Podcast appearances and mentions of paul what

Ecommerce has come a long way from its early days as a separate part of the company that you set up and just hope to see returns on. Now, ecommerce is pivotal for just about every organization — but there is one faction of businesses that still lags behind. There are $17 trillion dollars worth of B2B payments made every year. Yes, trillion with a T. And half of those payments are still being made manually. Clearly, there is a massive shift that still needs to happen in the B2B space, and Deloitte Digital is helping make those digital transformations a reality.Paul do Forno is the Managing Director at Deloitte Digital, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he helped us understand the struggles B2B brands are facing and how moving them into the digital space could spell a massive change in the ecommerce industry. Paul also dives into some of the major trends he’s keeping an eye on in the ecommerce world, including how ecommerce continues to scale around the globe, most notably in Latin America. Plus, he shares some tips for businesses who are overwhelmed by the amount of channels and platforms they suddenly have to play in. Spoiler: he says do less. Tune in to hear more!Main Takeaways:Massive Call And Response: Bigger brands are struggling to stay connected to their consumers in a way that scales. Today, customers are looking to have a more authentic relationship and connection with the brands they engage with and support. For enterprises, connecting one-to-one is nearly impossible, so they are investing in tools like A.I. and conversational platforms to keep up with this newer generation of customers who crave connection.Dinosaurs Still Exist: So much B2B activity is still done manually, which means that there are trillions of dollars of transactions that could be moving online if/when B2B companies finally shift their activities to the digital space. The problem is that many B2B companies are miles behind their B2C peers in terms of optimizing the digital space for their many personas. It will take a lot of tools and transformation to bring those traditional B2B companies into 2021, but it will be necessary because the next generation is not interested in manually doing business and would much rather work with companies that have effective digital tools.Do Less: Brands can get caught up in the hype and the attempts to keep up with the Joneses. Instead, they should focus on being great at one platform or marketing activity. Plus, it’s critical to never forget the basics — like making sure your email list is generating the leads and engagement it should be to power your business.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Paul de Forno, the managing direction at Deloitte Digital. Paul, welcome.Paul:Thanks. Excited to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you. I was looking through your background and I saw you were on a list of the hundred most influential people in ecommerce and I was like, we need him. We need Paul. Why do you think you got on that list?Paul:I think first of all, in some ways I'm the old guy who's been around carrying the ecommerce flag for a long time, so I've been doing ecommerce for 20 years. When you've been around that long, 20 years ago it was, trust me, ecommerce is going to be big, honest. Most of the big companies just looked at me and said, "Yeah, it's just a tiny percentage. We don't have the time to focus on it." I've gone through the whole lifecycle from, "Yeah, I don't think ecommerce is going to be big," to, "Oh my god. What are we going to do? Everything is ecommerce."Stephanie:Yep, what did your journey look like? What have you worked on over the years, and then what does your role at Deloitte Digital look like now?Paul:Yeah, I've had some pretty interesting projects all along. We help customers at Deloitte, we're one of the largest implementers and SIs all the way from strategy, studio design, implementation, and run ecommerce and digital platforms. Kind of soup to nuts, end to end for some of the largest Internet retailers both B2C and B2B. My background, I've worked with some of the largest retailers and brands in the world, getting them online, selling, and also supply chain and connecting up all of those things.Paul:I've had the great experience of 20 years ago working with some of the earliest big retail brands of them ... It's kind of funny, when they first started, they treated ecommerce like a store because at the size that they were, on some of them, they were like ... And literally, they would call it store number 1099 and that's the way they treated it almost like a completely separate channel over the to the side. Yeah, let's put some money over there and grow and then see what happens. That from over time, then it became more of a challenge of omnichannel.Paul:How do we make sure that the channels aren't fighting against each other because we dealt with some retailers that literally would ... They wouldn't want returns to come in to the store because those sales and we're not getting them credit, right? That came back and if they exchanged for something else, and so they would be internal fighting because the bonuses of the executives weren't aligned. We've gone kind of like it's off to the side, it's big enough to challenge, to now it's almost the reverse. Retail wants to get more love from the ecommerce side.Stephanie:Yeah, it's a funny and an interesting flip that we see. We've had some guests on the show who said the same thing, like when I started out in ecommerce, they had us in a different building, like on the campus that they were at, they're like, that's the ecommerce team, they're doing their own thing. We've had a couple people say how siloed they were and now, like you said, interesting how retail is like, come on, come give us a little love now.Paul:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:When you're looking through all these trends that are happening right now, I know that back in the day you were going to a lot of conferences, you were flying all over the world probably, and now I see and follow you on Clubhouse. Tell me a bit about how you're staying on top of the trends and what kind of things are you discussing now on Clubhouse or wherever else you're doing these virtual events?Paul:Yeah, I'll maybe separate ... Definitely right now as we're speaking it's almost a year to the day that I haven't been on a plane. In the last 20 years, over a 100,000 to 150,000 miles a year that I've been flying around.Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Paul:One, my wife has gotten to know me.Stephanie:Hi, Paul, nice to meet you.Paul:But, it's given me a lot of opportunity to connect digitally and do more research and some of the new tools, like you talked about, Clubhouse, and I'll come back to that. I think what this has just done is accelerated ecommerce and how important that is and commerce everywhere and brought it forward, and there's a lot of interesting trends that have popped out. Some of the things that may not be as evident, so in the past year, one of the biggest growth areas just for convenience has been around the growth of commerce around groceries, because we had to, right? You got a lot of the biggest stores growing and anywhere from 70% to over a 100%, and so a lot of the innovation has happened in groceries because it needed to, right? The companies that invested more have done well.Paul:For example, if you look at how Target has done, right? They were able to stay open because they had groceries and so they actually grew and were more profitable and a lot of that why they grew was their investments in shipped, a number of different way they pick from their stores, and so it's amazing that not only did they grow that much but their profitability on the ecommerce channel went up which is almost unheard of in a time like this. They executed unbelievably well.Paul:Then on the other side, another interesting related to the grocery which kind of because it forced people to try something new, the largest growing segment on online grocery was actually baby boomers, and it's because they never were forced to do it. They were always used to going to the store, and so we really see that as a watershed moment of hey, to get over the hump, hey, this isn't as bad. Then as soon as you try something and you do it a couple times, it's going to change how people behave.Paul:we expect the adoption rate going forward for boomers, for example, and older will continue. It won't necessarily be at the same rate, but is an important threshold that they'll continue to embrace it.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. All right, so when thinking about these new consumers who are online who weren't thinking this way before, how are you advising brands to communicate and talk and do things differently? Because it is such a different generation coming online. We've had quite a few people mention you have to think very differently when it comes to customer service or even the whole unboxing experience. People want different things. What are you seeing among your biggest brands right now around what's working to connect with this brand new group of users who are not online before?Paul:Yeah, there's a whole bunch of battling trends that are in here. In fact, on Clubhouse we had a discussion around the eco considerations of delivery, and that got into we brought in a packaging expert and one of the interesting thing that we talked about is that, hey, everybody has all these cardboard boxes, right? People would love to find out opportunities to minimize what kind of packaging and we all probably had the experience of getting a huge package and having one little item in it. I think the whole consideration around eco and environmental is something that I just saw some research, that's at the top of the list of considerations.Paul:Things such as that and packaging and reducing it is a factor of when you're designing for stuff. Looking for opportunities that you can batch up or minimizing the packaging or making it recyclable and also balancing having a great opening unboxing experience, and so you have to balance those things, right? The environmental side and also the brand side, which is hey, the expectations of brands such as Apple put on, on this hey, you want this great experience in opening. There's a lot of non ... Things that you didn't have to worry about even 10 years ago because if you look at some of the studies of what gen Z and beyond are looking for, those considerations are much higher up than they were for other generations.Stephanie:It definitely seems like it can set up some of the newer based for failure though because it seems like you always have to stay ahead and be trying something new where it could kind of take you off your path of building a great product and a great company when you get too focused on some of that stuff. How do you think about the trade-off to stay focused but then also stay on top of consumer expectations that seem to have very rapidly changed in the last year where I wasn't really hearing a lot of consumers talking about eco-friendly packaging and really caring about that, and now it seems like that's a huge thing that we're hearing time and time again about this is a new expectation that you have to keep up with now.Paul:I think a little bit about it is around just the how do you be authentic brand? In many ways, some of the trends that we've been seeing is around less production, right? Some of the advertisement or even things that are helping to actually convert much higher are actually user-generated content that people in authentic ... You want to see how real people act, real people and real products, as opposed to a runway model or a runway person showing off this great ... Because of that, first thing we would say is try and be authentic to your brand and especially right now the over-production is actually a hindrance on many brands.Stephanie:For some of the larger brands you work with, I mean, I could see that being hard for them to want to keep up with the times but then also staying authentic to your brand. Like you said, I know it has gotten some companies in trouble for trying to do the cool thing, keep up with whatever that trend is, try and jump on something. When these big brands are coming to you, what are they struggling with right now and how are you working with them around this new UGC kind of content that a lot of these smaller D2C companies are like, yeah, of course, that's what we're going to do, but when it's a large company, they're like, I don't even know how to do that and how do you flag it and how do you think about the content coming in. Can I even trust it? How are you guys guiding them down that path?Paul:I think that for many larger companies in many ways it's kind of a how do you manage dealing with this on scale? Because in some of the smaller brands, dealing with a few interactions, it's somewhat easier, but when you have thousands and thousands of followers, how do you manage that on scale? What they mostly get concerned of, they want to be closer to the consumer and listen to them and interact, but being able to scale that in both a combination of AI related tools and responses, but also people responses that can do it in scale that are tailored to the brand voice, that's the challenge. We kind of work through different strategies to help them get through that.Stephanie:What are some other things that these brands are struggling with? What are you hearing right now that they're trying to work with you on?Paul:Yeah, and we work with brands both from B2C to B2B, and so I'll actually give two examples just to get a broad spectrum. On the B2C side, I think the ... And depending on the different segment. The B2C side on CPG we're seeing massive spikes because of all the purchases that we've seen especially going through stores, and that's a lot of the food, CPGs are just spiking. They're trying to figure out, okay, great. This is a great opportunity to scale. How do we now embrace and engage and maybe put out some direct to consumer feelers to learn?Paul:In many ways, a lot of the CPGs are going way more direct. Some of the largest scale CPG companies are doing record numbers of doing ecommerce, but they also partner with massive retail chains. They're trying to balance of not stepping on their channel conflicts, and so many are using ecommerce as a mechanism to explore, do special arrangements, special formulations, and learn and get data. As we see, for example, in that area is just there's been so much innovation going on, they're trying to keep up to the pace. They struggle with, well, what do I do first? How do I prioritize on some of these? Most of it is around helping to prioritize and segment some of the ideas to get them into marketplace faster.Stephanie:Trying to keep up with what's happening really quickly, I've seen a lot of them acquiring these smaller D2C companies and kind of putting them in a mini innovation hub where it's like we don't want to disrupt your process but we want to learn from you. Do you see that as a successful strategy for some of these more legacy brands to be able to learn while also keeping their brand identity or is that not really working?Paul:Yeah, I've seen some awesome acquisitions and unbelievable great talent that some of the large ... Just to stick to the CPG space, that's been probably the most aggressive of picking up new brands and learning, right? I think it's actually a brilliant ... That's why some of the premiums are getting paid. It's not just necessarily for the product and what margins, it's also from the know-how, because what ends up happening if you look, and this is something that that's probably the area that Club CPG on Clubhouse is probably one of the largest clubs and they have an amazing talent there, and there's been a number of acquisitions and they're on there talking about their story.Paul:What's really good about doing some of those acquisitions is these people have been very close to the customer, right? They've really interacted, as opposed to you're getting perhaps a new executive who's rotated around, right? These people understand the customer and had that relationship, had to build up the D2C. They really know all the different channels. They're able to provide that voice to the customer and how to go direct so much more. I've seen it be really successful and understand especially some of the early purchases that they've made. It's actually worked out really well, more from the people experience than even the product.Stephanie:It does seem like you can lose sight of that the larger you get, especially the more data you're getting. It's hard to get as informed and be able to actually find trends or themes. When you're working with a lot of these companies, what is your measurement of success when you're like, okay, we are going to transform this company. We're going to bring you guys to 2021 and what's relevant now. How do you look back and see if a digital transformation was successful?Paul:First of all, it's important that we judge success by the way companies measure their success. When we work with different companies, we try and understand what are their outcomes of success and their success can be ... The first thing you think, how much revenue did you grow? But some might not be. If it's a new brand and they want to get out there and they're trying to change their positioning, their goal might be a number of stories that got out, building brand awareness, changing the perspective, and so we always start with making sure that we understand what are their key outcomes and then provide some guidance on how do you get to those key goals.Paul:Looking at from a digital perspective, kind of like as I was saying before, it's also important to have an understanding of the voice of the customer and the sentiment. It's one thing to say what people might ... When you interview them. It's almost more important to see what they actually do, right? And using different tracking NPS scores, using different ... Looking at the data of actual purchase stories and mapping it onto example profiles. That then provides much more of a richer ... Even from compared to people say what they do is different than what they actually do and looking for actual intent in what they've done, and so making sure we're getting the right data is really important as well.Stephanie:Even if they have a lot of different outcomes, it seems like the solutions that you could bring to them could be kind of similar though. From what I've heard, there's a lot of decentralized processes going on, so you need to figure out a way to pull them all in and reduce your crazy marketing tech stack. Have you seen that on your side too that people might have very different outcomes but right now a lot of people have similar solutions or the solutions that you're presenting to them are kind of the same things?Paul:Yeah, in many ways some of our ... What we do to help customers in some ways is to help ... There's probably so many voices in the room and so many stakeholders is how do we help them bring them together and help to prioritize and to facilitate that conversation? Because that's the real hard part when you're dealing ... If you just have your own one product and your own single [sheet] you can make a decision and go.Paul:When you have hundreds of product lines and executives around the world and how do you facilitate the discussion, that's really what we help to do. Be it similar strategy to other companies or not, you need to help bring the internal alignment, and that's sometimes the hardest part because once you get to execute, many companies can do that. The harder part is how do you get agreement and prioritization with the different stakeholders.Stephanie:What kind of advice do you give for anyone who's struggling with that right now? What do you guys do to gain that alignment and have a go forward plan?Paul:Number one thing is start small and try something. You could spend forever talking about it and don't be afraid to fail. Get something in the market. We try and do agile sprints, and so from a development perspective we've been doing agile for a long time but we're also pushing into doing agile marketing so that we get into the same kind of feeding into that, so that okay, let's get something out there, let's try it, learn, and then from there go through the experiment, prove it, or make the changes and then scale, and keep that on an ongoing basis and trying to institutionalize that that it's an ongoing, you need to keep ...Paul:That's the business and how do you keep rolling that, because before when ecommerce was quote unquote more of a side business, it was more of a set it and forget it. Well, let's set it up. We'll set up the implementation, then we'll look at it, we'll make some changes every once in a while where now your core commerce business is your lifeline and some businesses it's over getting to 50, 60% of your overall business. You need to continue to change the priorities and especially as all of the changes that have come down the line from Facebook, from Google, is changing your whole marketing strategies.Stephanie:What about from a B2B perspective? I know earlier you said, okay, we got these two different viewpoints. What do you see in the B2B world? Which sometimes gets forgotten. We don't have many B2B people on the podcast very often and it'd be interesting to hear what does that side of the world look like.Paul:I've been focused more on that in the last year or two because it's such a big growing area. Just to lay the land, to understand how big B2B is, from a B2B perspective, just in the U.S. there's $17 trillion dollars of B2B payments done.Stephanie:Wow.Paul:That's just in the U.S. Right now-Stephanie:That's massive.Paul:It's completely massive and half of that is done manually. Meaning, if somebody writes a check, they send the check off, it's wired. It's not done digitally, and so when we talk about B2B commerce, again, people right away think B2C, it's just about the order, but actually when we talk about ... Or, the other myth or misconception that frustrates B2B people is, well, if just make it a cooler screen and easier to use on the web, then you'll be better, right? Then those are the myths and putting lipstick on problems.Paul:if you actually look into what the B2B challenges are, number one, many B2B purchases are very complex and there's many personas. It's not like, hey, I like this shirt, got it, they converted well, I've optimized, I buy it. Some of these deals are million dollars, half a million, and you need to go to procurement, you've got the business, you've got the people using it. It has to go through an RFP process, you have to buy versus ... Right? It's so much more complex on the number of personas, that's an important thing. There's no quick, easy, CX solution. Not to say that CX isn't important, but it's not like B2B. The first thing, if you start from that premise, that helps.Paul:Then the bigger pieces is traditionally how B2B sold was handshake over lunch, right? Traditionally, middle age guys shaking hands and "Hey, let's do this deal. There we go," and the last thing I want to do is look at the damn website, right? Well, obviously we know that's all changing and last year was the big thing in the workforce, millennials are now the largest part of the workforce. Guess what? Many of those, it's not all men. They're retiring at a very fast rate. Your expectation of your sales people are hey, where are my digital tools? When you talk about B2B commerce, it's about what are all the digital ways to interact, to be easier to do business with as you sell?Paul:In fact, what ends up happening is the top three things that people like for B2B commerce is order status, product information, and just doing a quick re-order. When you look at that, it's more about, hey, how do I make my life easier interacting with my customers? That's just important to understand the difference between B2C and traditionally on B2B side.Stephanie:What kind of opportunities do you see in the B2B world then? Do you see any new innovations coming about? Obviously having a platform that can meet the needs of the customers and to me it seems like it has to be personalized depending on what the business is and how your customers order, but what do you see right now that could be coming in the next couple years to help B2B?Paul:Well, kind of seeing where B2B is in their lifecycle, and so in many retailers, they're now onto their third iteration of a platform from B2C, and for most B2B, they're on maybe their first or they haven't really, right? Many of the B2B clients we're dealing with, oh, we put something up in 2004 and we've just been living with it and we still have to use IE to access it, and so we're dealing with web 1.0. They can't get it on their phone, and so a lot of it is just we need to make it easier for them and looking for ways to make the sales person's life easier.Paul:In the analogy of how B2C commerce is trying to be omnichannel, on the B2B side, it's helping your sales person and CRM. The lines between CRM and B2B commerce have blended together and it's really a tool to help the next generation business person to, hey, all my follow-ups, my data, you might get leads. Did you know your customers are looking at your products? You'll get that lead information, and so that you can follow-up with them or hey, have you deferred ... How many times has the business guy gotten a call? Hey, where's my order? I haven't got it.Paul:They end up spending half their time, and so the other big learning that we've got because it involves sales people so much is that you have to include them early and often during the process. For example, we had this happen one time. We had a customer come to us and say, "Man, we just spent all this money on this great new ecommerce platform for B2B, and we're just not getting the adoption." A couple lessons learned and they asked us to come in and do an assessment. We went in, we started talking to the customers and the customer said ... We ended up hearing this three different ways.Paul:The customer is like, "Oh, man. I love Joe. He's my best salesman, but he told me that if I put my sale through the B2B commerce, he's not going to get a bonus so I just called him to make sure he got his bonus." It's like, oh my god, of course you need to get the sales persons incentives align such that they don't get penalized for using the website, and that was like, oh yeah, that makes sense.Paul:Also, you want the sales people to be ... You want them to evangelize and get them to embrace leveraging it. That's such a key ... That change management in B2B and getting your sales people involved is super key for success.Stephanie:Yeah, which seems like it's a big training aspect to it too, make sure that they fully understand it to where then they can essentially sell the customers on using it and can act as customer service as well, because I'm sure their customers can be like, "I don't know how to order it on here," and if the sales person is like, "I don't know either," that's a big red flag. Are there any other hiccups like that that you've seen either in B2B or B2C where companies are like, oh, this isn't working. This new platform that we're using isn't working and you're like, well, let's talk a little bit about how you guys even thought about implementing it and you left out a big piece like this. Any other stories around that?Paul:Yeah, and number one it's always about ... It's so important getting the voice of the customer and getting representative people early on to provide input and feedback, because what ends up happening is if you don't listen to ... And we've had examples of rolling out systems trying to solve for what we thought was the problem but it wasn't really the problem. The way you bundled orders or the way products were bundled and you prioritized that and you didn't get the adoption, when actually they're focused on another set of problems or departments. That whole piece about getting user input early and often is so critical. The number one thing as you roll that out, you need the voice of the customer.Stephanie:In times like this that are changing so quickly, how do you think about separating the signal from the noise? I can see just so many companies try to keep up with other smaller brands and there's so many new things to try right now. It seems like it's hard to know what's actually going to be a lasting trend where you actually should put that as part of your processes or your platform. There's just so many tools and plugins and things. How do you all think about separating the two and being like, this one's a longer term trend and this is just something short that we see dying off in a year or two?Paul:Yeah, a couple of things that we do and obviously there's things that you want to lay out and over long-term and shorter term, but number one, look for ways ... First of all, understand what your brand promise is. Depending on your brand promise, you might prioritize things different, right? If you're a luxury item versus if you're an item at the dollar store. You have different brand promises and you want to be consistent to your brand promise, and so that's the first thing.Paul:The second thing as far as in general on commerce is continuously look for friction points. Do your tests with your customers and see what are things that are causing them to stop. As you go through all the different steps of the purchasing journey, if you're seeing friction points, how can you reduce that friction? Meaning, hey, this page seems really slow. I don't know why. Let's reduce that. Hey, this content is not connecting well. How can we use other ... For example, and I mentioned it before, hey, getting authentic content of the real users' pictures. That will help people convert higher.Paul:It's an ongoing iterative, so I think what you have is this ... And you're always plotting this, like how can you reduce friction and bang for the buck in a short-term that you can do versus a longer term investment that might then pay back, because it's easy to be like, okay great, we need a 3D VR AR strategy. We're like, well, how is that going to help your $10 item? Obviously that's an extreme example, but if you have a brand promise and you look for ways to reduce the friction to make your life easier, and similarly on the B2B side, that's why I always stress when I define B2B commerce, I like to say it's not about the purchase. It's about making your business easier to do business with, reduce the friction.Stephanie:I love that. What kind of longer term investments are you seeing being made right now that they might not see a payoff for a couple years? Because I know that Deloitte and I think Salesforce partnered on coming up with scenarios for the next three to five years, and so it'd be interesting to hear what you're seeing being implemented based on maybe the scenarios that these companies so all you get is put out there, which ranged to me from happy to very sad scenarios. I'm like, I guess it just depends how you're feeling that day which one you go with. I went with the happy ones.Paul:Especially for companies such as CPG that aren't used to having direct relationship with their customer, for example, big investments that take a while to really understand is the data, right? Getting real data direct from your customers that you then can build on. Those are things that it's not like, okay, a couple weeks, a couple months and you got it. It's something that over time you build up and you start to learn from, and so that's probably one of the biggest areas of especially getting your first party data, and especially since as you might have heard here recently, Facebook is reducing some of the data that they're sharing and how you're able to market and so is Google. Building up your first party data as a brand or building up your email list is so critical, and the benefits that you'll build definitely increase over time.Stephanie:It seems like it's an easy thing to say, yeah, obviously build up on that one-on-one connection with your customers, build up your email list, but it also seems like it's going to be very competitive because every brand is trying to do that now. It seems like every commerce company is turning to a media company that are all trying to have their blogs and newsletters and be on Tik Tok and Clubhouse and everywhere. How do you think brands can compete and build up content that actually pulls people into their community so they can have access to that first party data?Paul:Yeah, so I think the tactics on some of those platforms on core data and getting some of that primary, that's onto ... I think once you get into content and being outward brand, outward bound, I think the focus is and kind of the things that we've talked to our clients about is try and be good on one platform first. It's easy to be like, oh my god, we're so behind. We got to have a Tik Tok. We got to have Facebook, we have to have all the platforms all at once. We kind of guide them on, okay, start with one that's as close to your authentic brand as you can find, and then try and build it and iterate on it and master one before you really try and go after another because, again, there's limited resources and limited people. Trying to spread across all is a lot worse than trying to be good at least on one.Stephanie:Where do you normally find yourself suggesting brands start out at? It seems like Instagram is always a good bet for any company that has product pictures and things like that, but is that usually where you send them to or is it always very varied?Paul:Yeah, it just depends on where they're at. Some brands have ... Again, some of this stuff isn't cool, but SEO and email marketing have some of the best returns and they're super still unbelievably effective. Focusing on those and making sure those are solid, you get some of the best brand for the buck ... You get your bang for the buck. Sorry. Because it's easy to go the shiny happy route, but the core of understanding kind of the SEO and how it's connecting on all your different content and how you're coming up in search results all across and mobile related, that's still ... And again, email marketing on ecommerce, we did a study here recently and saw that some of the most successful brands are their leads are coming from up to 40 to 50% of their net new sales are coming from email related.Paul:We make sure that you have your core fundamentals ready before ... And you might do this like a portfolio, right? Like hey, maybe you're dipping your toe into ... Get a few Tik Tok videos out there and explore with a couple people, and know that you're not going hard on that but making sure that you get your fundamentals down first.Stephanie:Yeah, that's such a good reminder I think just for business in general but to stay focused and make sure that you're not getting caught up in the craziness and everything new. Make sure you have your email list good and that you actually own that and you're sending out good stuff. I don't know if this question could get you in trouble, but I'm going to ask it anyways. What is something you believe around ecommerce that many don't agree with you on?Paul:Huh. I'll have to think about that one. It's kind of funny in some ways because I've come through the whole ... I'm the old guy in ecommerce, and so I've been the one being like, ecommerce is going to be bigger than it is. I feel like in the last six months that now I'm the hey guys, retail is not going away. Retail has been here for hundreds of thousands of years. It's not going away. There's a lot of proponents out there, I won't name any names, but ecommerce is everything, and I'm the ecommerce guy and I'm like, no it's not. Understand it's too easy to say things are black or white for clicks, as opposed to understanding the nuance.Paul:If you look at in China, they just met a massive milestone. They're now over 50% of retail is via ecommerce. If you look at the states, relatively speaking, depending on which calculation you're looking at is anywhere from 17% or 22%, let's say it's somewhere in between that. Less than half of the penetration in China, and so I don't think over the long-term retail won't be 100% ecommerce, right?Paul:Over time, it might get in the U.S., because of the way we're distributed and the ease of buying at retail, you might get up to 50, 60% in the next 10 years but you're never going to get to a hundred and ecommerce is not everything and more the conversation should be retail has just many forms. I'm now pivoted to make sure that we don't forget the importance of these great real life experiences and then how you can balance and leverage commerce online.Stephanie:That's great that you've had to flip now to defend the other side. I'm assuming you think that retail is going to be changing though in some way or shape or form.Paul:Of course.Stephanie:How do you see that playing out?Paul:I talked about the grocery and that's a great example. They are now changing the way they see their line ... Because one of the biggest growth areas in this past year has been about BOPIS, buy online, pick-up in store. You probably saw, like you might have gone to a store and there's all these pickers. If you go, like half of the people in the store were employees picking for pick-ups. Just recently Walmart announced how they're going to re-jigger and automate so that parts of their stores are add-ons will be automated specifically targeted towards BOPIS.Stephanie:Wow, interesting.Paul:They're looking at maybe rolling that out over the next year or two over 200 stores. It's pretty significant. Then if you look at Kroger, they bought Ocado which is one of the largest robot ... Being able to bring together delivery in stage and they're looking for closer to the store to provide support for BOPIS as well. What you're going to see is this the way real estate is leveraged very differently than the big huge aisles with the big cart. It may be optimized slightly differently.Stephanie:Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about optimizing retail locations, and when I think about having someone go and buy my groceries, all the dry goods just get what I need, but when it comes to my fruits and veggies and things like that, I still think people sometimes they have a certain kind of avocado they want, they have a certain color banana they want. It seems like there's a way to segment the store and the stuff can just be picked out for you because you know what you want, and then there's another part of the store that you can still go in and interact with and grab the things that you want because there's actually preferences around them. I don't know what that looks like but it seems like an interesting thing to think about.Paul:Exactly. It's just going to change.Stephanie:Yep. Just a minute before we hop into the lightening round, I did have a question around Internet or ecommerce penetration. You were mentioning that and it does seem like there's a lot of opportunities all around the globe because certain areas have very lower ecommerce penetration because of a lot of reasons. Are there any regions that you're betting on right now or that Deloitte's looking into of there's some opportunities coming up here once X, Y, and Z is solved?Paul:Yeah, the area that has the biggest potential for growth right now that is behind ... If you look at just relatively speaking, to give everybody a perspective, from an ecommerce adoption, China is number one, Europe and the UK are generally a little bit ahead, and a lot of that has to do with they're smaller and it's easier from some of the delivery. The biggest growth area that we see right now in the next short-term is around Latin America.Stephanie:I was just going to say Latin America. I've heard a lot of VCs that you probably follow mentioned how they're going to be up and coming with them.Paul:Mercado Libre based out of Brazil is one of the fastest growing and there's also another shop app that's just skyrocketed out of Brazil, and so they see Latin America, because again they've been behind on the retail penetration and they've been behind, but this whole COVID just pushed that all along. I think that's the next big massive growth compared to everywhere else.Stephanie:I was just looking at them yesterday so it's funny you mentioned that. All right, well let's move over to the lightening round. The lightening round is brought you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud is our awesome sponsor. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Paul? All right. First one. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Paul:It might actually be how this shipper container problem right now, all the ports are behind and not clear when some of the massive packaging and shipping issues around the world get sorted out. That might be the determinant, because if you can't get the products around the world, you might not be able to deliver what you want.Stephanie:That's a good one. Do you see any resolution with that? I don't understand what the problems are there. I've not looked into the shipping container world, so what's happening there and what could solve that?Paul:It's kind of a combo of stuff, and this has happened in a number of industries. It's kind of fascinating because it also kind of effected the way we planned. When you went back to a year ago into the spring and when you went back to all the historical of what happened when you had a large change and potential recession and what the impact was, you went back to, well, the shipping container industry went back and said, well, all our historical ... We got to pull back. They pulled back. What ends up happening, because of the ecommerce shift and spike, their demand very quickly ... They pulled back and it's hard to then build it back up when you're dealing with massive ships and containers around the world.Paul:By late summer, they realized oh crap, we're way behind and we need to catch up. That was part of it. Then you have a bunch of issues of hey, people on the essential front lines are just getting COVID and they can't deliver it, right? You have a combination of conservative planning, COVID actually effecting people, to geopolitical problems of hey, we don't want to receive packages and you're looking at different areas in the world that actually impact that. That's just another part of it that contributed to it. There was an article in Detail just this past weekend in New York Times that went into a little bit more detail.Stephanie:That's an interesting one and that's a lot at play. That'd be a good field or area to watch. Next question. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Paul:Oh, man. I've actually been kicking around potentially doing ... This might be a little bit of what are the slow ways to be successful at ecommerce, right? Because it's funny because I've been on Clubhouse now for six months and you've got all of these entrepeneurs that hey, make seven figures, eight figures in a month or two, but the thing ... ecommerce seems overly easy to get into, but to scale and be successful is very hard because there's so many factors that play a part of it that you don't have full control of it. If I had a podcast that I would do, I would say the slow way to success to ecommerce.Stephanie:I like that. I've seen a lot of those people on Clubhouse, their bios of I'll scale you to a million. I'm like, nah.Paul:Yeah, right away it's like, next.Stephanie:Yeah, I just don't trust it, not for a second. What's up next on your reading list specifically around ecommerce trends? What are you reading every day to stay on top of the latest?Paul:It's something that I probably spend a couple hours a day reading lots of stuff. I actually use Feedly, I have all these keywords that kind of feed in, and I follow a lot of ... There's a lot of great podcasts out here. Of course, I got to plug my friend, even though he works at a competing company, he used to work for me, Jason Goldberg. The Jason and Scott Show is probably the best ecommerce podcast out there.Stephanie:Yep, I like theirs too.Paul:He's also a personal friend. I've known him for a long time. There's a whole crew of people out there that are passionate about it, and so I'm kind of geeky about it. It's funny, Jason as the retail geek but in some ways I'm more the ecommerce geek.Stephanie:Yep, I like it. That is a good one to stay on top of. I like that. Then the last one, what one thing do you not understand that you wish you did?Paul:Oh, man. I've come more from ... I'm more on the strategy and the technical side and the implementation. While I understand the marketing side okay, I really don't have the in-depth digital marketing side of it and I'd love to be able to spend more time and really focus around that area of how to really effectively connect. That's almost like another side of the brain that I have not spent the time on there.Stephanie:Yep. That's a good one. All right. Well, Paul, thanks so much for coming on the show and giving us a glimpse into what you're working on at Deloitte Digital. Where can people find out more about you or where can they follow you at?Paul:The easiest ... I'm quite active on Twitter, on deFornoP, you can follow me, and I try and share a couple articles a day of ... I curate good stories on both B2C and B2B commerce and people can also reach out to me at Deloittedigital.com or on LinkedIn.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much, Paul.Paul:Awesome. Thank you.

Title: Graced Public Relations Part 1 Text: Titus 3:1-7 FCF: We often struggle being different and separate from the world. Prop: Because we were of the world but were saved from it, we must live out the gospel. Scripture Intro: ESV [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Titus chapter 3. I fear that I have done you a grave disservice. Two weeks ago, we completed chapter 2 of Titus. I have heard that some of you wrestled with the sermon there. Striving with the concept of grace giving a certainty of salvation rather than a potential for it. Then we took a week off and Eric Lundquist came and spoke. He also taught on God’s grace and the outcome of that being a changed life. And today I will begin a two-part message. So what is such a disservice to you? You won’t hear the second part of this message until May 2nd. Added to that, the theology in the text today is deep. It is difficult. It is challenging. And so, I have done you a great disservice. I trust that in God’s providence, He will use this scheduling to allow these truths to sink deeply and that you are able to grasp and accept what is being said. Up to this point in Titus, Paul has been emphasizing a lifestyle for the Cretans. A lifestyle made certain by the invasion of the grace of God. A lifestyle of righteousness given to those for whom Christ died. In chapter 2 Paul urged Titus to teach living that goes with the gospel with respect to those within the church. In chapter 3, Paul will urge Titus to remind those same Cretans –to live a lifestyle that goes with the gospel, toward those outside the church. And he will give two exceptional reasons for why they should be reminded of this. First that they too were once like all the unbelieving Cretans around them. And secondly, that God has changed them by grace to be different. I am in Titus 3. I’ll begin reading in verse 1. I am reading from the ESV, but you can follow along in the pew bible on page 1346 or in whatever version you have. Transition: What is our disposition toward an unbelieving world? How shall we relate to those who are ungodly and wicked? Are they the enemy? And even if they are – what does that mean? Such a truth is all the more relevant as Christianity becomes pressed on all sides. How shall we relate to those who actively oppose us? I.) We were once just like the unbelieving world, so we must live out the gospel. (1-3) a. [Slide 2] 1 – Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, i. Paul urges Titus to remind the Cretans that their good works, for which they should be zealous, are not turned only toward those in the church. They ought to be turned outward as well. ii. And right off the bat we have an object of good works that wouldn’t have been popular in Crete, it hasn’t been popular throughout the history of the world, and it is certainly one of the most unpopular messages you can teach the church right now. iii. Be submissive to rulers and authorities. iv. Perhaps when we spoke of this in reference to slaves and their masters, you thought it was a stretch to take this concept to all human authorities. v. Paul uses the exact same word he used in verse 9 of chapter 2 with reference to slaves and masters, as he uses here of being submissive to authorities. vi. It is true, that words do not have static or unnuanced meanings. And it is certainly possible that Paul could mean something different here. But contextually, that is unlikely. vii. Part of obedience to God, part of good works, part of being what God’s grace makes you to be, part of being what Christ is purifying you to be as His bride, is submitting yourselves to your rulers and authorities. viii. In fact, the general disposition of all Christ’s people is... b. [Slide 3] To be obedient, i. We obey, we comply first. ii. Not just to men, but also, and in an ultimate way, to God. c. [Slide 4] To be ready for every good work, i. In this way, we are ready for every good work. ii. We are not opposed, kicking, fighting. iii. Instead, we are ready to do all that God has asked of us. d. [Slide 5] 2 - To speak evil of no one, i. Oh boy. ii. Wow. iii. I think I am just going to let you look at those words for a few seconds. iv. Now let me say, that this doesn’t mean that we cannot call sin sin, that we cannot rebuke someone, or that we cannot point out failures. Indeed, lovingly pointing out sin in another person is not speaking evil, but is instead speaking life. It is for their good. v. But generally speaking, our lips should never utter complaints, murmurings, insults, cutting remarks, curses, or disdain for any who are outside of the church. e. [Slide 6] To avoid quarreling, i. It is hard to resist authority if you are trying to avoid quarreling isn’t it? ii. It is hard to speak evil of someone if you are avoiding quarreling. iii. It is hard to be ready for any good work while you are quarreling or quarrelsome. iv. My friends… we must be f. [Slide 7] To be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. i. There is no exception here. ii. All people must have our respect, love, and gentleness. iii. It doesn’t matter how wrong they are. It doesn’t matter how ungodly they are. It doesn’t matter how opposed to Christ they are. iv. We are to show courtesy and gentleness toward them.. why? g. [Slide 8] 3 – For we ourselves were once foolish, i. You were no different. ii. Let me say it again… iii. You were no different. iv. Again, my friends. THIS. IS. GRACE. v. This is why it is not our choice that saves us, but rather the grace of God which gives us the ability to believe what He has done. vi. Because if it was your choice to believe, then you ARE different than the ungodly. You ARE different than the wicked. You ARE different than all the rest. vii. But no… it was not by choice but by Grace that we have been saved. Through faith yes, but a faith that was a gift of God, so none could boast. viii. We can easily submit to our authorities, we can easily be obedient, we can easily be ready for every good work, we can easily speak no evil of them, we can easily avoid quarreling, we can easily be gentle and courteous to all people when we what? ix. Realize that we were the same. x. Not because we are human – not because we are made in God’s image… NO! Paul hangs the imperative of our gentleness and courtesy, our love toward all men, not on the equality of our origin, but rather on the equality of men in their depravity. xi. We have absolutely no room to treat ANYBODY as if they are less than we are. xii. Who is the most wicked person you can think of? Hitler probably, right? Sure. Hitler gets quite the pedigree for being the vilest person in history. xiii. You were the same. I was the same. xiv. How so? h. [Slide 9] disobedient, i. We did not love God’s law. ii. We had no thought of God’s law. iii. And even today, some who claim to be Christians STILL have no love of the law of God. iv. It is astounding to think that a person who claims to be God’s child could hate His law. i. [Slide 10] led astray, i. We were all led astray. ii. Every single one of us from birth up to and potentially including now, have had a crisis of skewed doctrine. iii. Eric brought this out last week. He said that the Holy Spirit often needs to correct bad theology in the text of scripture. Why is that? iv. Simply – we were born that way. v. When we say someone is born in sin we do not mean that they were born in some act to which they sinned. vi. Rather we mean that their natural condition is polluted, infested, and corrupted wholly by sin. vii. Meaning that a child comes into the world never needing to be instructed how to lie, cheat, steal, hit, or otherwise selfishly want its own way. viii. Their view of themselves, God, others, and the world is all wrong. And that didn’t happen because they were instructed in it by someone. ix. No. x. It happened because they were born into it. xi. Just the other day, my wife and I were talking to our girls. Somehow the topic of being children of God came up. My daughter asked if she was a child of God. I said, “no. God has to adopt us into His family for us to become His children. And as of yet, God has not adopted you.” And so this led naturally to her asking what she was to God. I told her, “you are an enemy of God.” She was visibly shaken. She said, maybe when I grow up I’ll be His child. Kadie said, there is nothing we would want more than for that to be the case. After that the topic changed. It was clear that being God’s enemy wasn’t an urgent need for her to change at that moment. But keep praying for her. There are signs that she may be being drawn. xii. All that to say – my child, a pastor’s child – has aberrant, terrible theology. Her doctrine is atrocious. Why? Did I teach her this? No. xiii. It is her natural understanding to think that she would be God’s child. And it was her natural inclination to think that at some later time she hopes she would be His child. But until that status of being an enemy of God sticks… she is still lost. xiv. So, I speak to her gently. Lovingly. Why? Because she is my daughter? Well, somewhat. But primarily, because I was just like her! j. [Slide 11] slaves to various passions and pleasures, i. Oh before Christ, before Grace, before being awoken to the truth – how often we dove in to the dumpster of sin for a cheap thrill. ii. Why? Could we have quit anytime? Could we have said no. iii. No. We were slaves. The whip of sin forced us on. iv. Like Cain, we may have had chances to keep ourselves from sinning greatly. We may have hated but kept ourselves from killing. We may have lusted but kept ourselves from fornication. We may have been arrogant but kept ourselves from bragging. v. But that didn’t mean we could stop sinning. Oh no. vi. I worked with some recovering addicts at a previous church. They were going through NA. And even though all of them were fighting and being relatively successful in keeping themselves off narcotics – all of them were addicted to sugar, tobacco, exorbitant amounts of coffee, or other substances. All of them were still committing acts of sexual sin, lying, complaining, and arrogance. You see without Christ; you can keep yourself from sinning in a specific way… but you cannot keep yourself from sinning. vii. Before grace, before Christ, we were slaves to our passions and pleasures. Many are this way in our world. “Follow your heart” is the Disney-fied mantra of those enslaved to their passions. “Trust your feelings” is the Star Wars motto of the slave master for your pleasures. viii. Our heart and feelings are the problem though, not the solution. We who are in Christ – know this now, but we did not know it naturally. k. [Slide 12] passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. i. Every day without the grace of God is filled with anger, resentment, envy and strife. ii. From where do disputes come? But from desiring what you do not have. iii. This is who we were! But it is not who we are now. l. [Slide 13] Passage Truth: Paul confirms to Titus and all the Cretans that they were formerly the same as all those outside the body of Christ. There is a human condition that they too possessed. They were foolish, wicked, enslaved, theologically rebellious, and violent people. m. Passage Application: For Titus, this is motivation for him to remind the Cretans to submit to, love, and live peaceably with everyone, because they were no better. n. [Slide 14] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out from this text, we understand that all men inherit sin through Adam. It is a doctrine called original sin and it can be traced back through the history of the church. Ignatius in the early 100s said, “all unbelievers, are incapable of doing the things of belief.” Or Justin Martyr who said – “no good thing dwells in us.” Or Origen who said, that “our human nature is not sufficient to seek God in any manner.” Or Paul who says that “no one seeks after God. No one is righteous. No one understands.” This is a truth from scripture and through the church ages. It has been challenged, but in every challenge the church has declared each opposing teaching to be heresy. Not just in its outright denial, such as Pelagianism. But also, in its half measure such as Semi-Pelagianism. The bottom line is this… mankind is dead in sin and unable to do anything about it. Any doctrine that does not teach this – is not from scripture. o. Broader Biblical Application: What does that mean for us who have been made alive with Christ with reference to how we view unbelievers? We love them, we live at peace with them, we submit to them if they have authority over us. We are eager to do good for them. How can we not? We were once just like them. Shall we thumb our noses at them? Shall we consider ourselves better, higher, mightier, more pious or refined? Friends, we were the same. We have no grounds for boasting. Transition: [Slide 15(blank)] So how is it possible for us to love them, be gentle with them, avoid quarreling, and submit to their authority? Because God has justified us by His grace. He has made us new. II.) God has justified us by grace so that we can be heirs of His promises, so we must live out the gospel. (4-7) a. [Slide 16] 4 – But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, i. Before we dive into this, we should recognize the symmetry between what is said here in verses 4-7 and really on out to verse 11 to what was said in verses 11-14 of chapter 2. ii. If we read these two passages side by side, which depending on your bible, you may be able to do, there is too many similarities for us to ignore. iii. Paul is saying the same thing he has been saying but in different words. iv. Recognizing this helps us to understand where Paul is going, by remembering where he has been. v. So, when we come to the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior, and we see that this appeared, we recognize the echo of verses 11-14 of chapter 2. vi. Another way of understanding the grace of God is to recognize it as the goodness and loving kindness of God. God’s goodness and loving kindness is lavished, not on those who were righteous, and not on those who believed, but on those who were yet depraved and wicked. vii. Indeed, our belief is not even mentioned in this entire context until verse 7. And there it is only a whisper. Verse 8 is when it truly comes in. viii. God acts in goodness and loving kindness toward those to whom He wishes. Toward those who are unable and unwilling to do and be what God desires– slaves to their passions, slaves to their hate, slaves to their ignorant theology, slaves to their wills – God, based on His will and choosing, lavishes upon His people goodness and loving kindness. It appears to them. ix. To what end? That they would believe? That they would choose Him? NO! b. [Slide 17] 5 – He saved us, i. Grace appeared bringing salvation. ii. Not potential but certain. iii. God’s goodness, and loving kindness toward us does not bring potential salvation but assured salvation. iv. He saved us. He alone. Why? v. Because we were utterly incapable… c. [Slide 18] Not because of works done by us in righteousness, i. Jesus preached a message of two commands. To repent and to believe the gospel. ii. To obey is a work (as Paul has just stated in this very text in verse 1.) iii. To obey a command of Christ is indeed a work done in righteousness. iv. And so, to think that repentance and faith is what releases God to save us is to upend what Paul preaches here. v. No! God saves us by Himself. WITHOUT us. It is not by works done by us in righteousness. It is not by our obedience that we are saved. It is because of Christ’s obedience we are saved. vi. It is NOT because of our belief that we are saved. It is because of the truth of what we believe that we are saved. vii. You say – but what of verses that say whoever believes will be saved? 1. YES! Whoever believes will be saved AMEN! 2. What you have to understand is that when the bible says “whoever believes will be saved” it is not giving a formula for us to get salvation. It is not saying, if you wish to have salvation you need to do x,y, and z. 3. Rather it is stating a fact. God loved the world so much that he sent His unique son, why? So that All believing in him might have eternal life. 4. John 3:16 is saying that the purpose of God sending Jesus is to so that those who depend on Him might have the promise of eternal life. It is not saying whoever wants to be saved can believe on Jesus. Because if that were true, we have to see Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler, as a lie. a. He asked Jesus, what more do I lack – Jesus said… not faith… not belief. What? He needed to sell all he had and follow Christ. b. Now in a sense, that is faith. It is belief. But it is not belief in the sense of a choice. Rather it is belief in the sense of dependance. c. And in that kind of belief, it most certainly is a work. And in the case of the rich young ruler, it was a work that meant his selling of all he had. 5. The call of Christ to produce good works is the appropriate call to a person who is unsaved. Why? Because if they are able to produce good works, then God has done something in their hearts. viii. My friends we must get this through our heads. ix. We undo our gospel presentations when we say – you cannot earn your salvation and then say, But if you say this prayer, believe all these things, then God will give His Spirit to you. x. But, you say, the Philippian jailer asked Paul – “What must I do to be saved?” And Paul said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! See – Paul is saying that is the secret formula to get salvation. xi. Is he though? 1. Paul is simply saying what Jesus said to the rich young ruler. Depend, trust, rely fully on Christ. 2. But if he was a slave to sin, a slave to his passions, led astray in doctrine – could he do this? No. He would have walked away sorrowful. Instead, he invited the apostles to his home to speak of the matter further. 3. And that is where Paul perceived that the Philippian jailer may have been given grace by God already. All the signs were there. What signs? a. He was trembling with fear. Not when he thought the prisoners had escaped, but after he had seen with his own eyes the destruction of the prison, and that all the prisoners were still there. b. So what had him so afraid? What indeed. c. The second sign that Paul had a suspicion, or even a certainty that God was doing something in the man, is that Paul and Silas predicted the salvation of the entire household. This does not happen in any other text of scripture where the household is predicted to be saved. 4. Imagine a baby entering the world. He comes out silent. No crying. But imagine he looks at the doctor and asks – what must I do to live? 5. A silly question, for he is already alive, but if he wishes to live he must do what? Breathe! So the doctor says – BREATHE! And smacks the child on the back. 6. So Paul said – BREATHE! To a new baby that had been born. xii. Belief is not the catalyst to our conversion. Why? Because salvation is not by our works of righteousness. xiii. But faith is the means by which God continues to save us. We continue to have faith in Christ… not faith in our faith in Christ. xiv. All this must be true if we are to conclude that God’s salvation was… d. [Slide 19] But according to his own mercy, i. Mercy is when someone does not get the penalty for what they have done. ii. The wages of sin is death. iii. God’s mercy upon us is when he turns His wrath on Christ rather than on us. When Christ gets our death. iv. But how do we attain this? How do we get God’s mercy to us? How are the benefits of Christ’s work given to us? e. [Slide 20] By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit i. We are cleansed of our sin, we are renewed, we are regenerated by the work of the Spirit of God. ii. God’s goodness and loving kindness, shown in mercy, saves us by washing us clean of the filth of sin and regenerating us to life from the death of sin. We are made new in the power of the Spirit of God. iii. And it was not a taste of the Spirit which He gave, waiting for us to believe. No.. f. [Slide 21] 6 - Whom he poured out on us richly i. He dumped all of the Spirit’s cleansing, renewing, and regenerating power on us. ii. It is a downpour. iii. How was this made possible? g. [Slide 22] Through Jesus Christ our Savior i. Christ Jesus took our penalty and gave His infinite righteousness ii. So that we could be cleansed, reborn, and given life. iii. Why? To what end? h. [Slide 23] 7 – So that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. i. So we would become heirs according to the hope or the faith, the trust of eternal life. ii. We believe – why? iii. Because we have been reborn and enabled to do so. Without the spirit’s washing, renewing, and regenerating, we would remain how Paul characterized us in verse 3. We simply could never depend on what Christ has done for us. iv. But we have been justified by His grace! v. The scriptures teach that we are justified by grace, faith, and works. 1. Here we are justified by grace 2. In Romans we are justified by faith (and grace Romans 3:24) – Romans 3:28 3. In James he says we are justified by works - James 2:24 vi. So which is it? Assuming the bible does not contradict – how can we be justified or how can we be declared righteous before God by all three of these at the same time? vii. [Slide 24] How is our declared righteousness by grace? 1. Grace enables faith or dependence on Christ’s work, and Grace trains us in righteousness. 2. Raw faith and raw works could never save – because they would not be possible without God’s Grace. You saw what we were in verse 3. God’s grace was absolutely necessary for us to be declared righteous. 3. Therefore, justification must be by grace. viii. [Slide 25] How is our declared righteousness by faith? 1. We depend on or have faith in Christ’s work and not our own. The nature of what Christ accomplishes necessitates our abandonment of hope in anything save His finished work. 2. So, a Grace that only has God giving us life but then leaves us to work it out for ourselves to the best we could, would only lead to our death. Without the cancellation of our sin and imputation of righteousness, we could not hope to be declared righteous. 3. Therefore, justification must be by faith. ix. [Slide 26] Finally, how is our declared righteousness by works? 1. Works of righteousness as we have seen in almost every context of the New and Old Testament, is a natural byproduct of God’s power in someone. 2. To the extent that when someone does works of righteousness, and is obedient to God, we could never conclude that they do so without God having done something in them. 3. And so a grace that brings us to life and gives us favor and a faith that trades our sin for His righteousness, but does not actually save us from being a slave of sin, could not possibly lead to anyone being declared to be righteous. 4. Therefore, justification must be by works. x. [Slide 27] What the writers of the New Testament mean when they say that justification is by grace, faith and works, is that it is all or nothing. xi. If you are justified by grace, you will produce faith and works. xii. If you are justified by faith, it was gifted by grace and it will produce works xiii. If you are justified by works, it was trained by grace and established on the work of Christ to which you cling. xiv. It is an unbroken chain. xv. God has done all this so that those who are justified by grace could become heirs according to His promise which they have received through faith, a promise for eternal life in Christ. i. [Slide 28] Passage Truth: Paul emphasizes the role of the Triune God in saving His people from their sin. The Father, in goodness, and loving kindness, fitting with his mercy, saves His people, without their aid, by washing them with regeneration and by renewing them with His Spirit. His grace declares His people righteous so that they might be heirs of the faith of eternal life. j. Passage Application: So Titus must remind His people to be workers of righteousness, remembering who they formerly were, and the great lengths that God alone went to to rescue them. k. [Slide 29] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out to all of scripture we understand that God alone acts to save His people. We do not contribute in any way. This is not to say that there are not any responsibilities upon us in the process of our salvation. Certainly, God calls us to do things. To live righteously. To repent and keep on repenting. To believe and keep on believing. But because of who we were before God acted, such expectations are beyond us until He acts. l. Broader Biblical Application: So Paul’s point becomes clear. We live according to what he describes in verses 1 and 2 because verses 4-7 have made it possible. So for us here at CBC, the application still holds. We must live out the grace and faith we have been given, by loving God and others. We must demonstrate by our good works that we have had grace poured on us. Conclusion: There is no need for me to labor long here. We ought to be shinning examples of God’s mercy and grace as we interact with unbelievers. We used to be as they are, but we’ve been changed. We’ve been saved. We’ve been washed and remade. So we cannot live like them. We must live like Christ toward them. He ate with sinners. He healed the ungodly. He helped the gentile. So should we. Not because we are better than they are. But because we were the same, and now we’ve been made to be like Christ. What does that look like? Verses 1 and 2. We ought to submit to authority, obey, speak kindly, gently, avoiding quarrelling, being eager instead to do good toward them. May our conduct toward a world that hates us, be meek, mild, gentle, and loving.

I had a bunch of questions come through over Christmas, so I thought it would be wise to go through them so you have the answers you need in time for 2021's content. Chris: I'm an artist, what should I putting out onto my social media feeds? Jenni: I've been put in charge of running the social media for the architecture firm I work for, what should I do first? Sophie: I'm the head of marketing for a stationary company. My manager wants video content as he's been told we should do some, where should I begin? Paul: What should I do if I can't get my content good enough to put out? Email: simons@perceptionstudios.co.uk SOCIAL MEDIA ► Snapchat - http://www.snapchat.com/add/stopjabbaingon ★ Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/simonscholes77 ► Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/howto9xyoursocialmedia ★ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/perceptionstudiosuk ► Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/howto9xyoursocialmedia ★ Website - http://www.perceptionstudios.co.uk ★ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonpscholes/ ► My book - https://amzn.to/39E6Kfl The Kit I'm Using: ► Andoer 550k Ring Light - https://amzn.to/3cIizTg ★ Neewer USB Microphone - https://amzn.to/3ePcmXA ► Senheiser Memory Mic - https://amzn.to/2xjp9Az ★ Gyvazla 3.5mm Lavalier Lapel Phone & Android - https://amzn.to/2zHG8gL ► Softbox Lighting - https://amzn.to/3dnyfvU Software I use: ★ Streamyard: https://streamyard.com?pal=6057893237882880 ► Tailwind: https://bit.ly/2VJmU2G ★ REV: https://www.rev.com/blog/coupon?ref=simonscholes ► Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iqvm60/

In this episode the editors discuss: The updated situation surrounding the 2020 Election (Sydney Powell "We will not be intimidated." Tucker Carlson highlights Archbishop Vigano's Open Letter to Donald Trump on the Great Reset The US Conference of Catholic(?) Bishops holds its annual meeting which would likely be unrecognizable as Catholic to Saints Peter and Paul (What "force" is with them?)The Vatican''s Economy of Francis conference appears to be Francis' cameo role in the Great Reset by inviting radical abortion advocate and Liberation Theology founder to speak French Catholics resist suppression of all public Masses 

Scripture: 2 TimothyScripture to Remember: 2 Timothy 1.8-12Every one needs a Paul and, everyone needs a Timothy 1- Read 2 Timothy this week. Read it through at least three times. Reading invites into His story and to feel at home in God’s economy. 2- How might you ‘remember’ the gospel on a daily basis? What do you learn, from verses 8-12 about faithful endurance in the gospel? Open your journal and list thoughts and truths, then share them with friends and family.3- Pastor Mark talked about the posture of the church. Followers of Jesus run into the broken parts of this world, as others tend to run away. In Acts 19, Paul is in the midst of a riot and holds the gospel as his hope and his posture is to ‘let me in’. When is a time that you have seen hurt in this world and moved toward ‘let me in’? What is a burden that God has made you aware of today? Are you asking Got to give you a path to ‘let me in’ posture? Why is it of first importance that the gospel of Christ lead the way? 4- Paul is ‘persuaded’ that God is able and that persuasion compels him to make much of Jesus. From 2 Timothy 1, what would you say persuades Paul? What are you persuaded about in your faith and how do those truths shape your daily life?I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to guard what has been entrusted me until that day. - 2 Timothy 1.12

ENCORE! ENCORE! by Fonda St. Paul What does the famed Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street in New York City have to do with MURDER, MAYHEM, and ILLICIT AFFAIRS?  Psychologist Dr. Sydney Markham has a horrific secret past. She is married to wealthy cardiologist, Dr. Keith Markham. The Markham’s live in the famed Dakota and to the outside […] The post ENCORE! ENCORE! by Fonda St. Paul appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.

Paul opens today’s episode talking about the short term & long term plans for Recovery Elevator: Paul is taking a break from the podcast and he will be focusing on the Recovery Elevator YouTube channel and creating meditations. 1-3 year plans: Recovery Elevator Retreat Center Long term goals: adding more Café RE groups Let’s all start putting thinking bigger and putting Big Energy out into the universe for Recovery Elevator.   [12:09] Paul welcomes Odette, the new voice of Recovery Elevator.   Odette’s last drink was 12/17/18. She is from San Diego, originally from Mexico and is married with two kids. They love the outdoors as a family. Odette enjoys learning about tea, puzzling and cooking. She often runs and uses her indoor bike for exercise.   [16:08] Paul: What have you been up to since Episode 231?   Odette is grateful for her recovery during this time of Covid-19. During her first year sober it’s all about relearning habits, restructuring life and setting new routines. Her year two has been about uncovering a lot of deeper seeded emotions and being more honest with herself.   [19:15] Paul: Can you cover what brought you to wanting to live an alcohol free life?   Drinking felt like a déjà vu of Odette’s previous addiction. (She is also in recovery from an eating disorder.) She had already walked this path and could her inner voice telling her that if she kept drinking the way she was, it would end badly. Her rock bottom was an emotional rock bottom. Odette has always felt like she wanted to be normal and because drinking is normalized in our culture she didn’t initially want to step away. Choosing to do the thing that is not considered normal would again put her in a spotlight. However, she knew internally this was the path she needed to take. For more on her story go listen to episode 128 & 231.   [23:00] They talk about Odette’s path with the podcast.   Odette likes relating to people. She will share when she hears her own story in others. She enjoys sharing books she’s reading and things she is listening to. Sharing a-ha moments.   [24:09] Paul: What are some topics you will cover moving forward?   Practical tips and recovery tools. Focusing on her recovery toolbelt and listening to what’s working for other people. Spiritual concepts and how those can be brought into our lives. Fun facts, history and what she can learn from others. Hearing from others and having the audience suggest topics.   [25:23] Paul: Same format?   For now, Odette plans to stay within the same format of an introduction and then having an interviewee. She loves talking and sharing and is really excited to take this forward, she is nervous at the same time. This is about a movement of living alcohol free and she wants to honor the path Paul has established.   [28:00] Paul: Talk about evoking Rule 22 on this journey.   Odette’s father was silly when raising his own family. She grew up with flawed parents, yet they showed her there was always a path of fun to be found. The life she’s living isn’t a dress rehearsal, it’s the only you she has and it’s too short to not have fun.   [30:06] Paul: Spanish or English?   English. But there may be an opportunity in the future for episodes in Spanish. If you want to share your story you can email odette@recoveryelevator.com   [32:32] Odette turns the tables and interviews Paul. Can you talk about your decision to step down?   Paul acknowledges that he needed to take a break. He thought he needed to start over again, instead of asking for help and delegating a lot of what he’s been doing. The community that he has created came to him with suggestions on how Recovery Elevator can keep moving forward. With some restructuring there is now a path.   [37:20] Odette: Overall how do you feel?   Paul says he feels incredible. That past year and a half has been the most spiritual he has ever experienced. And even more, the past 3 months he found his body cleansing itself of anything that didn’t need to be there.   [39:13] Odette: Tell us about some of the most fun experiences in your travels this past year.   Watching a woman connect with an elephant in Thailand. The elephant laid down on its side and the woman laid on top. Watching the elephant breathing and the two of them connecting was powerful. While in Australia someone from an AA meeting asked if he wanted to go feed the seagulls. Paul put aside his serious side and went to feed seagulls for an hour and a half.   [41:51] Odette: What’s flowing through your creative side right now?   Music has been creeping back into Paul’s life over the past 5 years. He’s been making meditation music. Also 3D meditations where you are walked through your future self, in the present moment. Focusing on the Recovery YouTube channel as well.   [46:20] Odette: Will we hear from you during your break?   Yes, Paul would love to pop in from time to time.   [52:30] Paul: Where do you think we can take this?   Odette says we can start small: have a podcast in Spanish for example. As large as: Traveling across the globe for service projects. A recovery center. She sees this growing in all directions. The opportunities are endless.    [55:08] Rapid Fire Round    What’s a lightbulb moment you’ve had on this journey? Odette: I can’t accept myself if I don’t start with myself. I can’t ask for help, if I’m not helping myself first Paul: We don’t fight an addiction that’s been trying to guide us.   What’s your favorite AF drink? Odette: all Tea, anything with ginger, grapefruit Bubly. Paul: Cold tonic with square ice cubes and tiny peach slices.   What’s on your bucket list in this AF life? Odette: to run a marathon and working in the recovery field. Paul: finding a new home base, follow the body.   Favorite recovery resources? Odette: Café RE, Eckart Tolle, Pema Chödrön, Glennon Doyle, friends and Marco Polo. Paul: You, Café RE, the listeners, meditation.   What parting piece of guidance can you give to listeners? Odette: What you resist, persists. Paul: Use the mind and locate the body.   This episode brought to you by: Gruvi, use this link and enter the promo code: Recovery Elevator for 15% off your order.   Upcoming events, retreats and courses: Ditching the Booze - The What, the Why and the How. We will be offering this again, starting 8/4/2020 and 11/3/20. It’s free for Café RE members. Not a Café Re member? Sign up here and use the code OPPORTUNITY for waive the set-up fee. You can find more information about our events    The book, Alcohol is SH!T, is out. Pick up your paperback copy on Amazon here! You can get the Audible version here!     Resources mentioned in this episode:  Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.. Sobriety Tracker iTunes  Sobriety Tracker Android  Sober Selfies!- Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to  -info@recoveryelevator.com

Hear these words of serious encouragement: Be a herald of the word! Keep your head in all situations! Assess the legacy you are leaving! Questions:  Did the Holy Spirit speak to you about anything today? What evidence do we have that this charge, though encouraging in the spurring on sense, is very serious to Paul? What similarities do you see in 4:2 and 3:16 from last week?  What are the positive verbs and the negative verbs in verse 2?  What safeguards does Paul put in place so our words are not harsh? Describe what might be the type of preaching that is fleshed out in verses 4 and 5. What are the hardest areas of your life for you to “keep your head?” As you assess your own life thus far, how does it compare to what Paul says in verses 6-8?

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Paul: One interesting thing for me is that you know, over the recent years, we've had countless incidents where cattle and animal stock have become diseased, and they've had to be culled, you know; they've had to be killed to stop the disease. I think, you know, that's also a kind of a very important issue, why these animals are becoming so diseased. Is it a sign that we're doing something wrong? What do you think about that?Todd: Yeah. I mean, that's a scary one. I've lived in quite a few countries over the years, and every country that I've lived in has always been paranoid about the - mad cow disease. So, even in England, I lived in your country in England about seventeen years ago, and there were concerns about that first propping up. And then, you know, in Asia now, the Asian countries are worried about it.Paul: Hm.Todd: To be honest, I don't even give it any thought, you know. I mean, I hear about there's high levels of mercury in salmon. You shouldn't eat too much salmon. You have to worry about mad cow disease if you eat beef. I think you have to worry about other diseases with the chicken. You know, they had the bird flu a while ago. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to think, really.Paul: Yeah.Todd: I mean, it hasn't changed my eating patterns. Has it changed your eating patterns?Paul: Um, no, not particularly. I'd have to say that I do still eat meat. I had grilled chicken yesterday. And so, you know, like I said, it's very difficult to be or kind of morally high when you eat animals. One interesting thing is about animals that we select for captivity like you know if they're not cute or -Todd: Right.Paul: You know, it seems to be like it's only the cute animals in the world that we care about.Todd: Right.Paul: What about the ugly ones? And this kind of give you - it's a bit warped, isn't it? It's not really true to kind of, you know, representative of the animal kingdom.Todd: And there's definitely a bias towards animals, let's say, than versus insects. You don't hear about people like crusading against - to save insects.Paul: That's right, huh.Todd: Cockroaches, centipedes, spiders, whatever. And yet technically, that's a life form as well, right?Paul: Yeah. You know, insects, they - you know, within ecosystems they carry out very key roles, you know.Todd: Right.Paul: Yet, we're not fascinated with insects. In fact, most people have some sort of repulsion towards insects.Todd: Right.Paul: So yeah, again, it's kind of like we choose to kind of make this kind of Disneyland of animals of we have curiosity about, the cute ones and the ones that are able to do tricks and stuff. But you know, what about the other guys?Todd: Fair enough, man. Good point.

We talk about the why. Why did we start this show? First off, this is NOT church hour! Far from it, that's not us.  Need Favor? Doesn't matter what you've done in your life, James talks about two guys in the bible, David and Paul… What they have done in their life and god still found favor […]

2 Corinthians 11:1-15 Even if we have bad leadership, we’re accountable for __________________. Putting away __________________A great quote by missionary and martyr, Jim Elliot- What does it mean to “invite someone’? This week: Pray for God to use you in inviting someone to Him. (Parents, talk to your children about why and how they should pray for their friends.) 2/9/20Dealing with Foolishness The Foolishness of ___________________ What is the foolishness of Paul? What is the illustration Paul uses to teach about presenting the church to Christ? The Foolishness of __________________ Paul sees a correlation between Satan’s deception and the __________________ __________________.

Apple is to blame for our website insecurity! Paul has a couple of concerns about Linux Mint after listening to Destination Linux, we hear more about EULAs, and Zorin, and more about Orca. John wants to migrate his mail from Windows to Linux, Ken asks about VPNs and password managers, and James provides more hidden gems. Episode 385 Time Stamps 00:00 Going Linux #385 · Listener Feedback 00:50 SSH certificates issue resolved - it's Apple's fault! 04:28 Bill's distro hopping continues 10:14 Paul: Should I be concerned about Linux Mint? 16:05 Paul: What about PPAs on Mint? 24:13 Daniel: Problems using no monitor 27:31 Nathan: OpenSuSE and EULA 29:19 George: About EULAs 35:20 Highlander: Mass surveillance counter measures 39:38 Daniel: Manjaro and Linux 42:01 Michael: Linux Mint and Orca 44:03 John: Thunderbird migration from Windows to Linux 46:42 Ken: VPN and Password manager 54:12 Darren: Feedback on Zorin 59:17 James: Hidden gems part 2 67:44 goinglinux.com, goinglinux@gmail.com, +1-904-468-7889, @goinglinux, feedback, listen, subscribe 69:13 End

Apple is to blame for our website insecurity! Paul has a couple of concerns about Linux Mint after listening to Destination Linux, we hear more about EULAs, and Zorin, and more about Orca. John wants to migrate his mail from Windows to Linux, Ken asks about VPNs and password managers, and James provides more hidden gems. Episode 385 Time Stamps 00:00 Going Linux #385 · Listener Feedback 00:50 SSH certificates issue resolved - it's Apple's fault! 04:28 Bill's distro hopping continues 10:14 Paul: Should I be concerned about Linux Mint? 16:05 Paul: What about PPAs on Mint? 24:13 Daniel: Problems using no monitor 27:31 Nathan: OpenSuSE and EULA 29:19 George: About EULAs 35:20 Highlander: Mass surveillance counter measures 39:38 Daniel: Manjaro and Linux 42:01 Michael: Linux Mint and Orca 44:03 John: Thunderbird migration from Windows to Linux 46:42 Ken: VPN and Password manager 54:12 Darren: Feedback on Zorin 59:17 James: Hidden gems part 2 67:44 goinglinux.com, goinglinux@gmail.com, +1-904-468-7889, @goinglinux, feedback, listen, subscribe 69:13 End

In this Spotlight feature, I can’t tell you how beyond excited I am for you to meet today's more than inspiring, guest, Paul Crowell. Paul is the founder of the nonprofit, Project Open Paw that is dedicated to feeding and taking care of the furry companions of the homeless in San Francisco where he lives. He is also a gofundme hero and was the recipient of The Jefferson Award of The Bay Area in 2018. As an extremely passionate animal lover and rescue advocate, there’s nothing I love more than anyone who wants to help them. So when I first heard about Paul and what he was doing I literally started telling everyone about him and his gigantic heart. - - Yes, I'm a super fan girl! And I’m hoping after today’s episode you'll be a super fan too! :) Grab a cup of coffee or tea, go somewhere cozy, kickback and push play. This is a longer episode but it's so worth it. There's so much inspiration, helpful advice, and wisdom for those with a big heart. It's all about how one person can make an invaluable difference in the lives of others and what we can do to help. Happy Listening! And thank you so much, Paul! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS // (show notes click here)Getting to know Paul - What he does and why he does it - So many inspiring stories!How Project Open Paw got started ad what's needed to keep it going. Using social media for good + storytelling + creating a connection with the homeless community he serves. How becoming a gofundme hero doubled his impact + what specifically we can do to help - So many ideas! So many ways to pitch in! (click on show notes to find out)And you'll want to stay to the end to find out Paul's #1 tip for anyone that wants to do make a difference in their own way. As well as who has made a difference to Paul in his life. CALL TO ACT // Check out the show notes to find out all the ways you can, Get Your Heart On to do what you can to help Paul keep animals on the streets warm, healthy and well-fed. Every single FB like, IG follow, dollar given or item donated will make a huge difference in the life of a deserving dog/cat in need of a simple meal so they can go to sleep with food in their bellies. - as Paul says.Thanks again for you and your big hearts!Much Love + Gratitude,:) giaP. S. Make sure to hit SUBSCRIBE on Apple podcasts or wherever you like to listen. And if you want me to also personally let you know when a new episode comes out all you have to do is sign up right here and I’ve got you!

We are in the laboratory, figuring out how to attract more clients who we find irresistible. Our strategy is to grow the Show & Tell newsletter. The laboratory is a series of tactical experiments to achieve that. Are we building a community? Why does Jono Bacon's latest book about community disappoint Paul? What fuels disappointment?

Remember that one game that despite how terrible it looked was one of your all time favs? How bout those games as beautiful as can be, yet somehow flaming trash heaps in gameplay. This episode we give our personal picks for best of the worst, and the worst of the best. Episode Transcription: The below is a machine based transcription of this episode. Sorta like Skynet if it was 2 years old, and wanted a cookie. Take it with a grain of salt. Jake 0:01 Episode 10 the good, the bad, and the ugly Today onWulff 0:07 peskiGP 0:28 Hello and welcome everyone to press B to cancel. My name is Guy friend. And with me today we have our usual days of rapscallions to my left is where we'll say hello werewolf. Hello werewolfGP 0:44 aptGP 0:47 also with me today sick JakeJake 0:49 here buddy glad to be hereGP 0:52 and of course, Polish 109Palsh 0:56 Whatever happened to polish runaway nevermindWulff 1:00 Yeah, we had to let him go.Palsh 1:03 Yeah, aGP 1:05 lot of turnover in the police departments, there can be only one. There can be only at pulse post is the equivalent title to Highlander if you're Canadian.Jake 1:16 Alright, so that's a worldwide sensation. I'm sorry, everybody in every country loves Highlander.GP 1:22 That's true. That's true. Okay. Alright, so today, we're going to be discussing kind of a variety. It's a little bit of a different show tonight. Typically, we just take one game or one series, and we discuss our experiences, our likes or dislikes. Tonight, we're going a little bit different. The title of the episode tentatively was called the good, the bad and the ugly. If you don't know what fugly means, have one of your ugly friends explain it to you. So essentially, the idea of this episode is that we can all acknowledge the great Games, they look good, they play good, the sound is great. And we can all acknowledge the crap games, they look horrible. They sound horrible. There are no redeeming qualities. So tonight we're discussing the ones the games in between games that either look gorgeous, but are otherwise devoid of anything meaningful. We will call those Travolta's or the ugly games that have a lot of heart. We're going to call those quasi motos. Okay, so those are the two categories today. I'm going to start us off and then we'll discuss and you know, go around the table as we always do, but we're going to start off with the ugly but great or quasi modo category. And I tell you what, guys, let's just go through different video game systems. We'll start with the eight minute video games. For me it's any s, which is going to be Bionic Commando. Okay, so I love this game. I played it on stream recently, and I'm always reminded about how much I love it but truly Fully the color palette is obnoxious. There's not the greatest animations between your character or the bad guys that you're trying to kill. And it's repetitive as hell. So that's kind of the idea here. Let's talk about Bionic Commando. And if you guys agree, let me know if you disagree. Let's have that conversation. werewolf. What do you think?Wulff 3:20 You know, I've actually not played a lot of Bionic Commando. I think the last time I played it was, gosh, I was seven years old. So almost 30 years ago. Good grief. So I can't say much to it. But I can say that from what I've seen people play on Twitter recently. It's not a pretty game. But I do see a lot of people playing it on Twitter recently. So that must be some somewhat test some testament to its quality.GP 3:51 Sure, yeah. Okay, so it's a popular enough game. It's not always the best to look. So if you're going to watch Bionic CommandoUnknown Speaker 4:00 A beer to firstGP 4:02 beer or do you first gotJake 4:04 Yep. enhancerGP 4:07 Okay, sick Jake. Paul What do you guys think about Bionic Commando?Palsh 4:12 We go I'm sick regoing sick Paul shirt Jake 109 Who's going first?Unknown Speaker 4:18 we merge together we are oneGP 4:21 yeah give us that sexy fusion voice yeahWulff 4:23 that trunks fusion voiceGP 4:31 Alright, so I guess we'll go with Jake first.Jake 4:34 What do you think about Bionic Commando supplying commando? I played this quite a bit as a kid. I'm just trying to struggle how much variety was there in the enemy'sGP 4:45 will as far as the enemy sprite goes? All of your entry level guys are pretty much the same. They were maybe one or two like older throwers or you know rocket launcher guys, but otherwise Yeah, all the same.Jake 4:56 Yeah, like none of them stand out to me. In hindsight when I kind of Going back to that game, I don't remember anything notable graphic wise, I remember that. I remember the back color palette like you mentioned, for sure. It's poor choice. They're all they really remember but graphics is the main character. As a kid, I thought he's got a doc rip off with that weird mechanical arm. That's all I got from the game graphic wise. Nothing memorable at all. I didn't care for Gameplay wise, it was actually quite fun. I mean, mechanics were solid.GP 5:27 Right? Yeah. And I think that's exactly right. I think the biggest mechanic or the biggest saving grace of this game would be the mechanics, no jumping, just extendo arm. And also I to me, I love the sound. This is for me one of the rare games where the not just the soundtrack. But the the, the noises of the game. Were so perfect. And for me they invoke such a strong nostalgia, but I mean yeah, that's I think that's exactly kind of the heart of what the category is. So post, what do you think about commandoPalsh 6:01 I, it's pretty much the same as Jake is like, I don't remember a lot. But the things I do remember that kind of stuck in my brain like I remember not being able to jump and always wanting to swing like Spider Man basically, ever since now I was like, Yeah, I want to do this I remember playing the game and I think this is so cool. But I never thought it was amazingly good luck and I just thought that was the coolest idea. So I think sure yet looks was no, but you know, gameplay was I thought it was fun. So I agree with you.GP 6:36 It's got that heart that addictive quality that after you leave the game, like if you haven't beaten it, you know you're wanting to go back and continue or you know, just pick up where you left off. Yeah. Now I'll say this. I don't have this for every category, but the eight bit ugly but great category. I have an alternate or an honorable mention. And I'll say this real quick, Final Fantasy the riginal a bit Final Fantasy not a pretty game, but damn it was amazing. I no no no you guys know I love Final Fantasy. And it was great for what it was and what it sparked. But going back it is it is dated.Wulff 7:16 Yeah those those tiny backgrounds and battle with just four characters in a box and a little background and then the rest of its blackGP 7:27 it's it's a sexy older sister, I guess technically the sexy younger sister of Oregon Trail,Jake 7:34 which,Wulff 7:35 I mean, the game was based on d&d, so it was leaps and bounds from pen and paper numbers, but they still hadn't found their visual groove yet by any means.Jake 7:51 Of course, but the enemy sprites and the boss sprites that game were extremely detailed and there's a lot of variety and the monsters you face because I thought about This game is well for my list. I didn't do it because of the variety of monsters on the graphics, the sprites.GP 8:05 Yeah. Okay. See, I could definitely concede to that. But you know, to the point of it was inspired by or trying to invoke d&d as a great point because d&d requires a lot of good imagination to fill in the gaps visually and I think that is the point to Final Fantasy that I'm trying to make is there's some cool ideas there. But with the limited motion and animation you really have to use your you know, theater of the mind as it were to to fill in those those gaps.Palsh 8:37 That's pixel or a nutshell for me, so I agree. But you can get some effing cool pixel art that said, Okay,GP 8:45 I don't know No, no, that's good. Actually polish. Let's go to your what's your quasi modo game, the uglyPalsh 8:52 but great game, this one stuck out to me and just because it I was felt like it looked like an entire game to me. Kind of That meant that made it with an any s game and it still had kind of elements of mostly Atari boys blob, because the graphics were really great. But the whole premise this game was hard, I still won't touch it because I'm just I don't have the fear of failure. But the fact that you could, you know, give them like 40 different jellybeans and have all these different things like you could turn your blog into a trampoline or a ladder or a friggin rocket you know, it's it's really cool but the graphics didn't keep up but I thought considering how ugly it was it still was pretty fun. And so that's that's just what stuck out for me.GP 9:44 Yeah, I I own a boy and his blog and I have started a boy this blob but I think the graphics and I hate to say it this way because it makes me sound so shallow. But I think the graphics is prevented me from really getting into it. So I think that It's a bit of a home run for choice there. But I can't speak to the greatness of the game just to the just to the ugliness as far as the sprite quality. And you know the image quality in general. Yeah, everything isWulff 10:15 the design choices as far as the characters, they're very ugly. Yeah, there's not a lot of detail. However, they're really smoothly animated for how ugly they are, which I always found kind of odd.Palsh 10:28 Yeah, and I think that's part of it, too, because they ended up it was so simplistic. I think they ended up getting a little bit more leeway when it came to animating them.Wulff 10:37 Yeah, but yeah, that that game is definitely a favorite of mine. I had that growing up. I don't know what happened to my copy. I don't remember getting rid of it. But I don't know if it got lost in a movie or I did eventually trade it in or something. That is a game I put far too many hours into as a child. Oh my goodness. Like, I can probably still remember What most of the jelly beans do. That's how much I played it. Catch up a catch a pole.Palsh 11:07 Yes.Wulff 11:09 That is licorice ladder root beer rocket.GP 11:13 I had a root beer rocket oneJake 11:17 I think I agree with GP on the terms of the graphics is what probably turned me off in the game as well. I didn't really finish it. I spent I made it to the offworld section and that was interesting. But you spend majority of your time on the ground and there's such a limited palette of colors down there. It's all brown and black. I found it extremely dull.Wulff 11:36 Yeah, they're their color choices definitely reflected what they went back to in the early 2000s just with less bloom. Right? Yeah.GP 11:44 Well, Jake, what What game do you have for us? Ugly but lovable for the eight bit?Jake 11:52 I mean, I mean, some guys know me. If I'm not complaining about a game on I don't like it. And they'll go on game I complain about all the time is our type for the master system this game is brutally hard for me. It took me forever to beat it and I had to use a continue code to do it. It's great The gameplay is classic to me the bosses are awesome. There's also mechanic where if you don't be the boss is fast enough to take away from you. There's you know, upgrades. It's a great game, poured it on literally everything. But the matches is the one is the one I played the most. But the thing that makes it ugly is there slow down constantly, there's flickering every other level. There's one level I want to say it's the third one where the background is this organic, pulsing like red color. But that's fine, but the enemy shots are also red. So because of the poor choice and colors of the background, the enemy bullets, you can't see where the bullets are half the time in addition to all the flickering. So like the graphics are just terrible, terrible. I've seen this game in arcades and it looks 10 times better. It's a shame because it's a fantastic game gameplay. It's plays well for me in any system. I know of the Master System and I love it there but the graphics on that system just can't keep up.GP 13:06 Gotcha. Okay, so I hear you saying that you've only beaten it with the continue code. So what you mean is you've never beaten it. Little bit of shady games each otherGP 13:30 sick burger.GP 13:33 Wolf, what do you got for us for ugly URL now? I'm sorry. Let's not do that yet. A portion where what do you guys think about our day?Wulff 13:40 Um, I've never been a fan of shoot 'em ups and bullet hills. So our type was one I didn't really get into. TheyPalsh 13:49 kind of blend together for me. Not that I'm saying it was a bad game or anything, but I can't tell the difference between archetype and Gradius. And anybody who's a shoot 'em up fan right? I was probably wanting to strangle me so I apologize but either way, honestly, you're not wrong. There are very few shooters that pull me in.GP 14:09 Yeah, I'm with you. I think the only one that really stood out for me was like life force. And that's that's really the only one I paid attention to. I'm kinda like you guys with that so I will have to take sick Jake's word on this one. Yeah, but I believe especially I mean, yeah, I've never heard of anything like that where the bullets are the same color as the background. Obviously that is a horrible designWulff 14:35 that's that's a controllers are are right there.GP 14:38 Yeah.Palsh 14:39 It ends up being any s heard.Jake 14:42 It belongs in any as hard but different system.Palsh 14:44 Yeah. Gotcha. Master Cisco. doesn't have the same ring to it.GP 14:49 doesn't roll off the tongue as much. Yeah.Wulff 14:53 Alright, so what do you got for us on your quasi game, the game that everybody is familiar with. The Ninja for Master System but this game, the gameplay is an absolute blast. You're running around you're throwing jerkins at people you get upgrades to your stuff like movement upgrades, weapon upgrades, special attacks, all sorts of crap the enemies there's all sorts of enemy types they have different a eyes the levels get mixed up summer like a lot of them are just you know, go from the bottom scroll upward. Occasionally it's like scroll from right to left but they've got like the river level where you're trying to move from log to log and kill enemies before they get you stuff like that. They did a lot of creative things with the game, but boy did it not look good at all. There were a lot of sprites and they were a lot of ugly pixels. That the colors like they use really bright colors, their eye catching colors. But there's so much of one color that covers the screen at a time that it just it fries your eyeballs a little bit. That that bright neon green grass.Palsh 16:11 Yeah, everything looks green afterwards. It's like you're wearing you must be wearing like some like tinted sunglasses afterwardsWulff 16:19 Yeah, there's there's almost there's really very little detail on any of the locations in the game. You got to use your imagination a lot. But that game is so much fun. And it's it's a hard one. So it's one of those ones that's like punishing and you want to go back.Palsh 16:38 I didn't even know that was for Master System. The first time I actually played was on like a bootleg 31 and one NAS card and I had no idea that this is bootleg up until like, a few years ago so I was like, This is amazing. Oh, nevermind.Jake 16:53 Spiders in that you also picked a Master System game. Do you think it's something to do with that system and that just couldn't put out The solid graphic power to handle those games because there's a few other games that are also not that great graphic wasWulff 17:05 no because there are some actually really pretty Master System games to the the Master System graphically had superior capabilities to the ns but you have to remember they were a lot more companies pumping games out on the IDS it's like it's it was the platform that was supported versus the platform that wasn't it doesn't matter how much power it has if people don't know how to make use of it.Jake 17:30 Like I'm just thinking of the Sonic games, and some of them are really terrible. The slowdown is ridiculous lots of flickering like it is. It's disappointing because there aren't great games on the system is one of my favorite systems.Wulff 17:41 Well the Master System. The Master System is just a Game Gear. It's it's a Game Gear Fit to TV resolution, or rather, at the Game Gear is a Master System fit to a smaller resolution. They're they're the exact same architecture. That's why all the emulators run both of them.Jake 18:00 Interesting. Okay,GP 18:01 okay, so that's our that's our time for a bit games. Let's move on to 16 bit if you guys are ready for that, is that good? Sure. Holy cow. Is that that claw?Palsh 18:14 Yeah, we'll call theWulff 18:17 next bitGP 18:22 is one of those rare occasions where I wish I had worn pants now? Well, I'll tell you what wolf blitzer with you 16 bit ugly but great. What do you think and start race effects?Palsh 18:34 Yeah.Wulff 18:36 Not absolutely good. It had a lot of character in the graphics, but it was not pretty at all. The, for whatever reason, I'm pretty sure those What is that? gas. That gas station with the chevron? Pretty sure those Ever on cars were inspired by this game.GP 19:03 Or vice versa. But it's a goodWulff 19:06 Yeah, I've I you know what, they dropped it on the switch this week. And I went back and played it. And I had so much fun with it. Oh my goodness. It was a lot of fun. And I used to play it a lot to player which I mean, you can play two player races against the AI as well. Which is pretty taxing on a Super Nintendo. Which I'm pretty sure that killed the frame rate big time, so it made it even uglier. It was still somehow playable. And it was a lot of fun. I really really enjoyed that one.Jake 19:41 Yeah, I was gonna say the only time I saw framerate that bad post mariokart the switch was after watching stunt racer x like, it's like three FPS. It'sGP 19:52 you know, that brings up I mean, we'll have to see how the rest of the show plays out but I've had in the back of my mind like that. This big question mark of the two categories today, how many sports games or how many racing games ultimately are going to be referenced? So we're going to chuck that down as you know, the first one I suppose for, for racing, but that's, that's interesting to me. I think that's a good pic. Absolutely. But I'm glad you chose that because, well, that was on my short list of like five games. I was so hesitant to pull out as a racing game or a sport themed game. Because those really didn't hit their stride until you know much later. But I like that one pulse. What do you got for usPalsh 20:34 on 16 bit mine is pretty much the 16 bit argument all over again from from a pit I've got a game that was hard that I loved, but the same kind of problem lemmings and I hate saying it because let me look terrible Lamine, but they're, you know, like they're like six pixels each. So you can't really complain too much, but the idea behind it again, was so cool like you could make one guy stop everybody else Another one would start digging and other woman started digging upwards and whatever. So game itself was just great. The music is probably one of the top five for like Super Nintendo for me for for soundtracks. But I just remember and it never bothered me about the graphics I'm just saying it's just that they don't look great.GP 21:26 I tell you what I appreciate here is Forgive me for saying it this way. This shame in your voice when you said lemmings? It's almost like you know, it's 3am I've had a few drinks I'm lonely. I'm going to call lemmings and not tell anybody about it the next day, so I love that See, that's why I love this. This idea for the for the episode. You sneak that Kelly? Yeah, you got me good. No, I love that. I think that's a great choice. And I think we've all done that with either lemmings or a game like lemmings were like ah I just want to want to save my appetite but I'm not proud of it let's let's play lemmingsWulff 22:05 yeah that's good. What do what do you guys think about lemmings? That's actually another game where despite the ugliness of the palette, and you know, the little tiny characters that you can barely make out, they were really smoothly animated and they can eat a lot of information with what 15 pixels.Palsh 22:22 Yeah, that here but what they were doingUnknown Speaker 22:26 that's pretty impressive.Palsh 22:28 Yeah. So they, they definitely went for function over form. And they I think they succeeded. So I mean, that's that's saying, Oh,GP 22:38 yeah, it's, it's a great game. It's that argument again, it's got a great personality.Jake 22:45 Okay, all right. The backgrounds, okay, granted, not all the backgrounds are your hot redhead, okay? But a lot of them look fine to me. There's one I played on the Genesis so 16 bit and the one level or there's couple levels with the forest theme. I thought that looked amazing. And the fact that you could dig through the leaves of the tree and everything looks great to me.Palsh 23:08 Yeah, I can see your point there.Jake 23:10 Plus the intro was funny. I thought the intro was well animated.Palsh 23:13 Yes, true.Jake 23:14 I like six pixels. What are you going to do, right? There's only so much you can do with six weeks one character.Palsh 23:19 And now you see why I feel guilty even saying it because it's like, there's so much charm to this game. And considering what they've done with it. SoGP 23:27 I think it's a great game that conveys exactly what it needed to but you're right. There's not much frill to it outside of like visually, it's not arresting in a positive way.Wulff 23:39 Yeah, it's not something that ever made me stop and look when I saw it on a screen anywhere. But playing it I could not put it down.GP 23:48 Yeah, it's a game you play in your own home. Like if you had gone to Walmart and got on the display, you'd be like not here lemmings. We can know each other but nobody can know I'm going to sound like a jerkPalsh 24:04 Just you wait I'll get you backGP 24:07 okay all right so polished one or nine with lemmings subject. What do you got for us? 16 bitJake 24:14 16 bit So you mentioned earlier about racing games and this is technically a racing game. It's unit racers for the snice Oh man, IPalsh 24:21 forgot about that.Jake 24:22 So I don't know if you guys have played this game before. cyclesPalsh 24:26 Yeah, I was like yeah, just cycles without right.GP 24:29 Yeah, I rememberJake 24:29 Yeah. It's the weirdest concept for a video game I've seen in a while. But I love the hell this game I got it at a US store for like 10 bucks. Graphic wise. Literally you do you guys said it. You're just a unicycle no writer. And the tracks are basically this candy stripe. You know line that loops around and goes left to right. There's not much going on graphic wise but Gameplay wise the tricks system in it. There's like a dozen different tricks you can do with your your bike. You know flips and cartwheels, all kinds of crazy stuff. And you need to do those tricks in order to build speed and momentum. And you kind of get tied up in the different modes. Like some of the modes are focused on doing the stunts, and the ones are about speed. Some are just like, you know, marathon and length. There's a lot of variety, and tracks in the game. The game plays outstanding. The only problem is, it's a lot of them with the same precursor to Tony Hawk'sPalsh 25:23 Pro Skater. And a lot of waysWulff 25:26 Yeah. Now that you mentioned it, yeah, that game did a ton of stuff for being a 2d side on racing game.GP 25:34 Yeah, but I think when you can make the argument that if Marble Madness makes you look like a chump, then Okay, you know, yeah. Well, they might be but you can't tell because there's there's just no way no, no, I think that's a good and you're right, like, that's that's their kind of racing thing as well. So that's, that's interesting. I remember the game I don't remember much of playing it though, but I can see it in my mind. And yeah, I agree. I think that's a good good entry. WhatWulff 26:06 do you guys think? I would agree that that game was not a whole lot to look at, like it was cleanly animated. But there was a is literally, you know, the track is just a candy striped bar on the ground that moves around. And then you're a unicycle no character on the unicycle. You're just a unicycle doing stunts and tricks and jumps and bouncing around and zooming along. So it was it was a limited presentation type of game. I wouldn't sayGP 26:38 yeah, but werewolf the way that you just described it, like the you're a unicycle going around doing tricks and bumps and jumps. I if you said that to me, I would actually I would want to pick that up the way you just presented that actually had me interested. I'm like, Oh shit, maybe I should play this again. It was an absolute blast. It really was. I played the crap out of it. Good. I mean, that's, that's the heart and soul of this, this category, so that's good. I'll jump in now with my 16. But I was torn between two. So I'm going to pick the little, the one that's a little bit more controversial, just because it'll be a better discussion, but I was thinking about doing Starfox but I think we can all agree it did not age well it was not great, but it's a fun game. I know. Jake loves it. But what I'm gonna I'm gonna, what I'm what I'm gonna officially state is the original Mortal Kombat. Now I love most Mortal Kombat. It's, you know, in the series, but if you look at the first Mortal Kombat, and when I first played that I played it around the same time as Street Fighter two. So comparatively Street Fighter two, crisper cleaner, brighter, smoother. And to me Mortal Kombat, though I enjoy it. The first one was very clunky you hear how stressingPalsh 27:56 though I enjoyed, you know, he's he Doing this rightGP 28:00 because I Well, there's there's points coming in later polish. Their Mortal Kombat will make other entries in the future. I you know, starting with Mortal Kombat two, great franchise. And if you look at this disparity between how poorly the first foot looks and plays, compared to MK two, that's kind of the crux of my argument for Mortal Kombat. If they ended the Mortal Kombat series with the first one, it wouldn't have made the list but out of all of it, yes, MK one. Not that great, in my opinion, fun to play, but just pretty ugly.Palsh 28:38 You know, I can get beyond that. I thought it was really cool to see Street Fighter two, and had all the way smoother animations and stuff but I mean, they weren't taking, you know, real life models and trying to digitize them. So the the motions and the animations were so much more fluid because you're working with the cartoon versus real life. So it was fun. Don't get me wrong, but, you know, I thought it looked pretty bad.GP 29:05 Yeah, it's the video game equivalent to spawn the live action movie. Yeah. Yeah, it didn't necessarily look that great. Also, some of the acting was hit or miss. But in the end, there's something about it that I still love. But yeah, well what do you think about that Mortal Kombat? Ugly but great or just a game? What do you think? I thinkWulff 29:25 it's just a game. I was never drawn into Mortal Kombat. Like all my friends were a I mean, I was in the initial rush of it. Yeah, it was like, Oh my gosh, they're just brutally bashing each other's skulls in and there's blood and Oh, man. But at the end of the day, I was still kind of like well, street fighters more fun and prettier. Pen over this. I granted my experience with it was a neighborhood full of kids who had the Genesis so it was even more limited than the Super Nintendo one. So I'm kind of colored by that memory. Everybody I knew had it for Genesis, because of course more blood.GP 30:04 Right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Jake, how about you?Jake 30:09 I've been I hate disagreeing with you guys on every game. It's not that but Okay, look, you're right Street Fighter is definitely notPalsh 30:16 garbage say it's a game.Jake 30:18 It's not it's not lukewarm garbage at best. Okay? You microwave me onWulff 30:25 the garbage?GP 30:27 If your argument against me here's it's not that bad. OkayUnknown Speaker 30:33 then it's kind of that bad.Jake 30:34 All right. The color palette is a bit limited, I give you that. But the digitized actors was revolutionary and they look pretty good. In fact, I wonder if you compare the frames of animation in Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter? I bet you they have the same frames. The only difference is not as colorful. And like you're right when you mentioned later entries, the series that kind of expand on that. Moral Kombat three is one of my favorite fighting games and the color Pelletier is amazing, but just watching Keno. That rapscallion thrusting his fist in somebody's chest and pulling out their beating heart. That looked great. I thought that was hilarious as it was good looking to me at the time. I like to look at the game I also love subzero team some zero I will be for life. I thought the sprites and the characters were well done. all agree Street Fighter looks better, but I think brutal combat is not as bad as you think it is. It's no clay fighter but that way. Okay,Palsh 31:30 basically, Jake feels like Cora when he got punched in the nuts in the first movie.Unknown Speaker 31:36 That's true.GP 31:38 And the rest of us feel like Johnny K. Yeah.Palsh 31:41 hundred dollar glasses, glasses. SoJake 31:45 last all this before or after the discectomy I'm leaving that one.GP 31:50 Yeah, glass, all for the wind. Okay, I like that. Okay, so um, next is going to be the 32 bit category. Let's start with Paul. Tell me Whoa, and let's, let's, let's clarify this. This tier is 3264 bit because we'reWulff 32:05 Yeah, it's the same generationPalsh 32:08 so we can switch it up. Okay. So I'm going to name a game. And I'm going to tell you guys what the game and I want you to tell me if you think that I think it's ugly but amazing, or if I think it's terrible, but beautiful.Palsh 32:22 Okay. Okay.Palsh 32:25 Castlevania Symphony of the Night.Jake 32:31 Okay, if you don't think that's a pretty game, there's something wrong with you.Palsh 32:33 Yeah, that was just trolling. I was hoping. For more.Wulff 32:38 See, I was in on that one. Otherwise, I probably would have laid into pause What the fuck is wrong with you?Palsh 32:46 Know, that one I can't say anything bad about so. That's the joke. So anyways, continue forward.GP 32:54 No, now you have to give us a real game. Yeah, I believe a beautiful 32 or 64 Doom 64 Okay, okay, tell us about that. Why why why do you hate that game so much?Palsh 33:06 It would look great. I remember seeing magazine ads, I remember playing it or not playing it wanting to play it. And then finally I went out on vacation, came back and had a copy of it my hand I was like it was this or Duke Nukem. 64 I was already playing Duke Nukem 64 I was like, okay, so I need something new for me, my friends. So we can just lay into this game. And I tried it. I was like, This looks so cool. And then I realized this, like, this game is crap. I was so disappointed with it. It moved well, like the graphics look great. But it other than that, it just felt like a little bit better version of doom to me like, and I can't play the original Doom anymore or give it headaches just from the motion. So it looked better. But I was disappointed because I thought it was, you know, the 64 and it just meant it was for 64 and I thought it was going to be the actual Doom with better ground. Fix. Now it was completely different. Like they made their own game and I was just I wasn't ready for that disappointment. You've you've given me a bit of a revelation here and agree or disagree but let me know. Would you say no?GP 34:16 Okay, moving on. No. Would you say that video game commercials and box art and descriptions? Were the back in the day preteen equivalent to Tinder profiles.Palsh 34:32 Never thought about it now.GP 34:33 Yeah, they show up and you're so excited because their profile and then they show up and you realize this is not what I thought it was going to bePalsh 34:40 at all. Man, sir.Jake 34:43 Well, you are thirsty and hell.GP 34:46 Oh, God, thirsty for that video game. Yeah.Palsh 34:51 I didn't care about girls back then. I just cared about more video games. Just thinking about that power ofGP 34:57 the power of what was your favorite position back then? 64 cut that out.Jake 35:05 Nope. Three hands on the stick.Palsh 35:08 That's my joke on you need three hands to play an M 64 controller.GP 35:13 Yeah, we saw that name then way nowhere. Okay, so Doom 64. werewolf. What do you what do you think? agree disagree?Wulff 35:22 That's one I don't know much about unfortunately. I thought it was just gonna be Doom for in 64 so I didn't bother with it.Palsh 35:34 PC Okay, shut up.Wulff 35:36 No literally like I thought it was Doom like because I played it on. I think I played it at a friend's house on PC and then I had played it on Super Nintendo. So I was like, well, I played it on a couple of platforms. I don't want to play it again. So I didn't play it for in 64Palsh 35:53 Yeah, well that's that's exactly why I bought it because they'll say Oh, man, like it's a better version. No.GP 35:58 Wrong That's brilliant wrong. Was that Charlie Murphy? Wrong?Wulff 36:05 Or the tigers in Wow, wrong? Yeah.GP 36:10 Okay, but see like how great of a pic was that pulse bought the game because of two words. Doom 64 did not buy that game because of two words. Doom 64 I swipe left soWulff 36:26 hard.Palsh 36:30 Man. I practically hit super like all right.GP 36:35 I don't get that reference. I don't know super late.Palsh 36:38 I'm very single. We'll put it that way.GP 36:44 Okay, so, Jake, what do you do? I'm 64Jake 36:49 I'm actually not a fan of doom. I actually don't like the series at all. Although the recent PC ones that came with the reboots, those are okay but the classic do my never really cared for and there's a series of games on the 60 That kind of tried to bring over to the PC stuff. There's Duke Nukem and hexen. And I think XM XM hex n. That's a word was the better of those type of games that 2d sprites in a 3d world? I didn't care for Doom 64 at all. I did rent it. I played a little bit. I couldn't care for it at all. It is ugly. I'll give you that. I just also think it's a bad game.GP 37:23 Yeah, and I think Doom 64 was one of those games, where I watched my cousins play it. And I loved watching them like I could keep up with it. If I was watching somebody else, but the first time I tried playing it, it was like I completely forgotten what it was like to look at the game and could no longer keep up with it. So I played maybe 30 minutes of it and realize this is not for me to play. But it was entertaining to watch other people run and gun and blow up stuff. So I like it and the visuals are okay so long as I am not guiding the visuals. But that's that's just me say Take what do you ever is for this category? Ugly but great 32 or 64 bit? Okay.Jake 38:07 Hear me you Final Fantasy seven. I love this game.GP 38:11 I think that's a great choice Yeah,Jake 38:13 everybody loves family seven or at least people who were in that generation love probably seven. Today it doesn't hold up for sure I mean the pre rendered backgrounds and in the CGI very pixelated very under rez for today's time but even back in high school I played this game originally, the sprites and the overworld and the exploration areas like cloud looks like some kind of peanuts character mutated into 3d polygon. And there's no textures anywhere to be found any of the enemies practically It is one of the ugliest first gen 3d games I've ever seen. Like I'm talking marrow 64 Meg's father's sevens cloud look like fucking the Mona Lisa. This game is the only reason people like this game. is because of the FMV The video is very cool. And I love that story. I love the music, and the gameplay is fun. But it's ugly as hell.GP 39:09 No, I think I think that's, that may be one of the best because that's exactly right. And I think part of the reason Personally, I was so let down by the graphics is because the commercials that came out back in 97 for the games pretty much only showed the FMV it's the one so your hype for this and you're like, Oh my god, considering the last Final Fantasy with six leaps and bounds and you play it and you're like you said you're just playing to get to the next video. But somewhere somewhere in there you fall in love with it. That's probably like the earliest version of you know, people getting mad because of, you know, not showing gameplay, you know, because that wasn't the practice back then. You know, everybody just played the game because there weren't cutscenes like that. And now it's like the cutscenes look awesome, but let's see what the gameplay looks like you know, so you have gameplay trailers besides you Know the actual trailer? Well yeah, it's the video you ever been catfished by a video game? That's the idea right? The whole dating thing around again? Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I think that's a great observation and that is the cultural and historical significance of the Final Fantasy seven commercials. But if you go back and still because I did this recently if you YouTube the original Final Fantasy seven TV commercials I still get the same feelsJake 40:28 Oh yeah, the atmosphere is amazing and and said jump from snez to PlayStation you just so hyped that the game is going to look amazing and that we all love family six I think of this podcast and just yeah the sprite work and there's great the bosses look I'm awesome. It's graph as graphics are amazing because 2d, so you just really hoping that for the jump to 3d would be something amazing. And what they show you the commercials. Looks great. But that's maybe about 10 minutes of FMV the entire game.Palsh 40:56 YeahWulff 40:58 that's true. Wolfie what do you what do you think? Final Fantasy seven okay I'm probably in the minority here to where I'm not a huge fan of Final Fantasy seven that's not to say I wasn't when it came out I played 200 hours probably in that first go through where I did just about everything I think except killing Ruby weapon I even made a second Knights of the Round soGP 41:25 so I'm hearing you say you never beat Final Fantasy I'm playing I'm playing I'm playingWulff 41:33 now I I even made like I I enjoyed that game so much that time that I even made a friggin anime music video and I am V out of it back in the day with VHS like that was time consuming first I was dedication.GP 41:49 Yeah,Wulff 41:51 I still that's the only one I did. Oh no, that's not true. I did one with Resident Evil as well, but I really enjoyed that game the first time and then every time I've tried to play since I can't put more than like three hours into it before I'm just bored and walk away the game. Like even when I tried to play it a second time back then I was just like, man, I can't. So, to me the game, it hits some notes the first time other than that, I can't agree with that. It's an amazing game. I feel like it's just been overhyped so much. And I think it's also the fact that it wasn't my first Final Fantasy, a lot of people who love it, it was their first Final Fantasy, and that's often the case, but I will agree the game didn't look quite as good as I was hoping. But then I had spent all summer plans so he could n and Wild Arms and compared to Wild Arms. It was damn gorgeous.Palsh 42:47 Wait, you mean it's not pronounced suikodenWulff 42:49 crap? No. But yeah,GP 42:53 it's pronounced Wild Arms thatWulff 42:57 that jump from sprites. It makes It with those backgrounds and everything it even though they weren't pretty polygons by any means for the characters, it was still an exciting change of presentation that let them tell the story in a different way.GP 43:12 And I feel like with Final Fantasy seven they overcorrected the ship when they came out with Final Fantasy eight, with seven, the backgrounds looked more lush and detailed than the characters. And then they came out with eight. And the background was kind of put on the backburner, so they could focus on the sprites and the overworld for the main characters. So at least they paid attention and corrected a lot of people's biggest complaints. But yeah, I think that was a good good entry there. Were all four do you have for us in this category? 32 to 64 bit ugly but lovable Bushido blade? Yeah, we couldn't Bushido blade.Wulff 43:53 I'm not gonna lie. I was kind of a square fanboy back in the PlayStation era. So I was getting all their stuff. Like it I had bought total number one nobody got total number one, but I got Bushido blade and it's it's not what I expected it to be and I had so much fun with it. And my friends and I we would just sit there and play Bushido blade for hours just because the combat it was so intricate for as limited as it was, I mean you injure your opponent, but if you got a killing stab that was it that that match was over with. There was no health bars, it was injury or death. And you can even mess up your opponent by like throwing sand in their fat face like a dirty rapscallion and then taking advantage of it. It it was it was so much fun and even just unlocking it. The the I think it had a couple of hidden characters. It was totally worth it. Just there was a lot of nuance to the game. Play that you don't see in a lot of fighting games.GP 45:03 I'm sitting here I'm trying to remember exactly which one Bushido blade was. So it was it was a fighting game.Wulff 45:09 Yeah, to a degree. It was a weapons fighting game. And I think you actually got to choose between a few weapons to if I remember correctly. Yeah, you're right. What the cover looks like I'm sorry, I'm trying to remember this one is black and white with I think a big big red splatter on it is like a black and white pencil drawing or ink drawing of somebody and then a big red blood splatter bladeGP 45:39 I'm also Yeah, I google image that endure. Yeah, I do remember now. I'm sorry. Thank you.Wulff 45:44 But yeah, the the character models were not pretty that the locations are not very pretty. They weren't even very detailed. It was like one of them was a big courtyard of cherry blossom trees. And it looked like they just copy pasted the same square aware of the arena over and over and over and over the lawn from one end to the other until they got to the opposite wall.Jake 46:05 There was a wonky camera and that came for sure used to zoom way out or like really get really closeWulff 46:11 yeah cuz it let you run away from the your opponent pretty far right? Which of course just made the characters even more unreadable?GP 46:21 Yeah, yeah more obscure. But yeah, I'll be honest that sounds like a piece of crap well done that's not a good entry sick Jake, what do you think about that one?Jake 46:33 I love the game to me. We talked about this before the podcast procedure plays one of my favorite games of the PlayStation because it's not that many I played on that. The combat that one on one combat. I just love how most weapons strikes will like outright kill your opponent if they connect but there's all about the Perry system. And that's pretty unique for its time and there's not many games these days that have that same you know, do or die combat system. But I just love it when you thank you Nick's amazed leg that dropped to the ground. But they weren't dead. They still kept fighting while they're on the floor. I thought was hilarious. I loveWulff 47:07 Yeah, they'll they'll like drag one leg while like trying to walk with the other leg with this horrible limp and it's great.Jake 47:15 It's like Black Knight fight, right? Yeah,Wulff 47:18 you break their arm and it just falls limp. They should have made theGP 47:23 Black Knight like an unlockable character.Jake 47:26 I'll know your polygons off. It's great. I love it.Jake 47:31 The backgrounds I agree are bad. But there was a style to it though. Like the bamboo forest, the cherry blossoms it kind of felt like that martial arts, you know trope that's set up in a deserted field. A courtyard has been cleared away to warriors that battle. It had the style, but yeah, you're right. It did not have the graphic power and the textures to back it out.GP 47:54 And then in the background, you see just the opening scene from Ninja Gaiden taking place.Palsh 48:00 As long as that music from ninja guidance playing I'm down for it. I love that game.GP 48:07 Okay, so Polish What was your? No You got us at the beginning. Sorry I got Castlevania joke. Yes. And the wolf goddess with Bushido blade. Jake What do you got?Jake 48:21 We went seven manGP 48:24 that's right that's how forgettable of a game that is.Wulff 48:28 Bomb.GP 48:30 I know I'm just I'm drinking drinking my haterade tonight No, I The reason I'm selling is because I've got so many honorable mentions for this category for 32 to 64 ultimately, I've settled on one but Metal Gear Solid has not aged well. This is not my These are my my honorable mentions. Such a great game, full of story and a lot of amazing twists and turns, but even playing that way came out. The graphics took me out of it. Mortal Kombat mythology sub zero. The fighting in that I don't know if you guys ever played that the graphics were bad. The fighting style was decent, but the platforming was abysmal, but it was still oddly charming because it's sub zero in an open world type setting. But ultimately, I think I have to settle for ugly but with a lot of heart, Nintendo 60 fours, GoldenEye. It was going to be that or Superman 64. And ultimately, I just don't care enough about Superman 64 so GoldenEye because I love that game. I don't know how much of the actual game or campaign I ever played through. I know I've watched it wire to wire with my older brother, but the four person you know, challenge mode was my entire experience pretty much with the 64 like that and Mario 64 and not much else. But he did great Yeah well but I mean even if you guys ever played like the giant head hack or you know code for golden it came on game was so yes DK mode so incredibly ugly but so much fun and it for me it was one of the first multiplayer you know games like that What do you guys think about golden I polished let's start with you know you summed it upPalsh 50:23 I really can't add to it because it's just I want to say I loved it when it first came out but at the same like for graphics was but I think it was more just how you could shoot people in the crotch and they grab their crops and then fall over dead you know or it would tell you like give you the tally of headshots arm shots leg shots torso other you know other was always the crotch shot so right yeah, but I mean the graphics as much as I want to admit I thought they were amazing. I think it was more the gameplay itself soGP 50:59 no slough Rizzoli. I'm still still playing that from an unfinished game that we started back then. That's impossible. Well, what do you think about GoldenEye? Ah,Wulff 51:11 yeah, a, it didn't have a whole lot of texturing I think the majority of the the texture quality went to the characters faces, but not their models. So the game itself though, was an absolute blast. It wasn't a whole lot to look at, which is probably for the best because it I think it helped it run a little smoother. There were a lot and 64 first person games that made me gave me headaches or made me dizzy, something like that. Man, I spent so many hours in that game with friends after school. We just go to somebody's house and play for like two three hours that day and then do it all over again. The next day. It was crazy.GP 51:54 Well, and it was just good enough of a game to make you want to hate your friends. Oh yeah, only for a short for short amount of time because like you said the next day, you're fine. Or if you were mad at somebody, you were only mad until you shot them in the crotch and then you were squareWulff 52:10 that that Mario Kart 64 games that end your friendship for the day. Yep. And but it's fine tomorrow.Palsh 52:18 Yeah. And then you started all over again with the next match.GP 52:20 Yeah, we should we should set up a multi person. tournament or like cast of if we can figure out a way to do that either like Mario Kart orGP 52:30 golden I think would be a blast. There's a PC version. I think actually, if GoldenEyeWulff 52:34 And isn't it awful?Jake 52:37 Okay, just likeGP 52:42 Okay, cool. So Jacob, what's your take on GoldenEyeJake 52:45 wolf said I pretty much nail on the head with the low character Polly's or low Polly's link character models, the triangle shaped heads, it reminds me of that music video Dire Straits money for nothing. We're just Bismillahi low polygon models and it's just terrible plusses against 64. And hey, I love the system. I love Nintendo but they had the fog problem like the jungle level and the Russian level it just the design to get around the graphic failures. They brought in more fog, just more fog. And they do that all these games and it's just does not work for the game at all. But it's a fun game. I used to play multiplayer like everybody else. Proximity mines is my favorite weapon. I love that. Yeah, I love the game and I love playing it but you're right. It's it's ugly as dirt.GP 53:31 Yeah. Do you know who I killed more with proximity mines than anybody else yourself? Yes, me. I find my short term memory man. I try.Palsh 53:40 I tried to lure people into it without setting it off myself. And was very unsuccessful.GP 53:46 Shit went to the to the point of the fog. And to kind of again, put this all in the same packaging as the Tinder and the dating things. They do the same thing in nightclubs. You know dim the lights a little bit and put into more fog, it'd be fine. So we've all fallen victim to that it's okay. Alright, so on to the other side of that coin. Let's now examine the beautiful games that are completely without any other merits. Next time, well maybe not next time but in the upcoming episodes on presby to cancel. Let's go around and restate our names a group of rapscallions and tell everybody where they can find us. Jake, you want to start us off?Jake 54:33 Sure I'm sick Jake, you can find me on Twitch and Twitter. And I guess hereGP 54:39 Wonderful. Thank youPalsh 54:41 push. You can find me here most of all, and I also stream very sparingly on Twitch as well under pulse 109 pls h 109.Wulff 54:52 Okay, very good. And well. You can find me streaming on Twitch or here or occasionally posting on Twitter. werewolf w ar EWLFFGP 55:04 awesome and I am guy prime. You can find me here on Twitch under the retro therapy or on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter as the retro therapy, everybody until next time, thank you so much for joining us.Jake 55:21 Special thanks for music go to Arthur, the ancient found on Soundcloud or the last ancient on YouTube. For more episodes, please visit our website presby to cancel.com as well Feel free to like or subscribe at Apple iTunes, Google podcasts or anywhere else you'd like to listen to your favorite shows. As always, thank you. This has beenWulff 55:42 a do againSpecial thanks to Arthur The Last Ancient on soundcloud for our podcast theme. For updates and more episodes please visit our website www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on Twitter @pressbtocancel and Instagram @pressbtocancel.

COMMENTARY In Paul’s day, Roman society was made up of a hierarchy of social classes that determined just about everything. They determined what a person could wear, whom they could marry, even where they could sit! So naturally, many people desired to climb the social ladder. One way they could do this was by gaining honor for themselves. We can see this especially in the lives of Roman emperors. Around this time, Roman emperors began to call themselves gods and welcomed the worship of themselves as gods. In doing so, they gained honor for themselves and solidified their spot at the top of the social ladder. In Philippians 2:1-11, Paul critiques this social structure. He does this in part by contrasting Jesus and Caesar. He writes in verses 6-7, “[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.” Here, Paul implicitly distinguishes Jesus from Caesar. Whereas Caesar was a man who wanted to be worshiped as God for his own advantage, Jesus was God but became a man for our advantage. In fact, He became a “servant,” a member of the lowest class in Roman society, and died on a cross, a form of execution reserved for servants. The irony of this is that Jesus’ humiliation ultimately resulted in His exaltation with every person, including Caesar, acknowledging Him as the one true Lord (Philippians 2:9-11)! Jesus therefore flipped the Roman social structure upside down. Paul does not stop there. He continues to critique the Roman social structure by teaching readers to imitate Jesus: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). Apparently, some Philippian Christians had sought to advance their social status to the detriment of others and this created division in the church. So, Paul let them know that as citizens of heaven they were not to do as the Romans do, but to do as Jesus did. Jesus did not try to gain honor for Himself. Jesus humbled Himself because He valued people over His position and His pride. A lot has changed since Roman times, but many of us still feel the impulse to climb the social ladder. Paul’s message for us is to imitate Jesus by putting others first. It was through an act of humility that Jesus repaired His relationship with us, and it is through humility that we can maintain healthy relationships with others. SCRIPTURE PHILIPPIANS 2:1–11 CHAPTER 2 IMITATING CHRIST’S HUMILITY 1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. REFLECTION 1. In Philippians 2:5-11, Paul instructs his readers to have a mindset of humble service like Jesus. But Paul is not content to teach only with his words; he also leads the way with his actions. Reflecting back on chapter 1, how had Paul already modeled a mindset of humble service (see especially verses 1, 15-18, 23-25)? Who in your life has modeled a mindset of humble service to you? 2. In Philippians 2:2, Paul pleads with his Philippian readers to have unity with one another. This is neither the first nor the last time that Paul makes this request in this letter (Philippians 1:27; 2:4; 4:2). Unity was obviously a struggle for the church in Philippi, but why do you suppose unity was so important to Paul? What makes unity so hard to achieve even in the church today, and why should unity matter to us?

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Katia: Hello, everyone, this is Katia from Mexico and we are here with Paul from England, and today we're gonna have a very interesting conversation about men. What's difficult about being a man and what are the good things about being a man, so we have the right candidate for this. Paul, what are the bad things about being a man?Paul: What's difficult about being a man? Well, I think... the hardest thing I think is working. The man is under a lot of pressure to go to work and to earn money for the family.Katia: But I thought men like to work.Paul: Yeah, men do like to work of course. Like most men want to have a career but along with the work, there's a lot of pressure. They have pressure from their wife, from their kids, from their family, from the bank manager.Katia: Yeah, I guess so. That can be stressful. What else? What else are one of the bad thing of being a man?Paul: Well, I guess, if a man's... has a good job or a job that's taking up a lot of his time, this can sometimes lead to problems with his relationship, especially with his his kids, I think. For example, if the kids are spending a lot of time with their mother, usually they form a closer relationship with their mom, so the father, I think, misses out on his kids growing up sometimes.Katia: Yeah, that is true and now I can that clearly unfortunately it seems that it's a lot of bad things with the job, but I am sure they're very good things about being a man.Paul: For sure, there are a lot of advantages I think. For example, appearance. I think, for a man, he doesn't really... when he's not working, he doesn't really need to worry about his appearance. He can wear whatever clothes he wants to wear. He doesn't brush is hair or he can wear scruffy shoes for example.Katia: Mmm, are you sure about that one?Paul: Would you disagree? Yeah, I think usually that appearance is not so important for a man.Katia: Possibly.I guess women spend more time in appearances but there must be more things than this about good things about being a man.Paul: Good things? I think men usually can have more fun than women. Like in their free time, they get to play sport and do a lot more fun things I think than women.Katia: Well, Paul, I'm gonna have to disagree with that one, but tell me why. Why do you think men can have more fun than women?Paul: Maybe I'm just thinking from a man's point of view, but to me shopping sounds very boring.Katia: OK, well, I do agree with that one, but still you haven't answered my question.Paul: What was your question again?Katia: Why do you think men can have more fun than women?Paul: Just I think that men have a lot more freedom to do fun things and travel. For example, safety and traveling alone. A man can just go traveling by himself, where a woman, she has to think, where am I going, is it safe. For example, this kind of think.Katia: OK. I can understand a little bit. You were getting a little bit nervous, Paul.

 In this episode of the P100 Podcast, our hosts Paul, Dan and Logan welcome Nicole Chynoweth from the Carnegie Science Center to discuss the center’s new exhibit on mummies. From there we move on to the science of fear, and then on to hockey with their guest, Jeremy Church. This episode wraps up with a review of some unique Pennsylvania town names. We bet you have your favorites.----more----Full transcript here:Logan: You are listening to the P100 podcast, the biweekly companion piece to the Pittsburgh 100, bringing you Pittsburgh news culture and more because sometimes 100 words just aren't enough for a great story.Dan: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the P100 Podcast, we're happy to have you back for another episode. I am Dan Stefano, I'm here with Logan Armstrong. Logan.Logan: How's it going?Dan: A pleasure to have you with us and Paul Furiga will be joining us in a little bit. Today's episode we're going to be talking about mummies. Not your mothers, not like that Logan. I see you, that's what you're thinking. No, just having a pleasant thought, thinking about dear old mom. No, Okay.Dan: Now, we're actually going to be talking about the mummies that you might think of whenever you think of ancient Egypt and other parts of the world here. There's a new exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center - Mummies of the World, and we're really excited to talk with someone from the Science Center about that.Dan: Afterward, we're going to be discussing the science of fear. Keeping with us, somewhat of a Halloween type of theme here. Then, we're going to be talking about, what everybody knows, it's the beginning of hockey season. Logan, you excited about that?Logan: No. Dan: No. You're not excited about hockey. Okay. Well, I am and some other people in the office, and we're going to be talking with one of them about the growth of youth hockey in the region, which is really something that's taken off in the past few couple of decades here in Pittsburgh. And we're going to finish up with Logan and I being just as serious we are now. We're going to talk about strange Pennsylvania town names. So if you make it to the end, you're going to be in for treat on that one.Logan: Oh yeah. Stay tuned.Dan: Okay, so let's get going. All right guys, for this segment we're going to talk about mummies. In particular, mummies of the world, the exhibition. It's a new exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center and from the Science Center, we have Nicole Chynoweth. Nicole, thanks for being here.Nicole: Thank you for having me.Dan: Absolutely. Thanks for being with us here. And can we talk a little bit about your own role within the Science Center here. Can you tell us your position and a little bit what you do?Nicole: Sure. So, I'm the manager of marketing, public relations, and social media with a focus on exhibits and the Rangos Giants Cinema.Dan: Great. What does that entail then? I mean, that I imagine you you are working with a lot of different positions there. Right?Nicole: Yeah, it's a really fun job. I get my hands in everything from new movies that we have coming out at the Rangos, educational films to the exciting new exhibits that we're bringing to the science center, from space topics, planetarium related things, and mummies-Dan: Really cool, it seems like a fun place to work. Right?Paul: Nicole, you've had your hands in the mummies?Nicole: No.Paul: Okay. The promotion of the mummies.Dan: The promotion of the mummies. Paul: I'm sure we'll talk about some of the technical aspects, but that would seem a little gross, but...Nicole: I don't think so. I find the exhibition more fascinating than I do creepy. And I'm not a fan of scary movies or I did not watch the Brendan Fraser mummy movie.Paul: You didn't?Nicole: No interest in that.Paul: I did watch those.Dan: You're missing out on a classic from the 1990s.Paul: Yeah. Well, classic is a little strong-Dan: I think it should have won an Oscar, but that's just me.Paul: Okay, Dan. We'll talk about that another time. So Nicole, when I think of the science center, I think about some of the other things you mentioned. Space, technology, mummies?Nicole: Yes, mummies are, especially this show, the mummies featured in Mummies of the World, the exhibition is, have so much to offer in terms of scientific, anatomical, biological information that we can still learn from today. So what I find really exciting about the mummies of the world is that it focuses on both natural mummification and intentional mummification. So, you might be more familiar with intentional mummification. That's the type that was [crosstalk 00:04:15] practicing in ancient Egypt. Correct.Nicole: And we do have some examples of Egyptian mummification in the show, but this also takes a look at the natural mummification process that can happen when conditions are at such a level moisture wise, temperature-wise that is able to naturally mummify a body, be it animal or human.Dan: Right. Well, it sounds like some pretty amazing things to see...Paul: Yeah, it's fascinating.Dan: What are some examples maybe of the intended mummification that we'd see there? I mean, is there anything from, I guess everybody knows about Egyptian mummies but then, they're also South American. What else might you see?Nicole: So an interesting example of the intentional mummification process that aside from like the Egyptian mummies that are featured in the show, there is Mumab, also known as the Maryland Mummy. In the nineties, two scientists at the University of Maryland decided that they wanted to try their hand at an Egyptian mummification process. A man had donated his body to science, and so they started the process of mummifying him. So, you can see Mumab in the show.Nicole: That's just an interesting way of seeing how we are still learning thousands and thousands of years later about how this process works and the tools that they had to use to complete the process and what the body has to go through for mummification to occur.Dan: That's really cool.Paul: Did it work?Nicole: I've been told that it's still in process, it's not completely... He's not completely mummified yet.Paul: Take some time?Nicole: Yes.Paul: Wow. Something I never knew.Dan: That's pretty awesome. Can you tell us what else is in the exhibit then? I mean, are there any, you say interactive portions to it. What should people and families expect whenever they're inside here. It's not just, as you'd be at a museum taking a look. I mean one of the great things about the science center is it kind of hands-on.Paul: Hands-on. Yeah.Nicole: Yes. So in addition, to the 40 animal and human mummies and 85 rare related artifacts, visitors will also be able to look through several interactives related to different topics within mummification. I think a favorite among children will definitely be the, what does mummy feel like a station where you can touch different types of mummified materials, so there's like frog skin, fur. Mummified fur, different things like that they'll be able to touch these like textile panels that are examples of what those things feel like.Nicole: Another great interactive is there's a large map that shows where different types of mummies have been found all over the world, which I think is really important to look at from the perspective of which, like you said, we are so used to just thinking about Egyptian mummies.Paul: Yes.Nicole: And really there are mummies all over the world, [crosstalk 00:07:15].Paul: So not to be surprised?Nicole: Yeah.Paul: You never know where you might find a mummy!Nicole: Right, right.Dan: Okay. Well, people will hear, we can see Mummies of the World through April 19th that's correct, right?Nicole: Correct. Open through April 19th. It takes about 60 to 90 minutes to get through the exhibition, for parents that are maybe wondering if the exhibition is appropriate for their children. We do have a family guide available at carnegiesciencecenter.org/mummies, that might answer some of the questions parents have before they take their kids to the exhibition.Nicole: But I really believe that it is appropriate for all ages and I think people will take something away from the show, be it a new interest in archeology or anthropology or just being able to connect with the backstories of the mommies that are featured in the show. You get to know them. They're more than just a mummy in front of you. You learn their story, how they lived, the way they lived, where they were from. So, super excited to have it at the science center and to be able to offer this experience to Pittsburghers.Dan: That's great. Anything else happen at the science center lately?Nicole: Yes. So, it's Halloween season.Dan: Yes.Nicole: What better time than to experience a scary movie on Pittsburgh's largest screen?Paul: Very good.Nicole: The Rangos Strengths Cinema teamed up with Scare House, this year actually for Rangos x Scare House. We co-curated some Halloween movies together to offer Pittsburgh a really exciting lineup for the Halloween seasons. So we have coming up the Universal Studios Classic Monsters. We're showing the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein and Dracula, on October 11th through the 13th.Nicole: We also have Dawn of the Dead 3D showing October 25th and the 26th. And that's a really exciting screening because they don't often show the 3D version. So if you've seen Dawn the Dead before, I can guarantee you have not seen it like this.Dan: This is the original one?Nicole: Yes. This is the original Dawn of the dead. Yes.Paul: In 3D.Nicole: In 3D.Paul: Have you seen it, Nicole?Nicole: I have not seen it. I'm not a huge fan of the scary movies, but I've been told that if there's one I should experience at the Rangos this year. It's probably this one.Dan: All right? Just how big again is the Rangos?Nicole: So we are a certified giant screen. The screen itself measures 72 by 38 feet.Paul: Wow.Nicole: We also have 45 surround sound speakers. Your average theater has 14.Paul: Dan, if you and I can get that past our spouses and into our basements. I think that'll be good.Dan: I might have to tear down a wall or two in my basement, but I think I can handle it.Paul: You know, it's all about the purpose, Dan.Dan: You know what, we're trying to fix more damage to begin with. So I think I could get this Rangos a screen down here. That'd be perfect.Paul: It'd be very nice.Dan: Nicole, how can people find out more about the Carnegie Science Center, both online and in social media?Nicole: Sure. Visit us at carnegiesciencecenter.org or find us on Facebook. Carnegie Science Center or Twitter and Instagram @Carnegie S-C-I-C-T-R.Dan: Okay. Thanks so much for coming on Nicole. We appreciate it.Nicole: Thank you.Paul: Yes.Dan: All right guys. We were just talking about mummies and now we're going to... mummies, if you'll look back at it, they're famous movie monsters, some of the old ones from the 30s, some of the more recent mummy movies and whatnot.Paul: Brendan Fraser.Dan: Exactly, yeah. I love those horror movies and I love being scared. I love this time of year whenever we get a chance to go out to a haunted house. Me and my wife try to do one at least once a year. She's not wild about them, but I have a great time. Even right now in a couple of days. I believe the scare house is going to be reopening the scare houses. One of the more popular attractions around the area of this third winter.Paul: Award-winning.Dan: Award-winning, correct. Yeah. They had to move from Etna and they're in the Strip District. I think they maybe even changed the name to reflect that, but I think, it's interesting that people love to go to these things and they're so well attended.Dan: You see the lines around the block just to be scared and so I've had a chance to go look at the psychology of fear here, and there's an interesting phenomenon that researchers have found called VANE. It's V-A-N-E, and it stands for Voluntary Arousing Negative Experiences. Logan or Paul, you guys ever felt anything like that? Do you have any voluntary experiences?Paul: Yes. Dan, some people call that work?Dan: No. Yes.Paul: I've absolutely. So, I mean, I'm the old guy in the room. You think back to when I was a teenager, the voluntary arousing negative experience was to take the date you really like to a scary movie.Dan: Okay.Paul: I think we're going to get into this Dan, some of the why this is in... Things that people will voluntarily do you, you might not have expected a certain level of affection from your date, but if you took her to a scary movie, there would be the involuntary reaction when something happened on the screen of-Dan: Them getting closer? There you go. That's clever.Paul: Yeah. Well, and it's all this time at least all the scary movies.Dan: I think, when you look at some of the research here, what they point at, one of the most important parts of that is that it `is voluntary and that people were making a conscious decision to go out and be scared. And a lot of that is about overcoming stress. And you might go in with another person, you're working together to try to get through this shared experience here, fighting the monsters, try not to punch the actors who are just trying to have a good time and scare you.Dan: But they get a chance to get outside of themselves, and as we said, face a fear and there's really a great quote here from a woman named Justine Musk. Her quote says, "Fear is a powerful beast, but we can learn to ride it". I think that's just a very good succinct way to put it. But our good friend Logan here, you were actually a psychology major for a couple of years at Pitt and you know a lot about fear.Logan: Yes. So, as you said, I was a psychology major for a few years. I really enjoy just kind of how humans work. But so basically what it is that you have a part of your brain and it's a little almond-shaped lobe called a medulla. But, so basically what happens is that you're, when you see emotions on people's faces or when you see something that would cause you to emote in a certain way.Logan: So, say you see you're out in the wild and you see a lion and you're like, well that's not good. So that message sends to your medulla, which then sends to your limbic system. And if you guys are aware of the limbic system, it's your fight or flight response.Dan: Yes, okay.Logan: When you experience these negative arousals, that kicks into high gear and that pumps adrenaline through your entire body, your pupils dilate, your bronchitis dilates, just you're in this hyper-aware zone, and that's where adrenaline junkies get it from.Logan: It's a similar thing to where you're experiencing fear where you might be scared, but your adrenaline is pumping so much and it's releasing so many endorphins and dopamine that you end up enjoying it.Dan: Well. Okay, now we know whenever we either go to a haunted house or if we go see the mummies exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center, none of us are going to be scared because we know all the science, and we just know what's going on in our brain.Paul: Well, I mean this is also why people like roller coasters shout out to the steel curtain at Kennywood. Because they know it's safe. Right?Dan: Right.Paul: The experience is scary, but it's safe. When you go and see a movie. Yes. You sure hope so. You see the movie, you know it's going to be an hour and 20 minutes or two hours or whatever and when it's over, you may have been scared during the movie, but you're okay. The same with the rollercoaster, three minutes and then you're back in line, right it again. Right? Because you've enjoyed that safe experience of being scared.Logan: And it's the same concept where it's going back to my earlier example. If you see a lion in the wild or you're going to be scared. But if you go to the zoo, you're going to think it's cute or whether somebody else tickles you, you get a reaction, but you can't tickle yourself because your brain knows it's not a threat.Dan: Well, we do see a lot of alligators on the streets of Pittsburgh these days, so I don't know. You know what I mean. Maybe we'll see a lion the next, but I don't know that's all there is to know about fear or at least a good introduction for it. So, yeah. Logan, thanks for the knowledge there.Logan: Sure thing.Dan: Yeah. Maybe you should have stayed as a psychology major.Paul: He won't be here helping us today.Dan: That's a fair point.Logan: Now he's like "you really should've stayed a psych major"Logan: Centuries before cell phones and social media, human connections are made around fires. As we shared, the stories have shaped our world. Today, stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts and minds and inspire action. At Word Wright, Pittsburgh's largest independent public relations agency. We understand that before you had a brand before you sold any product or service, you had a story.Logan: Word Wright helps clients to uncover their own Capital S story. The reason someone would want to buy work, invest or partner with you through our patented story-crafting process, visit wordpr.com to uncover your capitalist story.Paul: All right guys. It's a fun time of year because the penguins are back in action. We're all hoping that they can get back to the Stanley cup this year. Who better to have on our vice president Jeremy Church here at one of our vice presidents here at WordWrite. Jeremy, you're involved with hockey and can you tell us a little bit about that?Jeremy: Sure. I've been fortunate to be involved with the game for nearly 40 years now as a player and a coach. Grew up starting about eight I guess in Michigan. Then we moved here in 10 continued to play, went away to prep school and played all through prep school Junior A, was fortunate enough again to play in college and then the last 17 years at various levels. I've been able to coach.Paul: That's awesome. Yeah, Who do you coach with?Jeremy: Right now, I'm coaching my younger son. With 11 Hornets, youth hockey organization. Prior to that, I helped with the high school in Mount Lebanon for five years. Coached at Shady Side Academy for a year and again using the word fortunate was able to go back to the Prep school. I played at Culver Military Academy and coached there for six years and it's a pretty storied program.Paul: That's fair and awesome. Well, Pittsburgh's got a long history in hockey going back to the turn of the century here, pretty much and but from a lot of people, the history and hockey didn't start until Mario Lemieux got here in the early eighties and Jeremy have a fun story about Mario Lemieux actually.Jeremy: I do. There've been two big booms locally when it comes to the growth of the sport. And certainly the first one had to have been when Merrill was drafted back in 1984 so we had just moved here from outside of Detroit and moved to the South Hills and we went to South Hills village one day and the mall was still there. At the time it was Kaufman's Department Store, which is no longer there.Paul: Oh yeah, the mall's there now just no Kaufmann's.Jeremy: So we're walking through and there's a little table set up and there are two or three people sitting there, one of them towers over all the others. And as we get closer and closer, there's no line at all. Mind you, it's Mario Lemieux sitting there signing autographs before he'd ever played a game.Jeremy: So, we walked up to the table, got his autograph. He still really couldn't speak English that well. But if you could imagine today the kind of stir it would create if Mario were around talking at to anyone in any environment. It was the exact opposite back then. I still have the autograph today.Paul: What did you get autographed?Jeremy: They had little teeny pamphlets of him in his Junior A Laval and from the Quebec Major Junior League Jersey, and that's all they had to sign. I think it was him. And it might've been Paul Steigerwald because at the time he was head of showing Mario around town and Mario, for those who don't remember when he was 18 actually lived with a host family in Mount Lebanon for the first year that he was here when he was 18.Paul: Yeah. Well, like I said it, whenever he first got here, he lived with Lemieux.Jeremy: Yeah, he returned the favor.Paul: Well, since that day, whenever there was no line at Kauffman's, today there was no more Kauffman's and you would have a gigantic line. But so what can you say about just seeing the growth of hockey? Especially from a youth hockey angle here, you've been front and center with it your entire life?Jeremy: It's pretty remarkable. Doing a little research earlier and in 1975 there were basically two rinks that you could play out of indoor rinks for Youth Hockey: Rostraver Gardens, which is still around and Mount Lebanon Recreation Center, which is still around.Jeremy: By 1990, when I was in high school, there were 10 and now that figure is roughly doubled to around 20 in the region. There are 62 high school teams and there are 28 organizations in the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League. And within the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League, there are now 5,600 players. And that's for those who are around playing in the eighties or growing up in the eighties and early nineties here, that's almost hard to believe there's, you know that there are 28 organizations, but if you go down through the ranks of 18 and under 16 and under 14, 12, ten eight and under age groups, there's dozens and dozens of teams at various levels all throughout that.Jeremy: So, for last year at the ten-year level, ten-year-old level, there were 80 plus 10 new teams in PAHL, Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League League. So pretty remarkable.Paul: Right, Yeah. The majority of those kids, they're probably not going to be heading to the NHL, but a lot of kids want to at least, pretend that they're one of their heroes and get involved in the game. And I think one of the problems, maybe not a problem with hockey, but one of the issues surrounding it is there is a perception that there is a bit of a barrier to entry. You've got to have skates, you've got to have pads, you've got to have a good helmet, you've got to have a good stick. There's a lot of, there's a lot to that kit there. Jeremy, there are easier ways for kids to get involved in the game today though, right?Jeremy: Yes. Part of the Testament to the Penguins organization and certainly as Sidney Crosby has been, his emphasis and involvement with youth programs and youth hockey initiatives. And not just in Pittsburgh, but I know as well back when he returns to Canada in the summer and throughout the year, he likes to give back to the community.Jeremy: But a big initiative that started, it's now celebrating it's 10 year anniversary or 11 year anniversary is the little Penguins learn to play hockey, where Sid partnered with Dick's sporting goods to give, what is now I believe more than a thousand sets of free equipment out to kids who want to start playing the sport. So that goes hand in hand with a program that I think runs six weeks, eight weeks, in January, February to get kids introduced to hockey.Jeremy: But to your point in that, the big barrier to entry is the cost of equipment, which can be several hundred dollars even for kids that are five, six, seven years old. So that's certainly got a lot of kids involved in the game and has led to those massive increases in participation that I cited before.Paul: All right, that's awesome, Jeremy. Well, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about hockey. We're hoping for another good season from the Penguins. Maybe a longer playoff run than last year. We got a bit of a break last year. I think they earned it after winning a couple of cups. But yeah, thanks again and yeah, we'll talk to you soon.Jeremy: No problem. Thanks to you.Dan: Right. This next segment. We're going to learn a little more about our co-host Logan Armstrong. Logan is from Eighty Four, PA.Logan: That I am.Dan: Now, we got talking about this and it got us, we started, you know, going down a rabbit hole and we got discussing why 84 was actually named 84? At first, I thought it was named after the construction company the-Logan: 84 Lumber.Dan: Yeah, 84 Lumber, and it turns out I was wrong. That 84 is named after 84 PA, and there's a lot of history and a lot of different theories about how the town was named. Logan, do you want to go through some of them maybe?Logan: Yeah, sure. So there are a couple theories. 84 is quite the town. There's not much in it other than 84 Lumber, but you know, it's nice. There are a lot of theories on how it was named, the most popular of which is that it commemorated Grover Cleveland's 1884 election victory. Some other theories were that it's on mile 84 of the railway mail service. My favorite though is that it's located at 80 degrees and four minutes West longitude. This seems like the most probable to me.Dan: My favorite actually is apparently in 1869 general David "Crazy Legs" Hamilton had an outfit of 84 soldiers with them and held off an attack of Outlaws. Now that just sounds fantastic. Yeah.Logan: That sounds quite heroic. If that is the case. I am proud to be from 84 PA.Dan: Maybe you're a descendant of general David "Crazy Legs" Hamilton here. Is that possible?Logan: Yeah. I believe I'm Logan "Crazy Toes" Armstrong.Dan: Okay, keep your shoes on man! We don't want to see anything. Well, after this, after we talked about 84 we also started taking a look at some other weird names for towns in Pennsylvania here and if you go online, you can find quite a few of them. Logan, what were some of the interesting ones you like you?Logan: There are quite a few to choose from. A couple of my favorites were, while the all known intercourse, PA, which is actually the most stolen sign in Pennsylvania, where it says "Welcome to Intercourse" for good reason.Dan: Obvious reasons.Logan: Right. Going along that same route, a rough and ready PA was, they named it after a California Gold Rush town, so I guess they're rough and ready to get some gold out there. Can't blame them for that.Dan: I imagine that sign is also been stolen many times.Logan: Right. Okay. Then, well, let's play a game here. I'm going to give you some Pennsylvania town names and you're going to tell me how you think that those names came to be. How's that sound?Dan: Bring them on. I'm a repository of knowledge.Logan: Okay, great. Peach Bottom.Dan: Peach Bottom. This is simple. This is extremely simple. Everybody in the town of Peach Bottom is very short, and they're, but they're also Peach farmers, so they can only see the bottom of the peaches that come from the trees. It's kind of a shame because they've never seen the peach tops.Logan: That is a shame. Those peach tops are so beautiful.Dan: We have an actual reason why it's called Peach Bottom?Logan: In fact, Dan, you weren't too far off, Peach Bottom. Got its name in 1815 from a peach orchard owned by a settler named John Kirk.Dan: John Kirk was very short, as we all know.Logan: Right? Yes. Okay. Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. What do you think of that?Dan: Schickshinny. Ah, got it. Okay. Shickshinny is named after a famous dance created by the person who created Schick shaving blades. Fun fact, a few people realize that he had a dance. Whenever he would cut his face on his old rusty blades, he would do a little jig-Logan: A little jig!Dan: In a big thing because it can... to get the pain away, and so he decided I've got to create a better, more comfortable blade and so he created the Schick shaving blade.Logan: Well, I foresee-Dan: Everybody knows this.Logan: I've foreseen the future...We had the Whip, we had the Nae Nae. Next, we're going to have the Shickshinny going on in all the clubs in Pittsburgh.Dan: I think this one is actually one of those Indian words that have made a lot of Pennsylvania names here.Logan: Yeah. Yeah. It looks like an Indian word that either means the land of mountains or land of the fine stream.Dan: Or land of the cutting your face on your favorite razor.Logan: Yeah, I think that's the most common translation. Yeah.Dan: Sure.Logan: We are well beyond 100 words today. Thank you for listening to the P100 podcast. This has been Dan Stefano, Logan Armstrong, and Paul Furiga. If you haven't yet, please subscribe at P100podcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, and follow us on Twitter @Pittsburgh100_, for all the latest news updates and more, from the Pittsburgh 100.

In episode 107, I'm talking with Paul Tough about his latest book, The Years That Matter Most: How college makes or breaks us, a powerful mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States. We talk about the state of higher education today and how can we help more young Americans achieve success. Big Ideas Paul Tough's book examines the relationship between higher education and social mobility in the United States today and explores these questions: Does college still work? Is our system of high education fair? How can we help more young Americans achieve success? In the past, higher education was the great engine of social mobility but that relationship has broken down. Today it is viewed by many as an obstacle to social mobility. The most selective institutions, with the biggest endowments and budgets, almost exclusively educate affluent students, while low-income students mostly go to less selective community colleges and regional public universities that spend much less on each student and have much lower graduation rates. Studies show that some institutions spend as little as $4,000 a year per student compared to $150,000 or more on each student at elite, selective colleges. More money per student is spent in public high schools than in most public colleges. In the wealthiest zip codes, more students receive testing accommodations for learning differences than students from less affluent zip codes, which seems like one more advantage for the people who need them the least. While colleges strive to differentiate themselves by their facilities, endowments, and many other attributes, the ethical character of the institution should also be considered. Higher education is not a consumer good, it is a collective good. Tough proposes 3 solutions: Institutional change -- the level of admissions at private institutions needs to change. There should be pressure on them to admit more low-income students. Families should consider the global implication of their decisions and allow the culture to shift away from 'what's better for me' in the short-term to 'what's better for society' in the long-term. Public institutions need more funding and investment so that they can accommodate more low-income students and so that tuition rates don't continue to rise. Although the College Board has tried to change public opinion, they continue to be a force for inequity. The fact remains, the more money you have, the higher your test scores. Standardized test scores need to be given less weight. Test-optional institutions found that they were able to admit more low-income, first-generation students who graduate and succeed at the same rate as other students. Quotes Paul: "I think we have set up this system and there's no one villain that's responsible for the system. We all made it. It has inequities baked into and they're getting worse. It's clear now that there's this kind of stratification of institutions of higher education." Paul: "We've heard a lot about how high tuition is at those private institutions, but the reality is that those institutions are losing money on each student. They spend more on each student than they bring in. That's because they believe it's going to pay off in the future when those alumni become rich donors." Paul: "What is most remarkable to me about those numbers is that we pay for kids all the way through high school and then when they get to this more complicated, sophisticated, essential training for them to get ready for the workplace, we suddenly say, you can get by on a quarter as much as we were spending on you last year." Audrey: "Our kids have gone to very good schools, and they chose them, but we weren't willing to jump through the hoops that we saw other people doing in order to get their kids into those (elite) schools. I was very put off by a lot of the ways other families dealt with things, especially around test prep." Paul: "The overall fact that I think is so critical is that in reality, those students who are admitted to the most selective institutions are, as adults, making the most money." Paul: "The reality is if you are a student at Stanford, if you work at Stanford, if you're part of that world, you are taking part in a system that is making the country more unfair. That's not just a Stanford thing. That's a reality at any of the similarly selective institutions." Paul: "This generation of young people thinks about ethics, morality, and justice a lot and they should." Paul: "The way they talk about race, identity, climate--it's inspiring. This is a generation that is putting ethics, and figuring out how to do the right thing, at the top of their priority list." Paul: "When we look at higher education, we've been trained to see it as something that is a consumer good. If your kids benefit, then my kids fail. If my kids benefit, your kids lose out. That is not the way we used to think about higher education. It was a collective good." Paul: "Considering the ethical quality of the system you're working in, and the system that you are applying to, is a really important consideration and I wouldn't be surprised if more and more young people start thinking about it." Audrey: "We need high performing students at all the universities because that makes it more equitable. So if you're a super bright kid, you can actually benefit some of these larger public institutions in different states by getting some more brains there." Paul: "In the fifties and sixties, students were choosing their colleges just based mostly on geography and as a result colleges were more like high schools. There was a mix of different performers--A students, B students, and C students--but then something changed. Those high performing students started to cluster together at just a few institutions." Paul: "The algorithm that has been drummed into those students' heads is you just have to go to the most exclusive, most selective institution that will admit you. That worldview has created this stratification that is now so common in higher education." Audrey: "Our kids are going to public institutions, not in our own state, which is crazy when you think about it. That is what a lot of families I know do because their kids can't get into the same schools that we went to when we were going to college." Paul: "When we took that public funding away from the institutions in our own states, one solution they had was to begin admitting more out-of-state students because in-state tuition is less than out-of-state tuition...it just doesn't have the same kind of alignment between the mission (of public education) and the reality as I think it used to." Paul: "The reality is that nothing's changed in terms of the relationship between the SAT and our class structure. Test scores on the SAT correlate highly with family income: the more money you have, the more likely you are to get a high test score." Paul: "I think we need to be honest about the relationship between family income and SAT scores. Institutions need to find some way to take a more reasonable view of what those tests can do. We've given them way too much importance in our system." Audrey: "I agree, they don't really predict anything. I've been working more on kids' social skills and character development because those things end up making kids more successful in their jobs and roles, wherever they went to college or whatever they majored in." Paul: "You can sympathize with an admissions officer...All of this other stuff that we know is much more important in terms of evaluating a child and their potential is harder to put numbers on, harder to compare, whereas those numbers (test scores) just seem so tempting, so scientific. They look so nice." Audrey: "This competitive thing just goes on at every level, whether it's the kids applying or the schools trying to have the highest averages, entering SAT and all that stuff." Audrey: "I do think we need some major overhaul. Hopefully, 'varsity blues' and some of these things in your book will get us back on track so that our higher education system is doing what it's supposed to be doing for our country." More from Paul Tough "Working on this book was a remarkable experience: It took me six years to complete, and I reported in twenty-one states. The best part was getting to meet and hear the stories of so many remarkable young people — from the South Bronx to the affluent suburbs of D.C. to the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina — all of them trying to figure out how best to negotiate a path through the sometimes-treacherous landscape of American higher education. In the book, I tell their stories — sometimes joyful, sometimes heart-rending, sometimes infuriating — and I do my best to place those stories into a larger context. I talked to dozens of economists and sociologists and educators who helped me understand why our system of colleges and universities functions the way it does — and why it so often seems unbalanced and unfair." -Paul Tough PBS News Hour: Admissions scandal highlights 'disconnect' between colleges' message and action Amazon: The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us Paultough.com Paul Tough on Facebook Paul Tough on Twitter Paul's Speaking Engagements NYT Book Review Related Podcasts & Posts If you liked this podcast episode, listen to: Ep. 79: Thoughts on the College Admissions Scandal Ep. 34: Advice on College, Transferring, and How to Support Your Kids with Their Decisions Ep. 21 Advice for the College Application and Selection Process Read Conversations before College: WHO you are matters more than WHERE you go Don't miss my Happier in Hollywood Podcast: Ep. 123 Happy Camper at Work

Welcome back to Pave The Way. Today I have Paul Del Pozo on the show to talk about his journey from fitness to real estate investing. On today’s show, you will learn…   -Background for Paul -What he did before real estate -Pauls first deal -What does his business look like today? -The power of fitness and how it can help you in business -Much more    Contact info Flexandflip.com   Paul@flexandflip.com    Facebook: Paul Del Pozo    Instagram: @iampdp

Every kid has their favorite stuffed animal - and when we're young we often wonder if we can take our things with us to heaven. If you could take one thing with on a deserted island, what would you take? We get pretty attached to things don't we? What do we want to bring with us in crisis situations? What about Paul? What did he take with him ... when he went to prison? Join us we explore how one of the Apostles deals with a crisis situation. Preached by Jared Mayes at The Leominster Church of Christ www.leominsterchurchofchrist.org

Welcome to Episode 36 with Michael Soberman, a Jewish community leader, a serious camp guy, a lover of Israel and a supreme storyteller. This folks, is one fascinating schmooze! Michael is a riveting character. The volume of his speech is loud, his words pour out quickly with very few ums, he says he has an opinion about everything, and he craves being in the spotlight (but once there he performs very well).  Michael's very bright yet still does not view himself as an adult (neither do I. Do you?). Michael studied law and teaching, but never really practiced either much to the chagrin of his parents. We all know guys like that, right? Our time together was enlightening and exciting. Here are some of the highlights: 1) At the 30:00 minutes mark, Michael states categorically his biggest fear was being a parent of kids who didn't like camp. Happily, that is not the case. His two kids love Camp Kadimah just as Michael does. At 30:55 Michael quotes the sociologist, Erving Goffman, who says camp represents the ultimate dependent independence. Campers enjoy a sense of freedom for being on their own, but the environment is a secure one. He explains how camp is an immersive environment as reflected through four categories: a) there is one central control; b) it's a communal setting; c) camp has a tight schedule; d) everyone is there for a common purpose. Interestingly, Goffman uses these same categories for jail.  Michael talks about his camp buddies like Little Bubbs, Curly, Meathead and Squish. He concludes the camp piece saying, "“people have fierce loyalty for their camp...there is something about Kadimah that is so unique and special." 2) At 15:17, I asked Michael if he ever misses strangers. In response, Michael tells a beautiful story about becoming friends with a stranger, a member of Air Canada concierge service. His name was Paul.  Unfortunately, Paul died at 49. Michael went to his funeral. The concierge crew couldn't believe Michael came. Later, at the airport he was upgraded to business class because Paul's friends and colleagues were so impressed Michael had honored Paul through that act of kindness. Michael is a good man.  3) Michael talks about Israel a lot. He's been there 80 times. At 38:05 he says:  "I have an entire infrastructure in Israel. I could pick my life up here, move to Israel and not be lonely.... I’m definitely a Tel- Aviv Jew. I don’t like going in the ocean, but I like being by the ocean.” 4) Okay, here's a great one. Go to 52:24 and hear Michael's story about his son's foreskin. In short, the mo'el handed Michael the little foreskin in a plastic bag and said 'as father of this boy you have one more task. You have to bury it, anywhere you like.' Michael stuff the foreskin in his pocket, took it home and put it in his passport for safe-keeping. One day, flying to Israel,  he shocked the woman at an airport check-in counter as the foreskin fell out of this important document. She said, 'sir you cannot transport fruit over international borders.' She then adjusted and stated, 'you are not able to transport organs. “ Anyway, the foreskin got through. Michael looked for a tree in Israel to bury the foreskin under, as his spiritual leader told him, that fable has it, burying it under a tree means your son will grow tall. He found a suitable tree, buried the foreskin and called it the Joshua tree. One day, he saw an enormous Sephardic family picnicking under the Joshua tree......well have a listen. It's a delightful story   5) 1:03:34: Putting on tefillin at Birkenau is one of the most touching points of this episode. Michael and I read a piece he wrote, about the actual time when he was on one of his many March of the Living trips and stood shivering in a Birkenau bunker, putting on his phylacteries.  All this time he was memorializing Hugo Lowey. Hugo Lowey was beaten to death by a Nazi on the Birkenau platform for refusing to give up his tallit and tefillin. This story is terribly sad. It is also hopeful. (Howard Pasternack, HatRadio!'s production guy, did a wonderful job of producing this piece. Take a moment to hear it. Grow.)   Episode 36 is bursting with Michael's stories, memories and colorful thoughts. He does indeed have an opinion about everything and shares them freely. A couple of things to thing about when you listen to the show: Do you know someone like Michael who absolutely swears by the camp experience? Have you ever performed an act of kindness for someone dead or alive like Michael did for Paul? What did you do with your son's foreskin?  Have a listen. Share the link. Take some time to learn through and from Michael Soberman, and then please share the link.   HatRadio! The show that schmoozes.  ___________________________________________________________________________ Thank you David Nefesh, for the HatRadio! song, and to Howard Pasternack for his post-production work. Great job guys. Yisha ko'ach (Yiddish for 'way to go')  Credit for background music in story: https://filmmusic.io "Parting of the Ways - Part 1" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)    

On this episode learn about St. Vincent de Paul's mission, how you can get volunteer, and alternative ways you can get involved from Ryan Corry the Director of Development. In This Episode: - What is St. Vincent de Paul? - What are some of the things they do for the needy? - How fresh food changes the diet of these individuals - How can you volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul? - When can you volunteer? - What tools can help nonprofits? - What those who can't donate time can do - What are St. Vincent de Pauls restaurant takeovers? - How does St. Vincent de Paul help those with health issues? - Where should you go to get involved? Connect with Ryan and St. Vincent de Paul: Website: https://www.stvincentdepaul.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StVincentdeP... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/svdaz/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soci... Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/RyanCorry/

Today I thought I’d discuss an unsung hero of the musical theatre world  - the sidekick. That ever faithful, long-suffering, bumbling, punching bag that we all know and love. I am speaking with theatre performance, screen and voice actor and according to his website a pretty nice guy, Nicholas Richard, who has played many sidekicks over the years and is currently appearing as Manuel in Faulty Towers The Original Dining Experience. We discussed the traits that makes a good sidekick, the difference between a sidekick and a dynamic duo, The newly created Fantastix Sidekick Quotient and most importantly the Top 5 Musical Theatre Sidekicks… So, let’s see what happens when two self-confessed sidekicks discuss the Top 5 Musical Theatre Sidekicks. FANTASTIX BITS IN THE INTERVIEW What is the job of the sidekick? Are sidekicks pitied or loved? What allows Nicholas to produce better facial expressions? The ‘vague out’ clause of his current role How the Sidekick and comedy goes hand in hand Sidekick’s as the catalyst of change and drivers of the story line Who wins the crown of Ultimate Sidekick according to both Paul and Nicholas? How much of Nicholas is in his Sidekick roles and how much of the Sidekicks are in Nicholas? Who is the only villain’s sidekick to make the list? How many times in the episode will you hear “ying and yang”? What is the biggest show stopping number sung by a Sidekick according to Paul? What do you call a group of Sidekicks? Is Disney the master of Sidekick roles? The fascinating reality that both Lion King and Star Wars both = sidekick central Does having more sidekick’s in your show = greater success? #fantastixsidekickquotient How The Gansta’s Ball introduced Nicholas to Swing Dancing What is it like to eat a doona? The importance of acting a song Remember Faulty Towers - it’s with a U! Top5 – Nicholas Patsy – Spamalot Sipos – She Loves Me Elder Cunningham – Book of Mormon Leo Bloom – The Producers Donkey – Shrek Top 5 – Paul Patsy – Spamalot Sancho – Man of La Mancha Riff Raff – The Rocky Horror Show LeFou – Beauty and the Beast Donkey – Shrek Honourable Mentions Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion – Wizard of Oz The other Heathers - Heathers Barnaby – Holly Dolly The 7 Dwarfs - Snow White SHOW NOTES The Interactive Theatre International Dining Experience - Faulty Towers  Learn more about our guest https://www.nicholasrichard.com/ Chicken Doona Dinner recipe available when this episode hits 100 downloads, so tell your friends! As always thank you for listening! Love Fantastix? Support the show! Join the conversation in our Fantastix Cast & Crew Community Group on Facebook Follow our Facebook Page Leave a rating or review in iTunes Keep listening: Subscribe via iTunes Subscribe via Spotify Subscribe via Stitcher  

July 22-28 Why does Joseph Smith directly compare himself to Paul? What did he see in Paul’s experience that made him feel that the two held so much in common?

On this episode learn about St. Vincent de Paul's mission, how you can get volunteer, and alternative ways you can get involved from Ryan Corry the Director of Development. In This Episode: - What is St. Vincent de Paul? - What are some of the things they do for the needy? - How fresh food changes the diet of these individuals - How can you volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul? - When can you volunteer? - What tools can help nonprofits? - What those who can't donate time can do - What are St. Vincent de Pauls restaurant takeovers? - How does St. Vincent de Paul help those with health issues? - Where should you go to get involved?   Connect with Ryan and St. Vincent de Paul: Website: https://www.stvincentdepaul.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StVincentdePaulPhx/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/svdaz/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/society-of-st--vincent-de-paul_2/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/RyanCorry/

As Latter-day Saints begin to dig into the New Testament as part of this year's scripture study, a terrific new resource, a translation from the Greek with wonderful notes, has arrived on the scene. The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints (A Study Bible) by Thomas A. Wayment, published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU in cooperation with Deseret Book, can stimulate discussions among Latter-day Saints about the authorship and dating of each part of the New Testament, the context in which each was written, textual issues at play that lead some passages we are used to seeing in the King James Version to be dropped while opening up others to broader meanings than we typically speak about in church, and much more—all of it quite relevant in our own Christian lives and how we interact with Jesus's core messages and his calls for us to follow. This episode is an interview with Thom Wayment about his new translation as well as the entire project of figuring out how best to present it in book form. Within the conversation, Thom and Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon discuss a wide range of things, but most often with a focus on "what difference could this make in how we understand our own faith?" Who wrote the Gospels? Which of the Pauline epistles are not written by Paul? What aspects of Paul's writings and teachings influenced the Gospel writers who all created their texts after Paul had died? The Jesus of history is significantly different from the Christ of Paul, so what does teasing that apart open for us and how we approach Jesus's teachings and our own reading of the New Testament? In what ways are we asking certain texts, or even just particular verses, to do a lot of work for us (be foundational) in the LDS tradition that skew our understandings of the early Christian movement and developing church? In what ways does approaching our reading with more information about the texts' origins lead us, should we let them, to a more enlivened faith, a more energetic interaction with what it was about Jesus and his life and messaging that led so many people to give their lives (at times, literally, their own life) to spreading its influence? There is a freshness to our Bible studies that this book can bring if we will truly dive into the scholarship presented along with a plain English translation (none of this "thee, thy, thou, thine" stuff, or archaic phrasings, folks!) that also includes a much clearer picture of the role of women in the early church. This is a book and study year that we hope will  be quite transformational.

Holy sheeeeat it doesn't get much bigger than this. But when you are going to review one of the greatest movies ever made you need to go big, and so we did. For the first of our Christmas Specials we reached out to some of our favourite podcasters and managed to get in Paul from the Countdown Podcast along with Gidgit from the Retro Cinema Podcast. Daniel from the IMDB Journey Podcast was also meant to join but couldn't, we managed to sneak some post-podcast stuff in from him though. Anyway, as we had five people on it we needed to spice things up, so we had 3 personal questions each, and 5 questions you can apply to any movie. And the questions were outstanding... in fact... here they are, in all their glory. 1. Sam - Compliment sandwich 2. Paul - What item from this film would you want, or not want, to be? 3. Gidgit - What quote from this film would you definitely not want to hear immediately after having sex? 4. Dan - What film would be the best, or worst, to watch with this as a double header? 5. Stacey - How would you incorporate Nicholas Cage into this film? 6. Sam - what would the porn parody name be for this film? 7. Sam - who’s the biggest dumba$$ in this film? 8. Sam - which one of us would do the best against a gang of terrorists? 9. Paul - What would you write on the dead terrorist's shirt to send a message to Hans rather than "...now I have amachine gun. Ho-ho-ho"; Give your answer in a Hans Gruber accent as per the scene in which he discovers the body in an elevator. 10. Paul - Argyle effectively quits his job by lying about driving to Vegas, racking up a massive phone bill talking to his girlfriend on the car phone, drinking the mini-bar dry and then crashing the limo. What job would you most like toabuse the perks of and then quit on day one? 11. Paul - Which three characters would you want stranded on a deserted island with you and why? 12: Gidgit - What quirky John Hughes movie role would you cast Hans Gruber in? 13. Gidgit - Rather than them being German – what other country would you make them from that is funny? 14. Gidgit - Instead of Bonnie Bedellia – cast a kick ass female action star as Holly. 15. Dan - Hans mentions Rambos name when first speaking to McClane. How would the movie have gone differentlyif it actually WAS Rambo loose in the building instead of McClane? 16. Dan - McClane has “yippy kay yay motherf-“, what would be your quippy one liner? 17. Dan - Who is your favourite secondary character, and why is it Ellis? 18. Stacey – What’s your worst work Christmas party experience? 19. Stacey – What could modern action films learn from Die Hard? 20. Stacey – Re-cast Bruce Willis – I dare you! But the best questions are from our premier patreons, Phil Joynson and Emily Higgins! They had questions 2 and 4 above  that they picked and are in our show forever. Wanna join them and help shape the show? Well you can join them here: www.patreon.com/mritqs Emily also has her own podcast, which you can find here: https://www.tastelesspod.com/   *** OUR AWESOME GUESTS *** Countdown: https://thecountdownpc.podbean.com/ Retro Cinema: http://theretrocinema.com/   *** OUR OTHER LINKS *** You can also find us on iTunes here: itun.es/nz/Vsedfb.c Or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3RZcVIbJXrnzSmaeB50wHd… Find us on Podbean here: www.mritqs.podbean.com Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=57441460&autoplay=1 Or here on Twitter: www.twitter.com/moviereviewsin Or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MovieReviewsIn20Qs/ Chur

If you are looking for a message of reassurance, motivation, and creativity, you have come to the right place. Paul Jarvis writes candidly and openly about completely changing how he lived his life and does business. Today he is sharing why he decided to bring the public along on his journey, and how to balance your life in every regard. About Paul Jarvis Paul provides a universal message that applies to people no matter where you are in life. Paul talks about so much that I, and others who run their own business, will relate to in a deep way, and is a beacon for us like-minded people. By questioning why you have the need for ‘more’, calling yourself out on your bullshit and finding the true feeling of having enough, Paul encourages all of us to ‘bleed a little bit’. Whether you run a small business, are a company of one or are just tired of the hustle, Paul will remind you why you got started and how to align yourself with what brings you the most joy in your life. Learn why it's easier to build an audience when you stand for something, and how to deal with those on the other side of the line saying f*ck you. Question everything around you. But most importantly, believe that you are enough. Do you already know about Paul? What is your favourite aspect of The Sunday DIgest? Let us know in the comments on the episode page!   On Today's Episode Making people resonate you on a vulnerable personal level Ways to optimize balance for your daily life and your business Finding the balance between what makes others happy and what you truly want How taking care of your body can lead to being more productive Why getting bigger as a business can sometimes be a problem Quotes “I don’t want to perform in my writing, but the fact that I am sending a piece of writing to so many people and they are consuming it is a performance.” (11:29) “If you share something as yourself, like with your name and your business, like my business is me. Then it's a bit more personal right, the praise is a bit better but then the like criticism is a bit harsher. Because they are not disliking your business, they are disliking your business and your business is you.” (16:27) “I think if there was kind of one path forward then we wouldn't need to have this conversation because everybody would be on that path because that would be the one path. And I don't think that's the way business or life works. It would be so nice if and so easy if that was the case, but unfortunately it's not.” (29:18) “I would rather personally fail trying something that I want to do, than trying something that I don't want to do but want to just get to an end goal for it.” (31:04) “Growth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and business ideas around growth and what science and actual stories from business, they kind of tell two different stories. And it's one of those things where I’m like ‘why is nobody else talking about this’, and then I'm like, I guess I should.’” (46:07) Resources Mentioned In This Show  Brené Brown TED Talk It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work By Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson Pre-Order Company of One by Paul Jarvis Sign-up for Paul’s Newsletter Here Harder to Kill Facebook Club   Check out the full show notes here! Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest I'd really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes!

SwordPlay - Ep. 24 - Phil. 1 Lightning Round: - Who is Paul? - When was Philippians written? - Who is Timothy? - What is a bond-servant? - Where is Philippi? - What is a saint? - What’s an overseer? - What’s a deacon? Questions: - How had the Philippians partnered in the gospel with Paul? What was the first day? (v.5) - What is the Day of Jesus Christ? (v.6, 10; 2:16) - What imprisonment does Paul refer to? (v.7, 13. 17; 4:22) - How did they partake in grace with Paul? (v.7) - What does it mean to yearn for someone with the affection of Christ? (v.8) - How does love abound in knowledge and discernment? (v.9) - When are they filled with the fruit of righteousness? (v.11) - What is the praetorian guard? (v.13) - Tough Text: Is Paul condoning impure motives in preachers so long as Christ is preached? (15-18) - What did Paul mean by his expectation of deliverance and provision? What exactly were they praying for? (v.19) - Was Paul seeking to be a martyr? (20b-25) Death Wish? - What does it mean, “to live is Christ?” (v.21) - Why is Paul’s labor fruitful for himself? I thought it was for Christ? (v.22) - Do all Christians go to be with Christ when they die? (v.23) - Why would they have proud confidence in Paul? (v.26) - What does it mean to live a life worthy of the gospel? (27) - Who were the Philippians opponents? (v.28) - How are they granted to “believe?” To suffer? (v.29) view our website: swordplay.cast.rocks search "swordplay" in iTunes podcasts or Google Play. "Like" us or write a review feel free to re-post to social media send questions and comments to: swordplaypodcast@gmail.com

- NBA Suspensions involving Rondo, Ingram & Paul - What's wrong with the Jaguars?  - College Football discussion about the AP Poll - Rich Garven joins the show to recap the Patriots victory over the Bears.

GIGO is old computer programmer speak and it stands for “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. You cannot put garbage or junk code into a computer and expect it to come out as treasure. The same applies to our lives. What are you putting into your brain? If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise! Episode Transcription [INTRO] ♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫ *Alex* Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel. *Professor Paul* Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset podcast. Once again, I am your host Paul Markel, and if this is your first time welcome, and if you've been with us for a long time. Well, thank you very much for being with us, and I truly appreciate it. They're fact all of the staff here at Morning Mindset podcast appreciates you being out there, you sharing this with other people so that they can enjoy it as well. - What are we going to talk about today? That is an excellent question and you might have read the title. I know most of you probably just start these it says there's a new one and you just hit play and start listening. You don't read the description before hand, but GIGO I am old enough to remember when computer science classes involved programming and language. - If then go to so on and so forth, like basic programmer language will see you today like web developers and web app makers and social like like really old school programming like telling it what to do. Yeah, and I learned a long time ago. That there was a computer programmer phrase or an acronym GIGO. - I don't know if that's a an acronym or not you go but G IG o stood for and stands for garbage in garbage out and from a computer programming standpoint what that basically meant is you cannot put. Garbage code or junk code into the computer into the programming. You can't put in well half-ass effort or poor effort or you can't put in junk and expect something else to come out on the other side. - If you put garbage code or junk code into your program, it's going to come back to you as garbage. The computer's not going to think “Oh, well, I know what this guy was talking about or he was, I'll fix it and make it better and then it'll be better on the other side.” No, it's not the way it works and I've used this over over the period of my life. - I've used it for different situations. For instance. I was in the United States Marine Corps, and I was very proud to be a United States Marine and I still am. But that Woody I would encounter people in the world citizens who would tell me things like well, I knew this guy and he was a marine and he was an a-hole. - He was a bad person and I'm being very PG here. He was in a hole and so on and so forth and I would say well. Okay, he was probably an a-hole before he went into the Marine Corps and he just came out the other side as an a-hole, you know, I don't know what to tell you, but when it comes to your own life when it comes to your way of thinking. - You need to understand the principle of GIGO or Garbage In, Garbage Out when it comes to training. When it comes to education when it comes to raising your children. What is going in like what is going into their brains? What is going into your brain? What information are you taking in on a daily basis, and then what's coming out the other side? - You see ladies and gentlemen, you cannot fill your brain. With socialist media garbage with vapid filth from Hollywood. If all you fill your brain with is liberal Hollywood propaganda bullcrap, or if you fill your brain with essentially tabloid journalism, if you spend all of your day on socialist media whether whatever it happens to be and your brain is filled with meaningless garbage. - If you're taking in meaningless garbage. Day after day after day hour after hour after hour. How is it that you expect something else to come out the other side? Mmm, yeah exactly and we've known this. You know parents and adults and rational and reasonable human beings have known this for decades for centuries. - We've known this that is why school children were made to read the classics whatever the classics happened to be To Kill a Mockingbird. Romeo and Juliet so on and so forth why they have to read the classics why they have to do book reports on the classics and so forth why you actually go to a class called English? Why do you learn English in school? That doesn't make any sense. - Why do I have to do English 9, English 10, English 101, English 201. What have to do that? I mean, I already knew how to talk when I got to school here, but you need to understand why why are phrases the way they are wire sentences structured the way they are how do we use the language properly, and you say, okay Paul? What's your point? - Well, have you ever encountered a person who doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of the language or who seems to have an inability to use the language properly. Do you ever wonder why that is? Is it because they spend all their time in putting garbage into their brains and not enough time in putting the good stuff? - Because if that's all you input every day whether your body physically your body is the same way. You cannot survive. Very long on a diet of Doritos and hohos and twinkies and you know Mountain Dew now you can do it when you're young because you know, when you're young your body takes care of you got that metabolism, but you're not going to have a very fit healthy body for very long if you put garbage into your body. - You cannot expect to ingest garbage all day long, and then on the other side come out physically fit you wonder why you're sick. You wonder why you're tired all the time. You wonder why your 50 pounds overweight. Well, it's because you're ingesting garbage. You can't ingest garbage and have treasure come out the other side. - You can't ingest garbage into your brain, and expect treasure to come out of your mouth. It doesn't work that way. So GIGO what are you putting in, and what are you getting out? Are you taking the time to put valuable information and education into your brain housing group or you filling your brain housing group with vapid tabloid journalism rumors and garbage. - Yeah, there you go, and GIGO is a good way to explain that to other people to your children to coworkers friends, whatever so. There you have it old computer programmer Ligety going all the way back to the 80s. Yes, before we even had an internet. I was alive before the internet. I was alive before people had computers in their houses crazy talk crazy talk. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you for joining me and I'll talk to you again real soon. [OUTRO] ♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫ *Alex* Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

Ben Higgins, President and Co-founder of Generous International, an organization bringing life change by designing specifically to create and multiply good in the world. Ben comes with a fresh light, and focuses on seeing the importance of people. No matter your role, whether as the customer, employee in the USA or an employee in Haiti, we see commonalities in supporting a greater cause, loving one another. In this episode we hear more about Ben’s story, his faith upbringing in Indiana, and the rise to the Bachelor and Bachelorette as of recent. We discuss the story of the Bible and looking at several character narratives. What is your impression of Paul? What did he speak about? When we enter into love by seeing through the eyes of one another, it changes the perspective, and that’s good. Here more about belief system and operating outside of what we think is right and leaving room for the world outside of what we know. Check out what Ben has to say about questions like “what it means to be a Christian?” or “Does there have to be a death and resurrection of Jesus?” You can find Ben at info@generousmovement.com

How did TIVO lead to Netflix? How does good software lead to empowerment? In this episode, we deconstruct the everyday impact of great software. It’s pretty cool having control of the screen: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade meet with their friend Timothy Meaney, VP Product & Quality at Insight Catastrophe, to talk about what makes software great. Between the earliest spreadsheet programs, the hidden databases upholding Manhattan, and the ChromeBook interface that makes Paul’s kids cry, we learn how the best software is characterized by its simplicity. [Podcast player] ►iTunes/►SoundCloud/►Overcast/►Stitcher/►MP3 /►RSS 2:35 — Tim: “People also don’t think about software.” 6:10 — Tim: “There was something very powerful about computing, being from what you just described — me being alone in my room writing a game that I want to play myself — to talking to other people.” 6:50 — Tim: “The web, since [AOL Instant Messenger] has been about people.” 7:05 — Paul: “What’s interesting from the two of you is that the quality of greatness is accessibility. It’s not about inventing anything, it’s about making it accessible.” 8:00 — Paul: “Suddenly AIM replaced a whole category of communication. BASIC made it possible to program. MacPaint made it possible to draw.” 8:50 — Rich: “Photoshop has gone straight to hell! To hell with Creative Cloud! To tell with whatever is happening in Photoshop today. I don’t understand it.” 9:10 — Paul: “The magazine industry died, why do they make me relive it every day?” 10:05 — Rich: “Once it came to me — the mental model kicked in around layers in Photoshop — I lost my mind. I was like, oh my god, this is how everything is done.” 11:20 — Paul: “If you walk up and down the streets of Manhattan where we happen to be right now, billions and billions of dollars of decisions will be made this week based on Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Those are the tools and the software that people will use to move entire markets.” 16:05 — Paul: “I just want to pull SQLite out and point at it because it’s a tiny piece of software and it stores data. That’s all. It’s a tiny database. It used to be that you’d go to Oracle and spend $30,000 to have this database. SQLite is on every Android phone, every iOS phone — it’s in just about every computer and every platform.” 21:20 — Paul: “TiVo was our first step on our cultural path to Netflix.” 25:40 — Tim: “The cycle is funny, right. It’s reached a point where it’s so transparent that we’ve ceded the control. A 10-year-old is not getting excited about gaining that control, they just have it.” 25:55 — Paul: “If you ever want to see a 6-year-old have a temper tantrum, just give them the interface to a ChromeBook.” 26:25 — Paul: “I thought the NYPD was gonna arrest me for downloading Chicago 17.” 26:50 — Paul: “God, I love a good shared file system between friends! I miss that in my life!” A full transcript of this episode is available. LINKS Tim Meaney VisiCalc SQLite BASIC The Rise and Fall of AIM, the Breakthrough AOL Never Wanted OiNK.cd Shut Down, Admin Arrested Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.

Overview - Paul's Carbon Copy. Acts 18:24-28. In the section of scripture we study today, we uncover a very small, easily overlooked, yet humongous detail. The Apostle Paul leaves Aquilla and Priscilla in Ephesus, to go and chase the fulfillment of a vow in Jerusalem that he had made to God, and they come in contact with a very interesting character named Apollos. He is a Jewish man who comes to Ephesus, whom they end up meeting the synagogue there in the city, who turns out to be an almost exact carbon copy of Paul. Why did Apollos come to Ephesus? How do Paul’s travel companions end up meeting Paul’s carbon copy? Why do I continue to call Apollos a carbon copy of Paul? What is the very small, easily overlooked, yet humongous detail that I wrote of earlier that we uncovered in our section of scripture today? Come and take a listen, and I explain all in this message titled, Paul’s Carbon Copy. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you as you diligently seek Him Pastor Ed

  What conversations can we have in email? When do we need to transition them into meetings? How can we make meetings more productive, and less of a waste of time?  Like Startups, Most Meetings Fail: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade chat about the inefficiency of frequent meetings. We discuss what makes a meeting fail within the first few minutes, and provide strategies that can be deployed to make them successful (like defining a leader). We also complain about the neverending email thread, and the disconnect between our daily lives and the design of Google Calendar. Rich shares his best excuses (Ed note: lies) to get out of a meeting!  3:45 — Paul: “There’s the Two Pizza Rule for Amazon where no team should be bigger than what you can feed with two pizzas.” 4:00 — Paul: “I think there are three good meetings. There is, ‘hi, let’s all get in the room as higher primates and get a sense of each other.’ You need to see and understand the people who are going to be working with you on something. There’s the kickoff. Then there’s the ‘we went away and did some work and we wanted to show you that work and get your discussion within about a half hour.’ Then there’s the standing process focus meeting in which you know what you’re going to do, it’s about a half hour long, and it’s just more efficient to […] find out what the tasks are and walk away.” 6:10 — Rich: “This is free for all our listeners. It’s the opposite of saying ‘this is a waste of time.’ Ready? Here’s the sentence: ‘You don’t really need me for this.’” 6:30 — Paul: “The calendar is this territory that belongs to you.” 10:35 — Paul: “Let’s be honest. Calendering software is terrible. The way that we’ve arranged the weeks so that they’re verticle stacks from top to bottom, that’s now how humans think about things.” 11:00 — Paul: “Time really works like a slithering snake. It goes from left to right.” 11:50 — Paul: “95% of meetings fail within the first six minutes.” 13:37 — Rich: You know what the worst invite is? The preface is this: ‘We all gotta get into a room.’ You get in a room and you realize the email thread was way more productive than us getting in a room.” 15:00 — Paul: “I’ll tell you what I like. Email or meetings? Neither. They’re both terrible.” 18:30 — Paul: “My brain works that way. Business brains don’t work that way. They talk and talk… My brain works in 8.5 by 11 inch paper, top to bottom. I can’t get that in business, and I accept that. I always feel a little bit like a space alien.” 20:40 — Rich: “If there isn’t a clear path to failure, then that meeting is useless.” 20:50 — Paul: “What favour are you doing anyone by hiding the fact that you’re secretly a compulsive lunatic who needs them to do things?” 21:00 — Rich: “The three legs of a stool are ‘what is the thing?’, ‘who’s responsible for the thing?’, and ‘when are you gonna get the thing?’” A full transcript of this episode is available. LINKS Jeff Bezos Meeting scheduling tool The ‘two pizza rule’ is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ secret to productive meetings Jeff Bezos explains his famous one-character emails Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.  

  How can you build software on small budgets and short timelines, without making everyone’s life worse? How can clients get a bunch of vendors on the same page? Is it even worth trying? A Bad Way to Build Software?: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade chat about the problems you’re going to face when you hire multiple companies to build a single piece of software. We discuss the communication, latency and separate agendas that hinder the process of software creation and give advice on how to make it work.   4:28 — Rich: “When I go to management … I need dollars, I need timelines, and I need what it is…what are you going to give them, when, and how much is it going to cost.” 15:32 — Rich: “There is nothing that will bring more friction, more latency, and more disagreement than human beings that view themselves as orbiting around separate entities but have to somehow come together to build a thing.” 15:50 — Rich: “The single biggest risk to designing and building stuff is the dependencies and the reliance and the agendas of different groups of people.” 17:21— Paul: “The overall software experience is a unified thing, and it comes from a unified team. So if you put those different vendors in the room, really what you’ve done is you’ve incurred a month or more of teaching them to communicate with each other, and they’re all going to have different processes that they use to get stuff done.” 20:51— Paul: “What you’re doing is creating a pathological work environment, even if these places have good work environments themselves.” 28:19— Paul: “If people would take this seriously, and think about it, they could save themselves so much… just so much emotional pain.” 28:58 — Paul: “It’s a big messy world out there… but vendor madness is very dangerous.” LINKS Kickstart Every Idea With a Real Product Plan  Are You My Digital Product Studio? Software as a Product Software as a Service Two Pizza Rule Jeff Bezos Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.

What information is Facebook gathering? Do we really understand how our data is being used? Is it time for Silicon Valley to step up and address our concerns around privary? This week, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss the problems with Facebook (beyond its ugly interface) and the lack of governing body around our data security. Mark Zuckerberg holding a cat (that is very much alive) They Have One Product: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to chat about the hellscape that is Facebook. We chat about the lack of communication around what is happening with your data, discuss what Silicon Valley’s role is in protecting our privacy, and complain about how ugly the Facebook interface is. Rich also paints us a picture of Zuckerberg holding a dead cat!   2:01 —Paul: “They have one product, the product is the social network and your access to that social network. So privacy should actually be something they have worked out in my opinion.” 2:01 — Rich: “They’re doing stuff to me I don’t know about. That’s very different to me than privacy.” 9:37 — Rich: “And so what I just described to you is the human cookie, right?” 13:34 —Paul: “what we’re seeing here is that there’s no . . . centralized controlling authority for all this stuff, right? Like people think that there’s might be order or like a governing body . . . but it doesn’t work that way.” 17:34 —Paul: “What the hell is goin’ on in that interface though? As we make fun of it as a giant, monolithic privacy destroying pseudo-government… as a product it’s just an insane circus — it’s just this blue and white hellscape.” 21:57 — Paul: “I think people assume that consuming is a kind of making, right?” 26:03 — Rich: “Zuckerberg? He creeps me out. The way he holds his hands out… It’s like there’s an imaginary dead cat in his hands. I can’t — I can’t peg it, man. He freaks me out.” A full transcript of this episode is available. LINKS Facebook eHow wikiHow Content farms mltshp (Formerly Milkshake) Paul’s Archivepix on Twitter “Silicon Valley Has Failed to Protect Our Data. Here’s How to Fix It” by Paul Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.  

Season 1, Episode 4 (Spring Season, 2018) This conversation with Mark D. Nanos explores some of the broad themes of Paul within Judaism. How does it contrast with the New Perspective on Paul? What do they share in common? Why is it important for Paul to remain Jewish? Why is he critical of circumcision, then? In a new series of books, Mark Nanos address these issue. Here we focus on Reading Paul within Judaism. GIVE THE SHOW SOME LOVE 1) If you would be so kind to hop on iTunes (or your feed of choice) and leave The Paulcast a review there, that would be amazing. The more reviews we can get will lead to greater visibility in iTunes. And I (Kurt) LOVE reading your comments! 2) Also, please consider hitting up The Paulcast Patreon online tip-jar (think Kickstarter for ongoing content creators). For $3 per month, or more, you can make a direct impact on this show. Financial partners like you really do make this all possible! Through Patreon, you make a tangible difference in this show’s sustainability and quality! http://patreon.com/kurtwillems

How do you grow a company successfully? How do you build a company that values its culture over its profit margins? Can you successfully grow a company that started in NYC, in Lebanon? This week, Paul and Rich sit down to talk about the growth of Postlight and the amazing new team in Beirut! The Postlight office in Beirut, Lebanon! Growing in Two Places: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about the growth of Postlight. We chat about how Rich’s Lebanese background informs the culture at Postlight, the misconceptions around outsourcing work, how to let your own team of engineers make hiring decisions, and the lessons we’ve learned from growing a company across an ocean. Paul and Rich also revel in the snacks they miss from Lebanon! 7:28 — Rich: “Being Lebanese is part of the way we do business.” 9:24 — Rich: “There’s no factory farm of humans that you lease out, to put some code out in Lebanon. They just don’t think that way.” 12:15 — Rich: “A team starts to form and they said, ‘we want to be part of you, we dont want you to just throw stuff across the ocean because you had a thing that needed to get done that wasn’t interesting. We want to join you’. And to hear that from the other side was really, really interesting.” 14:49 — Paul: “We got a clear signal back saying, ‘[outsourcing] wont work, just like it wont work anywhere. You need to have us be part of your culture, we need to connect, and then we’ll do work at the quality that you expect. And we want that for ourselves and you should want it from us.’” 15:07 — Paul: “What you don’t get is some easy, spreadsheet savings; but what you do get is increased capacity to do quality work, which is actually where our growth is as a company.” 16:48 — Rich: “We’re actually not driven by metrics. We’re driven by doing great work, finding great opportunities, doing great work again.” 24:05— Paul: “Theres a really good chance here that the good cultural things that helped us grow, are gonna happen in Beirut too.” LINKS Rich’s article on Postlight Lebanon Freaknomics Episode on the Most Successful Expats Shakira Kinkos   Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.    

Do you need a security camera for your front-door? Do you need programmable lighting? Are smart homes really innovative? Paul and Rich talk about the pros and cons of connected homes, the security of our information, and the impossibility of competing with giant platforms like Google and Amazon. Smart Homes, Foolish People: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about connected homes. We talk discuss the pros and cons of distributed networks, the fear of sharing data with giant platform companies, and ask if smart-tech is eating away at our creativity. Paul also predicts that one of Zuckerberg’s 2018 goals will clam-digging! 5:15 — Rich: “All of this stuff is so you have to do less. I used to love that sense of achievement when I had a 486 computer and when I finally got it to print in colour, because I bought a colour printer that took 20 minutes to print a colour page and it only worked right because I got the latest drivers that were crashing before, but finally it was working right. That felt so good. We’re eating away at the skills needed to do some incredibly complex things.” 7:57 — Paul: “This is the fundamental flaw of everything though right? Which is that your home is increasingly becoming a set of distributed network processes and the way the cable companies and the routers are set up it’s very difficult to gain access to those from outside of your home” 11:44 — Paul: “What’s happening is you’re seeing the same thing that always happens, which is that enormous consolidated players are starting to get their platforms together. They’ll get into a partnership. Like Amazon, I’m sure, is talking to Netgear right now. 13:30 — Paul:“The big platforms, because of their ability to form relationships with other big platforms, always tend to win.” 14:17— Paul: “In ten, 15 years from now this will be built in like HVAC.” A full transcript of this episode is available. LINKS Alexa Echo Dot John Herrman Shitphone: A Love Story — John Herrmann Speech to Text Brother Printer Foscam Prince of Persia Video Game Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 3 of 3. (Due to technical difficulties, Part 2 was not recorded).

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 3 of 3. (Due to technical difficulties, Part 2 was not recorded).

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 3 of 3. (Due to technical difficulties, Part 2 was not recorded).

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 1 of 3.

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 1 of 3.

With WPC Elder David Roden. Explore why Paul’s letter to the Romans became the key motivation for the reformation. Why do some modern theologians believe the reformers misread Paul? What did Paul say and what was Paul doing in this important letter? Discover how you might interpret Romans differently. Part 1 of 3.

It is January 1st, 2018.  Today represents the start of a new year.  The fact that you are listening to a podcast that is all about bettering your life sets you apart from all the rest.  Addicts and alcoholics need altruistic relationships in our lives with others who do not drink. Tricia, with 1 year since her last drink, shares her story   SHOW NOTES   [8:38] Paul Introduces Tricia.  I live in Dallas Texas, I’m 36 years old, I am a Chef by trade.  I like to do crafty stuff, and I like to go running.    [15:03] Paul- What was it like hitting that 1-year milestone?  What was that feeling?   Tricia- 1-year felt better than my birthday.  My soberversary felt so much more important than any birthday I had ever had.  Having one year was 10 times that feeling of excitement and accomplishment.   [26:43] Paul- Tell us more about that.   Tricia- I can quickly compare getting sober to starting an exercise routine.  Everyone wants a quick fix.  That never works.  There is no quick fix.  You have to do the things that make you uncomfortable and are hard.  You have to learn to have discipline.  AA is attraction, not promotion.  I can take what I want, and leave the rest.   [32:32] Paul- The majority of listeners have yet to step foot into an AA meeting.  What are your thoughts on AA?  What light can you shed upon the 12-step process?   Tricia- I have a lot of opinions on AA.  It’s a place where you can meet people in real life.  We all have the same disease.  It is neat to meet people who get you.  I love that part about AA.  There are 2 parts to AA: Going to meetings, and working the 12 steps.  If you just go to meetings and you don’t do the steps you are missing out.    [36:42] Paul- Tell us a little about the retreat and what you learned from it.   Tricia-  I signed up early for the retreat as an incentive to stay sober.  The retreat in Montana was an adult experience kind of like camp.  Creating relationships with people who are just like you.  Everyone was so vulnerable right away.  It was magical.  You had to be there to know.       Rapid Fire Round   What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Start right now.  There is no right time, do it now.  It just gets harder the longer you wait.  You can’t do this alone, if you could, you would have done it by now.   You might be an alcoholic if...you are always scheduling your day around your drinking.  Everything has a hard stop at 4:00 or 5:00 so you gotta start drinking.  You know exactly how many ice cubes are in everyone’s glasses because you watched Mad Men drunk. What’s on your bucket list?  I am going to be a speaker at the Dallas Meet-up.  I really would like to do more speaking engagements.  I am looking forward to the Peru trip.    Resources mentioned in this episode: Gourmaleo - Dallas based Paleo food delivery service Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Opportunity to waive the set up fee. Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Traker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul discusses Step 2 from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  Mike, with 86 days his last drink, shares his story   SHOW NOTES   [11:31] Paul Introduces Mike.  I live in Vermont; I’m 33 years old.  I work as a social worker; I hang out with my wife, my 12-year-old son, and play video games.      [16:50] Paul-  Describe the progression, coupled with Father time, hangovers are getting worse and worse, talk about that progression.   Mike- Yeah, I would buy those little boxes of wine, then I would just buy the bottle, and the bottle would be gone.  It felt like I was in quicksand, when you are running in sand and can’t get any traction.   [20:21] Paul- It’s tough to get 86 days of sobriety, how did you do it?   Mike- Listening to the Recover Elevator was huge.  I felt like I was in the contemplation stage.  I’ve been thinking about quitting for years.  Listening to Recovery Elevator is what really helped motivate me jump right in.  I listen to “This Naked Mind” on audio book and really tried to “brainwash” myself, and felt like it worked.   [28:12] Paul- What advice would you give to your younger self?  If you could go back to your 16-year-old self, what would you say?   Mike- I would like to go to my 15-year-old self and smack the beer out of my hand.  I disagree with the stance that some people can drink normally.  Don’t be ashamed that it’s hard.        [35:29] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? The day after St. Patrick’s Day party trying to piece together what happened. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? I had a lot of times, the most recent time I drank, I had the house to myself and just laying there by myself.   What’s your favorite resource in recovery? “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Alcohol is shit.  It resonated with my bodies’ reaction to alcohol.  What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  When we are in the contemplation stage of am I an alcoholic or not.  The real problem is alcohol is an addictive poison, and anyone can become addicted to alcohol. You might be an alcoholic if... you go to St. Patrick’s day party, spill red wine on the rug, you put your arm around another woman, and rub her back while standing with your wife, and you black, the last thing you remember is raising both fists to the sky and yelling “I’m the king of the world”    Resources mentioned in this episode: RX Bar - Visit www.rxbar.com/elevator for 25% off your first order. Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book" "This Naked Mind" by Annie Grace Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code opportunity to waive the set up fee. Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Does the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church affirm the true gospel? Well, this is the last of three messages on the Reformation as we celebrate 500 years. Martin Luther called justification by faith alone "the article on which the church stands or falls." Was he correct? Is this teaching biblical? Did Jesus teach this as well as Paul? What does Jesus say we lose if we reject this doctrine?

Paul discusses anxiety and depression as interpreted through an episode of the Dharmapunx Podcast.  Heather, with 269 days since her last drink, shares her story   SHOW NOTES   [10:50] Paul Introduces Heather.  I’m 37; I live in Los Angeles, CA.  I’ve been here for about 7 years.  I grew up in south Texas.  I work for a small cable network.  I love yoga, hiking, going to the movies.  I have an identical twin sister.      [16:04] Paul- When did you realize perhaps that you don’t drink normally?   Heather- I think its been varying stages of that.  Moving from Texas to New York was an adjustment.  I got a job in a bar, and that was my life.    [25:54] Paul- What was the impetus that really forced you to make that jump into sobriety?   Heather- I had been reading “A Happier Hour” and the light bulb went off when I was reading that book.  I was also reading a blog from tired of thinking about drinking.  I started a 100-day challenge.   [35:02] Paul- When did AA come into the picture?   Heather- I am still going.  I am kind of afraid of the steps.  Around day 60 or 70 I was feeling lonely about talking about it, and I was afraid to go.  I put it out there, and things happened.    [40:28] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? One of my best friends husbands passed away.  Her father didn’t want any of us to be drinking, and I drank anyway.  I should have not drank, but I had to. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? One of the last conversations I had with my boyfriend when he said it will be okay and we will both stop.  But if we break up, I’m fine, and I can continue to drink. What’s your plan moving forward? When I started the 100-day challenge, I want to keep clarity.  I’m going to work the steps, and go to more meetings, and build more of a sober community here. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? Recovery Elevator, and a speaker meeting I attend in LA.    What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  What you gain is so much more than you are giving up. You might be an alcoholic if you know your boyfriend is, and you decided to move in with him after 9 months, and you still don’t think you have a problem.   Resources mentioned in this episode: This episode was brought to you by RXBAR. Visit RXBAR.com/recovery for 25% off your first order. Dharmapunx Podcast Link Tired of Thinking About Drinking A Happier Hour- By Rebecca Weller Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

I want to talk about the word Alcoholism, more specifically, the tail end of that word, the ISM- Incredible Short Memory, the painful acute memories are sobriety fuel.  We cannot do this alone.  Adam, with 57 days since his last drink, shares his story   SHOW NOTES   [8:50] Paul Introduces Adam.  I’m 36; I live in New Hampshire, married with 2 awesome sons and a beautiful wife.  I love being outdoors.  I began drinking in my early twenties.  I was drinking to get away from stress problems.  It got to the point where I was drinking everyday.    [15:05] Paul- What was different on July 17th?  Was it a shift in mindset? Did you go to an AA meeting?   Adam- It was more of a mindset.  Everywhere I looked there was something about recovery.  It was my mind putting it out there.  I created the accountability, and it made it harder to go back on.   [21:40] Paul- Was there some sense of discomfort before you quit drinking?  What was the source of pain?   Adam-  It wasn’t anything huge.  I called myself a high bottom drunk.  There wasn’t anything that set it off.  I was sick of relying on it everyday.  Waking up every morning sleepier than I should be.  It became too much a part of my life, and I didn’t want it there anymore.    [23:56] Paul- What was it like the first 24 hours? The first couple of days, the first week?   Adam- It was not the easiest time in my life.  I had a little bit of the shakes, some headaches the first 3-4 days was the worst of it.  I remind myself how great I feel now.   [26:53] Paul- What’s on your bucket list in sobriety?  What do you want to achieve with this new life you’ve been given?   Adam-  I want to spend more time with my family Instead of playing with the kids, the first thing I would do would be to grab a drink.  They are 3 and 7 years old right now.  Be closer to them.  This time of their life I really want to remember.     [29:45] Rapid Fire Round   Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?  Just realizing that everyday that was the first thing when I got home from work that I wanted to do. What’s your plan moving forward?  Just to keep enjoying life, get to know my kids better, and getting healthy. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? It’s the Recovery Elevator Podcast. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? The accountability.  Creating that accountability and making it a real thing. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  Suck it up and talk to somebody.  It has to be someone that you care about and trust and respect.  Once you make it a real thing, you will not want to let them down. You might be an alcoholic if you lie to your wife when you are sick as a dog, because you know she will say you don’t need that beer tonight.   Resources mentioned in this episode: Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

New data has revealed that one in eight Americans are now alcoholics due to an alarming rise in alcohol consumption in women, elderly people and ethnic minorities. Experts at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism say that the rise could constitute a public health crisis that is being overshadowed by the opioid epidemic and marijuana legalization.  During an 11 year gap, the number of people who received a diagnosis of alcoholism shot up by 49 percent, meaning 12.7 percent of the population - or roughly one in eight Americans - are alcoholics.  Megan, with 11 hours since her last drink, shares her story   SHOW NOTES   [5:15] Paul Introduces Megan.  I’m from Baltimore, Maryland.  I am 38, single, with a live-in boyfriend.    [7:19] Paul- What forced you to reach out to me again, and give us a little background. Megan-  The whole point of what you are doing is when you can relate to other people.  I love that you are an advocate for the acceptance part of it.  People are ashamed to come out so to speak.  I didn’t start drinking until late in college.  I liked the way it made me feel.  I wasn’t self-conscience.  It was never really a problem.   One day in my late twenties I realized I was drinking everyday.    [23:49] Paul- Talk to me about your withdrawal symptoms. Megan-  It’s usually worst the second and third day.  The shaking and the anxiety is the worse.  I can’t shut my brain off.    [26:36] Paul- What’s your plan?  How are we going to do this? Megan- I am going to get through today.  One day at a time.  Right now it is just getting through today.  I know that I want to get sober and stay sober.  Am I done yet?  I’m not entirely sure.  I want to be there, but I don’t know if I am.   [32:36] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? Blacking out.  I started drinking after a run; I woke up the next day and had no memory of how I got home. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? About a month ago, I got up in the morning and was walking to the grocery store and I couldn’t walk.  I inched across the street and went back home. What’s your plan moving forward? What’s your favorite resource in recovery? I love podcasts.  The HOME Podcast, the Shair Podcast, Recovery 101. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Don’t beat yourself up. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking? You are going to feel crappy.  Don’t make it worse on yourself by pouring poison into yourself.  It’s going to get a little bit better everyday. You might be an alcoholic if the liquor store on the corner knows exactly who you are, and lines up 4 mini bottles of Fireball everyday at 9:00 in the morning.   Resources mentioned in this episode: It's a public health crisis: 1 in 8 Americans are now alcoholics By Abigail Miller for Dailymail.com Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul reads posts from members of Café RE answering the question: “What are some things that helped you in early sobriety?  There are some emerging common themes from these responses.  Change, you don’t have to change much, you just have to change everything.  Accountability is the key, you can’t do this alone.  Alcoholism is a thinking disease.  You can’t think your way out of it.  Knowledge is not power unless you use it. Marybeth, with 8 months since her last drink, shares her story   SHOW NOTES   [8:40] Paul Introduces Marybeth.  I’m 51; I live in southern New Hampshire.  I am married with 4 children, 2 of which have special needs so that takes up some time.  I like to visit with friends and family, downhill ski, and exercise.   [13:39] Paul- Tell us about your drinking habits, how much did you drink prior to November 26th, 2016? Marybeth-  I was a big red wine drinker.  I did a sugar cleanse, and then I ended up sipping Tequila neat.  Then I switched back to wine.  I knew I would never be a morning drinker, or drink before 5:00.  I typically had 2 glasses of wine a night for years.    [17:45] Paul- Was there a bottom moment, or were you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Marybeth- I attribute my sobriety to an accident.  I broke my ankle while I was walking and texting.  It was difficult to be on crutches, and drink at the same time.  I came upon the 30-day sober solution while I was in my cast.   [21:48] Paul- How important do you think accountability has been these past 8 months? Marybeth- It’s been really great.  I couldn’t handle my alcohol, and was passing out early.  Now I can stay up late and have fun.  I was asleep and numbing my self with alcohol.  I was snared by it socially, and numbed by it unintentionally.  I wasn’t seeking to numb anything.   [29:05] Paul- What does your sobriety portfolio consist of?  Walk us through a typical day of sobriety. Marybeth- I wake up everyday and meditate for 30 minutes.  I use the headspace app.  It is like exercising a muscle.  I connect with friends, and do things, which interest me.     [30:16] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? I was separated from my husband, and got into a car.  I put the car in drive instead of reverse and ran over the curb. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? When I broke my ankle.  I had a bloody Mary on board when that happened. What’s your plan moving forward? I am going to continue with meditation, my wellness, helping others, and reading books.  Possibly attending an AA meeting. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? The Recovery Elevator Podcast.  I love listening in the car on the way to work. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? My dad was a recovering alcoholic.  He would always say don’t sweat the small stuff. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking? Just do it.  You can always go back to drinking if sobriety doesn’t work for you. You might an alcoholic if you are at a weight watcher meeting and all you are concerned about is if you have enough points left for wine at the end of the day.   Resources mentioned in this episode:  Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul summarizes the Retreat, which took place in Bozeman, Montana.   SHOW NOTES   [13:22] Paul Introduces Kristin 238 days sober, Amy 11 years sober, Dave 12 days sober, and John with 18 and ½ years of sobriety.     [15:55] Paul-  What did you think the retreat was going to be like?   Dave- I didn’t have any set expectations.  It has been sharing, but so much more.  I have connected with every single person here.    [16:50] Paul- What surprised you so far on this retreat?   Kristin-  I was surprised at how easy it was to talk to everybody here.  I am not extremely comfortable around strangers.  Since we have been in the online community the past year, it was easy to chat with everyone.   Amy- I enjoyed the camaraderie.  It is beautiful here.   [27:30] Paul- Tell us what made you decide to come, and a little about your story?   Kristin-  My drinking career didn’t start until 2001.  I realized about 5 years ago that I had a problem, and tried to moderate.  My bottom was New Years Eve.  I have not lost any friends in sobriety.  It’s been a wonderful 8 months.   Dave- I grew up in a household of Tea Totalers.  I got into a high stress job with expense accounts.   The “sick and tired of being sick and tired” resonated with me.  There is a new chip on my shoulder.   Amy- I started drinking when I was 13.  I had the epiphany that this was the missing link.  I didn’t think there would be this much joy in sobriety. You can’t love other people until you love yourself.  Everything I wanted alcohol to give me, I got sober.    John- My drinking career began in high school.  My mom passed away when she was 47, many family members had alcohol related deaths.  I became a daily drinker from college to 40 years old.  January 5th of 1999 is when I got sober.  My biggest breakthrough was writing a letter to my mother who had passed away.  I stay sober due to the people in my community.   This podcast episode was brought to you by Hello Fresh. For $30 off your first week of Hello Fresh visit hellofresh.com and use the promo code recoveryfresh30   Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Jason talks with the philosophical theologian David Bentley Hart about a series of questions submitted by his fans. Part 2 includes the questions: "What do you think about Stanley Hauerwas and pacifism?" "What do you make of apocalyptic readings of Paul?" "What is hell?" "What do you think about designated hitters in baseball?" and more.

Paul summarizes the article “America’s Drinking Problem Is Much Worse This Century” by John Tozzi   Alcohol abuse has shot up since 2001, and the number of adults who binge weekly may top the population of Texas. Americans are drinking more than they used to, a troubling trend with potentially dire implications for the country’s future health-care costs. The number of adults who binge drink at least once a week could be as high as 30 million, greater than the population of every state save California, according to a study published on Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. A similar number reported alcohol abuse or dependency. Between the genders, women showed the larger increase in alcohol abuse, according to the report. Kristi, with nearly 9 months of sobriety since her last drink, shares her story.   SHOW NOTES   [7:09] Paul Introduces Kristi.  I live in northern California near Stanford; I am 44, married and have 2 boys.  I worked 25 years in software sales.  I have been spending most of my time volunteering.     [16:28] Paul- When did you start realize after your Mom passed away, that this might be going in the wrong direction?   Kristi- Honestly, around 38-39 I started to realize I was drinking differently than I had in the past.  I was working full time with 2 young kids, and I had to have 6-7-8 drinks at the end of the day.      [20:23] Paul- What was your first AA meeting like?   Kristi- I was so overwhelmed.  It was 9:00 on a Saturday morning, and there were 300 people there.   I realized that all meetings weren’t this way.  I jumped right in, started going to meetings, got a sponsor, and worked the steps.  I was working on will alone.  I don’t think I realized the importance of a higher power, and letting go.  I managed to stay sober for quite awhile.   [28:43] Paul- You sound like you are a high bottom drunk, and have a lot more to lose, am I correct?   Kristi-  I didn’t get the DUI, or drive my kids drunk.  But I wasn’t present.  I can really sit and appreciate the moment now.  I am feeling good; I have a skip in my step.  When you live in gratitude, you can’t live in fear and resentment.   [32:07] Paul- What’s on your bucket list in sobriety, what do you want to accomplish in this life?   Kristi-  I would like to learn Spanish.  I would really like to write a book.    [33:31] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking?  My husband and I went to San Francisco.  I took a small bottle of vodka with me.  I got so wasted at the party I don’t remember conversations I had, and I woke up in the hallway.  Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?  Repeat times over and over again being drunk on a Tuesday for no reason. What’s your plan moving forward?  Live in the present, and being of service. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? I really like the book “Living Sober” and the Recovery Elevator podcast.  What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)?   I don’t have a problem I can’t make worse by picking up a drink. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking? Do it, you will feel better.  You will live in a more honest and peaceful world.  Quit poisoning yourself. You might be an alcoholic if you are hosting a party, and drinking wine with the guests, and sneaking off to have shots of vodka by yourself.   Resources mentioned in this episode: America's Drinking Problem is Much Worse This Century- By John Tozzi A.A. Literature Living Sober Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Self-Loathing is rampant in addiction, and it needs to be addressed and curtailed if we want to find long-term recovery.  Self-trash talk is a double whammy when we judge ourselves harshly.  We are both the attacker, and the attacked.  Dr. Kristin Neff’s book “Self Compassion” is summarized. Tori with 16 days since her last drink, shares her story.   SHOW NOTES   [9:25] Paul Introduces Tori.  I am from Gainesville Florida; I have lived here since I was 10.  I am 24 years old.  I am a proud mom to a Chi Wawa named Tucker.  I like to craft, and go to the springs.    [14:39] Paul- What was the deciding factor to listen to the RE podcast, and contact the host? Tori- My DUI was my bottom, the way I portrayed myself to the officer in December of 2015.    [18:35] Paul- I’m going to read one sentence from the email you sent to me. “I don’t drink everyday, I don’t have withdrawals, what I do have is the inability to control myself once I start drinking”.  Talk to me more about that.  Tori- During the workweek I like to keep my head on straight.  The culture in town is to drink, and to binge drink.  I have been doing these bar tours since I was 17.    [24:34] Paul- What has it been like these past 16 days? Tori- I have been preoccupied with work.  I was moving for one of the weekends.  The hardest day was when two of my best friends came over and brought wine.  I didn’t drink, and they didn’t care.  I haven’t had that breakthrough of clarity yet.  I kind of feel that I am in limbo.   [32:58] Paul- To this point, what have you lost to alcohol? Tori- A lot of my dignity, you gain more dignity in sobriety.  Other things I have lost are trust with my parents.  I have lost my sense of safety.  I was taken to the back seat of a car and taken advantage of.  I was beaten up, and had a concussion; I lost a ton of money.      [37:01] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? The DUI, it affected many more people than myself.  The sexual assault was the worst, but I try not to associate drinking with that. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?  Every single time I do something dumb.  Every time I lose a notch of my dignity.  What’s your plan moving forward? What I have been doing has been working.  I like listening to the podcasts.  Most of my friends probably all have a drinking problem. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  Take it one day at a time; realize that you are better than your addiction. You might be an alcoholic if spend the night on a chair that is not yours in front of a house that you do not own or rent.  Or if you choose to not take the advice of the people that care about you the most, and continue with your bad habits.   Resources mentioned in this episode: Self-Compassion Dr. Kristin Neff Dr. Kristin Neff- CMSC website Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul summarizes a talk by Tara Brach named “Healing Addiction: De-Conditioning the Hungry Ghosts”  Addiction is addiction, it doesn’t matter what it is, it is applicable.  Tara talks about the “hungry ghosts” of addiction.  There is a sense that something is missing.  A feeling that this moment does not contain enough happiness.  How you live today is how you live the rest of your life.  When we don’t have basic needs met, we reach out for a substitute.  We must find a way to love ourselves. Peri, with 81 days since her last drink, shares her story.   SHOW NOTES   [11:11] Paul Introduces Peri.  I have been sober since May 8, 2016.  I am a bartender, I live in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I am a poet, and have been writing more in sobriety.     [12:58] Paul-  Describe your drinking habits, how much did you used to drink?  Peri-  I think by the end I was drinking 20-30 shots of whiskey a day, and 5 beers.  I tried all types of rules with most of them meant to be broken.  I think I started to derail when I was 17 years old.  I knew by the time I was 21, I had a problem.    [16:13] Paul- Talk to us about some of the things you have had to change? Peri- A big thing for me is friendships.  Almost everyone I associated with drank like I did.  I had to cut almost everyone out of my life.  I had to start fresh like I knew no one in the city.   [20:19] Paul- You quit smoking and drinking at the same time, tell us about that? Peri-  I quit soda at the same time too.  5 aspirin and a large Coke used to get me through the hangovers.  I had massive blood clots, so I had to quit both to avoid the health consequences.   [25:11] Paul- What’s on your bucket list in sobriety, what do you hope to accomplish? Peri- Some days it is One Day at a time, others it is the moon.  I am saving up for a truck, I would like to travel more.  I would like to get off my blood thinners.  Healing my body would be a huge moment for me.   [29:45] Paul- What do you do when you have the cravings? Peri- I eat a lot of ice cream.  Either Pistachio, or Peanut butter ice cream, sometimes Raspberry.    [35:27] Paul- How is it today?  How are you on day 81? Peri- I feel really great, doing an interview right now.  Meeting up with my friends, having some dinner.  I legitimately haven’t experienced a sober birthday in 10 years.  I am looking forward to remembering it.  I have been trying the meditation.  I have been researching alcoholism.  I have been pretty active in Café RE.  Occasionally, I will go to AA, but only when I need an extra boost.     [37:30] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? I don’t know, there were a lot.  I was hanging out with a shady group of people who had alcohol.  I fell, and these people left me on a curb with a big gash on my head. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? My last job I got fired from, because I was taking shots of alcohol in the bathroom before my shift. What’s your plan moving forward? I’m going to keep digging in; reading, writing, and it will all figure itself out. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? Café RE.  I listen to the podcasts, but the Facebook group is great to describe what I am feeling, and have the communication with the group. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.  What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  Anything in your life that is a toxic influence, get rid of it.  It is not conducive to your sobriety. You might be an alcoholic if you wake up on the sidewalk.    Resources mentioned in this episode: Healing Addiction: De-Conditioning the Hungry Ghosts Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul summarizes the book “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron.  How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy.   Tyler, with 137 days since his last drink, shares his story   SHOW NOTES   [7:45] Paul Introduces Tyler.  I’m 33, live in Austin, Texas.  I am an editor for a national magazine, and I am an HIV pharmacy rep in Texas.  I have 2 standard Poodles named Jones and Indy (Counting Crowes reference, not the movies).     [12:57] Paul- When did you realize that maybe your drinking is not normal? Tyler- I started about 3 years ago evaluating my own behavior.   I wanted to look into my own behaviors and recognize that I’m 33, and I am binge drinking 3 nights a week.  I took a 30-day sober challenge, and then I was wasted on day 31.   [17:06] Paul- Was it a question in your mind that you were getting worse? Tyler- I still question whether I was or not (having a problem with alcohol).  Let’s just go ahead and say I have a problem with it.  My balance is none at all.  If I weren’t so exposed to alcoholism, it wouldn’t have showed me what it could do to a person.   [21:21] Paul- It sounds like you woke up one day and said “I have a drinking disorder.”  How did that feel when you reached that conclusion? Tyler- It was terrifying, I was going slowly in the process.  I did go to an AA meeting my first month.  It is a wonderful program, and I will never close my door to that program.  It was organizing my thoughts around what I am, and what I’m not.   [29:19] Paul- Walk us through a typical day for Tyler. Tyler- I am still figuring out how I do it.  I went to a wedding in Mexico at a resort, which had, it struggles.  I volunteer a whole bunch; I volunteer at an animal shelter, and at a local clinic.  I do meditate quite a bit for 20-30 minutes a day.  I am on a kickball team here in Austin.  The hardest part about my journey is navigating my same social circles sober.   [32:47] Paul- What have you learned most about yourself in recovery? Tyler- I’m honestly a very intense person.  Alcohol used to water down my intensity.  I have to find other ways of chilling out.        [35:23] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? The memory that I lost.  The worst memory is having zero memories. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? It boils down to that one last night.  It turned into an all night party.  What’s your plan moving forward? To stay sober.  We are getting married, and working on adoption.  Talking about it publicly, and being an open book for others helps me keep my head on straight. What’s your favorite resource in recovery?  A Recovery podcast episode- RE 74: 50 Ways to Stay Sober This Summer. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Alcohol is literally shit, and why are you putting it in your body? What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  If you are thinking about getting sober, do it.  Lean to the side that says you have a problem, don’t run the other way. You might be an alcoholic if you wake up with a wig on, and you don’t know how it happened.   Resources mentioned in this episode: RE 74: 50 Ways to Stay Sober This Summer Gay, Fabulous, and Drinking Myself to Death "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul  comments on a video show on stopdrinkingexpert.com titled “Alcohol will kill you”  If we can put “smoking kills” packaging of cigarettes, why can’t we put similar labels on alcohol?  This documentary takes place in the UK, but is contemporaneous throughout the globe.  They found that 50% of the people tested had elevated liver values.  The price of alcohol has become significantly cheaper than it was 30 or 40 years ago.  Fear does not harness long term sustainable sobriety. www.stopdrinkingexpert.com   [8:26] Paul introduces Randy with a sobriety date of 12/30/2016.  I am 39 years old, with 4 kids aged 12, 10, 4, and 2.  I am from Indianapolis, IN, and currently relocating to the Denver area.  I am a restaurant manager who enjoys hiking, and spending time with my kids.  Drinking wasn’t really fun anymore.  I found myself drinking alone by myself most of the time.   [17:05]  Paul- Would you classify yourself as a high bottom drunk? Randy- No one really believed that I was an alcoholic, even when I started going to AA, and getting into recovery.  The older I am getting the hangovers became too difficult to deal with.  People who aren’t involved in recovery, have a difficult time understanding what we go through.   [22:41]  Paul- Is AA the main vein for how you got sober? Randy- I hit a streak of RE podcasts where AA wasn’t mentioned at all and I remember being excited that I didn’t have to go to any meetings to get sober.  Then I heard a few RE episodes where people started to get traction with their sobriety had success with AA.  I went to a few meetings before I found one I really liked and connected with the people there.  I found a sponsor, and have been working the steps and making progress.   [25:56]  Paul- What was it like when you first quit drinking? Randy- I wasn’t sleeping great initially.  Sleep is amazing now.  The second day without drinking I woke up at 6:00 am, and was binge listening to podcasts and working out.  The first few days were rough for sure.  Finding those activities and things to do that replace drinking are important.  I joined the RE Facebook group within the first 2 weeks.   [30:53] Paul- Walk us through a typical day in sobriety now. Randy- I am there for my kids more now.  I like to spend time with my sponsor at least once a week.  I always check in with the Café RE Facebook group.  I am trying to eat a little better, and exercise more.  I look forward to so many more things now, instead of trying to get everything accomplished so I can drink.   [35:37] Paul- Has it been tough being in the restaurant business through sobriety? Randy- It has it’s challenges, but hasn’t been too bad.  Seeing the hangovers on my servers faces keeps me grounded in my recovery, and reminds me of what I don’t miss from drinking.   [38:06] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking?  We went out with my little brother, and I tried to keep up with his friends.  We did shots of Irish car bombs, I was so hungover the next day.  We had to get up early and go to a “Fun Fair” at my daughters school.  All the parents were happy and engaging, I didn’t want to be there and just wanted to hide. Did you ever have an “oh shit” moment”?  I remember coming home from work and finding only 8 beers in the fridge.  I was angry because I knew that wasn’t going to be enough.  I had to go to the liquor store and get more before I could start drinking. What’s your plan in sobriety?  I want to keep moving forward in my sobriety.  Meditation is on my list, and I want to continue doing what has worked for me so far. What’s your favorite resource in recovery?  “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace What’s the best advice you have received?  Find what works for you.  Talking to people who are sober have all sorts of different paths, but end up sober. What parting piece of advice can you give to listeners who are thinking of quitting drinking, or in early recovery?  If you are thinking about getting sober, then let’s do it!  I haven’t regretted a day of sobriety thus far.  If my life doesn’t improve, I can always go back to drinking.  If I don’t make changes now, I know I will regret them later. You might be an alcoholic if you still pack a cooler to take to parties, but now it is full of La Croix and other sparkling waters.

Highlights Civil rights march in NYC 100 years ago |@ 01:15 Draft dodging, bobbing and weaving |@ 03:15 Passchendaele the battle of the  MUD |@ 08:45 “The Song of Mud” by Mary Borden |@ 12:40 The Storyteller and the Historian |@ 17:00 On being an intern at the US WW1 Centennial Commission |@ 23:00 Event Picks of the week |@ 27:00 100C/100M Profile - Memorial Park in Mobile Alabama |@ 29:00 Motorcycles and Memorials |@ 34:15 Working on America’s WW1 Memorial |@ 41:30 Dazzle Camouflage and Peach Pits |@ 42:40 And more...----more---- Opening Welcome to World War 1 centennial News - It’s about WW1 news 100 years ago this week  - and it’s about WW1 News NOW - news and updates about the centennial and the commemoration. Today is August 2nd, 2017 and this week we joined by Mike Shuster from the great war project blog, The Storyteller and the Historian, Richard Rubin and Jonathan Bratten  - Paul Bergholzer a sociology student from Catholic university Cammie Israel, from the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials project in Mobile, Alabama - and Lamar Veatch, Retired State Librarian at the Georgia Public Library Service. WW1 Centennial News is brought to you by the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission and the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. I’m Theo Mayer - the Chief Technologist for the World War One Centennial Commission and your host. World War One THEN 100 Year Ago This Week [SOUND TRANSITION] Our wayback machine has transported us back 100 year and It’s the week of July 29rd, 1917 The Silent Protest Parade Earlier this month July 2, 1917 simmering labor tensions between white and black workers explodes in St Louis. For 24 hours, white mobs indiscriminately stab, shoot and lynch anyone with black skin. Men, women, the elderly, the disabled even children – horrifyingly --- no one is spared. Homes are torched and occupants shot down as they attempt to flee. Police and White militiamen stand idly by as the carnage unfolds. The death toll is as high as 200 and the city’s surviving 6,000 black residents become refugees. In protest, the NAACP the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organizes a large demonstration in New York City. This week, 26 days later, during the saturday afternoon of July 28, nearly 10,000 African-Americans march down Fifth Avenue, in silence, protesting racial violence and white supremacy in the United States. [SOUND EFFECT] The only sounds are those of muffled drums, the shuffling of feet and the gentle sobs of some of the estimated 20,000 onlookers. The women and children are all wearing white. The men are dressed in black. New York City, and the nation, has never before witnessed such a remarkable scene. The “Silent Protest Parade,” as it come to be known, is the first mass African-American demonstration of its kind and marks a watershed moment in the history of the upcoming civil rights movement.  Just one generation after the end of slavery, this somber and powerful event conveys both a mournful dignity and stern determination for the black community to stand up for the rights of its citizens. For those who always believed that the birth of the civil rights movement was in 60’s - it’s foundation was actually forged 100 years ago this week during the war that changed the world!   Links: https://theconversation.com/100-years-ago-african-americans-marched-down-5th-avenue-to-declare-that-black-lives-matter-81427   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/heres-weve-learned-mass-protests-100-years-silent-parade/   http://time.com/4828991/east-saint-louis-riots-1917/ Official Bulletin - Draft dodging [sound effect transition to the morse code] This week from the Official Bulletin…. the government war gazette published by George Creel, President Wilson’s Propaganda Chief > The pages seem to be buzzing with articles about who is, who did, who must, and who didn’t respond to the call to arms known as the American Selective Service Act. [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Monday July 30, 1917 Headline: NATION-WIDE SEARCH IS ORDERED FOR MEN WHO FAILED TO REGISTER; VIGOROUS CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF THOSE DETECTED TO BE MADE! The Attorney General Gives Directions for Sweeping Investigation He declares that  “Those Apprehended Will Not Escape the Draft.”   [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Also Monday July 30, 1917 Headline: PRESIDENT DIRECTS DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS TO EXERCISE THE GREATEST CARE IN PROVIDING AFFIDAVITS TO EXEMPT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES The story goes on to explain that although certain Federal Employees may be exempt from the draft, such as postal workers, workmen in armories, arsenals and navy yards their supervisor’s affidavits will be under close scrutiny and review. [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Wednesday August 1, 1917 Headline: Exemption Claims of Men Married Since July 20 Will Be Scrutinized Closely “Mary… Let’s get hitched so I don’t have to go to France!” Well - maybe not…. Apparently there is a rapidly spreading belief that if are married your family is dependent on you, and therefore you can claim an exemption to be discharged from the draft.   Although there is language in the law that creates an exemption for men whose families are depending on them, the government effectively argues that this NOT VALID in many cases!   Provost Marshal General Crowder - the head of the draft - sends the following telegram to governors of all States explaining his ruling concerning dependency on the grounds of marriage….   “ I direct you to please call the attention of local boards to the fact that a soldier's pay is not less than $30 a month and that all clothing, subsistence, medical treatment, and housing are furnished him. Under the law he may allot any portion of his pay to a dependent. Many soldiers receiving $30 a month are easily able to allot $25 monthly to the support of their dependents. “ In case of death-in-the-line-of-duty the Government will pay to the beneficiary designated by the soldier -- presumably his dependents - six months’ pay. The discretion of local boards may well take - the facts recited above - into consideration in deciding claims for discharge due to dependency with a view to determining whether, as a matter of fact, the person claiming such exemption will not be in as good or better position to support his dependents after selection for military service than he was before. If such is the case, of course, the discharge should not be granted. [SOUND EFFECT] In other related headlines this week: RESIGNATIONS FROM THE SELECTIVE SERVICE PERMITTED ONLY FOR MOST URGENT REASONS.. Passports Issued by State Department to Persons Subject to Draft Only When Application is Accompanied by Permit From Provost Marshal General to Leave the Country Service In Red Cross Is Not Valid Claim for Exemption DRAFTED MEN FAILING T0 APPEAR FOR' PHYSICAL EXAMINATION WILL BE REPORTED TO U. S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Balance Must Be Struck and Kept Between Military and Industrial Needs of the Nation, Asserts General Crowder—Necessary Sacrifice Must Be Distributed With Scientific Accuracy.   And in a final an article that shows the other side of the massive “sign em up and get ‘em in” mentality is a slight concern that perhaps not everyone getting swept up in the big net may be desirable… [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: Friday August 3, 1917 Headline: SPECIALISTS WILL WEED OUT MEN NERVOUSLY OR MENTALLY UNFIT FOR SERVICE IN ARMY --- SEVERE EXAMINATIONS ARE PLANNED... A Group of I50 Neurologists and Psychiatrists Have Been Organized for the Work. They Will Be Sent to The Cantonments and Later to France to examine cases.   Now… Having now followed the Official bulletin since it’s launch in mid May, the editorial team here at WW1 Centennial News has been struck by how we can feel the issues of the week as thematic drumbeats in the bulletin. This week - with nearly 10 articles on the subject of managing the implementation of the draft,  the evasion and exemption issues are on the government’s mind 100 years ago this week.   You too can read every issue of the Official Bulletin on the centennial anniversary of its original publish date by going to ww1cc.org/bulletin.   More and more historians, students, teachers and folks just plain interested are discover this amazing resource, which is an exclusive feature on the commission’s web site. Check it out - but be careful - it’s addictive. ww1cc.org/bulletin [SOUND EFFECT] Great War Project Now we are joined by Mike shuster, former NPR correspondent and curator for the Great War Project blog. Today Mike’s post takes a look at another three letter horror of the trench war - last week GAS this week - MUDIf you were a trench warrior 100 years ago - MUD was no joke… Welcome Mike [Mike Shuster] LINK:http://greatwarproject.org/2017/07/30/drowning-in-mud/   Thank you Mike. That was Mike Shuster from the Great War Project blog. The Song of Mud We are going to punctuate Mike’s post with a poem written in 1917 by Mary Borden and read by Blake Edwards, Joe Kopyt, and Ambre Shoneff, MFA acting students at The Ohio State University - This is “The Song of Mud”: [RUN THE SONG OF MUD AUDIO] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57329/at-the-somme-the-song-of-the-mud [SOUND EFFECT] The Great War Channel For videos about WW1, we invite you to check out the Great War Channel on Youtube -  they offer great videos about the great war from a more European perspective.. This week’s new episodes include: Burial and Identification Of The Dead in WW1 Three years of WW1 - an overview retrospective US Preparation - Alien Enemies Act - Franco-Prussian War Follow the link in the podcast notes or search for “the great war” on youtube. Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar The Storyteller and the Historian To wrap up our history segment of WW1 Centennial News, our intrepid duo - the storyteller and the historian Richard Rubin and Jonathan Bratten are going to explore the federalization of shipping industry in 1917 [RUN SEGMENT] That was - the StoryTeller - Richard Rubin and The Historian - Jonathan Bratten The Storyteller and the Historian is now a full hour long monthly podcast. The july issue is now out on iTunes and libsyn look for it there or follow the link in the podcast notes. Link: http://storytellerandhistorian.libsyn.com World War One NOW [SOUND EFFECT] We have moved forward into the present with  WW1 Centennial News NOW  - News about the centennial and the commemoration. Commission News Interview with Paul Burgholzer, Intern In Commission news - As I mentioned last week we were blessed with an amazing intern team this summer here at the commission. There were 16 of them in total and we thought you might enjoy meeting one of them and learning a little more about what our interns do and experience. With us is Paul Bergholzer a sociology student from Catholic university - and a member of our summer of 2017 intern team - Welcome Paul. [Exchange Greetings] [Paul - what year are you in your studies and do you have any specific plans after graduating?] [Paul] [What made you decide to apply to the WW1 Centennial Commission for an internship?] [Paul] [This is a very important question - what was the funniest thing that happened to you during the internship?] [Paul] [What kind of advice would you give to someone considering applying for an internship with us?] [Paul] [My last question for you Paul - If you imagine yourself 10 years from now - what do you think you will remember most about your intern experience this summer.] [Paul] Thanks Paul - and thank to the whole team for the great job y’all did for the centennial commission this past summer. If there are any listeners who would like to apply for an internship at the commission - follow the link in the podcast notes. Link: http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/participate/individuals/internships.html Activities and Events [SOUND EFFECT] Paducah Next for our Activities and Events Section, we are going profile 2 events -  selected from the U.S. National WW1 Centennial Events Register at WW1CC.org/events where are compiling and recording the WW1 Commemoration events from around the country- not just from major metros but also local events from the heart of the country- showing how the WW1 Centennial Commemoration is playing out everywhere. Our local event is from Paducah, in the Blue Grass state of Kentucky   The The McCracken County Public Library Local and Family History Department has an exhibit on view through 2017 called “Paducah During World War 1”. The exhibit highlights the Paducahn WW1 experience, using photographs and excerpts pulled from their The Paducah Evening Sun which was published from 1906 to 1929. As a small local paper, it’s archives are ideal to highlight the enlisted men from McCracken County and to tell the story of local residents and their life in wartime. The link in the podcast notes will lead you to more information about this great local event. Smithsonian postal museum For our major metro event, we want to profile the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington DC - which currently has the exhibit “My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I”. The exhibit is on view through November 2018 and highlights the personal correspondence written on the frontlines and home front, illuminating the human emotions and thoughts of soldiers, mothers, generals and everyone in between. Included are previously unpublished letters by General John Pershing. The museum is located right next to Union Station, in the nation’s capital. The event link is in the podcast notes. link:http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/commemorate/event-map-system/eventdetail/30397/my-fellow-soldiers-letters-from-world-war-i.html https://postalmuseum.si.edu/MyFellowSoldiers/index.html link:http://ww1cc.org/events http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/commemorate/event-map-system/eventdetail/11919/paducah-during-world-war-1.html 100 Cities/100 Memorials [SOUND EFFECT] Memorial Park - Mobile Alabama Every week we are going to profile one of the many amazing projects that are participating in our 100 Cities / 100 Memorials national matching grant challenge. This week we introduce you to a group called the Stewards of Memorial Park from Mobile Alabama. They are renovating a local landmark known as Memorial Park. We’re joined by Cammie Israel, the Patriotic Service Chairman for the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America(NSCDA). Welcome Cammie! [exchange greetings] [Cammie - For starters, could you tell us a little bit about the Memorial Park and its history?] [Cammie - your team formed an organization to do that park restoration - when did you do that and do you think it helped in advocating for the project?] [How did you learn about the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials program?] [Cammie - for others who are considering a restoration project like this - what has been the biggest challenge?] Thank you for coming on and sharing your project with us! Congratulations on putting all this together - you are doing a great thing here! [say goodbye] That was Cammie Israel on the Memorial Park restoration project in  Mobile Alabama - We will continue to profile the submitting teams and their projects weekly on the show over the coming months and you can learn more about the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials program at ww1cc.org/100memorials or follow the link in the podcast notes.   Link: www.ww1cc.org/100memorials https://www.facebook.com/pages/Memorial-Park/478491675506380 http://local15tv.com/news/local/mobile-to-restore-wwi-monument-at-memorial-park Updates From The States Interview with Lamar Veatch [SOUND EFFECT] Lamar Veatch, is the Retired State Librarian for the Georgia Public Library Service - Among other things… Lamar is with us today to talk to us about two of his great passions: WW1 and motorcycles! [Hi Lamar!] Lamar - how did you get involved with the WW1 centennial? [Lamar replies] OK I want to switch the topic to memorials and motorcycles - Lamar - I am going to take a minute to explain to the audience - as a part of the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials program, we realized that no-one knows where all the WW1 Memorials in America are. There are thousands of them and we have less than 2000 of them catalogued. So we created the memorials hunters club - there is this national register map you can look at if you go to ww1cc.org/hunter and if the memorial you found isn’t on it - you get to register it AND include a selfie - So when we launched the Memorial Hunters Club I started getting these great entries of these memorials with selfies of this very cool, beautiful, white, three wheeled motorcycle - from you Lamar --- Tell us about that! [Lamar replies] As a motorcycle-enthusiast and a historical librarian, what do you think is the most interesting thing about motorcycles and WW1? Thanks for coming on Lamar Good hunting my friend - That was Lamar Veatch -Retired State Librarian for the Georgia Public Library Service - motorcyclist - and intrepid Memorial Hunter! Link: www.ww1cc.org/georgia www.worldwar1centennial.com/hunter [SOUND EFFECT] Wisconsin This week for our updates from the states - We go to the Badger state - Wisconsin! And incidentally - the home of Harley Davidson!! The Wisconsin Veterans Museum opened an online exhibit called “The Roses of No Man’s Land”, honoring and commemorating nurses from Wisconsin that served during the Great War. They are using photos, letters, and personal writing logs, to tell the story. The exhibit focuses specifically on the experiences of two volunteers who dedicated their lives to help the war effort. Read more about this exhibit honoring Wisconsin nurses who served during the Great War by following the links in the podcast notes or by visiting the Wisconsin WW1 Centennial Site at ww1cc.org/wisconsin link:http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/wisconsin http://www.wisvetsmuseum.com/exhibitions/online/no_mans_land/ http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/2958-roses-of-no-man-s-land-online-exhibit-honors-wisconsin-nurses-who-served-in-great-war.html America’s WW1 Memorial at Pershing Park in Washington DC It is time for an update on America’s WW1 Memorial at Pershing Park in our nation’s capital... Sabin Howard advances WWI memorial sculpture in Weta Workshop sessions This week in our articles and posts  section we want to feature a great article called “Sabin Howard advances WWI memorial sculpture in Weta Workshop sessions” With the unanimous design-concept approval by the U.S. Commission of Fine Art and by the National Capital Planning Commission, in recent weeks, our development of the new National World War I Memorial at Pershing Park in Washington DC is in high-gear. Our sculptor for the memorials Bas-relief sculpture that tell the story of WWI , Sabin Howard has taken the design artwork to New Zealand, to work with the incredibly talented artists at the high-tech sculpting studio, Weta Workshop - the incredible craft center created by Director Peter Jackson for the Lord of The Ring film series. Sabin took some time to talk to us, and to show us what they are creating, and how the sculptural development process works. Read about the high tech take on an ancient artistic process and see some amazing images of that process by following the link in the podcast notes. Link: http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/2931-sabin-howard-update-on-national-wwi-memorial-sculpture.html www.ww1cc.org/news The Buzz - WW1 in Social Media Posts That brings us to the buzz - the centennial of WW1 this week in social media with Katherine Akey - Katherine - what do you have for us this week? Dazzle Camouflage Some battleships in WW1 got very special paint jobs. link:http://didyouknowfacts.com/battleships-like-tripped-zebras/ Peach Pit Party The Red Cross lead a nationwide drive for a life-saving necessity… peach pits! link:https://www.facebook.com/ww1centennial/photos/a.290566277785344.1073741829.185589304949709/814497215392245/?type=3&theater https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/what-america-looked-like-collecting-peach-pits-for-wwi-gas-masks/252294/ Thank you Katherine.   Closing And that’s it for WW1 Centennial News for this week. Thank you for listening! When we post each episode we also post a notice on our facebook page at facebook.com/ww1centennial. We invite you come by and comment on the current week’s episode. Let us know what you think about what we presented and what you’d like us to also talk about. We want to thank our guests: Mike Shuster from the Great War Project blog and his post about MUD, and the Passchendaele battle Richard Rubin and Jonathan Bratten and their StoryTeller and the Historian segment on the nationalization of the shipping industry in 1917 Paul Burgholzer speaking with us about his experience as an intern with the WW1 Centennial Commission Cammie Israel for her profile on the Memorial Park restoration project in Mobile, Alabama Lamar Veatch talking to us about hunting memorials on his motorcycle Katherine Akey the Commission’s social media director and also the line producer for the show. And I am Theo Mayer - your host. The US World War One Centennial Commission was created by Congress to honor, commemorate and educate about WW1. Our programs are to-- inspire a national conversation and awareness about WW1; This program is a part of that…. We are bringing the lessons of the 100 years ago into today's classrooms; We are helping to restore WW1 memorials in communities of all sizes across our country; and of course we are building America’s National WW1 Memorial in Washington DC. If you like the work we are doing, please support it with a tax deductible donation at ww1cc.org/donate - all lower case Or if you are on your smart phone text  the word: WW1 to 41444. that's the letters ww the number 1 texted to 41444. Any amount is appreciated.   We want to thank commission’s founding sponsor the Pritzker Military Museum and Library for their support. The podcast can be found on our website at ww1cc.org/cn   on  iTunes and google play ww1 Centennial News. Our twitter and instagram handles are both @ww1cc and we are on facebook @ww1centennial. Thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to share the stories you are hearing here with someone about the war that changed the world! [music] So long!

Paul breaks down and discusses the article: “The Spiritual Consequences of Alcohol Consumption” by Zahrah Sita Although it is mass produced, mass promoted, legal, and ingested by a multitude of people all over the world, most people don’t ever consider or understand the spiritual consequences of drinking alcohol. Let’s begin by taking a look at the etymology of the Word alcohol. Etymology means the root of the word… where it is derived from. The word “Alcohol” comes from the Arabic “al-kuhl” which means “BODY EATING SPIRIT”, and gives root origins to the English term for “ghoul”. In Middle Eastern folklore, a “ghoul” is an evil demon thought to eat human bodies, either as stolen corpses or as children. The words “alembic” and “alcohol”, both metaphors for aqua vitae or “life water” and “spirit”, often refer to a distilled liquid that came from magical explorations in Middle Eastern alchemy. Odette, with 7 days since her last drink, shares her story.   [5:45] Paul Introduces Odette. I have been sober one week, so still riding the “Pink Cloud”.  I am from Guadalajara, Mexico and currently reside in San Diego California.  I am 29 years old, I am married and have 2 kids, and I am a wellness and fitness coach.  For fun I love going to the beach, cooking, and going to concerts.     [8:00] Paul- Describe your drinking habits over the last 10 years, 5 years. Odette- I started only drinking on weekends.  Then over time it turned into drinking everyday, and heavy drinking on the weekends.  I noticed a natural progression of my drinking habits.   [16:02] Paul- When was it you that decided you needed to quit drinking? Odette- It had been on my mind for months.  I am a very optimistic person, and the past few months I was living from a place of fear.    [19:23] Paul- What’s it been like the past week? Odette- It’s been hard.  I have a 3 year old and an 8 month old.  Being grounded helps me kick the urge.  My number one assignment is to be a mother, a present mother.  I really just enjoyed being a mom.  Listening to podcasts every single day, exercise and self-care.  One day at a time.   [22:40] Paul- Have you ever had a rock bottom moment in regards to alcohol? Odette- The morning after the Super bowl.  I spoke with my dad about not drinking anymore.  Pay attention to your own compass.  People perceive you differently than you are.    [29:14] Paul- What advice can you give to someone struggling to recognize his or her own addiction struggles? Odette- I think the best advice I can give is I wish I would have known two concepts.  If you know your why, it will help you surrender quicker.  Write out your vision.        [33:18] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? That event we talked about, the Super bowl where I didn’t spend a moment looking at the screen. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? I don’t think I had a clear moment; I was tired of listening to the little voice telling me it was time. What’s your plan moving forward?  Accountability for sure.  I love listening to personal development. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? Melody Beattie’s book: “The Language of Letting Go”.  I love the Recovery Elevator podcast, and Café RE. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? You can’t do it alone. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  Own your truth, own your story.  Do an inventory on yourself.  It will help you to surrender.  You might be an alcoholic if you start creating rules for yourself around drinking.  Also if you have any parents that have struggled with addiction.   Resources mentioned in this episode: http-//educateinspirecha#4A112C https://www.eckharttolle.com/books/newearth/ https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=the%20harmony%20tribe http://melodybeattie.com/books/language-letting-go-hazelden-meditation-series/ Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Rule Number One of podcasting is plug in the microphone. Pete, with 488 days of sobriety shares his story.   SHOW NOTES   [2:19] Paul Introduces Pete.  I am 38 years old, and golfing is my favorite leisure activity.  I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son.  I am in construction sales, mostly traveling around Ohio and surrounding states.    [6:07] Paul- When did you realize you had a problem with alcohol Pete? Pete- I’ve always known, or at least had the fear of having a problem.  I could drink a case of beer by myself in High school.    [12:23] Paul- Was this a bottom you experienced, or where you done? Pete- I hit a spiritual bottom.  Things that were important, no longer seemed important.  My wife, great job, and truck were all things that weren’t making me happy.  I realized that doing these things that I was taught would make me happy weren’t.  I was bankrupt spiritually and emotionally.  My wife opened the work bench, and the drawer was full of  empty and full booze bottles.  They were devastated.  I realized that suicide wasn’t’ an option.  That was the moment that made me change everything.   [17:25] Paul- What was the outpatient therapy like?  Walk us through that. Pete- I went to a state certified program.  I attended with several other professionals who learned a great deal about addiction and recovery.   [24:44] Paul- What have you learned most about yourself these past 488 days? Pete- I have learned that I like peace, calm, and serenity.  I accepted chaos because that is what I knew.  My life is really good, but I made it really bad by a lot of choices that I made.    [28:18] Paul- Have you had cravings, and how do you overcome cravings them? Pete- My cravings as of today are more “I would like a drink” but more thoughts than cravings.  In the beginning I had physical cravings.  I don’t have the impulse to drink now.  Alcohol was the medicine that fixed everything for me.     [30:25] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? The experience with my wife and daughter not being able to ride bikes because of my booze hidden in the drawer. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? For me it was when my mother in law died from alcoholism, in the nursing home my biggest thought was how do I get out of here and have a drink without anyone noticing. What’s your plan moving forward? Continue to present in the moment, and doing, not thinking about things I don’t do, and then regretting them.  I just need to do the best I can. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? Meditation and Prayer.  I’ve used the Headspace app, there is a meditation guru that lives in our village. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? Follow direction.  Putting faith in a blind process. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  You are feeling the way you are supposed to be feeling at that time.  Talk to other people.  My feelings are normal; it’s okay to relearn. You might be an alcoholic if when you walk out of your recovery center, and you see one of your friends that you’ve been partying with forever and he says “Hey Pete, I was surprised to see you here.”  Then I thought about it, and It’s really not much of a surprise to see you here.   Resources mentioned in this episode: Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”  - Amelia Earhart Paul discusses his difficulties in quitting smoking, and it’s parallels to quitting drinking.  Alcohol is not your friend.  Stop drinking cold turkey, and don’t try to a taper off strategy.  Rip the Band-Aid off.  Get rid of the booze from your house.  At this moment, you are not stronger than your addiction.  One day at a time.  Thinking must be flipped.       Quitting drinking is an opportunity to get your life back, not a sacrifice.  Write down a list of pros and cons from quitting drinking.  Don’t worry about your weight initially.  Get through sobriety first.  Schedule personal time for exercise.  Life happens, and we need to build up our coping skills muscles without alcohol.  Accountability is the underlying theme of this entire podcast.  Celebrate the milestones, and be happy with your progress. Leah, with 19 days since her last drink, shares her story.   SHOW NOTES   [11:20] Paul Introduces Leah.  My last drink was June 3rd, so my sobriety date is June 4th.  I am 34; I have been married since 2010.  I have a 6-year-old daughter, and a 2-year-old son.  I’m not really sure what I do for fun; I’m still figuring that out.     [13:01] Paul- When did you realize that perhaps you had a drinking problem?   Leah- I grew up with drinkers.  My dad will still get wasted and he is in his 70’s.  I would watch him pass out at the table at 7:00, and that was normal.  It really hit home over the past few years.  I would go to bed drunk, and wake up foggy and disconnected from everybody.  I didn’t drink to relax; I drank to feel normal again.   [17:35] Paul- With 19 days of sobriety have you noticed an uptick of being mindful and present in the moment?   Leah- Absolutely.  I want to give a spin on my story as a mom.  It is hard to have moms admit that they are an alcoholic.  As a mom, I would watch other moms accomplish so many tasks, and didn’t know when they had time to drink.  Now I have all this energy to do things.  I took my 2-year-old running.   [20:28] Paul- 19 days ago was something building up?  Was there a rock bottom moment?   Leah- I didn’t want to quit drinking.  I wanted to change my life to accommodate drinking.  For the past 2 years we have had some family issues.  I am not the person I wanted to be, and it started to impact my happiness.    [27:58] Paul- What was it like the first 24, 48,72 hours?   Leah- I had thought over the past year that I wasn’t physically addicted.  I had a habit, and I had to create a new habit.  Now I drink coffee when I get home instead of wine.    [35:08] Paul- If you had an open schedule, would you go to an AA meeting?   Leah- Yes.  I am skeptical, but I have gotten to the point where I realized you can get something valuable from whatever is out there.  You can make anything work for you if you have that desire.    [39:17] Paul- What’s on your bucket list in sobriety?  What do you want to accomplish with this new life.   Leah- Be present, be engaged, and mindful.  Get fit, and spend quality time with my family.  I would like to wake up earlier, and center myself.  Checking in with like-minded people will be important.  I would like to add meetings to my resources.     [42:55] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking?  There was one night where I thought I was losing my mind.  Screaming matches with my husband.  I was losing the grip on reality. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?  Waking up with my hands shaking.  The times I would stop to get a “juice box” on my way to pick up the kids.   What’s your favorite resource in recovery?  Recovery Elevator podcast.  Something to hold onto when you need it.  Something you can grab when you need a reminder. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)?  Writing a goodbye letter to alcohol.  My relationship with alcohol is over.  It’s time to break up.  If I need to go back, alcohol will be there.  I don’t want to go back. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  If you’re thinking about quitting, it’s probably something you need to do.  You’ll get there on your own time if need be. You might be an alcoholic if the running joke is you fall asleep on the toilet multiple times.   Resources mentioned in this episode Thanks to Kathy Von Lintel for doing the show notes the past 6 months! Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Paul discusses the webinar, which took place in Café Re, and focused on why taking action is so hard.  It’s much better to focus on the action and not the results.  We are definitely in a results oriented society.  Focus on the journey and not the destination.  Success can follow a flawed effort, and failure can follow a flawless effort.  If your happiness is predicated on your success, and if your success is predicated on a specific outcome, then you are setting yourself up for a high likelihood of frustration and disappointment.  If you instead let go the need for any particular outcome, you increase your chances for success and contentment.  View each attempt as practice for the next attempt.  Dawn with a sobriety date of November 27th 2016, shares her story.   SHOW NOTES   [8:09] Paul Introduces Dawn.  I’m single, 42, and I’m from Poole in the U.K.   In the daytime I work in accounts, in the evening I’m generally working on my blog. I love going out to dinner with friends, and walking to work.  Set myself a challenge to do 10,000 steps a day.   [10:10] Paul- Tell us more about this experiment to live you life without alcohol.   Dawn- The plan was to give up alcohol for a year.  I was struck down with flu, and I gave up alcohol then, instead of waiting until the New Year.  I decided to write down my journey, and document it on my blog.  It’s been filled with positivity.    [13:35] Paul- The way I’ve made it this far in sobriety, and been successful, is that I looking at it as an opportunity instead of a sacrifice.  Is that something that you are experiencing as well?  You’re looking at this as an opportunity instead of a sacrifice?   Dawn- Yeah, definitely.  I don’t think I realized how unhappy I was drinking.  I was more of a binge drinker than a drink everyday, drink in the morning type person.  My weekend would be properly drinking from Friday through Sunday.  Drinking copious amounts of alcohol to the point that I was sick the next day.  I don’t see that as a sacrifice, giving that up that kind of mentality, since it was so much binging and purging.   [14:53] Paul- When did you first realize that perhaps that you wanted to quit drinking?  Was it something that happened?   Dawn- I was conscience that I was drinking too much in one sitting, not remembering how I got home, kind of dangerous drinking really.  If I drove somewhere I would have nothing, instead of a single glass of wine.  Because if I had one, it wouldn’t stay at one.  Once I started, it was difficult to stop.   [18:06] Paul- Can you tell me about a time when you started drinking and you found the “off switch” a little difficult to find?  Was that progressive for you?  Did it become harder and harder to stop?   Dawn- Yeah, I was born without an “off switch”.  The first time I really remember getting drunk I was probably about 15 or 16.  Early twenties living with friends, drinking was a massive part of our lives together.  The men that I met were a massive part of that as well.  It didn’t spiral rapidly.    [22:16] Paul- How are you staying sober now?      Dawn- It’s a matter of changing everything.  I thought life would carry on the same.  Everything has changed.  I write a post for my blog at least once a week.  Trying to keep other people encouraged to carry on.  I used to always have a special drink as a reward for hard work.  I no longer do that.  I have a drink when I am thirsty.   [26:31] Paul- There’s a quote in recovery- You don’t have to change much, you just gotta change everything.  Is that how it went down for you?   Dawn- I still struggle with the social side of things.  I was the party animal.  It’s difficult to go from that to- it’s dark and I’ve got to get home.  I find it hard to socialize without alcohol.  I’m not good with big crowds.  I’ve come to terms that I won’t be that person again.   [28:40] Paul- What have you learned most about yourself in these past 6 months of sobriety?    Dawn- I’ve never really believed in loving yourself.  Now I keep saying to people you have to love yourself.  I haven’t loved myself for 40 years.  I realized I’m not the person I thought I was.  In my previous job I wasn’t really helping people and I didn’t think I could. It’s being confident in myself, rather than what other people think.   [31:31] Paul-  How do you feel about alcohol being an addictive substance, and perhaps there is no void?   Dawn- For me, the feeling is what was addictive.  I was the crier.  Alcohol gave me an emotional release.  For me it gave me an emotional release, woe is me!  For a window of 15 minutes I would feel amazing, then I would go over the top.  Then you’re miserable.  I think really it was the way it made me feel for 15 minutes before the crying would start.   [33:27] Paul- What are your goals in sobriety?   Dawn- I’ve always wanted to go to Thailand.  Stop waiting around for something to happen.  I was too tired, and lazy, and in bed.  Now I’m full of energy, and I’m going to make it happen on my own in January.   [35:18] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking? Getting home, and waking up the next day at 4:00, and not remembering getting home in a taxi. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment? I was a drunk texter.  Sometimes I couldn’t even touch my phone.  They were my worst moments really working out who I had contacted the night before. What’s your plan moving forward? Keep the blog going beyond being sober.  Maybe the hope rehab center in January.  Listening to podcasts more than music, listening to other people’s journeys. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? I love the online forums.  Club soda, team sober UK, and listening to Podcasts.  It is amazing listening to other peoples journeys What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? The best thing to do is go for each day at a time.  Breaking it into chunks can work.  Un-break the habit. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  Never give up.  I admire those who never give up.  I recommend writing down how you’re feeling.  I literally flooded my mind with sobriety. You might be an alcoholic if you find yourself questioning that you might be an alcoholic, then you probably are.   Resources mentioned in this episode:   dawn@soberfish.co.uk   http://www.soberfish.co.uk http://www.hope-rehab-center-thailand.com/ http://www.belvoirfruitfarms.com/ Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

Garrett, with 16 days since his last drink, shares his story   SHOW NOTES   [ 9:15 ] Paul Introduces Garrett.  I’ve had stretches of sobriety, I had 14 months, and I’ve had 3 years.  I live in Southern California, in Santa Clarita.  I work in outside sales, which is a non-structured job perfect for an alcoholic with hangovers.  I’m 43, married, like going to Dodger Games.  I have 2 kids, 1 in high school, and one in junior high.     [10:45] Paul- What was the impotence behind you quitting alcohol for 3 years, and then for 14 months?   Garrett- The hangovers for me are the body’s way of saying you’ve put a bunch of poison willingly in your body, and this is the result of it.  I would be laid out for a full day.  Thinking in the moment there is no possible way this could happen again.  The feeling in my stomach, I can’t move, or get out of the bed until 4:00 or 5:00 in the evening.  One of those times I stopped for 3 years, didn’t go to any program.  I lost weight, and started drinking again without any reason.  I would romanticize drinking, and once I got the buzz, there was no way I could stop now.  I would have to drink to continue with only a short window of feeling good.  The cost of that was being completely laid out the entire next day.   [13:35] Paul-  What was it like when you first drank after 3 years? Do you remember the first night?  Did you pick up right where you left off?   Garrett- No, not really.  It was a gradual thing, a slow buildup.  My elevator is kind of chaotic; it’s like the elevator at the tower of terror at Disney world.  At that point it was gradual.  I would wait for people to go to sleep, get a six-pack, and when that was gone, drunk drive to the liquor store and buy some more.  I would start with a bottle of wine, then I would go back to the store for tall boys.  I don’t know how many I would buy, but I would wake out, the room would start completely shaking, I would close my eyes, and that would be it.   [15:45] Paul-  Garrett you mentioned a word earlier that I would like to explore- Fascinating. You would tell yourself I’m only having a couple, but then just game on.   Can you tell me more about that fascinating part for you?   Garrett- It was complete and total amnesia every single time.  Forgetting the hangovers.  The amount of times I would lose not doing the things I wanted to do because I would be hung-over.  Because I’m not a bum in the street, I didn’t feel I was a true alcoholic.   [19:30]  Paul- Was there a rock bottom moment 16 days ago?   How come you quit drinking?   Garrett- It wasn’t a single rock bottom.  I have season tickets for the Dodgers.  If there was ever a sport made for sitting and drinking beer it is baseball.  The beer vendor at the stadium recognized me; I would have to go different vendors because I was embarrassed.   The drunk driving home from the games, then going to bars, then drunk driving home again.  I dented the garage with my car, and realized with a moment of clarity that this sh#t has got to stop.   [22: 01] Paul- Before I hit the record button you mentioned you felt like you were ping ponging back and forth between:  Am I an alcoholic?  Do I have a drinking problem?  Tell us more about that.   Garrett-  It was a stretch of a few days where I would just continually have a few days (of sobriety), and then I would be like “I’m not” because I would have a few days and that proves it.  The hangover goes away and I would think I’m not (an alcoholic) again.    [ 24:00] Paul- Is it harder this time around, do you remember?   Garrett- This time I’ve got 16 days.  I’m trying to arm myself with some resources.  I’m in a Pink Cloud at the moment.  History does repeat itself, and I have a plan to address what I know is going to start coming down the road.  The key thing is accountability.  I never had accountability with another person.  I think if I were not anonymous, I wouldn’t have taken that first drink on the New Port Harbor cruise after 14 months of sobriety.   [27:57] Paul- You mentioned you had a bad experience with AA, tell me more about that.   Garrett-  I was raised Christian evangelical, about 10 years ago I broke with that, and I am an atheist now.  I saw a lot of the judgment, dogma and there was trust that was broken in AA.  That combined with the God thing I’m still wrestling with.  I need to focus on the positive.  I’m ready to explore going back to AA, maybe a different meeting time.     [30:14] Paul-  With 16 days of sobriety, what have you learned most about yourself?   Garrett-  This time around is more of a sense of inner peace.  What I’m realizing now is that I don’t have to keep living the way I was living.  There’s no reason I have to pick up a drink again.  My life does not have to be how it’s been.  I’m choosing not to drink.  When cravings strike, I’ve been setting a timer on my apple watch to allow the 20 minutes to pass.   [34:10] Rapid Fire Round What was your worst memory from drinking?  Waking up and having to tell my wife that I was too hung-over to go down to my mom’s house for Easter.  Then spending the entire day in a state of despair. Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?  Back in college when I just got too hung-over and missed a final.  That was the first “oh-shit” moment. What’s your plan in sobriety moving forward? Accountability.  Reaching out and talking to other alcoholics, and seeking ways to help each other. What’s your favorite resource in recovery? Podcasts, Recovery Elevator, and the big book on my kindle. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)? You don’t ever have to drink again if you don’t want to. What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?  If you were thinking about getting sober… I would say: Do it, you’ll never feel better. You might be an alcoholic if:  Every night after you down many many bottles of beer, that you put those bottles of beer in a trash bag, put them in your trunk, and then the next morning drive them to a dumpster so that your wife doesn’t find out that there were all these empty bottles of beer in the trash can. Resources mentioned in this episode: Recovery Elevator Retreat Connect with Cafe RE- Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free Sobriety Tracker iTunes Sobriety Tracker Android Sober Selfies! - Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com     “We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”  

What Adam discusses with Paul: What is Paul's background in financial services and his journey What is Paul doing now with financial planning and what is his work Why did Paul setup inspiring adviser

KISS Solo Albums - The Purge of 1978 (Part 2): Bakko & LC continue their quest to cut down 39 submitted "solo demos" to one killer 10 track album. This ep breaks down Gene's and Ace's albums and also features several cameos from the great Ken Mills of PodKISSt. Gene, Peter, Ace & Paul - What tracks will make the cut?(Part 2 of 2)

In Revelation one of the churches is congratulated for resisting the teachings of a false apostle, is that a veiled reference to Paul? What do you think of The Complete Jewish Bible? Does non-orthodox Messianic Judaism change anything about what you've learned or studied or what conclusions you have produced? Any thoughts on LA Marzelli, "The Watchers, and the "seed of the Nephilim"? If the Tower of Babel produced diversity in language, than what produced diversity of race (color/bone structure, etc)? What is referred to by â??the branch of the Lordâ?? in Isaiah 2? Might Psalm 71:20 be referring to resurrection at all or is it more likely they only denote that Yahweh helps the righteous when their down and brings them back up on their feet? What do you think about the theory of R.G. Price that the young man in Mark 14:52, based on Amos 2:16, forms the culmination of three Markan allusions to Amos, the others being 2:6 and 2:12? Couldnâ??t we solve a lot of source-critical puzzles if we posited that â??Qâ?? was first an expansion of Mark? Where does Paul explains how remembered oral communications from Jesus were subject to distortion, substitution, and deletion of meaning, not to mention that any concepts communicated were bound within the context of language, unlike his teaching, based on a direct, non-linguistic transmission of information directly from Jesus? Doesn't a blatantly provocative, vulgar and literal image like a crucifix lend itself to not merely state sanction, but enforcement? When did this image become common?

I Thessalonians, Chapter 2 More greetings from Paul—What up, Thessalonica? Apparently, not much has changed since Paul last wrote. The Thessalonians are still keeping the faith, still loving, and still being persecuted. High fives all around! (Well, not so much for the persecution part.) However, there are a few points they need to go over. Some of them are wondering if "the day of the Lord" has come already. The answer is no. Apparently a lot of this end of the world stuff depends on a shady figure called the Man of Sin. He sounds scary, but no worries. Jesus is gonna wipe him out when he comes again. It's totally on his apocalyptic to-do list. Paul closes by reminding them not to tolerate any loafers in their midst. If folks aren't willing to work, then they're not gonna eat. Hardcore. Love, peace, and prayers to everyone back in Thessalonica. Paul out. Thanks to shmoop.com

"Jerry B. Jenkins' books have sold more than 70 million copies, including the phenomenal Left Behind series, minting him as one of the best-selling novelists of all time. In his latest release, Empire's End: A Novel of the Apostle Paul (Worthy Publishing, June 9, 2015), Jenkins tells the heart- stopping story of a man who single-handedly turned the Roman Empire on-end. The Apostle Paul is a biblical giant who wrote almost one-third of the New Testament, yet most details of his life remain a mystery. How could a devout Pharisee become the most influential Christian theologian of all time? Into that void steps master storyteller Jerry B. Jenkins, weaving a gripping narrative that illumines Paul's stunning transformation from bloodthirsty murderer of Christians to devoted bondservant of Christ. In Empire's End, Jenkins suggests answers to some pressing questions about Paul: * What was his thorn-in-the-flesh? * What went on in the trenches of his life, beyond the pages of the biblical letters he left behind? * How did he navigate the perilous path from killing Jesus' followers to becoming one of their most trusted leaders? * Did he ever fall in love, and if so, how did that romance shape him? * What thoughts and feelings most profoundly haunted, inspired, and fueled his intensity? The release added that thanks to Empire's End, we need no long peer into Paul's life only as through a glass darkly. This inventive, page-turning novel is steeped in bravado and bloodshed, conflict and deep devotion, romance and political maneuvering. The result is a can't-put-it-down thriller crafted to satisfy any curious. observer's longing to meet a flesh-and-blood man whose mission and message ultimately triggered the end of the great Roman Empire."

Kai Davis is a dynamite internet marketing professional. He's really reinventing how his clients view SEO and creating an amazing suite offerings with which anyone can build an amazing organic stream for their website. We discuss: How Kai boosts a website's findability Why you should focus on results, not SEO What best practices to follow What does on-site SEO involve? How do you get quality backlinks? The education problem that SEO faces What a bad SEO engagement looks like Link-building strategies for real SEO results The easiest SEO win you can use for your site How important are search rankings? An easy way to improve click-through rates Are you communicating trust? Kai's number one SEO tip. If you want to learn more from Kai, he's got a newsletter where he dispenses more of the hot truth you heard here. Sign up at http://kaidavis.com/newsletter/ PS: Be sure to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and write a review. iTunes is all about reviews! Transcript.... Recorded: This is the Unofficial Shopify Podcast with Kurt Elster and Paul Reda, your resource for growing your Shopify business sponsored by Ethercycle. Kurt: Welcome to the second episode of the Unofficial Shopify Podcast. I am your host, Kurt Elster. With me is my cohost and partner-in-crime, Paul Reda. Paul: Hello. Kurt: Joining us today is our guest and friend, Kai Davis. Kai, you're out in Portland. How's it going there? Kai: Hey, folks. It's a nice and rainy overcast Portland day so it feels like home. Kurt: Fantastic. Kai, you're my go-to SEO guy. Why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself? Kai: Sure. I am a marketing consultant specializing in search engine optimization and helping my clients get found online through digital outreach promotion and link building. I figure my clients have wonderful content, wonderful websites. My role is to help people find out about those sites. Go out there on my clients' behalf, tell influencers, authorities, bloggers, and journalists about my client, their resources, their linkable assets, and promote that connection. Kurt: It sounds like you've differentiated yourself. You're like, "I should wait more than just an SEO guy." Kai: Totally. Totally. So many people practicing SEO out there but saying I need an SEO is like going to an architect and saying, I really need a hammer. You want a new house. You want a beautiful entry way. I am focused on the results for my clients which usually are traffic, sales, better image, not necessarily just, "Hey, we're going to do some SEO on your site." We're going to do best practices that help you get found online. Kurt: Okay. Actually, tell us a little bit about those best practices. Kai: Sure. It really splits into two different camps. You have on-site SEO and off-site SEO. With the on-site side of things, it's like saying, "We want to get everything tuned out that we can, make it easy for people to find us." The analogy I like using is saying, "If you're going to have people over to your house, you're going to tie some balloons to your mailbox so they know exactly where you are." I think that's what on-site SEO really is. What can we do to make it so when people come by, they're able to find your site. It covers the normal stuff, title pegs, headers, headlines, on-page content, what keywords are we targeting? Just making sure everything is as perfect as it can be. When it comes to off-site stuff, again, that end goal is we want to get traffic to your site. We want to get interesting people finding your site and saying, "Hey, this is what I want." To do that, the best signal to send to Google is and always has been links. What I do is that outreach on behalf of my clients saying, "Hey, we want to get some links to your site from relevant sites, from influencer sites, from sites that have high quality content, and everybody benefits from that. Paul: That mention of high quality content is really what is important and sticks out to me because at least, my impression is dealing with the SEO consultants of the world. Is that SEO has almost become like a catch-out term for snake oil salesmen who are just trying to get people to be … I can get you to be number one in Google. I can do black magic that will secretly increase your Google rankings so you give me a ton of money. I feel like those people are taking advantage of a customer who actually needs legitimate help. Is that something that you think is a problem in dealing with your industry that the clients don't understand that there's much more to this than just paying some guy to buy a bunch of backlinks off of Fiverr? Kai: Absolutely. It comes down to an education problem and a reputation management problem on behalf of the SEO folks. I've had so many clients and potential clients say to me, "You know what I hate? Two things in the world. Only two things. Lawyers and SEO specialists. I don't understand what they do. It's confusing. They try to explain it to me and do a terrible job, and I just throw money to a black box, and I don't know what's going to come out of it." That's what I want to move away. There's so many people out there who are eager to sell a $300 or a $500 solution. We'll get you traffic. We'll get you a number one position on Google, but again, for that hammer analogy, it's like they're selling you a really fancy hammer when you want a better house. Kurt: Let's talk about the bad SEO people. What are those guys doing? Let's dispel it right now. Kai: Usually when somebody goes out and says, "Hey, I want to get to number one on Google. I am going to pay somebody $300, $400, $500 a month," they're going out there and they're doing, the SEO company is doing on that client's behalf directory submissions, building a spam backlinks through blog commenting or buying up existing sites that have links pointing to them, building out the content, and then putting links in that content to the client's site. As with anything, there's some ways you could use these black hat tactics effectively and some ways you could do it very ineffectively, and most of the time, if your client he says, "Hey, I just want to spend $300 or $400 a month on Google and get to number one," you're going to be working with an SEO company who is really good at cashing your tanks, building some spam backlinks, get you a little bump in your traffic or rankings of the first couple of months. Then, you'll see your traffic just plummet when Google catches on and says, "All that's pointing to your site is 5000 low quality irrelevant links, why should we be ranking you high? What's relevant about your content that you deserve these links and what's relevant about these links that you deserve this rankings?" Paul: Yes. Really, if you cheap out on it, in the long run, you're only hurting yourself because Google is going to catch on to your shady game and they're going to punish you for it. Kai: What's that comment? I never knew how expensive it would be to work with a professional until I work with an amateur. If you cut corners, if you work with somebody who says, "It's going to be cheap, we'll get you what you want," if it seems too good to be true, we're going to get you 1000 hits a day in 24 hours, it's probably too good to be true. Kurt: The way to avoid those snake oils, the bad SEO marketers is number one, look at price and look at unrealistic promises or results? Kai: Absolutely. I'd add to that. Talk to them about what clients they've worked with before and what results they see, and talk to them about the system they use. A few months ago, I had a call from an entrepreneur who is starting up an SEO company, and I said, "Hey, just walk me through. How do you get these links toy our clients? What system are you using?" It's a really innovative patentable process that our VP of technology has developed that assures people's first place rankings." "Yeah, but what do you do?" "Unfortunately, I can't tell you that." Whatever any client ask me, "Hey, Kai. How are you going to get us links?" I will break out for them in detail what I do. Let's identify the influences in your industry. Let's identify those bloggers. Let's figure out who is linking to your competitors and what their most valuable links are. Let's copy your competitors' most valuable links through link building and direct outreach, and let's find those people who are having conversations about your brand or your industry online, and insert ourselves into that conversation through outreach, picking up the phone or hopping into email and saying, "Hey, we'd love to have you link to us. You have this great resource about X, Y, Z. We have X, Y, Z. Would you be willing to include a link to help your audience?" That's what I do. That's what good SEOs do. Paul: What you're saying is you do actual hard legwork to deliver real actual results. That is craziness. How could you charge people to do actual work instead of just cunning them out of their money like most of these guys? Kai: I know, right? I built my practice from the beginning to say, "I want to work with a very small number of clients but deliver the best results possible for them. That's a different attack than a lot of SEO companies or a lot of consultants. They say, "Hey, we want to work with 50 or 100 different clients." To do that, you might end up having to staff up or cut corners. I say, "I want to run an independent practice. I want to work with six exceptional clients at a time, and deliver to them the best results possible." Paul: Yeah, these other guys are selling mass-produced nerve tonic. You're a natural doctor. Kai: Exactly. Exactly. Kurt: Let me back up. We do a lot of web developments. Naturally, for us, we just follow Google's best practices, or usability best practices, accessibility best practices when developing. Does that mean we're following good on-site SEO? Kai: For 95% of the cases, it means that you are. Time and time again, Google has reinforced a viewpoint that the way to do good SEO is to do what's in the user's or the visitor's best interest. If you're following Google's guidelines, if you're making sure your website is designed to be accessible, designed to be usable, designed to load quickly and efficiently, you're crossing 95% of the Ts and dotting the Is. Kurt: What's probably the biggest mistake you see for on-site SEO? Kai: For on-site SEO, for people who are using an off-the-shelf theme like let's say they have a Shopify site and just picks something off the shelf, they aren't looking at the theme to make sure that everything is dialed in. I had a client recently and I did a website x-ray for them, just digging through their sites, seeing what they needed to change to make their site better able to generate traffic. Whoever had built their theme had included three instances of the title tag on every page. That's a weird thing to have. If you think about it, the title tag is like the story name in the newspaper and if you pick up a copy of the New York Times and the front page story has three separate titles for it, you're going to say, "This is confusing. What I am reading?" Same thing for Google. They're going to look at that page and say, "There's three separate titles here. What is this page really about?" If you are using something off the shelf, making sure that it's dialed in, talking to an SEO consultant or talking to the web developer and saying, "Hey, walk me through how you optimize this thing for SEO." It's really easy to slap optimize for search engines label on anything but, what did they actually do to achieve that? Kurt: Okay, yeah. Just asking people. Seem straightforward. It sounds like a lot of the stuff you do, SEOs like the direct byproduct of it, especially with off-site optimization. Give me a couple of tips, methods, tactics to do off-site SEO. Kai: In the end, you're really just looking to get a number of domains linking to you and domains websites that are relevant to your industry that have related content that are talking about the same thing. The biggest, easiest when I see for a lot of clients who are starting a new online store and say, "Hey, I want to do off-site SEO. What do I do?" It's just to make a list of everyone you know who has a website or blog. Maybe it's ten or 15 friends. Maybe it's more than that. Just writing them individual outreach emails saying, "Hey, I am launching a new thing. I would love it if you could include a link in a post just talking about it." If he had a post about the handbags I am selling, please link to me. Those links will add up. It will start getting traffic to you. It will help move you towards getting your first sale but just finding those people who have relevant sites to you and saying, "Could you include a link to me?" Not anything super keyword-heavy. You don't want, for this handbag side, have it be like, "Buy handbags online." Just be like, "Hey, my friend, Dave, has a handbag site. You should go check it out. He sells wonderful quality products. Getting that link is the most value possible." Kurt: When you put it like that suddenly, now it seems so easy and obvious. The thing that stuns me is most people won't take that advice and won't do it because they'd have to go ask someone for something. People are so resistant to doing that. Kai: I had that exact same scenario come up. I had a mentoring call for a friend that he said, "Kai, what can I do in the next 30 minutes to get a link to my site?" I said, "You got to email people." He's like, "I don't want to talk to people. I just want to get a link to my site." Kurt: I got to talk to somebody. Paul: I just want to have it for free. Couldn't it just happen? Kai: Yeah. That's hope marketing where you sit around and hope that happens. Kurt: I think it's perpetuated by this slimier side of SEO that says, "Hey, there's a magic wand that I have that you don't, and if you pay me, I'll waive that magic wand." "Where can I buy a magic wand?" There's no magic wand. Paul: My SEO will cure all of your illness with your business. Kurt: I think you're saying the benefit, the results of good SEO, good marketing is dollars. It's money in the client's pocket. I see a lot of people where they'll guarantee rankings and that to sounds like the worst thing you could possibly do. Kai: It's terrible on both sides. It's terrible for the person guaranteeing the rankings because as you find out when you play online, Google search results change dramatically depending on if you're locked in to Google or not, depending on what city. I had a call from a friend not even two hours ago where I Googled a key phrase that she was trying to rank for an online dating coach, and she Googled it, and we compared the top five results. Three of the five were different. She's in Seattle. I am in Portland, Oregon. We have a couple of 100 miles between us. It's impossible to guarantee a search ranking because it could change from instance-to-instance. Plus, for the client, you're saying, "Hey, they're going to guarantee me that I'll be number one for this term." Is that a term that even generates traffic? I can get you ranking number one for web development studio with podcast in Chicago, run by a friend of Kai Davis. If nobody is searching for it, does it even matter that you rank number one? Kurt: Yeah. How important is it to have those rankings? Kai: I look at rankings as a nice-to-have thing but month-to-month where I am putting together a report for a client, I am focused on how much organic traffic are we receiving overall? It's hard because 20% of Google search every day are unique. Nobody searched for it before which could mean that 20% of people who are coming to your website every day are searching for a new phrase. If it's hard to rank for every phrase under the sun, is there a lot of value in being number one for a specific key phrase? There is because you know it is generating traffic for you but I'd encourage anybody listening to this who says, "What metrics should I be looking at for best SEO to know it is working?" Look at your organic traffic on your site. Just the traffic from search engines and Google Analytics and see month-to-month, is it staying consistent? Is it rising? If it's going up, you know your SEO is working. If it's going down, you know, "'Hey, maybe there's some holes we need to plug." Kurt: Yeah, that's really great that you're focused on ROI like that but we've also made that the core of our business here is searching for the actual thing that the client needs, not the way to get there. We want to increase the end result as much as possible and it's just how you're saying where you want to look if the traffic is increasing and not if the ranking is increasing. Paul: In the end, it's really the traffic that's more important. Who really gives a shit where the ranking is as long as the traffic is good? Kai: Bingo. Bingo. If you're getting enough traffic by ranking fourth, and fifth, and sixth for a big basket of terms that your business is profitable and sustainable, you win. Now, it's just about incrementally improving it over time. Kurt: People really shouldn't obsess over phrases and rankings. Kai: I really don't think they should. I think, again, it's good to look at and good to say, "Hey, strategically, we want to rank highly for web development in Chicago or SEO Portland, Oregon," but if you're focused entirely on that one term, you've one-it is, you're missing all the other opportunity out there because you're too focused on just one thing. It said … Paul: I'm sorry. Yeah, it's like a business that's focused entirely on revenue and cares nothing for profit. All the revenue in the world is great but if you're not actually making any money, who cares? Kai: Right. Right. Absolutely. It's the same thing with traffic. Traffic is only an indicator in and of itself. I can get you a ton of traffic but if that traffic doesn't convert, if you have a conversion rate of, say, 0.1%, it's just not going to work out for you. It really needs to be a holistic effort. We're getting you traffic but shouldn't you be focusing on increasing your conversion rate? Shouldn't you be trying to raise your price from a $10 average value per customer to a $20, $30, or $300 price? A lot of the time I work with a client and when I come in to their business, I'll say, "Let's just take these three baseline indicators." How much traffic are you getting from search engines? What's your conversion rate? What's your average lifetime value for a customer? If one of those looks really out of whack, I'll say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe SEO isn't the right thing for you to invest in right now. You'll get a bigger return on investment by tuning up your checkout process and taking your conversion rate from 0.1% to 1% or 2% or 3%. That will pay off so much more than doubling your traffic." Paul: All right. Let me get technical with you. In developing Shopify feedings, we always include, and correct me if I am using the right term, not metatags. Those tags you define inside a product page where you can tell Google like, "This is the title. This specific span is the title. This span is the price. This is the image." Are you familiar? Kai: Yeah. Paul: I've been doing that but I don't think, does Google do anything with that? Is there really any advantage to doing that? Kai: There is and if I am thinking of the same thing, within a product, you'd say, "Hey, Google. This is the product title. This is, say, the product rating or review, or number of stars." Those are valuable since they'll show up for sites that Google indexes and trusts in the search results next to that product name. Remember back, we had Google Author Photos through Authorship a year ago and they discontinued it a couple of months ago. Things like that, I call them value adds in the search results do increase the click through rate. It's an easy way for a customer who searches, say, handbags. They see two different handbag sites in the search results. One is just the product title, a normal Google search result. The other shows the price, shows the number of reviews, show the quantity available. Those make it easier for the customer to say, "This site is better put together, more trustworthy, has the product in stock. I'll click this." Elements like that can increase your click through rate in the search results. Paul: Trust is very important in having all of that metadata in there quickly at the customer's fingertips. It psychologically increases the likelihood that they will trust that that site that that site is not some sort of fly-by-night. Kai: It looks professional. Paul: Yeah, it's professional and people want to more likely to give their money to someone who is professional. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. It's all about trust signals in the end. During the checkout process, are you communicating trust to your customer, on the project page in the search results? Good SEO is about outreach and about they can share your site is both accessible and is trustworthy that somebody look at this and say, "This is the type of site I want to get my credit card to." Kurt: Tell us about, what are some trust signals? Tell us about that. Kai: The main trust signals I advocate my clients to include really fall outside of SEO as a whole but a best practice for a website, get your phone number on there. Get your phone number in the header. Have an 800 number. Include testimonials on product pages and in the checkout process. Remove extra fields in the checkout process. It dovetails a little outside of strict SEO as a whole but if there's elements I could advise the client to include to make their website look like actual other real humans that use it and love the experience, let's get those o0n there just so more humans that come along will say, "Hey, a guy named Bob once brought a product and really liked it. I am willing to give my money to you now." Kurt: That's a good tip. For a Shopify store, what's your number one SEO tip? Kai: For a Shopify store, my number one SDEO tip really is contact. When you think about it, when we're getting these links to your site, what are people linking to? You have the product pages on your site. You have a marketing page like the homepage or an about page, and then you have what I call linkable assets which is really content creation. What can you develop that people say, "Hey, that's really exciting and I want to link to it." We could do on-site SEO until the cows come home but unless we're getting other relevant sites in your industry to link to you, we won't really see any benefit from it. The biggest tip is saying, "What's our content creation process? Who are we marketing to? Who is your audience? What are the problems your audience experiences relating your industry and how can we help solve them for that audience member with educational informational content, and then the link building. The SEO becomes, "Hey, let's go tell people about this really great content we have," and get links to it. Kurt: People, an e-commerce story should be writing articles creating blog entries? Kai: I really think so. I think it's sort of mixed because I work with a number of SEO consultants whose number one tip is like "You need to be blogging more," but what are you talking about? Who are you saying it to and what problems are you solving? I am sure we've all read across stories and websites that half at the bottom works like, "Hey, great. We released a new product," and nobody really cares, but I think e-commerce stories should be talking to their audience or researching their audience, seeing what questions their audience has about their industry and that product line and then, writing content that explains what to do. Kurt: I think that's interesting because you can turn that like you could start with increasing customer engagement. We want to know what to blog about so you could set it up. In your email, your order confirmation email to your customers who bought. Those are really your ideal audience, people who are already buying. Include a link to a survey and reward them with a coupon on their next order, and survey them and ask them, what's interesting about this? Why did you buy this? What problems are you facing? Then, the replies to those survey results are going to be people essentially writing you your blog articles. Kai: Bingo. Bingo, or even just every customer feedback email you get which is like, "Oh man, I couldn't use this thing because X, Y, Z." Hey, great. Here's a blog post that explains how to solve X, Y, Z problem and everybody in the industry, everybody who is buying a handbag, or website, what have you can now link to that and say, "Great. This is the definitive guide to solving problem X, Y, Z." That's going to get links. That's going to traffic. That's going to build trust. Paul: Kai. It sounds like there's a blood pressure machine going on in the background or something. I don't know what it is over there by you. Kai: They're tearing up the carpet in my hallway. Kurt: Yeah. This has been incredibly helpful, Kai. Where could people find you? Kai: My website right now is KaiDavis.com, K-A-I-D-A-V-I-S dot come, and I've got a newsletter on there where I send out SEO and marketing tips. If you want to sign up, please do and I promise it will be worth it. Kurt: Wonderful. I know I've signed up for your newsletter. I've gotten value out of it, but yeah, people should go to your website and sign up for that newsletter. Kai: Excellent. It's been a pleasure being on and I hope that your audience enjoys us. If they run in to any questions or have any SEO ideas that they want to throw at me, my email address is on my website. Please open invitation. Send me an email, folks. Send me a question and I promise I'll get back to you. Kurt: Wonderful. Very generous. Thank you, Kai. Paul: Thank you very much, Kai.

In the second chapter of Paul's letter to Timothy, Paul makes a big deal about sticking to the truth of the gospel. Why is this of such importance to Paul? What are the implications of a fuzzy or confused gospel message?

In the second chapter of Paul's letter to Timothy, Paul makes a big deal about sticking to the truth of the gospel. Why is this of such importance to Paul? What are the implications of a fuzzy or confused gospel message?

We are nearing the end of Paul's story with our series "Renegade: An Apostle Paul Story". This week as we will see towards the end of his ministry, we follow the story of when Paul is shipwrecked and bitten by the snake. What can we learn from the life of Paul? What did he do when tragedies hit him?