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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comEd is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. Before that, he was the FT's Washington Bureau chief, the South Asia bureau chief, Capital Markets editor, and Philippines correspondent. During the Clinton administration, he was the speechwriter for Larry Summers. The author of many books, his latest is Zbig: The Life and Times of Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet.For two clips of our convo — on how China played Trump on rare minerals, and Europe's bind over Russian energy — head to our YouTube page.Other topics: growing up in West Sussex near my hometown; the international appeal of English boarding schools; the gerontocracy of the USSR; Ed making a beeline to the Berlin Wall as it fell; Fukuyama's The End of History; Brzezinski's The Grand Failure — of Communism; enthusiasm for free markets after the Cold War; George Kennan warning against Ukraine independence; HW Bush and the Persian Gulf; climate change and migration; a population boom in Africa; W Bush tolerating autocracy in the war on terrorism; Trump tearing up his own NAFTA deal; the resurgence of US isolationism; the collapsing security umbrella in Europe leading to more self-reliance; Germany's flagging economy; the China threat; Taiwan's chips; TACO on tariffs; the clean energy cuts in OBBBA; the abundance agenda; national debt and Bowles-Simpson; the overrated Tony Blair; Liz Truss' “epic Dunning-Kruger”; Boris killing the Tory Party; the surprising success of Mark Carney; Biden's mediocrity; Bernie's appeal; and the Rest catching up with the West.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Scott Anderson on the Iranian Revolution, Shannon Minter debating trans issues, Thomas Mallon on the AIDS crisis, and Johann Hari turning the tables to interview me. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This Flashback Friday is from episode 345, published last November 5, 2013. Karen Hudes studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. She worked in the US Export Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. She established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association. In 1999 Karen reported the corrupt take-over of the second largest bank in the Philippines. The Bank's Country Director in the Philippines reassigned Karen when she asked him to sign a letter warning the Philippines' government that the Bank could not disburse its loan. Two days after informing the Board's Audit Committee of the cover-up in the Philippines, Karen was reprimanded and placed on probation. The Chair of the World Bank's Audit Committee requested an inquiry into the World Bank's Institutional Integrity Department. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations followed up with three letters to the World Bank. The World Bank forged documents and fired Karen in contempt of Congress. In 2007 Karen advised the US Treasury Department and US Congress that the US would lose its right to appoint the President of the World Bank if the current American President of the World Bank did not play by the rules. The 66 year old Gentlemen's Agreement that Europe would appoint the Managing Director of the IMF and US would appoint the World Bank President ended in 2010. Follow Jason on TWITTER, INSTAGRAM & LINKEDIN Twitter.com/JasonHartmanROI Instagram.com/jasonhartman1/ Linkedin.com/in/jasonhartmaninvestor/ Call our Investment Counselors at: 1-800-HARTMAN (US) or visit: https://www.jasonhartman.com/ Free Class: Easily get up to $250,000 in funding for real estate, business or anything else: http://JasonHartman.com/Fund CYA Protect Your Assets, Save Taxes & Estate Planning: http://JasonHartman.com/Protect Get wholesale real estate deals for investment or build a great business – Free Course: https://www.jasonhartman.com/deals Special Offer from Ron LeGrand: https://JasonHartman.com/Ron Free Mini-Book on Pandemic Investing: https://www.PandemicInvesting.com
Stuart Pollington was born in the United Kingdom and grew up there. After college he began working and along the way he decided he wanted to travel a bit. He worked in Las Vegas for six months and then had the opportunity to work for a year in Australia. He then ended up doing some work in Asia and fell in love with Thailand. For the past 20 years he has lived in Thailand where he helped start several entrepreneurial endeavors and he began two companies which are quite alive and well. My discussion with Stuart gave us the opportunity to explore his ideas of leadership and entrepreneurial progress including what makes a good entrepreneur. He says, for example, that anyone who wishes to grow and be successful should be willing to ask many questions and always be willing to learn. Stuart's insights are quite valuable and worth your time. I believe you will find most useful Stuart's thoughts and ideas. About the Guest: Stuart Pollington is a seasoned entrepreneur and digital strategist who has spent over two decades building businesses across the ASEAN region. Originally from the UK, Stuart relocated to Thailand more than 20 years ago and has since co-founded and led multiple ventures, including Easson Energy and Smart Digital Group. His experience spans digital marketing, AI, and sustainability, but at the heart of it all is his passion for building ideas from the ground up—and helping others do the same. Throughout his career, Stuart has worn many hats: Sales Director, CTO, Founder, Digital Marketer and growth consultant. He thrives in that messy, unpredictable space where innovation meets real-world execution, often working closely with new businesses to help them launch, grow, and adapt in challenging environments. From Bangkok boardrooms to late-night brainstorms, he's seen firsthand how persistence and curiosity can turn setbacks into springboards. Stuart's journey hasn't always been smooth—and that's exactly the point. He's a firm believer that failure is an essential part of the learning process. Whether it's a marketing campaign that flopped or a business idea that never got off the ground, each misstep has helped shape his approach and fueled his drive to keep moving forward. Ways to connect with Stuart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartpollington/ www.smart-digital.co.th www.smart-traffic.com.au www.evodigital.com.au https://easson.energy About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello, everyone. Once again, it is time for an episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have a guest, Stuart pullington, who is in Thailand, so that is a little bit of a distance away, but be due to the magic of science and technology, we get to have a real, live, immediate conversation without any delay or anything like that, just because science is a beautiful thing. So Stuart is an entrepreneur. He's been very much involved in helping other people. He's formed companies, but he likes to help other entrepreneurs grow and do the same things that he has been doing. So I am really glad that he consented to be on unstoppable mindset. And Stuart, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And thank you for being here, Stuart Pollington ** 02:14 Ryan, thank you for the invitation, Michael, I'm looking forward to it. Michael Hingson ** 02:18 And Stuart is originally from the United Kingdom, and now for the past, what 20 years you've been in Thailand? Yes, over Stuart Pollington ** 02:27 a bit over 20 years now. So I think I worked out the other day. I'm 47 in a couple of weeks, and I've spent more than half of my life now over in Asia. Michael Hingson ** 02:39 So why do you like Thailand so much as opposed to being in England? Stuart Pollington ** 02:46 It's a good question. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do, I do like the UK. And I really, I really like where I came, where I'm from. I'm from the south coast, southeast, a place called Brighton. So, you know, pretty good, popular place in the UK because of where we're situated, by the, you know, on the on the sea, we get a lot of, you know, foreign tourists and students that come over, etc. I mean, Asia. Why? Why Asia? I mean, I originally went traveling. I did six months in America, actually, first in Las Vegas, which was a good experience, and then I did a bit of traveling in America, from the West Coast over to the East Coast. I did a year in Australia, like a working holiday. And then on my way back to the UK, I had a two week stop over in Thailand, and I went down to the beaches, really enjoyed kind of the culture and the way of life here, if you like. And ended up staying for a year the first time. And then after that year, went back to the UK for a little bit and decided that actually, no, I kind of liked the I liked the lifestyle, I liked the people, I liked the culture in Thailand, and decided that was where I wanted to kind of be, and made my way back Michael Hingson ** 04:13 there you are. Well, I can tell you, Las Vegas isn't anything like it was 20 years ago. It is. It is totally different. It's evolved. It's very expensive today compared to the way it used to be. You can't, for example, go into a hotel and get an inexpensive buffet or anything like that anymore. Drinks at the hum on the on the casino floors are not like they used to be, or any of that. It's it's definitely a much higher profit, higher cost. Kind of a place to go. I've never been that needy to go to Las Vegas and spend a lot of time. I've been there for some meetings, but I've never really spent a lot of time in Las Vegas. It's a fascinating town. Um. One of my favorite barbecue places in New York, opened up a branch in Las Vegas, a place called Virgil's best barbecue in the country. And when they opened the restaurant, the Virgil's restaurant in Las Vegas, my understanding is that the people who opened it for Virgil's had to first spend six months in New York to make sure that they did it exactly the same way. And I'll tell you, the food tastes the same. It's just as good as New York. So that that would draw me to Las Vegas just to go to Virgil's. That's kind of fun. Well, tell us a little about the early Stuart kind of growing up and all that, and what led you to do the kinds of things you do, and so on. But tell us about the early Stuart, if you would. Stuart Pollington ** 05:47 Yeah, no problem. I mean, was quite sporty, very sporty. When I was younger, used to play a lot of what we call football, which would be soccer over, over your way. So, you know, very big, younger into, like the the team sports and things like that, did well at school, absolutely in the lessons, not so great when it came to kind of exams and things like that. So I, you know, I learned a lot from school, but I don't think especially back then, and I think potentially the same in other countries. I don't think that the the education system was set up to cater for everyone, and obviously that's difficult. I do feel that. I do feel that maybe now people are a bit more aware of how individual, different individuals perform under different circumstances and need different kind of ways to motivate, etc. So, yeah, I mean, I that that was kind of me at school. Did a lot of sport that, you know was good in the lessons, but maybe not so good at the PAM studying, if you like, you know the studying that you need to do for exams where you really have to kind of cram and remember all that knowledge. And I also found with school that it was interesting in the lessons, but I never really felt that there was any kind of, well, we're learning this, but, and this is how you kind of utilize it, or this is the practical use of what we're learning for life, if that, if that makes sense. Yeah. So, you know, like when we were learning, and I was always very good at maths, and I love numbers, and you know, when we were learning things in maths and things like that, I just never felt that it was explained clearly what you would actually use that for. So when you're learning different equations, it wasn't really well explained how you would then utilize that later in life, which I think, for me personally, I think that would have made things more interesting, and would have helped to kind of understand which areas you should focus on. And, you know, maybe more time could have been spent understanding what an individual is good at, and then kind of explaining, well, if you're good at this, or passionate with this, then this is what you could do with it. I think I remember sitting down with our I can't they would have been our advisors at the time, where you sit down and talk about what you want to do after school, and the question was always, what do you want to be? Whereas, you know, for me personally, I think it would have been more useful to understand, what are your passion you know? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? And then saying, Well, you know, you could actually do this. This is something you could do, you know. So you could take that and you could become, this could be the sort of career you could do, if that makes sense. So anyway, that that was kind of like, like school and everything like that. And then after school, you know, I didn't, I worked for a couple of years. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Funnily enough, there was actually a Toys R Us opening in Brighton in one of the summers she went and got, I got a summer job there at Toys R Us. And I really enjoyed that. Actually, that was my first step into actually doing a bit of sales. I worked on the computers. So we were, you know, selling the computers to people coming in. And when we opened the store, it's a brand new store. You know, it was just when the pay as you go. Mobile phones were kind of just coming out. We had Vodafone analog, but it was the non contract where you could just buy top up cards when they first came out, and I remember we were the first store, because we were a new store. We were the first store to have those phones for sale. And I remember just being really determined to just try and be the first person to just sell the first ever mobile phone within Toys R Us. And I remember I started in the morning, and I think my lunch was at, say, 12, but I missed my lunch, and I think I was up till about one, one or 2pm until finally I managed to find someone who, who was, who me, had that need or wanted the phone, and so I made that first sale for toys r us in the UK with the mobile phone, and that that, in itself, taught me a lot about, you know, not giving up and kind of pushing through and persevering a bit. So yeah, that that was kind of my, my early part. I was always interested in other cultures, though. I was always interested at school, you know, I do projects on Australia, Egypt and things like that. And, you know, in the UK, when you get to about, I think similar, similar to America, but, you know, in the UK, where you either before or after uni, it's quite usual to do, like, a gap year or do a bit of traveling. And I just kind of never got round to it. And I had friends that went and did a gap year or years working holiday in Australia, and I remember when they came back, and I was like, Yeah, you know, that's that's actually what I want to do. So when I was about 22 it was at that point, and I'd worked my way up by them from Toys R Us, I'd already moved around the country, helped them open new stores in different locations in the UK. Was working in their busiest story of in Europe, which was in London. But I decided I wanted to kind of I wanted to go and travel. So I remember talking to my area manager at the time and saying, Look, this is what I want to do. I had a friend who was traveling, and he was meeting up with his sister, and his sister happened to be in Las Vegas, which is how we, we kind of ended up there. And I remember talking to my area manager at the time and saying that I want to leave, I want to go and do this. And I remember him sat down just trying to kind of kind of talk me out of it, because they obviously saw something in me. They wanted me to continue on the path I was doing with them, which was going, you know, towards the management, the leadership kind of roles. And I remember the conversation because I was saying to him, Look, I want, I want to, I want to go and travel. I really want to go. I'm going to go to Las Vegas or to travel America. And his response to me was, well, you know, if you stay here for another x years, you can get to this position, then you can go and have a holiday in America, and you could, you can get a helicopter, you can fly over the Grand Canyon, and kind of really trying to sell me into staying in that path that they wanted me to go on. And I thought about that, and I just said, No, I don't want to just go on a holiday. I really just want to immerse myself, and I just want to go there, and I want to live the experience. And so yeah, I I left that position, went to Las Vegas, ended up staying six months. I did three months. Did a bit in Mexico, came back for another three months. And that's where I met a lot of different people from different countries. And I really kind of got that initial early bug of wanting to go out and seeing a bit more of the world. And it was at that point in my life where I was in between, kind of the end of education, beginning of my business career, I guess, and I had that gap where it was the opportunity to do it. So I did, so yeah, I did that time in America, then back to the UK, then a year in Australia, which was great. And then, yeah, like I said, on the way home, is where I did my stop over. And then just obviously fell in love with Thailand and Asia, and that became my mindset after that year going back to the UK. My mindset was, how do I get back to Thailand? You know, how do I get back to Asia? I also spent a bit of time, about five years in the Philippines as well. So, you know, I like, I like, I like the region, I like the people, I like the kind of way of life, if you like. Michael Hingson ** 14:23 So when you were working in the Philippines, and then when you got to Thailand, what did you do? Stuart Pollington ** 14:30 Yeah, so I mean, it all starts with Thailand, really. So I mean, originally, when I first came over, I was, I was teaching and doing, trying to kind of some teaching and voluntary stuff. When I came back, I did a similar thing, and then I got, I get, I wouldn't say lucky, I guess I had an opportunity to work for a company that was, we were, we were basically selling laptop. Laptops in the UK, student laptops, they were refurbished like your IBM or your Dell, and we they would be refurbished and resold normally, to students. And we also, we also used to sell the the laptop batteries. So we would sell like the IBM or Dell laptop batteries, but we sell the OEM, you know, so we would get them direct from, from from China, so like third party batteries, if you like. And back in the day, this is just over 20 years ago, but back then, early days of what we would call digital marketing and online marketing. And you know, our website in the UK, we used to rank, you know, number one for keywords like IBM, refurb, refurbished. IBM, laptop Dell, laptop battery, IBM battery. So we used to rank above the brands, and that was my introduction, if you like, to digital marketing and how it's possible to make money online. And then that kind of just morphed into, well, you know, if we're able to do this for our own business, why can't we do this for other businesses? And that would have been the, you know, the early owners and founders of the of smart digital and smart traffic seeing that opportunity and transitioning from running one business and doing well to helping multiple businesses do well online and that, that was the bit I really enjoy. You know, talking to different business owners in different industries. A lot of what we do is very similar, but then you have slightly different approaches, depending on them, the location and the type of business that people are in. Michael Hingson ** 16:47 Well, you, you have certainly been been around. You formed your own or you formed countries along the way, like Eastern energy and smart digital group. What were they? Right? Stuart Pollington ** 16:59 Yeah. So, so yeah, going back to the computer website. Out of that came a company called smart traffic that was put together by the free original founders, guy called Simon, guy called Ben, and a guy called Andy. And so they originally came together and put and had created, if you like, smart traffic. And smart traffic is a digital marketing agency originally started with SEO, the organic, you know, so when someone's searching for something in Google, we help get websites to the top of that page so that people can then click on them, and hopefully they get a lead or a sale, or whatever they're they're trying to do with that, with that traffic. So, yeah, they originally put that together. I being here and on the ground. I then started working within the business. So I was running the student website, if you like, the laptop website, and then got the opportunity from very early on to work within the Digital Marketing Company. I've got a sales background, but I'm also quite technical, and I would say I'm good with numbers, so a little bit analytical as well. So the opportunity came. We had opened an office in the Philippines, and it had been open for about, I think, 18 months or two years, and it was growing quite big, and they wanted someone else to go over there to support Simon, who was one of the founders who opened the office over there. And that's when I got the opportunity. So I was over in Cebu for what, five, five and a half years. At one point, we had an office there with maybe 120 staff, and we did a lot of the technical SEO, and we were delivering campaigns for the UK. So we had a company in the UK. We had one in Australia, and then also locally, within the kind of Thai market. And that was fantastic. I really enjoyed working over in the Philippines again. Culture enjoyed the culture enjoyed the people. Really enjoyed, you know, just getting stuck in and working on different client campaigns. And then eventually that brought me back to Thailand. There was a restructure of the company we, you know, we moved a lot of the a lot of the deliverables around. So I was then brought back to Thailand, which suited me, because I wanted to come back to Thailand at that point. And then I had the opportunity. So the previous owners, they, they created a couple of other businesses in Thailand. They're one that very big one that went really well, called dot property, so they ended up moving back to the UK. Long story short, about maybe 10 years ago, I got the opportunity to take over smart digital in Thailand and smart traffic in Australia, which are both the. Marketing agencies that I'd been helping to run. So I had the opportunity to take those over and assume ownership of those, which was fantastic. And then I've obviously been successfully running those for the last 10 years, both here and and in Australia, we do a lot of SEO. We do a lot of Google ads and social campaigns and web design, and we do a lot of white label. So we we sit in the background for other agencies around the world. So there'll be agencies in, you know, maybe Australia, the UK, America, some in Thailand as well, who are very strong at maybe social or very strong ads, but maybe not as strong on the SEO so we, we just become their SEO team. We'll run and manage the campaigns for them, and then we'll deliver all the reporting with their branding on so that they can then plug that into what they do for their clients and deliver to their clients. So that's all fantastic. I mean, I love, I love digital marketing. I love, I love looking at the data and, you know, working out how things work. And we've been very successful over the years, which then led on to that opportunity that you mentioned and you asked about with Eastern energy. So that was about three and a half years ago, right right around the COVID time, I had a meeting, if you like, in in Bangkok, with a guy called Robert Eason. He was actually on his way to the UK with his family, and kind of got stuck in Bangkok with all the lockdowns, and he was actually on his way to the UK to start Eastern energy there. And Eastern energy is basically, it's an energy monitoring and energy efficiency company. It's basically a UK design solution where we have a hardware technology that we retrofit, which is connects, like to the MDB, and then we have sensors that we place around the location, and for every piece of equipment that we connect to this solution, we can see in real time, second by second, the energy being used. We can then take that data, and we use machine learning and AI to actually work with our clients to identify where their energy wastage is, and then work with them to try and reduce that energy wastage, and that reduces the amount of energy they're using, which reduces their cost, but also, very importantly, reduces the CO two emissions. And so I had this chance encounter with Robert, and I remember, at the time I was we were talking about how this solution worked, and I was like, oh, that's quite interesting. You know, I've I, you know, the the digital marketing is going quite well. Could be time to maybe look at another kind of opportunity, if you like. So I had a look at how it worked. I looked at the kind of ideal clients and what sort of other projects were being delivered by the group around the world. And there were a couple of big name brands over in there. So because it works quite well with qsrs, like quick service restaurant, so like your fast food chains, where you have multiple locations. And it just so happened that one of the in case studies they'd had, I just through my networking, I do a lot of networking with the chambers in Bangkok. Through my networking, I actually happened to know some of the people in the right positions at some of these companies. I'd never had the opportunity to work with them, with the digital marketing because most of them would have their own in house teams, and I just saw it as an opportunity to maybe do something with this here. So I, you know, I said to Robert, give me a week. And then a week later, I said, right, we've got a meeting with this company. It's international fast food brand. They've got 1700 locations in Thailand. So when ended that meeting, very, very positive. And after that meeting, I think Robert and I just I said to Robert, you know, currently you have a plan to go to the UK. Currently you're stuck in Thailand with lockdown, with COVID. We don't know what's going to happen and where everything's going to go. Why don't we do it here? And that's where it originally came from. We decided, let's, you know, let's, let's give that a shot over here. Since then, we've brought in two other partners. There's now four of us, a guy called Gary and a guy called Patrick. And yeah, I mean, it's a bit slower than I thought it would be, but it's in the last. Six months, it's really kind of picked up, which has been fantastic. And for me, it was, for me, it was just two things that made sense. One, I love I love data, and I love the technology. So I love the fact that we're now helping businesses by giving them data that they don't currently have the access to, you know. So when you get, you know, when you when you get your electricity bill, you get it the month after you've used everything, don't you, and it just tells you how much you've got to pay. And there's not really much choice. So what we're doing is giving them the visibility in real time to see where their energy is going and be able to make changes in real time to reduce that energy wastage. And I just thought, Well, look, this is great. It's very techie. It's using, you know, date big data, which I love, using machine learning and AI, which is great. And then I also, you know, I do care about the environment. I got two young kids, so I do care about what's happening around the world. And for me, that was a win, win. You know, I got to, I got to do something with tech that was new and exciting. It's definitely new to this region, even though it's been new to the same sort of technology has been utilized in Europe and America for a number of years. So it felt new, it felt exciting. And it's also good, you know, because we are helping people on the path to net zero. You know, how can we get to net zero? How can we reduce these emissions? So, yeah, I mean that that, for me, is Stuart Pollington ** 26:40 two different types of, in my opinion, entrepreneurial kind of journeys. One is that the with the digital marketing is, is all it's a story of working my way up to then reach the top, if you like. And whereas Eastern energy is more of a traditional kind of as an entrepreneur, this is, this is an idea. Let's do something with it and get an exciting about it. So two kind of, two different approaches to get to the ownership stage, if you like. Michael Hingson ** 27:14 I have an interesting story. I appreciate what you're saying. The whole entrepreneurial spirit is so important in what we do, and I wish more people had it. But years ago, one of my first jobs out of college was working for a company in Massachusetts, Kurzweil Computer Products. Ray Kurzweil, who developed, originally a reading machine for the blind, and then later a more commercial version of it. And there's somebody that I had met when I was a student at UC Irvine who ended up being back in Massachusetts working for at that time, a think tank consulting company called Bolt Beranek and Newman. I don't know whether you're familiar with them. They changed their name to, I think it was CLOUD NINE or Planet Nine. But Dick was telling me one day that, and this is when mainframe computers were so large and there was a lot needed to keep them cool and so on. Anyway, he was telling me that one day the gas utility came in because the total heating bill for the six story building was like $10 and they wanted to know how BBN bolt, brannic and Newman was stealing energy and and making it so that they didn't pay very much money. And the the president of the company said, let me show you. They went down to the basement, and there they had two PDP 20s, which are like dual PDP 10s. And they put out a lot of heat, needless to say, to run them. And what BBN did was to take all of that heat and pipe it through the building to keep the building warm in the winter. Rather than paying all the gas bills, they were using something that they already had, the entrepreneurial spirit liveth well. And the bottom line is they, they kept the building well heated. And I don't know what they did in the summer, but during the winter it was, it was pretty cool, and they were able to have $10 gas bills for the six story building, which was kind of fun. No, Stuart Pollington ** 29:39 that's brilliant, yeah, and that just goes to show me, that is what a large part of this, you know, energy efficiency and things like that, is, it's, it's, it's not about just completely replacing or stopping something. It's about better utilizing it. Isn't it? So they, you know the example you just gave there, with the heat and the wasted energy of being lost in that heat release they've used and utilized, which is brilliant. Michael Hingson ** 30:12 I a couple of years ago. So my wife passed away in 2022 and we have a furnace and so on here, and we had gas bills that were up in the $200 a month or more up as much as $300 a month in the winter to keep the house at a temperature that we could stand. And two years ago, I thought about, how do we lower that? And I was never a great fan of space heaters, but I decided to try something. We got a couple of space heaters, and we put them out in the living room, and we have ceiling fans. So turned on the space heaters and turned on the ceiling fans, and it did a pretty decent job of keeping the temperature down, such that for most months, I didn't even have to turn the furnace on at all, and our heating bill went down to like $39 a month. Then last year, we got an additional heater that was a little bit larger, and added that to the mix. And again, the bottom line is that if I start all of that early in the morning, our heating bill is like 30 $35 a month. Now I do cheat occasionally, and I'll turn the furnace on for about 45 minutes or 50 minutes in the morning with the ceiling fans to help distribute the warmer air, and I can get the house up to 75 degrees, or almost 30 Celsius, in in a very quick time. And then with the other two space heaters running, I don't have to use furnaces or anything for the rest of the day. So I think this year, the most expensive heating bill we had was like $80 because I did occasionally run the the the heaters or the furnace, and when I was traveling, I would turn the furnace on for the cat a little bit. But the bottom line is, there's so many things that we can do to be creative, if we think about it, to make things run more efficiently and not use as much energy and eliminate a lot of the waste that that we have, and so that that has worked out pretty well, and I have solar on the house. So in the summer, when most people around here are paying four and $500 a month for their electric bills to run the air conditioning. My electric bill year round, is $168 a month, which is Stuart Pollington ** 32:47 cool. Yeah, no, that's great that you've and you've that is a great example there of kind of how you know our approach to energy efficiency. You know what? What are you currently doing? Is there a more efficient way of doing it? Which is exactly what you found, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 33:07 yeah, and it works really well. So I can't complain it's warming up now. So in fact, we're not I haven't turned the furnace or anything on at all this week. This is the first week it's really been warm at night. In fact, it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit last night. I actually had to turn the air conditioner on and lower the house to 70 degrees, and then turned it off because I don't need to keep it on, and made it easier to sleep. But it's it's amazing, if we think about it, what the things that we can do to make our energy lives more efficient, lower the carbon footprint, and all those kinds of things. So I hear what you're saying, and it's and it's important, I think that we all think about as many ways as we can of doing that. I Stuart Pollington ** 33:56 think one of the biggest problems with energy is just invisible. You don't, you know, you don't really see it. No. So just, it's just one of those. You just don't really think about it. And again, you only get, you only get told what you've used once you've used it. Yeah, so it's too late by then. And then you go, Oh, you know, you might get an expensive bill. And go, oh, I need to be careful. And then you're careful for a few days or a week, and then again, you don't see it until you get your next bill. Yeah, it's really hard as with anything. I mean, it's a bit like going to the gym. If you go to the gym or the fitness and you just do it sporadically. You don't really have a routine, or, you know, it's gonna be very hard to achieve anything. But then if you, if you set your mind to it, if you maybe get a trainer, and you get a you go onto a better diet, and you follow your routine, you can you will see the results. And it's very similar to what we do. If you've once you've got the data, and you can actually see what. Happening, you can make proper, informed and educated business decisions, and that's what we're trying to do with that is to help businesses make the right decision on the path to net zero Michael Hingson ** 35:11 well, and you have to develop the mindset as the consumer to bring in a company like yours, or at least think about yourself. What can I do consistently to have a better energy pattern? And I think that's what most people tend not to do a lot, and the result of that is that they pay more than they need to. The power companies like it, the gas companies like it. But still, there are better ways to do it so. So tell me you have been in business and been an entrepreneur for a long time. What is maybe an example of some major crisis or thing that happened to you that you you regard as a failure or a setback that you have had to deal with and that taught you something crucial about business or life. Stuart Pollington ** 36:08 Brilliant question. I mean, I would, I would guess, over 20 years, there's been a lot of different, sorry, a lot of different things that have happened. I think probably, probably an impactful one would have been. And this taught me a lot about my team, and, you know, their approach and how everyone can pull together. So it would have been, I think it was about, it was when I was in the Philippines. So it would have been about maybe 1212, years ago, we're in Cebu, and there was a big earthquake, and when it hit Cebu, I think it was quite early in the morning. It was like 6am and I remember the whole bed was kind of shaking and rocking, and we, you know, had to get out of the condo. And we're, at the time, living in a place called it Park. And in the Philippines, there's a lot of cool centers, so it's very much 24/7 with an office environment. So as we're coming out of the condo, in literally pants, as in, when I say pants, I mean underwear, because you literally jump out of bed and run. And they were like 1000s, 1000s of all the local Filipinos all all in their normal clothes, because they've all doing the call center work. And I remember just, you know, sitting out on the ground as the aftershocks and whole grounds moving and and, and that that was a very, you know, personal experience. But then on top of that, I've then got over 100 staff in in Cebu at the time that I then have to think about. And, you know, is everyone okay? And then, because of the time it happened, Luckily no one was in the office because it was early, yeah, but it all but it also meant that everything we needed Michael Hingson ** 38:08 was in the office. Was in the office. Yeah, yeah. So, Stuart Pollington ** 38:10 so I remember Matt, you know, I remember getting a group of us there, was myself and maybe three or four others from the office, and I remember getting in my car, drove to the office. We were on, I think it's like the eighth or ninth floor, and they didn't want to let us in because of, obviously, the earthquake, and it was a, it was a couple of hours later, and you've got to be obviously, you know, everything needs checking. You still got all the aftershocks, but we managed to let them allow us to run up the fire exit to the office so we could grab, you know, I think we were grabbing, like, 1520, laptops and screens to put in the car so that we could then, and we had to do that of the fire exit, so running up, running down, and that was all into The car so we could then drive to a location where I could get some of my team together remote and to work in this. I think we ended up in some coffee shop we found that was open, and we had the old free G boost kind of the Wi Fi dongles, dongles. And I just remember having to get, like, 1015, of my team, and we're all sat around there in the coffee shop in the morning. You know, there's still the after shops going on the I remember the office building being a mess, and, you know, the tiles had come in and everything, and it was all a bit crazy, but we had to find a way to keep the business running. So we were in the Philippines, we were the support team. We did all of the delivery of the work, but we also worked with the account managers in the UK and Australia as their technical liaisons, if you like. So we. Helped do the strategy. We did everything. And so with us out of action, the whole of Australia and of the whole of the UK team were kind of in a limbo, so we really had to pull together as a team. It taught me a lot about my staff and my team, but it also kind of it taught me about, no matter what does happen, you know, you can find a way through things, you know. So at the time that it happened, it felt like, you know, that's it, what we're going to do, but we had to turn that around and find the way to keep everything going. And yeah, that, that that just taught me a lot of you know, you can't give up. You've got to find a way to kind of push on through. And yeah, we did a fantastic job. Everyone was safe. Sorry. I probably should have said that. You know, no one, none of my team, were affected directly from the from the earthquake, which was great, and we found a way to keep things going so that the business, if you like, didn't fall apart. We, Michael Hingson ** 41:09 you know, I guess, in our own way, had a similar thing, of course, with September 11, having our office on the 78th floor of Tower One, the difference is that that my staff was out that day working. They weren't going to be in the office. One person was going to be because he had an appointment at Cantor Fitzgerald up on the 96th floor of Tower One for 10 o'clock in the morning, and came in on one of the trains. But just as it arrived at the station tower two was hit, and everything shook, and the engineer said, don't even leave. We're going back out. And they left. But we lost everything in the office that day, and there was, of course, no way to get that. And I realized the next day, and my wife helped me start to work through it, that we had a whole team that had no office, had nothing to go to, so we did a variety of things to help them deal with it. Most of them had their computers because we had laptops by that time, and I had taken my laptop home the previous night and backed up all of my data onto my computer at home, so I was able to work from home, and other people had their computers with them. The reason I didn't have my laptop after September 11 is that I took it in that day to do some work. But needless to say, when we evacuated, it was heavy enough that going down 1463 stairs, 78 floors, that would have been a challenge with the laptop, so we left it, but it worked out. But I hear what you're saying, and the reality is that you got to keep the team going. And even if you can't necessarily do the work that you normally would do you still have to keep everyone's spirits up, and you have to do what needs to be done to keep everybody motivated and be able to function. So I think I learned the same lessons as you and value, of course, not that it all happened, but what I learned from it, because it's so important to be able to persevere and move forward, which, which is something that we don't see nearly as much as sometimes we really should. Stuart Pollington ** 43:34 Yeah, no, no, definitely. I mean the other thing, and I think you you just mentioned there actually is it. You know, it was also good to see afterwards how everyone kind of pulls together. And, you know, we had a lot of support, not just in the Philippines, but from the UK and the Australia teams. I mean, we had a, we had a bit of an incident, you know, may have seen on the news two weeks ago, I think now, we had an incident in Bangkok where there was a earthquake in Myanmar, and then the all the buildings are shaking in Bangkok, yeah, 7.9 Yeah, that's it. And just, but just to see everyone come together was, was it's just amazing. You know? It's a shame, sometimes it takes something big to happen for people to come together and support each other. Michael Hingson ** 44:27 We saw so much of that after September 11. For a while, everyone pulled together, everyone was supporting each other. But then over time, people forgot, and we ended up as a as a country, in some ways, being very fractured. Some political decisions were made that shouldn't have been, and that didn't help, but it was unfortunate that after a while, people started to forget, in fact, I went to work for an organization out in California in 2002 in addition to. To taking on a career of public speaking, and in 2008 the president of the organization said, we're changing and eliminating your job because nobody's interested in September 11 anymore, which was just crazy, but those are the kinds of attitudes that some people have, well, yeah, there was so little interest in September 11 anymore that when my first book, thunderdog was published, it became a number one New York Times bestseller. Yeah, there was no interest. It's Stuart Pollington ** 45:31 just, I hope you sent him a signed copy and said, There you go. Michael Hingson ** 45:35 Noah was even more fun than that, because this person had been hired in late 2007 and she did such a great job that after about 18 months, the board told her to go away, because she had so demoralized the organization that some of the departments were investigating forming unions, you know. So I didn't need to do anything. Wow, so, you know, but it, it's crazy, the attitudes that people have. Well, you have it is, it's it's really sad. Well, you have done a couple of things that I think are very interesting. You have moved to other countries, and you've also started businesses in unfamiliar markets. What advice? What advice would you give to someone who you learn about who's doing that today, starting a business in an unfamiliar market, or in a foreign country, or someplace where they've never been? Stuart Pollington ** 46:34 Yeah, again, good questions. I looking back and then so and seeing what I'm doing now, and looking back to when I first came over, I think chambers, I think if I have one, you know, obviously you need to understand the market you want. You need to understand, like the labor laws, the tax laws and, you know, the business laws and things like that. But I think, I think the best thing you could do in any country is to check out the chambers. You know, I'm heavily involved and active with aus Jam, which is the Australian Chamber of Commerce, because of the connection with smart traffic in Australia, in Sydney, the digital marketing. I'm also involved with bcct, the British chamber as British Chamber of Commerce Thailand as well, that there's a very big AmCham American Chamber over here as well. And I just think that the chambers can help a lot. You know, they're good for the networking. Through the networking, you can meet the different types of people you need to know, connections with visas, with, you know, work permits, how to set up the business, recruiting everything. So everything I need, I can actually find within this ecosphere of the chambers. And the chambers in Thailand and Bangkok, specifically, they're very active, lots of regular networking, which brings, you know, introductions, new leads to the business, new connections. And then on top of that, we've had, we've had a lot of support from the British Embassy over in in Thailand, especially with the Eastern energy, because it is tech based, because it is UK Tech, and because it is obviously something that's good for the environment and what everyone's trying to push towards. So I think the two key areas for me, if you are starting a business in an unfamiliar area, is one. Check out the chambers. So obviously the first one you'd look at is your own nationality. But don't stress too much about that. I mean, the chambers over here will welcome anyone from any nationality. So, you know, utilize the chambers because it's through that that you're going to get to speak to people, expats, already running businesses. You'll hear the horror stories. You'll hear the tips. It will save you some time, it will save you some money, and it will save you from making similar mistakes. And then also talk to your embassy and how they can maybe support you. We've had, again, some great support from the British Embassy. They've witnessed demo use. They've helped us with introductions. On the energy efficiency side, Michael Hingson ** 49:26 one of the things that clearly happens though, with you is that you also spend time establishing relationships with people, so you talk about the chamber and so on. But it also has to be that you've established and developed trusting relationships, so that you are able to learn the things that you learned, and that people are willing to help teach you. And I suspect that they also realize that you would be willing to help others as well. Stuart Pollington ** 49:55 Yeah, and I think I mean yes, and I'm talking about. And I mentioned, sorry, networking and the changes. But with networking, you know, you don't, you shouldn't go in there with the mindset of, I'm going into networking. I want to make as many sales as I can. Whatever you go into the networking. Is an opportunity to meet people, to learn from people you then some of those people, or most of those people, may not even be the right fit for you, but it's about making those relationships and then helping each other and making introductions. So you know, a lot of what I do with the chambers, I run a lot of webinars. I do workshops where I do free training on digital marketing, on AI, on SEO, on ads, on social. I use that as my lead gen, if you like. So I spend a lot of time doing this educationally and helping people. And then the offshot of that is that some of those will come and talk to me and ask me to how I can help them, or they will recommend me to someone else. And you know, we all know in business, referrals are some of the best leads you can get. Michael Hingson ** 51:11 Yeah, by any, by any definition, one of, one of the things that I tell every sales person that I've ever hired is you are a student, at least for your first year, don't hesitate to ask questions, because in reality, in general, people are going to be perfectly willing to help you. They're not going to look down on you if you ask questions and legitimately are looking for guidance and information. Again, it's not about you, it's about what you learn, and it's about how you then are able to use that knowledge to help other people, and the people and the individuals who recognize that do really well. Stuart Pollington ** 51:50 No, exactly, and I don't know about you, Michael, but I like, I like helping people. Yeah, I like, it makes me feel good. And, yeah, that's, that's a big part of it as well. You know Michael Hingson ** 52:01 it is and, and that's the way it ought to be. It's, that's the other thing that I tell them. I said, once you have learned a great deal, first of all, don't forget that you're always going to be a student. And second of all, don't hesitate to be a teacher and help other people as well. Speaker 1 ** 52:16 Man, that's really important. Yeah, brilliant. Michael Hingson ** 52:20 Now you have worked across a number of sectors and market, marketing, tech, sales, energy and so on. How did how do you do that? You You've clearly not necessarily been an expert in those right at the beginning. So how do you learn and grow and adapt to be able to to work in those various industries. Stuart Pollington ** 52:41 Yeah, I mean, for the marketing, for the marketing, it helps that I really was interested in it. So there was a good there was a good interest. And if you're interested in something, then you get excited about it, and you have the motivation and the willingness to learn and ask the questions, like you said, and then that is where you can take that kind of passion and interest and turn it into something a bit more constructive. It's a bit like I was saying at the beginning. It's the sort of thing I wish they'd done a bit maybe with me at school, was understand what I was good at and what I liked. But yeah, so with the marketing, I mean, very similar to what you've said, I asked questions. I see it just seems to click in my head on how it worked. And it kind of made sense to me. It was just one of these things that clicked, yeah. And so for the marketing, I just found it personally quite interesting, but interesting, but also found it quite easy. It just made sense to me, you know. And similar, you know, using computers and technology, I think it just makes sense. It doesn't to everyone. And other people have their strengths in other areas, but, you know, for me, it made sense. So, you know that that was the easy part. Same with Eastern energy, it's technology. It makes sense. I love it, but at the end of the day, it's all about it's all about people, really business, and you've got your people and your team, and how you motivate them is going to be similar. It's going to be slightly different depending on culture and where you're based, in the type of industry you're in, but also very similar. You know, people want praise, they want constructive feedback. They want to know where they're gonna be in a year or five years. All of that's very similar. So you people within the business, and then your customers are just people as well, aren't they? Well, customers, partners, clients, you know that they are just people. So it's all, it's all, it's all about people, regardless of what we're doing. And because it's all very similar with tech and that, it just, yeah, I don't know. It just makes sense to me. Michael, I mean, it's different. It's funny, because when I do do network and I talk to people, I say, Well, I've got this digital marketing agency here. Work, and then I've got this energy efficiency business here. And the question is always, wow, they sound really different. How did you how did you get into them? But when, again, when I look at it, it's not it's it's tech, it's tech, it's data, it's people. That's how I look at it, Michael Hingson ** 55:16 right? And a lot of the same rules apply across the board. Yes, there are specific things about each industry that are different, but the basics are the same. Stuart Pollington ** 55:28 That's it. I, in fact, I that isn't almost, there's almost word for word. What I use when I'm explaining our approach to SEO, I just say, Look, you know, there's, there's three core areas with SEO, it's the tech, the on site, it's the content, and it's the off site signals, or the link building. I said they're the three core areas for Google. They've been the same for, you know, 20 years. Within those areas, there's lots of individual things you need to look at, and that changes a lot. And there's 1000s of things that go into the algorithm, but the basics are the same. Sort your tech, sort the text, sort the tech of it out, the speed of the site and the usability. Make sure your content is good and relevant and authoritative, and then get other sites to recommend you and reference you, you know So, but, yeah, that's very similar to how I try and explain SEO. Yeah, you know all this stuff going on, but you still got the core basics of the same. Michael Hingson ** 56:29 It is the same as it has always been, absolutely. So what do you do? Or how do you deal with a situation when plans necessarily don't go like you think they should, and and all that. How do you stay motivated? Stuart Pollington ** 56:45 I mean, it depends, it depends what's gone wrong. But, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer in, you know, learning from your mistakes and then learning also learning from what went wrong. Because sometimes you don't make a mistake and something goes wrong, but something still goes wrong. I think it helps. It helps to have a good team around you and have a good support team that you can talk to. It's good to be able to work through issues. But, I mean, for me, I think the main thing is, you know, every like you were saying earlier, about asking questions and being a student for a year. You know everything that happens in business, good or bad, is a lesson that should help you be better in the future. So you know the first thing, when something goes wrong, understand what's gone wrong first. Why did it go wrong? How did it go wrong? How do we resolve this, if we need to resolve something for the client or us, and then how do we try and limit that happening in the future? And then what do we learn from that? And how do we make sure we can improve and be better? And I think, you know, it's not always easy when things go wrong, but I think I'm long enough in the tooth now that I understand that, you know, the bad days don't last. There's always a good day around the corner, and it's about, you know, working out how you get through Michael Hingson ** 58:10 it. And that's the issue, is working it out. And you have to have the tenacity and, well, the interest and the desire to work it out, rather than letting it overwhelm you and beat you down, you learn how to move forward. Stuart Pollington ** 58:25 Yeah, and that's not easy, is it? I mean, let's be honest. I mean, even, even being when we were younger and kids, you know, things happen. It does. We're just human, aren't we? We have emotions. We have certain feelings. But if you can just deal with that and then constructively and critically look at the problem, you can normally find a solution. Michael Hingson ** 58:46 Yeah, exactly. What's one piece of advice you wished you had learned earlier in your entrepreneurial career? Stuart Pollington ** 58:56 Um, I Yeah. I mean, for this one. I think, I think what you said earlier, actually, it got me thinking during wise we've been talking because I was kind of, I would say, don't be afraid to ask questions just based on what we've been talking about. It's changed a little bit because I was going to say, well, you know, one of the things I really wish I'd learned or known earlier was, you know, about the value of mentorship and kind of finding the the right people who can almost show you where you need to be, but you could, you know, but when people hear the word mentor, they think of either or, you know, someone really, yeah, high up who I could I'm too afraid to ask them, or someone who's going to cost you 1000s of dollars a month. So actually, I'm going to change that to don't be afraid to ask questions, because that's basically what you'd expect from a mentor, is to be able to ask. Questions, run ideas. And I think, I think, yeah, I think thinking back now, understanding that the more questions you ask, the more information you have, the better your decisions you can make. And obviously, don't be afraid to learn from other people's experience, because they've been through it, and potentially they could have the right way for you to get through it as well. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:24 And you never know where you're going to find a mentor. Exactly, Stuart Pollington ** 1:00:28 yeah, no, exactly. I think again, you hear the word mentor, and you think people have this diff, a certain perception of it, but it can be anyone. I mean, you know, if I my mom could be my mentor, for, for, for her great, you know, cooking and things that she would do in her roast dinners. You know that that's kind of a mentor, isn't it making a better roast dinner? So I think, yeah, I think, I Michael Hingson ** 1:00:54 think, but it all gets back to being willing to ask questions and to listen, Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:02 and then I would add one more thing. So ask the questions, listen and then take action. And that's where that unstoppable mindset, I think, comes in, because I think people do ask questions, people can listen, but it's the taking action. It's that final step of having the courage to say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go for Michael Hingson ** 1:01:23 it. And you may find out that what was advised to you may not be the exact thing that works for you, but if you start working at it, and you start trying it, you will figure out what works Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:37 exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. That's it, yeah. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:41 Well, what a great place to actually end this. We've been doing this now over an hour, and I know, can you believe it? And I have a puppy dog who probably says, If you don't feed me dinner soon, you're going to be my dinner. So I should probably go do that. That's Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:57 all good. So for me, I'm going to go and get my breakfast coffee. Now it's 7am now, five past seven in the morning. Michael Hingson ** 1:02:03 There you are. Well, this is my day. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate you being here, and I want to say to everyone listening and watching, we really appreciate you being here with us as well. Tell others about unstoppable mindset. We really appreciate that. Love to hear your thoughts and get your thoughts, so feel free to email me with any of your ideas and your your conceptions of all of this. Feel free to email me at Michael H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I B, e.com, you can also go to our podcast page. There's a contact form there, and my podcast page is www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael hingson is spelled M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O N. Love to hear from you. Would really appreciate it if you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're watching or listening to the podcast today, if you know anyone and steward as well for you, if any one of you listening or participating knows anyone else that you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love introductions, always looking for more people to tell their stories. So that's what this is really all about. So I really appreciate you all taking the time to be here, and Stuart, especially you. Thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and we really appreciate you taking your time. Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:26 Thank you, Michael. Thank you everyone. I really enjoyed that. And you know, in the spirit of everything, you know, if, if anyone does have any questions for me, just feel free to reach out. I'm happy to chat. Michael Hingson ** 1:03:39 How do they do that? What's the best way, I Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:41 think probably the LinkedIn so I think on when you post and share this, you will have the link. I think Michael Hingson ** 1:03:49 we will. But why don't you go ahead and say your LinkedIn info anyway? Okay, yeah. Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:53 I mean, the easiest thing to do would just be the Google search for my name on LinkedIn. So Stuart pollington, it's S, T, U, a, r, t, and then P, O, L, L, I N, G, T, O, N, and if you go to LinkedIn, that is my I think I got lucky. I've got the actual LinkedIn URL, LinkedIn, forward slash, I N, forward slash. Stuart pollington, so it should be nice and easy. Michael Hingson ** 1:04:19 Yeah, I think I got that with Michael hingson. I was very fortunate for that as well. Got lucky with Stuart Pollington ** 1:04:23 that. Yeah, they've got numbers and everything. And I'm like, Yes, yeah. Michael Hingson ** 1:04:30 Well, thank you again. This has been a lot of fun, hasn't Stuart Pollington ** 1:04:33 it? He has. I've really enjoyed it. So thank you for the invitation, Michael. **Michael Hingson ** 1:04:42 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger Picture Trump has sent out new tariff letters, the world is about to change, he is hitting the [CB] system hard and is reversing what they had in place. The US is taking back control of the production of coal and rare earth minerals. Trump hits Powell again, Bernie Moreno calls for Powell to resign. The [DS] is in a panic, investigations have begun and one will lead to another. The conductor is Obama and all the investigation will lead back to him. It has now come out that Epstein worked for the CIA, was the [DS] using Epstein to blackmail people in the US around the world and were they working with foreign governments, most likely yes. The storm is forming and all the treasonous acts are coming together to create the perfect storm. Economy https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1943046253232713988 25% 12. Japan: 25% 13. South Korea: 25% 14. Brunei: 25% 15. Moldova: 25% 16. Philippines: 20% These tariffs are set to go live on August 1st. President Trump says any retaliation will be met with increased tariffs. Trump also says there will be no further tariff pause extensions. (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); 50% TARIFF will reverse the Biden Administration's thoughtless behavior, and stupidity. America will, once again, build a DOMINANT Copper Industry. THIS IS, AFTER ALL, OUR GOLDEN AGE! Trump Administration Takes Stake in Rare Earths Firm In Move To End China's Control The Trump administration is deepening its effort to sever U.S. reliance on Chinese rare earth supplies, committing $400 million in equity financing to MP Materials Corp. as part of a broader plan to expand domestic production of rare earth magnets used in advanced weapons systems and industrial technologies. The Department of Defense will acquire a newly issued class of preferred stock in MP Materials, convertible into common shares, along with warrants to purchase additional equity. Following the transaction, which is expected to close Friday, the Pentagon will become the company's largest shareholder, with a potential stake of about 15%, according to MP Materials. The deal also includes a 10-year commitment by the U.S. government to support pricing and demand for domestically produced rare earth magnets. The Defense Department has guaranteed the purchase of 100 percent of the output from a planned magnet manufacturing facility—dubbed the “10X” plant—at a minimum price of $110 per kilogram for neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), a key rare earth alloy used in missile guidance systems, fighter jets, and electric motors. The U.S. imported roughly 70 percent of its rare earths from China in 2023, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The push to reshore the supply chain gained urgency during the trade war launched by President Trump, when Beijing threatened to restrict rare earth exports. Source: breitbart.com Political/Rights https://twitter.com/dogeai_gov/status/1943128485758706090 of America's livestock and food supply. https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1943139533572252007 https://twitter.com/DataRepublican/status/1943147963074711683 AND THERE IT IS: California Governor Gavin Newsom Announces Funding for New ‘Multifamily Rental Hou...
Veronique Mead, MD, MA is a former Dartmouth-affiliated assistant professor of family medicine and obstetrics. She retrained with a Master's degree in somatic psychotherapy from Naropa University and specialty training in pre and perinatal and other forms of trauma. For the past 25 years she has explored the scientific literature on how effects of trauma from the prenatal and other periods in a person's life can influence risk for autoimmune and other chronic illnesses. She shares the research on her blog Chronic Illness Trauma Studies.Euphrasia (Efu) Nyaki was born and raised in Tanzania where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree, trained as a science teacher, and later was trained as a healer using holistic methods. Efu is a Faculty Member of Somatic Experiencing®, a method founded by Dr Peter Levine, and a Professor of Family Constellation System Therapy by Hellinger Institute. In the last 31 years Efu has been living in Brazil facilitating trainings and Holistic therapy for trauma healing using Somatic Experiencing® and Family Constellation System Therapy. While living in Brazil, Efu has also been traveling in different countries such as India, Egypt, South Korea, China, Bolivia, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, Tanzania, Philippines, Sweden, Portugal, Spain and Hong Kong facilitating trainings and workshops. After the pandemic situation, Efu has been giving international trainings, workshops, summits, webinars, podcasts, conferences, and individual therapy sessions and case consults through online. Efu is a co- founder of AFYA: Holistic Healing Center located in the northeast of Brazil. Afya supports many people from the local community as well as national and international individuals that approaches the center to receive support and healing. Efu is a writer of the book titled: Trauma healing using Family Constellation System Therapy and Somatic Experiencing®.In This EpisodeVeronique:https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com/https://lnk.bio/veroniquemeadFACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/chronicillnesstraumastudies/LINKED IN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/veroniquemeadillnessblog/YOUTUBE - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh-ng96Ji8rJSIJdXjCpCqA/videosPINTEREST - https://www.pinterest.com/chrillog/_created/INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/veroniquemead/Euphrasia:https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0BYXYGQ1Vhttps://linktr.ee/efunyaki?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=8eaad01c-d2dd-4e12-a35e-3b250748f25fYou can learn more about what I do here:The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSaThe Trauma Therapist Podcast: I interview thought-leaders in the fields of trauma, mindfulness, addiction and yoga such as Peter Levine, Pat Ogden, Bessel van der Kolk and Bruce Perry. https://bit.ly/3VRNy8zBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
Ang Katolisismo sa Korea ay may kakaibang kasaysayan—isang pananampalatayang hindi dinala ng mga misyonero, kundi ng mga aklat. Mula sa mga iskolar na nahumaling sa katuruan ng mga Heswita, hanggang sa mga martir na nagbuwis ng buhay para sa pananampalataya, ang Simbahang Katoliko sa Korea ay tunay na bunga ng pananampalataya, sakripisyo, at katatagan. ✝️ Alamin kung paano nabuhay at lumago ang pananampalatayang Katoliko sa isang bansang dumaan sa matinding pagsubok.
Last month's M&W set at Green Bar will be uploaded in a future episode, in order to make way for this month's special "Cali-Jentes West Coast Smooth Jazz" opening set by none other than Markus Jentes, whose birthday we'll be celebrating this upcoming Wednesday July 16.BACKGROUND -For those who aren't aware, Markus (a.k.a. Mark Cali-Jentes) and I, Elian, go way way back. We first played together a Bellissima in the Fort Strip where we were introduced by common friend Wendell Garcia in 2003. Mark not only played at but also did the graphic design for the unforgettable Paseo Uno LOUNGE pool party series I organized with the Mandarin Oriental in 2004. Mark and I then teamed up with Martin Wisniewski to help turn M Café into Makati's top nightspot in 2005 with the MyHOUSE weekly parties. 20 years later, Mark and I are back behind the decks once a month at Green Bar with the Music & Wine parties. As for Inés, she's known Mark as long as I have, maybe even longer, and we're all still the closest of friends today.Aside from being a great DJ, Mark is today one of the Philippines' most engaging artists. You can find his exquisite paintings exhibited in galleries around Manila or on his website at www.markusjentes.art Having studied the visual arts at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles in the 90s, he fell in love with California's brand of smooth jazz, listening to the likes of Bob James, David Benoit, Lee Ritenour, and David Sanborn, to name a few. This is the vibe that Mark recreates in his set for this week's podcast. DJ SETS -Mark and I happen to be performing together this Friday July 11 at the closing party of Chotto Matte in BGC starting at 6pm sharp. So come join us for Happy Hour if you're in the area!We're also celebrating Mark's birthday this upcoming Wednesday July 16 at M&W Green Bar in Legaspi Village, Makati, starting at 5pm. You DON'T wanna miss that. And now, 2 hours of California smooth jazz (Mark's opening set) followed by 2 hours of deep house music (my closing set) recorded at Green Bar in April. Enjoy!Elian & Inés
It was banned in the Philippines, now a Kiwi film festival has resisted pressure from China to remove a documentary about a disputed area of sea.
Hi, I'm John Sorensen, President of Evangelism Explosion International, and you're listening to Share Life Today. Being a follower of Jesus means being a lifelong learner—continually growing, being discipled, and equipping others to do the same. Our sanctification—becoming more and more like Jesus—doesn't stop after one lesson or one experience; it's our daily commitment to grow deeper in our faith by reading the Bible, praying, worshipping God, fellowshipping with other believers, and sharing the Gospel with those around us. Recently, at Lomasson Alliance Bible College in the Philippines, 43 seminary students from 37 churches took an evangelism discipleship training to help them learn how they could share their faith. They then went into their community to share the Gospel with 84 people—80 of whom made decisions to follow Jesus! Praise the Lord! Let's be intentional and make investments in our spiritual growth. Whether you're just starting or have been walking with Christ for years, you can begin today. For resources to help you get started in sharing the Gospel and growing, visit our website at sharelife.today.
In this episode, we have a returning guest who last appeared on the show back in July 2023 (Ep 360). Scott Williamson, MD of Blackstone Minerals, a listed mining company who are developing a high-grade undeveloped copper-gold porphyry projects in the world and is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the untapped potential of the Mankayan Copper-Gold Project in the Philippines. Scott is a mining engineer by background, working in operations and corporate roles during his career and has exposure to corporate finance and capital markets, investor relations, and project management during his career. He has been at the helm of Blackstone for nearly 8 years now and gives us an update since he was last on, discusses the Mankayan project, talks about gold and copper porphyry, and what the Philippines is like as a mining jurisdiction, and more. KEY TAKEAWAYS The current copper market is experiencing tight supply due to increasing demand driven by electrification and the transition to electric vehicles. This has resulted in high copper prices Blackstone Minerals plans to conduct extensive exploration, aiming to drill around 50,000 meters over the next 12 to 18 months. This includes systematic exploration techniques to identify new ore bodies Strong community relations have been established, with previous owners successfully engaging local stakeholders. Blackstone has inherited a solid foundation, including a 25-year mining license and agreements with indigenous communities The project offers multiple development pathways, including the potential for a smaller-scale operation focusing on high-grade ore, which could generate cash flow to support larger-scale mining in the future BEST MOMENTS "Copper is probably the tightest copper concentrate market the world has ever seen... Unfortunately, the supply is quite limited, and it takes a long time to bring copper mines online." "This particular ore body has already got 10 million ounces of gold and another 10 million ounces of gold equivalent in copper... It's already a world-class scale." "We want to drill around 50,000 meters... We want to do a lot of drilling, but we also want to do that systematic exploration." "The good thing is that we're not just inheriting a world-class ore body, we're inheriting all of that great work that the previous owners have done." VALUABLE RESOURCES Mail: rob@mining-international.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/ X: https://twitter.com/MiningRobTyson YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast Web: http://www.mining-international.org GUEST SOCIALS https://blackstoneminerals.com.au/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/blackstone-minerals/ https://x.com/Blackstone_BSX CONTACT METHOD rob@mining-international.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/ Podcast Description Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content around the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community an insight into people's experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links-Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.0:00 China, Get the Hell Out!3:58 Tuesday Selloff7:52 Brazil Export Problems9:09 Tariff Update10:38 Wheat Purchase Agreements11:47 Flash Sales
Sheriff Mark Lamb joins Rafa J. Conde for a raw and unfiltered conversation about leadership, law enforcement, border chaos, faith, and his run for U.S. Senate. From growing up in Hawaii and the Philippines to taking command as Sheriff of Pinal County, Lamb reveals how a ride along changed the trajectory of his life and why he believes America needs strong, principled men now more than ever. We dive deep into what it takes to lead from the front, the crisis at the border, the dangers of micromanagement in policing, and the cultural shifts that are impacting law enforcement across the country. If you're a man looking for purpose, discipline, and the courage to stand for what's right this one is for you. Takeaways: • How a business owner became a cop at 33 • Leading from the front and earning respect • Why most police departments are failing their men • A behind-the-scenes look at the border crisis • Controlled violence vs. reckless force • Building faith and family through purpose • Why Sheriff Lamb ran for U.S. Senate—and what's next Chapters: 00:00 - Intro: Sheriff Mark Lamb 01:00 - Childhood, Hawaii & International Life 04:50 - Lessons from Culture, Faith & Family 10:30 - Becoming a Cop at 33 17:00 - Gangs, Violence & Tribal Policing 24:00 - Running for Sheriff: Leadership in Action 30:00 - Fixing Broken Departments 35:00 - Social Media & Building a Brand in Law Enforcement 41:00 - COVID, Mandates & Standing Firm 46:00 - Law Enforcement & Micromanagement 50:00 - Principles of Great Leadership 53:00 - Faith & Moral Compass Under Fire 57:00 - Border Crisis: What the Media Isn't Telling You 1:05:00 - Terrorism Risks & National Security Concerns 1:10:00 - Family Protection & Situational Awareness 1:13:00 - Illegal Immigration: Truth vs. Narrative 1:17:00 - Global Politics, Ukraine, and Iran 1:19:00 - Life After Law Enforcement & New Mission 1:21:00 - Final Thoughts & Legacy
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded its latest Term. And over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has continued to duke it out with its adversaries in the federal courts.To tackle these topics, as well as their intersection—in terms of how well the courts, including but not limited to the Supreme Court, are handling Trump-related cases—I interviewed Professor Pamela Karlan, a longtime faculty member at Stanford Law School. She's perfectly situated to address these subjects, for at least three reasons.First, Professor Karlan is a leading scholar of constitutional law. Second, she's a former SCOTUS clerk and seasoned advocate at One First Street, with ten arguments to her name. Third, she has high-level experience at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), having served (twice) as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.I've had some wonderful guests to discuss the role of the courts today, including Judges Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) and Ana Reyes (D.D.C.)—but as sitting judges, they couldn't discuss certain subjects, and they had to be somewhat circumspect. Professor Karlan, in contrast, isn't afraid to “go there”—and whether or not you agree with her opinions, I think you'll share my appreciation for her insight and candor.Show Notes:* Pamela S. Karlan bio, Stanford Law School* Pamela S. Karlan bio, Wikipedia* The McCorkle Lecture (Professor Pamela Karlan), UVA Law SchoolPrefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.Sponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com.Three quick notes about this transcript. First, it has been cleaned up from the audio in ways that don't alter substance—e.g., by deleting verbal filler or adding a word here or there to clarify meaning. Second, my interviewee has not reviewed this transcript, and any transcription errors are mine. Third, because of length constraints, this newsletter may be truncated in email; to view the entire post, simply click on “View entire message” in your email app.David Lat: Welcome to the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I'm your host, David Lat, author of a Substack newsletter about law and the legal profession also named Original Jurisdiction, which you can read and subscribe to at davidlat dot Substack dot com. You're listening to the seventy-seventh episode of this podcast, recorded on Friday, June 27.Thanks to this podcast's sponsor, NexFirm. NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com. Want to know who the guest will be for the next Original Jurisdiction podcast? Follow NexFirm on LinkedIn for a preview.With the 2024-2025 Supreme Court Term behind us, now is a good time to talk about both constitutional law and the proper role of the judiciary in American society. I expect they will remain significant as subjects because the tug of war between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary continues—and shows no signs of abating.To tackle these topics, I welcomed to the podcast Professor Pamela Karlan, the Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. Pam is not only a leading legal scholar, but she also has significant experience in practice. She's argued 10 cases before the Supreme Court, which puts her in a very small club, and she has worked in government at high levels, serving as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Professor Pam Karlan.Professor Karlan, thank you so much for joining me.Pamela Karlan: Thanks for having me.DL: So let's start at the beginning. Tell us about your background and upbringing. I believe we share something in common—you were born in New York City?PK: I was born in New York City. My family had lived in New York since they arrived in the country about a century before.DL: What borough?PK: Originally Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then back to Manhattan. As my mother said, when I moved to Brooklyn when I was clerking, “Brooklyn to Brooklyn, in three generations.”DL: Brooklyn is very, very hip right now.PK: It wasn't hip when we got there.DL: And did you grow up in Manhattan or Brooklyn?PK: When I was little, we lived in Manhattan. Then right before I started elementary school, right after my brother was born, our apartment wasn't big enough anymore. So we moved to Stamford, Connecticut, and I grew up in Connecticut.DL: What led you to go to law school? I see you stayed in the state; you went to Yale. What did you have in mind for your post-law-school career?PK: I went to law school because during the summer between 10th and 11th grade, I read Richard Kluger's book, Simple Justice, which is the story of the litigation that leads up to Brown v. Board of Education. And I decided I wanted to go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and be a school desegregation lawyer, and that's what led me to go to law school.DL: You obtained a master's degree in history as well as a law degree. Did you also have teaching in mind as well?PK: No, I thought getting the master's degree was my last chance to do something I had loved doing as an undergrad. It didn't occur to me until I was late in my law-school days that I might at some point want to be a law professor. That's different than a lot of folks who go to law school now; they go to law school wanting to be law professors.During Admitted Students' Weekend, some students say to me, “I want to be a law professor—should I come here to law school?” I feel like saying to them, “You haven't done a day of law school yet. You have no idea whether you're good at law. You have no idea whether you'd enjoy doing legal teaching.”It just amazes me that people come to law school now planning to be a law professor, in a way that I don't think very many people did when I was going to law school. In my day, people discovered when they were in law school that they loved it, and they wanted to do more of what they loved doing; I don't think people came to law school for the most part planning to be law professors.DL: The track is so different now—and that's a whole other conversation—but people are getting master's and Ph.D. degrees, and people are doing fellowship after fellowship. It's not like, oh, you practice for three, five, or seven years, and then you become a professor. It seems to be almost like this other track nowadays.PK: When I went on the teaching market, I was distinctive in that I had not only my student law-journal note, but I actually had an article that Ricky Revesz and I had worked on that was coming out. And it was not normal for people to have that back then. Now people go onto the teaching market with six or seven publications—and no practice experience really to speak of, for a lot of them.DL: You mentioned talking to admitted students. You went to YLS, but you've now been teaching for a long time at Stanford Law School. They're very similar in a lot of ways. They're intellectual. They're intimate, especially compared to some of the other top law schools. What would you say if I'm an admitted student choosing between those two institutions? What would cause me to pick one versus the other—besides the superior weather of Palo Alto?PK: Well, some of it is geography; it's not just the weather. Some folks are very East-Coast-centered, and other folks are very West-Coast-centered. That makes a difference.It's a little hard to say what the differences are, because the last time I spent a long time at Yale Law School was in 2012 (I visited there a bunch of times over the years), but I think the faculty here at Stanford is less focused and concentrated on the students who want to be law professors than is the case at Yale. When I was at Yale, the idea was if you were smart, you went and became a law professor. It was almost like a kind of external manifestation of an inner state of grace; it was a sign that you were a smart person, if you wanted to be a law professor. And if you didn't, well, you could be a donor later on. Here at Stanford, the faculty as a whole is less concentrated on producing law professors. We produce a fair number of them, but it's not the be-all and end-all of the law school in some ways. Heather Gerken, who's the dean at Yale, has changed that somewhat, but not entirely. So that's one big difference.One of the most distinctive things about Stanford, because we're on the quarter system, is that our clinics are full-time clinics, taught by full-time faculty members at the law school. And that's distinctive. I think Yale calls more things clinics than we do, and a lot of them are part-time or taught by folks who aren't in the building all the time. So that's a big difference between the schools.They just have very different feels. I would encourage any student who gets into both of them to go and visit both of them, talk to the students, and see where you think you're going to be most comfortably stretched. Either school could be the right school for somebody.DL: I totally agree with you. Sometimes people think there's some kind of platonic answer to, “Where should I go to law school?” And it depends on so many individual circumstances.PK: There really isn't one answer. I think when I was deciding between law schools as a student, I got waitlisted at Stanford and I got into Yale. I had gone to Yale as an undergrad, so I wasn't going to go anywhere else if I got in there. I was from Connecticut and loved living in Connecticut, so that was an easy choice for me. But it's a hard choice for a lot of folks.And I do think that one of the worst things in the world is U.S. News and World Report, even though we're generally a beneficiary of it. It used to be that the R-squared between where somebody went to law school and what a ranking was was minimal. I knew lots of people who decided, in the old days, that they were going to go to Columbia rather than Yale or Harvard, rather than Stanford or Penn, rather than Chicago, because they liked the city better or there was somebody who did something they really wanted to do there.And then the R-squared, once U.S. News came out, of where people went and what the rankings were, became huge. And as you probably know, there were some scandals with law schools that would just waitlist people rather than admit them, to keep their yield up, because they thought the person would go to a higher-ranked law school. There were years and years where a huge part of the Stanford entering class had been waitlisted at Penn. And that's bad for people, because there are people who should go to Penn rather than come here. There are people who should go to NYU rather than going to Harvard. And a lot of those people don't do it because they're so fixated on U.S. News rankings.DL: I totally agree with you. But I suspect that a lot of people think that there are certain opportunities that are going to be open to them only if they go here or only if they go there.Speaking of which, after graduating from YLS, you clerked for Justice Blackmun on the Supreme Court, and statistically it's certainly true that certain schools seem to improve your odds of clerking for the Court. What was that experience like overall? People often describe it as a dream job. We're recording this on the last day of the Supreme Court Term; some hugely consequential historic cases are coming down. As a law clerk, you get a front row seat to all of that, to all of that history being made. Did you love that experience?PK: I loved the experience. I loved it in part because I worked for a wonderful justice who was just a lovely man, a real mensch. I had three great co-clerks. It was the first time, actually, that any justice had ever hired three women—and so that was distinctive for me, because I had been in classes in law school where there were fewer than three women. I was in one class in law school where I was the only woman. So that was neat.It was a great Term. It was the last year of the Burger Court, and we had just a heap of incredibly interesting cases. It's amazing how many cases I teach in law school that were decided that year—the summary-judgment trilogy, Thornburg v. Gingles, Bowers v. Hardwick. It was just a really great time to be there. And as a liberal, we won a lot of the cases. We didn't win them all, but we won a lot of them.It was incredibly intense. At that point, the Supreme Court still had this odd IT system that required eight hours of diagnostics every night. So the system was up from 8 a.m. to midnight—it stayed online longer if there was a death case—but otherwise it went down at midnight. In the Blackmun chambers, we showed up at 8 a.m. for breakfast with the Justice, and we left at midnight, five days a week. Then on the weekends, we were there from 9 to 9. And they were deciding 150 cases, not 60 cases, a year. So there was a lot more work to do, in that sense. But it was a great year. I've remained friends with my co-clerks, and I've remained friends with clerks from other chambers. It was a wonderful experience.DL: And you've actually written about it. I would refer people to some of the articles that they can look up, on your CV and elsewhere, where you've talked about, say, having breakfast with the Justice.PK: And we had a Passover Seder with the Justice as well, which was a lot of fun.DL: Oh wow, who hosted that? Did he?PK: Actually, the clerks hosted it. Originally he had said, “Oh, why don't we have it at the Court?” But then he came back to us and said, “Well, I think the Chief Justice”—Chief Justice Burger—“might not like that.” But he lent us tables and chairs, which were dropped off at one of the clerk's houses. And it was actually the day of the Gramm-Rudman argument, which was an argument about the budget. So we had to keep running back and forth from the Court to the house of Danny Richman, the clerk who hosted it, who was a Thurgood Marshall clerk. We had to keep running back and forth from the Court to Danny Richman's house, to baste the turkey and make stuff, back and forth. And then we had a real full Seder, and we invited all of the Jewish clerks at the Court and the Justice's messenger, who was Jewish, and the Justice and Mrs. Blackmun, and it was a lot of fun.DL: Wow, that's wonderful. So where did you go after your clerkship?PK: I went to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where I was an assistant counsel, and I worked on voting-rights and employment-discrimination cases.DL: And that was something that you had thought about for a long time—you mentioned you had read about its work in high school.PK: Yes, and it was a great place to work. We were working on great cases, and at that point we were really pushing the envelope on some of the stuff that we were doing—which was great and inspiring, and my colleagues were wonderful.And unlike a lot of Supreme Court practices now, where there's a kind of “King Bee” usually, and that person gets to argue everything, the Legal Defense Fund was very different. The first argument I did at the Court was in a case that I had worked on the amended complaint for, while at the Legal Defense Fund—and they let me essentially keep working on the case and argue it at the Supreme Court, even though by the time the case got to the Supreme Court, I was teaching at UVA. So they didn't have this policy of stripping away from younger lawyers the ability to argue their cases the whole way through the system.DL: So how many years out from law school were you by the time you had your first argument before the Court? I know that, today at least, there's this two-year bar on arguing before the Court after having clerked there.PK: Six or seven years out—because I think I argued in ‘91.DL: Now, you mentioned that by then you were teaching at UVA. You had a dream job working at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. What led you to go to UVA?PK: There were two things, really, that did it. One was I had also discovered when I was in law school that I loved law school, and I was better at law school than I had been at anything I had done before law school. And the second was I really hated dealing with opposing counsel. I tell my students now, “You should take negotiation. If there's only one class you could take in law school, take negotiation.” Because it's a skill; it's not a habit of mind, but I felt like it was a habit of mind. And I found the discovery process and filing motions to compel and dealing with the other side's intransigence just really unpleasant.What I really loved was writing briefs. I loved writing briefs, and I could keep doing that for the Legal Defense Fund while at UVA, and I've done a bunch of that over the years for LDF and for other organizations. I could keep doing that and I could live in a small town, which I really wanted to do. I love New York, and now I could live in a city—I've spent a couple of years, off and on, living in cities since then, and I like it—but I didn't like it at that point. I really wanted to be out in the country somewhere. And so UVA was the perfect mix. I kept working on cases, writing amicus briefs for LDF and for other organizations. I could teach, which I loved. I could live in a college town, which I really enjoyed. So it was the best blend of things.DL: And I know, from your having actually delivered a lecture at UVA, that it really did seem to have a special place in your heart. UVA Law School—they really do have a wonderful environment there (as does Stanford), and Charlottesville is a very charming place.PK: Yes, especially when I was there. UVA has a real gift for developing its junior faculty. It was a place where the senior faculty were constantly reading our work, constantly talking to us. Everyone was in the building, which makes a huge difference.The second case I had go to the Supreme Court actually came out of a class where a student asked a question, and I ended up representing the student, and we took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. But I wasn't admitted in the Western District of Virginia, and that's where we had to file a case. And so I turned to my next-door neighbor, George Rutherglen, and said to George, “Would you be the lead counsel in this?” And he said, “Sure.” And we ended up representing a bunch of UVA students, challenging the way the Republican Party did its nomination process. And we ended up, by the student's third year in law school, at the Supreme Court.So UVA was a great place. I had amazing colleagues. The legendary Bill Stuntz was then there; Mike Klarman was there. Dan Ortiz, who's still there, was there. So was John Harrison. It was a fantastic group of people to have as your colleagues.DL: Was it difficult for you, then, to leave UVA and move to Stanford?PK: Oh yes. When I went in to tell Bob Scott, who was then the dean, that I was leaving, I just burst into tears. I think the reason I left UVA was I was at a point in my career where I'd done a bunch of visits at other schools, and I thought that I could either leave then or I would be making a decision to stay there for the rest of my career. And I just felt like I wanted to make a change. And in retrospect, I would've been just as happy if I'd stayed at UVA. In my professional life, I would've been just as happy. I don't know in my personal life, because I wouldn't have met my partner, I don't think, if I'd been at UVA. But it's a marvelous place; everything about it is just absolutely superb.DL: Are you the managing partner of a boutique or midsize firm? If so, you know that your most important job is attracting and retaining top talent. It's not easy, especially if your benefits don't match up well with those of Biglaw firms or if your HR process feels “small time.” NexFirm has created an onboarding and benefits experience that rivals an Am Law 100 firm, so you can compete for the best talent at a price your firm can afford. Want to learn more? Contact NexFirm at 212-292-1002 or email betterbenefits at nexfirm dot com.So I do want to give you a chance to say nice things about your current place. I assume you have no regrets about moving to Stanford Law, even if you would've been just as happy at UVA?PK: I'm incredibly happy here. I've got great colleagues. I've got great students. The ability to do the clinic the way we do it, which is as a full-time clinic, wouldn't be true anywhere else in the country, and that makes a huge difference to that part of my work. I've gotten to teach around the curriculum. I've taught four of the six first-year courses, which is a great opportunityAnd as you said earlier, the weather is unbelievable. People downplay that, because especially for people who are Northeastern Ivy League types, there's a certain Calvinism about that, which is that you have to suffer in order to be truly working hard. People out here sometimes think we don't work hard because we are not visibly suffering. But it's actually the opposite, in a way. I'm looking out my window right now, and it's a gorgeous day. And if I were in the east and it were 75 degrees and sunny, I would find it hard to work because I'd think it's usually going to be hot and humid, or if it's in the winter, it's going to be cold and rainy. I love Yale, but the eight years I spent there, my nose ran the entire time I was there. And here I look out and I think, “It's beautiful, but you know what? It's going to be beautiful tomorrow. So I should sit here and finish grading my exams, or I should sit here and edit this article, or I should sit here and work on the Restatement—because it's going to be just as beautiful tomorrow.” And the ability to walk outside, to clear your head, makes a huge difference. People don't understand just how huge a difference that is, but it's huge.DL: That's so true. If you had me pick a color to associate with my time at YLS, I would say gray. It just felt like everything was always gray, the sky was always gray—not blue or sunny or what have you.But I know you've spent some time outside of Northern California, because you have done some stints at the Justice Department. Tell us about that, the times you went there—why did you go there? What type of work were you doing? And how did it relate to or complement your scholarly work?PK: At the beginning of the Obama administration, I had applied for a job in the Civil Rights Division as a deputy assistant attorney general (DAAG), and I didn't get it. And I thought, “Well, that's passed me by.” And a couple of years later, when they were looking for a new principal deputy solicitor general, in the summer of 2013, the civil-rights groups pushed me for that job. I got an interview with Eric Holder, and it was on June 11th, 2013, which just fortuitously happens to be the 50th anniversary of the day that Vivian Malone desegregated the University of Alabama—and Vivian Malone is the older sister of Sharon Malone, who is married to Eric Holder.So I went in for the interview and I said, “This must be an especially special day for you because of the 50th anniversary.” And we talked about that a little bit, and then we talked about other things. And I came out of the interview, and a couple of weeks later, Don Verrilli, who was the solicitor general, called me up and said, “Look, you're not going to get a job as the principal deputy”—which ultimately went to Ian Gershengorn, a phenomenal lawyer—“but Eric Holder really enjoyed talking to you, so we're going to look for something else for you to do here at the Department of Justice.”And a couple of weeks after that, Eric Holder called me and offered me the DAAG position in the Civil Rights Division and said, “We'd really like you to especially concentrate on our voting-rights litigation.” It was very important litigation, in part because the Supreme Court had recently struck down the pre-clearance regime under Section 5 [of the Voting Rights Act]. So the Justice Department was now bringing a bunch of lawsuits against things they could have blocked if Section 5 had been in effect, most notably the Texas voter ID law, which was a quite draconian voter ID law, and this omnibus bill in North Carolina that involved all sorts of cutbacks to opportunities to vote: a cutback on early voting, a cutback on same-day registration, a cutback on 16- and 17-year-olds pre-registering, and the like.So I went to the Department of Justice and worked with the Voting Section on those cases, but I also ended up working on things like getting the Justice Department to change its position on whether Title VII covered transgender individuals. And then I also got to work on the implementation of [United States v.] Windsor—which I had worked on, representing Edie Windsor, before I went to DOJ, because the Court had just decided Windsor [which held Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional]. So I had an opportunity to work on how to implement Windsor across the federal government. So that was the stuff I got to work on the first time I was at DOJ, and I also obviously worked on tons of other stuff, and it was phenomenal. I loved doing it.I did it for about 20 months, and then I came back to Stanford. It affected my teaching; I understood a lot of stuff quite differently having worked on it. It gave me some ideas on things I wanted to write about. And it just refreshed me in some ways. It's different than working in the clinic. I love working in the clinic, but you're working with students. You're working only with very, very junior lawyers. I sometimes think of the clinic as being a sort of Groundhog Day of first-year associates, and so I'm sort of senior partner and paralegal at a large law firm. At DOJ, you're working with subject-matter experts. The people in the Voting Section, collectively, had hundreds of years of experience with voting. The people in the Appellate Section had hundreds of years of experience with appellate litigation. And so it's just a very different feel.So I did that, and then I came back to Stanford. I was here, and in the fall of 2020, I was asked if I wanted to be one of the people on the Justice Department review team if Joe Biden won the election. These are sometimes referred to as the transition teams or the landing teams or the like. And I said, “I'd be delighted to do that.” They had me as one of the point people reviewing the Civil Rights Division. And I think it might've even been the Wednesday or Thursday before Inauguration Day 2021, I got a call from the liaison person on the transition team saying, “How would you like to go back to DOJ and be the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division?” That would mean essentially running the Division until we got a confirmed head, which took about five months. And I thought that this would be an amazing opportunity to go back to the DOJ and work with people I love, right at the beginning of an administration.And the beginning of an administration is really different than coming in midway through the second term of an administration. You're trying to come up with priorities, and I viewed my job really as helping the career people to do their best work. There were a huge number of career people who had gone through the first Trump administration, and they were raring to go. They had all sorts of ideas on stuff they wanted to do, and it was my job to facilitate that and make that possible for them. And that's why it's so tragic this time around that almost all of those people have left. The current administration first tried to transfer them all into Sanctuary Cities [the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group] or ask them to do things that they couldn't in good conscience do, and so they've retired or taken buyouts or just left.DL: It's remarkable, just the loss of expertise and experience at the Justice Department over these past few months.PK: Thousands of years of experience gone. And these are people, you've got to realize, who had been through the Nixon administration, the Reagan administration, both Bush administrations, and the first Trump administration, and they hadn't had any problem. That's what's so stunning: this is not just the normal shift in priorities, and they have gone out of their way to make it so hellacious for people that they will leave. And that's not something that either Democratic or Republican administrations have ever done before this.DL: And we will get to a lot of, shall we say, current events. Finishing up on just the discussion of your career, you had the opportunity to work in the executive branch—what about judicial service? You've been floated over the years as a possible Supreme Court nominee. I don't know if you ever looked into serving on the Ninth Circuit or were considered for that. What about judicial service?PK: So I've never been in a position, and part of this was a lesson I learned right at the beginning of my LDF career, when Lani Guinier, who was my boss at LDF, was nominated for the position of AAG [assistant attorney general] in the Civil Rights Division and got shot down. I knew from that time forward that if I did the things I really wanted to do, my chances of confirmation were not going to be very high. People at LDF used to joke that they would get me nominated so that I would take all the bullets, and then they'd sneak everybody else through. So I never really thought that I would have a shot at a judicial position, and that didn't bother me particularly. As you know, I gave the commencement speech many years ago at Stanford, and I said, “Would I want to be on the Supreme Court? You bet—but not enough to have trimmed my sails for an entire lifetime.”And I think that's right. Peter Baker did this story in The New York Times called something like, “Favorites of Left Don't Make Obama's Court List.” And in the story, Tommy Goldstein, who's a dear friend of mine, said, “If they wanted to talk about somebody who was a flaming liberal, they'd be talking about Pam Karlan, but nobody's talking about Pam Karlan.” And then I got this call from a friend of mine who said, “Yeah, but at least people are talking about how nobody's talking about you. Nobody's even talking about how nobody's talking about me.” And I was flattered, but not fooled.DL: That's funny; I read that piece in preparing for this interview. So let's say someone were to ask you, someone mid-career, “Hey, I've been pretty safe in the early years of my career, but now I'm at this juncture where I could do things that will possibly foreclose my judicial ambitions—should I just try to keep a lid on it, in the hope of making it?” It sounds like you would tell them to let their flag fly.PK: Here's the thing: your chances of getting to be on the Supreme Court, if that's what you're talking about, your chances are so low that the question is how much do you want to give up to go from a 0.001% chance to a 0.002% chance? Yes, you are doubling your chances, but your chances are not good. And there are some people who I think are capable of doing that, perhaps because they fit the zeitgeist enough that it's not a huge sacrifice for them. So it's not that I despise everybody who goes to the Supreme Court because they must obviously have all been super-careerists; I think lots of them weren't super-careerists in that way.Although it does worry me that six members of the Court now clerked at the Supreme Court—because when you are a law clerk, it gives you this feeling about the Court that maybe you don't want everybody who's on the Court to have, a feeling that this is the be-all and end-all of life and that getting a clerkship is a manifestation of an inner state of grace, so becoming a justice is equally a manifestation of an inner state of grace in which you are smarter than everybody else, wiser than everybody else, and everybody should kowtow to you in all sorts of ways. And I worry that people who are imprinted like ducklings on the Supreme Court when they're 25 or 26 or 27 might not be the best kind of portfolio of justices at the back end. The Court that decided Brown v. Board of Education—none of them, I think, had clerked at the Supreme Court, or maybe one of them had. They'd all done things with their lives other than try to get back to the Supreme Court. So I worry about that a little bit.DL: Speaking of the Court, let's turn to the Court, because it just finished its Term as we are recording this. As we started recording, they were still handing down the final decisions of the day.PK: Yes, the “R” numbers hadn't come up on the Supreme Court website when I signed off to come talk to you.DL: Exactly. So earlier this month, not today, but earlier this month, the Court handed down its decision in United States v. Skrmetti, reviewing Tennessee's ban on the use of hormones and puberty blockers for transgender youth. Were you surprised by the Court's ruling in Skrmetti?PK: No. I was not surprised.DL: So one of your most famous cases, which you litigated successfully five years ago or so, was Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court held that Title VII does apply to protect transgender individuals—and Bostock figures significantly in the Skrmetti opinions. Why were you surprised by Skrmetti given that you had won this victory in Bostock, which you could argue, in terms of just the logic of it, does carry over somewhat?PK: Well, I want to be very precise: I didn't actually litigate Bostock. There were three cases that were put together….DL: Oh yes—you handled Zarda.PK: I represented Don Zarda, who was a gay man, so I did not argue the transgender part of the case at all. Fortuitously enough, David Cole argued that part of the case, and David Cole was actually the first person I had dinner with as a freshman at Yale College, when I started college, because he was the roommate of somebody I debated against in high school. So David and I went to law school together, went to college together, and had classes together. We've been friends now for almost 50 years, which is scary—I think for 48 years we've been friends—and he argued that part of the case.So here's what surprised me about what the Supreme Court did in Skrmetti. Given where the Court wanted to come out, the more intellectually honest way to get there would've been to say, “Yes, of course this is because of sex; there is sex discrimination going on here. But even applying intermediate scrutiny, we think that Tennessee's law should survive intermediate scrutiny.” That would've been an intellectually honest way to get to where the Court got.Instead, they did this weird sort of, “Well, the word ‘sex' isn't in the Fourteenth Amendment, but it's in Title VII.” But that makes no sense at all, because for none of the sex-discrimination cases that the Court has decided under the Fourteenth Amendment did the word “sex” appear in the Fourteenth Amendment. It's not like the word “sex” was in there and then all of a sudden it took a powder and left. So I thought that was a really disingenuous way of getting to where the Court wanted to go. But I was not surprised after the oral argument that the Court was going to get to where it got on the bottom line.DL: I'm curious, though, rewinding to Bostock and Zarda, were you surprised by how the Court came out in those cases? Because it was still a deeply conservative Court back then.PK: No, I was not surprised. I was not surprised, both because I thought we had so much the better of the argument and because at the oral argument, it seemed pretty clear that we had at least six justices, and those were the six justices we had at the end of the day. The thing that was interesting to me about Bostock was I thought also that we were likely to win for the following weird legal-realist reason, which is that this was a case that would allow the justices who claimed to be textualists to show that they were principled textualists, by doing something that they might not have voted for if they were in Congress or the like.And also, while the impact was really large in one sense, the impact was not really large in another sense: most American workers are protected by Title VII, but most American employers do not discriminate, and didn't discriminate even before this, on the basis of sexual orientation or on the basis of gender identity. For example, in Zarda's case, the employer denied that they had fired Mr. Zarda because he was gay; they said, “We fired him for other reasons.”Very few employers had a formal policy that said, “We discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.” And although most American workers are protected by Title VII, most American employers are not covered by Title VII—and that's because small employers, employers with fewer than 15 full-time employees, are not covered at all. And religious employers have all sorts of exemptions and the like, so for the people who had the biggest objection to hiring or promoting or retaining gay or transgender employees, this case wasn't going to change what happened to them at all. So the impact was really important for workers, but not deeply intrusive on employers generally. So I thought those two things, taken together, meant that we had a pretty good argument.I actually thought our textual argument was not our best argument, but it was the one that they were most likely to buy. So it was really interesting: we made a bunch of different arguments in the brief, and then as soon as I got up to argue, the first question out of the box was Justice Ginsburg saying, “Well, in 1964, homosexuality was illegal in most of the country—how could this be?” And that's when I realized, “Okay, she's just telling me to talk about the text, don't talk about anything else.”So I just talked about the text the whole time. But as you may remember from the argument, there was this weird moment, which came after I answered her question and one other one, there was this kind of silence from the justices. And I just said, “Well, if you don't have any more questions, I'll reserve the remainder of my time.” And it went well; it went well as an argument.DL: On the flip side, speaking of things that are not going so well, let's turn to current events. Zooming up to a higher level of generality than Skrmetti, you are a leading scholar of constitutional law, so here's the question. I know you've already been interviewed about it by media outlets, but let me ask you again, in light of just the latest, latest, latest news: are we in a constitutional crisis in the United States?PK: I think we're in a period of great constitutional danger. I don't know what a “constitutional crisis” is. Some people think the constitutional crisis is that we have an executive branch that doesn't believe in the Constitution, right? So you have Donald Trump asked, in an interview, “Do you have to comply with the Constitution?” He says, “I don't know.” Or he says, “I have an Article II that gives me the power to do whatever I want”—which is not what Article II says. If you want to be a textualist, it does not say the president can do whatever he wants. So you have an executive branch that really does not have a commitment to the Constitution as it has been understood up until now—that is, limited government, separation of powers, respect for individual rights. With this administration, none of that's there. And I don't know whether Emil Bove did say, “F**k the courts,” or not, but they're certainly acting as if that's their attitude.So yes, in that sense, we're in a period of constitutional danger. And then on top of that, I think we have a Supreme Court that is acting almost as if this is a normal administration with normal stuff, a Court that doesn't seem to recognize what district judges appointed by every president since George H.W. Bush or maybe even Reagan have recognized, which is, “This is not normal.” What the administration is trying to do is not normal, and it has to be stopped. So that worries me, that the Supreme Court is acting as if it needs to keep its powder dry—and for what, I'm not clear.If they think that by giving in and giving in, and prevaricating and putting things off... today, I thought the example of this was in the birthright citizenship/universal injunction case. One of the groups of plaintiffs that's up there is a bunch of states, around 23 states, and the Supreme Court in Justice Barrett's opinion says, “Well, maybe the states have standing, maybe they don't. And maybe if they have standing, you can enjoin this all in those states. We leave this all for remind.”They've sat on this for months. It's ridiculous that the Supreme Court doesn't “man up,” essentially, and decide these things. It really worries me quite a bit that the Supreme Court just seems completely blind to the fact that in 2024, they gave Donald Trump complete criminal immunity from any prosecution, so who's going to hold him accountable? Not criminally accountable, not accountable in damages—and now the Supreme Court seems not particularly interested in holding him accountable either.DL: Let me play devil's advocate. Here's my theory on why the Court does seem to be holding its fire: they're afraid of a worse outcome, which is, essentially, “The emperor has no clothes.”Say they draw this line in the sand for Trump, and then Trump just crosses it. And as we all know from that famous quote from The Federalist Papers, the Court has neither force nor will, but only judgment. That's worse, isn't it? If suddenly it's exposed that the Court doesn't have any army, any way to stop Trump? And then the courts have no power.PK: I actually think it's the opposite, which is, I think if the Court said to Donald Trump, “You must do X,” and then he defies it, you would have people in the streets. You would have real deep resistance—not just the “No Kings,” one-day march, but deep resistance. And there are scholars who've done comparative law who say, “When 3 percent of the people in a country go to the streets, you get real change.” And I think the Supreme Court is mistaking that.I taught a reading group for our first-years here. We have reading groups where you meet four times during the fall for dinner, and you read stuff that makes you think. And my reading group was called “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,” and it started with the Albert Hirschman book with that title.DL: Great book.PK: It's a great book. And I gave them some excerpt from that, and I gave them an essay by Hannah Arendt called “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” which she wrote in 1964. And one of the things she says there is she talks about people who stayed in the German regime, on the theory that they would prevent at least worse things from happening. And I'm going to paraphrase slightly, but what she says is, “People who think that what they're doing is getting the lesser evil quickly forget that what they're choosing is evil.” And if the Supreme Court decides, “We're not going to tell Donald Trump ‘no,' because if we tell him no and he goes ahead, we will be exposed,” what they have basically done is said to Donald Trump, “Do whatever you want; we're not going to stop you.” And that will lose the Supreme Court more credibility over time than Donald Trump defying them once and facing some serious backlash for doing it.DL: So let me ask you one final question before we go to my little speed round. That 3 percent statistic is fascinating, by the way, but it resonates for me. My family's originally from the Philippines, and you probably had the 3 percent out there in the streets to oust Marcos in 1986.But let me ask you this. We now live in a nation where Donald Trump won not just the Electoral College, but the popular vote. We do see a lot of ugly things out there, whether in social media or incidents of violence or what have you. You still have enough faith in the American people that if the Supreme Court drew that line, and Donald Trump crossed it, and maybe this happened a couple of times, even—you still have faith that there will be that 3 percent or what have you in the streets?PK: I have hope, which is not quite the same thing as faith, obviously, but I have hope that some Republicans in Congress would grow a spine at that point, and people would say, “This is not right.” Have they always done that? No. We've had bad things happen in the past, and people have not done anything about it. But I think that the alternative of just saying, “Well, since we might not be able to stop him, we shouldn't do anything about it,” while he guts the federal government, sends masked people onto the streets, tries to take the military into domestic law enforcement—I think we have to do something.And this is what's so enraging in some ways: the district court judges in this country are doing their job. They are enjoining stuff. They're not enjoining everything, because not everything can be enjoined, and not everything is illegal; there's a lot of bad stuff Donald Trump is doing that he's totally entitled to do. But the district courts are doing their job, and they're doing their job while people are sending pizza boxes to their houses and sending them threats, and the president is tweeting about them or whatever you call the posts on Truth Social. They're doing their job—and the Supreme Court needs to do its job too. It needs to stand up for district judges. If it's not willing to stand up for the rest of us, you'd think they'd at least stand up for their entire judicial branch.DL: Turning to my speed round, my first question is, what do you like the least about the law? And this can either be the practice of law or law as a more abstract system of ordering human affairs.PK: What I liked least about it was having to deal with opposing counsel in discovery. That drove me to appellate litigation.DL: Exactly—where your request for an extension is almost always agreed to by the other side.PK: Yes, and where the record is the record.DL: Yes, exactly. My second question, is what would you be if you were not a lawyer and/or law professor?PK: Oh, they asked me this question for a thing here at Stanford, and it was like, if I couldn't be a lawyer, I'd... And I just said, “I'd sit in my room and cry.”DL: Okay!PK: I don't know—this is what my talent is!DL: You don't want to write a novel or something?PK: No. What I would really like to do is I would like to bike the Freedom Trail, which is a trail that starts in Montgomery, Alabama, and goes to the Canadian border, following the Underground Railroad. I've always wanted to bike that. But I guess that's not a career. I bike slowly enough that it could be a career, at this point—but earlier on, probably not.DL: My third question is, how much sleep do you get each night?PK: I now get around six hours of sleep each night, but it's complicated by the following, which is when I worked at the Department of Justice the second time, it was during Covid, so I actually worked remotely from California. And what that required me to do was essentially to wake up every morning at 4 a.m., 7 a.m. on the East Coast, so I could have breakfast, read the paper, and be ready to go by 5:30 a.m.I've been unable to get off of that, so I still wake up before dawn every morning. And I spent three months in Florence, and I thought the jet lag would bring me out of this—not in the slightest. Within two weeks, I was waking up at 4:30 a.m. Central European Time. So that's why I get about six hours, because I can't really go to bed before 9 or 10 p.m.DL: Well, I was struck by your being able to do this podcast fairly early West Coast time.PK: Oh no, this is the third thing I've done this morning! I had a 6:30 a.m. conference call.DL: Oh my gosh, wow. It reminds me of that saying about how you get more done in the Army before X hour than other people get done in a day.My last question, is any final words of wisdom, such as career advice or life advice, for my listeners?PK: Yes: do what you love, with people you love doing it with.DL: Well said. I've loved doing this podcast—Professor Karlan, thanks again for joining me.PK: You should start calling me Pam. We've had this same discussion….DL: We're on the air! Okay, well, thanks again, Pam—I'm so grateful to you for joining me.PK: Thanks for having me.DL: Thanks so much to Professor Karlan for joining me. Whether or not you agree with her views, you can't deny that she's both insightful and honest—qualities that have made her a leading legal academic and lawyer, but also a great podcast guest.Thanks to NexFirm for sponsoring the Original Jurisdiction podcast. NexFirm has helped many attorneys to leave Biglaw and launch firms of their own. To explore this opportunity, please contact NexFirm at 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com to learn more.Thanks to Tommy Harron, my sound engineer here at Original Jurisdiction, and thanks to you, my listeners and readers. To connect with me, please email me at davidlat at Substack dot com, or find me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, at davidlat, and on Instagram and Threads at davidbenjaminlat.If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. Please subscribe to the Original Jurisdiction newsletter if you don't already, over at davidlat dot substack dot com. This podcast is free, but it's made possible by paid subscriptions to the newsletter.The next episode should appear on or about Wednesday, July 23. Until then, may your thinking be original and your jurisdiction free of defects. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe
Today the Church recognizes the exceptional men, women, and even children who accepted the ultimate sacrifice for the Christian faith in China between the years of 1648 and 1930. Their story could be said to have started in the 600's when monks arrived in China from Syria. Unfortunately, these monks not only carried silk to be traded with the Chinese people, but also the Nestorian heresy which denies the divinity of Christ. The Chinese emperor welcomed the monks and permitted them to share their faith. Over the next couple of centuries, churches were built and converts were made. Persecutions began in the 8th century, however, until almost all the Nestorian Christians were wiped out. The Spanish Dominican priest, Fr. Francisco de Capillas, arrived in China in the mid-1600's after spending twenty years in the Philippines. He was successful in winning over many converts and started a lay order of Dominicans. The tolerant Ming Dynasty was then replaced by the Qing Dynasty and persecutions began again in earnest. Fr. De Capillas was arrested for “teaching false doctrine” and opposing the new emperor. He was beheaded while praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary in 1647. Persecutions settled down after Fr. de Capillas' death, but that changed in 1707 when the Pope Clement XI issued a decree forbidding ancestor worship. The Emperor used this as an excuse to expel all Christian priests, confiscate church lands, and close all churches. By the end of the 18th century, there were only one hundred thousand Christians left in the country and they had to practice their faith in secret. Fr. Augustine Zhao Rong, whose name is attached to today's memorial, was a Chinese soldier ordered to accompany a French Bishop, John Gabriel Turin Dufresse, to his imprisonment and martyrdom. Zhao Rong was impressed with the Bishop's gentle demeanor and courage. Upon the completion of his duty, he asked to be baptized. He progressed in the faith until he was the first native Chinese to be ordained a priest. Fr. Augustine was later arrested, tortured, and died of his injuries in prison. Other persecutions followed, the worst during the Boxer Revolution in 1900, which produced eighty-six martyrs including many religious sisters, priests, catechists, and other laity. The final two martyrs honored today died in 1930. In his canonization homily, Pope John Paul II said: Today the Church is grateful to her Lord, who blesses her and bathes her in light with the radiant holiness of these sons and daughters of China… Young Ann Wang, a 14-year-old, withstood the threats of the torturers who invited her to apostatize. Ready for her beheading, she declared with a radiant face: “The door of heaven is open to all,” three times murmuring: “Jesus.” And 18-year-old Chi Zhuzi, cried out fearlessly to those who had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian.” May our prayers join the prayers of our Christian brothers and sisters in China as they continue to inspire new converts to the faith. St. Augustine Zhao Rong and Companions, pray for us. Blessings, Fr. Kevin MacDonald, C.Ss.R.
Meet Pia de Leon, a parishioner of St. Clare Catholic Church in Portland as she shares her faith journey from the Philippines to the Pacific Northwest. As a community organizer, formator and disciple for Jesus Christ, Pia describes how her love of Christ has led her into pastoral and community ministry. Pia will present on the topic: Jesus, The Community Organizer: Building the Kingdom of Love, Peace and Justice during the Evening Lecture Series July 14-17 at Our Lady of Peace Retreat House in Beaverton. for more olpretreat.orgSubscribe to the Morning Blend on your favorite podcast platform.Find this show on the free Hail Mary Media App, along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more.Look through past episodes or support this podcast.The Morning Blend is a production of Mater Dei Radio in Portland, Oregon.
At the turn of the 20th century, America flexed its power globally and claimed a small empire. We tell the messy story of American imperialism and the ideas which shaped the process.Find the full transcript of this episode including citations at our website:https://www.americanhistoryremix.com/episodeguide/american-empire -In this episode we cover…Introduction [0:00-02:06]Background [02:06-04:10]Hawaii [04:10-08:30]Bayonet Constitution & Coup [08:30-11:50]Capitalism & Christianity [11:50-16:48]America & Cuba [16:48-21:08]War & Gender [21:08-24:46]The USS Maine [24:46-27:11]Spanish American War [27:11-29:38]Seizing Territory [29:38-33:11]Cuba Independent? [33:11-34:52]The Philippines [34:52-37:03]Race & Civilization [37:03-39:52]Philippine American War [39:52-43:21]Anti-Imperialist Response [43:21-48:05]Colonies Today [48:05-49:40]Panama [49:40-52:49]Westward Expansion [52:49-55:52]Conclusion [55:52-57:38]--To dive deeper into these topics (affiliate links):John M. Dobson, America's Ascent: The United States Becomes a Great Power, 1880–1914https://tinyurl.com/Dobson-America-George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 https://tinyurl.com/Herring-From-Colony-Kristin L. Hoganson, American Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A Brief History with Documentshttps://tinyurl.com/Hoganson-American-Empire-Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Warshttps://tinyurl.com/Hoganson-Fighting-for-American-Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 https://tinyurl.com/Jacobson-Barbarian-Support the show
In this episode, I'm breaking down the exact cold calling system that helped me build a multi-million dollar real estate business — and yes, it still works in 2025.Cold calling might sound old school, but if you're serious about off-market real estate deals (whether you're flipping, wholesaling, or doing commercial acquisitions), this is the blueprint you need. I walk you through the full playbook — from list stacking and skip tracing to dialer setup, hiring virtual assistants, and knowing your KPIs.I've personally staffed over 500 cold callers across 78 countries and built call centers in Egypt, the Philippines, and Belize. So when I say I've tested this stuff, I mean it. Whether you're just getting started or looking to scale your real estate pipeline, I'm giving you the full backend on how to build a cold calling machine that prints leads — and revenue.If you've been on the fence about cold calling, give this episode a listen. This strategy changed my business, and it might just do the same for yours.Want to be around other people who are still doing deals?Join our free skool community below — with 800+ investors and agents, live calls, and coaching resources. No cost, just show up and engage.https://www.skool.com/offmarketmethod/about?ref=791b3644f63045c9a6d3d8634e57c1f1You're only one deal away.Connect with Cole Ruud-JohnsonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/coleruudjohnsonTwitter: https://twitter.com/coleruudjohnson
Outsourcing To Grow Profitably with Yoni Kozminski What if you could scale your business into eight figures using an offshore team, lean capital, and rock-solid systems? On this episode of The Profit Answer Man, we sit down with Yoni Kozminski – a global entrepreneur who built not one but two bootstrapped companies past the $10M revenue mark. He shares the exact strategies he used to scale using top-tier talent from the Philippines, all while maintaining high profitability and operational control. If you're looking to reduce margin-killing inefficiencies and systematize your way to profit freedom, this episode is your game plan. In This Episode, You'll Learn: How Yoni bootstrapped two companies past $10M+ with just $100K in capital. Why hiring offshore isn't about cheap labor – it's about buying leverage strategically. The difference between SOPs that gather dust and those that create clarity and scale. How to avoid the hidden tax of operational chaos and stop being the bottleneck in your business. Why process improvement is your best risk management tool. The playbook to build an EOS-aligned, system-driven company with profit-first thinking at its core. Key Takeaways: You don't need VC money to scale. Yoni's blueprint shows how leveraging talent and process beats chasing capital. 95% offshore doesn't mean lower quality – it means higher ROI. When done right, this approach creates margin-rich scale. Process is the new profit lever. SOPs aren't just for compliance; they're the foundation of sustainable growth. Hiring top talent isn't about geography – it's about alignment, clarity, and culture. Financial freedom starts with operational freedom. If your business can't run without you, you don't own a business—you own a job. About Yoni Kozminski: Yoni brings 15+ years of global marketing and strategy expertise, having worked with brands like Mercedes-Benz, Sony, and Mastercard. After scaling and selling a $5M Amazon business, he founded MultiplyMii and Escala – powerhouse agencies that specialize in elite offshore hiring and process optimization. His companies were bootstrapped with just $100,000 and now generate over $10M in combined revenue annually, with a team that's 95% based in the Philippines. Yoni now helps entrepreneurs systematize, scale, and reclaim their time – all while growing their bottom line. Conclusion: If you're serious about scaling without stress and multiplying your profits without multiplying your headaches, this episode is a masterclass in operational leverage. Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yonkoz/?originalSubdomain=il Website: https://www.multiplymii.com/multipliers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multiplymiicareers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/multiplymiiofficial/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/multiplymii/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MultiplyMiiCareers Salary Guide: https://hubs.ly/Q03lYNhH0 https://www.multiplymii.com/salary-guide Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@profitanswerman Sign up to be notified when the next cohort of the Profit First Experience Course is available! Profit First Toolkit: https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/landing-page-page Relay Bank (affiliate link): https://relayfi.com/?referralcode=profitcomesfirst Profit Answer Man Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitanswerman/ My podcast about living a richer more meaningful life: http://richersoul.com/ Music provided by Junan from Junan Podcast Any financial advice is for educational purposes only and you should consult with an expert for your specific needs. #profitfirst
There's a lot we take for granted when it comes to homeschooling—especially our freedoms. In today's conversation, you'll hear how homeschool freedom is under threat in places you might not expect... and how one nonprofit is working to protect it.From museum tours to national advocacy, Steven Policastro shares how God is using their work to equip homeschool leaders in 130+ nations. You'll be inspired to pray, take action, and help families around the globe.The surprising truth about where homeschool is illegal✅Why parental rights and Christian education go hand-in-hand✅How global leaders are uniting to defend freedom✅2 creative ways your family can support the mission✅How to turn this into a meaningful homeschool project
Max travels from the Philippines to Thailand to take a high-paying job at a casino. But when he arrives, he's instead taken to a camp in the jungles of Myanmar and put to work in a call center running phone scams across the globe. His sister Charlie learns the only way to get him home is also to work for the syndicate. In order to meet Max's quota, his brother joins the labor camp while Charlie tricks new recruits into the scam factory. With the hope of rescue slim, they're left with few options to win Max's freedom - either negotiate an impossible financial settlement or flee from armed guards into the wilderness. The Wondery podcast “Scam Factory” takes us inside the most dangerous call center in the world. Host Denise Chan tells Charlie's story of high-stakes fraud and moral dilemmas. It also features interviews with her victims conned into forced labor. It asks the question: how far would you go to save a loved one?OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "SCAM FACTORY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.In Crime of the Week: Scooby-Doo, where are you? For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.
*Disclaimer: The audio quality in this episode is unfortunately below our standards but we felt that the content was too valuable not to share it* In episode 215, host Galit Friedlander and guest Stephanie Scull (dancer for Pharrell, Usher, America's Got Talent and founder of her own successful styling/costuming brand) get into the real-talk intersection of dance, identity, and personal style. Stephanie shares how her path took her from competitive dance and the fashion world to working major jobs in LA and what made her say yes to pivoting towards her own business. From audition looks to headshot rules to what “comfortable” really means when you're getting dressed for a career-defining moment, this one is full of practical gems and big-picture energy. We talk about boundaries, burnout, why dancers often forget their power, and how to use clothes to show the world who you are, before you even move. Follow Galit: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gogalit Website - https://www.gogalit.com/ Fit From Home - https://galit-s-school-0397.thinkific.com/courses/fit-from-home You can connect with Stephanie Scull on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/scullysculls/. Stephanie's website is https://www.scullystyles.com. Listen to DanceSpeak on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
In episode 215, host Galit Friedlander and guest Stephanie Scull (dancer for Pharrell, Usher, America's Got Talent and founder of her own successful styling/costuming brand) get into the real-talk intersection of dance, identity, and personal style. Stephanie shares how her path took her from competitive dance and the fashion world to working major jobs in LA and what made her say yes to pivoting towards her own business. From audition looks to headshot rules to what “comfortable” really means when you're getting dressed for a career-defining moment, this one is full of practical gems and big-picture energy. We talk about boundaries, burnout, why dancers often forget their power, and how to use clothes to show the world who you are, before you even move. Follow Galit: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gogalit Website - https://www.gogalit.com/ Fit From Home - https://galit-s-school-0397.thinkific.com/courses/fit-from-home You can connect with Stephanie Scull on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/scullysculls/. Stephanie's website is https://www.scullystyles.com. Listen to DanceSpeak on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Text a Message to the ShowToday we're talking to Jake, the International Security Specialist Guy… which may or may not be his real name. Jake has 25 years experience in law enforcement as an American cop; now he lives in Thailand and trains people who are traveling internationally into high threat environments. Jake trains them and helps to manage crises while they're in-country, assisting them with any kind of emergency that would cause them to be ejected from that nation, from war to crime to earthquakes and other natural disasters.Traveling internationally might be the only time that many American police officers are unarmed. They carry a gun and knife on duty and off duty but not while traveling to foreign countries, which can leave you feeling pretty exposed. Jake is going to talk to us about how not to get kidnapped while traveling in a foreign country. He's going to cover all kinds of scenarios including carjacking, pickpockets, and dealing with scams while traveling.Resources:The UK travel advise site: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-adviceThe US travel advise site: travel.state.govMusic is by National Sweetheart and by Chris HaugenHey Chaplain Podcast Episode 117Tags:Police, Assault, Bags, Budget, Carjacking, Guns, Kidnapping, Motorcycles, Pickpocketing, Robbery, Safety, Scams, Taxis, Trains, Transportation, Travel, Bangladesh, Djibouti, Ethiopia, France, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Romania, St Maarten, Syria, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, YemenSupport the showThanks for Listening! And, as always, pray for peace in our city.Subscribe/Follow here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hey-chaplain/id1570155168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CGK9A3BmbFEUEnx3fYZOY Email us at: heychaplain44@gmail.comYou can help keep the show ad-free by buying me a virtual coffee!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/heychaplain
MORE STAFFINGRecruit, onboard, and train incredible virtual professionals in the Philippines with my friends at More Staffing by visiting https://morestaffing.co/af. FERMATCreate funnels the same way you create ads with FERMAT by visiting https://fermatcommerce.com/af//TikTok Shop is exploding—and most eCommerce brands are asleep on it. In this episode of the AJF Podcast, Andrew Faris sits down with Jordan West (CEO of Social Commerce Club) to dive deep into what's actually working on TikTok Shop, why creators are outperforming influencers, and how brands should rethink top-of-funnel strategy.Whether you're a 7–9 figure operator looking to diversify off Meta, or just exploring creator partnerships for the first time, Jordan lays out the real-world playbook: from seeding products to building a creator network that drives serious revenue. He also unpacks the cold start problem, affiliate commissions, content volume, CPM misconceptions, and how to identify the right creators without wasting time or budget.If you're facing margin pressure, platform volatility, or simply want to stay ahead of where consumer attention is going, this episode is packed with actionable insight from someone who's scaled TikTok Shop campaigns for 100+ brands.What You'll Learn:- Why TikTok CPMs are misunderstood—and what they actually signal- How to build and retain high-performing creator partnerships- Why volume matters: the 10–20 posts/day strategy- How one low-follower creator drove $250K in sales- When and how to bet $50K on TikTok the smart way //CHAPTER TITLES:00:01:39: Meet Jordan West00:05:13: Creator vs Influencer00:13:34: How To Kick Off Creator Marketing Strategy00:26:39: How The Meta Algorithm Works00:32:55: Importance of Good Quality Content00:44:03: Creator Networking in 2025//Jordan West is the CEO of Social Commerce Club and the host of Secrets To Scaling Your Ecommerce Brand. See everything Jordan is doing at www.socialcommerceclub.com.//SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL FOR 2X/WEEKLY UPLOADS!//ADMISSIONGet the best media buying training on the Internet + a free coaching call with Common Thread Collective's media buyers when you sign up for ADmission here: https://www.youradmission.co/andrew-faris-podcast//FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW X: https://x.com/andrewjfaris Email: podcast@ajfgrowth.comWork with Andrew: https://ajfgrowth.com
As the wheat harvest is in full swing, U.S. Wheat Associates is promoting American wheat to overseas buyers. Groups from Ecuador, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines will be in the U.S. to observe harvest in wheat fields across rural America. NAFB News ServiceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How to Successfully Hire and Manage a Virtual Assistant for Your Insurance BusinessRunning an insurance practice means juggling countless tasks, and as your client roster grows, so does the need for reliable support. In this week's episode of the Insurance Business Babes podcast, hosts Kathe Kline and Joanna Wyckoff dive deep into hiring virtual assistants (VAs)—sharing years of hands-on wisdom from building their own teams. Here are the best nuggets from their conversation, expanded for our blog readers.Why and When to Hire a Virtual AssistantMost insurance agents hit a breaking point as their client base approaches 300 or more. When that happens, administrative work starts eating into sales time, client service suffers, and time off becomes a dream. As Joanna says, “We girl boss a little too hard to the sun and you start getting overwhelmed.” If you're constantly frazzled or avoiding your ringing phone, it's time to bring on support—before burnout sets in.Where to Find Qualified Virtual AssistantsBoth hosts swear by onlinejobs.ph, a popular platform for hiring VAs from the Philippines. Filipino VAs are known for excellent English, polite customer service, and strong work ethic. Kathe recommends paying a little extra for the six-month support/transition package, giving the VA a local contact to help them adjust and ensuring smoother onboarding for you.Other options include Upwork (especially if you need part-time help), or hiring services like Hire Heroes, which pre-screen and prepare candidates for the insurance industry.Screening and Selecting the Right CandidateTo avoid sifting through hundreds of resumes, Joanna suggests:Requesting a video introduction to gauge English proficiency, personality, and customer-facing skills.Asking for a portfolio if you're hiring for specialized skills (like marketing).Giving clear, specific application instructions to spot high attention to detail.Kathe is a fan of assigning paid trial tasks to top candidates. This hands-on approach shows who's truly capable and reliable.Training & Managing Your Virtual AssistantBefore hiring, spend time recording your processes using screen capture tools. This library of “how-to” videos becomes a training goldmine for your VA—and any future hires. Kathe reminds us never to do one-on-one trainings without recording: “Chances are, you're going to have to hire another virtual assistant someday.”Embrace cultural differences—be explicit with expectations, offer positive feedback, and always have clear agreements regarding pay, 13th month bonuses, and holidays. Tools like Hubstaff or TimeProof help with accountability by capturing regular screen shots of your VA's work.Compensation & RetentionPay competitively, offer regular bonuses, and recognize holidays. Both Kathe and Joanna emphasize generosity—helping your VA feel valued pays dividends in loyalty and performance. Clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and regular check-ins keep everyone on the same page.Final ThoughtsThe sooner you invest in hiring and training a VA, the sooner you'll reclaim your time for sales, strategy, and some well-deserved balance. As Kathe says, “Your life will change for the better from that point forward.”Ready to take your insurance business to the next level? Don't wait—start your hiring journey today!This episode is sponsored by CertifiedMedicareAgents.com. Use the coupon code BABES2024 for a free lifetime BRONZE membership.
Mini-podcast about an event on this day in working class history.Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.No Beer No Work merchandiseSee all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/todayBrowse all Stories by Date here on the Date index: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/dateCheck out our Map of historical Stories: https://map.workingclasshistory.comCheck out books, posters, clothing and more in our online store, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.comIf you enjoy this podcast, make sure to check out our flagship longform podcast, Working Class History. AcknowledgementsWritten and edited by Working Class History.Theme music by Ricardo Araya. Check out his YouTube channel at youtube.com/@peptoattackBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/on-this-day-in-working-class-history--6070772/support.
We're joined by a dear friend, Pastor Romy, lead pastor of our sister church in the Philippines, Christ in You Forever Christian Baptist Church. Hear the call to resilience, strength, and courage. Keep your heart continuously burning! "Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality." - Romans 12:11-13 MSG If you would like to partner with us, please visit: https://myloh.church/give
It's time for the queens to come back eight months later and play the Snatch Game! Mistress ends up really taking it on the chin this week, as her Bracket 2 antics land about as poorly as her Natalie Nunn impression with the rest of the girls. Meanwhile Ginger doesn't break a sweat as Reba and continues her winning streak (of Snatch Games and challenges this season), Aja's cookie starts to crumble, Jorgeous puts on a bald cap and Cynthia's Dracula is ironically slayed the week they have Buffy as a guest judge. Become a Matreon at the Sister Mary level to get full access to bonus episodes including brackets, movie reviews and past seasons of US Drag Race, UK, Canada, Down Under, Espana, Global All Stars, Philippines and more.Join us at our OnlyMary's level for our recap of Season 5 of Drag Race plus even more movie reviews, brackets, and deep dives into our personal lives!Patreon: www.patreon.com/alrightmaryEmail: alrightmarypodcast@gmail.comInstagram: @alrightmarypodJohnny: @johnnyalso (Instagram)Colin: @colindrucker_ (Instagram)Web: www.alrightmary.com
Send us a textWhat does it take to go from being a poor kid in the Philippines to running your own thriving physical therapy practice in the U.S.? In this episode of the Speak Your Vision podcast, I sit down with keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and physical therapist Regie Tiu to talk about his incredible journey — one marked by struggle, grit, and relentless belief in what's possible.We dive into:
Long before the Philippines was known by its modern name, it was home to a powerful and wealthy civilization—the Lequios. Described by Portuguese explorers like Antonio Galvão and marked on 16th-century maps like the Dourado Map, the Lequios were skilled shipbuilders, traders in gold, and a dominant presence in Southeast Asia.So why were they erased from mainstream history?In this video, we dive into forgotten archives and ancient maps to explore how the Lequios were not Japanese as some believe—but pre-colonial Filipinos. Evidence places them in Luzon, trading up and down the coasts, with links to major volcanic events like the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.From the capital of a majestic city to gold-rich trade routes in Pangasinan and La Union—this is a legacy worth reclaiming.✨ Discover the truth that colonial propaganda tried to erase.
What if the real Lequios wasn't Ryukyu… but Luzon all along?In this eye-opening deep dive, we expose the long-buried truth behind Duarte Barbosa's “175 leagues to the east”—a footnote that leads straight to the Philippines. Journey through maps, records, and forgotten evidence as we reveal that the powerful maritime empire known as Lequios was never Okinawan… it was Luzon and Batanes.We break down the 16th-century evidence, expose how Jesuit cartography rewrote geography, and unleash the “Jesuit Shrink Ray” that shrunk the China Sea just to fit an agenda.This isn't conspiracy. It's cartographic confession.✅ Topics Covered:Barbosa's 175-league clue decodedWhy Lequios = Luzon, not RyukyuTrade wealth, gold bars, and “very good wheat”Adlay wheat, Elemi resin, and the incense tradeOver 10 royal maps confirming Luzon as LequiosMendes Pinto's 250-league bombshellHow the Jesuits distorted the distancesThe collapse of Ryukyu TheoryThe truth wasn't buried. It was footnoted.Now… the silenced maps speak.
Where you bean?!: JC talks about struggles with moving apartments (02:27), hosting in straight Tagalog (05:50), and disliking '28 Years Later' (13:10). Rica talks about implementing CBT into aciton (17:54), and 'bombing' a job interview (21:50)TT's: We talk about a debate amongst netizens regarding a supposed A.I. generated photo of President Bongbong Marcos (30:00), and the Philippines food scene being features on 'Somebody Feed Phil' (40:57)Leche Fan Mail: A Leche Fan e-mails us 6 years apart (01:00:11)Follow Rica & JC on IG:@ricaggg@itsmejayseeLeche-Fan Mail:thehalohaloshow@gmail.comRecorded using the ELGATO WAVE 1 Microphones, go get one! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode Don tries to translate Usher's "Yeah" to Tagalog, Garcia shows us more Filipino household items, Raf has a list of celebrities he thought were Filipino and Natz Introduces the crew to a Filipino inspired pokemon!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Found in virtually every Filipino bathroom from the humblest provincial home to the most luxurious Manila condo, the tabo—that simple plastic water dipper—carries far more cultural weight than its unassuming appearance suggests. In this episode, we trace the tabo's fascinating journey from coconut shell origins in pre-colonial times to its status as a powerful marker of Filipino identity worldwide. Why do overseas Filipinos pack tabos in their luggage? How did this humble dipper spark "hygiene wars" on social media? And what did early Spanish missionaries really think about Filipino bathing habits? From ancient hospitality rituals to modern environmental concerns, we explore how a simple household object became both a symbol of cultural resilience and a source of unexpected controversy. Whether you're a lifelong tabo user or someone who's always wondered about that mysterious plastic cup in Filipino bathrooms, this episode dips into the surprising depth behind one of the Philippines' most ubiquitous yet overlooked cultural artifacts.
First, Ben and Celestia discuss pediatricians standing up to the CDC, a cloud-surfing Jesus in the Philippines, and needle-spiking mayhem in France. Then we have longtime friend of the podcast Susan Gerbic join us to talk about so many topics she's close to: empathy and how skeptics can approach education with respect; the big-name psychics that she's been a perpetual thorn to; the cycle some women get pulled into to act as no-name psychics with small followings; the UFO community's hate crush on her; Guerilla Skeptics of Wikipedia; skepticamps across America; and how to raise up the next generation of skeptical activists.
On this episode I have SoCal based trekker, backpacker, outdoor guide & safety instructor, wilderness first responder, wild keeper, and founder of Way Out Wild, Nikki Taylor aka Adventure Pea, joins me on the show. We chatted about Nikki's first hiking memories, her journey from the Philippines to Colorado to Los Angeles, the diverse outdoor experiences she fell in love with, the origin story to creating Way Out Wild, female empowerment through outdoor adventures, their REI meet & greet experience, her top trails in California, her special connection with On Trail With, hosting outdoor safety classes, the Six Pack Of Peaks Challenge: Way Out Wild Edition, personal trail moments that shaped her as a founder & guide, the importance of stewardship and protecting public lands, and the one outdoor experience she would relive all over again.________________________This episode is brought to you by roadsurfer — the global leader in RV and camper van rentals. With over 70 rental stations across Europe and North America in 16 countries, they make it easy to hit the road wherever adventure calls. Whether it's the mountains, the coast, or the open desert — your home is already packed. Check them out more on roadsurfer.com and use our promo code “JUSTTREK” for 11% off your next roadtrip adventure and experience the freedom of van life, your way. Watch Youtube version: https://youtu.be/GdsmaIfSel0Follow Nikki & Way Out Wild on https://www.instagram.com/adventure_pea/ and https://www.instagram.com/wayoutwild_/Stay updated on events on https://www.eventbrite.com/o/way-out-wild-45312954783Follow Just Trek on IG https://www.instagram.com/just.trek/Support Just Trek on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/justtrekShop Just Trek merch on https://www.justtrek.net/shopListen to more podcast episodes on https://www.justtrek.netWant to send me a message? Email me at justtrekofficial@gmail.com or DM on Instagram @just.trek
BEST OF TST: A manga book from Japan has recently caught the attention of international travelers due to its seeming ability to predict the future, specifically the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Originally written and published in 1999, the newest version from 2021 now suggests there will be a mega quake somewhere between Japan and the Philippines on July 5, or within that month, 2025. The author and artist, Ryo Tatsuki, has been right about other future events too, including the 2020 pandemic. Reportedly, she obtains her insights from dreams and has become so popular she is being compared to Nostradamus or the Bulgarian blind woman Baba Vanga, who made a series of sometimes accurate predictions before her death in the 1990s, from current times all the way to the year 5,079, or the end of the world as we know it. Ryo Tatsuki is also predicting a second global pandemic due to COVID, or a variation of it, and implied by her July earthquake dream, a mega tsunami with massive waves. There should be a debate about the differences between psychic predictions from dreams or visions, and the same predictions made my computer models and scientific analysis; about movies and tv shows making predictions or obtaining information through channeling sessions with spirits, and the nature of pure imagination; also, the influence art and reality have on one another. Either way, reports are that tourists are changing their plans or cancelling their trips to the far east as a result of Tatsuki's dreams, though the data doesn't seem to support that claim beyond small airlines or travel companies that are probably looking for free publicity. However, there are very real scientific fears of the Nankai Trough causing a massive earthquake and tsunami which has provoked the first ever mega quake warnings in Japan, followed by their revocation, followed by their reissuing. The same can be said about the western United States too, though some reports are nothing but pure sensationalism. Despite this, dead oarfish have been washing up on shore in California and Mexico, an omen in Japan of an impending earthquake due to unseen things happening underwater. *The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, you can subscribe below underneath the show description.-FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKWEBSITECashApp: $rdgable EMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-secret-teachings--5328407/support.
In this special (and hilarious) episode, I sit down with the woman who knows me best—my mom—for an honest and heartwarming Q&A. We talk about everything from her life growing up in the Philippines, to what I was really like as a kid (prepare yourselves for some embarrassing childhood stories
It's the oldest Communist guerrilla group in the world. The New People's Army (NPA) has waged a violent campaign against the Philippine government since 1969. The conflict has killed an estimated 40,000 people. But today, the rebel group is struggling. Since the failure of a 2019 ceasefire, Manila has hunted down Communist sympathisers, mainly in the movement's rural strongholds.
Welcome to another episode of the show. Today, I'm excited to welcome Cristina Carolan. Cristina is a plant-based personal chef and author of Plant-Based Pacific, a cookbook that reflects a vibrant fusion of culinary cultures from Japan, Hawaii, and the Philippines. She's the owner of Chef Veggie, a plant-based personal chef and holistic lifestyle service. A lifelong traveler, Cristina's experiences living in Japan, visiting her mother's homeland of the Philippines, and calling three Hawaiian islands home inform every dish and story in her book. In today's episode, we talk about: The inspiration behind Plant-Based Pacific How Cristina's multicultural upbringing shaped the concept Cristina's cookbook publishing journey Recipes and stories for local meals like Hawaiian Plate Lunch and Filipino Kamayan, all with a plant-based twist Advice for aspiring cookbook authors Whether you're a plant-based cook, a cultural food enthusiast, or dreaming of writing a cookbook, Cristina's story offers warmth, insight, and plenty of practical wisdom for your journey in the kitchen and at your keyboard. Things We Mention in This Episode: Join the waitlist for Cookbooks on KDP for September 2025 Connect with Cristina Carolan Order a personalized copy of Plant-Based Pacific
Join Revival Cry Podcast host Eric Miller as he shares a message called “God's Purpose for Men To Their Families”. Recorded live in Praise Revival Center, Davao City. Philippines. Click here to go to the official Revival Cry YouTube channel. To see the Revival Cry podcast on another streaming service, click here. Listen to Revival Cry on Mango Radio every: ⏵ Thursday evenings | 6:30pm — 7:00pm PHT ⏵ Saturday mornings | 6:30am — 7:00am PHT available at: ⏵ 102.7 FM (Davao) ⏵ 91.5 FM (Zamboanga) ⏵ or listen online via TuneIn To support Revival Cry or find out more information, go to revivalcry.org Email us at info@revivalcry.org Follow @RevivalCryInternational on Facebook and Instagram. Purchase Eric's 30-Day Devotional Books: ⏵ “How to Become a Burning Bush”, available in English and Italian ⏵ “Hearing God through His Creation”, available in English, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese
Mr. X (Donald Sutherland) in the movie JFK by Oliver Stone was based off of the military career of Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. Prouty's military career started before Pearl Harbour, where he was assigned as a Horse Cavalryman. After horses were replaced with tanks in 1941, Prouty joined the Tank Corps under General Creighton Abrams. Abrams went on to be the Senior Military officer in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from 1968-1972. Already a licensed pilot in the Tank Corp, the Air Force recruited Prouty; he transferred quickly to flight school in Africa. Prouty served in the Africa Middle East wing of the Air Transport Command. Prouty being sent to the Cairo Conference in 1943 was the start of Prouty's career with clandestine operations. The Cairo Conference was attended by Churchill, Roosevelt & Chiang Kai-Shek from China. From there, Prouty was sent directly to the Tehran Conference between Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin met for the 1st time. Why haven't historians been told that Chiang Kai-Shek was ALSO at the Tehran Conference? Prouty knows Chiang Kai-Shek attended the Tehran Conference because he was the pilot that flew him there. A friend of Prouty's was the pilot who flew Elliot Roosevelt to the same Tehran Conference in 1943. After the conferences Prouty was sent to Pacific, flying heavy transport, mostly patients to the hospital, until the war ended. The unit Prouty was flying in was asked to fly immediately into Japan once the war was over in August 1945. The only air base that the US hadn't bombed in anticipation of invading was the major underground Japanese base at Atsugi. The CIA utilized the Atsugi base, where men like Lee Harvey Oswald were later stationed. When Prouty flew back to Okinawa he noticed a huge stockpile of military equipment being loaded onto US ships. The Harbour Master told Prouty the equipment was being sent to Vietnam and Korea. Who had given the orders for the relocation of the military equipment? How early were plans made to invade Vietnam? Prouty was ordered by the Army to report to Yale University to help start a new aviation program. Prouty taught at Yale for three years before being sent to NY to write a text book on Aeronautics for the US Army. After publishing the first text book, Prouty was asked to write another book on rockets and missiles. Given full authority by the government to go anywhere, and interview anyone, Prouty interviewed Werner Von Braun. Von Braun explained to Prouty in 1949 how he would land a rocket on the moon. After helping to set up the NORAD operation in Colorado Springs, after a year Prouty was sent to Tokyo. While the US was an occupation force in Japan, the US military ran the country while Japan was rebuilt. Tokyo had been completely devastated. Prouty was installed as the airport manager for the International Tokyo Airport. Prouty had never seen anywhere as destroyed as Tokyo was by the end of the war. In the Korean war period, after the airport was given back to the Japanese, Prouty helped fly supplies to Lansdale. In 1952-1953 CIA's Edward G. Lansdale built up a covert army in the Philippines under the leadership of Ramon Magsaysay. President Quirino had been the leader of the Philippine government before Magsaysay was installed in 1953. In 1955 Prouty was sent back to US to attend the Armed Forces Staff College run by the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Prouty was then brought into the Pentagon. In 1955 under Eisenhower, CIA would get assistance and funds from military conduits to support their covert operations. In order to enable this plan, an office and system had to be created to handle this global operation. As Chief of Special Operations for the Air Force, Prouty was given the task of heading and creating the office and system. Lansdale was also in the Pentagon at this time, developing programs which later turned into the Special Forces.
Jimmy went down to Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con. One of the best comic conventions around! A great weekend of friends, interviews, auctions, food, drinks and fun. He got 11 interviews total! In this episode, you'll hear his talk with new artist Elliana Esquivel. A fellow Filipino, they talked about how The Philippines influenced her, the significance of water in her work, views on AI, why lumpia is so good and more! Come back later this week and the next few weeks to hear all of the Heroes Con interviews. Also, get a hold of us! Thanks for listening!
Welcome! Tonight, I'll be sharing a special bedtime story from the Philippines called “The Story of Benito.” I first shared this gentle fairytale on the podcast in May of 2023, and I thought it would be lovely to bring it back for anyone who may have missed it—or simply wants to enjoy it again as they drift off to sleep.The Story of Benito is a touching tale about a kind-hearted boy whose greatest wish is to help his parents, who are very poor. Along his journey, Benito encounters many adventures—each one bringing him closer to making his dream come true. A quiet, magical story full of warmth and hope—perfect for bedtime. I hope you enjoy it!Sweetest dreams,Joanne Become a Drift Off Premium member today and receive: intro free listening to all episodes NO ADS or sponsorship announcements access 3 - 4 monthly bonus episodes Enjoy early access to my one early-release episode each month exclusive access to full length audiobooks for your enjoyment and relaxation *You can subscribe via Apple Podcasts OR using the link driftoff.supercast.comFeel free to drop by on the podcast website to learn more about it!https://www.driftoffpodcast.com Did you know you can also listen to my regular and premium bedtime stories on Insight Timer? It's a peaceful space for rest and relaxation. Also, for just $9.99/month, you'll get access to my premium stories plus meditations, music, and live sessions from other amazing teachers. https://insighttimer.com/relaxforawhile
Did an apparition of Jesus or Mary appear in the skies over Catholics in the Philippines? Sponsored by Pray Latinhttps://praylatin.comSources:https://www.returntotradition.orgContact Me:Email: return2catholictradition@gmail.comSupport My Work:Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/AnthonyStineSubscribeStarhttps://www.subscribestar.net/return-to-traditionBuy Me A Coffeehttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/AnthonyStinePhysical Mail:Anthony StinePO Box 3048Shawnee, OK74802Follow me on the following social media:https://www.facebook.com/ReturnToCatholicTradition/https://twitter.com/pontificatormax+JMJ+
Did an apparition of Jesus or Mary appear in the skies over Catholics in the Philippines? Sponsored by Pray Latinhttps://praylatin.comSources:https://www.returntotradition.orgContact Me:Email: return2catholictradition@gmail.comSupport My Work:Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/AnthonyStineSubscribeStarhttps://www.subscribestar.net/return-to-traditionBuy Me A Coffeehttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/AnthonyStinePhysical Mail:Anthony StinePO Box 3048Shawnee, OK74802Follow me on the following social media:https://www.facebook.com/ReturnToCatholicTradition/https://twitter.com/pontificatormax+JMJ+
Sometimes Dolores, being a bitch is all a drag queen has to hang on to. And this week, it's what it takes to both win the heart and bone of that guy from “Fire Island” and win a spot in the semifinals. While Ginger aptly fetches her third win, Daya finally stops begging Alyssa for a point and retrieves the second spot in the top. Acid and Alyssa are destined for the pound, but it's ultimately up to them to decide who gets rescued. Alas, being a queen's best friend pays off for Cynthia while Denali is kept on the leash, despite good behavior, with hopes of getting adopted at the finale. Become a Matreon at the Sister Mary level to get full access to bonus episodes including brackets, movie reviews and past seasons of US Drag Race, UK, Canada, Down Under, Espana, Global All Stars, Philippines and more.Join us at our OnlyMary's level for our recap of Season 5 of Drag Race plus even more movie reviews, brackets, and deep dives into our personal lives!Patreon: www.patreon.com/alrightmaryEmail: alrightmarypodcast@gmail.comInstagram: @alrightmarypodJohnny: @johnnyalso (Instagram)Colin: @colindrucker_ (Instagram)Web: www.alrightmary.com
Gracia and her husband are abducted and held for ransom by the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. Richard is attacked in his home by a masked intruder with a knife. Michelle is impaled by a branch while on a wilderness ride with her husband.Apartments.com - To find whatever you're searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.