ▪️ Join the Da Conda' Stone on Bandcamp for access to releases, poetry cyphers, writing rooms, jam sessions and discounted merch. ▪️ Schedule Sessions with a Certified Peer Support Specialist, for Certified Mental Health Support, Resources, and Therapy Referrals ▪️ R e l e a s e the SHAME and stigma of Sexual Child Abuse with ".Jus. Sip. Your. Tea., In Homage To Grace: A Poetry Memoir" ▪️ Make a friend in "The #Friendzone", Sa 6-6p30 PST, On Zoom. Bring Your Whole Self, Your Talents, And Your Goals ▪️ Love up yourself with TLM NOW's All Natural SimplyxiTea Comfor"Tea"bles ▪️ Order and Gift Mental Health Curated Playlist Subscriptions ▪️ Follow Me on TikTok, IG, and YouTube Best of Health, TLM NOW --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jussipyourtea/message

It is so important for us to wake up to the expansiveness of our healing abilities. The power to heal is within us all. You have the ability to heal trauma and difficulty through your heart. As you know your soul and all it's expressions you begin to use all aspects of yourself. It's also good to work with a variety of practitioners as there are many layers to our healing journey. Postscript: I got very sick a few days after recording this episode! And without remembering I had recorded this message, I used these tools to heal myself. I worked with several practitioners to help me heal, using polarity therapy, psychic guidance for physical remedies, tracking and releasing karmic patterns and emotional blocks, tapping for relief of pain and trapped emotions, and a TimeWaver session – all of that really helped clear intense mold allergies and sinus pain. I also found support from vitamin c, zinc, bone broth, ginger shots, minerals and turmeric. Through all this I healed in 2 days, but at times I felt very challenged and unable to function and in pain, it was a clearing and detox as well. Many issues came up to be addressed like releasing sadness from my lungs, holding strong boundaries, and asking for what you want. I am so grateful for all the angels and human helpers available to me. I am so grateful to be feeling much better now.FREE Intuitive Painting Workshop - December 17th at 2pm EST / 11am PST / 9am HST. Learn to paint intuitively, allow consciousness to flow, and be in flow. Includes a materials list, guided visualization and a group painting practice. On Zoom!Whether you are already an artist or want to be more creative, I will support you in connecting to consciousness through painting. Register here: https://sarahrossiter.com/creativityMy first book, CHANNEL, Messages from the Divine, will be published soon. Learn about my Indiegogo campaign to fund the production of this book, as well as some exciting perks you can receive for your support: https://sarahrossiter.com/booksCheck out my Creativity & Consciousness Course 2022 - Expand your creativity and let consciousness propel you to the next level in this 10 week live online video course. Open to anyone who wants to connect to their creative spirit. The course runs 10 Wednesdays, from January 19 - March 23, 2022
. It will be 90 min a week, at 9am PST/12pm EST/4pm GMT. Early registration for December: Sign up before January 1st for just $666 (full price in Jan. is $999). With payments as low as $111/mo. Guest speakers to be announced soon! Sign up here: https://sarahrossiter.com/creativityI'm offering a special Half Off on Reiki Trainings (until Dec. 31) - Attune to a universal healing energy and learn to heal yourself and others immediately. Learn what Reiki is and how to use it, become grounded and clear, call in angels and guides for protection and guidance, and receive your Reiki Level 1, 2, or 3 Attunement. This training supports you in doing Reiki for yourself, family, and clients. Special price: $444 (or two payments of $222). Learn more at: https://sarahrossiter.com/reikiRate & Review Giveaway for December - Enter to win a free copy of my forthcoming book: Channel, Messages from the Divine, and a painting made in Mexico by me. Write & submit a review of this podcast, wherever you listen, then email me at: bookings@thepsychicartistpodcast.com Each month your name will be added to the Giveaway drawing until you win! Prizes may change each month.Sarah Rossiter is an artist, writer and psychic medium.Website: https://sarahrossiter.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/srossiterstudioFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepsychicartistpodcastEmail: bookings@thepsychicartistpodcast.comThanks for listening to The Psychic Artist Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode please RATE, REVIEW, and SHARE!

Rather than making choices based in fear, connect to your soul and do something creative to help you on your journey. When contemplating next steps, clear negative energy, call in protection in new locations, feel at ease with travel, and let go of limiting beliefs around self sacrifice - these are some of the themes in this episode. When we travel we often are drawn to work through past life karma that a location may connect us with. When we can strengthening our energetic boundaries, calling in our power, and speaking our truth from a place that is aligned with love and light, we can heal karma in relation to geographic locations and our past life lessons.Postscript - After a month of searching I did find a home for my family in Playa del Carmen. I used the tools described in this episode, I focused on grace, asked for miracles, and tapped into abundance. Then unexpectedly, I received a phone call one morning with the news that a perfect place had just become available, something we would have never found independently, and I knew it was the angels helping me. I am grateful and excited to see how the joy and our journey unfolds in this new location. ** I also want to thank and acknowledge three practitioners I worked with during this time to help me heal, clear karma, and receive guidance: Laura Michelle Powers, Rebecca Packard, and Derek Nakamura. I couldn't have done this so quickly in this lifetime without their amazing support. **FREE Intuitive Painting Workshop - December 17th at 2pm EST / 11am PST / 9am HST. Learn to paint intuitively, allow consciousness to flow, and be in flow. Includes a materials list, guided visualization and a group painting practice. On Zoom! Whether you are already an artist or want to be more creative, I will support you in connecting to consciousness through painting. Register here: https://sarahrossiter.com/creativityMy first book, CHANNEL, Messages from the Divine, will be published soon. Learn about my Indiegogo campaign to fund the production of this book, as well as some exciting perks you can receive for your support: https://sarahrossiter.com/booksCheck out my Creativity & Consciousness Course 2022 - Expand your creativity and let consciousness propel you to the next level in this 10 week live online video course. Open to anyone who wants to connect to their creative spirit. The course runs 10 Wednesdays, from January 19 - March 23, 2022
. It will be 90 min a week, at 9am PST/12pm EST/4pm GMT. Early registration for December: Sign up before January 1st for just $666 (full price in Jan. is $999). With payments as low as $111/mo. Guest speakers to be announced soon! Sign up here: https://sarahrossiter.com/creativityI'm offering a special Half Off on Reiki Trainings (until Dec. 31) - Attune to a universal healing energy and learn to heal yourself and others immediately. Learn what Reiki is and how to use it, become grounded and clear, call in angels and guides for protection and guidance, and receive your Reiki Level 1, 2, or 3 Attunement. This training supports you in doing Reiki for yourself, family, and clients. Special price: $444 (or two payments of $222). Learn more at: https://sarahrossiter.com/reikiRate & Review Giveaway for December - Enter to win a free copy of my forthcoming book: Channel, Messages from the Divine, and a painting made in Mexico by me. Write & submit a review of this podcast, wherever you listen, then email me at: bookings@thepsychicartistpodcast.com Each month your name will be added to the Giveaway drawing until you win! Prizes may change each month.Sarah Rossiter is an artist, writer and psychic medium.Website: https://sarahrossiter.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/srossiterstudioFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepsychicartistpodcastEmail: bookings@thepsychicartistpodcast.comThanks for listening to The Psychic Artist Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode please RATE, REVIEW, and SHARE :)

In today's episode, Jim and Tyson chat with Maximum Lawyer's Brand Manager Becca Eberhart! They dive into the evolution of Maximum Lawyer over the last two years and tease a little of what's to come. If you like getting to peek behind the curtain, this episode goes behind the scenes of the Maximum Lawyer brand.1:06 Becca's journey4:24 expectations6:20 what's included currently8:00 growth mindset11:10 small but mighty team14:05 the conference15:09 advice to future presenters16: 20 tips for future presentersJim's Hack: The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma - what is something new that you've tried?Becca's Tip: Be courageous and apply to speak at MaxLawCon 2022!Tyson's Tip: Try sharing your iPhone or iPad screen on your next Zoom call. On Zoom, click share and it gives you the option.Join the Guild: www.maxlawguild.comMaxLawCon 2022 Early Bird Tickets are Live: www.maxlawcon2022.com

Are we asking the right questions, or , is this question offensive? Talking with sighted people, people we can see, don't see, or can not see. Such as On Zoom vs WebX, or talking to someone who has low sight or no sight. Language we use, questions we ask, with our family. Language we use, questions we ask, at work. Language we use, questions we ask, with friends. Language we use with someone with physical disabilities. Language we use with someone who has low vision to no vision. Language we use with our doctors, specifically eye doctors. I'm looking inside at how I ask questions to those with disabilites and how they might feel on the receiving side. Let me know your experience. Like this podcast and share it with a friend. Thank you. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/katie-friedman0/support

Name: Rebecca Reading: Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning Why did you want to read this? When I first read Aurora Leigh, I felt like this nineteenth century gem had been hidden from me. Elizabeth Barrett Browning beats most of her contemporaries in the vitality of her language, and the poem carries me throughout with the force of its energy. I find the depiction of young Aurora Leigh's grief, and her turn back towards life, moving. It is a politically rich story, a novel in verse which sets Aurora's ambitions as a writer within the social struggles of her time and place. A tour de force, basically. How did you record yourself? On Zoom audio in my bedroom, with a cup of tea.

Clubhouse is back. Maybe. The social audio app is now open to the world, and has gained 10 million new downloads in the past two months. Joe thinks there is a chance. Robert thinks that Clubhouse as a feature only will fail. Zoom launches On Zoom. Frankly, this could be big, and positions Zoom as a clear leader in the video creation and event space. Substack is getting into the podcast game...big time. Is this a good move or just clutter? Everyone is after the 50 million estimated content creators. In rants and raves, Joe raves about this Patreon interview and is concerned about the WSJ report on TikTok's algo. Robert comments once again on Ad Tech. ------ Catch past episodes show notes at ThisOldMarketing.site. Get your .site domain today.

Some big changes to Virginia law go into effect tomorrow, from pot possession, to the death penalty, to new gun restrictions… The state's top health official says despite the rise of the Delta variant, vaccinated Virginians are safe ditching the face masks… On Zoom during the pandemic, what's the future of city council sessions, and school board meetings, and such – and what will remain digital?

Some big changes to Virginia law go into effect tomorrow, from pot possession, to the death penalty, to new gun restrictions… The state's top health official says despite the rise of the Delta variant, vaccinated Virginians are safe ditching the face masks… On Zoom during the pandemic, what's the future of city council sessions, and school board meetings, and such – and what will remain digital?

On this episode which we like to call 'Time With Friends... On Zoom,' we bring in a very special guest. A good friend and former co worker. Producer of 'Love Songs on the Coast' and also juggles her own radio show on Big49radio.com from 7p-12a. She is none other than... Julianne! also known as "DamJulianne"

Ever felt the call of the wild and wanted to capture iconic travel images like the pros? Hear from professional travel photographers John and Lisa Merrill on their experiences from growing from amateur to pro, with a lot of adventure along the way. Listen in for tips and tricks for everything from DSLR cameras to iPhones and how to combine your unique view of the world with stunning images. Merrill Images is celebrating 25 years in business this year. They share how they've made it work, and how a change in the world allowed them to learn even more ways to create images and connect with photographers around the world.  In this episode, Captain Dan reconnects with the passion of capturing an image and the importance of conversation in photography where ever you are traveling. This is a great source for travel photography with plenty of travel adventures to share. Listen in on stories from small boat cruising, to overseas biking stories and mistaking a whale for a bear.  Captain Dan continues to weave his stories and share his knowledge of the world through conversations with diverse people. Join us!Follow Merrill Images and view full image galleries online.  Find more at MerrillImages.comJoin a photo workshop In Person, On Zoom, or In PersonFollow them on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/MerrillImages/Connect with them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/merrillimages Follow No Ordinary Adventure and UnCruise Adventures:YouTube: UnCruise AdventuresTwitter: https://twitter.com/UnCruiseFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnCruiseFind more at UnCruise.com  uncruise.comContact the team at pr@uncruise.comWant to know more or want to leave us a voice mail for the podcast? Leave us a message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/noordinaryadventure

Welcome to Thursday Connect! For the month of April, we will be greeted by some powerful testimonies! Order your books, Trustworthy by Lysa Teurkheust and we will begin online and ON ZOOM for May book study Thursdays at noon Rome time! We can't wait! You will be able to register online to receive the zoom link! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with ICF Rome: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/icfromechurc...​ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ICFrome​​​​​​​​ Livestream: https://livestream.com/icfrome​​​​​​​​ Website: www.icfrome.org/ Itunes Podcast: ICF Rome SoundCloud: ICF Rome

Welcome to Thursday Connect! For the month of April, we will be greeted by some powerful testimonies! Order your books, Trustworthy by Lysa Teurkheust and we will begin online and ON ZOOM for May book study Thursdays at noon Rome time! We can't wait! You will be able to register online to receive the zoom link! Please Like and Subscribe Our YouTube Channel! Press the bell icon for instant notifications! https://www.youtube.com/c/ICFRome​​​​​​​​ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with ICF Rome: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/icfromechurc...​ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ICFrome​​​​​​​​ Livestream: https://livestream.com/icfrome​​​​​​​​ Website: www.icfrome.org/ Itunes Podcast: ICF Rome SoundCloud: ICF Rome

Our Thursday Connect Greeting from Pastor Jen. For the month of April we will be greeted by some powerful testimonies! Order your books, Trustworthy by Lysa Teurkheust and we will begin online and ON ZOOM for May book study Thursdays at noon Rome time! We can't wait! You will be able to register online to receive the zoom link! Please Like and Subscribe Our YouTube Channel! Press the bell icon for instant notifications! https://www.youtube.com/c/ICFRome​​​​...​ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with ICF Rome: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/icfromechurc...​ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ICFrome​​​​...​ Livestream: https://livestream.com/icfrome​​​​​​​​​ Website: www.icfrome.org/ Itunes Podcast: ICF Rome SoundCloud: ICF Rome

On Zoom, the boys discuss the NFL Divisional Playoffs and the world. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jersey-swap/message

Let’s face it, Zoom meetings suck. How can we optimize in the new normal and beyond? What are the time management skills you should teach your employees? What’s the perfect meeting length? In this episode, best selling author, keynote speakers, and CEO and founder of COO Alliance, Cameron Herold shares how to implement efficient work habits. In this new episode of the Social PR Podcast, host Lisa Buyer sits down with the “CEO Whisperer,” Cameron Herold. Cameron grew up in an entrepreneurial household and has been an entrepreneur since his college days. He has founded multiple companies and is the author of five books. He has been coaching entrepreneurs for more than three decades and currently leads the world’s only network for seconds in command, COO Alliance. Listen to learn more about Cameron’s tips and tricks on workplace efficiency. People, time, and money According to Cameron, an efficient business comes down to doing everything with intention. When you run a business, you’re working with three inputs: people, time, and money. The goal is to get the highest output from that. With people, you want to make sure you’re hiring or outsourcing A players. Indeed, one A player can replace three Cs. Good employees should be able to self-manage, be self-accountable. They want to ask themselves the right questions and are hungry for learning, so they grow themselves every day. As a CEO, you need to make sure people are working on the right things and know what you are expecting in terms of results. Lastly, you need to grow their skills and confidence. Think of it as employees walking up two ladders simultaneously. Without skills, their confidence will not grow. Without confidence, their skills will be useless. In terms of time, always think about how much time you want to spend doing something, not how long you think something will take. The Perfect Meeting According to Cameron the perfect meeting: Starts on time Finishes five minutes before the scheduled end time Is booked for half the time you initially thought booking it for Has a purpose, outcome, and agenda in the meeting notes Only involves people who really have to be there and can be involved in it Of course, these rules also apply to Zoom meetings. On Zoom, you should also require meeting participants to turn their cameras on. Email and phones should be put down and people should log in five minutes before the start time to ensure the meeting starts on time. Maximizing Time As a CEO Entrepreneurs should only work on things they excel at, says Cameron. They should delegate everything, except their genius. He recommends getting rid of any tasks you’re not good at or don’t love. Additionally, make sure your employees aren’t giving you work. Instead, grow them so they can do the job. Don’t think for them, instill confidence in them so they think by themselves. If you’re a COO and want to learn more about Cameron’s management techniqu

This year, how are we doing Thanksgiving this year? On Zoom? It would be easier to mute family members when they start talking politics. More at www.CooperandAnthony.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cooperandanthony/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cooperandanthony/support

This year, how are we doing Thanksgiving this year? On Zoom? It would be easier to mute family members when they start talking politics. More at www.CooperandAnthony.com

And certainly there's all discipline, a lot of things in common with martial arts and running a business. On Zoom when you're looking when you're talking about legwork, and balance and everything else and you can only see half the equation how did that go? Well I got really good at telling the kids that I could tell that their feet weren't pointing the right direction based on which way their hips were pointing by looking at their shoulders which drove them nuts.

On Zoom conference calls across the US this week, brows furrowed as the news broke that the video conference company had a flaw in its backend that could give hackers access to people's webcams. Worse, Zoom seemed at first unwilling to fix the problem. Thankfully, hours after the initial reports, Zoom backtracked and issued a new fix to solve underlying vulnerability. You can go back to Zooming your brilliant brainstorms in peace, everyone.