Podcast appearances and mentions of paul tsongas

What happens when success, hustle, and constant work stop bringing fulfillment? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I talk with marketing strategist and entrepreneur Carlos Hidalgo about business growth, faith, burnout, and the hidden cost of hustle culture. Carlos shares his journey from corporate marketing leader to founder of Digital Exhaust, along with lessons from his book The UnAmerican Dream about work addiction, burnout, and redefining success. Their conversation explores why growth does not need to be complicated, why storytelling builds trust in business, and why boundaries matter more than work life balance. Carlos also opens up about faith, failure, relationships, and the power of honest conversations. You will hear practical insights on leadership, personal growth, community, and building a life that is both successful and meaningful. Highlights: ·  06:04 – Carlos explains how his faith became a personal relationship. ·  17:32 – Why he left corporate work to start his own business. ·  25:40 – His approach to making business growth simple. ·  30:17 – How hustle culture often leads to burnout. ·  42:29 – Why boundaries matter more than work life balance. ·  54:33 – Why real community helps solve loneliness. Top of Form Bottom of Form About the Guest: Carlos Hidalgo is the co-founder and CEO of Digital Exhaust, a growth partner that helps clients make growth simple. Carlos serves his clients as an advisor, consultant, and teacher to ensure they have meaningful engagement with their customers at every stage of the journey and are able to mature and create sustainable growth. Carlos has 30 years of experience working with organizations of all sizes as an advisor, consultant, innovator, and growth expert. He is widely recognized for his expertise in demand generation, marketing, sales, and customer experience and for coaching executives in the areas of leadership and managing change. In addition to his work with his clients, Carlos has won numerous marketing awards and been named to several prestigious industry lists as a marketing leader. Carlos is also the author of Driving Demand, which is ranked as a top 5 marketing book of all time by Book Authority, and The UnAmerican Dream, which was released in 2019. In addition to books, Carlos is a well-known international keynote and TEDx speaker. You can follow Carlos on LinkedIn or on Twitter @cahidalgo Ways to connect with Scott**:** LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosahidalgo/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CHidalgoJr Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cahidalgo_ Twitter/X: https://x.com/cahidalgo About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! 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Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Well, hi and welcome once again to an episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, our guest is Carlos Hidalgo. Carlos has many facets about him. He's a speaker. He deals with growth and growth management and with his company. He tries to make growth simple for the people who are his clients. I'm interested in learning about that, but he does other things as well. He is also involved with his wife and marriage counseling, which is a little bit different than the one I think I find a lot of people to do. So I think we got lots to talk about. So, Carlos, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Carlos Hidalgo  01:59 Thank you for having me. Michael, it's an absolute pleasure. Well, let's Michael Hingson  02:03 start with the early Carlos, why don't you tell us about you growing up and all that sort of thing, and where you came from, where you're headed, or whatever. Carlos Hidalgo  02:14 Sure, I was born one of six children. I was the youngest for about four years, and then my my parents had two more. So I am smack dab in the middle of middle six siblings. Was born in New Jersey, but call where I'm at now home, which is a little town in the Adirondack Mountains. And the reason I call it home, I started coming to camp here when I was five years old. Fell in love with the area, and then my father, in 1983 moved us up here when I was 12, and fell more in love with it. And that lasted for four years. And then my junior of high school, or right after my sophomore year, was told, Hey, we're we're moving I was 16, I was pretty pissed off at the prospect of leaving a place I loved, so I had engineered a plan to stay through my junior and senior high school, which in my mind, made perfect sense in my parents' mind, and for reasons now I understand, because I'm a parent, did not make so much sense, but I came back as often as I could, and then my wife and I moved here back full time in 2021 we also lived here in the 90s for two years, had our first son here so but grew up really charmed childhood was my dad was in advertising, so we got tickets to Great sporting events. We had horses that I took care of, along with some of my siblings, developed a love of the outdoors, which I still hold, which is one of the many benefits of living up here again. And so, yeah, pretty, pretty much, early childhood was, you know, be outside as much as I can run around school work wasn't my strong suit, but I muddled through and I Michael Hingson  04:04 made it. Where in New Jersey were you born? Carlos Hidalgo  04:07 Was born in a little town called Randolph in northern jersey. Spent most of our time in a place called blairis town. Their claim to fame as a prep school called Blair Academy, which I believe is still there. And then, I believe it was the original Friday the 13th was filmed. Part of it was filmed in Blairstown. Yeah, yeah. So I'm dating myself just a little bit. Michael Hingson  04:32 Well, we lived in Westfield for six years, so kind of know, New Jersey, but yeah, while we were back there, my wife always wanted to move back to California. She's a native. I was born in Chicago. She wouldn't let me call myself a native, even though we moved to California when I was five. But yeah, it's okay. Carlos Hidalgo  04:50 Sure, yeah, people get a little touchy about the term native or local and how it's defined, right? Michael Hingson  04:55 Oh, yeah, it varies all around the country, but there's. Nothing. You can't say anything bad about Chicago. They have Garrett Popcorn there. If you've never had it, next time we go through O'Hare Airport, you should get some Garrett Popcorn. Carlos Hidalgo  05:09 Okay, I will do that absolutely. Michael Hingson  05:12 Take a memo. Get Garrett Popcorn. It's it's really good stuff. Well, so what did you do for college? Or did you? Carlos Hidalgo  05:21 Yeah, I went to my first year, I went to a school called Word of Life Bible Institute. So it's a one year intensive program, study of the Bible actually here, not far from, literally eight miles down the road here, from where I live now. And at that point, it was really just an excuse to get back to the Adirondacks for a year, but I learned a whole lot. Met some incredible people, some of who I'm still very, very close with today. And then from there, I transferred to Cedarville University in Ohio. At the time I went there, we were about 2500 students. I think today they're closer to 7500 but I met my wife there, which was that, in and of itself, the three years of tuition that I paid as I transferred in, but study Business Communication, again, I wasn't a great student. What I realized is, if it was the things that I really loved to participate in, it was awesome. I had a really great time studying communication and language and how we speak. I was two years on the debate team, which was such a great education in and of itself. But everything else I didn't really love. I just the general ed stuff. I kind of thought, well, if I can skate by and, you know, get that, get the passing the credits. So that's really how I want about it. And the reality is, the way things are taught today, I'm a very visual and hands on learner, and so to sit in a classroom and try to take notes and go through theory and things like that just makes my brain hurt a little bit. So I but I but I finished. I got the degree and made some great friendships in the process. Michael Hingson  07:04 Well and clearly, based on what you did for your first year, you have a Christian orientation, or definitely a god orientation as well. Carlos Hidalgo  07:15 Yeah, that's that's really my operating system. Michael, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. I base my life on it. I spend time in it each and every day. And so what's interesting in that regard is, yes, I went to the Bible Institute. So while I had a lot of head knowledge about the Bible and God and Jesus and all these things, it's really been in the last 10 years that I would say I had a deep, meaningful relationship with them, and that came as from a lot of experience in my life, a lot of dark, dark moments in my life that were self induced, unfortunately. But really, what it's done for me is it's just radicalized who I am, changed my heart. And so it's gone from a having a head knowledge of it to a real experience and an engagement with Christ through His Word and through prayer. Michael Hingson  08:11 Yeah, head knowledge is is a fine thing as far as it goes, but there's nothing like personally experience coming closer to whatever it is, including dealing with believing in God and really recognizing what what God brings. And my last book that I wrote that was published last year, called Live like a guide dog, true stories from a blind man and his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity and moving forward in faith very much deals with with a lot of that, the whole concept of the value and the power of personal knowledge, as opposed to just head knowledge. I talk about the World Trade Center a lot in that book, specifically in terms of what I learned and how I developed a mindset to be able to control fear, rather than letting it be the thing that overwhelmed me or overwhelms anyone and and I've had a couple people on this podcast who talk about it, and they say the same sort of thing that you did. It's not about knowledge that you sort of intellectually know. It's what you really know. So people, for example, in evacuating the World Trade Center, would look at signs, and they would follow those and a lot of people were able to do that, but that's still not knowing that is really relying on something else that you may or may not really have access to. So True Knowledge is the only way to go Carlos Hidalgo  09:38 100% and I find that I gather that through experience, yeah. And so the example I use is, if you ask me about my wife, you know, do you know Suzanne? I would say, Oh, yeah. You know, blonde hair, blue eyes, about five, five. Funny, smart. I could tell you all the different facts, but there's a big difference when you sit and you get to experience being with her, seeing. Her, how she interacts with people, how she treats others, all of those things. Take that knowledge and actually make an experience an experience, yeah. And so that's been the difference for me, as it regard, in my relationship with Jesus Christ, yeah, well, Michael Hingson  10:14 and Suzanne, so that's good. Carlos Hidalgo  10:17 Well, so absolutely, 31 years and we're still going. There you go. Michael Hingson  10:21 Well, keep going. That's that's cool. That's great to have that kind of a relationship. It's all too often we don't see a lot of that in marriage, and just people get married without knowing and that leads to all sorts of potential challenges. So it's good to really get to know someone Carlos Hidalgo  10:41 absolutely, yeah, I'm still, still learning, still studying her and learning all I can, after 31 Michael Hingson  10:46 years, and she is too Yes, she is. Carlos Hidalgo  10:49 She does a phenomenal job. Michael Hingson  10:52 So what did you do after college? Carlos Hidalgo  10:56 After college, I actually moved back up here, where I'm at now. Worked for two years for Word of Life, the same group that ran the Bible Institute. So then, actually, unbeknownst to me, i My heart was really at that point, I wanted to go into law enforcement. My father in law was an FBI agent for 30 years. I'd always been intrigued by law enforcement, so I thought going into and getting a job for a few years, cutting my teeth while I filled out a resume. So started working in the office of donor development or advancement, and that was the first time I really started to get any exposure to anything formal, marketing wise. In the meantime, applied to the FBI, never went anywhere. Ended up applying again, never went anywhere at that point. Then we moved to we left here after two years of marriage and having one child. We moved to Michigan for a brief time, and then we went back to down to from Michigan. We went to Dallas, where we lived for 13 years, and I worked while I was still trying to get into law enforcement. I kept getting marketing jobs and companies. So eventually I gave up the dream of law enforcement and just followed what's unfolding and had a pretty good career in two software companies as a director of marketing to cut my teeth and learn what global business was all about do a lot of travel, which helped me career wise wasn't so great home wise or parent wise when you're away from your kids, but it's been my career for 30 plus years. I've had a heck of a career doing it and very grateful for it, but I still still get intrigued at the whole concept of law enforcement, but I'm afraid I'm a little too old at this point to start down that path. Michael Hingson  12:47 How come you kept not getting anywhere with it? Carlos Hidalgo  12:51 Well, I did get to a point where the FBI I took a test when we lived in Dallas, and just they called after said I had scored well, which made me chuckle, thinking back to my college days of test taking, but and then they said, Hey, do you speak Spanish, which I do not, despite my name, which is very Spanish, Carlo. And they said, Okay, well, we'll keep your we'll keep your application on file. Let you know if anything changes. And that was the last I heard. So at that point, I just thought, okay, I can keep pushing this and trying. But again, as things started to unfold in the software world, the jobs that I had took care of my family. They provided well for us. They gave me opportunities to learn new things, try new things, opportunity to, like I said, international business, which I never done before. So at that point, I just thought, you know, I'm kind of seven, eight years into this thing. What does this look like going forward? And then are we going to have to just hit reset in all facets of our lives, financially, where our kids are settled, for me to go into law enforcement. So I abandoned it, and I'm okay with that. I think it would have been a phenomenal career. I would have loved it, like I said. I'm still intrigued by it, I still have great respect for it, but it just wasn't in the cards for me, and I'm okay with that. I think sometimes the way we grow is through the death of a dream. Michael Hingson  14:21 Yeah, I know I've always been intrigued by law and law enforcement, and I know that they're never going to hire me, and now they won't, right, but, but they wouldn't hire me, but I took, actually, some courses in college dealing with police and other things like that, because I was, and still am fascinated by it, and I have a great respect for the law. And I I admire good lawyers who are knowledgeable, who really are in it to deal with the law. And you can tell those from the typical ambulance type chaser who manipulates, but, but. I really appreciate the law. I in my life have had the opportunity to be involved with some efforts of the National Federation of the Blind, where we've gone several times to Washington to meet with congressional types. And so I've met some interesting people, met Ted Kennedy, met Tip O'Neill when he was still speaker, Senator Saugus from Massachusetts and others, and found and through them, got to meet some people who were truly committed to what they were doing. They weren't in it for the power. They were in it to try to really help the country and help their individual constituencies in their states and so on. It's a lot of fun. Carlos Hidalgo  15:47 Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure it was, I that's quite a roster of people you've been able to engage with, and I'm sure, no doubt, influence well. Michael Hingson  15:57 And we were there to talk about legislation that we needed. But I'll never forget first time we went in and we met Paul Tsongas. We talked about what we wanted to talk about, and he said, Well, it's the end of the day. What are you guys doing now? And we said, well, we're just going to go back to the hotel. And he said, You got a few minutes talk to you about Massachusetts. Well, we ended up staying for two hours. It was a lot of fun. Carlos Hidalgo  16:19 Wow, yeah, that is a lot of fun. I had an opportunity a number of years ago to do a tour of the West Wing, which was just phenomenal. So when you get, when you get those opportunities, I don't care what side of the aisle you may sit on or are partial to, the answer is yes, take it, because you learn a whole lot, and it's it gives you a whole new appreciation for our country. Michael Hingson  16:40 Well, 20 years ago, I was invited to come back and meet George W Bush because a congressman I had met was fascinated by my story and the story of my guide dog, Roselle, and he arranged for us to meet George W and we went back. It was supposed to be a brief, like two minute just photo op. This ended up being like a 15 minute conversation, and then it was a lot of fun. And I hope that we inspired him some, and we made a difference. And, you know, that's always a good thing. Carlos Hidalgo  17:13 Yeah, at the end of the day, right there people just like us. They are, I think the and I've heard that a lot about George W is his investment in people where he knew his you know, everybody in the staff that he knew their names, he knew about their families. So it doesn't surprise me that a two minute Meet and Greet was extended a little bit. Michael Hingson  17:34 We kept the Italian Prime Minister waiting while we finished our conversation, as it turns out, that's fine, Carlos Hidalgo  17:42 but it was good. There you go. There's your there, there's your the two truth and the lie icebreaker that they have. You do sometimes. There's, you can work that in, Michael Hingson  17:49 I could work that in, yeah, that would be, yeah, I should do that. Well, it was, but it was, it was, it was very enjoyable to be able to do that. Well. So now, so when did you start your own company? That's been a little while, at least. Carlos Hidalgo  18:04 Yeah, I started my first company that I started, I co founded with my brother. In 2005 I was working at the software company, and I just, I started to just have an edge of, you know, I should start something. I don't know what that looks like. And I remember one time just talking to my wife, and I said, I don't want to be 7580 years old. And think, what if, yeah, and my wife is very practical. And she said, Okay, so go for it, and if it doesn't work, just go get another job. And when she broke it down like that, I just thought, wow. Okay, she, I think she believes in me more than I do. So in 2005 I left the software company and we started a agency. And really, at that point for me, the Yes, I wanted to start my own company and see if I could do it. But the the big driving factor was my at that point, I we had four children, so we have four, and they were all pretty small, and I was traveling all over the country, and I didn't want to miss their childhood. And I remember coming home from trips and hearing conversations or seeing things that that I wasn't a part of, and I thought this, this isn't right. I need to be here. I need to be home. So I went to the software company, asked them what they thought they became my first client, and I did that for from 2005 to just early 2017 when I resigned my position as CEO there just to get my life back and kind of hit the reset button again, but this time, I meant it, so I left, and they're still going. But that was my first foray into entrepreneurship, and I just kept doing it since I started another consultancy, and now this is my third one, and also been part of about two to three other companies that. We launched, but never made it. So I enjoy the whole process. I love it, but, yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, I will never say never, but the idea of not working for myself seems rather foreign to me. Michael Hingson  20:16 So the first company you had for 12 years, what did that do? Carlos Hidalgo  20:21 We were a mark. Marketing Yeah, we were a marketing services company. So we worked with business to business companies to help them in their demand generation, acquiring new customers and also customer growth. So that's really where a lot of my career has been sent, centered right, helping companies design them strategies, everything from content to technology to developing personas and putting together strategies on how to reach them when they're looking for something to buy that that client offers. Michael Hingson  20:52 Okay, well, that makes sense and certainly a worthy thing to do. So, when did you form your current company, digital exhaust, which is a very clever name, you'll have to tell me about that. Carlos Hidalgo  21:04 Oh yeah, there's a little bit of a story behind that. So I was working in 2022 early 2022 I had an offer to go be the Chief Revenue Officer of another agency, which I my wife and I talked about it, we prayed about it, and I had a really, really close friend of mine who was their chief strategy officer at the time, so the ability to work with him, stay in the industry and work with some really good clients, I jumped at, so I took that role over that role lasted eight months. I won't get into all those details of why? Never, never, really did get a clear answer. The answer I was given, not exactly. The numbers didn't the number. I'll just say the numbers proved otherwise. All that said that came to an end in 2023 I believe. Yeah, yeah, 2023 and so February, 23 so at that point, I was like, Okay, well, what do I do? I can try to go get a job, which I did. Nobody was really interested in, you know, early 50s, guy coming in. So, you know, did the interview thing. And then I just thought, Well, why don't, why don't I just bet on myself again and go for it. So at that point, the my friend who was the chief strategy officer, he had also left, so he and I started talking and thought, why don't we just do this together? You know, services he loves to implement, I love to sell. Let's just see if we can make a run at this. So here we are now. It'll be four years in or three years, I guess, in February or April of 26 and we're still alive to talk about it. And so that's how it came to be. It was really just, I've done this before. There's no security, no more security. I believe in working for somebody else than working for yourself. So bet on yourself and put out your shingle and see what you can make happen. Michael Hingson  23:06 Where did the name digital exhaust come from? That's a clever name. Carlos Hidalgo  23:10 Oh, thank you. We were, we were batting around so many different names, and we just had a thing, I think we had a running Google Sheet, like, let's just throw names up there. And then I was listening to a recording of a vendor that we had done work with in our early days, and he was talking about how you can track the digital movements of someone. And he said, You know, so basically, you know, they're leaving behind their digital exhaust. And he used the term twice. So I called my then partner, Tracy, and I said, Hey, what do you think about the name digital exhaust as a company? And he was like, Oh, I love it. So I said, Well, before we that, we have to call Dan and see if he would be okay. So I did some looking, you know, the whole trademark search, and when I told our partner about it. He said, Oh my word, I love it. He said, Never, never even thought that that could be a name, but if you guys want it, go for it. So we took it and it is, it's, it's, we think it's pretty unique, and it also describes a lot of what we do with customer data to get an understanding of how do you engage with them, where are they, and how are they going to interact with you and your brand? How so well. Again, he was right. I can look at your digital footprint or your digital behavior. I can see what sites you've visited, what web pages you visited, how much time you spend on a product piece, how much content you engage so I can look at all of that behind the scenes. Start to score that if you're an account that I want to go after, or if I'm a lead based sale, that gives me a lot of intelligence on what you're interested in. And then there's ways to kind of, from a insight perspective, determine where you are in that journey, whether it's your four. First time as a purchase, you're a current customer and you're interested in purchasing something else. So it gives us a lot of insight into that, so that I can message you or I also know when should sales place a phone call to you and start that conversation. So that's why we use the term digital exhaust, because, again, it's a lot of what we do and how we use our customer data. Michael Hingson  25:20 Several years ago, I watched a 60 Minutes program, gosh, I don't know it's actually a number of years ago. And one of the segments there was a guy who was on he was a private detective, and what he said was, I can tell more about you than most anyone else can simply by looking at your trash. And in fact, I can't remember if it was Mike Wallace or not. Who was the interviewer, but they went on investigated some trash cans and and this guy could just tell you so much about your entire life just by looking at what was in the trash can. It was really pretty amazing and and I don't mean that in any way as a negative thing, but it's very clever that people have that insight. So I appreciate what you're saying about digital exhaust. It makes perfect sense. Carlos Hidalgo  26:17 Well, good. I'm glad it does. It means we've hit the mark. I'm not I will say this. I'm not going to go through my customers trash, but I am not surprised that if you did how much you could learn about somebody, 100% but Michael Hingson  26:30 you do look at their their digital footprint and so again, and it makes perfect sense that you can learn so much that can help you, help them grow. Yes, absolutely gives incredible insight. You talk about making growth simple, tell me more about what that means. Carlos Hidalgo  26:51 Yeah, you know, I've been in the space a long time, and that really came a couple years ago. We started seeing different models that would come up different frameworks that would come out from different vendors. Started talking, you know, I talked to a lot of chief marketing officers in my role, and over and over, what we saw was just complexity of taking terms that everybody would know and applying a new term or creating a new term to replace the old term, because you wanted to stay edgy. And I finally had a CMO who said to me, this is all so complex. Is there any any organization out there, or any way to just make this simple? And I thought, Gee, I kind of been thinking the same thing, because I see all these talking heads out there on LinkedIn and at these conferences showing these overly complex, overly engineered models, and I'm like, You got to be a PhD to implement that thing. And again, I'm also a pretty simple guy. I don't think growth needs to be all that hard if you know your customer, what they need, when they need it, and why it's important to them. I'm going to be able to sell you quite a bit. I'm also going to be able to be a better marketing, better partner to you, because I'll be the first one to be able to tell you you don't need that, or you need that, but you shouldn't get it from us, and here's why. And so we just started saying, You know what? Let's create with our models. And we have models and we have frameworks, but we want them to be kind of what Apple is, right, really innovative, where you can use it. You don't necessarily have to have someone to guide you through it. And so let's just make it as simple as possible for our clients to grow their companies without these over engineered models, which mostly a lot of them are created to sell stuff. And while we want to sell stuff more, so we want to help customers be better at what they do. And so that's why we say is we want to help you make growth simple, cut through the clutter, get to what matters and move forward. Michael Hingson  28:58 Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. By by any standard, how do you find storytelling comes into what you do and how you interact with customers? Carlos Hidalgo  29:11 Yeah, it's really important in the beginning, right in the beginning stages. Anytime I'm engaging with you, if I'm a consumer and you're a brand, I want to your brand should tell a story about who you are, the value that the customer gets when they're going to interact with you, they're going to use your product, what you stand for. Can they trust you? Trust is huge. Right now. We live in a trust economy. I want to know that if you say something, I can you're going to stand behind it. So all of those things are come through in terms of story. Now, what I've always said is I think that story is important. But when it comes to now, especially in the world I live in business to business, once I get into maybe I want to purchase something for you or purchase your product. Now I. Moves from a story to a dialog because I started, I start need, needing to know, what are you interested in? What are your challenges? What are your needs, what are your pain points? And as you're telling me that I can respond more in a conversation, I can still use parts of the story, but now it's a two way dialog, even in a digital world. So if I can create that, that's fantastic, then you become my customer. And now I still want to keep telling you stories. I want to tell you a story about why you can trust us. I tell you a story about how I interact with you. I tell you a story about how I deliver service and how I help you onboard. So all that bleeds into what we call, you know, what I call the big customer experience, from brand engagement to what I'm buying to now that I become a customer, all of those are experiential factors that we have to consider. Michael Hingson  30:49 Well, yeah, and I think that storytelling is a very significant part of selling and sales, because it's part of what really helps create the trust, because people can see through it, if you're just blowing smoke or playing games. Carlos Hidalgo  31:05 Yes, they can absolutely. And you only get one shot if that's what you're gonna do only, yeah, once I realized that forget it, I'm not coming back, that brand loyalty is away real quick. Michael Hingson  31:16 Yeah. So do you encounter in the interactions that you have with people with a lot of burnout or who are going that way. Carlos Hidalgo  31:25 Oh yeah. It's, it's something that I went through in 2016 it's, it's a, I mean, the World Health Organization, whatever you think about them, they definitely have listed it as a illness or as a condition. So it's something that I've seen. It's something that I've written against quite a bit. I don't think we need to get there, but I also think it is part of the consequence, or the outcome of when we make work center of our universe, and we make work our God, when that's going to happen then, yeah, you're going to experience burnout. And I think burnout comes in different flavors, but I see a lot of people who are going through it, trying to work through it, trudge through it. I heard the term the other day, manage burnout. I don't know why you would want to manage burnout. I think you need to take steps to avoid burnout, to avoid it. Michael Hingson  32:17 Yeah, why is it so many people face it, and are experiencing burnout is because they just deal with work, they don't relax, or what. Carlos Hidalgo  32:27 Well, I think there's a lot, lot in that. I've done a lot of study, and that was the topic of some of the topic of my book that I released in 2019 the UN American dream is, I think we, especially in our Western culture, we have adopted this idea that the busier I am, the more important, the more valuable I am, and so and the reality is, none of us are well wired to go, go, go, go, go. Rest is actually a gift from the Lord. And you know, I think very few of us. But you know, think about the last time you talked to anybody. How are you? Oh, I'm so busy. We love to be busy. We love to have jam packed calendars, because it makes us feel good. The other part of it is when you think about workaholism, you know, that is an addiction. And the only time in my experience, we engage with or become addicted to something, it's when we're trying to avoid something else. And so think our workaholism, which leads to burnout, is right up there with our rising rates of anxiety, of depression, of loneliness, because we have bought a false narrative that if we go, go go, we jam pack our calendars, we work like and work like crazy until we hit some imaginary number or we can call it quits. That's what life is all about. And I just sit there and you know, my number one question to people who are running that race is, how's it working for you? You don't seem really happy right now, you don't seem fulfilled, and you're living on the promise of some day and some days, not a day in the week, right? Michael Hingson  34:03 I People ask me, How are you all the time? And my response is something actually that I borrowed from somebody else. I just say, I'm lovely. Yeah, I get lots of reactions from that. It's kind of cute, but it's great. You know, I I agree with you, there is a there's a need and a time, and it's appropriate to not work all the time. Yes, we we don't ever take time even just to sit and think about what we did today. We don't take time at the end of the day to go in our own brains. How did this work out? How did that work out? Why didn't this work? Why did this work? What could I do to make it better and then listen for answers? It's like praying. So many people, when they pray to God, they pray to Jesus and so on. They spend all their time praying and saying what they want, never realizing God all. And he knows that, yeah, when are you going to start listening for answers and really listening? And that's, that's the challenge that I see so often people don't listen, and the answers are always there. They're in their inner the the inner voice that they can hear if they but practice well. Carlos Hidalgo  35:17 And I think to part of that is you need to be still, right? And we see that in scripture where we're told be still and know that I am God, if I mean there, there. We have so much noise and so much input with our phones and constant, you know, interaction and constant noise. We don't give ourselves the ability to sit and think and process, to just to be still. And that is something that I would say, really, for me, over the last decade, has come into focus of I enjoy my downtime. I enjoy the silence that I it's one of the reasons when I run, I don't run with headphones. In my own little world, in my head, praying, thinking about things. There are times I'll drive in the car without the radio on, just in silence, and I tell people, then they look at me like, I have three heads. Yeah, I'm like, oh, it's I am so much better for it, because I'm no longer living life reactively. I'm able to live life in a way that brings me a lot of peace, a lot of joy, a lot of happiness. And when I work, I work really, really hard, but it's definitely not the center of my universe. Michael Hingson  36:27 I know people think I'm crazy, but I can go days without looking well, not days. I'll go a day. I do it volitionally, but I can go quite a while without looking at text messages, and when I do, their message is there sometimes, but I know that I could actually go for a considerable length of time without needing to carry my phone around. Now, the only reason I do carry it around, I mean, clearly some phone calls can come in and so on, but I use other tools on it that you have access to in other ways. So I use it for those things. But the bottom line is, is that I don't need to have this phone with me to stay in touch with people all the time. So if I carry my phone more often than not, I will be in a hotel room listening to something on the phone and, sure, relaxing, rather than all the other things that one could do with it well. Carlos Hidalgo  37:25 And the number of people that I talked to and research shows this that, you know, the last I saw was over 60% it's the first thing people do when they wake up is they reach over and look at their phone and I say, sit there and say, What is so important that you can't even wait 15 minutes from the time your eyes open. But we've become addicted. We've come addicted to the noise, to the constant, go, go, go. And then, you know, we have a friend of ours last year was just, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. Told my wife, over the next three months, I only have this one day I can do lunch. And then you start realizing, like, Well, really, that's, that's how you want to live your life over the next 90 days, you only have one day. Now, I didn't believe it when I heard that. I don't think they were trying to make excuse, and I don't think lying. I think in their heads, they really had this belief of, oh, I can. I've only got one day out of the next 90, but we've weed ourselves into believing that this is how we should be living life. Yeah, and it's not how I want to live life. I'll work hard, I'll put everything I've got into my clients and my business and things like that, but I don't want to be that strapped. I was that strapped one time, time wise and work wise, and it made me absolutely miserable. Mm, hmm. Michael Hingson  38:45 I know when I wake up in the morning I do reach for my phone right at the beginning. One of the very first things that I do is reach for it to see what the temperature is outside, to see what the temperature is your house, to see whether I want to turn the heater on, you know, but I don't look at messages. I don't need to do that. I'll do it eventually, but, you know, I So, as I say, I use it for other tools, but I use the phone, because that's the tool that's available to me that gives me that information, and it'll help me decide, do I want to turn the heater on, or do I want to turn the air conditioner off? And that's what I do. And then I put the phone down, and I start visiting with the dog and the cat, and we have conversations which is, which is kind of fun, Carlos Hidalgo  39:29 but yeah, you get to enjoy life. Michael Hingson  39:32 I remember, remember the old technology town? Now it's old Blackberry. Oh yeah, the black and Research In Motion. There was one night when Research In Motion lost communications with all of the blackberries, and every BlackBerry went dead, I think, for about 12 hours. But I heard that even during the time when that occurred, people committed suicide because they had no way to look at their blackberries. And. Get information. And I always thought you're that dependent, that you can't cope for a while, especially at night without that information. Carlos Hidalgo  40:09 Come on. Yeah, it's staggering. The number of, again, over 50% of people said that they would be panicked if they want an app without their phones and so and again, I used to, I used to live that way. So I understand it to a degree, but, well, I understand it. Yeah, I also tell people you don't have to live that way, because people i The people I know who live that way, don't seem very content or fulfilled, right, right? Which is really the issue, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely, because we only go, we only get one shot at this life, and I want to make the most of it. Michael Hingson  40:43 Make growth simple. Carlos Hidalgo  40:46 That's right, personal, personal and business wise, right? Michael Hingson  40:49 Personal and business wise. So what is hustle culture? Carlos Hidalgo  40:54 Well, hustle culture has been promoted by a lot of folks, a whole lot more well known that I am, you know, where Kevin O'Leary for Shark Tank, Shark Tank talks about, you got to be willing to work eight days a week, you know, and give everything you've got, you know. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about, you know, go, go, go, go. And, you know, we just see it out there of this, you've got to be willing to go above and beyond. If you want to have success, if you want to make this money, you've got to just make sure you're willing to hustle at all costs, which to me, there's a place for that. As I said, when I'm working I hustle. I work hard. I get in a zone. I kind of block everything out and and there are some weeks where we require over and above it. You know, 16 or a week is is not something that has never been done. But the difference is, there's a couple of differences. Is I'm going to work hard because that's what I'm told to do. In Scripture, it says that with everything you do, do it with all your might and do it to the glory of glory of the Lord. So I'm going to do that. Plus work was one of the first things that God ever created. He told Adam in the garden, I want you to work now, what we also see is that it was cursed when man sinned, and it was part of the curse in the garden. But I do believe work is noble. I believe it's valuable, I believe it has so many things that can teach us. So I'm working. I'm hustling hard when I'm working, but this idea that I need to give everything I have to my business so that I'm successful. Well, what about our relationships? What about our own our last word, too, right? Our own physical health? What about my marriage? All of these things that require work yet, you know, you got a guy like Grant Cardone talking about 95 hour work weeks. That's insanity. Yeah, at what point, you know, so to me, I really believe, and I've had some people who've argued with me over this. If you want to know what the object of your affection is, show me where you're spending the most time and attention. And it's not time or attention, time and attention, right? I cannot. I cannot be, quote, unquote, working, but I can be with my wife, but my brain is working. My brain is thinking about my work, thinking about my business, thinking about my career. So what good is it to her if I'm there or not? Yeah, I'm not investing in that relationship, and that is just as much work as anything else. And I would I would say the rewards are better and the gratification that much deeper. So can work life balance actually be attained? I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in boundaries, and maybe I'm splitting hairs, but when I see that, over 70% of people say that work life balance is unachievable. It tells me it doesn't exist. It's also the only place in our lives where we talk we try to separate work from life. Nobody talks about finance life, business, kids life, business, marriage life, business. But we talk about work life balance. Now I understand we spend a lot of time at work in our modern day culture, but if I can decide that I'm going to put boundaries around the things that matter most to me, so like work, like my relationships, like my physical, mental and emotional health, my spiritual health, and that's how I've started to live life. Is instead of trying to balance everything, I'm going to set boundaries. So what does that look like? Well, the first thing I do in the morning is not check the phone. I get up, I pray. I have coffee with my wife. Sometimes we have really deep conversations. Sometimes we look just let the caffeine kick in and let it wake up, and then we set time in prayer. So every day, pretty much between 815 and 830 I'm at my desk ready to work, but I've put a boundary around that morning time, which allows me to start the time with with my Bible and with my wife from 830 To about 1230 I'm locked in. I am working. There's a boundary around there's a boundary. And then about 1230 to one, about two o'clock, that's my workout. Either go to the gym or I go for a run, come home, make my protein stuff, and then I'm back working again. And so and then when I'm done work, between 530 and six, I shut it down. Work is over, and now it's my personal life again, and whatever that looks like, and some of that is seasonal, because of where I live, in the summer, it'll get stay light till 930 and the winter, it gets dark by 430 there's quite a disparity. But because I have those boundaries, I know that I'm able to bring the best of myself to each of those areas of my life, and that is far easier than balance. And when one of those boundaries needs to move, I get to have a conversation. Hey, I've got a call tonight overseas. Or do we have anything? Are we good if I take this call at 730 at night? So I take the call at 730 at night, but I have that discussion, and it's it takes more effort to move a boundary, takes very little effort to get knocked off balance. Michael Hingson  46:05 Yeah, and I think that makes perfect sense. I know for me, when Karen was here, we we enjoyed breakfast and we enjoyed dinner, and I think there's a lot of value in that. Now, I was always the earlier riser, but partly because I worked for companies that kind of required that. That is to say I worked, for example, when I lived in the east for California companies. So I ended up being there later. But when I worked in the West, calling the east, I had to be in work by six, because that's what I needed to do. But we agreed on that, and I hear exactly what you're saying. The fact of the matter is that you've got to really make some decisions, but if you're in a relationship, then you both have to agree and make the decisions together, which is what really should happen 100% Carlos Hidalgo  46:58 and those boundaries will change. I mean my boundaries now that I'm an empty nester, you know, had I lived this way 15 years ago, would have looked far different because I still had children at home. And so the boundaries can shift and change. But to your point, you have to talk about that. And what I have come to believe is that if I'm making those decisions in regards to my business, my job, my career, and I'm not having the conversation with my significant other, then I'm not I'm not sacrificing anything. I'm just selfish. And yet, what we see is, Oh, you got to sacrifice for your business. I've said to couples before, if you and your wife believe and want to say, hey, we want to go build this thing and we want to go sell it so we know the next five years we're hardly going to see each other, and we're both on board with that, and this is what we want. Go in peace. I think you're nuts, but Go in peace, but still, you made the decision together. That's right, and that's the difference. And I find that a lot of people do not do that, and I also think it adds to the stress and the loneliness and the anxiety and the depression is because we're chasing something that is so fleeting, and no matter what Empire we may build professionally, we can't take it with us, right? Michael Hingson  48:13 And that's something that I wish more people would truly realize. It would make for a much happier world. Carlos Hidalgo  48:21 It would. But the unfortunate part is, until the pain and consequence of how you're living outweighs the fear of change, most likely you're never going to do anything different, right? 48:31 So tell me, Carlos Hidalgo  48:32 oh, go ahead. No. Oh, okay, tell me about the Michael Hingson  48:36 title of the book, the UN American Dream. Where did that come from? And why did you name the book that, why was that the title? And so on, Carlos Hidalgo  48:42 yeah, and so in 2016 is when I informed the company that I had started with my brother 11 years earlier that I was stepping down. Didn't really know what that looked like. I literally just one day, through the help of a friend and God's good grace, decided that it was time for me to go. And so the way they wanted to handle it in end of the year, and I think this was like end of October ish, when I made that decision, they said, You know what, let's not announce anything. We don't want our clients to get spooked in q4 so let's wait until the turn of the the new year. So that was into 2017 so I made a post, and I published it in February, 2017 about why I was leaving the company, some of the things that I was learning along the way. And what surprised me was the phone calls and emails I got from colleagues who said, Hey, I just read your post. Can we talk? I'm kind of thinking about the same thing. I'm miserable. And it was one email in particular that still stands out, where he said, I'm miserable. I started to think like, wow, okay, this, this is not just me. My circumstances were different. But this seems to be a problem, so I started to just do some research on our obsession with work, the number of hours we work, this idea of balance and hustle culture. Really immersed myself in it, and I thought this isn't what Truslow Adams meant when he coined the term the American dream. We're killing ourselves for what like, for What's the objective here to just add another zero to my bank account. So as I started to do that research, I saw myself and a lot of that same story, and the mistakes I made and how I was, you know, I had put my business first all the things that we've talked about. And I thought, Man, this is really quite un American, really, because we say we're the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we're not free if we're slaves to our company or our jobs or our careers. So I thought, You know what? I think what we're doing to ourselves is un American, and we're chasing the UN American dream, and that's how I came up with the title, Michael Hingson  51:05 who have been some of your greatest influencers? Carlos Hidalgo  51:09 Wow, I have had a lot. Obviously, my parents have been huge influences in my life. My mom is a fierce prayer warrior, and so I fervently believe I would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for her and her faithfulness and that and my dad is it has been in marketing and sales and advertising. So learned a lot from him, just in life, and then also in business. There's a gentleman who lives up the street who is kind of like a second dad to me, it's an interesting relationship, because his son is also my best friend, but gentleman by the name of Keith Vander wheel who is salt of the earth, wise, just a wise, wise man has loved me, has when needed, given me a swift kick in the rear end, and just really helped keep keep me focused, and been one of these guys that I can go to, and it's a little about almost 20 years older than I am, so he's one that has seen more and done more. So I'm thankful for that. And then I am very fortunate to have about three or four very, very dear, dear friends, close friends, I mentioned one, Keith's son, who spur me on to greater things, encourage me when necessary, rebuke me and help me. And then I would say, more than anything, my wife, I learned stuff from her each and every day, her steadfastness, Her Grace, her strength of character, she is absolutely the strongest person I know, and has been the biggest influence in my life. Michael Hingson  52:45 I when I was in college, did radio, and I've always liked comedy. I've always liked trying to be a little bit flip and so on, yep. But I will tell you that my wife constantly amazed me. She was pretty much a lot more straight faced and straight laced than i But when she came out with a zinger, it came out of left field, and you never saw coming. She was amazing. Clearly, she observed me a whole lot more than I thought she did, right? Carlos Hidalgo  53:18 And what a gift that is to have. My wife and I were just, we went out for brunch today, with it being the holiday, and I just, I told her, I said, I just love how much we laugh. Yeah, what a gift that is to have in your marriage. We're just laughing together and laughing at each other in a way that's not demeaning, but appreciates our differences. And you know, we can tease each other and enjoy it and know it comes from a place of love, yeah. Michael Hingson  53:42 How do we deal with the epidemic of loneliness in our lives and in our world? Carlos Hidalgo  53:48 Wow, that's a great question. It's first of all, I think it's heartbreaking. I see this especially with men. And statistics would show that that men especially struggle with loneliness. I think number one is we have to come to the realization we were not meant to live in isolation. We are communal beings. God created us to live in community, and we need to step into that. And part of that is letting your guard down and being vulnerable and letting people know where you struggle. Now I'm not talking about wearing your heart on your sleeve and walking right every stranger and spilling, but those closest of relationships, and I can say, you know, for me, when I isolated, that's when I became the worst form of myself and went to places I never thought I would go. And so I think loneliness, first of all, get off social media and your phone, because that's not a connection. No, your friends, all of your 1000s of friends on Facebook, are not true friends. They're people, you know, but they're not people that are going to walk with you through some of the hardest times of your lives, and so find those. Group, find that community, whether it's your church, whether it's a small group that you take part in, whether it's people at your work, but really start to invest in those relationships and bring as much to it as you're expecting them to. And for me, it became just with those closest relationships. I'm an open book. I'm not going to BS. I'm going to talk about what's on my heart, what I'm struggling with, what my victories are, what my low points are. And for me, that starts with my spouse. As I mentioned, I've got three other men in my life that are around my age that I can confide in, be open with, and it's the most freeing, wonderful thing, and it's their relationships that I cherish, and I think that's how we end this cycle of loneliness. But I think a lot of people have been duped. Well, I'm on I've got a bunch of friends online, yeah, you know, put the phone down, get off your social media platform and go be human and interact with other people. Michael Hingson  56:01 It gets back to the same thing we talked about earlier. There's a whole big difference between head knowledge and really knowing. And the friends who are truly your friends are people who you know and who know you and that you can truly be honest with and who will be honest with you. And that is not something that you get from all those Facebook friends. Otherwise, you're being awfully silly, right? Carlos Hidalgo  56:23 And I also think we have to get out of this idea in our culture that if I don't affirm you, I somehow don't like you anymore, this idea that tolerance and love are the same thing. Some of my closest friends have been some of the ones that have come to me and said, Hey, here's what we've observed, and we're sure you don't like that about you, and you know this needs to change. And I love that. I love that I friends who will call my stuff and a wife who will say to me, this isn't the best you like what's going on here? I need that in my life, because if all I want to do is have people pat me on the back and affirm me. I'm going to get entitled pretty quick. Yeah, and that doesn't help at all. Right? How do we bring civil discourse to our society? We're in an environment and in a world where we just don't appreciate or have conversations anymore. How do we deal with that? Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, I think we have to get back to an appreciation for and a respect for human life and humanity in general. Michael, I'm sure if you and I spent a few hours together, we would eventually land on a topic that we don't just that we don't agree on. I can be okay with that, and because if I'm open to say, Hey, Michael is a human being. He's smart. He's overcome incredible odds in his life, and maybe if I listen, I can learn something. Doesn't mean I'm going to come to your side of the the position, but I can at least learn something. But I think systematically, over decades, we've been denigrating the the value of human life. I mean, how many millions of babies have we aborted in this country? You know, your your own story, your parents were told, hey, just put him in a home. He's not going to amount to anything because of his blindness. That's insanity, you know. So today, instead of civil discourse, if I don't like you, I berate you online, I make something up about you, or I kill you. And right so and to tell you how far we've gone, not only does that happen, but then we're gonna have people who celebrate in the murder of whether it's an insurance CEO or a Charlie Kirk, or anybody, and I just sit there and say, Okay, we've we've gotten so far right civil discourse. And so I think number one is just a respect and a value for human life, which we have a lot of work to do there. And then number two, again, back to what I said, this idea that if I disagree with you, I somehow don't love you anymore. And the example I use is this idea of, well, you need we need more tolerance and affirmation. There was a time Michael where my behavior within our marriage just was unacceptable. I mean, I was cheating on my wife, and once she found out she still loved me, but she couldn't tolerate the behavior for reasons that I think I need to explain. So at that point, you say, All right, well, how do those two things work together? If I had kept doing what I was doing, I know for 100% she would have loved me till the day she died, but she died, but she wouldn't have been able to stay with me, because you can't tolerate that behavior. She's supposed to affirm that. And so this idea that because I quote, unquote, love you, I affirm you, I actually make the case that if I love you, I'm going to help you be the best form of yourself, which sometimes means disagreeing with you and pointing things out in your life. That are unhealthy, that's fair. So I think we have to get back to that place of we can have disagreement, still have respect for each other. We can disagree vehemently and still do it respectfully, right? And then at the end of the day, I can respect your position because of who you are as a person, and that you know, giving you the benefit of the doubt. This is a well thought out position. And so, okay, great. We agree to disagree. We can still be friends, yeah? Michael Hingson  1:00:27 And we might learn something, or at least be put on a path where we think about it, and we may discover that, oh, that person's right, correct, yeah, which is Carlos Hidalgo  1:00:36 cool, yeah, and it's not that hard. And again, no, do your do your homework. Know what the real issues are, and stop reading headlines on social media. Michael Hingson  1:00:46 Yeah, really, get away from that. What else should we know about you? Carlos Hidalgo  1:00:50 Well, I'm the father of four amazing kids spread all over the country, ages 30 to 20. He'll be 24 in 10 days, and then an amazing daughter in law, soon to be daughter in law, my second son is engaged, gets married next year. I love the outdoors, anything outside. And I would say, if I want your audience to remember anything, it's that what Jesus Christ has done in my life has been nothing short of amazing. And like I said at the beginning, this is my operating system, and it's who I am and my reason for being in each and every day. And I sit here and I just am in awe of the life I get to live. So I'm very, very thankful and very, very humbled by it all. Michael Hingson  1:01:36 If people want to reach out to you and maybe explore working with your company, using your company to help them. How do they do that? Carlos Hidalgo  1:01:43 Yeah, you can email me at Carlos at Digital exhaust.co it's not.com so make sure it.co's or I won't get it. So you can shoot me an email visit our website, which is digital exhaust.co or looked me up on LinkedIn, just Carlos adalgo, H, I, D, A, L, G, O, right. That is correct. Yeah. I appreciate you getting the name right on the introduction. So thank you for that. I worked at it well. Michael Hingson  1:02:12 I want to thank you for being here. This has been wonderful. And as I tell people all the time, if I'm not learning at least as much as anybody else on this podcast, and I'm not doing my job well, which means I do need to listen and think about it. And I appreciate all the insights that you gave us today, and I appreciate all of you being here and being with Carlos and me. Love to get your thoughts. Please reach out to Carlos. Please email me at Michael H i, at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, but most of all, wherever you're listening or watching the pod podcast, please give us a five star review and a rating. We love that. We love your your input, please. Of course, I want it always to be positive, but I'll take whatever you send because we we value that. And for all of you and Carlos, you as well, if you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on the podcast. We'd love it if you'd let us know we're always looking to meet more people to help show that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are. And with that, I want to thank you again, Carlos, for being here. This has been absolutely fun. Carlos Hidalgo  1:03:13 Michael, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. Michael Hingson  1:03:20 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m

When most people think about the 1970s, they're likely to conjure up images of Watergate, oil shortages, disco, and outrageous hairstyles. When academic political historians have thought about the 1970s, they have tended to see the era largely as one in which the forces of conservatism gained strength, setting the stage for Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980 and the subsequent decades of “neoliberalism,” in which both parties tended to agree that market forces needed to be liberated from the heavy hand of government. But a new generation of historians argues that this reading shortchanges many of the Democratic politicians active in the 1970s and the years that followed, particularly the New Liberals. These were the people who wanted the Democratic Party to regain its political momentum by reforming liberalism as well as the party. The New Liberals included intellectuals like Robert Reich and Ira Magaziner, business figures like Felix Rohatyn and Robert Rubin, and politicians including Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, and of course Bill Clinton, who arguably brought the New Liberal project to fruition by winning the presidency in 1992. Henry Tonks, a historian at Kenyon College, has written a dissertation reevaluating the New Liberals. He argues that while they did pave the way toward the modern Democratic Party, they didn't capitulate to Reaganism or repudiate their New Deal heritage. Rather, they tried to reinvent liberalism by adapting it to an economy that was becoming more globalized as well as less industrial and more reliant upon financial services and advanced technology. They embraced industrial policy and worried about whether America was falling behind its commercial rivals, particularly Japan. Tonks argues that while New Liberals didn't correctly diagnose the changes to the economy in all of its particulars, their policy vision retains considerable relevance to today's politics — and particularly the discussion around the Abundance movement.

3:14:29 – Frank in New Jersey, plus the Other Side. Topics include: Noise pollution, Ocean Gate Day, cardboard boat races, soundboard prank calls, opening some vintage trading card packs (Desert Storm, Decision ’92, Supercinema), Paul Tsongas, Crossfire, Mojo Nixon, concert plans, alternate plans, Washington D.C., going to all the malls in NJ, Kinnelon Mall, Howard Stern Show […]

3:14:29 – Frank in New Jersey, plus the Other Side. Topics include: Noise pollution, Ocean Gate Day, cardboard boat races, soundboard prank calls, opening some vintage trading card packs (Desert Storm, Decision ’92, Supercinema), Paul Tsongas, Crossfire, Mojo Nixon, concert plans, alternate plans, Washington D.C., going to all the malls in NJ, Kinnelon Mall, Howard Stern Show […]

Send us a textThe 1992 New York Democratic Primary was a knock down drag out affair between Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and his one remaining challenger Former California Governor Jerry Brown. The two men pulled no punches as they fought over the delegates in this state , that was no stranger to rowdy politics. Brown would accuse Clinton of shaking down the Arkansas poultry industry for thousands of dollars in legal fees for his wife's law firm in Little Rock. Clinton would return the fire going after Brown's constant reinventing of himself, and the fact that he had been known for his shaking down of California business interests for years. They both went straight for the jugular and it left hard feelings that did not end after the primary was over. But Bill Clinton would win it, and Jerry Brown would lose not only to Bill Clinton but also to Paul Tsongas, who had suspended his campaign a couple of weeks earlier. That would seal the fate of Jerry Brown and finally give Bill Clinton his party's nomination for President.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Send us a textIn this episode we will listen in as Pat Buchanan begins to fade away after it is discovered he drives a Mercedes Benz and the Bush campaign pounces on it. On the other side, Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, and John Kerry also fade away but Bill Clinton will still find himself with one very stubborn opponent left to lock horns with before he can lay claim to the Democratic Nomination.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Send us a textIn this episode we cover the 1992 New Hampshire Primary with the help of WMUR News from Manchester, New Hampshire. They do a segment titled "Inside the Vault" that covers the history of the New Hampshire Primary. They did several on the 1992 Primary, we used four of them for this episode. We will look back on Bill Clinton's incredible comeback in this primary after scandal threatens to take him out, we will look at the floundering campaign of Senator Bob Kerry who at the start appeared to be the most formidable of candidates and it just never materialized for him, we will also look at the incredible speech at the Dover, New Hampshire Elks Club that turned Bill Clinton's fortunes around , and then finally, we will tune in at a look back at the forgotten winner of the 1992 New Hampshire Primary Senator Paul Tsongas. Then it's off to the nightly news broadcast from that evening and hear the analysis before the votes come in and after, as we relive one of the turning points in the most exciting campaigns in the history of the republic.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Send us a textThe first stop of the primary season is in Iowa. It is an important stop on the pathway to the Presidential Nomination in both parties. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush was way out in front and his challenger, Pat Buchanan, decided not to contest him in Iowa, and on the Democratic side Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was running and therefore the Democrats decided not to invest to much energy there either. But we are going to start there in Iowa. Then move you over to New Hampshire where at this point in the campaign both front runners are hemorrhaging badly to their challengers. Bill Clinton gets bogged down in two personal scandals, one concerning infidelity and an Arkansas lounge singer named Gennifer Flowers, and the other one about his attempt to dodge the draft and steer clear of the Vietnam War. The result of both of these scandals is Clinton drops from a clear frontrunner to battling to stay alive with Tom Harkin and Bob Kerry on his heels. He will spend this week trying to stop the bleeding, and as we shall see on election night, he does. Then President Bush is in a tug of war with television commentator Pat Buchanan. Buchanan wants to put "America First", to stop getting into trade deals, and stop providing foreign aid. His main theme is that the elite, personified by George Bush, don't care about you, and make decisions to the detriment of the working class. He wants to "Make America First Again", sound familiar.  That message is resonating in a New Hampshire then in the throws of a tough recession. In this episode, we will stop off in Iowa and then venture over to New Hampshire and the eve of the hard fought New Hampshire Primary and in both primary races they will serve up some surprises.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Send us a textIn this episode we look at the daunting economic tasks George H. W. Bush has in front of him over the next year. The economy, Unemployment, Healthcare, and the ever present issues on the World Stage, are all piling up and Bush is busy putting his plans together to tackle them. We will see him in this episode start putting those plans out into the public. At the sametime, he will face the 1992 Presidential Campaign and in this episode we will hear from the long list of Contenders all vying for his job. Senators Tom Harkin, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerry, and Governors Jerry Brown, Doug Wilder, and the front runner, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, all step onto the national stage in an attempt to unseat President Bush. They will receive some help too. From a Republican, who will challenge Bush from his right, in his own party, the way Senator McCarthy did President Lyndon Johnson, nearly a quarter of a century before. Pat Buchanan's candidacy would have much the same effect, turning the Republican race into a real race for the nomination and wounding the President for the upcoming fall campaign.   Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Luke and Andrew return to their favorite source of content -- the Seattle Times' Rant & Rave column -- and question one Seattleite's experience at a TSA checkpoint. They also discuss the rapid decline of the neck tie, and, of course, Al Frankin's 30-year-old impressions of Paul Simon and Paul Tsongas.   

Paul Johnson's resume reads like it should cover three careers...managing multiple presidentials, manager/general consultant on twelve Senate races, DSCC Executive Director over two cycles, and several years on Capitol Hill as a Senate Chief of Staff. In this conversation, we talk his roots in Minnesota politics, rising up the ranks through Mondale '84 to manage Tom Daschle's first Senate race in 1986 and then Bob Kerrey's first Senate race in 1988...then staying part of the Kerrey world for the next 20+ years. And eventually managing  presidential campaigns for both Senator Bob Graham and General Wes Clark - plus why Paul has been based out of Shreveport, LA for the past 20 years. This is a great discussion through a fascinating career with one of the most accomplished operatives in Democratic politics.IN THIS EPISODEPaul grows up in the Twin Cities, inspired by the political tradition of Minnesota Democrats...The one time Paul ran for office in his own right...Paul leads a Minnesota brigade to help Walter Mondale in the '84 Iowa Caucus...Paul manages Tom Daschle's first US Senate race in 1986...Paul talks the political impact of the "farm crisis" of the 1980s...Paul connects with Bob Kerrey in the 1988 cycle and stays part of his political world for 20+ years...Paul breaks down the missteps and missed opportunities from the Bob Kerry '92 presidential...Paul speaks to the legacy of political courage shown by Bob Kerrey...Paul's approach as a Senate Chief of Staff on the Hill...A little color on some of the famed friction between President Clinton and Senator Kerrey...Paul's memories of running the DSCCC during the 96 and 98 cycles...Paul goes deep on the boom and bust of the Wes Clark '04 Presidential campaign...An important lesson learned from his time managing Senator Bob Graham's '04 presidential...The Paul Johnson "3 Ms" of what makes an effective campaign manager...Why Paul has been based out of Shreveport, LA for 20+ years...AND...318 area codes, 441 AD, Jim Abdnor, agrarian movements, B+ trip notes, background noise, Scotty Baesler, Brent Blackaby, Jerry Brown, Jim Bunning, Larry Cohen, Susan Collins, Jim Crounse, Jim Crow, Howard Dean, Ron DeSantis, John Edwards, Russ Feingold, Don Foley, Jane Fonda, the Fritz Blitz, going batshit, Grandmother's Restaurant, Gary Hart, Hubert Humphrey, Larry Huynh, Dave Karnes, John Kerry, Carl Levin, Gene McCarthy, meat slicers, Carol Moseley Braun, Sheila Murphy, Ben Nelson, Parade magazine, party mergers, Rudy Perpich, press release routes, Ronald Reagan, Jody Severson, Bob Smith, soft money, Harold Stassen, Pete Stavrianos, Dick Swett, Bob Torricelli, Paul Tsongas, WCCO, Winnebagos, Debra Winger & more!

It was an historic class of freshman members to Congress in 1974. It was made up of 17 Republicans and 74 Democrats and many would go on to become household names. They turned the inner workings of the House Chamber upside down, removing longtime chairmen, and opening up the rules for more transparency and more access, in ways that are still with us today. In the midst of all of this Speaker Carl Albert, with his Majority Leader Tip O'Neill , made a decision that one of these freshman needed to be in leadership and he picked the one he thought had the most potential, and the brightest future, John W. Jenrette Jr of the 6th District of South Carolina. In this episode we look back at this class through the eyes of John Jenrette as he recalls the moves that changed an institution. We remember some of the all stars of this class like Paul Tsongas, Paul Simon, Max Baucus, George Miller, Jeff Jeffords, Jim Florio, Henry Hyde,  Tom Harkin, Henry Waxman, Larry Pressler, Butler Derrick, and the one member still serving in Congress today, now Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.  They left a mark on their times, so much so, they were all the subject of an extraordinary book "The Class of '74" by John Lawrence.We use excerpts from the author's excellent interviews available on You Tube ,where he discusses the 1974 class and its impact.  https://youtu.be/E2MfhV8Ax0w An Interview with John Lawrence, author of "The Class of '74." - R Street InstituteJohn Lawrence , was a former Chief of Staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and worked for a while under Congressman George Miller, a member of the 1974 class. The book on the class received rave reviews like this one:"If you want to know how we got to this bitterly partisan time in politics, read this book. Through hundreds of fascinating interviews plus rigorous research, Lawrence shows us how unintended consequences of congressional 'reforms' started the country along this poisonous path. "-- Cokie RobertsWe highly recommend the book and include a link to the Amazon page here https://www.amazon.com/Class-74-Congress-Watergate-Partisanship/dp/142142469XIt was a historic moment in the history of the Congress and our Congressman John Jenrette was in the center of the action, a place he always seemed to be....The Realists UncensoredHey future listeners, it's Checkers and MJ here and we are two American men that are...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify AgriFutures On AirThe official podcast channel for AgriFutures Australia. Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Tom O'Neill is a legendary political figure in his own right - operative, legislator, statewide official, government relations juggernaut - and is, of course, the eldest son of former US House Speaker Tip O'Neill. In this conversation, Tom talks early memories growing up in a political household, lessons from his father, time spent around figures like John Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, the ups and downs of his own political career, and great stories and insights as an observer and participant at the highest level of politics.IN THIS EPISODEEarly memories, political and otherwise, growing up in North Cambridge, MA in the 1940s and 50s…The impact of Tom's mother Millie on his father's and his own political career…The role opposing the Vietnam War played in his father's career…Remembering the “last of the great Irish vs Italian” primaries when Tip O'Neil replaced John Kennedy in the US House…The impact of his grandfather Tom O'Neill Sr…Breaking down the political skills and career of Tip O'Neill…Tom recalls his time around John F. Kennedy…Tom recounts running campaign for and with Ted Kennedy…Tom talks the significance of another Massachusetts House Speaker, John McCormack…Tom on his own path of running and winning political office…Tom remembers the energy in the Massachusetts legislature of the 1970s…Tom's successful elections running for Lt Governor…The story behind his final run for office in 1982…How Tom was thinking of his future after being out of office before the age of 40…Highlights and insights from nearly four decades in government affairs…How close he came to running to succeed his father in 1986…Tom talks the importance of the Big Dig in modernizing Boston…Tom's recommendations of the best sites of Boston, including his favorite Irish pub and Italian restaurant… AND American metaphors, Back Bay, Birch Bayh, Beacon Hill, the Bellevue Hotel, bocce courts, the Boston telephone directory, Jimmy Breslin, the Bricklayers Union, Brighton, Jimmy Carter, Silvio Conte, Charles De Gaulle, William Delahunt, Delaware North, the Department of Sewers, Paul Dever, Leo Diehl, Brian Donnelly, Mike Dukakis, Donald Dwight, Charlie Flaherty, Gerald Ford, Barney Frank, Newt Gingrich, the Green Necklace, Harvard, John Hume, Joe Kennedy, Ed King, Paul Kirk, Ed Markey, Joe McCarthy, Mike Neville, Middlesex County, Richard Nixon, Mrs. O'Brien, the Odessa Sea, old Italian matriarchs, Regulars, John Rhodes, FDR, Jimmy Roosevelt, Blanche Rufo, Fred Salvucci, Frank Sargent, Haile Selassie, self-righteousness, Al Smith, Sovereign Bank, steel jungles, street corner games, thumbing to Washington, Donald Trump, Paul Tsongas, Watergate, white Xs & more.

Climate Change 1980-2018   Two tigers talking and one is saying, "You can tell humans apart by their fingerprints.  They are as unique as our stripes."  I've been cleaning up and organizing all of my folders and over the year have saved some screenshots that I label “Ideas”.  They are mostly quotes to overlay on beautiful cat images for social sites, so I've created a few, but today had that bizarre stripe / finger print idea come out of nowhere.  I sent it to LaWanna to see if Cindy Arthur, or one of our artists could illustrate that.   Howie is feeling better and decided he's now ready to remake the cartoon I had done to promote our federal bill to ban cub petting.  His edits are great, but now it means pretty much starting from scratch with the cartoonist.  I'm going to give it another day or so, because he will want to change things a few times and no sense paying for work that is just going to have to be redone.  Jamie and Victor went fossilizing for something new yesterday.  It's an old mine where they hit a pocket of fossilized clams.  Jamie says the animal part of the clams turns to crystals and that's what she's digging.  I have crystals in my pockets and on my desks as a reminder that we are all made of light.   I'm continuing to read the NYT piece on climate change.  I found this interesting and wondered if Jamie hopped back onto the planet in 1980 to be a part of the change that was needed to save the earth?     On April 3, 1980, Senator Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democrat, held the first congressional hearing on carbon-dioxide buildup in the atmosphere. Gordon MacDonald testified that the United States should “take the initiative” and develop, through the United Nations, a way to coordinate every nation's energy policies to address the problem. That June, Jimmy Carter signed the Energy Security Act of 1980, which directed the National Academy of Sciences to start a multiyear, comprehensive study, to be called “Changing Climate,” that would analyze social and economic effects of climate change. More urgent, the National Commission on Air Quality, at the request of Congress, invited two dozen experts, including Henry Shaw himself, to a meeting in Florida to propose climate policy.     Two days before Halloween in 1980 Rafe Pomerance traveled to a cotton-candy castle on the Gulf of Mexico, near St. Petersburg, Fla, that locals called the Pink Palace. The Don CeSar hotel was a child's daydream with cantilevered planes of bubble-gum stucco and vanilla-white cupolas that appeared to melt in the sunshine like scoops of ice cream. The hotel stood amid blooms of poisonwood and gumbo limbo on a narrow spit of porous limestone that rose no higher than five feet above the sea. In its carnival of historical amnesia and childlike faith in the power of fantasy, the Pink Palace was a fine setting for the first rehearsal of a conversation that would be earnestly restaged, with little variation and increasing desperation, for the next 40 years.   2015-2018:  The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance, starting in the year 2020. The agreement's language was negotiated by representatives of 196 state parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Le Bourget, near Paris, France, and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015. As of November 2018, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the agreement, and 184 have become party to it. The Paris Agreement's long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels; and to limit the increase to 1.5 °C, since this would substantially reduce the risks and effects of climate change.   Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly report on the contribution that it undertakes to mitigate global warming. No mechanism forces a country to set a specific target by a specific date, but each target should go beyond previously set targets. In June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw his country from the agreement. Under the agreement, the earliest effective date of withdrawal for the U.S. is November 2020, shortly before the end of President Trump's current term. In practice, changes in United States policy that are contrary to the Paris Agreement have already been put in place.   In July 2017 French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot announced a plan to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles in France by 2040 as part of the Paris Agreement. Hulot also stated that France would no longer use coal to produce electricity after 2022 and that up to 4 billion will be invested in boosting energy efficiency. To reach the agreement's emission targets, Norway will ban the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered cars by 2025; the Netherlands will do the same by 2030. Electric trains running on the Dutch national rail network are already entirely powered by wind energy. The House of Representatives of the Netherlands passed a bill in June 2018 mandating that by 2050 the Netherlands will cut its 1990 greenhouse-gas emissions level by 95%—exceeding the Paris Agreement goals.  What will we do?  

Jerry Austin is probably best known as the campaign manager for Reverend Jesse Jackson's '88 Presidential Campaign that won 11 contests and led in delegates deep into the calendar...and he also served as manager, media consultant, advisor to names like Paul Wellstone, Carol Moselely Braun, Sherrod Brown, Paul Tsongas and many more. In this conversation, Jerry talks the '88 Jackson race and high points and lessons learned from decades working with some of the biggest names in American politics. Plus Jerry previews his book series TRUE TALES FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL...pulling together the best campaign war stories from a bipartisan coterie of top political consultants. IN THIS EPISODEJerry grows up in a union household in the South Bronx…Protesting the Vietnam War leads Jerry to a political career…Jerry's early connection to rising star and future Ohio Governor Dick Celeste…A deep dive on Jerry's time managing the 1988 presidential campaign of Reverend Jesse Jackson…Jerry tells some great Willie Brown stories…The first two moves he took to make Jesse Jackson a credible national candidate in 1988…Wisconsin becomes a “make or break” state for Jackson in the '88 primaries…How closely was Reverend Jackson considered for the VP nomination n 1988…Jerry's thoughts on how Jackson '88 blazed the trail for both Clinton '92 and Obama '08…Jerry's involvement at the start of the career of now Senator Sherrod Brown…Jerry's integral role in the underdog upset win of Paul Wellstone in 1990…The story of Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy in a heated argument on the Senate floor…Jerry helps engineer the groundbreaking Senate win of Carol Moseley Braun in 1992…Jerry talks the rise and fall of former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker…Jerry's brought in to help on Paul Tsongas '92 Presidential…Jerry is an official observer during the “Pinochet plebiscite” in Chile…Jerry talks the origin of his book series “True Tales from the Campaign Trail” and one of his favorite stories…AND Art Agnos, Salvador Allende, David Axelrod, bagels and coffees, Robert Bork, Rudy Boschwitz, Boston People, Charlie Brown, Ted Brown, Virgil Brown, Cadillacs, Tony Celebrezze, Steve Cobble, the Dallas Cowboys, Alan Dixon, Bob Dole, Pete Domenici, duck hunting, Michael Dukakis, Susan Estrich, exit polls, Louis Farrakhan, gentile women, Al Gore, Al Hofeld, Tom Hsieh, Hunter College, Jerry Jones, Celinda Lake, Vito Marcantonio, matching funds, McDonalds' executives, Meridian MS, Howard Metzenbaum, George Mitchell, Walter Mondale, Dee Dee Myers, Barack Obama, pander bears, pariahs, Augusto Pinochet, pipe dreams, scrums, the Secret Service, Hank Sheinkopf, the Tampa Airport, Clarence Thomas, Tulsa, the UN, the US Communist Party, VW bugs, voice votes, Maxine Waters & more!

Veteran Democratic media consultant Neil Oxman is one of the most interesting people working in politics. In addition to his years helping elect Democrats at all levels, he caddies on the PGA tour for golfing legends including Tom Watson. In this discussion, Neil talks the history of political ad-making from the 1950s to today and goes deep inside several of his own high-profile races including PA Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia's first Black mayor Wilson Goode, Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign, and more throughout his career that show the ways TV can help win (and lose) political campaigns. Neil's full presentation on the history of campaign ads was recorded by C-Span in 2016 and can be found here. IN THIS EPISODE…Neil's Philly roots and unusual law school experience at Villanova…Neil gets his foot in the door in politics in the summer of 1976…What leads to Neil opening his own media firm in 1980…Neil talks the roots of television advertising in political campaigns…The 1969 television ad that Neil believes kicked off the rise of political ads in non-presidential campaigns…Neil compares ads from the 70s/80s to political ads of today…The races on which Neil starts to come into his own as a media consultant…Neil helps Wilson Goode beat Frank Rizzo to become Philadelphia's first Black mayor…Neil's role on the Kentucky Senate race in 1984 and the strategic mistake that led to Mitch McConnell's first win…Neil's role as ad-maker on the Al Gore 1988 presidential campaign…Neil's connection to then-mayor of Cincinnati Jerry Springer…Neil helps Ed Rendell become Philly Mayor and Governor of Pennsylvania…The last ad that Neil thinks actually mattered in a presidential race…Neil talks his habit of watching 100s of movies a year…Neil talks moonlighting as a caddy on the PGA tour for greats like Tom Watson…Who's the best golfer in politics?Neil's advice for those who want to get into political media…Neil's recommendation for the best political movies…AND 215 media markets, Roger Ailes, Altoona, Doug Bailey, Birch Bayh, Abe Beame, Homero Blancas, Ed Brooke, Pat Caddell, Frank Capra, Hugh Carey, Bob Casey Jr, Bob Casey Sr, Frank Church, Citizens United, cocktail parties, the Columbus Dispatch, Bob Colville, the Daisy ad, John Dierdorf, David Doak, Mike Dukakis, Dwight Eisenhower, Mike Ford, David Garth, gerontocracy, gigantic piles of polls, Wilson Goode, Bob Goodman, Bill Green, Michael Harrington, Anita Hill, Richard Holbrooke, Dee Huddleston, HUT levels, Andi Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, Julian Kanter, Robert Kennedy, Ed Koch, John Lindsay, the Louisville Courier Journal, Willie Maples, McDonalds, George McGovern, Jack McGregor, Mark Moskowitz, Ralph Nader, Jack Nicklaus, Dan Quayle, process questions, Mark Putnam, Robert Redford, regional agoraphobia, Rosser Reeves, Jim Rhodes, Frank Rizzo, Nelson Rockefeller, Buddy Roemer, Nolan Ryan, Rick Santorum, Mike Schmidt, Allyson Schwartz, Joe Sestak, Bob Shrum, Mark Singel, Arlen Specter, Bob Squier, Clarence Thomas, Danny Thomas, Lee Trevino, troglodytes, Harry Truman, Paul Tsongas, Paul Tully, WASPy establishments, Doug Wilder, Tiger Woods, Tom Wolf, Lynn Yeakel & more!

This week on the podcast, we're adding the Presidential Election simulator from 1992: Power Politics! This game pitted you against computer or human foes as you a run campaign for the President of the United States. Run as a Republican like George Bush, Ronald Reagan and more or a Democrat like Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis. Or create your character. Then you pick where you want to campaign and plot out the activities. Then find out who won the election! We pick only the niche-est of niche games. Find out where it landed on the podcast. Or check out the complete Endless List (linked here).

This week on Facing the Future as Congress deals with yet another shutdown threat, we'll talk about the broken federal budget process with David Lerman, Editor of CQ Budget, Then, I'll look back on Paul Tsongas' victory in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary with Brian Keane, President of SmartPower, who was a key staffer on the Tsongas campaign and later became The Concord Coalition's field director.

This week on Facing the Future as Congress deals with yet another shutdown threat, we'll talk about the broken federal budget process with David Lerman, Editor of CQ Budget. Then, I'll look back on Paul Tsongas' victory in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary with Brian Keane, President of SmartPower, who was a key staffer on the Tsongas campaign and later became The Concord Coalition's field director.

This week on Facing the Future, we kick-off The Concord Coalition's 30th anniversary year by talking with political strategist Kitty Kurth, who worked on the 1992 presidential campaign of socially liberal, fiscally conservative former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. Later that year she became the first employee of the Concord Coalition, when it was co-founded by Tsongas and former U.S. Senator Warren B Rudman. Kurth and I discuss how several of the themes of that campaign became the genesis of The Concord Coalition.

This week on Facing the Future, we kick-off The Concord Coalition's 30th anniversary year by talking with political strategist Kitty Kurth, who worked on the 1992 presidential campaign of former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. Later that year she became the first employee of the Concord Coalition when it was co-founded by Tsongas and former U.S. Senator Warren B Rudman. Kurth and I discuss how several of the themes of that campaign became the genesis of The Concord Coalition.

“No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had more time at the office” -Paul Tsongas.  Listen to the Me to We Talk Podcast as we reflect on how there is no balance in work-life balance!  We encourage you, not to be too busy making a living that you forget to live your life!  We all need to do a better job of putting ourselves, our spouses, children and mature relationships as top priorities and much higher than your to do list! Remember, schedule the Me to We Talk Podcast into your day!  You loved ones will thank you for it! Don't forget to hit the notification button to remind you of new and upcoming episodes!  Download, Share and Subscribe Today!  Support the show (http://paypal.me/metowetalk)Support the show (http://paypal.me/metowetalk)

Contemplate your link in the chain of history - as you settle into this meditation led by Julie Potiker, marking Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. She completes the meditation by combining quotes from Paul Tsongas and Rabbi Tarfon. Quotes: "We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching", Paul Tsongas In Pirkei Avot -  Ethics of Our Father’s, Rabbi Tarfon taught, "It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either".   Get the latest on mindfulness and meditation by subscribing to Julie Potiker's YouTube channel and Facebook page at Mindful Methods for Life. You can learn about mindfulness at www.MindfulMethodsForLife.com and also in Julie's newly released book, "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't Have To: Mindful Methods For Staying Calm In The Midst Of Chaos", available on Amazon.com. Her podcast is "Balanced Mind with Julie Potiker", available on iTunes, iHeart and other podcast platforms.

Whad'ya Know Hotline issues a call for Paul Tsongas imitators; Kitty Kelly gives Michael new respect for the Reagan marriage, and the Rusty Nail off highway 32 is the place to be in our Town of the Week Thief River Falls, MN--

“No one on his deathbed ever said, “I wish I has spent more time on my business.” -Paul Tsongas

S04E13: Show Title: Tall Dark And Handsome Nashua Assessor Naps Featuring Hosts: Matthew Carano, Nick Boyle, and Cord Blomquist Engineered, Mixed, and Mastered by: Matthew Carano Produced by: Matthew Carano, and Nick Boyle Show Summary: On this episode of The Freecast Sununu vetoes, recovery homes get regulated, a Newfields teacher helps their students cheat, and the history of the NH primary.   News Sununu takes out the red pen NB https://www.wmur.com/article/governor-sununu-vetoes-death-penalty-repeal-bill/27353697 https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/statehouse_dome/state-house-dome-sununu-s-veto-style-draws-fire/article_de41ba90-a180-584b-8904-741aa0b38435.html Dover woman celebrates 100th birthday with 73 year old daughter she met for the first time a year ago. MC https://www.fosters.com/news/20190512/miracles-abound-on-dover-womans-100th-birthday REGULATE RECOVERY HOMES! Cord https://www.wmur.com/article/sober-living-homes-critical-to-many-for-addiction-recovery-have-little-oversight/27458419 Newfields 4th Grade Teacher placed on administrative leave for allegedly coaching her students through standardized tests. MC https://www.fosters.com/news/20190510/teacher-suspended-for-alleged-coaching-during-state-test Spaulding Turnpike Project will be Completed after 14 years Cord https://wokq.com/massive-spaulding-turnpike-project-will-clear-major-hurdle/ https://www.fosters.com/news/20190511/spaulding-turnpike-traffic-relief-could-come-soon $287.4 million dollars Private Detective Catches Nashua assessor napping https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/local/private-detective-s-report-on-nashua-assessor-leads-to-calls/article_fc946979-1e47-537e-b42e-a4ab963dbcdc.html Events Freecoast Liberty Outreach Meetup Rochester - 3rd Thursday   NH History NH Primary What happened before primaries? Caucuses. Starting with the 1796, Congressional party or a state legislature party caucus selected the party's presidential candidates Before 1820, Democratic-Republican members of Congress would nominate a single candidate from their party. That system collapsed in 1824, and since 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination has been a national convention. Delegates to the national convention were usually selected at state conventions whose own delegates were chosen by district conventions. Florida had the first primary in 1901. NH instituted a primary in 1912. Primary voting day to be on the same day as town meeting day, i.e in March. This just happened to be before any other state's primary. Instead of the modern method of voting for the candidate, originally you were voting for the delegate that was going to the party's national convention. The delegates pre-1952 were usually active in local politics, and usually would post-primary generally vote for the party favorite. In 1949, the NH legislature decreed that primary ballots would also include candidate's names. That delegate didn't need to vote for the candidate listed under their name, however. The first presidential primary after that was in 1952. And it was the first time an actual referendum on the candidates could be made Time magazine said at the time: Tiny New Hampshire (pop. 536,000) is normally little more than a speck on the politicians' map of the U.S. It will send numerically unimportant delegations to the national political conventions; 14 to the Republican, eight to the Democratic. But last week politicians and pundits from coast to coast were carefully adjusting their fine tuning to get a good, 21-in. view of what is going on there. On March 11, New Hampshire will have the first presidential preference primary of 1952. The top two on the Republican ticket were establishment favorite, Robert Taft & former general, Dwight Eisenhower The top two of the  Democratic ticket were incumbent Harry Truman & challenger Estes Kefauver Kefauver wore a racoon skin hat Eisenhower won and Kefauver won After the NH primary Truman decided not to run anymore. Kefauver won 12 of the 15 state primaries, however he lost the nomination to Adlai Stevenson who said he wasn't interested in running for president upto just after he gave the welcoming speech at the Democratic Convention. Since 1977 it has been state law for NH to have the first primary in the United States. There have only been 3 elections since 1952 where a winner of the NH primary DIDN'T become president 2008 Hillary Clinton beat Obama 2000 John McCain beat Bush 1992 Paul Tsongas beat Clinton Suggestions/Feedback Do you have a topic that you would like for us to discuss? A correction and additional piece of information that we may have overlooked, please send it in to freecastpodcast@gmail.com While you are here, follow us on Twitter @freecastpodcast and like our Facebook page.

*Update: Arenberg's book 'Congressional Procedure' has been named a Foreword INDIES 2018 Book of the Year Finalist [https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/books/congressional-procedure/] .* Richard Arenberg knows the inner workings of Congress better than almost anyone. He spent over 30 years on Capitol Hill as senior staff for Senators George Mitchell, Carl Levin, and Paul Tsongas. Today he’s a Visiting Professor in Political Science at Brown University, and a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute [https://watson.brown.edu/people/fellows/arenberg]. His new book, 'Congressional Procedure' [http://www.thecapitol.net/Publications/congressionalprocedure.html], explores one part of Congress that we often overlook: its rules. Part history, part rule-book, and part manifesto, Arenberg’s book makes clear how these rules are more than just formalities. On this episode of Trending Globally, Sarah talks with Arenberg about why Congress’s rules matter, why so many people call Congress ‘broken,’ and how it might save itself going forward. Download episode transcript

“No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time on my business.” Paul Tsongas. I’d imagine getting to the end of the line and realizing you’ve got regrets is one of the most challenging feelings ever. That feeling of knowing you’ve been given your ‘shot’ and there’s no way of getting to live life over again. That’s why it’s so important you don’t let opportunities slip through your fingers along the way or fail to achieve your goals. So look… If you’re carrying around too much baggage and it feels like an anchor around your neck, dragging you to the bottom of the ocean, and you’re not making the progress you think you should be making, today’s episode is for you. Because we’re going to look at some simple ways to ensure you live life with no regrets from now on. The Show Highlights: - Baggage Fees: The ultimate cost of not letting go... (1:40) - The laws of a lifetime of growth and how to always make your future BIGGER than your past (7:00) - If you want to change your circumstances, THIS is what you need to upgrade (15:20) - If you want to live a life of no regrets, simply decide what you really want, go out there and get after it! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s the link to the video I mentioned in today’s episode about my most hated video: https://thepodcastfactory.com/are-you-average/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How would you like to spend more time with your family and less time in your business? Go grab yourself a copy of my Digital Daddy’s Toolkit where you’ll get my top 3 speed-influence tools to make you a trusted expert in any market. FAST. Go to www.daddysworking.com/ddt  

Finding Your Inner Artist with Susan Prolman. In this week's edition of Tranquility du Jour, learn how to transition from a person who doesn't make art to one who does, ways to improve your artistic skills, and a few books to assist your artistic journey.   Direct download: Tranquility du Jour #401: Finding Your Inner Artist Upcoming Events Writing in the Woods in West Virginia: October 27-29 Yoga, Mindfulness + Creativity in Costa Rica: February 17-24 Yoga + Art in West Virginia: May, 2018 TBA Featured Guest: Susan Prolman Susan Prolman is an advocate by nature. Susan has lobbied against factory farming and for environmental protection in Washington, DC for years. She served as Executive Director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and as Director of International Campaigns for The Humane Society of the United States. While a student at Georgetown University Law Center, Susan helped to create the school's first animal law course. Earlier, she served as New Hampshire State Director for presidential candidate Paul Tsongas, who won this first-in-the-nation primary election. Susan currently leads Activism For Animals. For fun, Susan is a world traveler, writer, vegan recipe developer, artist, and jewelry designer. She runs the Etsy shop Veg Shop. She’s is also a certified laughing meditation instructor. You can learn more about Susan at SusanProlman.com. Tranquility du Jour Savvy Sources Find Susan SusanProlman.com Etsy {Save 10% through 10/31 with code Tranquility} Activism for Animals Instagram Mentioned in Podcast 400th Episode and Follow Up Pigs + Pugs Project - Instagram - Twitter - Website Animal Rights Conference: August 3-6 TranquiliT fall sneak peek Susan's cute pig necklaces:                         Social Media Eye candy on Instagram Pin along with me on Pinterest Let’s connect on Facebook Follow moi on Twitter Watch via YouTube Tranquility Tips + Tools Shop slow locally-made, eco-friendly fashion: TranquiliT Browse my 5 Books New to Tranquility du Jour? Peruse the FAQs Tranquility-filled E-courses Download the Tranquility du Jour Podcast App: iPhone and Android Sign up for Love Notes and access Tranquil Treasures Read about my passion for animals Request Pen a review on iTunes and/or share this podcast via social media, s‘il vous plaît Pen a review of my books on Amazon or Goodreads. Techy To listen, click on the player at the top of the post or click here to listen to older episodes. New to podcasting? Get more info at Podcast 411. Do you have iTunes? Click here and subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episode as released. Get the Tranquility du Jour apps to download the podcast "automagically" on iOS or Android.  

Hop on board the SS Body Counts and Beer as we set spacesail through the cosmos of the Star Wars Saga! Over the next several episodes, we'll be covering ALL the Star Wars, ALL the time, starting with Episode I - The Phantom Menace! We got a little bit of everything in this episode: Bob O'Fett, the Imperial Snack Measuring System, the proper pluralization of "Jedi," Mark goes after yet another religion, inside the psychotic break of Jar Jar Binks, so much more, etc, a Paul Tsongas action figure and more! Please subscribe via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, or pretty much anywhere fine podcasts are purveyed. Leave a rating and review so we can abuse our fame to get free Arby's! Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodycountsandbeer/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bodycountcast Email us: bodycountsandbeer@gmail.com Let us know what you liked, what you didn't like, what you kind of liked, what cured your rickets, what gave you rickets, and what movies to watch in the future!

Blimps Gone Wild! Roaches Gone Home! CSPAN Gone... interesting?

-In this episode: Amidst intense pressure on MSL to merge with Commonwealth, former Senator Paul Tsongas, Chairman of Commonwealth's Board of Trustees, is named Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Regents. Tsongas' new position places him in charge of determining w

-In this episode: After months of endless, determined work The Massachusetts School of Law finally opens its doors. But soon after, former senator, Paul Tsongas, determined to bring a law school to Lowell, joins the board at their rival, Commonwealth. Can the outsider