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Text me your content win!Ever found yourself spiraling into perfectionism and letting a perfectly good idea sit in your drafts for way too long? Same. But today, I'm breaking down a major mindset shift I had... all thanks to painting the walls of my new apartment (yes, your girl has an actual address now—who knew?!).In this episode, I'm sharing the real, messy, imperfect metaphor that turned my content strategy mindset on its head: The First Coat Rule.  It's all about just getting it done and making it better later—because let's be honest, that draft sitting in your phone isn't helping anyone.Here's what we dive into:Why done is better than perfect when it comes to content creationHow overthinking kills momentum (and how to get it back)A little pep talk for my fellow people-pleasersWhy your content doesn't need to be a masterpiece to be profitableThe difference between real feedback and made-up problemsWhether you're a seasoned travel content creator or just getting started as a digital content creator, this episode is your permission slip to take messy action and build momentum. Because your audience doesn't care about perfect—they care about connection, consistency, and YOU showing up.

DAMIONThe next phase of Starbucks' turnaround plan is offering executives up to $6 million in stock grants, as baristas scrap to get annual raises above 2%Starbucks will reward company executives with up to $6 million in stock grants should they effectively fulfill cost-saving and timely rollout goals of the company's “Back to Starbucks” turnaround strategy. Starbucks Workers United representatives dubbed the move “ridiculous and irresponsible” amid contract negotiations over barista wages.WHO DO YOU BLAME?Double boomerang CEO and founder Howard Schultz1987-2000; 2008-2017; 2022-2023CEO and Chair Brian Niccol and his $113 million golden hello packageThe company's work-from-home policy which allows its CEO to work remotely from his home in Newport Beach, California, while the company's headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. As part of his employment agreement, Starbucks pays for him to travel between his home and the Seattle headquarters on the company's private jet.Former failure Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer who was appointed as a director to Starbucks 4 days before the announcement of the new retention awards. Compensation Committee chair Ritch Allison: The guy passes every pay plan for whoever; is the former CEO of Domino's Pizza so is here to enrich executives; and owns $3M is SBUX stock so doesn't really care: someone should be responsible for a CEO pay ratio of 6666:1Agios Appoints Dr. Jay Backstrom to Board of DirectorsJay Backstrom appointed as Class III director as of July 8, 2025, 20 days after the company held an election to appoint two Class III directors.WHO DO YOU BLAME?The top 4 institutional investors (35% of voting power):Farallon Capital 10% Vanguard 10%BlackRock 9% BB Biotech 6%The company's childish bylaws which separate directors into three classes that are voted on every three yearsFormer CEO Jacqualyn Fouse (23%) who stuck around to serve as board chair after being CEO for only 3 yearsNominating Committee chair and Lead independent director Kaye FosterEmasculated CEO Brian GOff (15%) who presides over a board with a +7% gender influence gapAn anti-DEI investment firm postponed its Tesla ETF, saying Elon Musk has 'gone too far' by launching a political partyWHO DO YOU BLAME?Its BS mission statement: “Azoria is an investment firm with the mission of compounding capital for investors through a commitment to free thinking, excellence, and meritocracy.”Wouldn't that include Elon?James T. Fishback, Founder and CEO of Azoria, a free-thinking investment firm“We have an anti-American subculture that cancels the science fair in favor of drag queen story hour, forces colleges to spend more time teaching micro-aggressions than microbiology, and teaches kids in America that Cardi B is a role model and Thomas Jefferson is a racist.”“Fishback will become a major Gen Z star in our pro-American movement.” — Vivek Ramaswamy, 2024 Presidential Candidate.“dropped out of Georgetown University to establish a hedge fund at 21 years old”Azoria partner Sol Ehrlich:“For my last day at Spectra, it's important that I share just how much this opportunity has meant to me. In June of 2023, I was a 28 year old mediocre Euro League baseball player with no job prospects outside of coaching. My only qualification to work in finance was my work ethic, which Brent Donnelly recognized when he met with me over Zoom and saw the litany of Post-It tabs I used to annotate his book”“It's with great excitement that I'll be taking this skillset to Azoria as a partner and its Head Trader- an opportunity I couldn't have imagined 18 months ago.”While the internet was introduced to James Fishback's talents this year, I've been aware of them since 2009 when we competed against each other in high school debate. (His meme game was A+ even then- I still remember him closing a speech on U.S. sanctions with 4 Russian leader puns.)”Me. Because somehow I'm connected to Fishback on linkedin.Greenlight Capital, for making James angry:In a lawsuit: “Greenlight Capital says James Fishback is a liar. The 29-year-old hedge fund manager and former employee, contrary to his own proclamations, was never “head of macro” at Greenlight, never had any “authority or discretion” over investments, and certainly wasn't responsible for an “insane” $100 million in profits as a mere research analyst. In fact, his contributions were so not “insane” that the hedge fund was about to fire him before he chose to leave of his own accord.”Greenlight's alleged former head of macro is hoping to get at least $5 million from David Einhorn, claiming age discrimination"Mr. Einhorn dismissively told Mr. Fishback that his compensation was 'a lot of money for a kid,'" the filing states, and Fishback argues the comment "demonstrates that Defendants' decision about Mr. Fishback's compensation was driven largely by his age — a protected characteristic."Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire's Mamdani commentsMaguire, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, posted on X over the weekend that Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani “comes from a culture that lies about everything.”WHO DO YOU BLAME?Shaun Maguire: “My whole life I've sought out people that I think are really talented but a little bit off the radar.”Shaun Maguire: “[E]ven more important to me is someone that's just irrationally motivated. For whatever reason, it's their life mission to try to revolutionize the industry they're going after.”Shaun Maguire: “Should I go public with the story about the time I was told I can't be promoted for being a white man? Fuck it, This happened at Google. That company is an absolute trash can dumspeter fire.”Sequoia Capital: for proudly endorsing some of its most insipid founders: Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Vlad Tenev (Robinhood, online betting on stocks), Keller Rinaudo (Zipline, autonomous delivery), Winston Weinberg (Harvey, AI for lawfirms), Brian Chesky (Airbnb, rent killer)MATTForward Air, after their AGM battle with Ancora, still hasn't released their 8K after a MONTH despite Ancora announcing it was a “landslide” directly afterWHO DO YOU BLAME for not releasing an 8k?Charles Anderson, Robert Edwards Jr, Michael Hodge who own roughly 25% of the voting power, even if FF data doesn't properly show them as having all the influence on the boardAncora, who just couldn't help but IMMEDIATELY put out a press release stating: “Absent the more than 30% of shares that were legally committed to vote for the incumbent Board, Chairman George Mayes, Jr., Javier Polit, and Laurie Tucker lost in a landslide, highlighting the substantial level of concern regarding the legitimacy of the Board's strategic review. We believe the resignations of these legacy directors will empower the Board to carry out a thorough assessment of value-maximizing opportunities.”Christine Gorjanc, chair of the audit committee, who was chair of the audit committee at Invitae from 2015 to 2024 when it declared bankruptcy despite getting her degree in accounting and a MS in “taxation”Michael L. Hance, chief counsel who also holds a masters in Divinity, who couldn't find the “submit” button on his iPhoneNo, Carnival Cruises is not banning rap musicCarnival Cruise Lines denied reports circulating online that DJs aren't playing hip-hop.The cruise line has responded to claims circulating online that DJs aren't including hip-hop music in their sets or honoring song requests, with some social media users saying the alleged move is racially motivated.WHO DO YOU BLAME for this malicious rumor?Carnival's ZERO BLACK leadership team, lead by Mickey Arison - they do have two Hispanic men, Enrique Miguez (General Counsel) and Gustavo Antorcha (President of Princess Cruises), but it's balanced out by the Scandinavian (Lars Ljoen, Chief Maritime Officer) and other Euro men (Felix Eichhorn, Paul Ludlow)Carnival's Board of Directors, which has 11 members and is 91% white, with one black woman, Nelda Connors. Nelda's background is in hydraulics and metals with a degree in mechanical engineering, so she's probably too “nerdy” for rap anywayChristine Duffy, the head of Carnival Cruises, whose prior role was President of the Cruise Lines International Association which put out a report in 2008 showing that 93% of cruise passengers were white, and in 2025 said that 1 in 4 passengers came from either Texas or Florida. Duffy grew up in Northwood Philadelphia, which in 1950 was three quarters white but by 2020 is 93% black.Thinking hip hop is “black music”DAMIONPeople are boycotting Etsy over ‘Alligator Alcatraz' merchCalls to boycott Etsy are growing since “Alligator Alcatraz” merch popped up on its marketplace. The term refers to the Trump administration's new migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades.WHO DO YOU BLAME?The 48% influence duo: CEO Josh Silverman (25%) and longest-tenured director (2007): Board Chair and Nominating Committee chair Fred Wilson (23%)The -13% gender influence gap at a company where: “approximately 80% of Etsy's buyers and sellers are women.Leadership is 6 men and 2 women, one of who is CHROThe company's dumb classified board structureThis year's 3 directors: 24%, 28%, 22% againstTokens to Access Private Companies, or to Investor Trouble?Robinhood is the latest to offer investors a novel, and potentially risky, investment opportunity: crypto that's meant to give exposure to the likes of OpenAI.WHO DO YOU BLAME?CEO/founder/Chair Vladimir Tenev: 47% influence; 24% voting power Baiju Bhatt: 37% influence; 36% voting powerThe pesky Class B share: for being worth ten votes per shareThe non-democratic Founders' Voting Agreement: Our Co-Founders have agreed: “to vote all of their shares in favor of the election of each Co-Founder”Lead Independent Director Jonathan Rubinstein: for being the most pointless Lead Independent Director of all time: Lead Independent Director at Robinhood since 2021 and Lead Independent Director at Amazon.com from 2017-2023OpenAI Says It's Hired a Forensic Psychiatrist as Its Users Keep Sliding Into Mental Health Crises"We're developing ways to scientifically measure how ChatGPT's behavior might affect people emotionally."WHO DO YOU BLAME?Sam AltmanBret Taylor (Chair)Sam AltmanMatt: AI itself for being a jerk

This episode? I'm obsessed.Kelsey Cook is a certified teacher, entrepreneur, and mom of four who built a nationwide subscription box business that now ships over 14,000 boxes a month. And she started it while raising her kids and running a preschool... all during nap time.In this episode, we talk about what it really looks like to start a business as a stay-at-home mom, how to grow something meaningful without burning out, and why starting small is sometimes the smartest strategy of all.Here's what you'll hear:How a few preschool packets on her porch turned into a full-blown subscription box businessWhat made her say yes to launching before she felt “ready”How she balanced building a brand while raising four young kidsThe real reason parents love her boxes (hint: it's not just the activities)The mindset shifts that helped her stop overthinking and start scalingThis is the episode for every mom sitting on a business idea but feeling like there's no time, no space, and no way to make it happen. Kelsey proves it's possible to build a business that works with motherhood, not against it.

Quaranteam – Book 1: Part 22 Andy answers the ladies most vulnerable concerns.. Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. "So why me, huh?" Sarah asked her. "Why'd'ja choose me to play with you and Andy?" Piper bit her bottom lip, as if she was a tad nervous, before she shyly looked up at Sarah. "'Cause I'm kinda turned on with how you talk, Sarah, and I was kinda hoping you could talk to me that way while I was trying to make our man happy?" Despite all the massive confidence he'd seen Piper bearing almost the entire time he'd known her, she seemed almost nervous that Sarah would consider turning her down, as if her voiced desire was a step too far beyond the pale. Sarah licked her lips as her eyes widened. "I will totally fucking do that as long as you agree to just one fucking condition. If you don't, well, I can just go upstairs and leave you two to it." Andy was about to ask, but Piper beat him to it. "What condition is that?" "You can't, like, get fucking mad at me for anything I say, or anything I call you. 'Cause if I'm gonna fucking do this, then I'm gonna fucking do this, and I can't be all in my fucking head about you thinking I'm being mean or rude or shit. So you can't be all pissed off that I call you dirty things if you're fucking asking me to talk fucking dirty to you," Sarah giggled. "That cool, bitch?" "Not only do I promise not to get mad, Sares," Piper said to her. "I promise to like it." Sarah nodded. "Good, then why the fuck aren't you on top of that cock already?" Piper pursed her lips into a smile. "I was waiting for you to tell me I could, Andy." Sarah's hand swatted over and spanked Piper's ass with a loud smack. "He shouldn't have to tell you, you daft bitch. You wanted to fuck him, he totally didn't say 'not now' or some shit, so that means fucking time is on!" In the middle of Sarah's sentence, Piper reached down to grab his cock and get it aligned so she could slide right down onto it, straddling him to get his cock as deep inside of her as she could, her other hand resting on his shoulder. "That's a good girl," Sarah purred. "Don't you feel so much better without an empty cunt, you athletic slut you?" Piper nodded, leaning over to kiss Sarah again, although Sarah pushed her back after a few seconds, clearly intent on keeping her mouth free so she could talk to her. "I've had like a dozen partners, and not one of them made me feel like Andy does," Piper said, looking at Sarah's face. Sarah slapped Piper's ass again, this time even harder. "So why are you fucking telling me, bitch? Am I the one whose cock is jammed up your stupid snatch?" Piper moaned as Sarah's fingernails dragged against that reddening flesh, shaking her head, turning to look at Andy. "You feel so fucking good inside of me, Andy," she said to him. "Thank you for taking me in." On 'in,' she bounced down hard in his lap. "Thank you for saving my friend." On 'friend,' she did it again. "It's a shame you're on fucking birth control," Sarah teased, "because these are fucking breeding hips, and you'd look super fucking cute with a baby bump, but I guess you need to go and win your gold medal before we can talk about getting you bred like a proper bitch." Piper's tongue swiped out over her own lips, as she nodded. "I'll do it eventually," she said eagerly. "I'll happily bear your child, Andy, but I gotta do the Olympics first, to prove to myself that I can really do it." "You don't  " Andy started but Piper kissed him once more, jamming her tongue into his mouth sloppily, making sure to silence him. "Hmm, I think she likes the idea of you fucking breeding her, Andy," Sarah said with a laugh. "The idea of you pumping her fucking cunt so full of fuck cream that it's practically oozing out of her, so messy and sloppy, like a good little whore. You like that image don't you, Pipes?" The athletic brunette nodded quickly. "I do I do I fucking do so fucking much," she panted, as Sarah reached one of her hands in to pinch one of Piper's tan nipples firmly, giving it a twist, which made the girl groan huskily. "And yet, you're still fucking holding back," Sarah scolded. "You gotta fucking give in like a good girl, otherwise you won't get what you fucking what, what I know you think you fucking deserve, but you don't deserve it until you've ditched all those fucking fears and embraced who the fuck you are from now on." She gave Piper's ass another hard smack before sliding her hand around the athlete's waist, moving her thumb down to rub against Piper's clit, as Andy felt her start to tighten up even more around his shaft. "But I bet, I just fucking bet, that if you just let it out, let it all fucking out, you'd feel fucking better, and you'd get what a good bitch deserves." "Fuck, Sarah, you're so fucking good with those fingers," Piper whimpered. "Damn fucking straight I am," Sarah said. "But I'm gonna stop if you don't cut loose." "I'm, I'm fucking scared," Piper whispered quietly. "We all were, Pipes, but you learn to fucking let go and trust, not just in Andy but in the family, in all the fucking rest of us, that we've got your fucking back, that we're gonna fucking take care of you, so either you're fucking in or you're out, what's it gonna be, bitch?" "I'm in,” she cried, her voice shredded and frantic, clearly about to have an immense orgasm. "I'm in I'm in I'm so fucking in,” "Not fucking yet you aren't," Sarah said harshly. "Gotta let that last fucking guard down, gotta let that last fucking truth out. You'll feel better, bitch, but you gotta fucking say it,” "Andy Rook, I fucking love you!" Piper shouted before she kissed him hard, and she started to have a monstrous orgasm, her whole body violently trembling, and the spasms of her cunt around his cock forced his own release, as he started spewing arcing loads of steaming jism inside of her, the two of them locked together on top and bottom, the intensity of the orgasm cratering them out. As soon as it had passed, Piper buried her face into Andy's neck, laughing a little bit even as he could feel her eyes watering, tears of joy slipping from her face. "I thought I'd never say that to another person as long as I fucking lived," she whispered against his skin, "but I do, I fucking love you, Andy Rook." "And I love you too, Piper Brown," he said, stroking her hair with one hand, his other intertwined with Sarah's. They stayed like that for a minute or so before Piper started to giggle, turning to look over at Sarah. "I don't know how you do it," she said to the tall redhead, "sitting there watching and not demanding to get involved." "Oh I'm happy enough to wait my fucking turn," Sarah giggled. "But pretty quick Imma need you to get off of him so I can fucking get off." Piper's giggle burst from her as she nodded then leaned over to kiss Sarah. "Thank you for that," she told her. "I hate having to ask for help." "That's what family's for," Sarah answered. "But get a little, give a little, so Imma also need you to help me out here." The brunette climbed from his lap, and his cock was absolutely soaked with their juices, and while he was starting to soften, that feral look in Sarah's eyes told him he wasn't done yet, and made him begin to stiffen up again. "Whatever you need, Sares," Piper said, "I got you, boo." "I'll just need a helping hand," Sarah said, getting up off the couch. Andy tried to get up as well, but Sarah shoved him back down once more. "Who told you you could fucking get up?" she giggled. "I need you to stay there and let me run the fucking show this time, 'cause I'm a little fucking nervous, and I want to have the fucking control to do this how I think fucking feels right. I hope that's fucking okay with you, because if it isn't, well, I don't fucking care, now, do I?" Andy wasn't entirely sure what Sarah had in mind, as she turned away from him and moved to straddle his legs, but very quickly, it dawned on him what she was doing. "I can't fucking believe Emily did this shit before I did," Sarah said, reaching one hand back to grab his cock. Her position had her legs spread wide, as she moved to rub the tip of his cock along her cunt before dragging it downward, nestling it against the rosebud of her asshole. "Had to be fucking first to something, I guess." He could feel the tall woman getting his cock aligned right and then slowly started sitting down on it, his shaft pulsing in excitement as he felt her body, tight and a little unprepared, try and resist his cock's entrance before she finally seemed to lose patience with her own hole, as she pushed down to get the head of his cock inside of her ass. Her head leaned back, her eyes looking up at the ceiling, as a guttural, almost paleolithic, moan of pain and pleasure boiled out of her. "Fuck that's fucking big that's big holy fucking shit balls that's a big fat fucking cock and it's fucking going up my fucking ass oh my fucking God what the fuck am I doing?" "We can stop if  "   Sarah looked back over her shoulder at Andy with a wildness in her eyes that he'd never seen before, a deranged grin on her face. "Stop? Are you out of your fucking mind? This is the greatest fucking feeling I've ever fucking felt in my fucking life! Why the fuck would I want you to fucking stop?! I want fucking all of it!" she said to him as she pushed herself down onto his cock until he was buried as deeply as he could get inside of her backdoor, the tall girl's skin covered with a layer of goosebumps that made the fine red hairs of her arms stand on end, her body vibrating in orgasm as she did. "Jesus Fucking Christ, I feel like such an utter fucking whore and I fucking love it! You've got that big fucking cock jammed right up my fucking virgin asshole and it made me fucking cum just going the fuck in, so now you gotta fuck me or I gotta fuck you but somebody's gotta fuck somebody right the fuck now!" Piper had sort of been standing off to the side a little bit, and one of Sarah's hands shot up and grabbed one of the brunette's wrists, yanking her close. "Er, what, what am I supposed to be doing here, Sarah?" "You can fucking rub or you can fucking lick, but you gotta fucking work that fucking clit of mine while he's fucking my ass, so get fucking to it!" she barked, and the commanding tone to her voice made it clear the actress was not asking for input on the matter. The tanned athlete took one of her hands timidly down to rub against Sarah's cunt before moving to stroke her clit, as Sarah began to bounce up and down in his lap, one hand on the arm of the couch, the other on Andy's hip. In this position, Sarah had completely control of the tempo and the force with which she slid her ass down onto his cock, something he'd expected her to use to keep it slow and tender, but instead, Sarah was practically trying to break the couch, slamming her ass down into his lap as hard as she cold each time, while Piper was caressing her clit. "Fuck that's so fucking good oh my god why didn't I ever get fucked in the ass before I love this so fucking much but it's all your ass, Andy, Daddy, it's only ever your fucking ass, you're the only one to ever fuck me this way, and I fucking love that and I keep God! I keep fucking cumming over and over again, so please Daddy, please please please cum in my fucking virgin ass and let me fucking feel it, let me feel you own the last fucking bit of me no man's ever had, because I don't need any other fucking man but you because I fucking love the ever loving shit out of you you big cocked motherfucker you hear me I fucking love you Andy so fucking cum, cum right the fuck up my ass! Fuck! Fuck! Muph!" She leaned her head back at the end onto his shoulder, craning her neck so that she could jam her lips against his, as he felt Piper's other hand cradling his balls, squeezing them gently, and the sensations were all too much, as his body let loose another orgasm, flooding Sarah's rectum with a gusher of an orgasm as their tongues clung to each other before they both slumped back, his back against the couch, her back against his chest, both of them nearly too exhausted to move. Huginn, who had remained completely undisturbed by all of this, finally had had enough, and the black cat got up and hopped down the couch, moving to a different unoccupied couch, hopping back up, curling into a ball and settling down once more, a perturbed look on his face. Then Sarah began to feverishly giggle, waves of curved red hair over her face before she pushed them out. "Em was fucking right. That was totally fucking amazeballs. Thanks Pipes." Piper winked a little bit as she pushed a fingertip inside of Sarah's cunt, causing the actress to gasp a little bit in surprise before Piper slid the finger back out, lifting it up to her lips, licking it in front of the two of them. "We're definitely gonna need a shower before we get into bed," she said, and they all laughed at that. Chapter 38 In a rather unusual turn of events, Andy woke the next morning on November 18th to an empty bed. It wasn't uncommon for him to awake with only a couple of the girls still in bed asleep with him, but a totally empty bed was almost an unheard of experience at this point. He glanced at his Apple Watch and saw that it was around 10:30, which meant he'd definitely slept in a bit. Like most writers, Andy was generally a nocturnal creature, staying up late and getting up late, which had put his schedule at odds with some members of the family, but they'd mostly learned to make it work. He slipped on some boxers, pulled on his jeans and tugged on a t shirt,  this particular one a gift from some fantasy convention he'd been a guest speaker at,  and headed over to the balcony, stepping out onto it with a smirk. Down at the pool, most of the girls were nearly finishing their morning work out, being led by Sheridan, a sea of sports bras and yoga pants, doing the last part of their high intensity section of the workout, and Andy could vaguely hear Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" being played from a portable speaker near them. (Andy still wasn't sure which bothered him more, the fact that they were listening to Vanilla Ice or the fact that Vanilla Ice opened that song with "Stop! Collaborate and listen!" and yet there were no signs of any collaboration going on. In fact, it didn't seem like Ice understood what the word collaborate meant. The writer in him just couldn't bear it.) Lauren and Taylor weren't there as he expected they'd gone in to work today, especially since it was Taylor's first day of working in months. He hoped that she fit in well with the 49ers organization, but at this point, he wasn't entirely even sure who was working there. Niko also wasn't working out as he figured she'd gone to work at the base today. He wasn't sure what her schedule was like these days so he trusted her to let him know when she was coming and going and when it would be important for him to know. She was more than capable enough to manage her own schedule. It was nice to spot that both Fiona and Moira were in the group, between Ash and Sarah in the front row of three, and both seemed to be in good spirits. Moira's unruly mass of red curls had been braided into a tightly woven tail that whipped behind her as she danced to the beat of the music, occasionally slapping against either Fi or Sarah, both of whom laughed wildly when it did. It made Moira look a little like a redheaded version of the original polygon model of Tomb Raider, now that he thought about it. The weather was still mostly overcast, and it looked like rain might even be on the schedule for later in the day, something he didn't mind one bit. California had mostly been in a drought for years, and any rain the state could get was seen as a blessing, particularly since they now lived in more densely wooded areas. The last thing Andy wanted was a wild fire to take his new home. He leaned against the railing, just enjoying looking over both the estate and his family before Sheridan finally spotted him up on the higher floor balcony as the song came to an end. She pointed to Andy to draw the girls' attention to him, as all of them turned to look at him. The words were out of his mouth before he even knew he was saying them. "Good morning, angels," he shouted to them. "Good morning Andy!" they shot back in matching cadence. "You know, you really ought to join us some mornings, Andrew," Emily teased politely. "Hmm. I'd be worried about making a fool of myself." "I can make sure we don't overwhelm you on your first work out, dude," Sheridan said to him with a wink and a grin. "Let's give it a go tomorrow, 'kay?" Andy groaned a little bit. "God help me. Okay, I'll give it a try, but no making fun of me!" All the girls made various catty comments and gestures as he rolled his eyes and headed back into the house. He had a little bit before any of them were back inside anyway, even if they were finished with their workout. While the pool house was being converted into Tala's workshop, it still had a large group shower room, and the girls tended to go and cool down in there before splitting off afterwards. A few of them would go and shower in their own individual bathrooms, but the majority of them enjoyed the communal experience, as it let them all continue to get to know each other. Andy headed down to the kitchen and found that Jenny had made him a mini breakfast burrito that was waiting with a glass of pineapple juice on the little kitchen island, Katie also sort of milling around the room as both women bowed to him when he entered. He'd tried to get them to stop doing that, but he'd learned that attempting to discourage his staff of anything generally only resulted in them doing it even more than they were originally, so he was trying a new tactic now,  let them burn themselves out on it and hope they'd stop on their own. "Enjoy your breakfast, sir!" Jenny said, moving around the counter before dropping down onto her knees. "I know I'll enjoy mine!" Her fingertips unbuttoned Andy's jeans and he was thankful he hadn't put on a belt this morning, as Jenny began to lick and suck on his cock, slowly running her tongue along it while her wife watched on, although there was an unusual expression on Katie's face, something Andy wasn't quite sure of. "What's on your mind, Katie?" he said, feeling Jenny's lips slowly push down around his length. They had told him before that they wanted to make getting their needed dose as low impact for him as possible, and had stressed that they enjoyed this sort of casual acquisition. "You look like you're worried about something." The Hispanic girl sighed and nodded. "I, I wanted to discuss something with you, sir, but I wasn't sure quite how to bring it up. Shit, I'm nervous even thinking about it now." Andy nodded, chewing a mouthful of his food before taking a sip from the glass to wash it down. "Look, you don't have to tell me anything, Katie, but if something's on your mind, you'll probably feel better if you just get it out of your head. No matter how much worse you think it'll be if you say it, letting it rattle around your brain like a cage full of bees is only going to be worse." "I suppose that's fair, sir," Katie said, chewing on her finger nervously. "It's just, this isn't the sort of thing I thought I'd ever say, sir, and it makes me feel strange. I think it's probably just part of whatever the treatment's doing to me, but it's, it feels like it's both a part of me and not a part of me, you know? Like some part of me I didn't know about but was lingering in the dark shadows of my mind the whole time?" Andy frowned a little. "No, I can't say I do know what you're talking about." Jenny's mouth popped off his cock as she made an exasperated noise from his waistline. "Uuuugh! Just tell him already!" she said, frustration in her voice, before she pushed her lips back down around his cock once more. "Sir, I think, I think I'd like for you to fuck me, maybe just the once, maybe just to see if maybe I might like it," Katie said, her voice sounded terrified that he would reject her or yell at her. "I mean, I don't have a problem with if both of you don't, but you certainly needn't do it on my behalf, Katie," Andy told her, as Jenny started to suck harder, as if to pull the resistance out of him. "You made it very clear to me when I arrived that you were a lesbian, though, and I wouldn't dream of asking you to change that." Katie threw her hands up, her eyes widening a little bit, almost in shock at herself. "That's just it! I am! I know I am! I've always thought girls were the only sexy things in the world! The idea of being with dudes just made me uneasy! I imagine I felt about guys the same way you feel about guys,  I don't want to be with that!" "Then why  " "I don't know, alright?! I don't fucking get it! Thinking about any other man just makes my stomach all queasy and nauseous, but the last few weeks, when I've been thinking about what it looks like when I see you fucking Jenny, I don't feel like I do when I think about any other man, and I don't understand what's going on!" The woman looked like she was about to cry, and Andy reached over and grabbed her hand, pulling her over towards him, his fingertips curling around hers. "I am never going to make you do anything you don't want to do, Katie," he said sternly. "But they did tell us that the serum was going to have some side effects, and that it was likely going to make some physiological changes to our bodies, some foreseen and some unforeseen." Jenny had eased off the speed of the blowjob a bit, but hadn't stopped entirely. "If you want to try actual sex with me, I'm not opposed to that, but  " "But you don't want me to think I'm doing it on your account. I'm not, sir, I assure you! I don't even know where these thoughts are coming from, but I told Jenny about a week ago, I had a sex dream with you in it, and we were fucking, and in the dream, it seemed like I liked it quite a lot," Katie sighed. "I know that doesn't necessarily mean anything,” "They say sex dreams generally aren't about sex." "But, but when you were taking Whitney the other day? I found myself getting wet, thinking about what it would be like, what it would be like to be her, to be getting fucked by you, and, and I think I want to try that at some point, not the tying up or collaring or anything but, but I think I'd like for you to fuck me once, just to see, just to see if I really do feel differently about you than I do all the other men in the world,” "And you're okay with this, Jenny?" he said, reaching down to stroke Jenny's hair back. Jenny nodded, popping her lips off his cock with a loud smack. "I still want both of us to be there any time you dose either of us, sir, but if this is a thing she wants to try, well, it would be unfairly judgmental of me to fuck you myself and not allow her to do so as well. 'Sides, she told me about these feelings long before she told you, and that's all that really matters." She smiled at him kindly, then lowered her lips back down around his shaft once more, her eyes still looking up at when she did. "Then it's fine with me, Katie," he said, looking back at the Hispanic woman, one of her hands being held by him, the other being held by Jenny from below. "Thank you, sir," Katie said. "For being willing to do that with me, and for not judging me because of it." "Katie, look. If you want to try it, that's fine. If you try it and you don't like it, that's fine. If you try and do like it and want it more regularly, that's fine. If you change your mind right before we're about to do it, that's fine. Whatever you want here, it's fine. I just want you to be satisfied with whatever decision you made, and I want it made because it's what you want, and not what you think I want, okay? I am surrounded by beautiful women, and I'm just trying to do everything I can to do right by all of you. So whatever you want, you just need to tell me." She nodded, before looking down with a smile. "You were taking your time because I was talking to him, weren't you, Jen?" The curvy girl between his legs giggled a little and nodded, then started thrusting her face into his lap faster and more intently, and Andy could feel that release building up inside of him, even as he finished the last bite of breakfast. He was more than a little taken back when Katie leaned in and whispered into his ear, "My wife's such a good little cocksucker, isn't she? Give us our breakfast, Master, that fucking load of hot cum right into her fucking mouth." The unexpected words made his cock throb and finally he pumped a few squirts of his cum into Jenny's mouth, as she shuddered at his feet. The woman kept her lips sealed just past the head of his cock while her fingers jerked along the rest of his length, making sure to milk out the last of it before she pulled her head back, keeping her lips pursed together before standing up and immediately kissing Katie, swapping that cum between them, Katie's form trembling as she leaned against Jenny, the Latina being held up by her wife for just a moment until the orgasm passed. Both women pulled from the kiss, licking each others lips for just a moment before turning to look over at Andy, almost as if they were ready for a second course right now. Katie winked at him. "You know, I know it's all chemical, but dios mio if that orgasm from tasting your cum doesn't leave one sweet ass high,” Jenny moved to tuck his cock back into his pants, zipping them back up and buttoning them, as she glanced over at Katie. "Don't forget to update the Needs Board, hun," she told her wife, who nodded in response. "Got it, babe. Anyway, sir, let me think about it, but next time, I think I'd like you to fuck Jenny with me there, and then fuck me with Jenny there, so I have some time to let it settle in my brain that I'm going to go through with it," Katie said to him. "You know, actually fucking a dude." "Whatever you want, Katie." "Thank you, sir. Oh, don't forget, you have a phone meeting at 2 with that director candidate, Erica Xiao." He nodded. "Good. Yes. Thank you for reminding me. I might have forgotten if you hadn't." Jenny snickered a little. "Em would've had your balls if you had." "She's got them anyway," Katie shot back. Andy arched an eyebrow at them. "Don't you two start." He drank the last of his pineapple juice then pushed the plate forward. "Thanks Jenny, for everything. I'm going to head to my office. Maybe send down lunch a little after one." "Yes sir. Also, don't forget that Miss Steele will be here sometime today." "Oh right," Andy said, chuckling. "Sometimes everything gets so busy, I can barely remember my own name, much less who's coming and going. Katie, can you set up a large portion of the back yard to fence off, so that Maya's dogs will have a place to run and play without us worrying about them getting into the pool if she wants to leave them outside?" "Miss Steele's got dogs?" Katie said, groaning. "Great. Now I get to start having to watch the backyard for landmines." "That's why I was thinking if we gave them their own area that's fenced off, at least we'd have it clearly marked that it's the part of the yard with occasional hazards, although Sarah insisted that Maya is known to always clean up after her dogs. Maybe put a bin outside for her to toss them all?" Katie nodded. "I can spend the day prepping the yard so we're not all worried about stepping in dog shit when we're walking in the grass." "Good on you." "Did Miss Washington said what kinds of dogs they were, sir?" Jenny asked. "Pomeranians, I think," Andy said. "Those aren't dogs, those are animated dustmops," Katie said with an amused snort. "And here I was worried they would be Saint Bernards or Rottweilers." As he headed down to his office, he was starting to run through the checklist of things he needed to do today in his head. He definitely wanted to talk to Moira now that she was up, but he figured he would let her come to him in her own time, as it had been so long since they'd really talked to one another. He would need to pair with Maya when she arrived, and he also needed to check on Lexi and see how she was doing. As much as he wanted to head over to Xander's and see his friend's new house and meet all the rest of his partners, Xander had asked him to wait until the weekend, so he would have more of a chance to get settled, both into the house and into the household. He was almost at the door of his office when his iPhone began to ring, and he fished it out of his pocket, surprised to see Phil The Younger a.k.a. Lesser Phil a.k.a. Phil Pak (not Phil Marcos), on the screen, as he answered it. "Heya man, long time no talk!" Andy said to him. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" "Nothing good I'm afraid," Lesser Phil sighed. "I'm not going to be able to make poker night on Friday. In fact, I may not be able to make poker night for a while, I'm afraid." "That sucks man. What's going on?" "Well, me and the family were relocated, so we're quite a bit further from you now, and the place where we're at is very strict on quarantine procedures, so if we came and saw you and the rest of the gang for poker, we'd have to quarantine for a week before we would be allowed back in to our house, so while we'll try and do it a couple of times a year, for the foreseeable future, it's probably off the table." "Where's they move you to that's got such strict guidelines?" "They're calling the place Valhalla Shores. They decided that they didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket and have New Eden be the only place for Level Fives in the Bay area, so they built a new one over closer to the coast. We're where Pacifica used to be, basically, although I think they tore almost all the old city down and put up this place, like a giant gated mansion community. It's a little snobby for my liking, personally, but you know how Brandy has always been in terms of keeping up with Joneses, so when the NSA offered to move us over to here, she made me jump on it immediately. It's mostly just spooks and techbros over here," he sighed. "You'd fucking hate it. I know I do, but it keeps peace in my household, and that's about all I can ask." "Wait, techbros and spies crossbreeding? That sounds like a horrible idea, like, just the worst. On the other hand, if your quarantine protocols are that strict, it might mean I never have to deal with techbros again, and that might make the whole thing absolutely worth while. Hey, can I recommend a couple of cockish investors over here in New Eden to get transferred over there?" Phil the Younger laughed. "You fuckin' wish, dude. Whole place is fucking creepy anyway. Brandy says some of the women are kind of Stepford ish, and she feels like they're definitely an in crowd and an out crowd and she has zero interest in joining the in crowd. They keep trying to get her to join one of their hot yoga classes, but she said they'd have to break her legs to get her to do that shit. I hope she was being figurative, but you know Brandy." "That I do. Well, we'll miss seeing you guys, but I get it. You're doing what you have to do to keep your family safe and sound. Keep us posted, but I appreciate you calling to tell me personally." "Copy that, man," he said. "See you on the other side." After Lesser Phil had hung up, Andy wondered how many actual community hubs had formed in the Bay area since the cultural rebuilding had started. He also wondered how hard it would be for him or any members of his family to leave New Eden, even for a short while. He'd been craving an animal style In N Out burger for nearly a year now, and while he could ask Jenny to make something equivalent, there was nothing quite like having the real deal. He was certain Niko would know what the current entrance/exit policy for New Eden was, and he resolved to ask her when he saw her. It couldn't be that strict, he realized, because Lauren had been coming and going to the training camp for over a week now. Maybe he could just get in the Tesla and drive down to an In N Out, assuming he could find one that was open. When he walked into his office, he saw that his two cats, Muninn and Huginn, were curled together in a bundle in his writing chair, the two forming a sort of gray black yin yang symbol. Also, as promised, atop of his desk was a brand new laptop, a silver MacBook, with a Post It note on top of it. It was from Whitney (he could recognize her meticulous handwriting) and said "Try it. If you hate it, we'll get something different. “w" As much as he wanted to move the two cats so he could sit down in the chair where he got his best work done, he decided it was okay to sit at the desk for a while, even though it felt way more formal, although he realized he wasn't doing much creative today, mostly just the assorted busywork that sprung up around the actual creative process. The new laptop was set up with access to his emails and had all of his writing transferred onto it, so he could consult back to other things as he started answering questions from his agent and his editor, losing an hour or so before there was a knock at the door. "Come on in," he said. The door opened and Moira and Fiona slipped in together, closing the door behind them. All of their possessions clearly hadn't arrived from cross country yet, because he noticed each of them was wearing one of his t shirts, the fabric hanging big and loose over them like an overcoat. Moira had on one of his Biffy Clyro shirts, which he found fitting, whereas Fiona had clearly dived way back into the depths of his closet and was wearing a Gin Blossoms t shirt. "It's good ta see ya again, Andrew," Moira said shyly, smiling across the room at him. "I've missed ye something fierce." "How are you feeling, Moira? I knew the serum can react strangely to people who've had complicated medical history, and I imagine dengue fever isn't the only strange bug you've picked up over your wild and crazy life." "I cannae tell ye how great I feel, Andrew," she said, starting to move across the room to him. "An' how thankful I am ye trusted Fi enough t' let her bring me in wit' her. Yer, nae mad, are ye?" He shook his head. "Look, Moira. We had a wonderful time together, but that was decades ago. But I've always trusted Fi, and if you and her were together before now, there's no reason any of that should change." "Of course it'll have t' change, ye big dummy," she giggled. "Ye know she's always loved ye, ye daft shite? E'en when I came inta her life, that has nae changed." "Except she's changed and I've changed, so maybe it has changed too." "You haven't changed that much, Andy," Fi said, "and neither have I. You still trusted me enough to offer me a place in your family, even when I had a condition I wouldn't tell you about." "Were ye surprised when ye saw me?" Moira asked him. "Well, I'd figured it out before I saw you. I figured it out as soon as I heard your voice, and that let me put two and two together. But I was very surprised when I heard your voice, yeah." "Surprised inna good way, I kin hope?" "Naturally, although I was hoping you were going to be happy with me, even with the weight I've put on and the hair I've lost," he chuckled. "I think ye look sexy, ya galoot," Moira twittered. "Hold me hands, Fi. It's all I kin do t' keep from havin' a crack at him right now." Fiona wrapped her arms around Moira's waist, shaking her head. "He's not going anywhere, Moira," she said with a kind ease. "Aye, an' neither are we, an' I don' wannae be too far behind the other gare ruls, an' two of 'em are already in th' lead." "One day at a time, love. One day at a time." "You two want to sit and have a chat?" Andy said. On the other side of his desk were two chairs, so he could entertain meetings in here if he needed, although the chairs held the cats more often than they held people. "Oh aye, let's have a chinwaggle," Moira said, slipping from Fiona's arms, moving over towards Andy's desk, but instead of moving to sit in one of the chairs across the desk, she moved to slide herself up and into his lap, her legs dangling over one of the arms of the chair. Fi then moved across the room, and moved his laptop to one side, so she could scoot her ass up and onto his desk directly in front of him, making sure not to knock anything off. "So tell m  " he started to say before Moira leaned in and kissed him hard, her body light in his lap, but the strength with which she pulled his lips onto her own was more than a bit forceful. "I bloody love ye, Andy," Moira said to him. "And Jaysis, do you smell fookin' amazin'." Andy grinned a bit, arching an eyebrow. "Sounds like you may have picked up a little bit of Piper's superpower along the way. I wonder if that's a side effect of the dengue fever antibodies you have in your system." "I cannae tell ye where it comes from, but Jaysis, you smell better'n any meal I've ever eaten in me life. I want ta breathe ye all day long,” She buried her face against the nape of his neck, as he looked to Fiona for sympathy, but saw only mirth on her face. "So, Moira, tell me what you've been up to since we last saw each other." "School," she said, pronouncing the word like 'skoo will,' "then more school, then residency, then Doctors Without Borders, at least until I ran in ta Fi again in DC. It's no tha' excitin'." "Doctors Without Borders, tending to patients in the middle of warzones? That's the absolute definition of exciting to me." "Then you're a fool," she giggled. "I mean, yeh, I was shot at now an' again, but that's a part o' life anyway, isn't it? I was tendin' to kids who needed doctors, an' while I loved tha' work, when I shacked up with Fi again, she wanted me to be safer, wha'ever th' hell tha' means." "It means you're saving lives without people trying to take yours, Mo," Fiona scolded, kicking the Scottish lass with the tip of her leather boot. "She's still undecided whether she wants to take up private practice here in New Eden, or if she wants to go and work in the hospital they're finishing up alongside the base." "In a few years, anyway," Moira said. "After I've given ye a son." Andy's head leaned back a little bit. "Little early to be thinking about stuff like that, isn't it, Moira?" "Like hell, Andy," Moira said, pulling her face back from his neck so she could look him in the eyes again. "You," she said, tapping his chest with a fingertip, "need children. I," she continued, tapping her own, "want tae have one or two before I get back to the medical life. So all we're doin' is just wastin' fookin' time until you get me ripe." "You still don't need to rush right into it, Moira," Andy said, stroking his fingertips against the back of her neck. "Take some time to get settled and comfortable here in the household before you go rushing straight towards the respawning finish line." "Spoken like a laddie who doesnae realize our clocks 'r tickin'," she grumbled. "But, aye, I'll do me best nae to rush it too much. And all the other gare ruls have bin sooo kind tae us. I didnae know what t' expect, 'specially wit' all th' famous faces y'got around these parts." "They're just people, like anyone else," Andy replied. "Think how I feel, trying not to let anyone down." "Ach, yer daft, laddie," Moira said, tickling him a flash. "Yer a good man, an' tha's all tha' matters." "Emily told us all about her experiences this morning, what with the poker game and how it felt being traded like cattle. She was horrified by what horrible things the few remaining men in power are up to, and Niko explained how she basically had to force you to get into the game to rescue Asha and her mother from Covington," Fiona said. "I'm sure that must've been quite taxing." "You had to risk people to win people, and while I certainly didn't want my ex as part of my life, I didn't want to consign her to a life with someone horrible either," he sighed. "I feel very fortunate that it all worked out in my favor, but it was such a gigantic risk." Fiona tugged his chair a little closer to the desk with her leather boot, shrugging. "Life's one colossal risk, Andy. You've always known that." "You think your mother's going to be okay with you being part of a polypod, Moira? I only met her the once, but she struck me as an especially stern Catholic." "When th' news comes out, she'll come 'round, 'specially since th' Pope's apparently okay wit' it, or so we were told a' th' base," Moira shrugged. "Besides, it saves me th' trouble from havin' t' tell 'er I'm shacked up wit' Fi here. She's still nae comfortable wit' 'th' gays,'" she said, making air quotes with her fingers. "Didnae know how t' break it t' her tha' her daughter's as queer as a two dollar bill." "I hope I'm not coming between you two," Andy said. "Nah," Fiona laughed. "We're both bi, and both need some cock in our life. Yours'll do. It was generally my favorite." "An' mine, although I didnae try tha' many." "Tell him how many, Mo." "I don' wanna." "C'mon." "Fi,” "Mo,” Moira sighed. "Fine, wha'ever. I've only had three cocks, Andy, an' yours was right smack dab in th' middle. Me first was a boy in school, and me most recent was another doctor jus' before I hooked up with Fi again. I generally prefer gare ruls to lads, but ye always felt, felt like home t' me." "She was worried that her piercings were going to put you off her," Fi said. "Between the nose stud and the pierced nipples, she told Niko that she felt too different than anyone else it sounded like you had in the family." "I'll admit, I'm not generally a big fan of excessive piercings, but the whole look works on you, Moira. I mean, if you'd had one of those septum piercings like a bull ring, I might have had some reservations, but who am I to tell someone what they do to their body?" Fiona giggled slightly. "I jokingly suggested she get one of her eyebrows pierced once and she slugged me hard enough that she almost dislocated my shoulder." "Do I look like I wanna join bloody Evanescence?" Moira growled. "Did you two decide if you want a bedroom to yourselves, or one each?" Moira shook her head. "We're wit' you, laddie, no matter where y' lay yer head down." "Although I was thinking I might turn one of them into an office for me to work, if that's okay," Fiona said. "Sort of like your little office here." "Yeah, of course," Andy said. "Whatever you want. At some point, all the rooms will be spoken for, but until they are, they're fair game for whoever wants them." "At some point, some of them are going to have to be nurseries," Fiona stressed. "Especially since you've already got two pregnant ladies in the house. How far along are they?" "A couple of months," Andy said. "So it's still early days, and we haven't really told many people outside of the family yet, since the first few months are the diciest." "When's th' big wedding gonnae be?" Moira asked. "Niko told me her family wouldn't give two shits if the wedding happened after the kid was born, but Ash said her family might have some issues with it, so she and I might have a legal ceremony beforehand and then when the world is open again, when I have the giant wedding ceremony, she'd be part of that too." "Seems a fair compromise," Fi agreed. "It would also mean you have someone to function as Head of Household if you were incapacitated and needed someone to make a decision on your behalf." "Don't go planning to have me put into a medical coma any time soon, Fi," Andy joked. "That's still a few months down the way." "Good thing you've got yourself a doctor in the house now, hmm?" "How're you two feeling about all of this? I know it's a lot to process all at once." "It's a lot of bloody names ta learn," Moira grumbled. "I almost want ta see nametags on e'eryone fer a few months." "You'll pick them up pretty quick," Andy said. "And I was smart or lucky enough to not get any two partners with the same first name, thank god for that." "I dinnae find out if they tol' you, Andy," Moira interrupted, "but jus' so ye know, my cycle's shorter than th' rest of th' gare ruls. They kin go about ten days 'fore they cannae think clearly, but I kin only go about six." "Nobody told me that, no," Andy said. "Any other differences I should know about?" "Nothin' ye need concern yerself with," she replied, kissing his cheek. "I'm sure all th' lasses have got their own quirks so ye need nae concern yerself." "Alright then, I'll try not to worry. Anyway, I appreciate you stopping by to say hello, but I do have an online meeting in just a little bit, so I hate to kick you out but  " "No no! You've got work to do, so c'mon, Mo," Fiona said, hopping off his desk, pulling Moira from his lap. "Let the man talk to the voices in his computer." Moira leaned down and kissed him one final time, resting her face against his for what felt like minutes before she smiled and pulled back. "I love ye, ye daft git." "Love you both," he said, as they slipped out of his office. The meeting went as well as could be expected, and Erica Xiao seemed like she might actually be a good choice for directing the first Druid Gunslinger movie, as she seemed to intuitively grasp the undercurrents of the story without having to explicitly call them out, something that was a refreshing change of pace from the first couple of candidates he'd interviewed. Of course, he didn't get the final say on who was directing the movie, but Working Title seemed to genuinely care that he liked the director, so that they would remain true to the books. They'd gone against authors' wishes before, and it hadn't gone well for them, so now they were trying to make sure the author approved of, or at least understood the reasoning for, any changes that were made in the process of translating it from a book to a movie. After that, he decided he needed to go and check on Lexi. Even though Phil had told him that her imprinting process time would take a bit longer, he thought it wise to swing by and make sure that she wasn't in any pain, but when he arrived by her door, he found Niko sitting on a chair in front of it, a Lee Child book in her hands. "Hey Niko," Andy said, approaching her. "I thought you were on the base today?" Niko shook her head, smiling at him as she tucked a slip of paper in as a bookmark before closing the paperback up, setting it on a table next to her. "With Lexi having a different reaction to the serum, Phil asked me to stay here and keep tabs on her, and report in what other irregularities she was going through, especially since I noticed a few right away." Andy's brow furrowed in worry. "How concerned should I be?" Niko sort of tilted her head a little. "That's just the thing, babe. I don't think you need to be at all worried, but you are definitely going to have a challenge on your hands for the first few days after she wakes up. I think letting Jenny help with that, though, would be a wise move." "What the hell does that mean, Niko?" She jerked her head over her shoulder. "C'mere and lemme show you." After sliding off the chair, she opened the door and they both stepped into the room, and Andy immediately started to panic, but he felt Niko's hand take his and squeeze it reassuringly. "She's fine, Andy, regardless of how she looks." "What, what the hell is happening to her?" There was a large growth on one side of her, a faded white swell over her body, and Andy didn't even know what exactly he was looking at. "She's healing," Niko said. "The reason you're going to want Jenny to help is that by the time she wakes up, I think Lexi's not going to have any scars left. It's almost like she's shedding the scarred layer of skin and replacing it with fresh, newly healed skin, like a snake molting. We've seen it in rare cases on the base. I told you early on that I knew the serum did some basic additional healing when it was first taken into the woman's body, but that level of healing varies a lot from patient to patient, more than anything else about it. When she was injected on the base, I knew there was a, call it ten to fifteen percent chance this might happen, that the serum might go into overdrive with her scars and began repairing the skin and the nerves, but I didn't want to get her hopes up in case it didn't happen, because we still don't know what does and doesn't cause the reaction." "And, and you're telling me her skin will just be back to normal?" "Whoa, easy there. 'Normal' is a very flexible word, and one that we don't like using on the base," Niko told him. "She's likely to be healed but considering all of those nerves will be freshly regrown, they are going to be hyper sensitive, and that means people are going to have to be careful around her, because it'll be easy to overwhelm her until those nerves have gotten accustomed to working again and they know how to moderate their intake. We also have no idea what it's going to do to her PTSD, if anything, and that's what we need to keep an eye on." "But, she is going to be okay, right?" "This isn't going to be a problem, Andy, but it's up to all of us to make sure that the repercussions of her sudden healing don't overwhelm her. But I think it'll be okay." Andy sighed, turning to press a kiss against Niko's cheek. "Is there anything else you aren't telling me?" "Honey, what I'm not telling you could fill up Levi's Stadium, but you just have to trust me that I'm doing it all with your best interests at heart, okay?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "You're lucky you're so cute." "It's one of my natural defense mechanisms," she teased. "C'mon, let's leave her be." They stepped back out into the hallway and Niko closed the door behind her. "I figured I should be here when she wakes up, so I can explain to her all of what happened, and prepare her for what to expect. It's the least I can do." She jerked her chin upward, to get Andy to look behind him. "Looks like you're up." Nicolette was walking down the hall, a soft smile on her face. "Just letting you know, Master, that Miss Steele's ride over just buzzed the gate and she should be at the front door any minute. Miss Washington and Miss Stevens said they would meet you there." Andy kissed Niko again before turning to walk with Nicolette towards the stairs, heading to the front door. "Showtime!" Chapter 39 It was with a little surprise that Andy stepped out of his front door to see a familiar electric blue Tesla parked in front of it, Phil helping Maya remove her things from his trunk. "Hello Maya," Andy said, walking down the steps towards her, seeing Emily and Sarah were already there, Emily talking with Maya while Sarah was crouched down next to the little carrier, giving the dogs inside scratches while cooing at t

The process approach is recommended by all Management System Standards, and effective implementation is key to drive continual improvement. Processes outline the basic steps needed to complete a task or achieve a certain outcome, and serve to keep things running smoothly and consistently. For those new to ISO Standards, it can be quite daunting to understand what this means in practice. In this episode Ian Battersby explains what a process is in the context of Management systems, how to map processes and the different ways you can visualise a process for communications. You'll learn ·      What is a Process? ·      Why are processes needed in Management Systems? ·      Why should you document your processes? ·      How do you map a process? ·      How can you display a process?     Resources ·      Isologyhub ·      ISO 9004   In this episode, we talk about: [02:05] Episode Summary – Ian explains the importance of processes in Management systems, how you can effectively map processes and how you can visualise them for further communication. [03:00] Why are processes so important for Management Systems? As ISO 9004 (Quality management - Quality of an organization - Guidance to achieve sustained success) states:- “Organisations deliver value through activities connected within a network of processes. Processes often cross boundaries of functions within the organisation. Consistent and predictable results are achieved more effectively and efficiently when the network of It processes functions as a coherent system.” It doesn't propose a type of process.  All organisations are different.  But what it does say is that they should be viewed as a system rather than in isolation. It's a key principle of Quality Management and of business, allowing an organisation to manage and control the way it delivers its activities, with predictable results. [05:30] What is a process? Put simply, a process is a set of activities which achieve a specific outcome. Or, to put it another way, it's a series of detailed steps describing how to do a job. [05:40] We should you document your processes?: ·      To show how to repeat tasks consistently, getting the same result every time ·      It guides people in how to do their jobs ·      To allow you to measure that outcomes are as expected ·      To provide for a structured approach to improvement ·      To help mobilise new contracts, products services of a similar type which supports business growth. [08:15] How to map a process – There are many different ways you could do this, but a popular method is with process map or process flow. A process map is a series of boxes on a page or screen. Each box represents an activity. The activities are then linked in a sequential order, using arrows. As an example, let's say you have a process which repeats a task until you get the right outcome.  The first box would be ‘Start job', this then points to the next box called ‘Perform task'.  In turn this points to a third box, which is a question, ‘Did it achieve the desired outcome?'. This would lead to two options: yes and no.  So. there are two arrows out this time.  If no, we need to learn from it (another box).  When we learn from it, we point back to ‘Perform task'.  If yes we end the job, which would be another box. Using a diagram such as this, it makes it a lot easier to visualise and follow a process. Many processes will likely be more complicated than this example, but the principle remains the same. [11:40] Keep things simple – Ian's had experiences of companies that insist on bloated process maps that contains hundreds of boxes and arrows that end up making the whole diagram very difficult to follow. This defeats the purpose of process mapping. If you have a lot of complicated processes, it's better to break these down into manageable chunks. [12:30] Process overview: If you're struggling to start, you may want to consider a process overview. This focuses on the main steps on how you run your organisation, so this could be marketing, sales, production and delivery services. From there you can look at each area and focus on the more detailed activities which can be mapped and linked to each other. The ones dealing with the process overview include subject matter experts, departmental heads, functional leads, Senior Management ect… They will help shape the process mapping to ensure the overall delivery is in-line with the organisations' direction. [14:00] A collaborative task: Process mapping shouldn't be done by one person. One person is hardly going to know how each and every aspect of your organisation works. Don't just leave it to your Quality Manager. Leaving this task to someone who's not fully involved in the part of the organisation where the process originates will only end in disaster. They will likely not be aware of small yet vital steps, such as key communication and authorisations. So make sure you involve multiple parties, and key people involved in the areas you're mapping process for. [17:05] Process mapping across departments: Think practically about how you deliver products or services. How people actually do their jobs.  This is a very important aspect of processes.  Then visualise how each process works: draw it with pencil and paper; throw some Post It notes on a flipchart; put it on a whiteboard and take a photo; even write it out in a Word document.  Make it clear. Make it documented:  This is essential.  This unleashes the power to measure and improve.  Documenting something allows you to compare the way things are done to what you expect and to establish whether the outcome is as you expect. [12:30] How processes link with other areas of ISO Standards: Processes are very useful in helping people do their job, but they can also assist with:- Assigning roles and responsibilities. Each box (activity) can be measured for success, performance indicators can be established at individual activity level, or for a process overall. You can see if the process is successful in delivering its intended outcome. The results can then form part of your monitoring and measuring regime as required by Management System standards (clause 9 is all about evaluating performance). You can use them as a basis for audit, which is all about assessing whether you get what you expect. They are also useful in explaining how you deliver to external parties; or demanding how others should do things. Standards also specify that process performance be included in Management Review (9001 9.3.2 c) 3)) – so it really is an unavoidable step towards ISO certification! Lastly, it can also help with clause 10, which is all about improvement. What-if scenarios can be performed by moving activities, lines, adding new ones deleting and predicting the outcome of the overall process. Whichever way you wish to document your processes, by documenting them you have the power to improve them If you'd like any assistance with ISO Implementation, feel free to get in touch with us, we'd be happy to help. We'd love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here's how: ●     Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin ●     Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one. Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes: Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube |iTunes | Soundcloud | Mailing List

Send us a text! We'd love to hear your thoughts on the show.In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with the thoughtful and talented Canadian author, Rebecca Morris. Rebecca's debut novel, Other Maps, was published in 2024 with Linda Leith Publishing, and it's a powerful exploration of friendship, trauma, healing—and the quiet resilience that carries us through. In this conversation, we dive into her creative process, the emotional weight of writing about difficult topics, and how she supports other writers through their own journeys.Rebecca began her writing life with the big dream of crafting a novel, but quickly found herself leaning into short fiction to learn the craft and get those satisfying wins of finishing and publishing smaller pieces. That experience gave her the structure and confidence she needed to return to the long-form project that became Other Maps. Originally told from the perspective of one character, the story evolved into a dual point-of-view narrative when Rebecca realized the emotional depth and importance of her second character's voice. The final novel alternates chapters between two women navigating past trauma and present reconnection—a structure she carefully mapped out with color-coded Post-It notes!We also explored the challenges of writing trauma with care. Other Maps is a “Me Too” novel, and Rebecca spoke with such grace and honesty about the responsibility of holding emotional truth in fiction. She emphasized the importance of taking breaks, checking in with yourself, and doing research to ensure that you're treating sensitive material with both realism and deep respect. Even in fiction, readers bring their real-life experiences to the page—and that connection is powerful.One of my favorite parts of this chat? Talking about writing routines and how to stay focused in a noisy world. Rebecca is a big fan of analog tools (me too!), like egg timers and sand hourglasses, to carve out intentional writing time without the distraction of her phone. She starts her days with freewriting to clear her head, and aims to protect her most creative hours in the early morning—something so many of us can relate to.I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Woman Catches Husband Cheating Because Of Electric Toothbrush:This is why you have a "burner" toothbrush. A woman in the UK caught her husband cheating after noticing odd activity on their electric toothbrush app. The married mother of two was using the app to track her kids' brushing habits when she saw the toothbrush was used at strange times, like when her kids were at school and her husband was supposed to be at work. Suspicious, she checked and confirmed her kids were at school. When she asked her husband, he claimed he was at work all day. She hired a private investigator, who found proof of the husband's affair. Smart devices like toothbrushes can reveal secrets because they track usage data. The woman confronted her husband with the evidence, and he admitted to the cheating. Everyday devices can hold clues to catch dishonest partners, making it harder for cheaters to hide. How To Sleep Away From Home: Make it feel more like home - Research shows that bringing aspects of our home environment, like sound and smell, can help us feel more relaxed and happy when we're away, so bringing those to the new space can help you sleep.Sound - If you usually run a white noise machine, pack it when you travel, or use an app that gives the same effect.Smell - Our homes all have a unique scent and you can trick your brain into feeling “at home” anywhere by bringing the fragrance with you. Using the same lotions, shampoos and soaps can help, and packing something washed in your detergent to sleep with can make the new bed feel more familiar.Routine - Sticking to your usual pre-bedtime schedule can keep you on track for sleep, too. Whether you watch TV, meditate, read or listen to a podcast, doing the same thing at the same time you usually hit the sack can ease you to sleep, just like at home.Control the environment - You want to recreate the physical conditions you're used to sleeping in by controlling the light and temperature. If you like it pitch black, cover the light sources with Post-It notes or tape, or bring a nightlight if you need a little illumination. Adjust the thermostat so it's as comfy to you as your home bedroom.Select a strategic location - If you're lucky enough to get a choice for your hotel room, always pick one that's away from busy streets and other noise, like elevators or lobbies.Get out of bed - If you still can't fall asleep, go ahead and get up for a little while. Making yourself lie there and watch the clock can make you even more anxious, which makes it even tougher to fall asleep. If you're struggling to snooze for longer than 20 minutes, get up for a few minutes and do something relaxing, which resets your mind and body, so it should be easier for you to relax when you go back to bed.Average American Only Feels Healthy 19 Days Out Of The Month:Nearly three-quarters (72%) admitted they were in moderate or poor health at the time they were surveyed, with just 28% reporting they felt totally healthy.Fatigue is the most common condition, people deal with it around 13 days a month.Digestive issues are number two (10 days a month), followed by mood changes (10 days) and headaches (8 days).Half (51%) of respondents live with recurring health issues that have continued for six months or longer.Gut issues are a common complaintThis includes 30% who regularly deal with bloating, indigestion and constipation.Almost two-thirds (65%) of all respondents feel like their less-than-ideal health affects their performance at work, and more than 40% share that it limits their ability to exercise.For 15%, not feeling well has also kept them from fully being able to enjoy family time.Even worse? Nearly half (48%) of those with constant gut issues say it's made them avoid sex.Gut issues are also becoming more common in younger people, now Gen Z is the largest group suffering from them.Second Date Update: Lindsay goes on a date with Roy. They are both runners, they both like to eat healthy, so they decide to hit up a Mediterranean restaurant for dinner. Roy has checked out, did she catfish him?

Lesley Logan sits down with public speaking coach Aletta Rochat—president-elect of Toastmasters International—to explore how communication shapes confidence, leadership, and executive presence. If you've ever held back your voice or downplayed your strengths, this is your reminder to reclaim your space, speak with purpose, and lead with clarity. Whether you're leading a team or learning to own your story, this conversation will change the way you show up and speak up. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co.And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Why your “yes” should come from alignment—not fear.How to use your voice with clarity and intention.The power of naming and owning your superpower.What executive presence really is—and how to build it.Why Toastmasters helps far beyond public speaking.Episode References/Links:Aletta Rochat Website - https://www.alettarochat.comAletta Rochat Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alettarochatAletta Rochat Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/aletta.rochatAletta Rochat Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/alettarochatToastmasters - https://toastmasters.org"I Belong" Playbook - https://beitpod.com/belongingMastering the Art of Exercising Authority - https://beitpod.com/exercisingauthorityThe Artist's Way by Julia Cameron - https://a.co/d/9CwCcIpGuest Bio:Aletta Rochat is a certified World Class Speaking Coach, professional speaker, and president-elect of Toastmasters International. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, she has coached clients in over 21 countries and is the first woman from Africa elected to lead Toastmasters in its 100-year history. Aletta helps leaders and professionals communicate with clarity, confidence, and executive presence—whether they're stepping into boardrooms, big stages, or everyday conversations. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Witwatersrand and a diploma in marketing management from the University of South Africa. Aletta is also the author of two books on public speaking and the creator of the “I Belong” playbook, a self-reflection tool designed to help individuals reclaim their sense of belonging. Through one-on-one coaching and group programs, Aletta empowers people to lead not by being the loudest voice in the room—but by being the most intentional. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/ Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/ Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Aletta Rochat 0:00  We hold back articulating our value and how we can help solve problems and how we can move projects forward, because we somehow have this incredible anxiety around saying what we're good at. And once you get over that and saying, my superpower is, and this is how it can help you, you become someone who contributes to problem solving on a personal level, in your job, in your community.Lesley Logan 0:27  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 1:05  All right, Be It babe, this is for you. If you have ever downplayed an idea or thought about doing something on a whim, maybe you've downplayed yourself. Today's guest went from like being a stay at home mom to kind of following this urge to go to a Toastmasters to then being, correct me if I'm wrong, Aletta, but like, the head of Toastmasters for the world, 150 countries and like that. So I am really excited because we talk about public speaking, but we also talk really about how to belong, and I think it's an important message that every single one of you needs to hear. And hopefully, we inspire you to check in with yourself, and maybe, and maybe think about the words that you want to communicate in this world, and how you can get them out there and not be super scared about it, because we all actually are so blessed and so lucky to have special gifts and superpowers. And Aletta Rachat, our guest here today, really helps you kind of be proud of that and own that. And so here she is. Lesley Logan 2:12  All right, Be It babe, we're about to have a very fabulous, wonderful conversation, and I think you're also just going to love to listen to our guest, because she's got one of those accents you just want to all the time. Aletta Rochat, thank you so much for being here. Will you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?Aletta Rochat 2:26  Thank you, Lesley, wonderful to be with you. My name is Aletta Rochat. I'm speaking to you all the way from beautiful Cape Town South Africa. And my passion is helping people be more successful through the way they communicate. And the first person from Africa, never mind the first woman from Africa, who will soon be the international president of Toastmasters International, which I'm so excited for, and only the 10th woman in 100 years of the organization's history. So we are really helping, hopefully inspiring many other women to follow in my footsteps. I've coached and trained in 21 different countries, and I currently spend a lot of my time coaching clients to build executive presence, which is rooted in the way we communicate with each other and what we think about who we are and what we have to offer the world. And the author of two books on public speaking, so you can see, I'm just in the communication game. I love it. Lesley Logan 3:27  Okay, so first of all, congratulations. That is amazing, the accomplishments, and it's a little shocking in the length of time that you'll be the 10th but I, but I love that. I think it's important. I was really drawn to you because so many people are afraid of public speaking. So many people have a desire to share a story. Now, more than ever, I meet people who want to talk about the things that they do. They want to help people. They want to take their story and give it out there. But they could write the book. They could put the posts, but once they have to actually, like, put their face to words in front of people, and now public speaking isn't even just being on stage it's even just like putting stuff out on social media, people have a hard time communicating because they get so scared. Aletta Rochat 4:09  Yeah, they do. And it's, you know, people are scared for different reasons. Sometimes it's you've had a bad experience when you were at school and somebody laughed when you spoke up. Sometimes it's a comfort zone thing. So you find speaking to your friends, but should you be in a meeting at work and speaking to senior management? Suddenly your brain evaporates and you just can't get out. And it's not that the thoughts aren't within you. You've got the ideas, you've got the talent, you've got the commitment, but somehow articulating that in front of people can be very difficult. The thing that I've noticed in myself and other people, when you get anxious, your brain is thinking, oh my gosh, what am I going to say? And you're trying to formulate those words. At the same time, you're watching yourself make a fool of yourself. So the anxiety just explodes and it becomes almost impossible to be you. And ultimately, if you and I were sitting across the table having a cup of coffee together, you'd easily be able to tell me what your ideas were and why they're important. But, somehow, some context freak people out and then they just shut down. And then we don't see the real them. We don't see the value that they can offer.Lesley Logan 5:24  Yeah, well, thank you for, like, kind of normalizing it, because it's a common thing that people are going through. So, can we go back how did you get started in even helping people speak and communicate? Because that's not something, when you're a child, I wonder, like, is that something you dreamed of doing? Well, how did you get into this?Aletta Rochat 5:42  It was a survival skill. I had a very nomadic childhood. My dad was in mining, and from a very young age, we moved around a lot. So I was born in South Africa, we moved a couple of times there. By the time I was five years old, we moved to Zambia, and then we moved to Canada, and then we moved to Tasmania, and then we moved back to South Africa. So I can have I've got such a clear memory of being about eight years old, going to my next new school on my third continent, and standing in front of this classroom of people I didn't know, and innately knowing that the way I spoke to them would determine whether or not I had friends at break time. And of course, very importantly, if you're eight years old, whether or not you get an invitation to a birthday party. And I remember holding my mom's hand, you know, before she said goodbye and saying to myself, Aletta, you've done this before, you can do it again. And at that young age, I figured out a few basics. When you're new in an environment, you listen before you speak, because you've got to find out what's important to that group. And once you know what's important to them, then you can slot in on the conversation. That type of thing. So I had many opportunities to practice that as a child, I was always a kid with a funny accent, the one who started not at the beginning of the year, but midterm. And that happened again and again. And as an adult, with my husband's job, we moved and stayed in America, in Pittsburgh for a while. We lived in London. So, I got to repeat those practices many times. And then when I started coaching, I suddenly thought, where did I learn this? And it all went back to my childhood. So it was just very important to me to fit in, like for all of us, whether it's a new job or a new team or, you know, you're dating someone and they've got friends and family you want to fit in with, these skills are applicable in all those situations.Lesley Logan 7:40  Yeah, thank you for saying that because I also think people could hear, like, you're Toastmasters or not, because I could get coached for these things. But really, we all need these skill sets, even in family dynamics, especially now in family dynamics, not everyone agrees. How incredible, as a child that you're like you learn to observe and also to clearly state who you are and what you like, so that you could be accepted in. That's a superpower that you have. They were traveling and everything. But how did you get into Toastmasters and public speaking? Did your job have you doing presentations or did you decide, because you're a coach, you wanted to go out and talk? What was the impetus to make you want to go out and speak more?Aletta Rochat 8:20  So Lesley, I'm one of these strange people that actually has always enjoyed public speaking. I know I'm not the normal. But it never, it never freaked me out. So I've always enjoyed it, and I did it as part of my job, before I started raising kids, and then I got to the point I had three beautiful children and love being a stay-at-home mom, but I was wanting something for me, and when I went to my first Toastmasters meeting, it wasn't to become a better speaker. I joke that I was running away from my kids. I just wanted me time. And when I got there, I want to, I'm a lifelong learner. And immediately, I was so impressed with the people who were, you know, speaking that evening, and I knew I could learn, so I just followed the desire to learn. And of course, I loved communicating in any event. And I just there was a path I could never have foreseen that I would become the leader of this global organization at the time. But I just kept on saying yes to the next opportunity. They started asking me to do PR for the club, and I said yes. While I was doing that, someone called, and I said, well, come along to our meeting and see what it's like. And then she said, I'm phoning for my boss. He's too busy. Can't you help him? So I just said, oh, yes, I can. And that became my first client. And so it was an unintended consequence of joining Toastmasters was stepping into this role of coaching other people, and subsequent to that, I've got coaching certifications, and it's really my happy place training and leading and coaching is, feeds my soul, so I really enjoy it, and that means it doesn't feel like work.Lesley Logan 9:56  Yeah, you are seeking out things and then you would say yes to things. And I wonder, you know, some of the people who listen get themselves into places because they say yes too much. How did you make sure that when you were saying yes to things, that it actually was enhancing what you were doing and not compounding or stressing or causing you to not be able to do the things that you love? Is there something that you, you measured each yes with? Was it like a gut feeling? How did you do that? Because I'm wondering how we can take your like saying yes to these amazing things, to people who might be saying yes to not amazing things.Aletta Rochat 10:33  I think the reason you've got to, you've got to understand why you're saying yes. So if you're saying yes to get validation or you're saying yes to feel accepted, or you're saying yes because you're afraid of saying no, those could all lead you down very strange paths. So you've got to say yes to something that means something to you. You know, I've always been a volunteer. I love volunteering, but I remember when my kids, my son, was involved in scouting, and they wanted me to take on a role of quarter master, which was looking after all the scouting equipment. I just knew I had to say no because it didn't feed my soul, you know, I couldn't imagine anything. You know, I know they're talented people who do that job, but it wasn't me. So you've got to be true to yourself when you say yes, and it's got to bring you joy at some level, but it's not yes out of a sense of duty, and then you've got resentment for it. It's got to be something where you say yes because you want to give and you also want to learn. So to me, that, it's both sides of the coin. You can't just say yes to give and you're not learning or getting anything back. There's got to be value in it for you. And we've all got busy lives, and we've got to fit this into whatever else you've got going, your job, your family, looking after you as a person, your emotional and physical well being. So sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, but I've always been one of these ones. I joke that I suffer from the Helium Hand Syndrome. So when people say, do you need anything? The hand magically goes up and, to your point, I've said yes to too many things in the past and then been burnt out. So I've learned to sit on my hand every now and again and make sure that I don't just it's not a reflex reaction. It's a considered action where I can add value and where it adds value to me.Lesley Logan 12:20  I love that you broke down all of that. And why are you saying I think that that is so important, you guys, I think you can all just take that clip apart. Everyone could just put it as a little card. Am I saying yes because I'm afraid of saying no. Am I saying yes because it's like, I'm like, you know, until it becomes an innate muscle, you know? I think that's really helpful because it is true. I know I had someone to send me a thing, and of course, I wanted to say yes to it. The yes was, like, a no brainer. The reason I said no is because the timing that just didn't work. There was no way I could do it. And so there's that part, that old version of me who's like, oh my God, if you say no to this, they're never going to ask again. And it's like, that is actually a story. If they are never going to ask me again, because I said no one time, I probably don't want to actually be with that kind of demanding space. But typically, I said, Oh my God, I'm so thrilled you asked me. I'm, I would love to do this. The date is wrong. I could do the weekends before, I could do the weekends after. I can't do that weekend. So you know, if the date changes, please consider me again. And they respond, of course, like that would be, thank you so much for letting us know. So it's like, you know, it's not, sometimes we, like I, could I have moved my other things to say yes? Not really. So I think it's really important for us to kind of understand why we're saying yes and what fears are coming up if we are struggling with it, you know, just paying attention to that stuff. What are some of the things that you, tools or sayings that you have that help you show up for all the things you want to do. Is there, like, a saying that you have, or something that someone taught you that helps you because you have so much confidence, and I imagine there was some of that you were born with, but like, what keeps you going in that way?Aletta Rochat 14:01  When I was running for election to a position, I've spent a lot of time speaking to past leaders and trying to glean information from them, and I'd chat to them and get their ideas and share my ideas, and at the end of every call, I would always say to them, what's the one thing in your opinion that I should remember as I go on this journey? And there was one of my colleagues who was senior to me in the organization, and he said words I've never forgotten, and he said to me, Aletta, remember that you belong. And that, to me, was so profound, because if I believe I belong, I'm likely to be more relaxed, more spontaneous, I'm more likely to share my ideas, and if I believe I belong, then I would probably be thinking at a different level. If I'm aiming for a senior position. And I thought, well, if I was in the C-suite, what would be important to me if I belonged, if I already had that position? How would I approach this? And that, to me, became quite a powerful mindset shift to check whether I'm waiting for someone else to tell me I belong, or whether I'm taking ownership and reclaiming my sense of belonging. And when I realized that I show up differently when I think I belong, and I thought, well, why don't I grant myself permission? Why does it have to be delegated to the world to give me a tick and say, yes, you can go the next step? So it's a powerful concept that's meant a lot to me personally, and when I've shared it with clients, it somehow resonates with people. If you belong, how would you show up? How would you speak up? Why would you share your ideas, or why wouldn't you share your ideas if you belong? So for me, it's almost like a fundamental building block of confidence and executive presence is this concept of belonging, but we can't give it to ourselves, and that was a game changer. Lesley Logan 15:55  Aletta, I'm obsessed with this because that is Be It Till You See It. If I belong, I show up differently. If I believe I belong here, if I believe I belong in the role I'm applying for, if I do that, your energy is different, how you answer the questions, you're not waiting for validation. I'm obsessed with this whole thing. So is this a mantra that you have people say? Is this something you repeat to yourself? Is it on Post-It notes like, how do you how did you incorporate it. How did you remind yourself?Aletta Rochat 16:22  It was so powerful to me that it suddenly became part of everything I did. If I belong. Because as soon as I felt as if I didn't belong, the clue was, that's when I'm not so sure of myself, and I start doubting myself. Where I start saying, well, you know, why am I here? So and so is better than me. Any of those negative voices that camp in your head. As soon as they became prominent, then I'd start to say to myself, but no, calm down. Take a step back. You belong. And if I can get into that calm state and say, actually, I do belong, then it's like a whole, my body calms down, my anxiety goes down, and then I can have clarity of thought, because it's not the anxiety tripping me up. So to me, it was just such a powerful saying that it I just embraced it and didn't let go of it. And now I've woven it into the coaching tools I have. I've created the I Belong playbook to get people to start thinking which areas of their life do they have a sense of belonging, and which is there a lack of a sense of belonging, and can we fix that by spending some time and saying, actually, if I did belong, what would I do? And a lot of that is linked in with self-acceptance, because if you belong, you're not wanting. You are enough if you feel you belong. And that's such a empowering thing. And it also just allows you to relax and be you, as opposed to trying to be something that you wish you would be, or you think someone else needs you to be. So it gives you permission just to just make it so much easier. Lesley Logan 17:56  Yeah, oh, my God, it there is an easy button. It's that mantra. But I, I, you hit something, you hit like on self-acceptance. And I think that is difficult. I think we have a lot of perfectionists who listen, a lot of over achievers, a lot of women. They're so amazingly powerful. They're awesome. They handle everything. They're handling their parents, health that's going on. They're handling their work, they're handling their kid's stuff. And yet I feel like sometimes they're where, like you can have the I belong in some areas, I feel like there is a lack of feeling they belong in the areas that they want to be going towards. And it's easy for them to use all this other stuff as an excuse, as a distraction to maybe not exploring the I belong, but also, like self-acceptance on that thing that they're desiring. Do you find that, like, have you worked with people in your coaching practice who, like, they can, they have some amazing areas where they belong, and then they're just not accepting themselves in the area that actually is where they desire to grow?Aletta Rochat 19:00  Exactly. One of the starting points for any coaching conversation I have with clients is trying to identify their superpowers. We all have them. But somehow society has conditioned us to say, oh, it's nothing. I can do this. It's nothing. It's, then we trivialize it, and once I start asking questions like, one of the clues to your superpowers is, what do other people ask you for help with so now you're really good at doing Excel spreadsheets and pivot tables and all this. And people come to you because you can do it in a heartbeat and they take three hours. You think it's nothing, because it's innate to you, but it's a gift you've been given. But where I find the disconnect is we know, maybe at a deep level, we're good at something, but we're almost scared to admit it or to articulate that to someone else, and therefore we hold back articulating our value and how we can help solve problems. And how we can move projects forward, because we somehow have this incredible anxiety around saying what we're good at, and once you get over that and saying, my superpower is, and this is how it can help you, you become someone who contributes to problem solving on a personal level, in your job, in your community, but if you aren't willing to share your God given talent, we don't know how wonderful you are, and you get overlooked. So that sense of belonging often is related to this trivialization of what we're good at, and if we can get over that, so much opens up. Lesley Logan 20:37  Yeah, yeah. I think it takes time. It always takes an outsider to help you with that. It's kind of hard to do, you know, like, there's some things you become aware of on your own, and some people a light bulb can turn on, and there's like, a lot like, I remember I did The Artist's Way once, and I was answering one of the questions, and I had an aha moment that I never had, ever thought about. And I was like, oh, no wonder I never cook. Like, when I was eight years old, my grandfather told me, like, are you fucking idiot? Why would you do this with the bread? And I did not realize that, oh, at a young age, I just kind of learned, you know, even though I was following a recipe, you know. So sometimes things can be done with an, with an, a book or, or a hearing something, and then other times, if you are hearing it and you know it, and you're struggling with it, you need support of someone to kind of guide you. How long have you been coaching and what drew you to supporting others?Aletta Rochat 21:29  I've been coaching probably for about 15 years now, and what drew me towards it? It's I get such a kick out of seeing other people blossom. It, to me that's, the best reward ever is when I share something, someone takes action on that, and they sent me a letter it worked. And to see clients growing in confidence, in whichever way is important to them. You know, it doesn't matter whether they're IT professionals or entrepreneurs or whatever, but to see them grow is just so powerful. So that feeds my soul, and it's something that I just as I say, it doesn't feel like work to me. I feel it's my purpose in life. That's my God-given talent is helping other people be more successful. So, for me, it's just natural to do it, and I enjoy doing it. And you know, I do it one-on-one. I do it in group coaching programs. I do it often with no reward whatsoever, just because I love it and it feeds my soul. So it makes sense. Lesley Logan 22:30  I think that's so fun about a lot of things we get to do on this world now. And so many of us have a superpower, and then we can make it be the thing that we do. And it doesn't have to feel like work. It can feel like part of any wonderful day that we're given to do. I have some questions, because I know some of our listeners have probably heard Toastmasters, but probably thought it was like the thing that their parents did in the 90s. Is that something that everyone should be doing, is it something only people who wanna publicly speak do? What drew you to it? I mean, obviously you run it, so obviously you're obsessed. But I would just like to know, because I remember when I was a young adult hearing about Toastmasters, but not necessarily something that, I've been told I should do it, and I just never did it. So I would love I'm curious now I'm asking you.Aletta Rochat 23:15  Toastmasters, for those who aren't aware of it, is an organization that teaches people public speaking and leadership skills, and we do that in clubs. So clubs usually about 20 people, some of them are bigger, some of them are smaller. And you come to club meetings and you choose your own speech topics. There's a curriculum that you can personalize. We call them pathways, and you decide which one you want to go to. And your first project, for instance, is called your icebreaker, where you simply introduce yourself to the club. We give you a few criteria. We tell you how long to speak for. So we time everything to try and train people not to go on and on or speak too short. And the beautiful thing about Toastmasters is two things, you're guaranteed an audience which often is hard to find, and you're guaranteed applause, and then, which is something very precious. And then in that audience, somebody will be given the task of giving you feedback. And if you were speaking, let's say, Lesley, we love that you did this, this, and this. Next time, challenge yourself. Here's my suggestion to improve that. So it's an incredibly positive, supportive environment. Everybody is there for the same reason. So it's an incredibly safe space. If you want to make mistakes, that's the place to make it. But that if you participate, within three months, you see such a tangible increase in confidence, which you take back to your family, your community, your career. So my advice is go to toastmasters.org and there's a Find a Club feature, and look for clubs in your area that meet at a day or a venue that suits you or a time, and go and visit a few clubs. They've each got their own personality. And don't be put off if they look different to you. They're older or younger than you. Just go and give it a go. You actually will be amazed. And one of the best things about it is you meet people that are different to you, people from different backgrounds, different experience sets, so your life, just by hearing their stories, is enriched. But it's a lot of fun. But you know, it's the best way to do it is just go attend a meeting and see what you think. Lesley Logan 25:23  What a fun hobby. I think that could be, even if you're not wanting to, I love that you brought up like you bring the confidence to the other parts of your life. We hear a lot of people, they struggle to make friends as an adult, because it's so much harder, like especially when you have kids, if you move to a new city, good luck making new relationships, new friends. It can be really difficult. But I sound, it sounds like Toastmasters would bring multiple facets of people to the same place, and so you can connect with other people. I mean, guaranteed applause. Who doesn't want that? But also, like. Aletta Rochat 25:53  In 150 countries all over the world, so, it's very hard to find a country that there isn't a Toastmasters club. So it's probably closer and easier than you imagine.Lesley Logan 26:02  I'm gonna look it up after just to see, because I've lived in the city four and a half years, but I find I have a great group of connections. But also I'm like, well, how would I meet more friends if I wanted to add more friends? Because, you know, it becomes, the city can come really small, if you like, stay in your group and you just have that network. So I think that it could be really cool. And also not that you have to want to go and be a public speaker, but also if you want to present in your office. You know.Aletta Rochat 26:26  In your office, at a wedding, at a friend's birthday, at a funeral. You know, there's so many opportunities we get to, especially these special occasions, speaking, where your speech is a gift that only you can give and you really want to do it well, you know, whether it's a friend or someone who's retiring or someone getting married, what a wonderful way to pay tribute to someone. And if you have a bit of practice, and you can even practice those speeches at Toastmasters and get feedback before the event, so that when the day comes, you can shine.Lesley Logan 26:59  Ah, that's so cool. That would have been very helpful when I had to speak at a funeral a few years back. Aletta Rochat 27:05  It's just so hard to do. It's not easy.Lesley Logan 27:06  So hard, you're so, you're so emotional, you're trying to, like, share your love, but you're also feeling your emotions. But I mean, you know, even though it's my company that I'm running, sometimes I have to present an idea. We talked about, at the beginning of this, it's like getting, in one-on-one, I could, like, totally share the idea, but then you got to present the idea to people who are the marketing department for it. They're the payroll department going, can we afford this? They're the ops department who has all these questions. And sometimes you're like, okay, now my idea doesn't, I don't have as much confidence in it. I feel a little muddy around it. I'm actually nervous, because now I have to translate it to all of you and get you excited, because I want to do it. It's hard. Aletta Rochat 27:45  Yeah, it's not easy, but with a bit of practice, you'll be amazed at how much easier it will get and how quickly you can achieve that.Lesley Logan 27:52  This is, I love this a lot. So what are you most excited about right now? We're in the new year when we're recording this. Is there something that you're super excited to do this year that you haven't been doing before, or is it more of the same?Aletta Rochat 27:59  I think it is growing what I've already done. I've got a beautiful group coaching program, and I want to invite more people into that, where I mentor them for a 12-month period on executive presence, and that group has just achieved so much that that is very exciting. I've also planning to publish a book on executive presence, putting all the tools that I've created and publishing that. Don't ask me for a publication date, because I don't know yet. I'm still trying to get it done, but it's a dream that excites me. Lesley Logan 28:37  Oh, around here, we love reading books, so you'll just have to let us know if there's a waitlist thing or something. Executive presence, is that something we all have inside us innately, or is that something that we have to cultivate?Aletta Rochat 28:49  I think people probably have an ability for it. Whether they nurture that ability is a different question. I remember when I was at school, the headmistress of my school, describing in a reference she wrote for me, she said a letter has a quiet authority, and in those days, maybe that was what executive presence was. So you don't have to be the loudest voice in the room. You don't have to be the best brain in the room, but if you have executive presence when you speak, people will listen because you're adding value, and you will speak in a way that contributes to the group and contributes to the bigger picture. So I believe everybody needs it and can cultivate it and can benefit from and it covers so many things. It covers the confidence, the self-belief, the sense of belonging, the way you articulate your message. So whether you're having to say no to someone, or whether you're giving feedback, or whether you're inspiring a team, if you've got executive presence, it's easier. So it's something that I think all of us should develop as a muscle, because the benefits are multifaceted, and it's not out of reach of anybody. We just have to become self aware, and then learn a few tips and tricks, and then have, build our awareness of others, because that's also part and parcel. You can't just be an island with your executive presence and nobody around you. You've got to learn to get the best out of people and give the best to people so that we all benefit.Lesley Logan 30:16  Beautiful. I think that what you're doing is really cool. You have such a calm, like this headmistress said, like this calm leadership about you, there's just something, and I think that's so nice. Sometimes people have so much fluttering energy. And there's something about you that everything that you say feels possible and doable, even, even if I've heard it before, but the way you say it, it's easy, like the I belong, and how that that can change the way we feel, and how all that can work. Lesley Logan 30:44  I wonder, before we take a brief break, what are the ways that you prioritize yourself because you are so passionate helping people and it doesn't feel like work, how do you make sure that you are prioritizing you in your day?Aletta Rochat 30:58  Got quite a good sense of when I'm not feeling at my best, and when that anxiety comes up when I'm just kind of not feeling me, my remedy is to go into nature, either go walk the garden, or take a dog for a walk or to have a run. Exercise and outdoors really helps me. My husband is very good. He'll just say, you know, what's going on? You know when, if it's Toastmasters related, he'll say, you joined to have fun. If you're not having fun, change something. So I'm also very aware of my energy levels. So, you know, I try and surround myself with people who lift my energy, and hopefully I do the same for them. So I've learned over the years to say no to things that aren't good for me, but I think it's just, it's almost like that barometer you've always just got to check how you're feeling today and if you're feeling off, why? I was trying to track it back, when did it change and what was it? And sometimes it's anxiety. You're worried about something, and then suddenly your energy changes, and then you become contracted inside, and then you can't be at your best. So how do you remedy that? Is it going back inside and reminding yourself that you belong? Is it taking a walk? Is it phoning a friend? It's just being aware of when you can recalibrate to get back into the position that you can be creative and spontaneous and add value, but knowing what it feels like when it's right and knowing what it feels like when it's wrong is a key to looking after yourself.Lesley Logan 32:29  I love that. I think that that's important to give ourselves time to do that, you know, I think that's really key. And it takes, it takes a muscle, it takes practice. I'll let everyone take a brief break and then find out how people can find you, follow you, work with you, and your Be It Action Items. Lesley Logan 32:44  All right, Aletta, you mentioned you have a I Belong playbook. I would like to know more, because I feel like that is the be it till you see it playbook right there and you've made it. So we may as well make sure people have it.Aletta Rochat 32:58  Well, I created it in the process of trying to challenge myself to identify which parts of my life I belong and which I don't feel I belong and why, and to kind of have a playbook where I can say, okay, that's the area I want to pick up on. So it's very simple. It's just prompts for you to follow. But the idea is that you do an inventory of your belongingness, of I can put it that way, I've never expressed it quite like that, and then that'll help you take the next step and inform yourself and just create that awareness that you can take further to get that sense of belonging and to cultivate it, nurture it. Because it's not a once and done deal. It's a practice, yeah, but it's a very powerful practice. So if people would like to download that they go to, I'm going to give you lots of letters here, H-T-T-P-S, you know the story, coaching.executivepresenceformula.com/belonging.Lesley Logan 33:55  We will put that in the show notes, guys. We will put that in the blogs. It's easy to click. Yes, that is wonderful. And do you hang out on any of the socials that people can find you, follow you on?Aletta Rochat 34:07  The best one to find me on is LinkedIn. And if you just Google my name or search my name on LinkedIn and send me a message, I'd love to have a conversation with you, and it's just, yeah, finding out, when I have a conversation with you, how I could be of service and, you know, whether we're a good match. And a conversation is the easiest way to determine that and then to see what's next.Lesley Logan 34:31  Love that. I love that. Thank you for that. Okay, you've actually given us so many great things. But for the people who may skip to the end, or they get to hit this point, and they are like, okay, but what, what should I do next? The bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it, what do you have for us?Aletta Rochat 34:48  The first thing I have is to own your sense of belonging, reclaim it if you've lost it. Second thing is you be the one to grant yourself permission to belong. It's within your power. You've got agency. It's a choice you have. And the third one is then start playing with it, start thinking, start speaking, start acting as if you belong, and watch the difference that results once you have that mindset. So it's reclaiming our sense of belonging. And that'll unleash so many possibilities for you, and it's something it's a gift you give yourself. Lesley Logan 35:26  Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, I love this so much. I think it's a great reminder and a wonderful tool. And so also, thank you for your playbook, because I do think the inventory of belongingness is, is key. People who listen to this, obviously, y'all want to know more about yourself, and I think what a great place to evaluate and have some aha moments. So, Aletta, thank you so much for being here and sharing your gifts with us and your positivity and your tools. You are wonderful. and you're doing great work. Lesley Logan 35:56  Y'all, make sure you share this with a friend. Share this with someone who needs to hear it. Make sure you hit up Aletta on LinkedIn and let her know your favorite takeaways and until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 36:05  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 36:49  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 36:54  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 36:59  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 37:06  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 37:09  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We're continuing our series: Your Biggest Course Creation Questions, Answered, and this week we're digging into a BIG one:   “Do I have the right content to turn this into a course?”   Spoiler: You probably do! (But let's break it down to be sure.)   In this episode, I walk you through: ✔️ How to know if your process is deep enough for a full course—or better suited for a mini offer ✔️ Why your course promise helps filter the fluff (and keeps students from getting overwhelmed) ✔️ The Post-It method I swear by for mapping out modules ✔️ Plus: How to validate your content with a live training or workshop   Whether you're sitting on a few slides or packed full of ideas, this episode will help you figure out what to teach, how much to include, and what your students really need to get results.  

Amanda Riffee is an internationally certified executive coach helping women overcome mindset blocks, know their value and create a career (and life) they love without burnout. A thought leader and event speaker with 17 years of corporate experience, she also hosts the podcast Unleashing You with Amanda Riffee and last month released her first book, Unleashing You.

Struggling to manage your business with scattered tags, endless spreadsheets, and Post-It notes? In this episode of Strategy with Sally, learn how to streamline your systems using the OmniWAY™ tagging method — a proven, heart-led approach to organising your contacts, automating follow-ups, and growing your business with ease. Discover how to create a smart, stress-free tagging system, simplify your CRM, and implement our 4-step tagging rules to boost productivity and customer engagement. Perfect for coaches, service providers, and small business owners ready to scale with systems that work.   FREE RESOURCES: eBook: 25 Things You Should Automate in Your Business: omnisam.com.au/25things Watch OmniSAM Demo: omnisam.com.au   Stay Connected & Get Exclusive Access: Join the Private OmniSAM Community: omnisam.com.au/gsdgroup Facebook Group: gsdfb.omnisam.com.au Follow on Facebook: facebook.com/sallysparkscousins Watch the Live Stream & Subscribe for More Updates: OmniSAM YouTube: youtube.com/@omnisamsoftware Sally Sparks-Cousins YouTube: youtube.com/@sallysparkscousins

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and get comfy, because we're diving deep into the wild, chaotic world of Instagram marketing for mompreneurs! If you're feeling like you're shouting into a void with your posts and still not seeing sales, you're definitely not alone. We've all been there, right? In this chat, we're peeling back the layers on why all that Instagram hustle often feels like running on a treadmill—lots of effort, but where's the payoff? The truth bomb here is that without the right strategy, it's just a game of posting pretty pictures and hoping for the best. We talk about a real-life success story of one of our members who saw a whopping 25% increase in link clicks in just a month—now that's what we call results! We emphasize the importance of having a clear strategy that aligns with your business goals and audience needs. Think of it as baking a cake: you might have all the ingredients, but without a recipe, good luck whipping up something delicious! We share actionable tips on connecting your content to your offers, so your followers don't just scroll past but actually engage and convert into clients. So, if you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making Instagram work for you, this episode is packed with insights to help you create content that connects and converts. Stick around until the end for an invitation to slide into our DMs if you want to chat about your own Instagram struggles. Because let's be real, we all need a little help now and then, and you deserve more than just pretty posts—you deserve a strategy that works!Mentioned in this episode:DM me on Instagram! https://instagram.com/socially.yours.strategistMentioned in this episode:Join Plan it, Post It, Profit and plan a month of Instagram posts that lead to sales in just 5 days!Join Plan it, Post It, Profit and plan a month of Instagram posts that lead to sales in just 5 days!PPP evergreen

Today, we're diving into the world of paid workshops with the fabulous AnnMarie Rose, who's all about helping service providers scale their businesses without losing their minds. If you've ever felt like your business is more of a chaotic circus than a well-oiled machine, then this episode is your golden ticket to a calmer, more profitable life. We explore how to streamline your selling strategy, ditch the burnout, and actually make time for those precious family moments that keep us sane. Seriously, I was so inspired by AnnMarie that I signed up for her workshop the second we wrapped up our chat—no joke! So, grab your notes and get ready for some real talk on making your business work for you, not the other way around. Let's roll!Takeaways: Paid workshops can be a game changer for service providers looking to scale without burning out, and they're super fun too! We talked about how prioritizing both front-end visibility and back-end systems can keep your business running smoothly, without the chaos. Annemarie shared her journey from burnout to creating a lifeproof business model that allows for both flexibility and growth, which we all crave as busy moms. Engaging in paid workshops leads to higher show-up rates and builds trust with potential clients, making it a practical strategy for boosting sales. Mentioned In This Episode:Workshop Gameplan GeneratorSold Out Workshop Toolkit (Use the code SYDNEYTOOLKIT for 50% off!)AnnMarie's InstagramAnnMarie's LinkedInMentioned in this episode:Join Plan it, Post It, Profit and plan a month of Instagram posts that lead to sales in just 5 days!Join Plan it, Post It, Profit and plan a month of Instagram posts that lead to sales in just 5 days!PPP evergreen

Alyssa and Jason have been dating for over three years and have been actually living with one another for over a year. Alyssa tells us that she thinks they are ready for the next step because they even have a cat together too. However, Alyssa has started to notice that the bed has been made every day she leaves, but it's as if Jason never slept in the bed at all. At the same time, Alyssa put Post-It notes in the bed to see if Jason would react and he hasn't mentioned anything at all and she's starting to worry.   We call Jason pretending to send him a free bouquet of flowers and when we ask him who he wants them sent to, Jason asks if they can be sent to someone named Charlotte. Find out what's really going on in this week's War Of The Roses! 

Alyssa and Jason have been dating for over three years and have been actually living with one another for over a year. Alyssa tells us that she thinks they are ready for the next step because they even have a cat together too. However, Alyssa has started to notice that the bed has been made every day she leaves, but it's as if Jason never slept in the bed at all. At the same time, Alyssa put Post-It notes in the bed to see if Jason would react and he hasn't mentioned anything at all and she's starting to worry.   We call Jason pretending to send him a free bouquet of flowers and when we ask him who he wants them sent to, Jason asks if they can be sent to someone named Charlotte. Find out what's really going on in this week's War Of The Roses! 

Send us a textBefore the World Premiere of his very first play, Judson Jones streamed into the Playwright's Spotlight. We discussed his background in theatre, film, and television and his journey to writing his first play and any challenges he overcame. We dove into hitting  the flow state, introducing new ideas, the appreciation of new works, storytelling through Post-It notes, working with deadlines, collaborating with designers and the benefits of simplicity and justification as well as eliminating and having an outside eye. We wrap with delving into devices vs dialogue, working with sensitive subject matter, writing out of order, and observing the loss of grace in society. It's a very heartwarming conversation. Enjoy!  His play Canaan Unremembered opened March 24th at the Court Square Theater in Long Island City, New York and runs through April 19th, 2025. For tickets, visit -https://www.theatreeast.org/canaan-unrememberedJudson Jones is a playwright and award-winning producer and director who has had the privilege of collaborating on the premieres of Tim Blake Nelson's Eye Of God, Christopher Durang's The Vietnamizaton of New Jersey, David Crawford's Harvest, Bennett Windheim's Normalcy, Megan O'Brien's The Jungle Book, Daniel MacIvor's The Soldier Dreams, and Devil and the Deep with Air Supply‘s Graham Russell. He serves on the Board of Directors for Texas Dramatists, is a member of Actors' Equity and SAG/AFTRA, and an instructor at the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.To watch the video format of this episode, visit - https://youtu.be/IiK0f9MXhlELinks to resources mentioned in this episode -Powerhouse Theatre - https://www.vassar.edu/powerhouseWebsite and Socials for Judson Jones -IG - @judsonjonesFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/judson.jonesWebsites and socials for James Elden, PMP, and Playwright's Spotlight -Punk Monkey Productions - www.punkmonkeyproductions.comPLAY Noir -www.playnoir.comPLAY Noir Anthology –www.punkmonkeyproductions.com/contact.htmlJames Elden -Twitter - @jameseldensauerIG - @alakardrakeFB - fb.com/jameseldensauerPunk Monkey Productions and PLAY Noir - Twitter - @punkmonkeyprods                  - @playnoirla IG - @punkmonkeyprods       - @playnoir_la FB - fb.com/playnoir        - fb.com/punkmonkeyproductionsPlaywright's Spotlight -Twitter - @wrightlightpod IG - @playwrights_spotlightPlaywriting services through Los Angeles Collegiate Playwrights Festivalwww.losangelescollegiateplaywrightsfestival.com/services.htmlSupport the show

Part 2: Strategic Reading InterventionsThe conversation continues as Sharon and Phil discuss the importance of giving students space to develop their own strategies after receiving initial guidance. Sharon emphasises how the boy's Post-It note idea emerged because she asked him how the strategy helped and gave him time to reflect. She notes this technique would be temporary but highly effective as he transitions to chapter books.Sharon then shares her experience with a second Year 3 student reading a more complex chapter book. This boy demonstrates good decoding skills but makes mistakes he doesn't correct. Sharon records words he reads correctly and incorrectly, noting that he seems aware when he misreads but lacks strategies to fix errors. When she points this out, he confirms: "I don't know what else to do."Returning to the misread words, Sharon introduces the strategy "try a different sound" without specifying which letter to focus on. Remarkably, the boy immediately corrects all four misread words, including "kindy" and "manage." This success transforms his reading experience, making previously difficult text accessible. The strategy is recorded on his reading calendar with a specific date, creating accountability and a reference point for future reading sessions.Sharon explains how these conferences build a comprehensive picture of students as readers, far more detailed than multiple-choice assessments could provide. She stresses that conferring should happen with books that challenge students appropriately—not too easy, as Tim Shanahan has advocated. Teachers need to equip students with strategies to access increasingly complex texts, especially as they progress through upper primary years.RESOURCESThe Listening to Reading Watching While Writing Protocol  Duke, Ward, & KlingelhoferThe Reading Strategies Book 2.0 by Jennifer SerravalloBLOGGetting Better at Conferring, Years 3-6 JOIN TEACHIFIC NOW AND SAVE!Join Teachific  today. Access thousands of resources and a growing number of 'anytime' courses within your membership.FURTHER INFORMATIONTune in to "Teacher's Tool Kit For Literacy," a free podcast where accomplished literacy educator Sharon Callen and her team share valuable insights and tips. With over 30 years of experience, they provide strategic learning solutions to empower teachers and leaders worldwide.  Subscribe on your favourite platform for exclusive literacy learning content.  Apple, Spotify,  Google, YouTubeRead our insightful blogs, which make valuable connections between resources, podcasts and courses.Visit our Cue Learning website and sign up for the Teacher's Toolkit Weekly newsletter to stay updated on resources, events and discover how Cue can support you and your school.Explore Teachific, our vast collection of PDF resources, to enhance your teaching toolkit. And get even more support from our growing number of 'anytime' online courses.Connect with the latest news and other educators by joining our Teacher's Toolkit Facebook groupExplore upcoming live or online webinar  eventsHave questions or feedback? Reach out to us directly at admin@cuelearning.com.au

In this episode, Kate Megaw joins Brian Milner to share simple but powerful techniques that can turn those soul-sucking meetings into dynamic, action-driven conversations. If you're ready to make meetings worth attending, this one’s for you! Overview Brian Milner and Kate Megaw uncover the secrets to running highly effective and engaging meetings. They tackle common facilitation pitfalls, the staggering amount of time wasted in ineffective meetings, and how simple tweaks can transform team collaboration. Kate shares practical strategies for keeping participants engaged, fostering psychological safety, and ensuring meetings lead to real action—because no one has time for another pointless meeting. References and resources mentioned in the show: Kate Megaw ARCLight Agile Katanu Katanu’s Facilitator Certification Course Katanu Resources #44: Transformations Take People with Anu Smalley Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Kate Megaw is the Founder and CEO of ARCLight Agile, specializing in helping organizations create empowered, high-performing teams through agility and collaboration. A dynamic Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), Certified Team Coach (CTC), and Project Management Professional (PMP), Kate is a sought-after speaker known for sparking ‘aha’ moments that drive real transformation. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back here for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm here as I always am, Brian Milner. I'm with you as your host. But today I have the one and only, amazing Kate McGaw is with us. Kate, thank you for coming on. Kate Megaw (00:17) Thank you for having me. Brian Milner (00:19) Absolutely. If there's some of you out there that aren't familiar with Kate, she is a CST, a Scrum trainer like myself. She's also a certified team coach. And she also has the other side of things, the dark side. She's a PMP. So she has that project management kind of background that she brings to the table as well, which I think is awesome. She's a CEO of a company called Arclight Agile. And she's a co-founder of one of our favorites here that's come on the show, Anu. But they team up together. So it's Kate and Anu. And so their company is Katanu. I love it. love it. So why we decided to have Kate on is because Kate and Anu both have done a lot of work around facilitation. And we did have a user request. Kate Megaw (00:57) That's it. Brian Milner (01:09) to have an episode where we focused on facilitation. And listeners of the show know there's nothing I love more than being able to fulfill listener requests here and try to do those as soon as possible. So let's dive in. Let's talk about facilitation. It's a funny word. There's lots of different misconceptions and things about it, I'm sure. What do you find people misunderstand most about facilitation? Kate Megaw (01:34) think one of the key misunderstandings around facilitation is that you're part of the meeting, you're part of the event, you're actively involved. And when you're facilitating, you're actually, taking a step back because you are accountable for making sure that everyone is speaking and that we're keeping an eye on the agenda and things like that. And if you are actively involved in the discussion, You can't be doing that because you're missing body language. You're missing people who need to talk and who aren't talking. So I think one of the main misconceptions is, or that people forget is a facilitator is neutral. So if, for example, you have a scrum master facilitating a retrospective and they need to be actively involved in the retrospective, they should be inviting somebody else in to facilitate it. and I think We're beginning to see a lot more interest in it now because it's one of these key things. If it's done badly, people generally will notice. If it's done well, hopefully you don't notice that much other than, you know what, that meeting was very efficient. We achieved the goal and I feel as though it was worth my time. One of the things I like to say to people at the end of a meeting is the fist of five, how worth your time was this meeting? And I'm looking for fives or fours. If we're getting threes, twos and ones, we've not facilitated it well, or the meeting didn't achieve its agenda and things like that. think a lot of the statistics around facilitation that have come out recently, and you and I were talking about these briefly before we started that the average at the Microsoft trend index shows us that average time spent in meetings by employees at the moment is 21 and a half hours a week, which is an increase, I know, an increase of 252 % since the pre-pandemic. So. Brian Milner (03:36) That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, that's more than half of a work week, right? I mean, we're spending more than half our work week in just locked in meetings. So you're right. We had this conversation beforehand and you were telling me that stat and it just kind of floored me that we're spending that much time in meetings. But it was the next one you told me that really floored me. And it's a combination of these two, I think, that people need to really grasp onto. So tell them what you told me next. Kate Megaw (03:49) Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So the next one is that the Harvard Business Review indicates their research, 67 % of meetings are considered by executives to be failures. So if we look at the financial impact of that, and this is something I didn't share with you, but the financial impact of that is for a company, imagine you have a company with 100 employees, unproductive meetings are wasting upward of $1.7 million a year. If you have a thousand employees, increase that number. it's one of these things that it is not difficult to do. It is just understanding why we need someone in the facilitator role. And the basics around the basic facilitation, the basic getting ready for the meeting, facilitating during the meeting and properly closing the meeting. takes those unsuccessful numbers up to successful numbers where you're getting those fives and people are sort of, yep, that meeting totally achieved the purpose and the outcome and it finished early. So I've got 20 minutes back before my next meeting. Brian Milner (05:24) Yeah, it's so incredible that combination of those two stats. I thinking that we're spending over half our time in meetings and that 67 % of them are failures, we're having a lot of them and we're not doing them well, clearly. Kate Megaw (05:36) Absolutely. I think with, I don't know with Zoom, well, I think with Zoom, it's got easier to have meetings. So we're probably having meetings where we don't need to have meetings. That's one of my favorite things to ask is, does this need to be a meeting? Or are you just going to talk at me and roll data out? In which case, send it to me in email. Don't tie me up for a meeting. Brian Milner (05:44) Yep. Kate Megaw (06:02) Because so many meetings are a waste of time that a lot of people are spending meetings multitasking. So we're taking an hour for a meeting that we could do in 25 minutes if people were 100 % engaged and following the agenda and things like that. Brian Milner (06:22) Yeah, yeah, that's so fascinating. it seems like such a, it's hard to believe that there's not more of that skill in just basic business training, right? Because if we're having all those meetings, then it would seem natural that there would be more segments that would say, you know, a little facilitation skill for, you know, a, you know, bachelor's in business, you know, like that might be a little helpful, right? Kate Megaw (06:41) Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a small investment for something that will make a huge difference. I mean, one of the things Anu and I have been working on is the mnemonic of ready, reach, and wrap in order to make sure we have effective meetings. And the ready part of it is setting the foundation. So before you even get to your meeting, this is ahead of time. You're understanding, okay, what are the Rs? What are the roles and responsibilities? So if I'm facilitating, then who are the decision makers? Who is mandatory? Who's required to be there? Who are the, you can come if you want. Let's stop doing meetings to 30 people and expecting 30 people to show up. So we've got to understand the roles and responsibilities. The other, the E for the ready is expectations and engagement. Brian Milner (07:29) Ha ha ha. Kate Megaw (07:41) So if the expectations are that this is an interactive meeting, we're using Lucid or Mural or Mira, whatever tool we're using, it's going to be collaborative, webcams are going to be on, multitasking is going to be at a minimum, everyone knows going into that meeting what the expectations are. And then the A again is the agenda and the alignment. The agenda should be very clearly saying these are the items that the D is making sure where we have defined the purpose and the outcome. So every meeting, we need to know what the purpose of the meeting is, what the outcome of the meeting is, and they should be included in the agenda. We shouldn't be accepting meetings. Imagine the power of being able to decline a meeting if it didn't have an agenda in it. And if you think about it, why do we attend meetings? Brian Milner (08:27) Ha Yeah. Kate Megaw (08:33) with no agenda and people turn up to the meeting and said, okay, so what's this meeting for? Pretty sure we've all got better things to be doing. So make sure for every meeting we have a defined purpose and outcome. And then the why is making sure we as facilitators have your logistics ready. If it's Zoom, if we're using a remote whiteboard, do people need to practice it? Do we need to set up an environment? Do we need to make sure webcams are on? All that type of thing. So a huge amount of meetings would be better if we did nothing other than better planning with the roles, responsibilities, the expectations, the agenda, the defining the outcome and the logistics. If we just did that. Brian Milner (09:09) Yeah. Kate Megaw (09:23) I bet we're going to see the amount of productive meetings increase considerably. Brian Milner (09:29) Yeah, there's so much transfer here too as well, just to the normal scrum meetings that we have because, you know, one of the things I'll talk about lot in class is just to say, you know, you can't just expect to show up to something like Sprint Planning and have it go smoothly. You have to put in some work beforehand and get ready for it. Same thing with like a Sprint Review. You got to put in some work beforehand and make sure you know who's going when and who's speaking, you know, that speaking order and all that stuff. Kate Megaw (09:42) Yeah. Brian Milner (09:55) goes miles in making those more successful meetings. But the other thing that really interested me in that is you talk a little bit about purpose and that we don't really understand the purpose of the meetings. And that's something that's really stuck out to me is when I talk to people who don't like their Scrum meetings, it feels like 90 % that is just Brian math, but it feels like 90 % of the time, right? Feels like this. It feels like 90 % of the time. Kate Megaw (10:04) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (10:20) that the people who have a problem with those meetings don't know the purpose of the meeting and that's really the root cause of it, right? If they knew why we were here, then the meeting makes sense. Now I understand what we're trying to do. Kate Megaw (10:26) Yep, absolutely. And I think one of the interesting things, I would love to repeat these numbers around the Scrum events, because I think by default, the Scrum events do have a purpose. They do have an outcome. We know what the roles and responsibilities are. We know what the expectations for engagement are. So I think the Scrum events are much more productive than your average event. Brian Milner (10:41) Yeah. Kate Megaw (10:59) But I do feel if we don't have well-facilitated Scrum events, that's where we get our criticism, or, this meeting was a waste of time. Okay, well, let's look at our facilitation and see, it an error in planning or was it an error in expectations? But it always surprises me when people say, well, Scrum's just so many meetings. And I'm so... No, we should have fewer meetings and if they're well facilitated, we need all of those meetings. So it's not as though we're having a meeting for meeting sake, which I think is unfortunately something we can't say for our non-scrum events. Brian Milner (11:43) Yeah, yeah, I mean, I go so far as to say, if you don't understand the purpose of it, don't show up. I mean, there's really no need to be there if you don't know what we're trying to get out of it. One other little side correlation there too, because this kind of ties in a little bit to some of the stuff I did this last year in kind of studying a little bit about neurodivergency and different neuro types and that kind of thing. And one of the things I found really fascinating was certain neurodivergent types, Kate Megaw (11:48) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (12:12) really need to have an agenda in advance. And if they don't, then it just raises their anxiety level. they're just, you even not, you know, neurodivergent types, just regular, normal, you know, neurotypical people. There are those that just don't respond well when you're just throwing out a blank slate and saying, give us your best idea, right? They need time to process and think in advance and Kate Megaw (12:15) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Brian Milner (12:38) And so yeah, if we could send out that just the day before, it's not that much work. It's just one day earlier, right? It's actually the same amount of work. It's just doing it a day earlier. Right. Kate Megaw (12:45) Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just better organized. Yeah. I mean, I even on my team meetings, I know some members of my team want to know, because I always like to start them with segue questions and some of my team completely fine. Ask them a question, favorite food or you want to have any sort of segue question and they're fine with it. But I have my thinkers who want to think about it ahead of time. So I think it's important when we're facilitating any event that we understand the audience. How many of the audience are going to want to maybe read a document ahead of time? How many of the audience are, you know what, they can think on the feet, I can throw anything at them, but there are others that do need the preparation. yeah, I think that the planning that we do, if we can do it just slightly ahead. And then things like when we get into the meeting, of the mnemonic that we use for actually facilitating during the meeting is the mnemonic of reach, which is we're guiding the process. The very first thing we do when we go into the meeting is we review the agenda and open the meeting. So here's the agenda. I've got the agenda visible. mean, what the agenda that we use in classes. Is the to do doing and done. I use that for all my meetings. I've got that up on the virtual board and the topics of the meeting are moving across to doing and done because then our visual people can see how we're doing. But the reviewing, at the start of every meeting we said, OK, let's just review the agenda. Let's just remind everyone this is the purpose and this is the desired outcomes. And if the right people are not in the meeting. There's no point having a meeting that we cannot achieve the purpose and the outcomes because we don't have the right people. So, I mean, I always say open it, open it with a segue question and things like that, but level set on the agenda. And then the middle part of the meeting is the bit that people are familiar with, which is the gathering ideas. It's exploring. It's the A is the assessing, making sure we've got the collaboration and the discussion and the... Brian Milner (14:39) Yeah. Yeah. Kate Megaw (15:07) The C is our concluding, are we doing dot voting or is somebody else who makes the final decision? But the H is the one that we often forget at the end, which is let's highlight the action items from the meeting. Let's make sure we know what it is, who's accountable for it, when it's going to be done by, and then close the meeting. mean, you... Brian Milner (15:18) Hmm. Kate Megaw (15:33) you and I will both close out our classes. Maybe we use one word, maybe we use, give us a statement, all sorts of different things, but we forget to close out meetings. go, time's up. Okay. Bye everyone. And we've not reviewed the, this is what we're going to do for next time. And we've not formally closed the meeting, even if it's as simple as one word, but we've got to open and close it. Sorry. Passionate about that. No. Brian Milner (15:44) You You mean that's not how you close out a class? I've been closing classes like that for years. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, exactly. Ding, sorry. Kate Megaw (16:03) Yes, sorry, time's up, clunk. Yeah, sorry, dog's barking, dog needs to go out. So, but yeah. Brian Milner (16:11) Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, no. And there was something I came across just in trying to put together materials for classes where we have little segments on facilitation in it. Because I think sometimes there's a lot of focus on the different various techniques, like fist to five or thumbs up or whatever. There's different kind of techniques. I'm not trying to belittle those. Those are things we need to know. But. Kate Megaw (16:21) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (16:36) One of the things I came across was that the root word of this thing is this Latin word, facilius. stands or it means literally to make easy. And I've always had that kind of in the back of my mind when I'm a facilitator is like, what are they trying to do? And whatever they're trying to do, just, my job is just to make that as easy as possible, right? You know, it's always difficult when you're trying to make a decision and you have no direction about how that decision is going to be made. Kate Megaw (16:46) Yeah. Brian Milner (17:05) But a good facilitator can give the structure to it and say, no, no, no, it's OK, I got you. We're going to go through this little journey together, and we're going to end in this other side, and you're going to have something to take away from it. Kate Megaw (17:16) Yeah, we're going to have heard everyone's voices as we go through. We're not going to let one person dominate the conversation. We're going to use techniques like, that's a great point. Can we also check in on the other side of the table? Let's hear some counter points here. It's pulling people in, it's summarizing. So if I'm hearing you correctly, Brian, you're saying A, B, C, D. It's all of that going into it. And I think one of the other... big has when we teach facilitation is the facilitator is not the scribe. So people say, well, I'm the project manager or I'm the facilitator. need to be taking all the meeting notes. And I'm like, well, what direction is your head pointing when you're taking notes? And it's down at a piece of paper. So you're not seeing who's yawning because you're tired and you need to take a break. You're not seeing people who are confused or wanting to talk and things like that. sort of either you turn on the AI tool and have the AI tool summarize the meeting for you. Do check it before you submit, it out or B have everyone in the meeting as a grown ass adult. They can take their own agenda items. mean, their own action items, have an area on your virtual board or in the room you're having the meeting in that is action items. And again, what is it? Brian Milner (18:18) Sure. Kate Megaw (18:36) Who's gonna be doing it? When's it gonna be done by? And I think one of the key criticisms of meetings is, and you'll hear this as well, particularly by retrospectives is, well, nothing changes. And I'm sort of, well, who has the action item? well, there isn't an action item. And I'm sort of, at the end of every meeting, we should be doing the mnemonic we use here is rap. The first thing is retrospect. Brian Milner (18:53) you Kate Megaw (19:04) How was this meeting? We talked about the fist of five. Give me one word. Anything we need to do differently next time. And then the A is make sure we have all of these action items assigned to someone. And then the P is the one we forget about. Tracking that progress. How are we going to hold each other accountable for making sure that something changes as a result of the meeting? So. Brian Milner (19:22) Mm-hmm. Kate Megaw (19:31) If we're doing retrospectives, if the team is voting whatever technique they're using to choose the one thing they want to do differently, how do we make it visible? Do we put it on our scrum board somewhere? Do we talk about it every day as part of after we've done daily scrum? How are we doing with the communication techniques that we wanted to try and do differently going forward? We've got to have that visibility. Otherwise nothing changes. Brian Milner (19:57) Yeah, yeah, that's so awesome. I completely agree. And that's something that I think you're right is missing, not just from retrospectives, but just a lot of meetings in general. We don't really understand, all right, well, what's the takeaway? What's the thing we need to do as a result of this to make this not a waste of our time, to make this something that was a useful, not the 67 % that were failures, but something that actually leads to success. I want to. Kate Megaw (19:59) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, yes, so that we're not having the same meeting again next week and the week after and nothing's changing. Brian Milner (20:30) Exactly. Exactly. I want to ask you one question about facilitation. I've heard this a lot in regards to retrospectives, but probably it's more a facilitation thing than it is a retrospective thing. But I think probably the number one question we get from people about retrospectives is, how do you handle a quiet team? so I'm just kind of curious. When you talk about facilitating and working with individuals who are a little more introverted, Kate Megaw (20:50) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (20:57) or just not as comfortable speaking out in public, are there special considerations or are there things that you do differently just to try to accommodate and make those people feel more comfortable when you're facilitating them? Kate Megaw (21:09) So yes, several things. So one, I will look at a theme. So do they have a team name and do I want to set up a mnemonic around the team name to gather the data? Are they a visual team? Do I want to do something like the sailboat that's interactive and people can add things to the board? Are they a movie buffs? Do I need to do a Star Wars themed retrospective? So I'll generally try and find something to connect the team. I've done it before where I'm working with airlines. Okay, what is it keeps our planes in the air? What is it that grounds our planes? What are the storm clouds we need to be aware of? What are causing bumps during the air? So all of that type of thing, it's a theme relevant to the team. And I generally will find that if I can start a team talking, I can keep them talking. So if... one of the ways that I will often start a retrospective is if the retrospective, if your last retrospective was a ride at Disney, what ride would it have been? and get them talking or give me one word that describes the last retro or in a scale of one to the, mean, the last sprint, give me one word that describes it or scale of one to 10. How well do you think we did at the last sprint? But I love to get people talking. If I'm in the office, I sort of adapted the Adam Weisbart's retrospective cookies and I'll use candy bars and I'll wrap questions around candy bars and the team grabs a candy bar and there is a question on it which they answer and then other people in the room will then answer as well. Maybe things like, what can I do to better support you as a scrum master? Or, What can we do to better support each other as team members? So I think it's getting people talking, making sure the big reminder for me is as a facilitator, if you did not write the Post-It note, you should not be reading the Post-It note and you should not be moving the Post-It note. The team owns the Post-It notes. Everyone should be adding their own Post-It notes, whether it's virtual or in person. Brian Milner (23:07) Yeah. Kate Megaw (23:28) They should be grouping their own Post-it notes. They should be moving them. And the other one, people always say, well, what happens if there's the elephant in the room and this thing on the board that nobody wants to talk about? And I'm said, well, often I will say, okay, I'm going to add, we're going to do something different for this round. This time, I'm going to ask you to introduce something you did not write on the board. And let's talk about, I'm going to ask you to choose a topic and we're going to talk about that. Just read it, you read it out. Brian Milner (23:39) Yeah. Kate Megaw (23:58) and then we'll have a discussion around it. So as a facilitator, I can uncover the elephants in the room without anyone feeling too uncomfortable. Brian Milner (24:07) Yeah, that's great stuff. of parallel to this, think is kind of, I know we've, I've heard you talk about this, but the sense of safety in the room and just that people feel safe to talk about that. Are there things we can do as facilitators to actually raise that sense of safety? Kate Megaw (24:25) There are absolutely, there's a lot of things we can do. And I, every now and then I will hear something and I will just cringe. And there's, well my team doesn't really like sharing. They're not honest in the retrospective until the CTO disconnects from the retrospective. And I'm sort of, okay, so maybe what do you think this is maybe telling us? I'm sort of retrospectives are Vegas rules. It is the team. I will do retrospectives even with non-scrum teams, but it is the team that is there. There are no visitors. It is the team only. The other thing that makes me cringe is, yes, well we sent out the minutes of the retrospective and I'm sort of, excuse me, the retrospective again, Vegas rules. What is the one thing we're going to do differently as a team in the next sprint? Okay, is everyone okay if I put this up on our scrum board so it's visible? Brian Milner (25:07) Ha Kate Megaw (25:20) Okay, that's the one thing we're taking away. But back to the question you were asking, one of the biggest signs of a lack of psychological safety is that the team just doesn't want to talk. They're worried that the minutes are going to be captured. Somebody, one of the leaders is in there and, well, everyone's fine with my leadership. They're completely open and honest in front of me. And I'm sort of, okay, let's try a retrospective then with you there. Brian Milner (25:32) Yeah. Kate Megaw (25:50) And then we'll also try retrospective without you there. And let's see which one is more comfortable because otherwise it's a, it's a colossal waste of time. If nothing's going to change, why are we wasting sort of 45 minutes to an hour or even doing it? So I think that the psychological safety is a key one, making sure it is the right people, making sure that minutes are not being captured. The other thing is. A lot of times people say, well, I need to capture it because I need to bring all of the information again next time. And I'm sort of, no, you're trashing the Post-it notes. You're trashing the mural board, whatever. You're starting from scratch next time. they're sort of, well, I'm going to lose all this information. I'm sort of, no, if it's important enough, it's going to come up again next time. Brian Milner (26:23) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And things change, right? mean, what the universe of things we might identify this sprint could be entirely different for next sprint. I've always loved, Jeff Sutherland had this phrase, he would say about it to say that, you have to remove that one big thing. And when you move that one big thing, then the system adjusts and you don't really know where the next bottleneck is going to come from until you remove that one big thing. Kate Megaw (26:58) Yeah. Brian Milner (27:02) So it's likely to be somewhere you wouldn't expect. so you can't just hang on to your number two issue from one retrospective and then say, well, next retrospective, we'll just do that and we can cut out having the conversation because we identified important things in this one. Kate Megaw (27:14) Yeah. And it anchors the tea. It stops the creativity. that's the other thing with retrospectives. I occasionally will work with a client and there's the, oh yes, we've been doing what's going well and what's not going so well every two weeks for six months. And I'm sort of, it's not really any wonder your team's bored out of their minds at retrospectives and nothing new is coming up. There's so many websites out there. Brian Milner (27:41) Yeah. Kate Megaw (27:42) that retrospective should never, in fact, no meeting should ever be boring because we should always be opening and closing a meeting in a creative way. Even if it's, mean, one of the things that we like to do in the morning of class is have music. So when people are joining, the energy is there so that we're getting that interaction and things like that. So people are starting on a high and then... I mean, you'll notice in the afternoons people begin to yawn, especially after lunch. Okay, you know what? It's been 65 minutes. Let's take a break. Let's do a segue question at break. So when we come back, show us something on your desk that tells us a bit about you. Or one of the ones I like is go stand up, go and look outside and come back and tell us something you saw outside. We have chickens. We have all sorts of things that people are saying. but it's encouraging them to get up and go get some oxygen in their system, take a break and then come back and then it's more engaging. But if as a facilitator, I'm not planning that type of thing, the energy is going to go down and I'm not going to achieve the purpose of my half day event or my one day class, whatever it is. Brian Milner (28:56) Yeah, it doesn't happen by accident. It's all very intentional. Well, this is fascinating. And we could have this conversation for another several hours, I'm sure. I just wanted to let everyone know that in case you were scrambling to write down these mnemonics and other things, we're going to link that in our show notes. So you can go to our show notes, and we'll put you over to Katanu team. Kate Megaw (28:58) No. Yep, absolutely. Yep. Brian Milner (29:20) Katanu, I keep on saying cat and Anu, trying to say it right way. Yeah, but we'll link you over them so you can get those three Rs for meetings and know kind of what each one of those little letters stands for in there. Kate Megaw (29:24) Yeah. Brian Milner (29:33) This has been really eye-opening for me and it just is a fascinating topic and it's so delightful just to hear the intentionality and how we can do simple things. They're not hard things, but simple things that make such a huge difference. Kate Megaw (29:48) Yeah, yeah, mean, that's the key. This is not rocket science. It's one or two simple things that helps us take that if we are going to spend 20 % or 20 hours a week, which is half of our time in meetings, let's at least make sure they're productive meetings so that we're not literally burning money by having unproductive meetings. Brian Milner (30:12) Yeah, absolutely. Well, I also forgot to mention here at the beginning, and we'll put this in the show notes as well, but Team Katanu also has a facilitation course. The Scrum Alliance has a certified Agile facilitator designation that you could obtain if you were interested in that. We'll link that off as well. But yeah, I couldn't recommend any better people for you to take that from than Kate in a new idea. We were saying that she had a, when she was younger, used to have the nickname Cat, and now everyone's calling her Cat from that. Well, thank you again for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. I really appreciate it. Kate Megaw (30:46) Yep. Yep. Thank you very much for having me, Brian. And I look forward to hearing amazing facilitation stories from everyone once they've implemented some of this stuff. Brian Milner (31:03) Absolutely.

Part 1: Understanding the Conferring ProcessIn this insightful podcast, Phil and Sharon Callen explore the art of conferring with students in Years 3-6. Sharon begins by explaining that conferring is a powerful tool for both learning about students and helping them develop as readers. She emphasises that the key shift in her conferring practice came when she realised these sessions should provide immediate learning opportunities rather than just collecting information to use later.Sharon introduces the "Listening to Reading, Watching While Writing Protocol," a freely available tool developed by Duke Ward and Klingelhoffer. This protocol aligns with the Active View of Reading developed by Duke and Cartwright, covering word recognition, comprehension, and the bridging processes between them. The protocol guides teachers on what to observe during conferring and helps them make informed decisions about what to teach.The focus of these conferences is to identify what strategies students are currently using effectively or ineffectively and to provide targeted instruction. Sharon explains that these short, five-minute conferences allow teachers to observe students reading from their current books and help them develop a specific strategy they can practice immediately and apply independently.Sharon shares her first story about conferring with a Year 3 boy reading an early chapter book. The student immediately reveals his struggle: "I find it difficult to remember what I'm reading." As he reads, Sharon notices he keeps his eyes on the page while decoding but struggles with comprehension. When asked to recall what he read, he can remember the first two paragraphs but not the third, longer one. Sharon teaches him the strategy of keeping not just his eyes but also his mind in the book. When he practises this strategy, he experiences immediate success and even suggests using Post-It notes to track his understanding page by page.RESOURCESThe Listening to Reading Watching While Writing ProtocolBLOGGetting Better at Conferring, Years 3-6 JOIN TEACHIFIC NOW AND SAVE!Join Teachific  today. Access thousands of resources and a growing number of 'anytime' courses within your membership.FURTHER INFORMATIONTune in to "Teacher's Tool Kit For Literacy," a free podcast where accomplished literacy educator Sharon Callen and her team share valuable insights and tips. With over 30 years of experience, they provide strategic learning solutions to empower teachers and leaders worldwide.  Subscribe on your favourite platform for exclusive literacy learning content.  Apple, Spotify,  Google, YouTubeRead our insightful blogs, which make valuable connections between resources, podcasts and courses.Visit our Cue Learning website and sign up for the Teacher's Toolkit Weekly newsletter to stay updated on resources, events and discover how Cue can support you and your school.Explore Teachific, our vast collection of PDF resources, to enhance your teaching toolkit. And get even more support from our growing number of 'anytime' online courses.Connect with the latest news and other educators by joining our Teacher's Toolkit Facebook groupExplore upcoming live or online webinar  eventsHave questions or feedback? Reach out to us directly at admin@cuelearning.com.au

Here's part two of my interview with Jane Roper, author of the novel “The Society of Shame,” which is a finalist for the Thurber Prize in American Humor, and a memoir, “Double Time: How I Survived and Mostly Thrived Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins.” Today I'm talking with Jane about what I call inner stuff, the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work. - How reading her own work used to be embarrassing, and how she got over it - Feeling like the worst person in the MFA program - When your inner critic tells you your work is shallow - The quotes she's written on Post-It notes that are hanging above her desk and help talk her through crises of confidence - Feeling like the silliest person in the room - Letting go of the idea that one day you'll “make it” and then everything will flow - Realizing there's no award for doing things perfectly and letting go of that drive to be a super-achiever - How letting go of some body issues also freed up her work self Connect with Jane at janeroper.com. For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Thank you for listening! And thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Launch your own agency with blood, sweat, and pee. Meghan and Cameron reveal how they built Hard Work Club with Post It notes and a dream. Plus, they unpack work for Knix and Doordash.ABOUT OUR GUESTS:Meghan Kraemer - Co-founder, Executive Creative DirectorAs a woman and mother, Meghan is unlike 98% of creative agency owners. An advocate for women in the industry, she is a champion for equality, authenticity and smashing through the sea-of-sameness. As Executive Creative Director of HWC, she brings a considered, artistic and deeply human approach to each piece of work the club creates. When she's not swinging for the fences, she's reheating cups of coffee as she chases after her two young daughters, Norah and Maeve.Cameron Stark -  Co-founder, Head of StrategyFor the last fifteen years, Cam has stewarded brands to break through the clutter and advocated for the value of smart, distinctive, creative thinking. He brings an anthropological approach and deep curiosity to every brief, and is passionate about unlocking a brand's greater purpose. He also dabbles in homemade hot sauce he gives as gifts (but still try to act surprised when you unwrap it).  ADCC Created is brought to you by The Advertising & Design Club of Canada, hosted by Lyranda Martin Evans (Fellow Human), with music and studio care of Grayson Music. Follow us on Instagram @theadccEmail us at created@theadcc.ca

Think you know German wine? Think again. In this episode we're shattering just about every German wine myth with Jenna Fields, the passionate force behind the German Wine Collection. Jenna's mission to revolutionize how the world thinks about German wine began on a Post-It note (seriously), and in this episode, she breaks down why you'll find racy, bone-dry Rieslings in the world's finest collections and how the German-made versions of two of our most beloved varietals—Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—can rival the best of Burgundy. Plus, we'll clarify those confusing German labels and classifications, making it super easy to spot the best producers (without knowing a word of German), and even reveal the guilty-pleasure Super Bowl snack that pairs perfectly with Riesling!

Post It and Toasted full 614 Tue, 28 Jan 2025 21:42:11 +0000 Iad6nVYy1xa9GdzcTrwOmHMWJ7X7c3TA sports Evan & Tiki sports Post It and Toasted Tiki Barber moves from middays to afternoons, joining Evan Roberts in afternoon drive! Sparks will fly as unabashed Jets and Mets fan Evan talks turkey with ex-Giant and staunch Yankees supporter Tiki! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Sports False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frss.amperw

Concept: The Power of One Monday's Deal of the Day: The IDEA Dashboard Purchase the Deal of the Day by clicking here. No more scraps of paper, Post-It notes, random lists, or trying to find where you wrote that thing you wanted to remember... WHAT'S INCLUDED: ✅ ONE location for all of your ideas in ONE customizable, searchable Google Sheet ✅ Tutorial videos showing you exactly how to set up and customize your Idea Dashboard in less than 60 minutes ✅ Free live implementation group call on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, @ 4:00 PM CT. This call will be recorded. ✅ Top 25 list of the most popular idea categories ✅ 3 bonus call recordings of me customizing, sharing ideas, and answering questions. ✅ Instructions on how to use on the go - anywhere, anytime - on your smartphone or device. WHY YOU NEED IT: So you stop wasting time and energy searching through Post-its, scattered papers, and endless journal pages. Use the power of ONE system to organize your ideas, reduce decision fatigue, and give your brain the clarity it craves! "Thank you so much for your amazing Idea Dashboard. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it changed my life. In a VERY good way! First, I learned how to use Google Sheets more efficiently. Even the clever way you use emojis to identify the tabs was new to me. So helpful. Thank you for that! ...Since I started using your idea tracker, everything seems so much more manageable. I just had to share my gratitude and excitement with you. Hard to believe it was so inexpensive. Thank you!" - Mary Debono, Movement + Mindset Coach Click here for the show notes, links, and more.

This week I am talking to writer Antonia Angress. Antonia is the author of "Sirens & Muses," which starts off as a campus novel set at a New England art school, but then blooms into an exploration of the intersection of home and belonging versus individualism and seeking to stand out, set in the New York City art scene during the Occupy Wall Street era. "Sirens & Muses" was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour Magazine and won the Minnesota Book Award, and Antonia was recently named one of the NEA's 2024 Creative Writing Fellows. I loved the book and I love that I get to ask Antonia my list of mildly invasive questions about why and how she does her particular creative work. (Note–this episode is a replay. We'll be back to new episodes next week, yay!) We covered: - The advice she gives about the stuff you write that you end up deleting - The fact that publishing a book “really doesn't change your life” - The importance of that feeling of being alone with your work - The daily writing goal that keeps Antonia going (spoiler: it's very small) - How she manages her ‘internet junk food' diet - The practice that gets her ready to write - What motivational phrase is on the Post-It note above her computer For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Thank you for listening! And thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Friday, October 11th, A.D. 2024. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus China and North Korea partner to persecute Christians China has subjected hundreds of North Koreans to atrocities since last year by forcibly returning them to a country whose leaders hold that religion, especially Christianity, is the greatest threat to its power, experts said at a recent U.S. hearing, reports Morning Star News. Investigations have shown that torture, sexual violence, enslavement, and murder await those repatriated from China to detention centers in North Korea led by its Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. At the hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on September 26, Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the non-governmental Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said, “Any religious belief, and Christianity in particular, as well as South Korea, constitute the only challenges to the Kim regime's absolute monopoly on power. Christianity offers an alternative way of life that delegitimizes tyranny and transcends oppression.” Hanna Song, executive director of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, explained that when North Koreans are forcibly repatriated from China back to their home country, one of the first questions they will be asked by authorities is whether they have met with a missionary during their time in China. “The answer determines the severity of punishment they will endure. If an individual admits to or is found to have had contact with a missionary, particularly one affiliated with Christianity, they're often subject to the harshest forms of torture and imprisonment.” Joanna Hosaniak, with Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, explained that refugees have revealed that China was using facial recognition technology to track down North Korean migrants in China. And Chinese officials rewarded those who report people aiding them. Chinese authorities share North Korea's desire to punish those of religious belief. She said, “The goal is religious persecution,” adding that Chinese companies cooperate in this task in a way that is tantamount to human trafficking. There is evidence that some Chinese companies are linked with North Korean companies. According to the Open Doors 2024 World Watch List, North Korea is the most dangerous country worldwide in which to be a Christian. Amos 5:24 says, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” 60 Minutes asks Kamala about inflation, unfair nomination, & flip flops Appearing on a special Election Edition of “60 Minutes”, Kamala Harris talked with Bill Whitaker this past Monday night on CBS. WHITAKER: “Groceries are 25% higher, and people are blaming you and Joe Biden for that. Are they wrong?” HARRIS: “To your point, prices are still too high, and I know that, and we need to deal with it, which is why part of my plan, you mentioned groceries, part of my plan is what we must do to bring down the price of groceries.” Not surprisingly, Harris never shared her plan to bring down grocery prices.  So Bill Whitaker said this. WHITAKER: “Harris says she will press Congress to pass a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries, but details are yet to be defined.” He asked the Vice President about whether the process of her becoming the nominee was fair. WHITAKER: “Was democracy best served by President Biden stepping down and basically handing you a nomination. You didn't have to go through a primary process. You didn't have to fight off other contenders. That's not really the way our system was intended to work.” HARRIS: “I am proud to have received the endorsement of leaders around this country from every background and walk of life to fight in this election over the next month for our democracy.” WHITAKER: “But I think this truncated process is why people think or say they don't really know who you are.” HARRIS: “Look, I've been in this race for 70 days.” But she's been Vice President for almost four years! In light of her flip flops on multiple issues, Whitaker noted that many Americans don't know who the real Kamala Harris is. WHITAKER: “The reason so many voters don't know you is that you have changed your position on so many things. You were against fracking. Now you're for it. You supported looser immigration policies. Now you're tightening them up. You're for Medicare for all. Now you're not. So many that people don't truly know what you believe or what you stand for, and I know you've heard that.” HARRIS: “In the last four years, I have been Vice President of the United States, and I have been traveling our country, and I have been listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of common ground. I believe in building consensus.” Jesse Watters, a Fox News talk show host, had a pithy response to that Kamala comment, WATTERS: “Kamala hasn't been seeking common ground. She's been seeking common sense. All of these positions she's just adopted are common sense, conservative positions. “She didn't build consensus. She's just agreeing with the rest of the country now to get elected.” Tampa Bay area battered, bruised by Hurricane Milton, but still standing In the late hours of Wednesday night, Hurricane Milton battered and bruised Tampa Bay, Florida with sustained winds of more than 100 mph.  God's power shredded Tropicana Field's roof, uprooted grown trees, snapped power lines and toppled a massive crane into the headquarters of the Tampa Bay Times in downtown St. Petersburg, reports The Miami Herald.  So far, four people have died. In fact, the storm dumped lots of rain — around 17 inches in parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in just six hours — forcing the National Weather Service to declare a rare flash flood emergency. But as Tampa Bay awoke Thursday, it appeared the storm didn't measure up to the dire warnings that had been issued by local and state officials. Along Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg, winds had twisted signs and left branches in the road, but many of the businesses seemed largely unscathed. Texas couple erects cross in yard, invites people to pray And finally, ever since Bernie and Dee Ann Tackitt of Lubbock, Texas got baptized several years ago, God has motivated them to reach out to the world with prayer, reports KCBD-TV. In fact, Dee Ann has the habit of praying with strangers in stores and on the streets. BERNIE: “She has a habit of finding people who need prayers. I mean, we could be in Big Lots or anywhere, and I'm looking, ‘Where's my wife?' She's praying with somebody. We'll be out in parking lot praying with somebody.” On his birthday last year, Bernie added a large cross to the front yard. BERNIE:  “At this point in humanity, we need to pick a team. And I want everybody to know, ‘I'm with Team Jesus.' Well, I thought I'm going to make a cross.“ They invite people to write their prayer request on a Post-It note and stick it to the cross. The couple will pray for those specific prayer requests In fact, they have also set up their Bible bench, where people can sit, pray, and read the Bible.  Plus, there are free Bibles available for anyone to take. DEE ANN: “If you need to just sit down, have some quiet time with the Lord, come sit on my bench, talk to the Lord. Put that prayer on that cross. And you know what? Your prayer will be covered every day. If you need somebody to pray with you, please knock on the door.” And because they believe so strongly in the power of baptism, they have also made their pool available for baptisms. DEE ANN: “We have dedicated our home as the house of prayer for the nations.” Ephesians 6:18 says, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.” So, if you live in the Lubbock, Texas area, or perhaps you're just passing through, the Tackitts invite you to drop by for prayer at their home located at 3302 93rd Street. Or send your prayer request by mail. Send it to Bernie and Dee Ann Tackitt, 3302 93rd Street, Lubbock, TX 79423. Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, October 11th, in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Recorded 9/10/24. Phil hosted. Jeff, Jake and the Holy Spirit were there, too. Straight from 6 Foot Studios. Get your hard-hitting news and help us bring America back together.American Fork: Delicious doughnut joint, The Pink Box, is opening a new location in American Fork. Yay! Utah: A Provo mother was arrested for sexually abusing and trafficking her 10 year-old for prostitution. Lock her up and throw away the key! Also, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Russel M. Nelson turns 100. He's so awesome… and still with it. He has been alive to see the invention of sliced bread, Post-It notes, the bagless vacuum cleaner, and the first winter Olympics, the Great Depression and a ton of other historically significant events.National: EGOT winner and American sweetheart, James Earl Jones, dies at 93 years old. What a legend he was. He is already missed. Talked about the Presidential debate between Trump and Harris. There was nothing spectacular about this one. It was meh. Was it set-up beforehand to make Harris look good? #abortion #russia #northkorea #israel.World: Phil is still obsessed with the breakdancing event in the Olympics. He finally found the Australian dancer's routine. Also, Brazil is cracking down on free-speech, forcing X to take down all posts that oppose their new President. This is in direct opposition to everything Elon Musk stands for. But, it looks like the new President got somewhat of a win on this one.Tangent: Phil wishes he could negate the cost of his dental care. He loves the gas so much. He cranks it up a bit. That's a lot of fentanyl!Find us at americanforked.com. You can donate to help support the show at patreon.com/americanforked. Please rate us on iTunes and Apple Podcasts. Send an email to info@americanforked.com with a screenshot of your review and we'll send you a special gift. Also, call or text our voice line at (385)273-4627.

Send us a textOn this episode Tom and Bert discuss everyday words that didn't show up until the 1970's.The Guys cover a slew of "Words" that are still recognizable today that first appeared over 50+ years ago back in the crazy decade of the 1970's!From "Factoid" (2:24); a word that seems inocuous but actually is a manipulation of the word FACT! Well, listen what the guys got to say about that illusion.Other Words/Venacular are discussed throughout the pod and the guys tell how they relate to today's world.Words like "Watergate" (4:00); to "Meme" (5:30); to "Politically Correct" (7:55); and "Trifecta" (10:02); are all still used in 2024! Throw in "Post It's" (25:28); "911" (27:03); and a few other like "Couch Potato" (32:21); "Karaoke" (36:48); and "Woke" (40:15); and you get the picture. The 1970's along with the 1960's were the times of Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll and it continues to be an iconic era in America.Enjoy the show!You can email us at reeldealzmoviesandmusic@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page, Reel Dealz Podcast: Movies & Music Thru The Decades to leave comments and/or TEXT us at 843-855-1704 as well.

4pm - New WA Costco is the culprit behind more Labor Day weekend I-5 traffic // ELECTION 2024: The Rise of the Husband // Want to Ruin a Destination’s Appeal for Others? Take a Selfie and Post It

What have you done recently outside your role as a partner, parent or professional? A guilt-free activity that is purely about having fun and leaves you saying, “I can't believe I just did that”?If you're like most women, chances are you are prioritising everyone but yourself. But author Eve Rodsky believes that carving out time to explore the gifts, talents and interests that make you you is a necessity if you want to live a happier, more fulfilled life.But how do you do that, how do you communicate that to those around you, and how do you get over the guilt and shame?  Here's why you need to tune inIn this interview from the archives, Eve unpacks what a Unicorn Space is and describes her own failed attempt to find one using a Post-It note during the pandemic. She explores the communication styles of our CEO Joy and her husband Tim to demonstrate how you can have high cognition, low emotion conversations that let you implement boundaries and systems to ensure you have time for what Eve calls ‘daily flourishing'.Here's what to listen out for:[01:00] What is Unicorn Space about? [04:04] What is a Unicorn Space?[08:33] The ‘Unavailable' Post-It note.[10:33] There is a formula for thriving. [14:14] What is your communication style? [21:26] What is your partner's communication style? [27:35] How do you communicate with yourself? [35:09] Is Unicorn Space only for the privileged? So, what will you do outside your role as a partner, parent or professional? Email us at support@techpixies.com and let us know. ▶️▶️▶️For details of links and resources mentioned in this episode, visit TechPixies.comLove our podcast? Leave a review and get hold of our Quick Start Podcast Guide.Want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you.Follow us on social media @techpixies and ping us a DM or drop us a line at support@techpixies.com Thanks for listening!

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

Adult lemonade stands, free Post Malone tickets, a Post-It app of the day, and our summer bucket list

HAPPY MONDAY MOTIVATION Welcome back to another episode of the No More Excuses Podcast. In my last episode (#415), I had Soof Hirschmann on to talk about how a solid CRM is your secret weapon for growth and efficiency. But today, we're going even deeper—into the heart of your business: Workflow Management. You might be thinking, "Workflow management? Sounds boring." Well, guess what? It's the secret sauce to running a smooth, efficient, and scalable operation. We're talking about slashing wasted time, cutting the crap, and making your processes lean and mean! Step 1: Identify Key Processes  First things first, you've got to know what's going on behind the scenes in your business. What are the core processes that keep your engine running? Your To-DO: Write down every major process you handle—whether it's sales, marketing, customer service, or inventory management.  I would suggest using those giant Post-It® notes!  Listen in as I give you more tips and examples to help you see what your workflow even includes and then...  Step 2: Map It Out  Visualize your process. Don't just leave it in your head. Any client I've done a strategy session with says the same thing: "Damn that looks different than it did it my head!" I just helped a client set up Trello to help her visualize her workflow, as well as manage all of the tasks she has in each "bucket" of revenue generators. And then.... Step 3: Evaluate Efficiency  Automation is becoming a game-changer!  Free yourself from the drudgery! The shit that is a time-suck! I'm really digging in and finding out how it can help me more. I've used some automation in the past, but I'm learning how it can allow me the time to dig deeper with my clients. Think about this: If you don't want to do it or you can't delegate it... AUTOMATE IT! Cheers! Sandi

Think about aiming for but barely missing a target far in the distance. You don't need to drastically shift your focus. Slight adjustments will get you back on the mark. The same approach can work in marriage. Ted Lowe, Bobby Lewis, and Buck Buchanan have been married for nearly 60 years collectively. On today's episode, the trio shares a few “micro moves” to help improve your marriage. Now, we're not saying these are the only things that will improve your marriage, but we think it's a good list to get your started. Check out these 12 “micro moves.” 1. Be nice.2. Don't say everything you think.3. Pick up after yourself.4. Don't mention your wife's messiness.5. Hug your wife without the goal of initiating sex.6. Don't get frustrated with your wife's mistakes.7. Ask your wife how she is doing and listen to the answer.8. Don't be on your phone during mealtime.9. Pay attention when your wife is talking.10. Enjoy your wife's humor whether it's funny or not.11. Leave your wife a Post-It note of gratitude.12. Do a chore your wife dislikes.Bottomline: The sum total of your micro moves equals the condition of your marriage.Today's Pro Move: Choose just one of the 12 “micro moves” and focus on doing it this week.Other resources: 12 Micro Moves For Your Marriage5 Choices That Will Instantly Improve Your Marriage5 Ideas That Will Transform Your MarriageThe 7 Disciplines of a Healthy MarriageTed's Books:Us In MindMarried PeopleYour Best Us Book Ted to speak at:Your Marriage ConferenceYSend us a Text Message.EXTRAS: Follow us: Instagram | Facebook | X (Twitter)Join nearly 200,000 other dads by subscribing to the All Pro Dad Play of the Day. Get daily fatherhood ideas, insight, and inspiration sent straight to your inbox.This episode's show notes can also be viewed here on AllProDad.com. Like the All Pro Dad gear and mugs? Get your own in the All Pro Dad store.Get great content for moms at iMOM.com

Japan has a lot of wisdom to share and one of my favourites is to not start with the solution to a problem.  In Japan, the idea is to start with making sure you have the right problem to solve.  This is not easy, because often we are super busy and moving at warp speed all the time, so just jumping in to fix a problem sounds like the best approach.  There is a follow-on metaphor of the scaling of the wall. We work hard and progress rung by rung up the ladder, getting us to the top - the solution – only to find our ladder is up against the wrong wall.  We don't want that, do we? Problem definition is sometimes obscured by having a number of factors to confront and not enough insight into which are the priority items.  This might be for a lack of a data or from conflicting opinions. The issue remains a large one, though, which we must deal with at the very start of the process.  Here are some steps to consider in problem definition. Step One: Silence Is Our Super Power Once we get into an open discussion about identifying the problem, we can find we waste a lot of time and basically get no progress. We argue the toss on what to solve and can get stuck.  Instead, have around six people in a team and have them all sit in silence and think.  Now thinking is seriously hard work.  It is particularly difficult for us today, because we are being corralled by algorithms spewing out one minute videos, fostering shorter and shorter concentration spans. Ask the team to sit there for fifteen minutes in Round One and do nothing but think and write their issues on Post-It notes. This will be torture for some and very challenging for most.  Nevertheless, as the organiser, we have to have guts to ignore the fervent and persistent impatient glancing at watches, head shaking, eyes rolling, yawning, etc., that will go on, as the team is possessed by a wave of boredom. Step Two: Prioritise Issues After the first fifteen minutes, everyone stays in silence and now we spend 3 minutes to arrange what we have come up with into a broad priority listing of where to start. Step Three: Share Together - Round One Now we start putting our ideas up on a chart or a wall.  We attach the Post Its in priority order to the wall and explain our thinking to our colleagues.  There is no judgement allowed at this point, because we are still on the journey and we don't need any decision being taken yet. Step Four: Whole Team Sharing Once we get our teams idea's out, we share it with the other teams and they do the same for us. We try to cross pollinate the thinking going on.  There is no evaluation of what has been produced at this point. Step Five: Think and Prioritise After that stimulation, again, in silence, we keep thinking for another ten minutes.  This is very hard because all the easy ideas have been tapped. Now we have to really dig to find the gold.  We will adjust our previous priorities based on our new ideas. Step Six: Share Together - Round Two We bring our Post-It notes and add to what we came up with in the first thinking bracket.  Again, we share the content with our teammates. Step Seven: Whole Team Sharing Round Two Again, each team presents what they have come up with, so that all the teams can share in the ideas. Step Eight: Each Team Makes Selections By this stage, we will have had a lot of information shared and we will have a pretty good idea of where everyone has placed their priorities.  Now we have to make some decisions about which will be the issues which we will take forward to solve.  Each team will coalesce the possibilities into a short list. Step Nine: Whole Team Makes The Final Selections Each team presents their selections and then decisions are taken on which issues are going to be picked up to work on. There is usually a strong raft of similar issues which will have been highlighted.  These commonalities make it easy to drive decisions about the final problems to work on.  Remember, we are not after perfection here, so if we get good selections, then we are on the right track.  We have created a hierarchy of issues to work with and we can get to them all over time.  We start with what we consider the most burning issues. The next stage is to use creative thinking to work on how to solve the issues once clarified and we covered that in a recent episode already.    

Join Lesley Logan as she celebrates personal and community wins in this uplifting episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. From launching new flashcards to manifesting dreams, Lesley shares her journey and the triumphs of her community members. Embrace the power of positivity and learn how to acknowledge and celebrate your own achievements.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:How Brigid successfully prepared for her launch by focusing on essential tasks.Natalia's journey of maintaining a regular self-practice routine while enjoying the process of writing her book.Lesley's significant achievement with the presale of her fifth deck of Pilates flashcards.How Lesley and her team rebranded and enhanced the mat deck cards. Securing the pilatesflashcards.com domain for Lesley and Brad's business.Episode References/Links:OPC Flashcards and Mat Deck  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. DEALS! Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox Be in the know with all the workshops at OPCBe It Till You See It Podcast SurveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates MentorshipFREE Ditching Busy Webinar  Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable Pilates Follow Us on Social Media:InstagramFacebookLinkedIn  Episode Transcript:Lesley Logan 0:00  It's Fuck Yeah Friday. Fuck yeah. Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.  Happy Fuck Yeah Friday, babe. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast. Thank you so much for being here. If you are here, this is your first time, this is a short quickie. This is where we celebrate people's wins so we can actually tell ourselves like there are wins happening everywhere. And if you are having a day, you're having a week, I feel you. Like life is life in. And it's not always fun. It's not always exciting. And so yeah, let's, let's just remember, it's important to take care of you. But it's also important to notice what is going well in your life at the same time as all the issues that's happening right? So we share a few wins of yours you sent in. I share a win of mine and then we leave this with an affirmation. We kick this off and you are off and ready on your day. Don't you like a short little quickie worth of episode? I think so. So here we go. First up is Brigid Pearse. She is one of our Agency members for so many moons, many, many years. This week's wins, staying focused on preparing for my launch. Parking other ideas that are calling to me so I can do the scary thing I need to do. I made an invite for my launch with booking link and I sent it out to a few peeps and they have made their first booking. I also visited my favorite florist and she agreed to donate a bouquet for my open day and she put my poster and took flyers to put in her shop. Still strong with my daily practice. I went surfing and I'm getting better. Feeling excited about teaching at home again. Congratulations, Brigid, like this is huge. This is amazing. This is a big deal. It's hard to do scary things. Sometimes the reason we have all these other ideas that are calling to us are so that we can procrastinate on the thing that scares us. And I love that you already have people who are signed up for your thing. I'm so excited for your homes to be back up and running after this big move that you've done. So way to go.Okay, Natalia has a win for this week as well to share. So here we go. Natalia, she's also an Agency member for several years and her win is, my win for this week, regularly self-practice and doing this kind of workout that feels good to my body and that I need right now. Having a lot of fun while writing my book. When doing manifestation some years ago and doing a vision board I wrote writing next to being a Pilates teacher. So thankful that this dream is coming true. Enjoying spring here and spending great time outdoor with Peppa my dog. The TV station I was on twice asked me to come for the third time and this time I can't because I'm abroad, but I'm feeling good about it because I trust they will ask me again, which they clearly said. My new in-person courses started and they are fully booked. What makes me even more happy is the great community I'm building here. I've been living here for two years, my studio exists for not even a year and a half. And I'm still learning so much about the people here. And still there are so many people who don't know I exist. We're a really small town, not even 8000 people and it's not from this week, but I finally get to post it. I quit my office job. And even though I do need clients, I trust and feel this is a good decision from September on I will be a full-time teacher. Holy moly, Natalia. That is a lot of wins for one week, girl, that is so many. I just want to highlight a few things on these wins here. One, she has personal wins. She has business wins. And she's got some scary things that she's doing right now but also trusting in what she is doing. And she was able to realize that many, many years ago, she wrote down she wanted to be a writer and a Pilates instructor and now she's doing both. So yes, if you've been listening to FYFs for a while we have another author coming out outside of agency and it's because well, our people are amazing. And if you are amazing and you want to be writing a book, one of the things that we have is a great community of people who write books in our group. So you are absolutely welcome to come and do that. All right, my win. So I love doing this by the way because it forces me to sit down and celebrate what is happening what is working because oh my God, there's a lot of things that are not working and I could focus on those all day but what is working? The fifth deck is ready to go. Okay, it is the presale. I'm recording this a little early because it's a win. But by the time it comes out it might be happening so our presale for our waitlist is, for the barrel flashcards, might actually be happening as we speak but the fact that like this deck is ready to be in people's hot hands and at the printers hands first, is the biggest deal. I mean, I cannot believe we're on this fifth deck so, so, so, so proud of the work that we have done to put this together. We're now recording the 100th YouTube video. So more wins to come when it comes to this deck, but we're moving right along. And another win is this. While doing it, we had to also rework the mat decks. My team and I have been rebranding the mat deck, I edited the entire deck, we added some more cards, we had a new workout card. So if you want to have the mat deck, this new deck is going to be amazing. And it's going to be a great addition to what you already have. My win is I really didn't feel like I had the time to take on the mat deck while wrapping up the barrels deck. And the fact that I was able to take that on and make that happen is a mat without losing out on time for myself to work out or losing out on sleep is so, so important to me. It's a huge win. I think we can hear of a new thing we have to do, like I don't have the time, right? And one of the things I practice is like okay, what if I did have the time, like how can I get this done, and I broke them into small pieces. And we got it there. And I'm just so grateful for all of you, as well, because if you didn't love these cards, I wouldn't work so hard on them. But also, I'm just like really grateful for the team that I have really helped set me up so that I could take this on to make sure that this new print of the mat deck, because we sold 3000 decks we have to reprint it, is bigger and better and everything and more that I wanted. So those are my wins that have to do with flashcards all day. And so I'm gonna add one more win is that we never have had pilatesflashcards.com it didn't exist when I started the flashcards and I was like who the hell has this URL and there's no flashcards out there. But Brad and I will find someone who had the URL and would sell it to us and it's officially ours. Now don't go to pilatesflashcards.com because it doesn't have anything yet. But I own that domain. And you know, you guys, a win can be owning a URL. You could have bought a URL and that could be your win today. And I promise you if you celebrate it, you're gonna feel like the badass person that you are. So thank you so much for letting me celebrate those wins with you and the wins that you sent me in. So feel free to send your wins in so I can share them out. And that way you can re-celebrate the win that you had. Sometimes you'd be reminded that you did something pretty badass, right? We all need it. So, all right, your affirmation before I let you go. I do not pretend to be anyone or anything other than who I am. I do not pretend to be anything or anyone other than who I am. Feel that in your body, folks. I do not pretend to be anyone or anything other than who I am. Repeat that as many times as you want, put it in a Post-It where you can read it over and over again. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Until next time, Be It Till You See It. That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod. Brad Crowell 8:19  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell. Lesley Logan 8:24  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. Brad Crowell 8:29  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi. Lesley Logan 8:36  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. Brad Crowell 8:39  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello to you listening in Pamplona, Spain!Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds for Time Out Tuesday and your host, Diane Wyzga.I was asked the other day what do I do when I'm stuck? When the client work isn't as robust as I'd like? When the podcast episodes don't seem to flow from a place of creativity but feel bogged down in muck.You know what I mean. We've all been there. I have an idea to share and I bet you have some, too.    Research has shown that movement, not language, is the foundation of thought. [Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Taversky] Action shapes thought. There's a lot of neuroscience I don't understand about how it works; but I can say this: while I don't know how it works I do know that it works. Motion is the lotion for our thoughts. Maybe we're a species of movers and shakers first. Think about it! We were cave drawing before we began talking in words.When you get to that place where you feel stuck in the mucky middle of a project, idea, book chapter, whatever. Get up and move. Draw your stuckness. Stick figures are fine. Symbols are great. It's not about the art; it's about the motion that creates the thought you want to have. Try big sidewalk chalks on a concrete driveway or magic markers on a big easel pad. I like the big Post It easel pads. I can draw on a page, rip it off the pad, stick it to the wall and after I have a few I step back to look at the problem. The answer is often staring me right in the face.Question: What also works for you when you are stuck in the mucky middle?  You're always invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, would you subscribe, share a 5-star rating + nice review on your social media or podcast channel of choice, and join us next time!Meanwhile, stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website to:✓ Check out Services I Offer✓ Arrange your no-sales, complimentary Coaching Session,✓ Opt In to my NewsAudioLetter for bonus gift, valuable tips & techniques to enhance your story work, and✓ Stay current with Diane on LinkedIn.Stories From Women Who Walk Production TeamPodcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story ArtsMusic: Mer's Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron MusicAll content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved.  

Join us for an insightful interview from the recent Post It! Experience with Tamra as she shares her journey of leaving behind a successful but unfulfilling business life to pursue a more spiritually-centered path. Tamra emphasizes the importance of prioritizing her relationship with God, navigating financial challenges, and addressing limiting beliefs.   Discover practical tips for content creation and be inspired to be a bold messenger, catalyzing movements and making disciples through your God-given message. Tune in for invaluable wisdom and encouragement to deepen your faith and impact the world for Christ!   Our featured FREE monthly virtual event is happening next Tuesday! This is the ONLY free direct teaching I do at this point, besides of course podcasts, but this has awesome interaction and direct hot-seat coaching.Every month is a different topic, with new collaboration opportunities for networking, growth and message to movement preparation!Authors, Speakers, Podcasters, Biz Builders!We derive our trainings around what the community is in most need of based on interaction, questions, client curiosities, and what we are seeing the most traction in...register now. https://fitinfaithmedia.com/virtual   Where to Find Tamra: Become a Millionaire Messenger! Take your Voice and Vocation to the Nations: https://fitinfaithmedia.com/millionaire-messenger   ⁉️ Have a faith & or biz question you'd like to have me answer? Feel free to write it, along with your honest review on Apple Podcasts - I'll share you and give you the answer in an upcoming episode!

This week I am talking with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Joanne McNeil. Joanne's first novel Wrong Way came out in 2023. It's a sci-fi novel set in the near future that takes a look at the intersection of the gig economy and big tech and is both satirical and touching–it also made a lot of lists of the best books of 2023 and The New Yorker called it “a literary sneak attack on the very idea of 'the future.'” Joanne's first book, Lurking, is a nonfiction look at the history of the internet from a user's perspective. Joanne is also an important tech critic and has been writing professionally for 20 years. We covered: How posting on message boards in the early days of the Internet led Joanne, a kid from a working-class Massachusetts town, to pursue writing Getting strategic about your career, especially when you don't come from the traditional path of Ivy League undergraduate degree and top tier MFA The often slow but vital work of building a diverse community How residencies are like gift cards–and how to create your own residency if need be Joanne's list of must-have supplies for a writing residency: bulletin board, push pins, Post-It notes, and a detailed list of what to get at Trader Joe's Acknowledging the fact that one hour to yourself can serve as a residency when you need it to Joanne's website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/ For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, it's COD week. In a special episode, I'll walk you through the fundamentals of what all solid productivity and time management systems have.  You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl's YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Script | 318 Hello, and welcome to episode 318 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Now, some of you may be wondering what COD means. Well, it's not a type of fish. COD stands for Collect, Organise, and Do, and these three parts of a productivity system are the critical foundations you need to develop if you want your system to work effortlessly. COD came about several years ago following a research project I did. In it, I went back to 1960 (not literally) and looked at all the time management and productivity systems I could find to see if there were any common denominators.  There were multiple systems and approaches, from Hyrum Smith's Franklin Planner system to Stephen Covey's First Things First and Jim Rohn's notebook and planning method. And, of course, I didn't neglect to look at GTD (Getting Things Done) and the multiple variations that came from that.  There were four standout features of all these systems. The first was to collect everything into a trusted place. The second was to organise or process what you collected. The third was to plan the day, and finally, there was doing the work.  When I developed COD, I wanted to give you a simple framework on which to build your own system. A system based on how you prefer to do your work. Many of you will like routine, others perhaps like flexibility. What COD does is give you a three-step process you can customise to work in the way you want to work.  Let me begin with collecting.  Nothing will work if you don't collect whatever comes your way in a trusted place. Here, there are two key parts. Collect everything and put it somewhere you trust you will see later in the day.  Scribbling tasks and ideas onto PostIt notes can work, but I have observed that they often get stuck on computer monitors, whiteboards, and many other places, which means you don't trust that you will see them later in the day. What works best is having a central place for all these tasks, appointments, and ideas. That could be a task manager on your phone and computer or a pocket notebook you carry with you everywhere you go.  What matters is you use it consistently, and you trust it. This may mean you need to practice to develop the right habits. But this practice is well worth it.  The second thing about your collecting tool (or UCT, as I call it, Universal Collecting Tool) is that it should be fast. If there are too many buttons to press or you keep a notebook in your bag and you have to retrieve your bag to get your notebook, you will resist and start to believe you will remember whatever you were going to collect in your head. And that will never serve you. It will forget to remind you to add it to your inbox.  The second part of the process is organising what you collected. Here, you want to choose something that works for you. I recommend using the Time Sector System, but you may find organising things by project works better for you.  What matters when it comes to organising is that you can quickly organise what you collected that day into their appropriate places. For instance, a task would go into your task manager, an event would go to your calendar, and an idea would go into your notes app. Where you put them will depend on how you have each of these tools set up.  With your task manager, what matters is the things you need to do show up on the days they need to be done. Nothing else really matters.  A side issue is that if you are going in and out of your task manager looking for things to do in individual projects or lists, you will be less effective. When you are tired, you will just scroll through your lists of tasks, causing you to feel depressed about how much you have to do and how little time you have to do them.  This is why being clear about when something needs to be done prevents that scroll. You trust that what you have on your list of things to do today is the right thing to do today.  That's why I recommend the Time Sector System as your organisational system. It focuses on when you will do something, not how much you have to do.  There are only twenty-four in a day, and you're not going to be able to get everything done in a day. Be realistic about what you can and cannot do in a day.  And then there's the doing.  And this is what it's all about. You've collected all this stuff, and it's organised, so you know where everything is, what appointments you have, and what tasks need to be done today. If you have ensured the first two parts—the collecting and organising—have been done, the doing part will largely take care of itself.  But what is important about doing? That's doing the things that matter, and remaining focused on what you have decided is important.  When you don't have any kind of system for collecting and organising, you will find you get pulled into doing things for other people at the expense of what you are meant to be doing. It can be easy to spend four or five hours helping someone else to get their work done, only to find yourself with precious little time left to do the work you are expected to do.  This is where you will find yourself building mountains of backlogs and with no time to get them under control.  It doesn't mean that you cut yourself off from other people. What it means is you begin the day with a clear idea of what needs to be done.  If you do have everything organised and you are spending five or ten minutes each day planning the next, you will find that out of a typical eight-hour day, you will likely need three or four hours for your own work. That still leaves you with four or five hours where you are available for other people. If you are structured and disciplined, you will find managing your own work and the requests of others easily manageable.  Yet all this begins with the collecting and organising.  That is the most powerful part of COD. It's essentially a process you follow that ensures the right work is getting done at the right time.  And that is the way to think about it—a process. Throughout the day, you collect. Then, at the end of the day, you spend ten minutes or so organising what you collected, and for the rest of the time, you do the work.  There are other parts to building a productivity system. Ensuring you have enough time protected each day for doing your important work, which means blocking time on your calendar. I find it interesting that with the advancement of technology, we have focused on doing more rather than using technology to protect our time for the important things in life.  I remember years ago envying bosses who had secretaries. Secretaries protected their bosses' calendars by making it difficult for people to make demands on their time. Technology can do this for you today. Services like Calendarly allow you to specify when you are available for meetings with other people, and they can choose a suitable time from a list of available times.  There are Do Not Disturb features on your phone and in internal messaging services that tell people you are busy. Technology can do all the things the best secretaries did twenty to thirty years ago. Use them. They will make your life a lot less stressful.  The final part of doing is the art of prioritisation. In the COD course, I have a section on the 2+8 Prioritisation Method. This is a simple method for choosing what to work on each day. The principle is that each day, you dedicate ten tasks to be done. These tasks do not include your routine tasks—the low-value maintenance tasks. These are bigger projects or goal-moving tasks.  Two of those tasks will be nominated as your must-do tasks for the day. These are the tasks you absolutely must do that day, and you will not stop until they are done. For instance, today, my two must-do tasks are recording this podcast and continuing my research into the profession of archiving.  When I did my planning last night, I highlighted these two tasks in my task manager and blocked time out on my calendar for getting them done.  There are other things I need to do today, but those two tasks are the must-dos.  This is how COD helps you. It gives you a framework and a process for doing your work and living your life.  If you adopt COD, you will find you have a system for managing your workload. However, beyond COD, there are a few other things you need to develop.  The first is how you will manage your tasks. As I mentioned before, I recommend the Time Sector System, which emphasises what needs to be done this week and pushes everything else off your list until it becomes relevant. This act alone significantly reduces that sense of overwhelm and encourages you to be realistic about what can be completed in a week.  Then there are the higher-level objectives in your life—your long-term vision and goals for getting to where you want to be.  However, without the basics in place, you do not have steps to get there. After all, a goal without a set of steps to achieve it is a delusion.  If you are struggling to get things working for you, I encourage you to take the COD course. Even if you already have a system, the course will give you ideas and methods that will help you make your system even better.  It's a free course and will take less than an hour to complete. Plus, you get free downloadable guidance sheets and so much more.  The link to the course is in the show notes, and you can get further information from my website, carlpullein.com  Thank you for listening, and it just remains for me to wish you all a very, very productive week.   

In part three of my conversation with author of Building Boys, Jennifer Fink, we talk about the mind trip that is beginning to envision retirement. I have to point out that this is the third interview in a row where my guest mentions that they have a phrase written on a Post-It note hanging above their computer monitor. In addition to sharing what she's written on her Post-It notes (plural–there are two), Jennifer shares some of her go to shows, snacks, and songs. The lure of leaving it all behind and becoming a flight attendant: “After raising teenagers, unruly passengers? Cinch” The Building Boys Book Club Jennifer is currently dreaming up What's written on the Post-It note above her computer (there are two of them, actually) Finding ways to connect more directly with the people who value your skills and expertise Thinking about retirement, and having more regular access to scuba diving Envisioning being able to work only on the things closest to your heart and having plenty of time for relationships The Netflix show the world went crazy over a couple years ago that Jennifer just discovered The secret to making movie-theater-caliber popcorn Her go-to Pandora station Why December 23rd is the best day of her year, hands down Connect with Jennifer: At her website: buildingboys.net At her Substack (email newsletter): buildingboys.substack.com For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I am talking to writer Antonia Angress. Antonia is the author of "Sirens & Muses," which starts off as a campus novel set at a New England art school, but then blooms into an exploration of the intersection of home and belonging versus individualism and seeking to stand out, set in the New York City art scene during the Occupy Wall Street era. "Sirens & Muses" was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour Magazine and won the Minnesota Book Award, and Antonia was recently named one of the NEA's 2024 Creative Writing Fellows. I loved the book and I love that I get to ask Antonia my list of mildly invasive questions about why and how she does her particular creative work. We covered: - The advice she gives about the stuff you write that you end up deleting - The fact that publishing a book “really doesn't change your life” - The importance of that feeling of being alone with your work - The daily writing goal that keeps Antonia going (spoiler: it's very small) - How she manages her ‘internet junk food' diet - The practice that gets her ready to write - What motivational phrase is on the Post-It note above her computer For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's portion of my interview with Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year, we talk about the mindset side of creating. (Honestly, these are always my favorite episodes!) We covered: How you can “cloak” your story by writing fiction–incorporating the feelings of things you've experienced if not the exact experiences themselves Worrying that people are sick of hearing you talk Getting over the voice that says “you don't have the proper training to write a novel” What's on the inspirational Post-It note that Daisy keeps above her monitor How it's never too to be a debut author Daisy's “buoyancy” about the future now that her kids are teens and hard work of early parenting is behind her The collective disillusions Daisy would like to evaporate For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling authors William Bernhardt and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Kelly Anne Manuel, a children's book author who is launching 31 books at the same time.Chapter 1: Opening ThoughtsOnly one week left to register for the WriterCon Cruise! Lara is already packing! Over 20+ hours of classroom, small-group, and private instruction. Plus we have fun! Seven days at sea writing in the most creativity-conducive environment imaginable. Join us!Chapter 2: News1) Critics Complain Hugo Awards Were Rigged2) Reading is SexyWilliam Bernhardt apologizes for his slip of the tongue. While reading, Kendall Jenner's book was covered in green Post-It notes, not her body!Chapter 3: Interview with Kelly Anne ManuelDuring this chat, you will learn:1) how she stumbled into writing;2) why she writes for children;3) how she "meets the child in their journey;"4) why she is "the good kind of contagious;" and 5) why she's releasing 31 books at once.Chapter 4: Parting WordsAgain, only one week left to join us for the WriterCon Cruise. Seven days at sea traveling down the Western Caribbean coastline, with seven WriterCon instructors ready to provide whatever you need to advance your writing career. Plus Game Night! Karaoke! Swag bags! The cost is low and the benefits are high. Join us!Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.William Bernhardtwww.williambernhardt.comwww.writercon.com