POPULARITY
Categories
293 episodes with Personally
111 episodes with Personally
84 episodes with Personally
150 episodes with Personally
99 episodes with Personally
40 episodes with Personally
64 episodes with Personally
64 episodes with Personally
34 episodes with Personally
54 episodes with Personally
22 episodes with Personally
14 episodes with Personally
17 episodes with Personally
28 episodes with Personally
15 episodes with Personally
11 episodes with Personally
32 episodes with Personally
11 episodes with Personally
13 episodes with Personally
12 episodes with Personally
40 episodes with Personally
15 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
26 episodes with Personally
12 episodes with Personally
17 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
18 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
16 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
11 episodes with Personally
32 episodes with Personally
22 episodes with Personally
9 episodes with Personally
10 episodes with Personally
11 episodes with Personally
7 episodes with Personally
16 episodes with Personally
10 episodes with Personally
6 episodes with Personally
8 episodes with Personally
10 episodes with Personally
16 episodes with Personally
8 episodes with Personally
10 episodes with Personally
10 episodes with Personally
13 episodes with Personally
7 episodes with Personally
7 episodes with Personally
15 episodes with Personally
12 episodes with Personally
7 episodes with Personally
Season 11 of Fixing Healthcare continues its shift away from the traditional top-down model of interviewing CEOs, policymakers and medical leaders to focus this week on something new, different and fascinating: listening to the generation that is inheriting this American healthcare system. In this episode, Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr speak with Grace Lynn Keller, VP at Executive Podcast Solutions, former Miss America contestant and the show's first-ever Gen Z guest. Grace brings a rare vantage point: Professionally, she is immersed in conversations with healthcare executives. Personally, she is part of the generation that consumes health information through social media, wearables and AI tools. For healthcare professionals, the conversation offers an important lens on how Gen Z gathers health information, how they decide when to seek care and what they expect from clinicians, insurers and government leaders. One insight stood out immediately. When asked where she would turn first with a non-emergency symptom, Grace answered without hesitation: ChatGPT. Her answer signals how much the healthcare landscape is changing. While Gen Z may turn to generative AI for initial medical advice, that is only one piece of a broader shift. In this conversation, Grace outlines how her generation is redefining health, prevention and trust. Key insights include: Verification Over Blind Trust. Gen Z does not simply accept what it reads online. Grace describes a culture of cross-referencing, double-checking and comparing sources across platforms before acting. Prevention As Identity. Her generation emphasizes whole foods, ingredient awareness and minimizing processed products. Health is considered a long-term lifestyle investment rather than reactive medical intervention. Wearables As Standard Equipment. Smart watches and rings are commonplace. Continuous data on sleep, movement, heart rate and hormonal cycles shape daily decisions and reinforce prevention. Convenience And Cost Sensitivity. Time away from work, co-pays and scheduling delays influence care decisions. If reliable AI-based treatment were available for routine conditions, many Gen Zers would use it immediately. Mental Health As Mainstream. Therapy is normalized. Work-life balance is considered protective, not indulgent. “Mental health days” may frustrate older generations but are viewed as necessary boundaries by younger workers. Skepticism Of Bureaucracy. Insurance complexity is a major frustration. Deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and opaque pricing create confusion for first-time independent users. Demand For Transparency. Grace compares healthcare to e-commerce: if nearly every other industry offers clear pricing and frictionless purchasing, why not medicine? Alcohol And Cultural Moderation. Among her peers, alcohol consumption is more situational and less habitual. Health-conscious decision-making extends beyond diet and exercise. Education Gaps. Public school health education was limited largely to sex ed and anti-drug messaging. She sees schools as the only scalable venue to improve health literacy nationwide. There's so much more to this episode. Tune in to find out what the next generation of patients expects from doctors, nurses and healthcare leaders. Helpful links “From TikTok to Telehealth: 3 Ways Medicine Must Evolve to Reach Gen Z” (Fulcrum) “Why younger patients turn away from doctors & toward GenAI” (Fixing Healthcare podcast) “Healthcare Regulators' Outdated Thinking Will Cost American Lives” (Forbes) “ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Doctors and Patients Can Take Back Control of American Medicine” (Pearl's newest book) * * * Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn. The post FHC #206: What Gen Z expects from healthcare & why it matters appeared first on Fixing Healthcare.
Some comments linger longer than they should. A tone, a look, an offhand remark from your partner, your child, or a friend can spiral into a story in your head before you even realize it. This conversation unpacks what it really takes to not take things personally, especially in the relationships that matter most. From defensiveness and truth triggers to slowing down your reactions and separating someone else's mood from your responsibility, we share practical mindset shifts that create more peace at home and in your friendships.Key Topics Covered:• The connection between defensiveness and hidden truths.• Why pausing before reacting changes everything.• Separating your partner's emotions from your own sense of worth.• The role tone plays when giving and receiving feedback.• Helping kids regulate before expecting repair or apology.• Teaching children awareness of how their words impact others.• Navigating the sting of feeling like a means to an end as a parent.• Modeling reciprocal conversations and emotional awareness at home.• How past friendship wounds shape present reactions.• Real life examples of working through friendship conflict without escalation.LINKS AND RESOURCES:HERSELF AMAZON STOREFRONT: https://amzlink.to/az0BrkLl5pX9u HERSELF PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/herselfpodcastLet's connect!HERSELF INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/herselfpodcastMEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskieferMEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreenThis episode was brought to you by the Pivot Ball Change Network.
In this episode of Future Fuzz, Vince Quinn sits down with Mike Rotondo, Founder of RITC Cybersecurity, to unpack the growing cybersecurity risks facing modern marketing teams.From phishing scams and business email compromise to AI vulnerabilities and data leakage, Mike explains why marketers are prime targets for cybercriminals—and why being “in the cloud” doesn't automatically mean you're secure.The conversation dives into how cybercriminals operate like full-scale corporations, why user training is the single most important defense, and how simple mistakes—like shared logins or unsecured home routers—can expose entire organizations. Mike also explores emerging threats like “quishing” (QR code phishing), AI exploitation, and the hidden risks of feeding sensitive data into large AI tools.If you're managing customer data, email lists, or AI-powered marketing tools, this episode is a must-listen.Guest BioMike Rotondo is the Founder of RITC Cybersecurity, a consulting firm focused exclusively on cybersecurity strategy, compliance, and risk mitigation.RITC provides services including penetration testing, security framework analysis, SOC 2 audit preparation, HIPAA and PCI compliance consulting, and virtual CISO (vCISO) services. Rather than hands-on IT implementation, Mike and his team specialize in advisory, governance, and security architecture—helping organizations build secure systems from the inside out.With decades of experience in cybersecurity dating back to the 1990s, Mike works with organizations to prevent breaches, reduce liability, and strengthen internal defenses against evolving cyber threats.TakeawaysBeing in the cloud does not mean you're secure.Most breaches start with users—not firewalls.Cybercriminals operate like corporations, with R&D and strategy teams.Phishing and business email compromise (BEC) are still the top threats.Shared logins and admin access for everyday users create major vulnerabilities.Remote work requires secured routers, patched systems, and enforced device standards.“Quishing” (QR code phishing) is an emerging attack vector.AI tools can create data leakage risks if policies aren't in place.Personally identifiable information (PII) exposure can financially destroy small companies.Cybersecurity training is the most effective prevention strategy.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Mike Rotondo 00:28 What RITC Cybersecurity Does 01:31 Why Businesses Are More Vulnerable Than They Think 03:01 How Cybercriminals Actually Operate 04:10 Real-World Impact of Phishing Attacks 06:30 Building Strong Cyber Defenses 07:57 Remote Work Security Risks 09:42 QR Code Phishing (“Quishing”) 10:45 Why Cybersecurity Feels Overwhelming 11:05 The Importance of Employee Training 12:26 AI's Role in Cybersecurity Threats 14:53 AI Server Vulnerabilities 15:15 How Marketers Should Approach AI Security 17:08 Data Leakage and PII Risks 18:31 The Financial Fallout of a Breach 19:08 The Ciphered Reality PodcastLinkedInFollow Mike on LinkedIn Follow Vince on LinkedIn
What happens when love slowly turns into manipulation? Ginny Priem shares her journey from a successful corporate career and a life that looked “perfect” on the outside to a relationship filled with gaslighting, financial abuse, infidelity, and emotional trauma she didn’t recognize until it nearly broke her. Together, we unpack how narcissistic abuse hides in plain sight, why red flags are so easy to miss, and how stress and intuition can show up physically when something is deeply wrong. This episode is about trusting your gut, understanding why “just leave” isn’t that simple, and learning how to rebuild your sense of self after betrayal. If you’ve ever questioned your reality, ignored your intuition, or wondered how someone ends up in a relationship like this... you are not alone. Plus, we explore what comes after leaving: breaking generational patterns, letting go of hustle culture, redefining success, and learning how to “unsubscribe” from people, habits, and expectations that no longer serve you. Content note: This episode discusses infidelity, emotional abuse, and medical trauma.
In this episode of Personally Speaking, Msgr. Jim Lisante re-airs one of his favorite interviews, with Cardinal Francis George who served as Archbishop of Chicago from 1997 to 2014. Cardinal George talks about his faith, the values that mattered most to him, and his hope for the Church in the years to come.Support the show
Michele and Ralph both return after a long absence. Ralph is retired and is enjoying doing whatever he wants. Michele is the opposite of retired, choosing to vie for a senate seat here in Minnesota. Personally, I'd take the French cafes over attempting to talk sense into Minnesota, but someone's got to do it.Topics:Plastic surgery and dentistry among actorsBurt Reynolds financial woesCelebrities all wear wigsMichele Tafoya's senate runJude's healthRalph Bashioum's trip to France and ItalyVaping is not so goodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What if one of the biggest legends in home services wasn't done yet? In this episode of To The Point - Home Services Podcast, Chris sits down with Paul Kelly, the man who scaled Parker & Sons from $7M to $250M, to dig into why he's back in the game. From exotic dancing jokes to deep industry insights, this episode brings both laughs and leadership gold. Paul unveils Raising GOATS, his exclusive new initiative to mentor the next generation of high-performing home service business owners. It's not a class. It's not just coaching. It's a full-on movement to cultivate the Greatest of All Time in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. Chris and Paul explore what really sets GOATs apart: elite-level implementation, simplicity in strategy, and learning to think differently. If you're leading a $3M+ business and hungry to scale, this episode might just change your mindset, and your trajectory. Additional Resources: Listen to To the Point, wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about To the Point and RYNO Join The ARENA - a CSTG Community (powered by our media partner, PeopleForward Network) Subscribe to CSTG on YouTube! Connect with Chris on LinkedIn Chad on LinkedIn Chad Peterman | CEO | Author Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn Learn more about PeopleForward Network Key Takeaways: Think differently to lead effectively and scale faster Simplicity is the ultimate strategy for implementation Surround yourself with GOATs to become one Great leadership starts with clarity and curiosity Implementation > Information. Do the work
Double Tap - Ep 449 This episode of Double Tap is brought to you by: Gideon Optics (Code: WLSISLIFE) Die Free Co. (Code: WLSISLIFE) Rost Martin (Code: WLSISLIFE) Flatline Fiber Co (Code: WLS15) Second Call Defense Otis Technology (Code: WELIKESHOOTING15) Text Dear WLS or Reviews +1 743 500 2171 New Public notes page. DEAR WLS Question from Duke of Crude from Texas Duke of Crude: Hey Fam, When you travel, do you have a different carry gun you take than your normal EDC? The hard case I need for my witness tanfoglio to fit is bigger than I want for my checked bag. There is a fair deal on a shield plus at a local pawn shop and i was thinking it would be good for when I travel for work. What thoughts do you have or am I just wasting money? I do have to travel to Houston, Memphis, and New Orleans quite a bit and would like to know of what options you might carry for this application. Also, is carrying a big bore revolver into meth country (44 spc/mag or 45 Long colt) better than a typical 9mm micro double stack or is this just boomer lore? Thanks for the great show! Duke Question from Matt A from FL Matt A Recently I attended a concert and had to go through a metal detector and scanner. It got me thinking about large crowd events and what if there was an active shooter situation and here I am unarmed with my family and unable to protect them. So, reference gun free zones or large crowd events; what is the crews thoughts about going to large crowd events/places that prohibit firearms or carrying in areas that do not have metal detectors or scanners and are considered gun free zones or do you just avoid these places all together? In listening I believe Jermey is the only one with small children. So, do you not go places like amusement parks or places that would have metal detectors or scanners or schools events? Thanks for the insight, Love the show!! Question from LagDemon from MN From LagDemon I want to get a mp5k, I'm leaning towards the ptr 9rs. is there a difference in recoil from the reciver sizes because the mp5k has a shorter reciver than the reverse stretch version? both have the same 4-5″ barrel Question from Zach from CA Listening to double tap 444. Nick brought up doing something similar to Roadkill but for guns. This is a great idea for the dangerous freedom YouTube channel. Because some of you have FFLs, could you not buy firearms across state lines? Fly or drive some where with a set budget in mind. Purchase your firearm(used or maybe from agents?), accessories, whatever kit you may need, tools, etc. and compete in local events. Would be awesome to see. Maybe same premise but with loner firearms and agency members if way out of budget. Just a thought, thanks Zach Question from Anonymous Coward from NC Question for the cast from talk number two text You were talking about suppressor cages on a previous episode and about how you could use a hub mount to potentially mount a suppressor cage what if it was like a free float Darryl free hand guard and attached to the hub mount just the way that a free hand, guard attaches barrel nut. We know that most cans have a specific size. Yes some smaller some larger, but it's gonna be somewhat universal in the shit in the diameter . What if you had the hub mount have a portion of it that could lock on the cage for the suppressor talk amongst yourselves talk to text sucks while driving #WLS. Question from Jeff from NH Hi, this is Jeff from NH. Is a red dot on top of an LPVO too tall? Putting a dot at a 45 degree is not an option as im not a boomer fudd. Personally i think top dots are the way but some others say it practically unusable. Notes – XOXO GUN INDUSTRY NEWS Safariland Recommends Essential Gun and Holster Hardware Kit Items Safariland's blog post outlines a comprehensive kit of hardware essentials for maintaining and customizing gun holsters. The article categorizes items such as screws, posts, T-nuts, and tools necessary for holster repairs and adjustments. It emphasizes having these components on hand to ensure reliable holster performance in professional and recreational use. Rost Martin RM1F Full-Size Pistols Announced at SHOT 2026 Rost Martin unveiled the full-size RM1F pistols at SHOT 2026, expanding their RM1 series with a larger frame designed for enhanced ergonomics and capacity. The RM1F features a roller-delayed blowback system in 9mm, maintaining the striker-fired, modular design of the original RM1. Available in multiple configurations including optics-ready slides and threaded barrels. Desert Tech Introduces Carbon SD Handguard for SRS at SHOT 2026 Desert Tech unveiled the Carbon SD Handguard for its SRS precision rifle platform at SHOT 2026. The handguard features a carbon fiber construction designed for reduced weight and improved suppressor integration. It enhances the SRS's modularity for long-range shooting applications. Daniel Defense H9 Pistol Review The Daniel Defense H9 is a 9mm striker-fired pistol featuring a patented ‘Earthquake' trigger system and a low bore axis design for reduced muzzle flip. It incorporates a cam-assisted slide that unlocks earlier in the recoil cycle to enhance control and speed. The review evaluates its ergonomics, accuracy, reliability, and performance in various shooting scenarios. Black Rain Ordnance Freedom Fighter US-Made AK Introduced at SHOT 2026 Black Rain Ordnance unveiled the Freedom Fighter, a fully US-made AK-pattern rifle, at SHOT 2026. The rifle features a cold hammer-forged barrel, enhanced trigger, and ambidextrous controls for improved reliability and ergonomics. It represents a milestone in domestic AK production with high-quality components sourced entirely in the United States. MK Machining Showcases StraightBull Rifle at SHOT 2026 MK Machining unveiled the StraightBull rifle at SHOT 2026, featuring a distinctive straight-pull bolt action design. The rifle incorporates innovative machining techniques for enhanced performance and reliability. It is positioned as a modern take on straight-pull technology for precision shooting. WOOX High-Grade Bravado Rifle Stock WOOX has released the High-Grade Bravado, a premium rifle stock featuring hand-laid carbon fiber construction with a vertical grip design. It is compatible with AR-15 and AR-10 platforms, offering enhanced ergonomics and aesthetics. The stock incorporates WOOX's signature walnut wood accents and is available in multiple configurations. Palmetto State Armory 300 Blackout Rifle Setup Guide Palmetto State Armory's blog details a complete 300 Blackout rifle build using PSA components for optimal performance in suppressed and subsonic applications. The setup emphasizes affordability, reliability, and versatility for home defense or hunting. Key parts include a PSA PA-15 lower, 10.5-inch upper, and specific optics and accessories. Mauser M98 DAS Original Priced at $12,000 Mauser has released the M98 DAS Original, a premium recreation of the historic Model 98 rifle built with exceptional craftsmanship for longevity. The rifle features a hand-fitted action, premium walnut stock, and traditional Mauser design elements. It is positioned as a heirloom-quality firearm engineered to last generations. Magpul Sub-Compact RG9 Holster for RXM Magpul has released the Sub-Compact RG9, a Kydex holster designed specifically for the Ruger RXM pistol. The holster features an appendix-inside-the-waistband (AIWB) design with a claw and wedge for improved concealment. It is compatible only with the RXM model and emphasizes modularity with adjustable retention. Before we let you go – JOIN GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA We'd love if you supported the show, join Agency 171 at agency171.com. Lot's of prizes, rewards and kick ass swag. No matter how tough your battle is today, we want you here fight with us tomorrow. Don't struggle in silence, you can contact the suicide prevention line by dialing 988 from your phone. Remember – Always prefer Dangerous Freedom over peaceful slavery. We'll see you next time! Nick – @busbuiltsystems | Bus Built Systems Jeremy – @ret_actual | Rivers Edge Tactical Aaron – @machinegun_moses Savage – @savage1r Shawn – @dangerousfreedomyt | @camorado.cam | Camorado Posted on February 16, 2026
For most of their lives, Stephen and Zack have kept their eyes to the stars and wondering if NASA or anybody else will ever again get serious about launching ships up there.[1. Image credit: SpaceX on X.com.] Now it seems that moment is upon us. Lord willing, next month's launch of Artemis II will drive new great leaps back to the Moon, not only to orbit or put down boots, but to put down roots. Meanwhile, private firms build reusable rockets and plan satellite networks while setting their sights on Mars. So what other science fictions will come true in reality? Join us to discern and celebrate the God-exalting glories of human spaceflight to faraway lands for this landmark 300th episode of Lorehaven's Fantastical Truth. Episode sponsors The Restitching of Camille DuLaine by Lindsay A. Franklin Realm Makers 2026 Conference & Expo Interregnum by J. A. Webb Above the Circle of Earth by E. Stephen Burnett Mission update New at Lorehaven: reviews on break this very busy week. Last week brought a bot swarm and other technical nonsense. Subscribe free to get updates and join the Lorehaven Guild. Authors, want to talk real sci-fi and beyond? Join the Authorship. Quotes and notes 72. When Our World Groans Under Sin, Should Christians Support Space Flight? 121. Will Humans Colonize the Cosmos Before Jesus Returns? 157. Will We Get Superpowers After the Resurrection? 252. What if Space Missionaries Fought the Secular State? | Above the Circle of Earth with E. Stephen Burnett 253. How Do Classic Sci-Fi Novels Explore the Planet Mars? 255. What Are Space Westerns? | After Moses with Michael F. Kane 256. When Have Newer Christian Authors Explored Mars? 1. Today, every space mission starts on Earth A brief summary of spaceflight: Sputnik 1 satellite (Oct. 1957), Yuri Gagarin (April 1961 aboard Vostok 1), Alan Shephard first American (May 1961), John Glenn first to orbit (Feb. 1962 aboard Friendship 1), 1960s moon race, moon landing (July 1969), six moon landings 1980s to early 2000s: Space Shuttle program, ISS, many others Alas, disasters: 1986 Challenger explosion, 2003 Columbia disaster Late 2000s to present: private companies brings new energy Elon Musk: classic humanist, entrepreneur, controversial, mess But a genius billionaire, anyway, and pioneer in new rocketry Same with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, whatever else you think of him These and more are winning goals to make ships less expensive SpaceX rockets can now reverse themselves to land on platforms 2024: Space X “mechazilla” arms caught a returning rocket This month, NASA postponed the Artemis II launch until March. Last week, SpaceX routinely launched a new crew to the ISS. And finally, Elon Musk revealed he's prioritizing lunar missions: For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years. The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city. That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster. 2. In years, new rockets will reach the Moon Artemis I (Nov. 2022) tested the Space Launch System. Notably, this system is developed separately from reusable rockets. Artemis II (March 2026?) will launch astronauts around the Moon. The mission will last four days and orbit the Moon's far side. The names of these absolutely real, nonfictional astronauts are: Commander Reid Wiseman Pilot Victor Glover Mission specialist Christina Koch Mission specialist astronaut Jeremy Hansen (CSA) As memes foretold, we hope they come back with superpowers. Artemis III will be a real moon landing, first since Apollo 17 in 1972. That mission may launch as early as 2028. No crew announced yet. Axiom Space developed new super-upgraded spacesuits for this. NASA identified possible nine landing sites, all near the South Pole. That region has stable daylight/temperatures plus crater water ice. All said, the first lunar bases could be south polar settlements. Many speculators suggest future lunar manufacturing in this area. NASA, Department of Energy to Develop Lunar Surface Reactor by 2030 Materials include water ice, lunar regolith, and other metals. Musk wants to make AI satellites there and launch them into space. Elon Musk Wants to Build an A.I. Satellite Factory on the Moon Risks: extra radiation could drive habitats under protective layers. You could shield with thick ceilings or else use lunar lava tubes. Listen to our March 2025 podcast series: Martian Month. 3. In decades, mankind may land on Mars In the recent past, Musk and others thought the Moon was jejune. After all, we've already landed there. Where's the fun in returning? But now the Moon seems more accessible. Walk before you run. Last year for ACE's launch, we shared a series: Martian Month. Unlike the Moon, Mars has atmosphere and daylight cycles. It's a little “warmer,” with slightly more radiation protection. Also, Mars has less known surface ice but more carbon dioxide. How to get there? You need to wait about once every two years. Possible transport: nuclear-powered rockets, now in development. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman: nuclear-electric propulsion? 6 Things You Should Know About Nuclear Thermal Propulsion That may reduce travel time by 25 percent (from 6 to 4 months?). Timing: a matter of decades, perhaps the 2030s at the earliest. So yes, you may live to see this happen, yet likely not travel there. Speculators/rocketeers see philosophical, humanitarian motives. For the Christian, our motives for spaceflight are a bit different. After all, God made humans to steward the Earth and maybe more. Alas, sin interferes with our purpose and our very human nature. We're mortal. Space couldn't have killed us before. Now it does. Personally, I see humanity's future with limited spaceflight at best. Yet after Jesus returns and we get New everything, who knows? Either way, with cautious optimism, Christians can rejoice at this. It's healthy to stop navel-gazing and look upward and onward. And someday, yes, missionaries may come to the Moon and Mars. Com station Top question for listeners What big spaceflight news, past or future, is your favorite? Will you watch the Artemis II launch, currently set for early March? Jeremiah Friedli remarked about episode 298: Excellent podcast episode, Stephen! Thanks for tackling these issues from a sound and biblical perspective. I'm looking forward to part 2! Next on Fantastical Truth Three hundred episodes down. Who knows how many to go? Whether you've just found the podcast or have been listening since January 2020, we're grateful for your support of this journey to escape bad books and find the best Christian-made fantasy for Christ's glory. Let's continue to seek and find His fantastical truth!
We've all read the book where the world is ending, but the last-second actions of our hero save the day. But…what happens next? “Almost the End of the World” attempts to answer that question. Personally, I think that the real apocalypse would be after the asteroid missed. The book follows Corey Walker, an 18-year-old who is ready to die. When last-second heroics save the world, Corey tries to return to his real life. However, the world is a wreck – economies are broken, millions are dead, and people aren't ready to live again. Meanwhile, Corey's school has been invaded by a strange cult, The Refuge, which targets the most vulnerable students on campus. Corey and his friends push back against the cult – making themselves a target in the process. The book tries to answer key questions that I think are deeply relevant to teenagers and young adults today. Chief among them is this: What are you willing to fight for? How far will you go to protect people you love? This book will be available for pre-sale shortly and will be released on June 9. It's my third book and second YA novel. You can find more info on me at my website: http://www.mikeschlossbergauthor.com.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
Get lost in someone else's life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time.In the latest season of Personally: Creation Myth, Helena does not want kids. Her husband believes she'll change her mind—she has so much love to give, she would be a perfect mother. That will never happen, she tells him. Again. And again. Until one day, he leaves.In the silence, doubt starts rushing in. So she asks her close friends, her mother, her sister, even a perfect stranger—did she make the right decision? What is the purpose of life? Center your pleasure, says one friend. Go for adventure, says another, and isn't parenthood the biggest adventure of all? Be true to yourself, says a father who regrets his decision. But the voice she needs to hear is her own. More episodes of Creation Myth are available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://link.mgln.ai/CMxFB
Love isn’t just romance. It’s friendship, family, self-worth, trust, and the way we show up for ourselves. In this Valentine’s episode, I open up about what real love actually looks like after heartbreak, betrayal, and learning the hard way. Drawing from anonymous listener questions and my own lived experiences, we talk about trusting again after abuse, learning to believe in good people, navigating anxiety in healthy relationships, and why you can’t scare away the person who’s meant for you. We explore dating without controlling outcomes, staying present in singleness, rebuilding communication in relationships, finding love later in life, and why choosing the right partner is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt behind in love, struggled to trust themselves or others, wondered if safe, calm love really exists, or needed permission to stop settling. Love is all around us, sometimes we just need help learning how to recognize it, choose it, and believe we deserve it.
Welcome to the Celestial Insights Podcast, the show that brings the stars down to Earth! Each week, astrologer, coach, and intuitive Celeste Brooks of Astrology by Celeste will be your guide. Her website is astrologybyceleste.com.
We are inside the field of the upcoming Solar Eclipse and the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, a rare pivotal week.On February 17, 2026, the Solar Eclipse at 28° Aquarius activates the North Node (the dragon's head), symbolizing appetite, growth, and evolutionary pull. In myth, the nodes were imagined as a dragon: the head hungry and grasping, the tail releasing and purging. When the eclipse aligns with the North Node, desire intensifies. Restlessness increases. The future presses forward.In Aquarius, that hunger becomes collective.We grow dissatisfied with outdated systems.We feel the strain of identities that no longer fit.We sense that the status quo cannot sustain what is coming.This eclipse also squares Uranus in Taurus — the Maverick-Awakener grounded in the material world. Vision must root. Innovation must sustain life. Revolution must be embodied.This New Moon Solar Eclipse is a preview of the larger Leo–Aquarius nodal shift later this year. The story of belonging, leadership, community, and collective responsibility is only beginning.And then we widen the lens.Saturn and Neptune are moving toward their conjunction on February 20th at 0° Aries — the very first degree of the zodiac. The last time these two met at this degree was nearly 6,000 years ago, during the dawn of early written language and formal calendar systems. Humanity was naming reality. Establishing shared agreements about time, meaning, and order.We are standing at a similar threshold.Saturn (structure, law, accountability) meets Neptune (vision, dissolution, transcendence). Together, they reset the boundary between what is real and what is imagined.We are renegotiating reality.Collectively, this may show up as institutions dissolving or restructuring, illusions surfacing, and new definitions of identity and authority emerging.Personally, this week may bring:Dissatisfaction without a clear replacementA call to build something meaningfulA quiet recognition that an old agreement has expiredA hunger for the future that must be guided with maturityThis is not a week for impulsive action.It is a week for orientation.Nearly 6,000 years ago, humans were deciding how to name the world.What are we naming now?Something is being written again.And you are not outside that story.Reflection Questions:Where in my life am I being asked to renegotiate what is “real” — based on lived truth rather than habit or fear? (Notice where old assumptions no longer fit, even if nothing external has fully changed yet.)What am I hungry for — and is that hunger aligned with integrity or urgency? (The North Node's appetite needs wise stewardship.)If I were naming my world anew from maturity rather than survival, what would I consciously call forward? (Think language, identity, agreements, roles.)Podcast Poem: Let Them Not Say by Jane HirshfieldSupport the showGo to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com/home-page This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.
I often talk of the need for both center and edge in these podcasts. While I remain deeply grateful to live where I do, I really do sense a greater fragility in this country, especially since so many fellow Americans think things are humming along just fine. What mental planet do they inhabit?
If you're serious about podcast growth and creator growth, this episode will change how you think about building content that actually scales. In this behind-the-scenes conversation, I sit down with Grace Miller, Head of Experimentation & Failure at The Diary of a CEO, to unpack how one of the world's biggest podcasts thinks about growth, testing, and long-term success. We go inside how elite creators experiment and how small, intentional decisions compound into massive audience growth. From YouTube analytics and thumbnail testing to failing fast without losing confidence, this episode is a masterclass for anyone building a podcast, YouTube channel, or personal brand in 2026 and beyond. You'll learn: • How the world's biggest podcasts approach growth and experimentation • What actually matters in the YouTube backend for podcast growth • How to test thumbnails, titles, and formats • How to build momentum through experimentation • How to fail fast, learn faster, and grow with clarity • Practical creator growth strategies you can implement immediately This episode isn't about hacks or virality. It's about systems, curiosity, and sustainable growth, the foundations behind long-term success as a creator. Whether you're a podcaster, YouTuber, or creative entrepreneur, this conversation will help you stop guessing and start growing with intention. CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
Our Election in Christ (7) (audio) David Eells – 2/15/26 I'm going to continue speaking today about election and talk about the children and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that giveth life; … (Joh.6:63). In the Book of Romans, we found out that before Jacob and Esau were even born, Jacob was called God's elect. (Rom.9:10) And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac— (11) for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, (12) it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. (13) Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Well, just as I'm sure you have questions, I had some questions, too, when I got this far in my revelation about election and predestination. What about the children? What about the babies? What about the doctrine of an “age of reason” that the Church has had for so many years? They say every child goes to be with the Lord, if they die before they reach the “age of reason,” and after that age, then they become accountable. Then it becomes their responsibility to accept the Lord and walk with the Lord. And so on. To me, that doctrine seemed contrary to election, according to everything I understood. I really wanted to know for myself, so I began to do some research. I decided to seek out how all of this fits together about children and election, but I want to remind you that both Jacob and Esau went past the stage of childhood; Jacob went on to manifest as a vessel of honor, and Esau as a vessel of dishonor. Neither one of them died as a child or as a baby. Let me share with you what I discovered. We know that, according to election, there are sons of God and sons of the devil, based on what God makes out of the clay and what a person becomes in their life (Romans 9:21). But, according to nature, I'd like to show you another teaching: (Heb.12:9) Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of [our] spirits, and live? Some translations add in the word “our” to “Father of spirits” in this verse, but the word “our” is not in the ancient manuscripts of the Nestle's or Received Text, and there's no numeric pattern for that word to be there. He's the “Father of spirits,” as He's called elsewhere in the Bible. You may be questioning, “So is God the Father of our spirits or is He the Father of every spirit?” The answer can be found here: (Num.16:22) And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation? And another place says in (Num.27:16) Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation. That gives us two witnesses that He's “God of the spirits of all flesh.” When God breathed into Adam the breath, or the spirit, of life, the spirit that He gave Adam was a fresh, clean human spirit (Genesis 2:7), and I believe God gives everyone a fresh, clean human spirit. Now I want you to look at something that you may find surprising. Once you understand election and God's predestination of the elect, you can see how there are sons of God and there are sons of the devil. We've seen that the “wheat” are the sons of God and the “tares” are the sons of the devil. The wheat and the tares were sown in the earth, and in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24,36-43), the earth was the hearts of men. Universally, the hearts of men are that “earth” in which God sows His seed and in which the devil sows his seed. But what about that heart before it manifested the seed of God or the seed of the devil? When Paul preached to the pagans at the Areopagus, he told them, (Act.17:24) The God that made the world and all [things] (The word “things” is not in the original; it was added by the translators.) therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; (25) neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all [things]. Again, the word “things” is not in the original. “He giveth to all life, and breath.” The word there for “breath” is the Greek word pneuma, and it's the same word translated as “spirit” in other places in the New Testament. The words “breath” and “spirit” both come from the same word pneuma, which is where we get our word for “air.” As we read on down, we're going to see if this word “all” really means “all” because this word “all” has to be judged by its context in the rest of the Scripture. We read again this text without “things.” (Act.17:25) Neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all; (26) and he made of one every nation of men (God made all men) to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation (Everybody came from Adam according to (Act 17:26) and he made of one every nation of men… And, Eve is called the “mother of all living” in Genesis 3:20, so we know that everybody came from Adam and Eve, contrary to some doctrines of men.); (27) that they should seek God, if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us (That shows each person on this earth is individually responsible for seeking God, but not everybody will do that and they are going to be held responsible.): (28) for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Paul is agreeing with what those pagans were saying about us receiving our being in God. He's saying that it's true. (Act.17:28) For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. “We are also His offspring.” You know, Christians like to correct this theology and say, “For we are all children of God.” That's not true because we are not all children of God, but we are all His offspring in a way. Then Paul goes on to say, (29) Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man. (30) The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: (31) inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Well, how are we all the “offspring of God”? (Joh.1:1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All [things] were made through him (He's talking about people, not things, which is not in the numeric pattern. The Greek word there is the adjective pas, and it simply means “all, the whole, every kind of.”); and without him was not anything made that hath been made. So the Word made everything; He made Adam. We can read a confirmation of this here: (Col.1:16) For in him were all [things] created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him. Everything was created through Jesus and for Jesus. He is the first-born of the creation of God. This is talking about from the very beginning of all creation. It all came to be because it was created through Christ. (Joh.1:4) In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And over in Proverbs it says, (Pro.20:27) The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all his innermost parts. The Father created all things through Christ, and Christ was the medium through which the Father used to create all things and all men as in these texts. It was Jesus, the Son of God Who created all things and breathed into Adam. (Gen.2:7) And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Or the “spirit.” The Hebrew word there is neshamah and is translated as both “breath” and “spirit” in the Old Testament.); and man became a living soul. The Bible says that the first man, Adam, was a natural being. (1Co.15:44) It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual [body]. (45) So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (46) Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. (47) The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. (48) As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. His natural man came from the earth, but his spirit came from God. God breathed into Adam, and the breath, the Spirit, came out of God and went into man. Some theologians like to argue that the “breath of life” is the “breath of lives.” I'm not sure about that, but we know that in the loins of Adam, in the seed of Adam, was all mankind (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). And God breathed into Adam a fresh, clean, pure Spirit to be the spirit of man, but it wasn't long after this that instead of following after his spirit, man followed his flesh and corrupted himself on the earth. (Gen.6:12) And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. (17) And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon this earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die. Adam started out innocent before God, but in following his flesh, he got further and further away from God, and Adam's children got further and further away from God, until God had to destroy them. Truly, nothing has changed; we're in the same position today. God gives the natural child a fresh, clean spirit, which is the breath of life that He breathes into them. With this spirit, they have an opportunity to follow their spirit, and your conscience is a part of your spirit, so when you're following your conscience, you are following your spirit. We have to choose. You can follow your conscience, or you can follow your flesh, and as we know, everybody follows after their flesh. (Joh.1:5) And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. This sounds very much like what Peter said: (2Pe.1:19) And we have the word of prophecy [made] more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp (We've learned that the “lamp” is the “spirit of man,” according to Proverbs 20:27.) shining in a dark place (The “dark place” is your soul, which is your mind, will and emotions.), until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts. In the beginning, God gave Adam a “lamp” and it shined forth into his human nature, but Adam's offspring, who all started out the same way, began to follow after their flesh more and more, which corrupted their soul and eventually corrupted their spirit. If we follow after the flesh, the soul is going to be corrupted, and then when we follow our corrupted soul, our spirit will eventually be corrupted. Everybody starts out with a fresh, clean spirit, but they also start out with the corrupt nature that was passed down to them through their parents. “The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” The last Adam, or Jesus, is the one who gives us a new spirit when we are born again and become a new creation. (2Co.5:17) Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. Jesus is the second Adam; He is the Father of a new, born-again creation because the first creation corrupted itself. Except for one thing, babies start out in the place of Adam because they are given a fresh, clean spirit from God, one that's not corrupted. However, their soul is corrupted because their parents passed on their blood. (Lev.17:11) For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life. That gives the child a lot to overcome. The Bible says of God, (Exo.34:6) And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, (7) keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. So we see that the sins of the parents are also passed down to the children from one generation to another generation and on and on. So, live holy. (Joh.1:6) There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. (7) The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. (8) He was not the light, but [came] that he might bear witness of the light. (9) There was the true light, [even the light] which lighteth every man, coming into the world. This should be turned around because the numeric pattern proves that the sequence is wrong. What it actually says is, “The true light was, which coming into the world, lighteth every man.” Jesus is the true light that “lighteth every man.” (12) But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God. As far as the new creation, Jesus' spirit is that new spirit that comes into every man as their lamp to show them the way. It shines in the dark place of their soul in order to dispel the darkness. You can see the same pattern repeated with babies. Like Adam at the beginning of creation, Jesus breathes into them the spirit of life, and they start out innocent when they are born, but they don't stay that way long. And the Bible doesn't teach that it has anything to do with some so-called “age of reason”; theologians have come up with that doctrine. What the Bible does say is, (Isa.53:6) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.... Well, in order to go astray, you had to have been with God in the first place. (Rom.3:9) What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin (Of course, the Greeks weren't under the Old Covenant. Paul is talking about the New Covenant.); (10) as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; (11) There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God (He's talking about the Jews and the Gentiles.); (12) They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not, so much as one. They all turned aside. Jews and Gentiles all turned aside. That means, in some way, they started out with God. In some way, babies start out with God. (Psa.58:3) The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. This says they start going astray from the time they are born, but at birth, they are with God. They go astray because they follow their fallen nature, instead of following after their fresh, clean spirit, which was given from God. They go astray following after their flesh and become more and more corrupt. If you have a clean spirit, but you follow after the flesh, your soul will die. (Job.36:8) And if they be bound in fetters, And be taken in the cords of afflictions; (9) Then he showeth them their work, And their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. (10) He openeth also their ear to instruction, And commandeth that they return from iniquity. (11) If they hearken and serve [him], They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures. (12) But if they hearken not, they shall perish by the sword, And they shall die without knowledge. (13) But they that are godless in heart lay up anger: They cry not for help when he bindeth them. (14) They die in youth.... “Their soul dieth” is what it literally says in the original Hebrew and your Bible should have a footnote explaining this. Strong's concordance is based on the Received Text and uses noar, which is a different Hebrew word altogether. (14) They die in soul, And their life [perisheth] among the unclean. (15) He delivereth the afflicted by their affliction, And openeth their ear in oppression. (16) Yea, he would have allured thee out of distress Into a broad place, where there is no straitness; And that which is set on thy table would be full of fatness. (17) But thou art full of the judgment of the wicked: Judgment and justice take hold [on thee.] (18) For let not wrath stir thee up against chastisements; Neither let the greatness of the ransom turn thee aside. Therefore, if a person were to listen to the Lord and follow after the Lord, their soul wouldn't die, but the natural process of degeneration sets in as soon as a person is born. They begin to go astray by following after their flesh, but the point is that they don't start out that way; they start out with the Lord. I don't think responsibility has anything to do with reaching an “age of reason.” I think that responsibility has more to do with the degeneration of the spirit than it does with reason. Children who are raised up with Godly parents, parents who discipline them and teach them the truth, don't become as corrupt as quickly as other children. Their conscience doesn't become as defiled as that of other children because discipline is a motivation to do what is right. It's a motivation to obey your conscience and obey your spirit, and not obey your flesh. If a child is raised with discipline, they don't become corrupted as quickly as a child who is not raised with discipline. Little children go bad and become evil very quickly without any discipline, and that's why I don't think that there is any particular age called the “age of reason,” where God imputes responsibility. It's not an age that makes you accountable; it's truth that makes you accountable. The more truth you go against, the more your conscience is defiled. The Bible is very plain: (Jas.4:17) To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. That doesn't mention any particular age. “To him it is sin,” but where there was no law or, in other words, when they didn't know that what they were doing was sin, then sin was not imputed to them. (Rom.5:13) For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Being held responsible has to do with knowledge; knowledge determines whether God imputes iniquity to you or whether He doesn't impute iniquity to you. Yet, knowledge must be incorporated to bear fruit. I believe that whether a child is raised with discipline or whether they're not raised with discipline, they end up in the same place. Eventually, what happens is that their soul and spirit become corrupt. At that time, they need to be born again. I can't say if there's any particular age for that because the Bible doesn't teach it. But somewhere during that time, I believe that a person whose spirit becomes corrupt must be born again; their spirit must be born again. Adam was pure before God when he was in his innocence, even though he was not born again. That was the natural birth that he had. It was when Adam got away from his innocence that he fell. God gave Adam a clean spirit and He gave Adam only one law, but still Adam failed. He followed the flesh and he fell away. Now there is a place of innocence from childhood on up because of ignorance. Let me show you that in the story of Abijah, the son of Jeroboam. Jeroboam was a wicked king over the northern 10 tribes, and he led Israel into apostasy. God had prophesied to him that he was going to be King over Israel (1 Kings 11:29-37; 12:20), but he led Israel in the wrong way (1 Kings 12:26-33; 13:33,34). When Jeroboam's son was sick, he asked his wife to disguise herself and go to the prophet Ahijah to see what was going to happen to their son. God spoke to Ahijah the prophet, who was blind, and told him that Jeroboam's wife was coming, and God gave Ahijah a word of prophecy for her. (1Ki.14:7) Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, (8) and rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee; and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes, (9) but hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: (10) therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every man-child, him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweepeth away dung, till it be all gone. (11) Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the birds of the heavens eat: for the Lord hath spoken it. (12) Arise thou therefore, get thee to thy house: [and] when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. (13) And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. Here, this child's parents were some of the most wicked in all of Israel, yet there was something good in this child toward the Lord. I believe the Lord was saying that the child's spirit was still good. Do you remember what happened when the disciples wanted to know who was the greatest? (Mat.18:1) In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? (2) And he called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, (3) and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. (4) Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. What was Jesus talking about? Jesus was showing the disciples how a little child is submissive. In every case in the Gospels, it says “little child” (Mark 10:15; Luke 9:47) because, as you know, some older children are not submissive and trusting of their father; they're not clean on the inside. Another place of innocence is a child who is killed by abortion or dies from miscarriage. (Ecc.6:3) If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul be not filled with good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth (In other words, speaking of a miscarriage.) is better than he. So a man can live a full life, but not live in the goodness of the Lord, and not be a vessel of honor. This is saying it's better to have been born dead. (4) For it cometh in vanity, and departeth in darkness, and the name thereof is covered with darkness; (5) moreover it hath not seen the sun nor known it; this hath rest rather than the other: (6) yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet enjoy no good, do not all go to one place? He's talking about death here, not about going to the same place in Sheol, because this man went to Hades and the child went to Abraham's Bosom, but they both went to Sheol (Luke 16:22-26). This shows us that God at least considers innocency among children or babies. Abijah was a small child and God did not impute iniquity to this small child. That leads me to believe the further we get away from birth, the more dangerous it becomes because we become more responsible as we acquire knowledge. Innocency is not based on some “age of accountability” or “age of reason,” as theologians have told us, because you can't find that in the Bible. Saints, God imputes iniquity with knowledge. (Jas.4:17) To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. God showed His election through Jacob, who manifested a vessel of honor, and Esau, who manifested a vessel of dishonor. This is what they were elected to do. Although every child is born with a fresh, clean spirit, they also receive the nature of their parents, and so they have a choice to make. They can choose to follow after their spirit, or they can choose to follow after the nature of their parents. As we've seen, everyone chooses to go the way of the flesh, and then their soul becomes corrupt, and eventually their spirit becomes corrupt. When the spirit becomes corrupt, that child has to be born again to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. I haven't found that there is any particular age at which the spirit becomes corrupt for all mature differently. Some children are raised with discipline and are more conscientious, while others are raised with no discipline, and they become very corrupt, very quickly, but I do believe that when the spirit dies, that person is responsible before God, and they must be born again. Yes, we are given a fresh, clean spirit from God when we are born, but that spirit dies from following after the flesh, and it becomes corrupt. This is what I'm calling “death” here. It's not a physical lack of existence but the spirit becoming corrupt. When that happens, then we are held responsible. Jesus was the one who breathed into Adam the breath of life, and as the Scriptures tell us, (Joh.1:1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. (4) In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (Col.1:16) For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; (17) and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. God the Father created everything through Christ. There is nothing created that wasn't created through Christ. Jesus breathed into Adam the breath of life, but the whole race of Adam fell and became corrupt. Then Jesus, the second Adam (1Corinthians 15:47), breathed again; He breathed His spirit of life into His new creation. And, did you know that you still don't have to follow your spirit after being born again? You can, once again, choose to follow your flesh. A born-again person has the opportunity to follow their spirit and go with God, or they can follow their fallen nature and go the way of the rest of creation. We were given a fresh, clean human spirit from God, like Christ's human spirit, but we have a fallen soul because “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” That means after we are born again, we must overcome the disadvantage of the fallen nature that was passed on to us through our parents. The apostle Paul explains to us about his battle against the fallen nature that was passed on to him. He says, (Rom.7:23) I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. (24) Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? He wanted power over the body of death. Paul was a Christian, and he wanted to serve God. Do you know what God did to give Christians power over the body of death? He gave them the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, a person doesn't have that power. I'll prove this to you: (Rom.8:7) Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: (8) and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (9) But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God (that's the Holy Spirit) dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ (that's your born-again spirit), he is none of his. Christ was man in that He had a human spirit, soul, and body. He was God in that the Holy Spirit dwelt in His spirit. (1:3) Concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, (4) who was declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness. This in turn affected His DNA. When we are born again, our human spirit is born again. The Holy Spirit comes to do three things. Jesus said, (Joh.16:14) He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare [it] unto you. First, the Holy Spirit comes to give us the Spirit of Christ, which is our born-again spirit, our fresh, clean spirit. Second, as we follow the Holy Spirit, our soul becomes born again. If we bear fruit in the realm of the soul, we will receive a born-again body. This is the manifestation of Christ in you, spirit, soul and body. Even if you have the Spirit of Christ, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you don't have power over the body. (Rom.8:9) But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If you don't have the Spirit of Christ in you, or, in other words, if you don't have a born-again human spirit, you don't belong to Him because Jesus had a born-again human spirit. (10) And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin (That's the situation Paul was in.); but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Before the disciples received the Holy Spirit, even though they had received their born-again spirit, they didn't have the greater power over the flesh. As Jesus said to them, (Mat.26:41) … The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Did they have a born-again human spirit? Yes. Jesus told His disciples, (Joh.15:3) Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. You can't be clean without a born-again spirit, and they had a reborn spirit through the Word that was spoken into them. Paul says, “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” So here you have a born-again person who is born-again in their spirit, but they don't have the greater power over their body, “the body of death.” Paul was crying out, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Christians didn't have the greater power over their “body of death” until they received the Holy Spirit. (Rom.8:11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you (that's the Holy Spirit), he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you. People think this is talking about the resurrection of the dead, but Paul said, “shall give life also to your mortal bodies.” That's talking about this physical body. Where you had death in your mortal body and had no greater power over it, God gave you life through His Spirit that dwells in you. Paul is talking about two different spirits here. Most religions I've experienced teach that when you are born again, that's when you receive the Holy Spirit. Even the Pentecostal denominations say, “When you are born again, you receive the Holy Spirit, but when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you receive more of it.” Again, that's not what the Bible teaches. You can't find a place in the New Testament where the Christians didn't go on to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit as soon as they found out about it. It was never supposed to be optional, the way it is today. I'm not saying that a person is lost if they don't have the Holy Spirit because Paul said a person belonged to God if they had the spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9); they just didn't have the greater power without having the Holy Spirit of God. As a matter of fact, back in the Old Testament, we can find the same New Covenant promise of receiving the Holy Spirit, and one of the clearest places to see it is in Ezekiel. (Eze.36:24) For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. (25) And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.... This is what Jesus did with His disciples. He told them, (Joh.15:3) Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. God gave them a born-again spirit through the Word. He said in (6:63) It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life. He spoke life into them. (Eze.36:25) And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. (26) A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you (Theologians put a lowercase “s” here and I believe they're right. The word “spirit” here should be a lowercase “s” because it's talking about your human spirit.); and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. (27) And I will put my Spirit (They capitalized “Spirit” here, and they're right again. This is talking about the Holy Spirit.) within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.... The Holy Spirit is power from God. (Act.1:8) But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the power to be a witness by walking as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). (2Co.3:2) Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; (3) being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh. You see, it's how you live your life, not just what you say, that makes you a witness. (Eze.36:27) And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them. (28) And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. As soon as the Church started, the baptism of the Holy Spirit came right along with baptism in water. How did the Church go so far astray as to think that people can live the Christian life without everything that God provided? It was never meant to be that way. We are commanded to be full of the spirit of God. (Eph.5:15) Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; (16) redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (17) Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (18) And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit; (19) speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. If you obey the corrupt nature that's been passed on to you genetically through your parents, you will begin to fall into corruption: first flesh, then soul, then spirit. The “death” is continually taking place because the more corrupt you become, the more dead you become. It's a spiritual death, not a physical death, but it ends in physical death because our spirit is our connection with the Holy Spirit. When our spirit is given to us at birth, it's clean and pure. In Hebrews (10:22,26,27; 11:15-17), the Bible talks about “defiling” your conscience. Your conscience is a part of your spirit, and it tells you right from wrong, but the more you disobey and ignore your conscience, it will become more and more quiet. Eventually, if we don't listen to our spirit, we come to the place where we don't hear it anymore, and that means we come to the place where we aren't led by it anymore. As a child grows up, they become more and more corrupt because they follow their flesh. I believe that the corruption process may be slower if you raise up a child in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6; 23:13,14), but still they are going to fall into corruption. They will need to be born again because they don't have the Holy Spirit to empower them to follow their human spirit. The devil wants to take possession of our soul, which is our mind, will, and emotions, and he does this through our flesh. God wants to take possession of our souls, but the way He takes possession is through our spirit. So here we are with our soul, or in other words, our natural life, our nature, in the middle. We've been given a spirit, and we've been given flesh. As a born-again Christian, we have a decision to make: Are we going to follow the flesh and die, or are we going to follow the Spirit and live? If we follow the Spirit, we're following God. If we follow the flesh, we're following the devil. When a child is born, they don't have the spirit of God, so they don't have the ability to make a choice. They always follow the flesh, and they always die in their soul but less so with good parenting. When I say “die,” I'm talking about spiritual death while you are alive because you are held accountable when you know to do good. (Jas.4:17) To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Sin is imputed when you know what's right and what's wrong. (Rom.5:13) For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. The older a child gets, the quieter their conscience becomes because they get more and more used to disobeying and rebelling against it. And so they come to the place where they must be born again. Jesus is not saying that a little child must be born again. A little child doesn't have to be born again to enter the Kingdom because their spirit is not dead yet, but the older they become, the more corrupt their soul becomes, and then the more corrupt their spirit becomes until they must be born again in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven. A little child is very open to God. Their spirit is still alive. You can talk to them about God, and they understand, and they easily receive what you teach them, but if you don't teach them anything, they don't have that strength. We have to train our spirit to take the sword of the Spirit. (Eph.6:13) Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. (14) Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, (15) and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; (16) withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil [one]. (17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The Word of God is our sword, Saints. Without the Word of God, your spirit is defenseless. You need to educate your spirit by putting the Word of God in there. When I was a little child in the Catholic Church, they told me certain things were wrong that weren't wrong, and so if I did them, my conscience smote me. Even when I was a little child, my conscience told me when I was doing wrong. The Bible tells us that this is true, and we are never supposed to go against our conscience but rather educate it. (Rom.13:5) Wherefore [ye] must needs be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience' sake. And here's another example: (1Co.10:25) Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake, (26) for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. (27) If one of them that believe not biddeth you [to a feast,] and ye are disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. (28) But if any man say unto you, This hath been offered in sacrifice, eat not, for his sake that showed it, and for conscience' sake: (29) conscience, I say, not thine own, but the other's; for why is my liberty judged by another conscience? (30) If I partake with thankfulness, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? (31) Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (32) Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God: (33) even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the [profit] of the many, that they may be saved. When I became born again, I had to re-educate my conscience according to the Word of God in order to have the sword of the Spirit. The sword belongs to the Spirit; it doesn't belong to the flesh. The Word of God empowers your spirit to win the battle against your flesh and the devil. (Eph.6:12) For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood (This is referring to fighting with physical weapons against physical enemies.), but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places]. Did you know that it's possible to have the baptism of the Holy Spirit but still not obey the Holy Spirit? Just because you have the Holy Spirit doesn't profit you. What matters is that you are walking in faith and obeying the Holy Spirit because, if you are not walking in faith, you're not going to get anywhere. People who are filled with the Holy Spirit walk closer to God. They have more faith, and they have power over the flesh. Jesus said, (Act.1:8) But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. But you can offend the Holy Spirit and become reprobate, or rejected, by the Holy Spirit. (Eph.4:30) And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption. How do you “grieve” the Holy Spirit? (Heb.6:4) For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, (5) and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, (6) and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. (7) For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: (8) but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected (This is the Greek word adokimos and it means “failing to pass the test; unapproved; counterfeit”; or, in other words, “reprobated.”) and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned. You grieve the Holy Spirit by not doing His works and therefore you don't bear any fruit. The ultimate end of this is reprobation. (Tit.1:15) To the pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. (16) They profess that they know God; but by their works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. Did you know that just because you are filled with the Holy Spirit doesn't mean you are going to stay filled with the Holy Spirit? I know this is contrary to what many Pentecostal denominations teach, but if you look in the Book of Acts, you'll see that the same people who were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were later filled again with the Holy Spirit. (Act.2:4) And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. So they were filled with the Holy Spirit and then after Peter and John were released from prison, they prayed, (4:31) And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, (30) while thy stretchest forth thy hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of thy holy Servant Jesus. (31) And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness. The same people were refilled with the Holy Spirit. You ask, “David, why would somebody need to be filled with the Spirit more than once?” Jesus gives us the answer. He said, (Joh.7:38) He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. (39) But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive. The power of the Holy Spirit flows out and is used up as we minister according to the command of Jesus. Notice, it's a river, not a pond. (Mat.10:7) And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (8) Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received, freely give. I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit ever leaves you completely; I'm saying that it takes staying in fellowship with God to stay filled with the Holy Spirit. It's not just a one-time thing, like some Pentecostals believe. We just read, (Act.4:31) And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. How can you be filled twice, unless you've been emptied once? If Jesus taught that out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of the Spirit,” then this power is imparted to the need around you. It has to come out, and then it has to be replenished. The point is that we have to maintain our relationship with God because, if we don't, we won't stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Even so, the gifts of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29). He won't take the gifts back. For instance, He won't necessarily take speaking in tongues back, but you may speak in tongues and yet not be filled with the Holy Spirit. A person has to stay filled with the Holy Spirit, as the Bible clearly teaches in Acts. The people who were preaching in Acts 2 were the same people who were filled with the Holy Spirit again in Acts 4. Personally, I believe you have the capacity to receive more of the Spirit when you are full of the Word of God. Jesus said, (Joh.6:63) It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life. Therefore, if you receive more of His Word, you will receive more of His Spirit. That's why Jesus breathed on the disciples and in (20:22) … saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit, even though it wasn't manifested until Pentecost, when the rushing mighty wind came.” Most Pentecostal denominations believe that having the Holy Spirit makes you a shoo-in for the Kingdom of Heaven, but having the Holy Spirit doesn't make you immune to sin. Having the Holy Spirit is not what saves you. Some have the Spirit but don't serve Him. Obeying the Holy Spirit is what saves you from sin. (Rom.8:11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Life came out of Jesus. Life came out of His Words when He spoke. Life came out of Him when He laid hands on people. Life came out of His garment and healed the woman who touched Him. Life was in Him and that life was imparted to others, but that's not the case with a person who's not filled with the Holy Spirit. It's more difficult to walk with God, without being filled with the Holy Spirit. From the Book of Acts, you can see that the very foundation of Christianity is to repent, receive a born-again spirit, and then be filled with the Holy Spirit. The typology of the Temple in the Old Covenant makes this very clear. We are supposed to be temples “not made with hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1; Acts 7:47-49) or, in other words, without the works of man. (1Co.6:19) Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; (20) for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body. When Solomon built the Temple, it represented the house “made without hands,” so there couldn't be the sound of tools, symbolizing man's works, while they were building it (1 Kings 6:7). After the Temple was built and they had sanctified it (1 Kings 8:1-9; 2 Chronicles 5:1-10), it still didn't have the Spirit of God in it. But when they had the dedication of the Temple, the Spirit of God came in the form of the Glory Cloud and dwelt in the Temple (1 Kings 8:10,11; 2 Chronicles 5:13,14). You see, the Temple was designed for the Holy Spirit to dwell in. What good was the Temple without the Spirit? I think in this regard, a lot of people are going to fall away because they will not obey the Scriptures and receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power to do what you have to do. There were times when I just didn't think the Holy Spirit was there, but right when it was necessary, the power showed up and completely awed me. And no matter what situation we find ourselves in, the Holy Spirit can manifest Himself in us and enable us to walk as Jesus walked. The Lord also pointed out to me that it was Judah who dwelt in Zion. The name Judah means “praise,” and so Judah identifies the Spirit-filled people, the full-Gospel people. The name Judah separates us from the rest of Christianity, who haven't received the Holy Spirit. The northern 10 tribes of Israel went further astray and “missed the boat” many more times than the tribe of Judah. The northern 10 tribes worshipped the false “Christ,” the two golden calves which they set up. I believe that the Lord showed me this is a type for our day. The northern 10 tribes represent the non-Spirit-filled groups, and Judah represents the Spirit-filled groups, the ones who inhabit Zion. Zion was the city that escaped when Babylon conquered the people of God. A modern-day example of this is the Armenian genocide. The word “genocide” was first coined by historian Raphael Lemkin in 1943 to describe the systematic murder of the Armenians by the Ottomans. Only the Spirit-filled Christians escaped. They fled when they were warned because they believed in prophecy and they believed the prophets God sent to them, but many, many non-Spirit-filled Christians were killed. Some estimates are that as many as 1.5 million lost their lives in that holocaust. The Happiest People on Earth by Demos Shakarian, and John and Elizabeth Sherrill, published by Guideposts Magazine in 1975, tells the story of Demos Shakarian. His grandfather left Armenia for America when the Russian prophet Klubniken foretold that an “unspeakable tragedy” was coming to Armenia. Well, people, now the same thing is getting ready to happen in America, where most of the people who call themselves “Christian” have not yet been filled with the Spirit of God, and they're not giving any heed to all the prophetic warnings that another holocaust is coming. The Spirit of God makes you respect prophets and prophecies. The Spirit of God opens your eyes to dreams, visions, revelations, and the deeper things of the Spirit. We've seen that when the disciples needed more power from God to stand up to and endure the persecution they were receiving, they came together and prayed, and God filled them again with the Holy Spirit. Not only does every Christian need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, but we also need to be continually baptized in the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you're a business owner, you've probably felt it… The market has shifted… people are buying differently. They're more discerning, more intentional, and taking their time to decide where and who they invest in. Personally, I love this shift, but if you're still holding onto what used to work and resisting the changes that need to be made, it's costing you more than you realise and it'll be the fastest way to fall behind. If your business feels harder than ever before, this episode is going to clarify why and show you exactly what needs to shift. Today I'm sitting down with Jazze Jervis, to break down the astrology of 2026 through the lens of business. Jazze is an ex-lawyer turned business strategist with over 10 years of experience in the online space, and she's a master at bridging tactical business strategy with your unique astrology and human design. We're diving into some of the most significant astrological transits happening right now and throughout 2026; massive planetary shifts that we haven't seen in our lifetime. These are generational planets moving, and they're setting an entirely new standard for how we do business, how we connect, and how we lead. In this episode, we dive into: Chapters 00:00:00 The Market Has Shifted and What You Need to Know 00:04:00 The Most Significant Astrological Transits of Our Lifetime 00:14:09 The 2026 One Year: New Beginnings with The Fire Horse 00:17:41 Patterns in Business: What's Actually Shifting Right Now 00:18:42 The End of Cookie-Cutter Business Models 00:23:26 The Information Era is Over: So What Do You Sell Instead? 00:29:05 Saturn in Aries: Structure Meets Self-Leadership 00:30:37 Neptune in Aries: From Illusion to Embodiment 00:40:18 Uranus in Gemini: Innovation, AI, and Your Unique Edge 00:44:51 The End of Uranus in Taurus: Lessons on Stability 00:48:52 Using AI Ethically: Enhancement vs. Replacement 00:51:34 Finding Your Next Five Clients in 2026: Join The Free Workshop 00:56:48 Final Thoughts: An Exciting Time for Heart-Led Business This isn't just about astrology, it's about understanding the energetic architecture underneath the shifts happening in business right now. Most business advice treats everything like a checklist: post more, fix your sales page, try this new funnel. But nobody is showing you how it all fits together with your unique design and the collective energy we're all moving through. If you're feeling the shift, if things feel different, if what used to work isn't working anymore… you're not going crazy. There's a reason. And this conversation is going to help you navigate it with clarity, strategy, and alignment. ——————-
NBA and Miami Heat News featuring Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Norman Powell, Nikola Jovic, Andrew Wiggins, Kel'el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis, Terry Rozier, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson, Erik Spoelstra and more. Subscribe for more Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, NBA and NFL news. My YouTube Channel My Twitter Intro Song : Pine Island - RadixTheRuler Outro Song : Pull Up Freestyle - RadixTheRuler Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.comThis pod was so hot, so provocative, that our man Ryan Glasspiegel was worried about career consequences. Personally, I believe we were just being reasonable about potentially fraught topics, such as…* Not everyone loved Ryan's reporting on the viewership drop during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance * Was the bigNBC viewership falloff another “Bud Light” style boycott, or simply lack of American median fan connection with the artist? * Who SHOULD the halftime show artist be next Super Bowl?* More people are criticizing Adam Silver these days* A solution to the NBA All-Star game* A solution to NBA tanking* Artists are dropping Casey Wasserman due to Epstein files revelations. But what's the specific allegation against him? * I think there's less to the Epstein story than Ryan thinks
c02 The Silent Killers in Your Home | Episode 586 Good morning. It's 45 degrees, I'm dragging butt, and today we're talking about something that quietly kills a lot of people every year. Carbon dioxide. Smoke. Ventilation. The invisible stuff. This isn't sexy prepping. This is boring, basic, “why are we even talking about this?” prepping. Because a $20 device can literally save your life. Carbon Dioxide: The Cheap Life Insurance You're Ignoring I was scrolling headlines this morning and saw another story about deaths from carbon dioxide poisoning. It happens every single year. A lot. And here's the stupid part — a CO₂ detector costs like twenty bucks. Even if you don't run a propane heater, even if you think your house is “fine,” they're cheap enough that not owning one is just negligence. Modern homes are airtight. That's great for energy efficiency. It's not great if something is off-gassing inside. We run: A Mr. Buddy propane backup heater On-demand propane hot water Both can introduce CO₂ into the air. Under normal conditions? Fine. Crank the flame too high? It absolutely spikes. We've set ours off before. We've seen it climb toward 150 parts per million. The alarm goes off, we crack windows, levels drop. If we didn't have the monitor? We'd have no clue. That's the scary part. Without a detector, you literally do not know. Backup Heat Means Backup Monitoring If you're running any kind of propane heater — especially in winter — this is not optional. Yes, some heaters have built-in shutoff sensors. The Mr. Buddy claims it will shut itself off if CO₂ gets too high. Cool. I still want my own monitor. That's a belt-and-suspenders situation. Redundancy matters when the failure mode is “you don't wake up.” Also: crack a window. It feels counterintuitive when you're trying to heat a space, but fresh air matters. Smoke Detectors: The Highest ROI Device in Your House If your house doesn't have smoke detectors, I don't know what to tell you. They are cheap. The return on investment is astronomical. The ROI of not dying in a house fire? I'll take that trade every day of the week. Yes, I've had one fail before. I installed one when I built my house, it broke, and there was a stretch where we didn't have one. It happens. Then you fix it. Also: change your batteries. Do not be the person whose smoke detector chirps for three months. Just replace the batteries. Batteries: The Boring Prep That Matters CO₂ detectors. Smoke alarms. Flashlights. They all need batteries. Stock some. I bought one of those zippered foam battery organizers that holds multiple sizes. It's nerdy, but having a full case of ready-to-go batteries is awesome. Also, don't cheap out on garbage rechargeable batteries. I bought some that were labeled rechargeable and either weren't — or were just trash. They wouldn't hold a charge. When it comes to life-safety gear? Buy decent batteries. Combination Units vs Dedicated Monitors Many modern smoke detectors also monitor CO₂. That's fine. Two-for-one is great. Personally, I like a dedicated CO₂ monitor that shows parts per million in real time. I want to see the numbers. I want to watch them drop when I open a window. But if you're starting from scratch? A combo unit is far better than nothing. The goal is awareness. Radon and Other Invisible Problems Carbon dioxide isn't the only invisible threat. Radon is real. I've watched a YouTube renovation series where a homeowner tested high radon levels in a basement before sealing and fixing it. That's something you may want to test, depending on where you live. Ventilation matters. Fresh air matters. And if you have natural gas? Know where your emergency shutoff is. That's non-negotiable. Final Thoughts This episode isn't dramatic. It's not about collapse. It's about not dying from something preventable. Buy a CO₂ detector.Test your smoke alarms.Stock batteries.Know your shutoffs.Crack a window when running propane. Preparedness isn't always about big disasters. Sometimes it's about the invisible stuff quietly building up in your own house. This is James from SurvivalPunk.com.DIY to survive. Amazon Item OF The Day Carbon Monoxide Detector,Portable CO Alarm CO Gas Monitor Alarm with LCD Digital Display Sound Light Warning,Battery Powered High Accuracy CO Alarm Detectors for Travel Home Office Kitchen Car Hotel Think this post was worth 20 cents? Consider joining The Survivalpunk Army and get access to exclusive content and discounts! Don't forget to join in on the road to 1k! Help James Survivalpunk Beat Couch Potato Mike to 1k subscribers on Youtube Want To help make sure there is a podcast Each and every week? Join us on Patreon Subscribe to the Survival Punk Survival Podcast. The most electrifying podcast on survival entertainment. Itunes Pandora RSS Spotify Like this post? Consider signing up for my email list here > Subscribe Join Our Exciting Facebook Group and get involved Survival Punk Punk's The post The Silent Killers in Your Home | Episode 586 appeared first on Survivalpunk.
What if the extraordinary results you're chasing are hiding in the ordinary daily tasks you're overlooking? In this episode, Dr. Lani Jones shares how she helps mid-career professionals navigate the "what's next?" question through psychology-informed business coaching. Lani is a clinical psychologist who works in the leadership space, doing one-on-one coaching with professionals asking "I've checked all the boxes, where do I go from here?" while also working with organizations on culture and clarity. She started her career in a hospital setting as part of an interdisciplinary team before opening a private practice, but COVID became the unexpected catalyst when evaluation needs dropped while therapy demand skyrocketed, and she began working with entrepreneurs and executives on leading through crises and balancing professional ambition with caregiving. Lani's innovative approach centers on deep-dive calendar audits that reveal what's truly important versus what's done out of obligation, helping seasoned professionals reclaim agency they've forgotten they have. Her biggest win was helping a C-Suite executive who achieved her life's goal but was miserable, and after 18 months she was loving work again simply by claiming her agency and rebuilding her calendar. Beyond her professional achievements, Lani champions the motto "the extraordinary abides in the ordinary." Lani reveals the relationships that transformed her business: three powerhouse women she met in a mastermind group for testing psychologists around 2018-2019, who after the mastermind ended gelled so deeply that one said "I think we need to meet in person," leading to yearly gatherings where they show up so vulnerably that if two end up in the same city there's a text guilting the others to fly in even for 36 hours. These women became her biggest champions who championed her pursuit of coaching saying "pursue this, it's okay to transition out of clinical work," and because Lani had all her cheerleaders behind the scenes giving her business advice while personally supporting her, she could show up powerfully for an early coaching client, a founder drowning without systems who couldn't afford mentorship. She worked with her pro bono, introducing her to key people and helping her handle burnout, leading to Lani's realization that it wasn't just about these three women but about the broader relationship ecosystem she'd built over years where she could say "let me share my people with you." [00:03:20] Clinical Psychologist in Leadership and Business Space Works as consultant and coach with mid-career professionals One-to-one coaching with those asking "what's next? I've checked boxes, had success—where do I go from here?" Works with organizations and leadership teams on culture, clarity, evaluation procedures Does workshops and trainings [00:04:20] Started Career in Hospital Setting Worked with variety of medical professionals as part of interdisciplinary team Focused on diagnostic side: evaluation and testing Moved to opening private practice during COVID [00:04:40] COVID Changed Everything By happenstance started working with group of entrepreneurs and executives Covering topics: leading through pandemic, going through reorg while dealing with divorce Climbing corporate ladder while being caregiver at home Talking about dual roles [00:05:00] Merging Business and Psychology Being business owner herself, loved talking all things business Using psych expertise to address people-related challenges Coaching was way to merge love of both business and psychology Help people maximize impact and show up as best selves in all spheres [00:05:40] The Need Shifted Dramatically Stay-at-home mandates, children in schools at home Need for evaluations drastically dropped off Need for therapy greatly increased What she'd been doing totally unexpectedly shifted [00:07:40] C-Suite Client Success Story Woman came to her, been in C-Suite about a year C-Suite was her entire goal—everything she'd done was for this Year in, I was not very happy, asking "is this it? Is this what it's supposed to feel like?" Crisis moment: "What do I do now?" [00:08:20] Deep Dive Calendar Audit First step with all clients: calendar audit Can say such and such is important, but calendar reflects what truly is Spend week or two doing deep dive: mindless scrolling, transport times, all the things Start peeling back layers in all spheres [00:08:40] What's on There Out of Obligation? What's under obligation or guilt? What did you really want to say no to but said yes to? Seasoned professionals often forget how much agency they have in a situation [00:09:00] The Big Win: Nothing Externally Changed By end of their time together, she was really loving things again Nothing significantly changed externally: same role, two elementary age kids, married Started claiming her agency, taking more control Peeling away guilt and "shoulds" [00:09:40] Rebuilding Calendar to Bring Life Rebuilt calendar to things that brought her life, things she wanted to say yes to Even within job position, had more flexibility than she was claiming Structured schedule to maximize deep think time Had flexibility in when and how she was taking meetings [00:12:40] Met in Mastermind Group When first starting practice, sought out business mentor Was in mastermind group—all testing psychologists in private practice Very specific niche, all virtual across the country [00:13:00] Four Women Really Gelled Together At end of mastermind, herself and three women really gelled One said "I think we need to meet in person" Met up in person number of years ago for first time Have yearly gathering somewhere in world, one plays host [00:13:20] Guilting Each Other to Fly In If two end up in same city, there's text message Guilting other ones to fly in even for 36 hours to be with them Powerhouse business owners [00:13:40] Biggest Champions and Cheerleaders Been some of her biggest champions and cheerleaders Shown up in this space so vulnerably and authentically Few weeks ago, sitting on beach in Florida talking life, talking business What's going great? What's hard? [00:15:40] Early Coaching Client: Founder Drowning One of early coaching clients was a founder couple years in Didn't quite have systems in place that she needed This was her first business, felt like she was drowning Not in financial position to take on business mentor or coach [00:16:00] Working Together Pro Bono Made agreement to work together Started working with her on both personal and professional life Getting business systems in place Introduced her to number of key people with expertise outside of hers [00:16:40] Had Cheerleaders Behind the Scenes Because had all her cheerleaders behind scenes Who were giving her all amazing business advice and expertise Personally supporting her Was able to show up in very similar way for this client [00:17:40] Broader Relationship Ecosystem Wasn't only these three women Was the broader relationship ecosystem she shared with client So many other key players was able to introduce her to All that relationship equity over the years [00:20:20] The Extraordinary Abides in the Ordinary One of her mottos: "The extraordinary abides in the ordinary" As entrepreneurs and business owners, we want the big shiny things Want to run after really big successes or goals Actually the seemingly mundane or just ordinary daily tasks [00:20:40] Relationships Take Time to Build Even relationship building: sending the text, doing the follow up, grabbing the coffee Can't alter time—time is what it is, for better or worse Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow Relationships take time to build, they're not overnight KEY QUOTES "The extraordinary abides in the ordinary. Sometimes as entrepreneurs and business owners, we want the big, shiny things, but it's actually the seemingly mundane, ordinary daily tasks of relationship building, sending the text, doing the follow up that creates big results." - Dr. Lani Jones "Our calendar actually reflects what truly is important to us. We can say such and such is important, but how are we spending our time? Seasoned professionals often forget how much agency they have in a situation." - Dr. Lani Jones "Relationships take time to build. They're not overnight. Don't get in that rapid pace of 'I'm not where I need to be.' Just do the daily tasks, do the ordinary, and you're gonna see the big results." - Dr. Lani Jones CONNECT WITH DR. LANI JONES
Darrell Castle shares his thoughts on those who seem caught up in the Epstein files and if correct, suggests that every system of power on earth is currently run by satanic pedophiles. Transcription / Notes THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. This is Friday, the 13th day of February in the year of our Lord 2026. Friday the 13th and it is apparently a very unlucky day for some of those caught up in the Epstein files. Who is caught up in the files, just about everybody who is anybody it seems, all the rich and powerful, but as I said in the title the devil literally is in the details. Yes, folks it is rather shocking to find that the whole world is run by satanic pedophiles but that is what the recent release of over 3 million documents that constitute about half of the Epstein files seem to be telling the world. Royal families torn apart, heads of state, cabinet secretaries, titans of banking and industry, owners of sports teams, ex-commissioners of sports leagues, but most of all billionaires were all very connected to Jeffrey Epstein. He connected them apparently through blackmail, greed, and money to his satanic pedophile circle of the most disgusting. It is indeed unusual to find a politician of national status who was not enamored with Epstein and what he had to offer but not him. No, not the one man that many put all their hopes of catching in this net. The man they all wanted to be guilty, even demanded be guilty came out smelling like a rose. Orange Man Bad, President Donald J. Trump it seems was the whistle blower who called the police and said this woman is evil and Epstein is disgusting, get them out of here. Last Monday, the DOJ unsealed a document which revealed that in 2006 Donald Trump called the police to report Epstein's behavior. This woman, Ghislaine Maxwell is his procurer and an evil person you should look into her and I saw the way Epstein reacted around the teenage children of some of my guests so I threw him out. Well, good on you Mr. President, you are a lot of things, but apparently satanic pedophile is not one of them. There are so many names in these files and it is all so sordid I won't go over the whole mess which I'm sure you are familiar with by now. However, I have to mention a few names who are particularly bad. Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew), and perhaps the worst of all Bill Gates. Mr. Gates, with a net worth of hundreds of billions came out of this with his reputation shattered. For five consecutive years ending in 2019 I think, but maybe 2018 he was the most admired man on the planet. He was Time Magazine's man of the year primarily because he was spending 10's of billions pushing his vaccines around the world. I saw him give a TED talk in the early 2000's in which he openly said that his real goal was population reduction. I'm not talking about slowing the birthrate folks I'm talking about killing people. He said we could reduce the world's population by 15% through vaccines but that was a drop in the bucket compared to what needed to be done. He built and sold vaccines around the world, in particular Africa, disguised as life savers but in reality life takers. He is therefore a mass murderer and guilty of crimes against humanity. When you really think about it he is one of the worst criminals in human history. His toady here in America, Tony Fauci, destroyed many lives, killed many people, injured many people, destroyed business and commerce, and they should be treated accordingly by the Justice system. The system will pursue you to the ends of the earth for a $100 tax bill so we will see what it does with mass murderers. Now, Mr. Gates has already been punished to some degree by the loss of his reputation. I knew there was something going on when I heard him start fishtailing on the climate change is going to destroy the world scenario. He said he was mistaken and it is actually not catastrophic at all. I suppose he could have truthfully said climate change will not destroy the world because that's my job. Back on Pedo Island for a moment, Gates spent a lot of time with Epstein and even more time at Epstein's Manhattan mansion. There was a constant stream of “schoolgirls” passing through the Manhattan home because countless emails described them as such. There is perhaps the most telling email of the millions in which Epstein emails himself about a request by Bill Gates, boy genius, founder of Microsoft, for antibiotics so he could secretly give them to his wife Melinda because he was afraid he would infect her with a sexually transmitted disease he caught from “those Russian girls.” His personal assistant for many years, a man who had been the Gates right hand for decades said yes, he helped his boss deceive his wife Melinda, helped him set up liaisons with married women, but when the requests went criminal he resigned. If anything, good comes from this sordid mess perhaps it will be the destruction of this evil, mass murderer. I feel sorry for Melinda though. I am obviously completely opposite her politics but I ha to see her humiliated in such a way. Melinda worked at Microsoft when it was young and he really was a boy genius. The story goes that she rejected him many times but he was relentless and finally they were married. When she finally couldn't tolerate the humiliation anymore she divorced him and ended up with many billions out of the separation. I've seen a couple of interviews with her since this started and to her credit she neither covers for him nor throws him under the bus. Instead, she just says that's something you will need to ask my ex-husband about. Here in America Representatives Thomas Massie, Republican, and Ro Khanna, Democrat are responsible for the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act. They said the secrecy and redactions are still unacceptable and they will continue to pursue release of the rest. Redaction is illegal to protect reputation and only legal to protect national security, child identity, etc. The two representatives have said that the files reveal children as young as 9 years old so it is more than likely far worse than I can tell you at this point. The release of these files has caused a widespread look at child abuse, i.e. rape, in and out of satanic rituals that apparently have nothing to do with Epstein. I saw an interview with a woman who is now an adult and in a position to help what she called survivors and she recalled being sexually raped at age six through nine when it entered the satanic phase and got worse. I found her believable especially in light of what has been revealed. Our British friends have been especially hard hit by all of this. In fact, it is so bad that it could bring down the British government. Ro Khanna said the King and Queen should answer questions because this is not a good look for the monarchy and in fact if the investigation doesn't proceed it could be the end of the monarchy. Massie and Khanna seem to be different from most members of congress. Maybe they are just celebrating not being mentioned in the files who knows. They do not grant the respect for noblesse oblige granted by many Americans to the British royalty. Khanna, in particular sounds at times a little like Patrick Henry rebelling against the colonial crown. “I don't think the appropriate punishment is you no longer get to be prince, there's got to be more than that. I don't understand the British custom that someone's asking the queen a question and the Queen is offended that she's being asked a question.” Personally, I think where Massie and Kahanna are headed with all this hyperbole is that they are sure that this problem is a lot more widespread in the Royal family than just Andrew. If so, this could be an extremely dangerous moment for the Windsors. The King maintains a lot of sympathy at this point for his swift removal of his brother but we will see what comes next. What will be uncovered next probably has them on pins and needles. The story is pretty clear about one thing and that is that Jeffrey Epstein was a low life grifter but he had something that attracted the rich and powerful like flies to a portable toilet. The news stories focus on sex because I suppose they think that is what we want to hear but the real story apart from the rape of children is one of power, greed, corruption, and treason. Epstein filmed heads of state and other powerful, rich, and influential people raping little children and then blackmailed them with the films. Many didn't seem to mind and they came back again and again for more. There is a series of emails from Epstein to his urologist, a licensed physician, whereby Epstein asked for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction and the dr. gave him the prescription and then said when you take them I look forward to pizza and grape soda. Now is that a conversation two men who are close to normal or sane have. Pizza and grape soda are mentioned time and again in the files. Maybe we should rethink that Pizza-gate non-story. Just when you think it can't get anymore horrifying it has a way of doing so. Now there is very convincing evidence that Epstein did not commit suicide but was murdered or perhaps is still alive. Murder seems to be the most likely end of the man to me and there are never before released videos of shadowy figures moving to his cell the night of his death. The most telling is a death announcement released by the authorities announcing his death the day before he apparently died. Yes folks, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman announced Epstein's death a day before he supposedly died. Very strange indeed but not if you consider the total impact of all this information. The world is run by satanic pedophiles it seems, but why the fascination with small children. More importantly, on whose behalf is all this blackmail being conducted. That would seem to be the most important question of all but as Bill Gates pointed out Epstein is dead now and we can't ask him. In conclusion, my fear is that we and especially our young people will become numb and accept as normal that satanic pedophiles run every system of power in the world. People must be prosecuted and go to jail or there really is a dual system of law. One for us and one for the rich and powerful. Finally, folks, this sordid mess is much worse than I have been able to tell you. What has been done to children and is still being done is too horrible for me to mention. The people involved, all of them, whoever and wherever they are must pay dearly. At least that's the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
This New Moon in Aquarius falls in Dhaniṣṭhā and takes the form of an annular solar eclipse. This is a highly charged reset. The eclipse is hemmed in by powerful planetary forces: Mars and Pluto on one side, Saturn and Neptune on the other, with Venus exactly conjunct Rahu. Mercury is drawn into the mix, while Jupiter aspects from Gemini and is itself aspected by Rahu. Everything is activated.Even without the eclipse, the Saturn–Neptune conjunction signals profound shifts in global structures. Although the eclipse path is largely over Antarctica, symbolism matters: previously unseen landscapes are being revealed even here, mirroring how hidden realities are coming to light elsewhere.Dhaniṣṭhā is ruled by the Vasudevas, the eight elemental deities that together provide everything needed to accomplish a goal. For this reason, it is closely tied to alliances, coordination, and collective purpose - an Aquarius theme. Under an eclipse, however, some alliances are breaking while others are forged. These changes rarely occur on the exact date; the eclipse serves as a pivot point for developments already underway and those yet to unfold.Globally, this points to major realignments in power blocs and partnerships, with organisations such as NATO being one visible expression. Seismic activity may also accompany this period, but it may also simply be figurative. Personally, this eclipse asks you to observe how all the elements in this area of your life are coming together - or falling apart - so that something can be reconfigured. Eclipses mark changes that must happen, regardless of preference, and emotions tend to run high around them.By the lunar eclipse on March 3, you're more likely to reach clarity or resolution around what this reset has set in motion.The night before the New Moon and eclipse, the 14th lunar day of the dark fortnight, is called Mahā-Śivarātri, the ‘great night of Śiva'. Śiva wears the crescent Moon in his hair, a symbol of the Moon's resetting of time. This year, this is an even more powerful reset because it's an eclipse; a vigil at the edge of dissolution, where everything falls silent for a time.
Can I Moderate? Why This Question Matters More Than We Talk About For most of my recovery journey, I held a pretty firm belief: If you're questioning your drinking, the answer is probably abstinence. That belief came from both lived experience, as well as observing other people who struggle with alcohol. Personally, I never drank normally. From the very first drink, the switch flipped on—and it stayed on. I hit a hard bottom early, and after years of trying to moderate, the answer for me was clear: I could not moderate. As it turned out, for me abstinence meant freedom. And still… Over time, something softened in me. Not because I changed my relationship with alcohol—but because I started listening more closely to other people's experiences. The Question Everyone Has to Answer for Themselves I've come to believe this: "Can I moderate?" is not a denial question. It's a developmental one. For many people, it's the pivot point of their entire recovery journey. Some people answer it quickly. Some answer it painfully. Some don't answer it until years—sometimes decades—later. But skipping the question doesn't make it disappear. And that's why my conversation with Nick Allen, CEO and co-founder of Sunnyside, felt so important. Nick grew up in an AA household. Both of his parents are in long-term recovery. He understands abstinence deeply—and still, his own relationship with alcohol took a different path. Instead of waiting for a crisis, he began asking a quieter question early on: What does a healthy relationship with alcohol look like for me—right now? That question eventually became Sunnyside: a platform designed to help people explore change before things fall apart. The Missing Middle Here's the reality I see again and again: Most people are offered two options: Figure it out Quit forever And when those are the only choices on the table, a huge number of people choose to keep trying to figure it out. Not because they're reckless. Not because they don't care. But because abstinence can feel overwhelming, stigmatizing, or premature—especially for people who are still functioning "well enough." Research suggests there's often a 10-year gap between when alcohol becomes a problem and when someone seeks help. Ten years. Think about what happens in ten years: Careers strained Health eroded Relationships damaged Kids absorbing instability they can't name yet Waiting is not neutral. Why Willpower Isn't the Answer One thing Nick and I aligned on immediately: Willpower is a terrible long-term strategy. Willpower is finite. It's lowest at the exact moments people need it most: After a long day During stress At the witching hour (5–7pm) On Fridays when it's "been a week" Sunnyside takes a different approach: Decisions are made ahead of time, when clarity is high Habits are supported with structure, not shame Accountability is externalized, not moralized This is how real behavior change works. A Word About Naltrexone (And Nuance) We also talked openly about naltrexone, a medication that's been FDA-approved for decades to help reduce alcohol cravings. Here's what matters: It doesn't make people sick It doesn't require abstinence It reduces the reward loop that drives compulsive drinking I've had clients use it successfully—particularly high-functioning people who struggled with the "off switch," not daily drinking. But for people earlier in the process—people quietly wondering, "Is this still working for me?"—tools like this can interrupt years of silent suffering. Language Matters More Than We Think One of the most powerful parts of this conversation was about vocabulary. Words like addict, alcoholic, relapse, recovery—they carry weight. For some people, they offer clarity and belonging. For others, they create shame, fear, and avoidance. If the language feels too heavy, people wait. Sunnyside intentionally avoids labels and instead talks about: Alcohol overuse Habit change Awareness Experimentation That shift alone can make change feel possible. Where I Land Now I'm still sober and have no desire to drink again. I still believe abstinence is the right path for most people who struggle with alcohol. And I also believe we need earlier, gentler, more honest entry points into change. The goal of sobriety—or moderation, or reduction—isn't the absence of alcohol. It's: Freedom Health Presence A life that actually works If someone can get there sooner, with less damage along the way, I'm all for it. Action Steps If this resonated, here are a few grounded next steps: Ask the question honestly Is alcohol adding to my life—or quietly taking from it? Move from judgment to curiosity You don't need a label to run an experiment. Plan ahead of cravings Decisions made in advance beat willpower every time. Seek support early Coaching, tracking, community, and medical tools are preventative—not last resorts. Protect what already works If abstinence is serving you, honor that. No need to second-guess stability. Resources Sunnyside: https://www.sunnyside.co/arlina Sunnyside Med (Naltrexone access) NIH research on alcohol use disorder and treatment gaps AA and abstinence-based recovery programs (for those who already know) If you're listening to this podcast, reading this post, or even asking the question quietly to yourself—you're already earlier than most. And earlier matters. Guest Contact Info: https://get.sunnyside.co/arlina
If you’ve ever felt like a delayed reply, a change of tone, or a bit of feedback ruined your whole day, you might have a tendency to take things personally. In this episode, we’re looking at why your brain is wired to do it in the first place, and why it doesn’t automatically mean we’re self-centred and egotistical. We explore:• Why we interpret normal things as an attack• The spotlight effect and personalisation• The role of the id, ego and superego• How to tell when the ego is being helpful or harmful• 5 tips to stop taking things personally Listen now! Watch on Netflix Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hey everyone! I had the most amazing time talking with Charlotte Muller, the Founder of Breathe Strength Wellness. We dove deep into hosting memberships and covered the pros and cons. Personally, I love having TFS Membership which is my monthly marketing membership. It allows me to connect with my clients on a deeper level and provide accessible marketing advice, however, it takes a lot of work! Charlotte and I discussed what it takes to make a membership not only profitable but with low turnover and immensly valuable. We talked about how you can analyze social media stats to understand what your followers enjoy which can spark ideas of how to grow your business. We also discussed how she grew her business during Covid and so much more. Follow Charlotte Muller and Breathe Strength Wellness on Instagram HERE.Download my app! It's a free marketing coach in your pocket. To keep up with me on instagram, follow me @alexagrowmybusinessTo join the The Friday Society Membership, click here To join my newsletter for free marketing advice, click hereTo view all of my free resources, click here!
At senior levels, challenge is constant, questions are direct, assumptions are tested in real time, and comments are brief and often ambiguous.In this episode of Grounded and Aligned™, Karen Gombault begins a series on leadership skills that materially affect effectiveness in expanded roles.The first: the ability to avoid turning routine business scrutiny into a "personal verdict", a.k.a. taking things personally.Many experienced leaders know they “shouldn't” take things personally. Yet in high-visibility settings, a short comment can trigger over-explanation, a neutral question can alter tone and composure, focus moves from the issue at hand to protecting credibility.Karen examines why this happens, what it costs at VP and executive level, and why the habit intensifies during role transitions. She draws on client situations and her own experience managing sustained external pressure while carrying full executive accountability.Karen looks at:How interpretation changes behavior in the momentWhy visible defensiveness weakens authorityThe relationship between internal self-assessment and external scrutinyWhat destabilization does to judgment when scope expandsWhy neutrality is a strategic discipline, not an emotional exerciseIf you are operating with broader mandate and exposure, your ability to separate fact from fiction and story directly affects decision quality and perceived steadiness.This episode focuses on that separation — and why it becomes non-negotiable as responsibility increases.Next steps:Book Focus-15 Callhttps://www.karengombault.com/scheduleFree Resource, The Identity Laghttps://www.karengombault.com/identityConnect on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/karengombault/
Is this one of the best or worst method or repertoire books for learning to play acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar? You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books. 12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues by Dave Rubin is another great repertoire book full of 12-bar blues choruses. I loved the author's other book, Solo Blues Guitar, and now I recommend this one as well – these fun arrangements inspire me to improvise in new ways with new grooves. However, unlike the arrangements of his other book, these arrangements all need to be played without a plectrum. This book has some tunes that late-beginner fingerstyle players could handle, but the book is most appropriate for intermediate players. The tunes in 12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues contain more repetitive grooves than some of the other fingerstyle blues method books on the market. Fewer lyrical phrases in the melodies. Whether that's what you're looking for is up to you. However, I find that these pieces present some great grooves that you can use as the foundation for your own variations and improvisation. To really get the most out of the book, you will want to: Learn an example as written, Understand and internalize the groove – the shuffle, chord stabs, etc. Create your own melodic variations and improvisations while maintaining the original groove. By treating each short 12-bar tune as a seed or template for your own creativity, you can really milk these ideas and extend them into longer performances. This book presents a lot of great 12-bar choruses from various subgenres. For experienced players, it is very fast to go through the entire book. Because each tune is a 12-bar chorus, you get a lot of ideas that you can digest, combine, and make into your own in the future. This book is simple and effective if you know how to use it. I appreciate the chronological organization of this book, which separates tunes out into subgenres including Delta and Southern Country Blues (the longest section), Ragtime Blues, Piedmont Blues, Prewar Chicago Blues, Texas Blues, Postwar Chicago Blues, and Modern American Solo Steel-String Blues. Unfortunately, the tunes don't really follow a clear difficulty progression. Within each section, multiple keys signatures and grooves are presented, and some happen to be a bit harder than others. At the beginning of each subgenre, the author presents some cool history and key players to listen to. I try to set aside time within my practice sessions to listen to lots of recordings of these players. Personally, I listen on Spotify. This listening is time well spent as it attunes me to the sounds and feel that I should aiming for as I play the tunes. 12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues provides both treble clef and tablature for each arrangement. Unfortunately, no fingering is provided in the music. For each example, I notated my own fingering in the music, after which I was able to play much more smoothly, accurately, and confidently. The skill of choosing sensible fingering is important, and you will need to look elsewhere to further develop this skill. Recordings are available online through Hal Leonard's website. These will be very helpful to many readers. As with Solo Blues Guitar, the recordings were done by Doug Boduch, the author of Hal Leonard's Fingerpicking Guitar, which I reviewed in Review #17. © 2012 by Hal Leonard My own books: Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: An In-Depth Study of the 12-Bar Blues in E Major – Books 1 and 2 are available in paperback or as an eBook through Amazon [https://a.co/d/g7Udsso (Book 1) and https://a.co/d/aDbh4H0 (Book 2)]. The first priority of these books is to quickly get you playing a solo instrumental 12-bar blues, and then to build on it until you can freely improvise or “jam.” You should be up and running by the end of the third chapter, and each following chapter will add icing on the cake. Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook. Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar. My upcoming book, Arranging for Fingerstyle Ukulele, will be published by Mel Bay in 2026. My music is available on all streaming platforms at https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dcokTG6C598OhTslHH5uo?si=hrQb7FViSZewDRSgECw9Ew: Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, “Open Road,” on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C. Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.
In this encore episode of Personally Speaking, Msgr. Jim Lisante is joined by Governor Mike Huckabee. Governor Huckabee served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 – 2007, and in 2008 and 2016 he ran for president. In 2025 he was named United States ambassador to Israel. Governor Huckabee talks about faith, values, and why it's critical that we vote.Support the show
Any time a Hasbro toy makes an appearance in the grid it puts a smile on our faces, and so we are grinning as a consequence of today's crossword — a collaboration between Sarah Sinclair and Amie Walker. The theme was terrific, the rest of the clues equally splendid. Making just his third appearance in the grid, we had at 44D, John _______, longtime writer for The New Yorker, MCPHEE; we had a debut at 37A, "Toy Story 2" character who says "I'm packing you an extra pair of shoes, and your angry eyes, just in case" , MRSPOTATOHEAD; and finally we enjoyed 9D, Do the splits?, DIVIDE. Personally, we are not divided at all: both cohosts adored this crossword.Show note imagery: a DIY CLAPOMETER, just becauseWe love feedback! Send us a text...Contact Info:We love listener mail! Drop us a line, crosswordpodcast@icloud.com.Also, we're on FaceBook, so feel free to drop by there and strike up a conversation!
Get lost in someone else's life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time.In the latest season of Personally: Creation Myth, Helena does not want kids. Her husband believes she'll change her mind—she has so much love to give, she would be a perfect mother. That will never happen, she tells him. Again. And again. Until one day, he leaves.In the silence, doubt starts rushing in. So she asks her close friends, her mother, her sister, even a perfect stranger—did she make the right decision? What is the purpose of life? Center your pleasure, says one friend. Go for adventure, says another, and isn't parenthood the biggest adventure of all? Be true to yourself, says a father who regrets his decision. But the voice she needs to hear is her own. More episodes of Creation Myth are available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://link.mgln.ai/CMxAALS
Visit https://BobBakerInspiration.com/lab to become a member of the Impact Formula Lab, where I help heart-centered, purpose-driven people like you turn their wisdom and expertise into impact and income.Watch the YouTube video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/0z9rybxHJuYIf other people's behavior gets under your skin, this will set you free. These affirmations were inspired by “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins — a simple yet powerful way to release the urge to control others and reclaim your peace by letting people be who they are.I don't know Mel Robbins personally, but I've admired her work for years. And, we both have an affiliation with Hay House, the company that publishes her books. What follows are affirmations to help you stop taking things personally and stay grounded in your power. They reflect my interpretation and experience of “The Let Them Theory.”You'll find the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ZYXbDFWords and music by Bob Baker (c) 2026.All of my recordings appear first on YouTube. Please take a moment to subscribe to my channel.You'll also find many of my affirmations and guided meditations on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, Insight Timer, and most streaming platforms under the artist name Bob Baker's Inspiration Project.GET my "21-Day Abundance and Money Attraction Brain Boost" at https://bobbakerinspiration.com/21daysSend me a quick messageVisit https://BobBakerInspiration.com/lab to become a member of the Impact Formula Lab, where I help heart-centered, purpose-driven people like you turn their wisdom and expertise into impact and income.Support the show
Moni Castaneda is a Feng Shui consultant, speaker, and author. She helps you decorate and organize your home so it radiates beauty, attracts positive energy, and cultivates an environment where good fortune — both personal and professional — can thrive. Moni uses a method she created called the Nine Steps to Feng Shui® System, which blends ancient East Asian spatial concepts with modern architectural design principles. When you apply this process to your place, step by step, you turn your home into a dream home that actively supports your goals. The result of working with Moni is a life filled with joy and purposeful momentum, in a home that makes you proud.Visit Moni Castanedas' website: ninestepstofengshui.com
Last week your solo host, Stephen, shared a hot take: that some authors’ sudden hot takes on political topics add more heat than light. These cringe political posts distract from the author's job and confuse fans, and some go further into sinful slanders. Now that Zack is back, let's re-engage this topic as fans and explore hope for biblical unity. Without telling anyone to “stop with politics!” or missing real concerns, how can authors post better about those topics, if they post at all? Episode sponsors The Restitching of Camille DuLaine by Lindsay A. Franklin Realm Makers 2026 Conference & Expo Interregnum by J. A. Webb Above the Circle of Earth by E. Stephen Burnett Mission update New at Lorehaven: The Restitching of Camille DuLaine review. Subscribe free to get updates and join the Lorehaven Guild Authors: sign up for the Authorship as a Creator or Pro Novelist 1. Top recent celebrity political wins and fails Last week, Stephen should have predicted Grammy Awards cringe. He feels sympathy for Billy Eilish and others who just say stuff. Some celebrities can get away with this because they're Big. Example 1: J.K. Rowling, who lives in a castle and everything. Example 2: George Clooney, legacy, leftist, but moderate in tone. Example 3: Conservative actors who find other (often niche) work. Authors who feel tempted to this openness: are you Big like them? It's like going out to buy a $10,000 suit before you can afford this. If not, the cringe political post isn't an upgrade, but a downgrade. Personally, Stephen doesn't mind politically outspoken celebrities. Those who do this out of seeming grace/surplus tend to win. Those who do this out of seeming vengeance/poverty tend to lose. Big tip here for aspiring authors: you must give more than you take. Otherwise they look kinda desperate for attention, or else insincere. 2. Engaging your responses to episode 298 Our own Guildmaster, Ticia Messing, wants a refuge: I have several indie authors I read or recently subscribed to their newsletters who all took part in a join political statement over the weekend with the same general idea. It was clearly to win political points for their side, and it was clearly a “If you do not agree with me, you are wrong,” and reading it I felt dirty and used. Even the author who tried to be more circumspect in how she talked about it because it was still clear what she was talking about. My problem is I come to their newsletters not to read about politics; it is my refuge from politics. I read them to find out about how their writing is going, a quick glimpse into their life, some book recommendations, and maybe a snippet of their upcoming book. Instead, all of these newsletters had paragraphs about Political Issue. Jason Huff seeks to challenge cringepost motives: What is difficult about social media in general is that most posts about politics aren’t about determining a side or discussing a moral issue but virtue signaling. It doesn’t matter if the viewpoint is left, center, right, or even a pox on all the houses. Most of the time, political posts are subtly saying, “I am a good and moral person for speaking out on X issue.” This is not usually the direct and overt intention, but it’s still there on another level. When I say virtue signaling, I’m not saying that they aren’t actually morally correct in their address, but that there usually isn’t a lot at stake in doing so. Most people live, work, and play with people much like them, and they post things their friend pool is going to agree with. And so, when posting anything political, the question has to be, “What is the reason to be posting this?” It’s usually not to inform, because I’d say anyone aware of news right now has heard about Minneapolis. It’s to give a viewpoint. But unless you live in that area, does it affect your daily life right now? Not so much. The stakes are small. So when I see authors and other creatives I follow giving political opinions, I generally tune out. I’m not there for that. I’m more interested in how you’re living out that belief, whether helping a local legal refugee family or befriending your local police force or however that issue plays out in your everyday life. Peter Schott wants to re-hinge certain friends: Personally, I have a couple of acquaintances who I disagree with politically. On some things, we can just discuss and let it go. In others – the posts are just unhinged. I just mute/snooze the guy for 30 days. There was someone else who just went off the deep end – almost everything posted was hateful, cussing, and such. That earned a permanent block. It was sad to see someone go that far off the beaten path. I did have one friend who started calling his own friends Nazis and such because they disagreed with him on politics – maybe 10 years ago. I called him out on that as a Christian brother and he was able to realize that he’d gotten a little too far down the path and took a break (and backed off). Janie Brooks feels betrayed by political cringeposts: “When your favorite authors suddenly post hot takes about the latest controversial headlines or violent acts, how do you feel?” Startled. Annoyed. Betrayed. Hurt. Saddened. Startled because the author doesn't usually throw their hat into the political fray. Annoyed because there are so many more topics to discuss. Annoyed because Instagram or Facebook is my escape from the constant barrage of never-ending political opinions and current events. Betrayed because I thought I knew who they were. Betrayed because they've shown me a side of themselves that goes against how they've always acted. Hurt because they've broken my trust. Hurt because my loyalty is hard to gain and I've been blindsided by their vitriol. Saddened because there are so many other topics in which I agree with them, but now I am anathema because of my politics. 3. Your hosts’ own political-posting rules E. Stephen Burnett's top ten guidelines: Basically, don't. Don't post about politics. But if you do, don't suppose you're “above politics.” And discern what that term “politics” actually means. Carefully curate post subjects based on deeper reasons. Be timely, yet beware the PETs, or Political Emotion Traps. Stick with big themes that support your mission and novels. Avoid the great sins of slander and casting false judgments. Always rejoice with the truth and do not spread false reports. For lesser-known topics, do not meddle in quarrels not your own. “Never be cruel, never be cowardly. Remember hate is always foolish, love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.” (Steven Moffat via the Twelfth Doctor, Doctor Who) Zackary Russell's social post standards: I don't want to wait until I “make it big” to say the truth. I don't talk about or reply to the posts of politicians. Certain cultural, moral, and spiritual topics will inevitably overlap with a certain politician. That's ok. I won't avoid those topics. I do not have to comment on everything nor defend everything a politician says or does. That way lies madness. I try to find people to agree with, but comment in a way that adds something new to the conversation. I am much more focused on the world of ideas, because ultimately that's what we are battling. Not the flesh and blood conveyors of those ideas. There is significant overlap between the battle of ideas and shaping moral imagination through stories. Although the former is reactive whereas the latter is proactive. I don't believe in cultural pacifism, but I do pick my battles carefully. I also recognize that God calls people to directly take part in the political sphere. Same as he gives other callings. I simply have a different calling as someone working in full-time ministry. But I also reject the practice of some Christians who put their heads in the sand when it comes to certain hot-button topics. Com station Top question for listeners How do authors gain and keep your trust with their social posts? Next on Fantastical Truth For most of our lives, Stephen and Zack have kept their eyes to the stars and wondering if NASA or anybody else will ever again get serious about launching ships up there. Now it seems that moment is upon us. Lord willing, next month's launch of Artemis II will drive new great leaps back to the Moon, not only to orbit or put down boots, but to put down roots. Meanwhile, private firms build reusable rockets and plan satellite networks while setting their sights on Mars. So what other science fictions will come true in reality? Join us to discern and celebrate the God-exalting glories of human spaceflight to faraway lands for this landmark 300th episode of Lorehaven's Fantastical Truth.
Bob Goodson was the first employee at Yelp, founder of social media analytics company Quid, co-inventor of the Like button, and co-author of the new book Like: The Button That Changed the World. On Oct 1, 2025, Bob spent a day with our MBA students at the University of Kansas, and he shared so much great content that I asked him if we could put together some of the highlights as a podcast, which I've now put together in three chapters: First is Careers, second is Building Companies, and third is AI and Social Media. As a reminder, any views and perspectives expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individual, and not those of the organizations they represent. Hope you enjoy the episode. - [Transcript] Nate: My name is Nate Meikle. You're listening to Meikles and Dimes, where every episode is dedicated to the simple, practical, and under-appreciated. Bob Goodson was the first employee at Yelp, founder of social media analytics company Quid, co-inventor of the like button, and co-author of the new book Like: The Button That Changed the World. On Oct 1, 2025, Bob spent a day with our MBA students at the University of Kansas, and he shared so much great content that I asked him if we could put together some of the highlights as a podcast, which I've now put together in three chapters: First is Careers, second is Building Companies, and third is AI and Social Media. As a reminder, any views and perspectives expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individual and not those of the organizations they represent. Hope you enjoy the episode. Let's jump into Chapter 1 on Careers. For the first question, a student asked Bob who he has become and how his experiences have shaped him as a person and leader. Bob: Oh, thanks, Darrell. That's a thoughtful question. It's thoughtful because it's often not asked, and it's generally not discussed. But I will say, and hopefully you'll feel like this about your work if you don't already, that you will over time, which is I'm 45 now, so I have some sort of vantage point to look back over. Like, I mean, I started working when I was about 9 or 10 years old, so I have been working for money for about 35 years. So I'm like a bit further into my career than perhaps I look. I've been starting companies and things since I was about 10. So, in terms of like my professional career, which I guess started, you know, just over 20 years ago, 20 years into that kind of work, the thing I'm most grateful for is what it's allowed me to learn and how it's evolved me as a person. And I'm also most grateful on the business front for how the businesses that I've helped create and the projects and client deployments and whatever have helped evolve the people that have worked on them. Like I genuinely feel that is the most lasting thing that anything in business does is evolve people. It's so gratifying when you have a team member that joins and three years later you see them, just their confidence has developed or their personality has developed in some way. And it's the test of the work that has evolved them as people. I mean, I actually just on Monday night, I caught up for the first time in 10 years with an intern we had 10 years ago called Max Hofer. You can look him up. He was an intern at Quid. He was from Europe, was studying in London, came to do an internship with us in San Francisco for the summer. And, he was probably like 18, 19 years old. And a few weeks ago, he launched his AI company, Parsewise, with funding from Y Combinator. And, he cites his experience at Quid as being fundamental in choosing his career path, in choosing what field he worked in and so on. So that was, yeah, that was, when you see these things happening, right, 10 years on, we caught up at an event we did in London on Monday. And it's just it's really rewarding. So I suppose, yeah, like I suppose it's it's brought me a lot of perspective, brought me a lot of inner peace, actually, you know, the and and when you're when I was in the thick of it at times, I had no sense of that whatsoever. Right. Like in tough years. And there were some - there have been some very tough years in my working career that you don't feel like it's developing you in any way. It just feels brutal. I liken starting a company, sometimes it's like someone's put you in a room with a massive monster and the monster pins you down and just bats you across the face, right, for like a while. And you're like just trying to get away from the monster and you're like, finally you get the monster off your back and then like the monster's just on you again. And it just, it's just like you get a little bit of space and freedom and then the monster's back and it's just like pummeling you. And it's just honestly some years, like for those of you, some of you are running companies now, right? And starting your own companies as well. And I suppose it's not just starting companies. There are just phases in your career and work where it's like you look back and you're like, man, that year was just like, that was brutal. You just get up and fight every day, and you just get knocked down every day. So I think, I don't wish that on anybody, but it does build resilience that then transfers into other aspects of your life. Nate: Next, a student made a reference to the first podcast episode I recorded with Bob and asked him if he felt like he was still working on the most important problem in his field. Bob: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for listening to the podcast, as this gives us… thanks for the chance to plug the podcast. So the way I met Nate is that he interviewed me for his podcast. And for those of you who haven't listened to it, it's a 30 minute interview. And he asked this question about what advice would you share with others? And we honed in on this question of like, what is the most important problem in your field? And are you working on it? Which I love as a guide to like choosing what to work on. And so we had a great conversation. I enjoyed it so much and really enjoyed meeting Nate. So we sort of said, hey, let's do more fun stuff together in the future. So that's what brought us to this conversation. And thanks to Nate for, you know, bringing us all together today. I'm always working on what I think is the most important problem in front of me. And I always will be. I can't help it. I don't have to think about it. I just can't think about anything else. So yes, I do feel like right now I'm working on the most important problem in my field. And I feel like I've been doing that for about 20 years. And it's not for everybody, I suppose. But I just think, like, let's talk about that idea a little bit. And then I'll say what I think is the most important problem in my field that I'm working on. Like, just to translate it for each of you. Systems are always evolving. The systems we live in are evolving. We all know that. People talk about the pace of change and like life's changing, technology's changing and so on. Well, it is, right? Like humans developed agriculture 5,000 years ago. That wasn't very long ago. Agriculture, right? Just the idea that you could grow crops in one area and live in that area without walking around, without moving around settlements and different living in different places. And that concept is only 5,000 years old, right? I mean, people debate exactly how old, like 7, 8,000. But anyway, it's not that long ago, considering Homo sapiens have been walking around for in one form or another for several hundred thousand years and humans in general for a couple million years. So 5,000 years is not long. Look at what's happened in 5,000 years, right? Like houses, the first settlements where you would actually just live at sleep in the same place every night is only 5,000 years old. And now we've got on a - you can access all the world's knowledge - on your phone for free through ChatGPT and ask it sophisticated questions and all right answers. Or you can get on a plane and fly all over the world. You have, you know, sophisticated digital currency systems. We have sophisticated laws. And like, we've got to be aware, I think, that we are living in a time of great change. And that has been true for 5,000 years, right? That's not new. So I think about this concept of the forefront. I imagine, human development is, you can just simply imagine it like a sphere or balloon that someone's like blowing up, right? And so every time they breathe into it, like something shifts and it just gets bigger. And so there's stuff happening on the forefront where it's occupying more space, different space, right? There's stuff in the middle that's like a bit more stable and a bit more, less prone to rapid change, right? The education system, some parts of the healthcare system, like certain professions, certain things that are like a bit more stable, but there's stuff happening all the time on the periphery, right? Like on the boundary. And that stuff is affecting every field in one way or another. And I just think if you get a chance to work on that stuff, that's a really interesting place to live and a really interesting place to work. And I feel like you can make a contribution to that, right, if you put yourself on the edge. And it's true for every field. So whatever field you're in, we had people here today, you know, in everything from, yeah, like the military to fitness to, you know, your product, product design and management and, you know, lots of different, you know, people, different backgrounds. But if you ask yourself, what is the most important thing happening in my area of work today, and then try to find some way to work on it, then I think that sort of is a nice sort of North Star and keeps things interesting. Because the sort of breakthroughs and discoveries and important contributions are actually not complicated once you put yourself in that position. They're obvious once you put yourself in that position, right? It's just that there aren't many people there hanging out in that place. If you're one of them, if you put yourself there, not everyone's there, suddenly you're kind of in a room where like lots of cool stuff can happen, but there aren't many people around to compete with you. So you're more likely to find those breakthroughs, whether it's for your company or for, you know, the people you work with or, you know, maybe it's inventions and, but it just, anyway, so I really like doing that. And in my space right now, I call it the concept of being the bridge. And this could apply to all of you too. It's a simple idea that the world's value, right, is locked up in companies, essentially. Companies create value. We can debate all the other vehicles that do it, but basically most of the world's value is tied up in companies and their processes. And that's been true for a long time. There's a new ball of power in the world, which is been created by large language models. And I think of that just like a new ball of power. So you've got a ball of value and a ball of power. And the funny thing about this new ball of power is this actually has no value. That's a funny thing to say, right? The large language models have no value. They don't. They don't have any value and they don't create value. Think about it. It's just a massive bag of words. That has no value, right? I can send you a poem now in the chat. Does that have any value? You might like it, you might not, but it's just a set of words, right? So you've got this massive bag of words that with like a trillion connections, no value whatsoever. That is different from previous tech trends like e-commerce, for example, which had inherent value because it was a new way to reach consumers. So some tech trends do have inherent value because they're new processes, but large language models don't. They're just a new technology. They're very powerful. So I call it a ball of power. but they don't have any value. So why is there a multi-trillion dollar opportunity in front of all of us right now in terms of value creation? It's being the bridge. It's how to make use of this ball of power to improve businesses. And businesses only have two ways you improve them. You save money or you grow revenue. That's it. So being the bridge, like taking this new ball of power and finding ways to save money, be more efficient, taking this new ball of power and finding ways to access new consumers, create new offerings and so on, right? Solve new problems. That is where all the value is. So while you may think that the new value, this multi-trillion dollar opportunity with AI is really for the people that work on the AI companies, sure, there's a lot of, you know, there's some money to be made there. And if you can go work for OpenAI, you probably should. Everyone should be knocking the door down. Everyone should be applying for positions because it's the most important company, you know, in our generation. But if you're not in OpenAI or Meta or Microsoft or whoever, you know, three or four companies in the US that are doing this, for everybody else, it's about being the bridge, finding ways that in your organizations, you can unlock the power of AI by bringing it into the organizations and finding ways to either save money or grow the business. And that's fascinating to me because anybody can be the bridge. You don't have to be good with large language models. You have to understand business processes and you have to be creative and willing to even think like this. And suddenly you can be on the forefront of like creating massive value at your companies because you were the, you know, you're the one that brings brings in the new tools. And I think that skill set, there are certain skills involved in being the bridge, but that skill set of being the bridge is going to be so valuable in the next 5 to 10 years. So I encourage people, and that's what I'm doing. Like, I see my role - I serve clients at Quid. I love working with clients. You know, I'm not someone that really like thrives for management and like day-to-day operations and administration of a business. I learned that about myself. And so I just spend my time serving clients. I have done for several years now. And I love just meeting clients and figuring out how they can use Quid's AI, Quid's data, and any other form of AI that we want to bring to the table to improve their businesses. And that's just what I do with my time full-time. And I'll probably be doing that for at least the next 5 or 10 years. I think the outlook for that area of work is really huge. Nate: Building on the podcast episode where Bob talked about working on the most important problem in his field, I asked if he could give us some more details on how he took that advice and ended up at Yelp. Bob: So I was in grad school in the UK studying, well, I was actually on a program for medieval literature and philosophy, but looking into like language theory. So it was not the most commercial course that one could be doing. But I was a hobbyist programmer, played around with the web when it first came up and was making, you know, various new types of websites for students. while in my free time. I didn't think of that as commercial at all. I didn't see any commercial potential in that. But I did meet the founders of PayPal that way, who would come to give a talk. And I guess they saw the potential in me as a product manager. You know, there's lots of new apps they wanted to build. This is in 2003. And so they invited me to the US to work for them. And I joined the incubator when there were just five people in it. Max Levchin was one of them, the PayPal co-founder. Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons were in those first five people. They turned out to be the Yelp co-founders. And Yelp came out of the incubator. So we were actually prototyping 4 companies each in a different industry. There was a chat application that we called Chatango that was five years before Twitter or something, but it was a way of helping people to chat online more easily. There were, which is still around today, but didn't make it as a hit. There was an ad network called AdRoll, which ended up getting renamed and is still around today. That wasn't a huge hit, but it's still around. Then there was Slide, which is photo sharing application, photo and video sharing, which was Max's company. That was acquired by Google. And that did reasonably well. I think it was acquired for about $150 million. And then there was Yelp, which you'll probably know if you're in the US and went public on the New York Stock Exchange and now has a billion dollars in revenue. So those are the four things that we were trying to prototype, each very different, as you can see. But I suppose that's the like tactical story, right? Like the steps that took me there. But there was an idea that took me there that started this journey of working on the most, the most important problems that are happening in the time. So if I rewind, when I was studying medieval literature, I got to the point where I was studying the invention of the print press. And I'd been studying manuscript culture and seeing what happened when the print press was invented and how it changed education, politics, society. You know, when you took this technology that made it cheaper to print, to make books, books were so expensive in the Middle Ages. They were the domain of only the wealthiest people. And only 5% of people could read before the print process was invented, right? So 95% of people couldn't read anything or write anything. And that was because the books themselves were just so expensive, they had to be handwritten, right? And so when the print press made the cost of a book drop dramatically, the literacy rates in Europe shot up and it completely transformed society. So I was studying that period and at the same time, like dabbling with websites in the early internet and sort of going, oh, like there was this moment where I was like, the web is our equivalent of the print press. And it's happening right now. I'm talking like maybe 2002, or so when I had this realization. It's happening right now. It's going to change everything during our lifetimes. And I just had a fork in my life where it's like I could be a professor in medieval history, which was the path I was on professionally. I had a scholarship. There were only 5 scholarships in my year, in the whole UK. I was on a scholarship track to be a professor and study things like the emergence of the print press, or I could contribute to the print press of our era, which is the internet, and find some way to contribute, some way, right? It didn't matter to me if it was big or small, it was irrelevant. It was just be in the mix with people that are pushing the boundaries. Whatever I did, I'd take the most junior role available, no problem, but like just be in the mix with the people that are doing that. So yeah, that was the decision, right? Like, and that's what led me down to sort of leave my course, leave my scholarship. And, my salary was $40,000 when I moved to the US. All right. And that's pretty much all I earned for a while. I'd spent everything I had starting a group called Oxford Entrepreneurs. So I had absolutely no money. The last few months actually living in Oxford, I had one meal a day because I didn't have enough money to buy three meals a day. And then I packed up my stuff in a suitcase - one bag - wasn't even a suitcase, it was a rucksack and moved to the US and, you know, and landed there basically on a student visa and friends and family was just thought I was, you know, not making a good decision, right? Like, I'm not earning much money. It's with a bunch of people in a like a dorm room style incubator, right? Where the tables and chairs we pulled off the street because we didn't want to spend money on tables and chairs. And where I get to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And I've just walked away from a scholarship and a PhD track at Oxford to go into that. And it didn't look like a good decision. But to me, the chance to work on the forefront of what's happening in our era is just too important and too interesting to not make those decisions. So I've done that a number of times, even when it's gone against commercial interest or career interest. I haven't made the best career decisions, you know, not from a commercial standpoint, but from a like getting to work on the new stuff. Like that's what I've prioritized. Nate: Next, I asked Bob about his first meeting with the PayPal founders and how he made an impression on them. Bob: Good question, because I think... So I have a high level thought on that, like a rubric to use. And then I have the details. I'll start with the details. So I had started the entrepreneurship club at Oxford. And believe it or not, in 800 years of the University's history, there was no entrepreneurship club. And they know that because when you want to start a new society, you go to university and they go through the archive, which is kept underground in the library, and someone goes down to the library archives and they go through all these pages for 800 years and look for the society that's called that. And if there is one, they pull it out and then they have the charter and you have to continue the charter. Even if it was started 300 years ago, they pull out the charter and they're like, no, you have to modify that one. You can't start with a new charter. So anyway, it's because it's technically a part of the university, right? So they have a way of administrating it. So they went through the records and were like, there's never been a club for entrepreneurs at the university. So we started the first, I was one of the co-founders of this club. And, again, there's absolutely no pay. It was just a charity as part of the university. But I love the idea of getting students who were scientists together with students that were business minded, and kind of bringing technical and creative people together. That was the theme of the club. So we'd host drinks, events and talks and all sorts. And I love building communities, at least at that stage of my life. I loved building communities. I'd been doing it. I started several charities and clubs, you know, throughout my life. So it came quite naturally to me. But what I didn't, I mean, I kind of thought this could happen, but it really changed my life as it put me at the center of this super interesting community that we've built. And I think that when you're in a university environment, like starting clubs, running clubs, even if they're small, like, we, I ran another club that we called BEAR. It was an acronym. And it was just a weekly meetup in a pub where we talked about politics and society and stuff. And like, it didn't go anywhere. It fizzled out after a year or two, but it was really like an interesting thing to work on. So I think when you're in a university environment, even if you guys are virtual, finding ways to get together, it's so powerful. It's like, it's who you're meeting in courses like this that is so powerful. So I put myself in the middle of this community, and I was running it, I was president of it. So when these people came to speak at the business school, I was asked to bring the students along, and I was given 200 slots in the lecture theatre. So I filled them, I got 200 students along. We had 3,000 members, by the way, after like 2 years running this club. It became the biggest club at the university, and the biggest entrepreneurship student community in Europe. It got written up in The Economist actually as like, because it was so popular. But yeah, it meant that I was in the middle of it. And when the business school said, you can come to the dinner with the speakers afterwards, that was my ticket to sit down next to the founder of PayPal, you know. And so, then I sat down at dinner with him, and I had my portfolio with me, which back then I used to carry around in a little folder, like a black paper folder. And every project I'd worked on, every, because I used to do graphic design for money as a student. So I had my graphic design projects. I had my yoga publishing business and projects in there. I had printouts about the websites I'd created. So when I sat down next to him, and he's like, what do you work on? I just put this thing on the table over dinner and was like, he picked it up and he started going through it. And he was like, what's this? What's this? And I think just having my projects readily available allowed him to sort of get interested in what I was working on. Nowadays, you can have a website, right? Like I didn't have a website for a long time. Now I have one. It's at bobgoodson.com where I put my projects on there. You can check it out if you like. But I think I've always had a portfolio in one way or another. And I think carrying around the stuff that you've done in an interactive way is a really good way to connect with people. But one more thing I'll say on this concept, because it connects more broadly to like life in general, is that I think that I have this theory that in your lifetime, you get around five opportunities put in front of you that you didn't yet fully deserve, right? Someone believes in you, someone opens a door, someone's like, hey, Nate, how about you do this? Or like, we think you might be capable of this. And it doesn't happen very often, but those moments do happen. And when they happen, a massive differentiator for your life is do you notice that it's happening and do you grab it with both hands? And in that moment, do everything you can to make it work, right? Like they don't come along very often. And to me, those moments have been so precious. I knew I wouldn't get many of them. And so every time they happened, I've just been all in. I don't care what's going on in my life at that time. When the door opens, I drop everything, and I do everything I can to make it work. And you're stretched in those situations. So it's not easy, right? Like someone's given you an opportunity to do something you're not ready for, essentially. So you're literally not ready for it. Like you're not good enough, you don't know enough, you don't have the knowledge, you don't have the skills. So you only have to do the job, but you have to cultivate your own skills and develop your skills. And that's a lot of work. You know, when I landed in, I mean, working for Max was one of those opportunities where I did not, I'd not done enough to earn that opportunity when I got that opportunity. I landed with five people who had all done PayPal. They were all like incredible experts in their fields, right? Like Russ Simmons, the Yelp co-founder, had been the chief architect of PayPal. He architected PayPal, right? Like I was with very skilled technical people. I was the only Brit. They were all Americans. So I stood out culturally. Most of them couldn't understand what I was saying when I arrived. I've since changed how I speak. So you can understand me, the Americans in the room. But I just mumbled. I wasn't very articulate. So it was really hard to get my ideas across. And I had programmed as a hobbyist, but I didn't know enough to be able to program production code alongside people that had worked at PayPal. I mean, their security levels and their accuracy and everything was just off the, I was in another league, right? So there I was, I felt totally out of my depth, and I had to fight to stay in that job for a year. Like I fought every day for a year to like not get kicked out of that job and essentially out of the country. Because without their sponsorship, I couldn't have stayed in the country. I was on a student visa with them, right? And I worked seven days a week for 365 days in a row. I basically almost lived in the office. I got an apartment a few blocks from the office and I had to. No one else was working those kind of hours, but I had to do the job, and I had to learn 3 new programming languages and all this technical stuff, how to write specs, how to write product specs like I had to research the history of various websites in parts of the internet. So I'm just, I guess I'm just giving some color to like when these doors open in your career and in your life, sometimes they're relationship doors that open, right? You meet somebody who's going to change your life, and it's like, are you going to fight to make that work? And, you know, like, so not all, it's not always career events, but when they happen, I think like trusting your instinct that this is one of those moments and knowing this is one of the, you can't do this throughout your whole life. You burn out and you die young. Like you're just not sustainable. But when they happen, are you going to put the burners on and be like, I'm in. And sometimes it only takes a few weeks. Like the most it's ever taken for me is a year to walk through a door. But like, anyway, like just saying that in case anyone here has one of these moments and like maybe this will resonate with one of you, and you'll be like, that's one of the moments I need to walk through the door. Nate: That concludes chapter one. In chapter 2, Bob talks about building companies. First, I asked Bob if he gained much leadership experience at Yelp. Bob: I gained some. I suppose my first year or two in the US was in a technical role. So I didn't have anyone reporting to me. I was just working on the user interface and front end stuff. So really no leadership there. But then, there was a day when we still had five people. Jeremy started to go pitch investors for our second round because we had really good traffic growth, right? In San Francisco, we had really nice charts showing traffic growth. We'd started to get traction in New York and started to get traction in LA. So we've had the start of a nice story, right? Like this works in other cities. We've got a model we can get traffic. And Jeremy went to his first VC pitch for the second round. And the VC said, you need to show that you can monetize the traffic before you raise this round. The growth story is fine, but you also need to say, we've signed 3 customers and they're paying this much, right, monthly. So Jeremy came back from that pitch, and I remember very clearly, he sat down, kind of slumped in his chair and he's like, oh man, we're going to have to do some sales before we can raise this next round. Like we need someone on the team to go close a few new clients. And it's so funny because it's like, me and four people and everyone went like this and faced me at the same time. And I was like, why are you looking at me? Like, I'm not, I didn't know how to start selling to local businesses. And they're like, they all looked at each other and went, no, we think you're probably the best for this, Bob. And they were all engineers, like all four of them were like, background in engineering. Even the CEO was VP engineering at PayPal before he did Yelp. So basically, we were all geeks. And for some reason, they thought I would be the best choice to sell to businesses. And I didn't really have a choice in it, honestly. I didn't want to do it. They were just like, you're like, that's what needs to happen next. And you're the most suitable candidate for it. So I I just started picking up the phone and calling dentists, chiropractors, restaurants. We didn't know if Yelp would resonate with bars or restaurants or healthcare. We thought healthcare was going to be big, which is reasonably big for Yelp now, but it's not the focus. But anyway, I just started calling these random businesses with great reviews. I just started with the best reviewed businesses. And the funny thing is some of those people, my first ever calls are still friends today, right? Like my chiropractor that I called is the second person I ever called and he signed up, ended up being my chiropractor for like 15 years living in San Francisco. And now we're still in touch, and we're great friends. So it's funny, like I dreaded those first calls, but they actually turned out to be really interesting people that I met. But yeah, we didn't have a model. We didn't know what to charge for. So we started out charging for calls. We changed the business's phone number. So if you're, you had a 415 number and you're a chiropractor on Yelp, we would change your number to like a number that Yelp owned, but it went straight through to their phone. So it was a transfer, but it meant our system could track that they got the call through Yelp, right? Yeah. And then we tracked the duration of the call. We couldn't hear the call, but we tracked the duration of the call. And then we could report back to them at the end of the month. You got 10 calls from Yelp this month and we're going to charge you $50 a call or whatever. So I sold that to 5 or 10 customers and people hated it. They hated that model because they're like, they'd get a call, it'd be like a wrong number or they just wanted to ask, they're already a current customer and they're asking about parking or something, right? So then we'd get back to and be like, you got a call and we charged you 50 bucks. So like, no, I can't pay you for that. Like, that was one of my current customers. So now the reality is they were getting loads of advertising and that was really driving the growth for their business, but they didn't want to pay for the call. So then I was like, that's not working. We have to do something else. Then we paid pay for click, which was we put ads on your page and when someone clicks it, they see you. And then people hated that too, because they're like, my mum just told me she's been like clicking on the link, right? Because she's like looking at my business. And my mum probably just cost me 5 bucks because she said she clicked it 10 times. And like, can you take that off my bill? So people hated the clicks. And then one day we just brought in a head of operations, Geoff Donaker. And by this point, by the way, I had like 2 salespeople working for me that I'd hired. And so it was me and two other people. We were calling these companies, signing these contracts. And one day I just had this epiphany. I was like, we should just pay for the ads that are viewed, not the ads that are clicked. In other words, pay for impressions to the ads. So if I tell you, I've put your ad in front of 500 people when they were looking for sushi this month, right? That you don't mind paying for because there's no action involved, but you're like, whoa, it's a big number. You put me in front of 500 people. I'll pay you 200 bucks for that. No problem. Essentially impression-based advertising. And I went to our COO and I was like, I think we should try this. He was like, if you want to give it a go. And I wrote up a contract and started selling it that day. And that is that format, that model now has a billion dollars revenue running through Yelp. So basically they took that model, like I switched it to impression-based advertising. And that was what was right for local. And our metrics were amazing. We're actually able to charge a lot more than we could in the previous two models. And I built out the sales team to about 20 people. Through that process, I got hooked, basically. Like I realized I love selling during that role. I would never have walked into sales, I think, unless everyone had gone, you have to do it. And I dreaded it, but I got really hooked on it. I love the adrenaline of it. I love hunting down these deals and I love like what you can learn from customers when you're selling. You can learn what they need and you can evolve your business model. So I love that flywheel and that's kind of what I've been doing ever since. But I built out a team of 20 people, so I got to learn management, essentially by just doing it at Yelp and building out that team. Nate: Next, I asked Bob how he developed his theory of leadership. Bob: I actually developed it really early on. You know, I mentioned earlier I'd been starting things since I was about 10 years old. And what's fascinated me between the age of like 10 and maybe, you know, my early 20s, I love the idea of creating stuff with people where no one gets paid. And here's why. These are charities and nonprofits and stuff, right? But I realized really early, if I can lead and motivate in a way where people want to contribute, even though they're not getting paid, and we can create stuff together, if I can learn that aspect, like management in that sense, then if I'm one day paying people, I'm going to get like, I'm going to, we're all going to be so much more effective, essentially, right? Like the organization is going to be so much more effective. And that is a concept I still work with today. Yes, we pay everyone quite well at Quid who works at Quid, right? Like we pay at or above market rate. But I never think about that. I never, ever ask for anything or work with people in a way that I feel they need to do it because that's their job ever. I just erased that from my mindset. I've never had that in my mindset. I always work with people with like, with gratitude and and in a way where I'm like, well, I'll try and make it fun and like help them see the meaning in the work, right? Like help them understand why it's an exciting thing to work on or a, why it's right for them, how it connects to their goals and their interests and why it's, you know, fun to contribute, whether it's to a client or to an area of technology or whatever we're working on. It's like, so yeah, I haven't really, I haven't, I mean, you guys might have read books on this, but I haven't really seen that idea articulated in quite the way that I think about it. And because I didn't read it in a book, I just kind of like stumbled across it as a kid. But that's, but I learned because I practiced it for 10 years before I even ended up in the US, when I started managing teams at Yelp, I found that I was very effective as a manager and a leader because I didn't take for granted that, you know, people had to do it because it was their job. I thought of ways to make the environment fun and make the connections between the different team members fun and teach them things and have there be like a culture of success and winning and sharing in the results of the wins together. And I suppose this did play out a little bit financially in my career because, although we pay people well at Yelp, we're kind of a somewhat mature business now. But in the early days of Yelp and in the early days of Quid, I never competed on pay. You know, when you're starting a company, it's a really bad idea to try and compete on pay. You have to, I went into every hiring conversation all the way through my early days at Yelp, as well as through the early days at Quid, like probably the first nearly 10 years at Quid. And every time I interviewed people, I would say early on, this isn't going to be where you earn the most money. I'm not going to be able to pay you market rate. You're going to earn less here than you could elsewhere. However, this is what I can offer you, right? Like whether then I make a culture that's about like helping learning. Like we always had a book like quota at Quid. If you want to buy books to read in your free time, I don't care what the title is, we'll give you money to buy books. And the reality is a book's like 10 bucks or 20 bucks, right? No one spends much on books, but that was one of the perks. I put together these perks so that we were paying often like half of what you could get in the market for the same role, but you're printing like reasons to be there that aren't about the money. Now, it doesn't work for everybody, you know, that's as in every company doesn't, but that's just what played out. And that's really important in the early days. You've got to be so efficient. And then once you start bringing in the money, then you can start moving up your rates and obviously pay people market rate. But early on, you've got to find ways to be really, really, really efficient and really lean. And you can't pay people market rate in the early days. I mean, people kind of expect that going into early stage companies, but I was particularly aggressive on that front. But that was just because I suppose it was in my DNA that like, I will try and give you other reasons to work here, but it's not going to be, it's not going to be for the money. Nate: Next, I asked Bob how he got from Yelp to Quid and how he knew it was time to launch his own company. Bob: Yeah, like looking back, if I'd made sort of the smart decision from a financial standpoint and from a, you know, career standpoint, I suppose you'd say, I would have just stayed put. if you're in a rocket ship and it's growing and you've got a senior role and you get to, you've got, you've earned the license to work on whatever you want. Like Yelp wanted me to move to Phoenix and create their first remote sales team. They wanted, I was running customer success at the time and I'd set up all those systems. Like there was so much to do. Yelp was only like three or four years old at the time, and it was clearly a rocket ship. And you know, I could have learned a lot more like from Yelp in that, like I could have seen it all the way through to IPO and, setting up remote teams and hiring hundreds of people, thousands of people eventually. So I, but I made the choice to leave relatively early and start my own thing. Just coming back to this idea we talked about in the session earlier today, I I always want to work on the forefront of whatever's going on, like the most important thing happening in our time. And I felt I knew what was next. I could kind of see what was next, which was applying AI to analyze the world's text, which was clear to me by about 2008, like that was going to be as big as the internet. That's kind of how I felt about it. And I told people that, and I put that in articles, and I put it in talks that are online that you can go watch. You know, there's one on my website from 10 years ago where I'd already been in the space for five or six years. You can go watch it and see what I was saying in 2015. So fortunately, I documented this because it sounds a bit, you know, unbelievable given what's just happened with large language models and open AI. But it was clear to me where things were going around 2008. And I just wanted to work on what was next, basically. I wanted to apply neural networks and natural language processing to massive text sets like all the world's media, all the world's social media. And yeah, I suppose whenever I've seen what's going to happen next, like with social network, going to Yelp, like seeing what was going to happen with social networking, going to building Yelp, and then seeing this observation about AI and going and doing Quid, it's not, it doesn't feel like a choice to me. It's felt like, well, just what I have to do. And regardless of whether that's going to be more work, harder work, less money, et cetera, it's just how I'm wired, I guess. And I'm kind of, I see it now. Like I see what's next now. And I'll probably just keep doing this. But I was really too early or very, very early, as you can probably see, to be trying to do that at like 2008, 2009, seven or eight years before OpenAI was founded, I was just banging my head against the wall for nearly a decade with no one that would listen. So even the best companies in the world and the biggest investors in the world, again, I won't name them, But it was so hard to raise money. It was so hard to get anyone to watch it that, after a time, I actually started to think I was wrong. Like after doing it for like 10 years and it hadn't taken off, I just started to think like, I was so wrong. I spent a year or two before ChatGPT took off. I'd got to a point where I'd spent like a year or two just thinking, how could my instinct be so wrong about what was going to play out here? How could we not have unlocked the world's written information at this point? And I started to think maybe it'll never happen, you know, and like I was simply wrong, which of course you could be wrong on these things. And then, you know, ChatGPT and OpenAI like totally blew up, and it's been bigger than even I imagined. And I couldn't have told you exactly which technical breakthrough was going to result in it. Like no one knew that large language models were going to be the unlock. But I played with everything available to try and unlock that value. And as soon as large language models became promising in 2016, we were on it, like literally the month that the Google BERT paper came out, because we were like knocking on that door for many years beforehand. And we were one of the teams that were like, trying to unlock that value. That's why many of the early Quid people are very senior at OpenAI and went on to take what they learned from Quid and then apply it in an OpenAI environment, which I'm very proud of. I'm very proud of those people, and it's amazing to see what they've done. Nate: That concludes Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, we discuss AI and social media. The first question was about anxiety and AI. Bob: Maybe I'll just focus on the anxiety and the issues first of all. A lot's been said on it. I suppose what would be my headlines? I think that one big area of concern is how it changes the job market. And I think the practical thing on that is if you can learn to be the bridge, then you're putting yourself in a really valuable position, right? Because if you can bridge this technology into businesses in a way that makes change and improvements, then you are moving yourself to a skill set that's going to continue to be really valuable. So that's just a practical matter. One of the executives I work with in a major US company likes to say will doctors become redundant because of AI? And he says, no, doctors won't be redundant, but doctors that don't use AI will be redundant. And that's kind of where we are, right? It's like, we're still going to need a person, but if you refuse, if you're not using it, you're going to fall behind and like that is going to put you at risk. So I think there is some truth to that little kind of illustrative story. There will be massive numbers of jobs that are no longer necessary. And the history of technology is full of these examples. Coming back to like 5,000 years ago, think of all the times that people invented stuff that made the prior roles redundant, right? In London, before electricity was discovered and harnessed, one of the biggest areas of employment was for the people that walked the streets at night, lighting the candles and gas lights that lit London. That was a huge breakthrough, right? You could put fire in the street, you put gas in the street and you lit London. Without that, you couldn't go out at night in London and like it would have been an absolute nightmare. The city wouldn't be what it is. But that meant there were like thousands of people whose job it was to light those candles and then go round in the morning when the sun came up and blow them out. So when the light bulb was invented, can you imagine the uproar in London where all these jobs were going to be lost, thousands of jobs were going to be lost. by people that no longer are needed to put out these lights. There were riots, right? There was massive social upheaval. The light bulb threatened and wiped out those jobs. How many people in London now work lighting gas lamps and lighting candles to light the streets, right? Nobody. That was unthinkable. How could you possibly take away those jobs? You know, people actually smashed these light bulbs when the first electric light bulbs were put into streets. People just went and smashed them because they're like, we are not going to let this technology take our jobs. And I can give you 20 more examples like that throughout history, right? Like you could probably think of loads yourselves. Even the motor car, you know, so many people were employed to look after horses, right? Think of all the people that were employed in major cities around the world, looking after horses and caring for them and building the carts and everything. And suddenly you don't need horses anymore. Like that wiped out an entire industry. But what did it do? It created the automobile industry, which has been employing massive numbers of people ever since. And the same is true for, you know, like what have light bulbs done for the quality of our lives? You know, we don't look at them now and think that's an evil technology that wiped out loads of jobs. We go, thank goodness we've got light bulbs. So the nature of technology is that it wipes out roles, and it creates roles. And I just don't see AI being any different. Humans have no limit to like, seem to have no limit to the comfort they want to live with and the things that we want in our lives. And those things are still really expensive and we don't, we're nowhere near satisfied. So like, we're going to keep driving forward. We're going to go, oh, now we can do that. Great. I can use AI, I can make movies and I can, you know, I don't know, like there's just loads of stuff that people are going to want to do with AI. Like, I mean, using the internet, how much time do we spend on these damn web forms, just clicking links and buttons and stuff? Is that fun? Do we even want to do that? No. Like we're just wasting hours of our lives every week, like clicking buttons. Like if we have agents, they can do that for us. So we have, I think we're a long way from like an optimal state where work is optional and we can just do the things that humans want to do with their time. And so, but that's the journey that I see us all along, you know. So anyway, that's just my take on AI and employment, both practically, what can you do about it? Be the bridge, embrace it, learn it, jump in. And also just like in a long arc, I'm not saying in the short term, there won't be riots and there won't be lots of people out of work. And I mean, there will be. But when we look back again, like I often think about what time period are we talking about? Right? People often like, well, what will it do to jobs? Next year, like there'll certain categories that will become redundant. But are we thinking about this in a one year period or 100 year period? Like it's worth asking yourself, what timeframe am I talking about? Right? And I always try and come back to the 100 year view at a minimum when talking about technology change. If it's better for humanity in 100 years, then we should probably work on it and make it happen, right? If we didn't do that, we wouldn't have any light bulbs in our house. Still be lighting candles? Nate: Next was a question about social media, fragmented attention, and how it drives isolation. Bob: Well, it's obviously been very problematic, particularly in the last five or six years. So TikTok gained success in the United States and around the world around five or six years ago with a completely new model for how to put content in front of people. And what powered it? AI. So TikTok is really an AI company. And the first touch point that most of us had with AI was actually through TikTok. It got so good at knowing the network of all possible content and knowing if you watch this, is the next thing we should show you to keep you engaged. And they didn't care if you were friends with someone or not. Your network didn't matter. Think about Facebook. Like for those of you that were using Facebook, maybe say 2010, right? Like 15 years ago. What did social media look like? You had a profile page, you uploaded photos of yourself and photos of your friends, you linked between them. And when you logged into Facebook, you basically just browsing people's profiles and seeing what they got up to at the weekend. That was social media 15 years ago. Now imagine, now think what you do when you're on Instagram and you're swiping, right? Or you go to TikTok and you're swiping. First of all, let's move to videos, which is a lot more compelling, short videos. And most of the content has nothing to do with your friends. So there was a massive evolution in social media that happened five or six years ago, driven by TikTok. And all the other companies had to basically adopt the same approach or they would have fallen too far behind. So it forced Meta to evolve Instagram and Facebook to be more about attention. Like there's always about attention, that's the nature of media. But these like AI powered ways to keep you there, regardless of what they're showing you. And that turned out to be a bit of a nightmare because it unleashed loads of content without any sense of like what's good for the people who are watching it, right? That's not the game they're playing. They're playing attention and then they're not making decisions about what might be good for you or not. So we went through like a real dip, I think, in social media, went through a real dip and we're still kind of in it, right, trying to find ways out of it. So regulation will ultimately be the savior, which it is in any new field of tech. Regulation is necessary to keep tech to have positive impact for the people that it's meant to be serving. And that's taken a long time to successfully put in place for social media, but we are getting there. I mean, Australia just banned social media for everyone under 16. You may have seen that. Happened, I think, earlier this year. France is putting controls around it. The UK is starting to put more controls around it. So, you know, gradually countries are voters are making it a requirement to put regulation around social media use. In terms of just practical things for you all, as you think about your own social media use, I think it's very healthy to think about how long you spend on it and find ways to just make it a little harder to access, right? Like none of us feel good when we spend a lot of time on our screens. None of us feel good when we spend a lot of time on social media. It feels good at the time because it's given us those quick dopamine hits. But then afterwards, we're like, man, I spent an hour, and I just like, I lost an hour down like the Instagram wormhole. And then we don't feel good afterwards. It affects us sleep negatively. And yeah, come to the question that was, posted, can create a sense of isolation or negative feelings of self due to comparison to centrally like models and actors and all these people that are like putting out content, right? Kind of super humans. So I think just finding ways to limit it and asking yourself what's right for you and then just sticking to that. And if that means coming off it for a month or coming off it for a couple of months, then, give that a try. Personally, I don't use it much at all. I'll use it mostly because friends will share like a funny meme or something and you just still want to watch it because it's like it's sent to you by a friend. It's a way of interacting. Like my dad sends me funny stuff from the internet, and I want to watch it because it's a way of connecting with him. But then I set a timer. I like to use this timer. It's like just a little physical device. I know we've all got one on our phones, but I like to have one on my desk. And so if I'm going into something, whether it's like I'm going to do an hour on my inbox, my e-mail inbox, or I'm going to, you know, open up Instagram and just swipe for a bit, I'll just set a timer, you know, and just keep me honest, like, okay, I'm going to give myself 8 minutes. I'm not going to give myself any more time on there. So there's limited it. And then I put all these apps in a folder on the second screen of my phone. So I can't easily access them. I don't even see them because they're on the second screen of my phone in a folder called social. So to access any of the apps, I have to swipe, open the folder, and then open the app. And just moving them to a place where I can't see them has been really helpful. I only put the healthy apps on my front page of my phone. Nate: Next was a question about where Bob expects AI to be in 20 years and whether there are new levels to be unlocked. Bob: No one knows. Right? Like what happens when you take a large language model from a trillion nodes to like 5 trillion nodes? No one knows. It's, this is where the question comes in around like consciousness, for example. Will it be, will it get to a point where we have to consider this entity conscious? Fiercely debated, not obvious at all. Will it become, it's already smarter than, well, it already knows more than any human on the planet. So in terms of its knowledge access, it knows more. In terms of most capabilities, most, you know, cognitive capabilities, it's already more capable than any single human on the planet. But there are certain aspects of consciousness, well, certain cognitive functions that humans currently are capable of that AI is not currently capable of, but we might expect some of those to be eaten into as these large language models get better. And it might be that these large language models have cognitive capabilities that humans don't have and never could have, right? Like levels of strategic thinking, for example, that we just can't possibly mirror. And that's one of the things that's kind of, you know, a concern to nations and to people is that, you know, we could end up with something on the planet that is a lot smarter than any one of us or even all of us combined. So in general, when something becomes more intelligent, it seeks to dominate everything else. That is a pattern. You can see that throughout all life. Nothing's ever got smarter and not sought to dominate. And so that's concerning, especially because it's trained on everything we've ever said and done. So I don't know why that pattern would be different. So that, you know, that's interesting. And and I think in terms of, so the part of that question, which is whole new areas of capability to be unlocked, really fascinating area to look at is not so much the text now, because everything I've written is already in these models, right? So the only way they can get more information is by the fact that like, loads of social networks are creating more information and so on. It's probably pretty duplicitous at this point. That's why Elon bought Twitter, for example, because he wanted the data in Twitter, and he wants that constant access to that data. But how much smarter can they get when they've already got everything ever written? However, large language models, of course, don't just apply to text. They apply to any information, genetics, photography, film, every form of information can be harnessed by these large language models and are being harnessed. And one area that's super interesting is robotics. So the robot is going to be as nimble and as capable as the training data that goes into it. And there isn't much robotic training data yet. But companies are now collecting robotic training data. So in the coming years, robots are going to get way more capable, thanks to large language models, but only as this data gets collected. So in other words, like language is kind of reaching its limits in terms of new capabilities, but think of all the other sensor types that could feed into large language models and you can start to see all kinds of future capabilities, which is why everyone suddenly got so interested in personal transportation vehicles and personal robotics, which is why like Tesla share price is up for example, right? Because Elon's committed now to kind of moving more into robotics with Tesla as a company. And there are going to be loads of amazing robotics companies that come out over the next like 10 or 20 years. Nate: And that brings us to the end of this episode with Bob Goodson. Like I mentioned in the intro, there were so many great nuggets from Bob. Such great insight on managing our careers, building companies, and the evolving impact of AI and social media. In summary, try to be at the intersection of new power and real problems. Seek to inspire rather than just transact, and be thoughtful about how to use social media and AI. All simple ideas, please, take them seriously.
In this soul-nourishing episode, Bella and Nikki invite you to remember your power as the vessel of transmutation. As the collective moves through intense shifts and shadows rise, it's easy to feel caught up. But Bella and Nikki share powerful reminders: you don't have to carry it all. As consciousness elevates, they'll guide you to relate to emotions with a lighter touch. Instead of getting stuck in over-analysis, you'll remember who you truly are—the soul that allows emotions to flow through with ease. Tune in, and let Bella and Nikki help you unlock these higher perspectives.----Join the Oasis to go from listener to a true OOOMIE, and receive access to ourExclusive bonus podcast, Off-Record: A Peek behind the curtain into the lives of two paradigm-builders—stepping into bigger levels of purpose, embodiment, and creation.Monthly members-only live stream where your questions, revelations, and current awakenings become the fuel for our conversations.The Oasis is where you plug in, lock in, and tap fully into the OOOM Frequency:JOIN THE OASIS MEMBERSHIP.
Money isn’t just math. It’s memory, identity, fear, hope, and survival. Shannah Game, certified financial planner and author of Unraveling Your Relationship with Money, shares why so many of us feel anxious, ashamed, or stuck around money... regardless of how much we make. We talk about financial trauma (the obvious kind and the subtle kind), why “being good with money” is a myth, how shame keeps us frozen, and why women in particular carry so much silent stress around finances. Shanna shares her own story of losing everything after divorce, the patterns she sees again and again in high-performing women, and simple ways to start rebuilding trust with money without perfection or punishment.
We recorded MobileViews 596 a day early on February 7, 2026, mostly to stay ahead of the weather. I'm currently under a flood watch in Hawaii, while Jon Westfall has been dealing with the aftermath of an ice storm in Mississippi. We spent some time comparing the "quality" of our power outages—I've had five short ones recently, while Jon's neighbors dealt with a single, brutal nine-day stretch. In my retirement, I've started using mechanical keyboards—I have several now. Surprisingly, I broke my first keycaps ever this month on a Royal Kludge board. The stems on the "O" and "3" keys actually cracked. I've been replacing them with a set of Warmier PBT shine-through keycaps, doing about three a day so it doesn't feel like a chore. Jon is still rocking a 15-year-old Apple keyboard, but I'm trying to convince him to try a 75% mechanical layout with a volume knob. We had a discussion about the recent tech stock dip following Anthropic's new Claude plugins. Major players like Microsoft and Oracle saw massive hits, and I can't help but wonder if CEOs are overreacting to AI's current capabilities. I see a parallel to the "Advanced Intelligent Networking" (AIN) of the late 80s. Back then, we were told visual "drag-and-drop" programming would replace coders, but that path failed because non-techies didn't account for error conditions or governance. Jon agreed, noting that while the sky is changing, it isn't necessarily falling, and companies may soon regret the mass layoffs they've justified in the name of AI. My Boox Note Air 5C journey continues. I recently picked up a Staedtler Noris Digital Jumbo stylus. It looks just like a traditional pencil and features a digital eraser on the end. Interestingly, erasing with the physical end of the stylus is actually faster than hitting "undo" on an e-ink screen. My current workflow involves syncing my daily doodles from the native Boox app to OneNote as PDFs, though I'm still struggling with how OneNote for Android handles the mixture of handwriting and text. Jon shared his progress on a mobile "Hyflex" setup for his psychology classes at Delta State. He's using a combination of gear to allow students to participate in-person, synchronously online, or via recording. One software highlight he mentioned is Better Display (the $21 Pro version), which allows for a picture-in-picture view of an extended display. It's a lifesaver when the classroom projector is positioned at an awkward angle behind the presenter. Finally, Jon is planning his hardware roadmap for the year. He's debating between a DIY Linux box for local LLM work, a Unify storage appliance, or waiting for a Mac Mini with an M5 chip. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on the rumor mill for a touchscreen MacBook—I might actually buy one if it ever surfaces.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It’s actually a good thing that some books push you to the edge of your ability to understand. But there’s no doubting the fact that dense, abstract and jargon-filled works can push you so far into the fog of frustration that you cannot blame yourself for giving up. But here’s the truth: You don’t have to walk away frustrated and confused. I’m going to share with you a number of practical strategies that will help you fill in the gaps of your reading process. Because that’s usually the real problem: It’s not your intelligence. Nor is it that the world is filled with books “above your level.” I ultimately don’t believe in “levels” as such. But as someone who taught reading courses at Rutgers and Saarland University, I know from experience that many learners need to pick up a few simple steps that will strengthen how they approach reading difficult books. And in this guide, you’ll learn how to read challenging books and remember what they say. I’m going to go beyond generic advice too. That way, you can readily diagnose: Why certain books feel so hard Use pre-reading tactics that prime your brain to deal with difficulties effectively Apply active reading techniques to lock in understanding faster Leverage accelerated learning tools that are quick to learn Use Artificial Intelligence to help convert tough convent into lasting knowledge without worrying about getting duped by AI hallucinations Whether you’re tacking philosophy, science, dense fiction or anything based primarily in words, the reading system you’ll learn today will help you turn confusion into clarity. By the end, even the most intimidating texts will surrender their treasures to your mind. Ready? Let’s break it all down together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9HLbY4jsFg Why Some Books Feel “Too Hard” (And What That Really Means) You know exactly how it feels and so do I. You sit down with a book that people claim is a classic or super-important. But within a few pages, your brain fogs over and you’re completely lost. More often than not, through glazed eyes, you start to wonder… did this author go out of his or her way to make this difficult? Are they trying to show off with all these literary pyrotechnics? Or is there a deliberate conspiracy to confuse readers like me? Rest assured. These questions are normal and well worth asking. The difficulty you might feel is never arbitrary in my experience. But there’s also no “single origin” explanation for why some books feel easier than others. It’s almost always a combination of factors, from cognitive readiness, lived experience, emotions and your physical condition throughout the day. This means that understanding why individual texts resist your understanding needs to be conducted on a case-by-case basis so you can move towards mastering anything you want to read. Cognitive Load: The Brain’s Processing “Stop Sign” “Cognitive load” probably needs no definition. The words are quite intuitive. You start reading something and it feels like someone is piling heavy bricks directly on top of your brain, squishing everything inside. More specifically, these researchers explain that what’s getting squished is specifically your working memory, which is sometimes called short-term memory. In practical terms, this means that when a book suddenly throws a bunch of unfamiliar terms at you, your working memory has to suddenly deal with abstract concepts, completely new words or non-linear forms of logic. All of this increases your cognitive load, but it’s important to note that there’s no conspiracy. In Just Being Difficult: Academic Writing in the Public Arena, a variety of contributors admit that they often write for other specialists. Although it would be nice to always compose books and articles for general readers, it’s not laziness. They’re following the codes of their discipline, which involves shorthand to save everyone time. Yes, it can also signal group membership and feel like an intellectual wall if you’re new to this style, but it’s simply a “stop sign” for your brain. And wherever there are stop signs, there are also alternative routes. Planning Your Detour “Roadmap” Into Difficult Books Let me share a personal example by way of sharing a powerful technique for making hard books easier to read. A few years ago I decided I was finally going to read Kant. I had the gist of certain aspects of his philosophy, but a few pages in, I encountered so many unfamiliar terms, I knew I had to obey the Cognitive Load Stop Sign and take a step back. To build a roadmap into Kant, I searched Google in a particular way. Rather than a search term like, “Intro to Kant,” I entered this tightened command instead: Filetype:PDF syllabus Kant These days, you can ask an LLM in more open language to simply give you links to the syllabi of the most authoritative professors who teach Kant. I’d still suggest that you cross-reference what you get on Google, however. If you’re hesitant about using either Google or AI, it’s also a great idea to visit a librarian in person to help you. Or, you can read my post about using AI for learning with harming your memory to see if it’s time to update your approach. Narrowing Down Your Options One way or another, the reason to consult the world’s leading professors is that their syllabi will provide you with: Foundational texts Core secondary literature Commentaries from qualified sources Essential historical references Once you’ve looked over a few syllabi, look through the table of contents of a few books on Amazon or Google Books. Then choose: 1-2 foundational texts to read before the challenging target book you want to master 1-2 articles or companion texts to read alongside In this way, you’ve turned difficulty into a path, not an obstacle. Pre-Reading Strategies That Warm Up Your Reading Muscles A lot of the time, the difficulty people feel when reading has nothing to do with the book. It’s just that you’re diving into unfamiliar territory without testing the waters first. Here are some simple ways to make unfamiliar books much easier to get into. Prime Like a Pro To make books easier to read, you can perform what is often called “priming” in the accelerated learning community. It is also sometimes called “pre-reading” and as this research article discusses, its success has been well-demonstrated. The way I typically perform priming is simple. Although some books require a slight change to the pattern, I typically approach each new book by reading: The back cover The index The colophon page The conclusion or afterword The most interesting or relevant chapter The introduction The rest of the book Activate Prior Knowledge Sometimes I will use a skimming and scanning strategy after reading the index to quickly familiarize myself with how an author approaches a topic with which I’m already familiar. This can help raise interest, excitement and tap into the power of context-dependent memory. For example, I recently started reading Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Since the Renaissance memory master Giordano Bruno comes up multiple times, I was able to draw up a kind of context map of the books themes by quickly going through those passages. Take a Picture Walk Barbara Oakley and Terence Sejnjowski share a fantastic strategy in Learning How to Learn. Before reading, simply go through a book and look at all the illustrations, tables, charts and diagrams. It seems like a small thing. But it gives your brain a “heads up” about upcoming visual information that you may need to process than prose. I used to find visual information like this difficult, but after I started taking picture walks, I’m now excited to read “towards” these elements. If still find them challenging to understand, I apply a tip I learned from Tony Buzan that you might like to try: Rather than struggle to interpret a chart or illustration, reproduce it in your own hand. Here’s an example of how I did this when studying spaced repetition: As a result, I learned the graph and its concepts quickly and have never forgotten it. Build a Pre-Reading Ritual That Fits You There’s no one-sized-fits-all strategy, so you need to experiment with various options. The key is to reduce cognitive load by giving your mind all kinds of ways of understanding what a book contains. If it helps, you can create yourself a checklist that you slip into the challenging books on your list. That way, you’ll have both a bookmark and a protocol as you develop your own pre-reading style. Active Reading Techniques That Boost Comprehension Active reading involves deliberately applying mental activities while reading. These can include writing in the margins of your books, questioning, preparing summaries and even taking well-time breaks between books. Here’s a list of my favorite active reading strategies with ideas on how you can implement them. Using Mnemonics While Reading On the whole, I take notes while reading and then apply a variety of memory techniques after. But to stretch my skills, especially when reading harder books, I start the encoding process earlier. Instead of just taking notes, I’ll start applying mnemonic images. I start early because difficult terms often require a bit more spaced repetition. To do this yourself, the key is to equip yourself with a variety of mnemonic methods, especially: The Memory Palace technique The Pegword Method The Major System The PAO System And in some cases, you may want to develop a symbol system, such as if you’re studying physics or programming. Once you have these mnemonic systems developed, you can apply them in real time. For example, if you come across names and dates, committing them to memory as you read can help you keep track of a book’s historical arc. This approach can be especially helpful when reading difficult books because authors often dump a lot of names and dates. By memorizing them as you go, you reduce the mental load of having to track it all. For even more strategies you can apply while reading, check out my complete Mnemonics Dictionary. Strategic Questioning Whether you take notes or memorize in real-time, asking questions as you go makes a huge difference. Even if you don’t come up with answers, continually interrogating the book will open up your brain. The main kinds of questions are: Evaluative questions (checking that the author uses valid reasoning and address counterarguments) Analytical questions (assessing exactly how the arguments unfold and questioning basic assumptions) Synthetic questions (accessing your previous knowledge and looking for connections with other books and concepts) Intention questions (interrogating the author’s agenda and revealing any manipulative rhetoric) One medieval tool for questioning you can adopt is the memory wheel. Although it’s definitely old-fashioned, you’ll find that it helps you rotate between multiple questions. Even if they are as simple as who, what, where, when, how and why questions, you’ll have a mental mnemonic device that helps ensure you don’t miss any of them. Re-reading Strategies Although these researchers seem to think that re-reading is not an effective strategy, I could not live without it. There are three key kinds of re-reading I recommend. Verbalize Complexity to Tame It The first is to simply go back and read something difficult to understand out loud. You’d be surprised how often it’s not your fault. The author has just worded something in a clunky manner and speaking the phrasing clarifies everything. Verbatim Memorization for Comprehension The second strategy is to memorize the sentence or even an entire passage verbatim. That might seem like a lot of work, but this tutorial on memorizing entire passages will make it easy for you. Even if verbatim memorization takes more work, it allows you to analyze the meaning within your mind. You’re no longer puzzling over it on paper, continuing to stretch your working memory. No, you’ve effectively expanded at least a part of your working memory by bypassing it altogether. You’ve ushered the information into long-term memory. I’m not too shy to admit that I have to do this sometimes to understand everything from the philosophy in Sanskrit phrases to relatively simple passages from Shakespeare. As I shared in my recent discussion of actor Anthony Hopkins’ memory, I couldn’t work out what “them” referred to in a particular Shakespeare play. But after analyzing the passage in memory, it was suddenly quite obvious. Rhythmical Re-reading The third re-reading strategy is something I shared years ago in my post detailing 11 reasons you should re-read at least one book per month. I find this approach incredibly helpful because no matter how good you get at reading and memory methods, even simple books can be vast ecosystems. By revisiting difficult books at regular intervals, you not only get more out of them. You experience them from different perspectives and with the benefit of new contexts you’ve built in your life over time. In other words, treat your reading as an infinite game and never assume that you’ve comprehended everything. There’s always more to be gleaned. Other Benefits of Re-reading You’ll also improve your pattern recognition by re-treading old territory, leading to more rapid recognition of those patterns in new books. Seeing the structures, tropes and other tactics in difficult books opens them up. But without regularly re-reading books, it can be difficult to perceive what these forms are and how authors use them. To give you a simple example of a structure that appears in both fiction and non-fiction, consider in media res, or starting in the middle. When you spot an author using this strategy, it can immediately help you read more patiently. And it places the text in the larger tradition of other authors who use that particular technique. For even more ideas that will keep your mind engaged while tackling tough books, feel free to go through my fuller article on 7 Active Reading Strategies. Category Coloring & Developing Your Own Naming System For Complex Material I don’t know about you, but I do not like opening a book only to find it covered in highlighter marks. I also don’t like highlighting books myself. However, after practicing mind mapping for a few years, I realized that there is a way to combine some of its coloring principles with the general study principles of using Zettelkasten and flashcards. Rather than passively highlighting passages that seem interesting at random, here’s an alternative approach you can take to your next tour through a complicated book. Category Coloring It’s often helpful to read with a goal. For myself, I decided to tackle a hard book called Gödel Escher Bach through the lens of seven categories. I gave each a color: Red = Concept Green = Process Orange = Fact Blue = Historical Context Yellow = Person Purple = School of Thought or Ideology Brown = Specialized Terminology Example Master Card to the Categorial Color Coding Method To emulate this method, create a “key card” or “master card” with your categories on it alongside the chosen color. Use this as a bookmark as you read. Then, before writing down any information from the book, think about the category to which it belongs. Make your card and then apply the relevant color. Obviously, you should come up with your own categories and preferred colors. The point is that you bring the definitions and then apply them consistently as you read and extract notes. This will help bring structure to your mind because you’re creating your own nomenclature or taxonomy of information. You are also using chunking, a specific mnemonic strategy I’ve written about at length in this post on chunking as a memory tool. Once you’re finished a book, you can extract all the concepts and memorize them independently if you like. And if you emulate the strategy seen on the pictured example above, I’ve included the page number on each card. That way, I can place the cards back in the order of the book. Using this approach across multiple books, you will soon spot cross-textual patterns with greater ease. The catch is that you cannot allow this technique to become activity for activity’s sake. You also don’t want to wind up creating a bunch of informational “noise.” Before capturing any individual idea on a card and assigning it to a category, ask yourself: Why is this information helpful, useful or critical to my goal? Will I really use it again? Where does it belong within the categories? If you cannot answers these questions, either move on to the next point. Or reframe the point with some reflective thinking so that you can contextualize it. This warning aside, it’s important not to let perfectionism creep into your life. Knowing what information matters does take some practice. To speed up your skills with identifying critical information, please read my full guide on how to find the main points in books and articles. Although AI can certainly help these days, you’ll still need to do some work on your own. Do Not Let New Vocabulary & Terminology Go Without Memorization One of the biggest mistakes I used to make, even as a fan of memory techniques, slowed me down much more than necessary. I would come across a new term, look it up, and assume I’d remember it. Of course, the next time I came across it, the meaning was still a mystery. But when I got more deliberate, I not only remembered more words, but the knowledge surrounding the unfamiliar terms also stuck with greater specificity. For example, in reading The Wandering Mind by Jamie Kreiner, memorizing the ancient Greek word for will or volition (Prohairesis) pulled many more details about why she was mentioning it. Lo and behold, I started seeing the word in more places and connecting it to other ancient Greek terms. Memorizing those as well started to create a “moat of meaning,” further protecting a wide range of information I’d been battling. Understanding Why Vocabulary Blocks Comprehension The reason why memorizing words as you read is so helpful is that it helps clear out the cognitive load created by pausing frequently to look up words. Even if you don’t stop to learn a new definition, part of your working memory gets consumed by the lack of familiarity. I don’t always stop to learn new definitions while reading, but using the color category index card method you just discovered, it’s easy to organize unfamiliar words while reading. That way they can be tidily memorized later. I have a full tutorial for you on how to memorize vocabulary, but here’s a quick primer. Step One: Use a System for Capturing New Words & Terms Whether you use category coloring, read words into a recording app or email yourself a reminder, the key is to capture as you go. Once your reading session is done, you can now go back to the vocabulary list and start learning it. Step Two: Memorize the Terms I personally prefer the Memory Palace technique. It’s great for memorizing words and definitions. You can use the Pillar Technique with the word at the top and the definition beneath it. Or you can use the corners for the words and the walls for the definitions. Another idea is to photograph the cards you create and important them into a spaced repetition software like Anki. As you’ll discover in my complete guide to Anki, there are several ways you can combine Anki with a variety of memory techniques. Step Three: Use the Terms If you happened to catch an episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast back when I first learned Prohairesis I mentioned it often. This simple habit helps establish long-term recall, reflection and establishes the ground for future recognition and use. Expand Understanding Using Video & Audio Media When I was in university, I often had to ride my bike across Toronto to borrow recorded lectures on cassette. Given the overwhelming tsunamis of complex ideas, jargon and theoretical frameworks I was facing, it was worth it. Especially since I was also dealing with the personal problems I shared with you in The Victorious Mind. Make no mistake: I do not believe there is any replacement for reading the core books, no matter how difficult they might be. But there’s no reason not to leverage the same ideas in multiple formats to help boost your comprehension and long-term retention. Multimedia approaches are not just about knowledge acquisition either. There have been many debates in the magical arts community that card magicians should read and not rely on video. But evidence-based studies like this one show that video instruction combined with reading written instructions is very helpful. The Science Behind Multi-Modal Learning I didn’t know when I was in university, or when I was first starting out with memdeck card magic that dual coding theory existed. This model was proposed by Allan Paivio, who noticed that information is processed both verbally and non-verbally. Since then, many teachers have focused heavily on how to encourage students to find the right combination of reading, visual and auditory instructional material. Here are some ideas that will help you untangle the complexity in your reading. How to Integrate Multimedia Without Overload Forgive me if this is a bit repetitive, but to develop flow with multiple media, you need to prime the brain. As someone who has created multiple YouTube videos, I have been stubborn about almost always including introductions. Why? Go Through the Intros Like a Hawk Because without including a broad overview of the topic, many learners will miss too many details. And I see this in the comments because people ask questions that are answered throughout the content and flagged in the introductions. So the first step is to be patient and go through the introductory material. And cultivate an understanding that it’s not really the material that is boring. It’s the contemporary issues with dopamine spiking that make you feel impatient. The good news is that you can possibly reset your dopamine levels so you’re better able to sit through these “priming” materials. One hack I use is to sit far away from my mouse and keep my notebook in hand. If I catch myself getting antsy, I perform a breathing exercise to restore focus. Turn on Subtitles When you’re watching videos, you can help increase your engagement by turning on the subtitles. This is especially useful in jargon-heavy video lessons. You can pause and still see the information on the screen for easier capture when taking notes. When taking notes, I recommend jotting down the timestamp. This is useful for review, but also for attributing citations later if you have to hand in an assignment. Mentally Reconstruct After watching a video or listening to a podcast on the topic you’re mastering, take a moment to review the key points. Try to go through them in the order they were presented. This helps your brain practice mental organization by building a temporal scaffold. If you’ve taken notes and written down the timestamps, you can easily check your accuracy. Track Your Progress For Growth & Performance One reason some people never feel like they’re getting anywhere is that they have failed to establish any points of reference. Personally, this is easy for me to do. I can look back to my history of writing books and articles or producing videos and be reminded of how far I’ve come at a glance. Not only as a writer, but also as a reader. For those who do not regularly produce content, you don’t have to start a blog or YouTube channel. Just keep a journal and create a few categories of what skills you want to track. These might include: Comprehension Retention Amount of books read Vocabulary growth Critical thinking outcomes Confidence in taking on harder books Increased tolerance with frustration when reading challenges arise You can use the same journal to track how much time you’ve spent reading and capturing quick summaries. Personally, I wish I’d started writing summaries sooner. I really only got started during grad school when during a directed reading course, a professor required that I had in a summary for every book and article I read. I never stopped doing this and just a few simple paragraph summaries has done wonders over the years for my understanding and retention. Tips for Overcoming Frustration While Reading Difficult Books Ever since the idea of “desirable difficulty” emerged, people have sought ways to help learners overcome emotional responses like frustration, anxiety and even shame while tackling tough topics. As this study shows, researchers and teachers have found the challenge difficult despite the abundance of evidence showing that being challenged is a good thing. Here are some strategies you can try if you continue to struggle. Embrace Cognitive Discomfort As we’ve discussed, that crushing feeling in your brain exists for a reason. Personally, I don’t think it ever goes away. I still regularly pick up books that spike it. The difference is that I don’t start up a useless mantra like, “I’m not smart enough for this.” Instead, I recommend you reframe the experience and use the growth mindset studied by Carol Dweck, amongst others. You can state something more positive like, “This book is a bit above my level, but I can use tactics and techniques to master it.” I did that very recently with my reading of The Xenotext, parts of which I still don’t fully understand. It was very rewarding. Use Interleaving to Build Confidence I rotate through draining books all the time using a proven technique called interleaving. Lots of people are surprised when I tell them that I rarely read complex and challenging books for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. But I do it because interleaving works. Which kinds of books can you interleave? You have choices. You can either switch in something completely different, or switch to a commentary. For example, while recently reading some heavy mathematical theories about whether or not “nothing” can exist, I switched to a novel. But back in university, I would often stick within the category while at the library. I’d read a core text by a difficult philosopher, then pick up a Cambridge Companion and read an essay related to the topic. You can also interleave using multimedia sources like videos and podcasts. Interleaving also provides time for doing some journaling, either about the topic at hand or some other aspect of your progress goals. Keep the Big Picture in Mind Because frustration is cognitively training, it’s easy to let it drown out your goals. That’s why I often keep a mind map or some other reminder on my desk, like a couple of memento mori. It’s also possible to just remember previous mind maps you’ve made. This is something I’m doing often at the moment as I read all kinds of boring information about managing a bookshop for my Memory Palace bookshop project first introduced in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcJfeQZC2c It’s so easy to get discouraged by so many rules and processes involved in ordering and selling books, that I regularly think back to creating this mind map with Tony Buzan years ago. In case my simple drawings on this mind map for business development doesn’t immediately leap out at you with its meanings, the images at the one o’clock-three o’clock areas refer to developing a physical Memory Palace packed with books on memory and learning. Developing and keeping a north star in mind will help you transform the process of reading difficult books into a purposeful adventure of personal development. Even if you have to go through countless books that aren’t thrilling, you’ll still be moving forward. Just think of how much Elon Musk has read that probably wasn’t all that entertaining. Yet, it was still essential to becoming a polymath. Practice Seeing Through The Intellectual Games As you read harder and harder books, you’ll eventually come to realize that the “fluency” some people have is often illusory. For example, some writers and speakers display a truly impressive ability to string together complex terminology, abstract references and fashionable ideas of the day in ways that sound profound. Daniel Dennett frequently used a great term for a lot of this verbal jujitsu that sounds profound but is actually trivial. He called such flourishes “deepities.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-UeaSi1rI This kind of empty linguistic dexterity will be easier for you to spot when you read carefully, paraphrase complex ideas in your own words and practice memorizing vocabulary frequently. When you retain multiple concepts and practice active questioning in a large context of grounded examples and case studies, vague claims will not survive for long in your world. This is why memory training is about so much more than learning. Memorization can equip you to think independently and bring clarity to fields that are often filled with gems, despite the fog created by intellectual pretenders more interested in word-jazz than actual truth. Using AI to Help You Take On Difficult Books As a matter of course, I recommend you use AI tools like ChatGPT after doing as much reading on your own as possible. But there’s no mistaking that intentional use of such tools can help you develop greater understanding. The key is to avoid using AI as an answer machine or what Nick Bostrom calls an “oracle” in his seminal book, Superintelligence. Rather, take a cue from Andrew Mayne, a science communicator and central figure at OpenAI and host of their podcast. His approach centers on testing in ways that lead to clarity of understanding and retention as he uses various mnemonic strategies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlzD_6Olaqw Beyond his suggestions, here are some of my favorite strategies. Ask AI to Help Identify All Possible Categories Connected to a Topic A key reason many people struggle to connect ideas is simply that they haven’t developed a mental ecosystem of categories. I used to work in libraries, so started thinking categorically when I was still a teenager. But these days, I would combine how traditional libraries are structured with a simple prompt like: List all the possible categories my topic fits into or bridges across disciplines, historical frameworks and methodologies. Provide the list without interpretation or explanation so I can reflect. A prompt like this engineers a response that focuses on relationships and lets your brain perform the synthetic thinking. Essentially, you’ll be performing what some scientists call schema activation, leading to better personal development outcomes. Generate Lists of Questions To Model Exceptional Thinkers Because understanding relies on inquiry, it’s important to practice asking the best possible questions. AI chat bots can be uniquely useful in this process provided that you explicitly insist that it helps supply you excellent questions without any answers. You can try a prompt like: Generate a list of questions that the world’s most careful thinkers in this field would ask about this topic. Do not provide any answers. Just the list of questions. Do this after you’ve read the text and go through your notes with fresh eyes. Evaluate the material with questions in hand, ideally by writing out your answers by hand. If you need your answers imported into your computer, apps can now scan your handwriting and give you text file. Another tip: Don’t be satisfied with the first list of questions you get. Ask the AI to dig deeper. You can also ask the AI to map the questions into the categories you previously got help identifying. For a list of questions you can put into your preferred chat bot, feel free to go through my pre-AI era list of philosophical questions. They are already separated by category. Use AI to Provide a Progress Journal Template If you’re new to journaling, it can be difficult to use the technique to help you articulate what you’re reading and why the ideas are valuable. And that’s not to mention working out various metrics to measure your growth over time. Try a prompt like this: Help me design a progress journal for my quest to better understand and remember difficult books. Include sections for me to list my specific goals, vocabulary targets, summaries and various milestones I identify. Make it visual so I can either copy it into my own print notebook or print out multiple copies for use over time. Once you have a template you’re happy to experiment with, keep it visible in your environment so you don’t forget to use it. Find Blind Spots In Your Summaries Many AIs have solid reasoning skills. As a result, you can enter your written summaries and have the AI identify gaps in your knowledge, blind spots and opportunities for further reading. Try a prompt like: Analyze this summary and identify any blind spots, ambiguities in my thinking or incompleteness in my understanding. Suggest supplementary reading to help me fill in any gaps. At the risk of repetition, the point is that you’re not asking for the summaries. You’re asking for assessments that help you diagnose the limits of your understanding. As scientists have shown, metacognition, or thinking about your thinking can help you see errors much faster. By adding an AI into the mix, you’re getting feedback quickly without having to wait for a teacher to read your essay. Of course, AI outputs can be throttled, so I find it useful to also include a phrase like, “do not throttle your answer,” before asking it to dig deeper and find more issues. Used wisely, you will soon see various schools of thought with much greater clarity, anticipate how authors make their moves and monitor your own blind spots as you read and reflect. Another way to think about the power of AI tools is this: They effectively mirror human reasoning at a species wide level. You can use them to help you mirror more reasoning power by regularly accessing and practicing error detection and filling in the gaps in your thinking style. Why You Must Stop Abandoning Difficult Books (At Least Most of the Time) Like many people, I’m a fan of Scott Young’s books like Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything. He’s a disciplined thinker and his writing helps people push past shallow learning in favor of true and lasting depth. However, he often repeats the advice that you should stop reading boring books. In full transparency, I sometimes do this myself. And Young adds a lot of context to make his suggestion. But I limit abandoning books as much as possible because I don’t personally find Young’s argument that enjoyment and productivity go together. On the contrary, most goals that I’ve pursued have required fairly intense periods of delaying gratification. And because things worth accomplishing generally do require sacrifice and a commitment to difficulty, I recommend you avoid the habit of giving up on books just because they’re “boring” or not immediately enjoyable. I’ll bet you’ll enjoy the accomplishment of understanding hard books and conquering their complexity far more in the end. And you’ll benefit more too. Here’s why I think so. The Hidden Cost of Abandoning Books You’ve Started Yes, I agree that life is short and time is fleeting. But if you get into the habit of abandoning books at the first sign of boredom, it can quickly become your default habit due to how procedural memory works. In other words, you’re given your neurons the message that it’s okay to escape from discomfort. That is a very dangerous loop to throw yourself into, especially if you’re working towards becoming autodidactic. What you really need is to develop the ability to stick with complexity, hold ambiguous and contradictory issues in your mind and fight through topic exhaustion. Giving up on books on a routine basis? That’s the opposite of developing expertise and resilience. The AI Risk & Where Meaning is Actually Found We just went through the benefits of AI, so you shouldn’t have issues. But I regularly hear from people and have even been on interviews where people use AI to summarize books I’ve recomended. This is dangerous because the current models flatten nuance due to how they summarize books based on a kind of “averaging” of what its words predictability mean. Although they might give you a reasonable scaffold of a book’s structure, you won’t get the friction created by how authors take you through their thought processes. In other words, you’ll be using AI models that are not themselves modeling the thinking that reading provides when you grind your way through complex books. The Treasure of Meaning is Outside Your Comfort Zone Another reason to train for endurance is that understanding doesn’t necessarily arrive while reading a book or even a few weeks after finishing it. Sometimes the unifying insights land years later. But if you don’t read through books that seem to be filled with scattered ideas, you cannot gain any benefit from them. Their diverse points won’t consolidate in your memory and certainly won’t connect with other ideas later. So I suggest you train your brain to persist as much as possible. By drawing up the support of the techniques we discussed today and a variety of mnemonic support systems, you will develop persistence and mine more gold from everything you read. And being someone who successfully mines for gold and can produce it at will is the mark of the successful reading. Not just someone who consumes information efficiently, but who can repeatedly connect and transform knowledge year after year due to regularly accumulating gems buried in the densest and most difficult books others cannot or will not read. Use Struggle to Stimulate Growth & You Cannot Fail As you’ve seen, challenging books never mean that you’re not smart enough. It’s just a matter of working on your process so that you can tackle new forms of knowledge. And any discomfort you feel is a signal that a great opportunity and personal growth adventure awaits. By learning how to manage cognitive load, fill in the gaps in your background knowledge and persist through frustration, you can quickly become the kind of reader who seeks out complexity instead of flinching every time you see it. Confusion has now become a stage along the path to comprehension. And if you’re serious about mastering increasingly difficult material, understanding and retaining it, then it’s time to upgrade your mental toolbox. Start now by grabbing my Free Memory Improvement Course: Inside, you’ll discover: The Magnetic Memory Method for creating powerful Memory Palaces How to develop your own mnemonic systems for encoding while reading Proven techniques that deepen comprehension, no matter how abstract or complex your reading list is And please, always remember: The harder the book, the greater rewards. And the good news is, you’re now more than ready to claim them all.
Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! You can also support the show by shopping small at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is once again making an entire episode based on a single song. You're welcome. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and talk about why the hit Katseye song, Gabriela, Should've Been Gay. Personally, we have not stopped singing this song on a loop since it came out (of a closet made of air). Gabriela is basically an even queerer, more Gen-Z version of Dolly Parton's Jolene. With two out of six members of the group being openly queer, it was only a matter of time before they released the gayest song we've ever heard. We're honestly not sure what they could've been going for with Gabriela if not a bisexual anthem. We can't talk about Gabriela without addressing the sapphic fever dream that is the music video. Katseye may spend the chorus singing “back off of my fella, Gabriela”, but there is not one fella to be seen anywhere on the screen. In fact, they go to extremes to use absolutely anything but a fella, casting a mannequin and a self-driving taxi as placeholders for men. The decision to cast Jessica Alba and zero men feels deliberately gay, especially when paired with the least subtle lesbian imagery we've ever seen. These girls are literally spitting up flower petals and stroking cats while singing about how much they want to climb Gabriela like a tree. The lyrics for Gabriela are equally as gay as the music video, even leaving in the “fella” rhyme. As we did with our Jolene episode, we pick the lyrics apart line by line looking for the gay subtext. In this case, we're not sure it counts as subtext. It's just the text at this point. The line, “Skin amaretto / I bet you taste just like the summer / Under the covers” transitioning into a fantasy about a threesome with Gabriela pretty much speaks for itself. This girl is so down bad for Gabriela that she literally passes away with her “heart in the casket” when she sees her. There is perhaps no experience more relatable to lesbians than seeing a woman that is so hot that you just die on the spot. We know one thing for sure, Gabriela Should've Been Gay. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Let's talk about Trump, NATO, and taking it personally....
Today we're studying Moses 7:4 in just one minute! Grab your scriptures and let's dive into them together!And grab study guides for the whole family here: - -Grab Kristen's copies of helpful PDFs and study guides here: https://shop.kristenwalkersmith.com/products/ Check out her monthly Come Follow Me YouTube videos here: https://kristenwalkersmith.com/youtube/- To get Cali's scripture study guide for adults click here: https://comefollowmestudy.com/shop/ Discount code: OMSSOr purchase on Amazon: https://a.co/d/4qocgeUGet our NEW 365-day Old Testament daily devotional book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0p3Ds0t Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Podcast Show Notes: Trevor McGregor – From Rock Bottom to Quantum Leaps in Business and Life Episode Overview In this transformative episode of the Breakfast Leadership Show, Michael D. Levitt welcomes Trevor McGregor, a globally recognized High Performance Master Coach, real estate investor, and former top Tony Robbins coach. With over 45,000 individual coaching sessions and two decades of empowering entrepreneurs and executives, Trevor shares how he turned personal devastation into a multi-million-dollar mission of helping others achieve freedom and fulfillment. From Failure to Freedom Trevor's journey began with losing everything—his savings, a six-figure family loan, and nearly his marriage—after a failed real estate investment. From that rock bottom, he rebuilt his life and business, developing the resilience that would become the foundation of his coaching philosophy. Personally selected by Tony Robbins as one of his top business coaches, Trevor spent five years mastering the art of transformation, earning what he calls his “Black Belt in Coaching.” The Psychology of Quantum Leaps Now leading Trevor McGregor International, he helps already-successful entrepreneurs, investors, and Fortune 500 executives break through their current ceilings by aligning mindset, identity, and strategy. Trevor explains how identity transformation drives exponential results (10X or even 100X) and how combining psychology with strategy can create the “freedom lifestyle” he enjoys between Canada and Australia—his personal “endless summer.” Key Insights & Takeaways Why losing everything became the catalyst for Trevor's greatest growth How identity work creates quantum breakthroughs faster than strategy alone The psychology behind building wealth and generational freedom How to design a business that supports your ideal lifestyle Lessons learned from coaching clients managing over $2.7 billion in assets Topics of Expertise Discussed From Rock Bottom to Empire: Rebuilding after loss The Joe Fairless Masterclass: Coaching one of the top real estate minds Psychology Meets Strategy: Avoiding burnout through alignment The Freedom Code: Building legacy wealth and time freedom The Quantum Leap Framework: Transforming identity for faster results About Trevor McGregor Trevor McGregor is a high-performance master coach and international speaker who has helped clients generate billions in revenue and assets under management. His work has empowered thousands of leaders to transcend limitations and achieve extraordinary results across business, investing, and life. Key Achievements 45,000+ coaching sessions across 20+ years Former top business coach for Tony Robbins Clients have generated billions in revenue and AUM Connect with Trevor McGregor Website: trevormcgregor.com/BreakfastLeadership Instagram: @trevormcgregor LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/trevormcgregor Learn More from Michael D. Levitt Explore more leadership and burnout-prevention insights at BreakfastLeadership.com/blog Read Michael's books Burnout Proof and Workplace Culture
What happens when you finally reach the goal you’ve been chasing and it doesn’t feel the way you thought it would? I’m joined by Nick Shelton, a U.S. Air Force veteran, bestselling author, and speaker who has lived multiple lives, sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. Nick opens up about growing up painfully shy, being mistaken for hearing impaired as a child, and slowly learning how to navigate social connection as an introvert by breaking it down into small, manageable steps. And on the flip side, Nick shares what no one really talks about: the identity crisis that hit after retiring early at 49, the quiet loneliness that followed “success,” and the unexpected grief of losing structure, purpose, and visibility. We talk about what it feels like to fade into the background, how relationships shape opportunity, and why reinvention doesn’t require a rock bottom, just a willingness to show up.
This is how teenagers have been for all time. So why do we take their personality so personally?Let's not write the year off just yet. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge is opening back up for a limited time. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge.
Jessica Buchanan was a schoolteacher from Ohio who followed a calling to serve overseas. That calling led her to East Africa, meaningful humanitarian work, and eventually into one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable. Jessica shares the full story of how she was kidnapped in Somalia, held hostage in the desert for 93 days, and ultimately rescued by SEAL Team Six. She opens up about the moments leading up to her capture, the role intuition tried to play, what captivity was really like, and how she survived mentally when survival felt impossible. We also talk about the aftermath from PTSD, rebuilding identity, motherhood, faith, and what it means to “survive survival.”
© 2020-2026 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
